Shady Lady

by Ann Aguirre

  It’s the blood, I told myself. Not him. He’s like a powerful mushroom or an exotic toad. He can’t help the effect.

  His mien grew stern. “Are you yourself again?”

  Ah. So that was how we were going to play it. My mind must’ve been addled for me to take such liberties with God’s Hand. More fool me, because my heart thumped at his proximity, kindled by the traces of fierce magick in the air. He crackled like a fire, all leashed power and restraint.

  “I am. Your secret is safe with me,” I assured him quietly.

  He lowered himself to the ground beside me, beside the clay statue, and his head went down, hunched shoulders indicating weight I could not see. For those terrible moments where I’d glimpsed him from the inside out, I had seen countless wars. Never-ending wars. Wars on earth, in hell, and in heaven. He had seen far too much for me to comprehend all of it, and yet—

  I cut the thought mercilessly. That tree could bear no fruit. Ah, Corine. Always the emotionally unavailable men, but this one makes Chance seem like an open book.

  What are you, Kelethiel, whose name I must not speak? All the lore I had read made me think he was an angel, but surely not. Not squatting in the mud with me.

  “No wonder Nalleli wanted your blood,” I murmured. My mind was clearing, so maybe I had been addled when I kissed his palm. In the silence I wondered how it would be to have him focused on me with the intensity he devoted to divine orders. “For spells . . . and probably chemical diversion as well.”

  Christ, a trace of his blood got me high as a kite and made me see things I wished I hadn’t. Infinity hid behind his eyes, like precious gems beneath a layer of ice. For a whisper of a moment I’d seen him as he was—and as he saw himself. I didn’t know if I’d ever recover.

  He merely nodded. “I’ve driven away the cat. A jaguar.”

  “You didn’t kill it?” Interesting.

  “It was roused by our intrusion into its territory. We’ll be on our way shortly.”

  I nodded. “As soon as we figure out the meaning of those markings. And I think I know what I need to do.”

  “And that is?”

  “Sleep.”

  Booke would have answers. After all, we’d solved a number of problems via dream consultation. If anyone could help me, the hermetic scholar in the U.K. could. I liked to picture him in an enormous library, surrounded by arcane tomes. But before I could tap that knowledge, I had to prepare. I got a piece of paper and went to work. By the time I copied the glyphs, the sun hung low in the sky, though I could see only glimpses of it through the canopy. I could tell it was sunset by the lengthening shadows.

  I had no idea whether this would work, but I had to try. On those other occasions, Booke had found me in my natural sleep; this would be my first crack at tracking him down. Before my power shifted—expanded—I doubt I would’ve attempted it. I was too accustomed to seeing myself as crippled in this world. I didn’t feel that way anymore.

  “I’ll keep you from harm,” he said.

  And I trusted him to do so.

  Dreamwalker

  Acknowledging Kel’s promise with a nod, I lay down on top of my bedroll. Sleep scooped me up fast and carried me away. First, I dreamt of angels with fiery swords and nightdark wings, but I couldn’t stay to watch the titanic clash. From there I wandered into a world of shades that whispered of death and tried to touch me with smoky fingers. It was cold in comparison to other worlds, so I shifted again.

  This time, I found myself in my old apartment, watching Chance. As always, he was lean and gorgeous. His hair had gone wild in shaggy layers, falling into his tiger eyes. By the angle of the sunlight, it was early afternoon, and he held his cell phone, arguing with someone over a repayment schedule.

  “No,” he bit out. “You’re two weeks overdue. I’ll start doubling the daily vig if you don’t get me my money tonight.”

  I couldn’t hear the other half of the conversation, so I watched as he listened. A cruel smile curved his mouth. “You think so? Listen, asshole, you do not want that. If I become your new best friend, it’ll be worse than if I had your legs broken.”

  Another pause.

  He laughed softly. “Well, you’re welcome to test it, but you’ll be sorry.”

  That, I knew, was true. When we were together, he’d enforced his loans like that. Instead of inflicting injury on his delinquent debtors, he offered friendship—and that was about the worst thing he could do, particularly since the bad luck clung like barnacles, and without fail, it would crush the person closest to him.

  This reminded me of when I’d dreamt of Jesse, another instance when I played the invisible ghost, watching what they did without me. But entertaining as my subconscious proved to be, I shouldn’t linger here, yet I couldn’t make the shift. Something locked me in place, despite my struggles to move on. I scanned for Booke, seeking his familiar air. His personal tell felt to me like a lonely, pebble-strewn beach, and so I cast for it, eyes closed, denying what I saw, denying Chance.

  But he didn’t go away.

  Once he cut the call, he ran a hand through already disheveled hair in a gesture so familiar it tugged at my heartstrings. It gave him no pleasure to use his gift this way. I knew that, but he had been obsessed with making money as long as I’d known him, as if nothing could ever be enough. I didn’t quite understand why.

  After a moment, he rose and strode over to the bureau, where we’d once kept our keys and miscellaneous objects. I assumed he still did. Most people had one junk drawer—because of my pack-rat ways, we’d needed five. He pulled out a photo album, the red one I made our first year together.

  He opened it and I followed to see what he was looking at: a picture of him and me, taken by his mother. We stood by the ocean, the sun setting behind us, and I looked so happy it hurt. I had been blond then, and relatively tan. I almost looked like a different person.

  “Soon,” he said softly.

  I forgot I wasn’t there—that it wasn’t real. “Chance . . .”

  He spun, his hands white-knuckled on the book. Did he hear me? Clearly he couldn’t see me. I wondered whether I actually went somewhere when I dreamt, but before I could speak again, test my curiosity, the tug came; I recognized Booke latching onto me as the lonely beach of his soul abutted mine. Not now. Not yet. I slid away, speeding toward a new dreamscape.

  Booke waited for me, as always, in a library that existed only in my imagination. It looked like an old-school gentleman’s study, with burgundy carpet and matching leather chairs, all mahogany and tasteful draperies. My mental image of Booke summoned a man in his late thirties or early forties, with a sharp, clever face, nut brown hair, and eyes like slate. Where he lived—and what he really looked like—well, I didn’t know, because I’d never met him. He existed only as a voice, but he was more real to me than that.

  “Could you feel me?” I asked, as the world went three-dimensional.

  He nodded, wearing an expression of abject intellectual intrigue. “It was rather like a knock. I wasn’t asleep, but I felt you buzzing in the back of my head, like a fly.”

  “Don’t you have trouble sleeping? How did you—”

  “Took something,” he said. “I do resort to the chemical solution now and then. I collect you have need of me?”

  “Things have been . . . eventful since we last spoke.” I sat down in the leather chair across from him, crossing long legs that existed only in this dream space. “My shop is gone, and Montoya’s hunting me.”

  “Oh, Corine.” He leaned forward as if he wanted to comfort me, but he caught himself at the last moment. If we touched, it would jolt us both awake. Lucid dreaming had few rules, but that one was ironclad. Since we weren’t physically together, contact broke the shared illusion. “Were there any casualties?”

  I nodded. It was tougher to say aloud than I’d expected. “Señor Alvarez. He worked for me, mostly in a contract capacity, but he ran the store when I had to travel. He was . . . a fine man. I believe he had family
in Monterrey.”

  When this was all done, I would find out who they were and provide for them. Kel had said, long ago, I do not understand why a good man like Alvarez chooses to work for you, as if he saw integrity in him that I lacked. Now he was dead, and I’d made a deal with the devil to save my own skin. Guilt gnawed me from the inside out, but maybe, just maybe I wasn’t wholly damned if Kel would choose to aid me of his own volition—and he’d said so, hadn’t he? Perhaps my soul wasn’t as black as it felt.

  “I’m sorry,” he said with such sincerity that it felt like the hug he could not give.

  “Me too.”

  Booke cleared his throat, acknowledging there was a reason I’d come looking for him. “Care to tell me what’s afoot?”

  I summarized my situation in a few words. Since he’d been involved in our fight against Montoya and helped us locate Chance’s mother, he knew everything but the most recent developments. In dreamtime, I had no way to tell how much time had passed in the real world, but Kel would guard me.

  “And so,” I concluded, “I must pass this test for Escobar to seal our alliance against Montoya.”

  “ ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ ” he said softly.

  “Something like that.”

  “You can’t use your cell phone to ask for the information you need, because that offers proof you used more than one partner to complete these challenges.”

  I appreciated how quickly and accurately he assessed a situation. “Exactly. We’ve come to the spot marked on the map, but there’s only a statue here, apart from all the wildlife.”

  “Can you show me the markings?”

  “Better.”

  His eyes brightened visibly. “Translocation?”

  “Yep. I have a sketch for you. I made sure every line is accurate.”

  “It would be interesting to know whether you could take a photo with your cell phone and send me that,” he mused. “Do you think a gadget could make the transition intact? There has always been a certain disconnect between magick and tech—”

  “Well, if it didn’t, then you wouldn’t have an image to examine, and I would have no cell phone.” Sometimes I had to rein him in.

  “Yes, of course. I didn’t mean now, when your need is pressing, but perhaps it would make an interesting test another time?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll buy a throwaway phone and we can try it later.”

  Like, after the dust settled, and I’d taken care of Montoya. Once, I would’ve shied from making that claim—I would’ve been paralyzed by fear and indecision. For most of my life, I’d constantly sought someone to keep the darkness at bay, but I could work a flashlight, and I liked fighting my own battles.

  “Then I suppose we need to replicate what we did before. Can you create the campsite for me?”

  I could. While I had been drawing earlier, I was also capturing details in my mind’s eye to make our shared space real enough to allow for translocation. I built each tree, each leaf, everything I remembered, down to Kel sitting quietly beside our supplies. The library shifted slowly to the jungle, and Booke watched with pleasure shading his features. I didn’t know if he had succeeded in contacting anyone else this way, and I’d never inquire, because that would sound proprietary. You just can’t ask: Do you share your dreams with anyone else? without the other person taking it wrong.

  “I’m here,” he breathed—and joy threaded his voice like silver ribbons.

  From his own account, he had seen so little of the world. I didn’t know why he was trapped in Stoke, only that he was. Booke carried all manner of mysteries, but he did not invite confidence. I wasn’t even sure I could call him a friend. Such relationships must be reciprocal, and he shared nothing with me. Ever. Even during our virtual chats, he spoke only of books he’d read or programs watched, nothing personal. Nothing meaningful. To him, I was a voice to fill the silence, and someone who occasionally needed a bit of research done.

  I let him explore the small clearing, pacing its length, before I bent and retrieved the paper upon which I had drawn the markings from the statue’s base. If anyone could get us a translation, Booke could. If he didn’t know, I was sure one of his online cronies could put him in touch with the right person. For a few moments more, I watched him drink in the feeling of standing in a jungle. When he faced me at last, his expression glowed with wonder.

  “Anywhere you’d like me to,” I said softly, “I’ll go for you. And we’ll share it.”

  He froze, like a child afraid of reaching for a treat. “Egypt?”

  “Certainly.”

  “That would be so brilliant.” His smile cut his cheeks so wide that I thought they’d crack with the strain.

  Yes, he was my friend, after all. I’d hardly make such an offer if I didn’t care. What the hell—I’d always wanted to travel. I could see a lot of sights on Escobar’s money, as well as rebuild my shop—which would take time.

  “I promise.”

  He reached for the paper. We took care not to brush fingers as we made the exchange. If everything went well, it would disappear from the camp in the real world. I wondered what Kel would make of that.

  Booke hesitated, as if weighing the risk of what he might say against its possible value. “If we go to my house, I might be able to find the information right now. I know the place well enough to re-create it, including every book and scrap of paper.” Bitterness colored his voice.

  He hated his captivity with a ferocity I could only imagine. If nothing else, since I hitchhiked out of Kilmer when I was eighteen, I had at least been free. Frequently, I had been alone, frightened, hunted, and desperate—or some combination thereof—but I’d never been trapped the way he seemed to be. I wished there were something I could do, but right then I had problems of my own.

  But research within the dream . . . Well, it would certainly be easier than trying to find him again. I wasn’t sure how long it had taken this time. Even with Kel keeping watch, I couldn’t sleep the days away. Escobar had made it clear we had a deadline.

  “Do I need to do anything?” Both times we’d worked the translocation, I’d taken care of constructing the new environment.

  He shook his head. “Just keep your mind clear, please.”

  “Okay, tell me when you’re done.”

  To make that easier, I sat down and closed my eyes. I blanked my brain, which was harder than it sounded. Though Booke seemed capable of watching me build the new environment without exerting any influence, I didn’t think I had that much mental control. Better to let him finish.

  Despite my pressing need to wrap up here and move on with my challenge, anticipation spiked through my veins. He was going to show me where he lived. I wondered whether he would show me his true appearance as well.

  “All set.”

  When I opened my eyes, the world had changed. Though I expected as much, I was rocked by how wrong I’d been. I sat on a plain hardwood floor. From the exposed stonework and the weathered beams, I guessed the cottage was a couple of centuries old, at least. Directly across from me a fireplace heated the property. The furniture—a chair and a settee—was faded and threadbare; it might’ve been fashionable in the thirties or forties. Books and papers surrounded me in piles, the sort of disarray born of a restless but brilliant mind.

  “May I look around?” I asked quietly.

  The question was far more significant than it seemed, and we both knew it. If he said no, I’d never try to get to know him any better. Since I’d promised, I would still go to Egypt, but he could keep his secrets. Booke studied me, his stance wary. After a moment, he nodded. He looked the same as I imagined, so I wouldn’t be receiving further revelations tonight.

  It didn’t take long to explore the cottage. He had a sitting room, a bedroom, a kitchen, and a bathroom—hopelessly dated, tiles crumbling, and an old-fashioned slipper tub. The enamel showed scratches, but he kept everything clean.

  In the bedroom, I found his computer, the only new item in the
place. Whatever money he earned, he clearly spent it on technology. He had so many gadgets and gizmos attached to it that I didn’t know what they all did. This room, too, was buried in books and documents, some of which looked to be ancient, as if they should be on display in some museum and might crumble at a touch. His kitchen was tiny and likewise outdated. The whole cottage held a wretched, melancholy air, as if it had slipped through a crack in time. Even the pictures on the walls looked tired, depicting dated scenes and people long dead.

  Once I thoroughly scoped out the place, I returned to the sitting room, where a fire crackled in the hearth. I could even smell the wood smoke; oh, but he was good. I sat in the chair because on the settee we risked an accidental touch.

  “Now you know,” he said quietly. “I am not distinguished or a man of means. As you can see, it is all rather wretched.”

  I shrugged. “You saw where I stayed in Kilmer. Growing up, I lived in places that were much worse.”

  “With an important distinction. You left. Because you could.”

  “Did you want to discuss the why of that?”

  His face closed. “No.”

  “Then you should begin the research. There’s no guarantee how long I’ll sleep before Kel feels compelled to wake me.”

  “Of course.” He opened a book and read a bit before adding, “It appears to be Aymara, very old. Just give me a while.”

  Once he started, it was simply a matter of waiting. I perused a few of his tomes, not that I expected to be much help. As it turned out, I laid hands on the one he needed and placed it beside him so he could make notes on the paper. I couldn’t be certain how long the translation took, but I felt a tug, as if I might soon rouse naturally.

  “Hurry,” I murmured.

  “And that’s got it.”

  Intellectual diversion burnt away his bitterness, so he was smiling when he handed me the sketch with the notes on the back. This time, the endeavor felt more natural, less an act of will and more a function of our shared reality. Because we were sure this worked, we were sure we had the power, it grew easier with each execution.