Darkness Falls: Reveler Series 1 (15 page)

He pulled to a stop on the side of a suburban street with brick ranch houses widely spaced on both sides. His attention was on one particular house. She could guess where he’d grown up.

“You’ll come with me?” His voice was husky.

Jordan wasn’t going to cry. She was too terrified. But she jerked a nod. Let out a shuddering breath as she opened her car door and got out.

Had it been this street, or another?

She wasn’t going to ask.

He held her hand as they crossed and started up a long sidewalk, but he let her go a pace from the steps that led to the front door. She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest to stop her galloping heart.

His footsteps were heavy as he climbed.

Jordan hung back, hoping, hoping…
If there’s a God in heaven. Please.

Maybe they should’ve called first. Gauged the response before the reunion, but Malcolm wasn’t one to do things halfway. He’d left home suddenly. Seemed he was coming back in the same brash style.

He knocked on the door with his knuckles. Didn’t use the bell.

Seconds ticked by like eons. Jordan almost hoped no one was home, but then heard the unmistakable sound of a deadbolt turning. A squeak as the door opened.

A woman past middle age, a little heavy, stood in the doorway. “Yes?”

Malcolm said, “Um…” so low and gravelly and full of feeling that Jordan could no longer breathe.

Turned out he didn’t need to say more.

The sound that broke from his mother’s throat as she flung her arms around his shoulders answered everything.

They trembled there while tears burned down Jordan’s cheeks. When finally they broke apart, Malcolm opened an arm toward Jordan.

She gave the shocked and clearly overcome woman in the doorway a watery smile.

“I want you to meet my girl,” Malcolm said. “Mom, this is Jordan.”

THE END

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Continue reading
Lay Me Down
, book two in the Reveler series...

CHAPTER ONE

Steve Coll hit his left-turn signal and checked for traffic, but most of his attention was focused on the woman half sitting, half kneeling on the passenger seat beside him. She hadn’t yet decided if she was going to cooperate (the least likely), stage a getaway (her usual way of coping), or try to kill him (on direct orders from her boss).

Her predicament was the most fun he’d had in a long time, especially since it was the woman herself who was gnawing her thumbnail in suspense. Even she didn’t know what she was going to do.

What a way to live.

Maisie Louise Lane wasn’t just another Reveler whom Chimera wanted to recruit. She was the ultimate recruit, the critical talent. And it was Steve’s job to secure her cooperation and loyalty.

Which meant she was probably going to try to kill him.

At least he’d get a kick out of watching her work up to it. She might just pull it off, too. Maisie could do anything; it was potentially deadly to think otherwise.

“If we’re going to Vegas,” she said, “I need to pick up some things from my place.”

Steve checked his rearview mirror. Still clear. “Not an option. It was ransacked after you left. Nothing much remains but the scum waiting to grab you.”

“Well, I’ve got some clothes at my sister’s and my laptop is there, too.”

“Your associates have that place covered as well, and since your sister had to drown one of them so that
 
she
 
could get to safety, it’s not an option, either.”

Maisie was standing on the only bridge she hadn’t burned, an empty gallon of gas in one hand, lit match in the other.

He flicked a gaze her way for a quick assessment. Her magenta-dyed hair was showing blond roots. The black makeup around her big gray eyes was smudged. And yeah, she was wearing the same outfit—tight, dark-green jeans with a slouchy black tank on top—that she’d been wearing when she’d escaped his companionship on the UCSD campus yesterday. The several narrow leather bands around her wrist hid scars from wounds she’d inflicted herself.

She had her sister to thank for keeping her alive this long, but the company Maisie kept was now more dangerous. Big sis had done as much as she could. Time for someone who didn’t love Maisie to take over.

“Well, I have to shower and change. I stink,” she said.

Strangely, he really didn’t mind the sharp edge to her usual feminine scent. And at the moment, he wouldn’t put it past her to crawl out a bathroom window, dripping and naked, to escape him. So she could just wait.

“When we get settled, you can have first dibs on the shower.”

Another glance in the rearview. A black car edged into their lane, some five car-lengths behind them.

“You mean in Vegas? That’s like an eight-hour drive.”

“Five,” he corrected. “And new clothes will be waiting there as well.”

“I choose my own clothes, thanks.”

“Your call.”

“This is torture,” she said.

“Agreed.”

The black car kept its distance, which Steve didn’t like. It should’ve pulled up a bit by now. Its front window reflected a bright glaring spot of the sun, whiting out the rest, so no driver was visible, even if Steve could make him out from this far away.

He debated letting the car continue to follow to find out for certain if it was deliberately tailing them. He’d been eluding her business associates for the past few days while attempting to win Maisie’s cooperation. That her sister Jordan had become a Chimera was helpful. That those same associates had gone after Jordan had forced a choice on Maisie: family, or wealth and power?

Family had won, which was how Maisie had come to be sitting next to him, regardless of her mood.

Steve cruised through a late yellow light; the black car ran the red that followed.

Damn. Better to lose them now than to chance an incident on the road before he and Maisie reached their destination.

He hated to do it while driving, but fine.

Steve let his vision blur slightly so that his darksight could sharpen, and he imposed a simple waking dream on the real world. He showed the occupants of the black car that his car was turning to the right, down an intersecting street, while in reality he continued straight ahead.

The black car turned down the street, following the dream.

Which meant that yes, the car had probably been following them, and the driver didn’t have the darksight to recognize a waking dream for the illusion it was.

Steve glanced at Maisie again, the other immediate threat to his life.

She was staring at him, unblinking and wary. “What was that?”

Maisie, however, did have darksight, though still undeveloped.

Chimera agents each had talents, most of which were awakened during lucid dreaming, the revolution taking over the world. Maisie, should she prove loyal enough to join them, could also cross between one dream and another effortlessly.

Steve gave her a friendly smile. It was the only answer she was going to get. He didn’t even share what he could do, what he really was, with people he trusted. They’d be afraid.

“Fine. Whatever.” She folded her arms and hunkered down in her seat. “Wake me when we get there.”

Steve had to stop himself from laughing out loud. The humor felt good, though, lodged in his throat and warm across his chest. As if he would let her escape him that way—into the dreamwaters, where she could easily meet with her partners and warn them that he was taking her to Vegas.

No. Not happening. She had no idea whom she was dealing with.

Maisie Lane was about to be afflicted with an extreme case of insomnia.

He was keeping her high and dry until it suited him for her to sleep, yet another one of his abilities. She’d sleep when he did.

Beside him, she sighed and modulated her breathing so that it was deep and slow. Eyes closed, the tension dropped out of her. She went quiet, studiously so, as she sought refuge.

It was cute, really.

Steve banked onto the I-15 exit and climbed onto the freeway, heading north. Traffic mid-morning moved fast along the ten-lane stretch. If they made good time, maybe they could get there before rush hour.

A colorful billboard advertising a new Rêve—the term used for commercial shared dreams—rose above the graying buildings below. The billboard depicted a black door with a fanlight above and a knob in the middle. The number 221B gleamed in brass above a subtly ornate knocker. Doors led the way into Rêves, and this door led the dreamer to 221B Baker Street, Sherlock’s home. Stories and adventures were the rage, far exceeding the thrills a theme park could offer. Rêve was a fully immersive experience for which people would pay anything.

Of course, just as Rêves offered unlimited worlds to explore, so did they also offer innumerable ways to exploit and/or threaten dreamers. It was Chimera’s job to police Rêves and to venture (or track) beyond Rêve into the waters where natural dreaming occurred. A certain kind of talent was required, and it was Steve’s job to recruit the personnel who had it.

Like Maisie here, who’d been playing in illegal Rêves for at least a year now and had gotten in a little too deep with the criminal element.

The minutes ticked by. He changed to the far left lane and accelerated.

Any second now she’d realize she was trapped in the waking world.

She huffed a little. Squirmed.

He restrained a grin, but glanced her way to see if she’d figured it out yet.

He found her looking back at him, a bad mood wrinkling her forehead. Then her forehead smoothed as understanding dawned. A glimmer of horror darkened her eyes.
 
She’s got it now.
 
The realization finished with a steady glare of hate.

“You bastard.”

Steve looked at the road ahead. “Just as long as we understand each other.”

***

See, now she wanted to kill him.

Before, she’d just wanted to escape and disappear for a while. She’d been thinking Phoenix sounded good. Crash on her friend Lola’s couch, but hide in her own dreamspace for a while, where she could be in control and keep the unfriendlies out until they lost interest in her. An excellent plan.

It was Steve’s fault she was happily contemplating ways she could make him suffer, and five hours’ worth of traveling time—no sleep, no music, no decent conversation—was bound to make her think up the worst possible.

Death by rat bucket was the top contender. She’d need a feral rat, a bucket, and a blowtorch.

At least her murderous thoughts kept her from contemplating how royally screwed she was. To head directly to Mr. Graeme, her ex-boss, was insanity. They should be heading any other place but Vegas.

Desert turned into dirty metropolis turned into high-rise splash and glitter off the freeway.

Apparently, they were staying at a hotel on the Strip, because they were creeping along Flamingo trying to merge into the turn lane. They finally pulled into the traffic-jammed, sweeping roundabout that was valet parking at The Wake Hotel.

Frustration zapped along her nerves. This was so stupid. Steve-o had a death wish, and she was going to have to stay by his side or one of her former business associates would do the deed and get bragging rights for his murder. And she really wanted to do the honors herself.

She got out of the car and stretched, yawning hugely, dead center in the hotel’s elaborate entrance while Steve came around the car. Hand on her elbow—
so
going to die—he led her into an opulently designed, massive foyer.

She’d heard about The Wake, the hotel known for round-the-clock Rêves. Very exclusive. The décor evoked the surreal sensibility of the dreamwaters—proportions all larger than life, yet slightly warped, colors vivid red and purple. Erotic shadows of figures lurked in corners, shifting depending on the position of the patron, to beckon a dreamer deeper. Even though the foyer was enormous and grand, it swallowed sound rather than making it echo and overlap.