Disciple: DreamWalkers, Book 2 (23 page)

How Adi was going to defend neglecting to mention the corpses, Maggie had no idea. The curator was bound to find out. The exhausted vigil had to be on tenterhooks right now.

All Maggie wanted to do was get Zeke alone and ask him what the hell was going on. His forgetfulness, his support of Karen, his coolness to Maggie since the latest code one—he wasn’t himself, and neither were Lill and Adi. Adi’s behavior could partially be explained by the stress of her investigation, the code ones, the vigil-block and the sudden appearance of a curator, but only partially.

Lill seemed the most normal of the three, but even she had evidenced signs of stress and absentmindedness. Was it the situation in general or something else?

Maggie reluctantly crossed the room to the curator. Blake shut the door after her, leaving them alone except for the appliances.

“Want some?” He pushed a plate of fluffy biscuits toward Maggie after she sat across the small table from him. “We can’t get good biscuits at the Orbis. The cooks churn out these tiny, gluten-free things. Say it’s for my health. I’ll tell you, it’s just not the same.” He bit into a biscuit dripping with honey with great relish.

“No, thank you.” She folded her hands on the table. The curator was taller than she was, but stooped. He had wild eyebrows and a ring of white hair around his head like a fuzzy crown. His wrinkled, leathery skin was medium brown and his eyes were, too, but she couldn’t place his ethnicity. Owing to her background in cultural geography, she had a better than average grasp of global societies, languages and peoples.

Not that it mattered. He was a curator, the Somnium’s uppermost leadership. Curators were practically worshipped in the ranks. And he’d come to whisk her away. Presumably forever.

He seemed kindly and wise, but she didn’t want to disappear with him.

“Sir,” she asked him between bites. He devoured his steak and eggs as if they were gourmet rarities—closing his eyes and savoring each mouthful. He used both his fork and knife to eat, European style. “The possibility that I might need to petition a curator has come up before. Everyone commented that nobody reassigned was ever heard from again. May I ask why that is?”

“Surely that’s an exaggeration.” He cut several bites from his steak, salted and peppered them, and popped a sliver into his mouth. “Mmmm.”

She smiled without teeth, waiting. “I’ve spoken with quite a few people about it.”

“Did you speak with quite a few people in the European division?” he asked.

“No, but some of the people who discussed it with me have,” she explained, thinking of Adi. Wasn’t it common knowledge that reassigned neonati tended to vanish?

“It’s no mystery, Margaret. Our trainees remain with the Orbis or close to it, where they can do the most good for the Somnium. Since alucinators tend to have few familial connections, there’s little to sever. I’m sure you’ll understand soon enough.”

“I’d prefer to return here after my training,” Maggie said. Wherever Zeke was, provided their tentative relationship outlasted the stress of recent events. “In fact, I’d rather not be reassigned at all. I’m not convinced it’s necessary. How can you be sure I have conduit blindness and the manifestations aren’t being caused by Karen Kingsbury?”

The curator set down his utensils. “My dear, I am a very old man, so I’ll ask you to humor me for a moment. Let us assume that I know a good deal about alucinators, their weaknesses, and how to read the dreamsphere, since I spend most of my time inside it.”

She’d heard that was how curators conducted their work. “Yes, of course, but—”

“Let us also assume that I want what’s best for the Somnium, including employees such as yourself, and that I have some proficiency in accomplishing that goal.”

A blush stained her cheeks—like a flunking student brought before the dean to plead his or her case.

“Do you truly think I, or any curator, would allow an alucinator such as Ms. Kingsbury, who has proven to be unstable, to run loose in the dreamsphere again and create manifestations willy-nilly? That we—or your very dedicated Ms. Sharma—would neglect to consider Ms. Kingsbury’s past misdeeds in evaluating the recent code ones?”

All Maggie knew was she’d locked her conduits—and she knew how it felt to have wraiths escape through her. It felt like a rape of her psyche combined with slime and horror. How could she have missed whole crowds of wraiths using her as their highway to the terra firma? “I wasn’t aware the curators monitored specific events so closely.”

“Well, now you are,” he said gently. “If we’re of a mind to. You mustn’t blame yourself for the deaths, child. You had no way of knowing about your handicap.”

“I don’t blame myself,” she responded, but uncertainly. He was a curator. He knew things none of the rest of them did, and everyone blamed her for the code ones. And the deaths. Should she be feeling more guilt?

“Do the wraiths swarm you in the dreamsphere?” he asked.

She hesitated, not sure how much to reveal. However, if the curator did indeed take over her training, he was going to notice. “It’s my understanding wraiths are more attracted to high level dreamers, and of late there’s been an upsurge in recorded wraith density.”

“Do they turn your shields black? Like nobody else?”

As far as Maggie knew, the only people who realized the wraiths swarmed her that heavily were her, Zeke, Lillian and possibly Adi, though Hayden might suspect since she’d quizzed him about his wraith density. In the terra firma, it had been hard to hide the fact that manifested wraiths, on missions, tended to come after her.

Until the past two code ones, it had never been blamed on her being the wraiths’ creator.

“There are a lot of them,” she hedged. “Both Zeke and I are L5s, and—”

“The boy isn’t attracting them. You are. The wraiths aren’t as mindless as people think,” the curator explained. “They know you’ve got a weakness, and they aim to exploit it, like sharks tasting blood in the water.”

His claims were eerily close to Karen’s. Maggie pondered the wisdom of probing him for information about a Master wraith, which might make her sound as crazy as Karen. “Are you saying they’re intelligent?”

“Nothing like what we call intelligence.” He maneuvered several scraps of egg onto his fork. “What they possess is more like instincts. They remind me of ants. Killer ants.” He chuckled. “But I’ve seen you, girlie. You’re a classic case of conduit blindness.”

“You’ve seen me?” Had he noticed her kill wraiths in the dreamsphere and drag the corpses into the terra firma? Another question it wasn’t safe to ask.

“Yes, indeed. We watch all the promising ones.” His dark eyes twinkled at her before he finished off his egg.

“I don’t know that I’d refer to myself as promising.” Surely if the wraiths had instincts, they would avoid an alucinator who was a bellatorix.

Or seek to destroy her as quickly as possible.

Maggie shivered.

The curator had returned his attention to his plate, missing her reaction. “You have no idea of the contributions you can make to the greater good, my girl. We just need to get you situated.”

Was hiding the information about the corpses from the curator interfering with his diagnosis of the situation? Or was it saving her from graver consequences than being reassigned? She wasn’t convinced she had a problem with dreamspace depth perception, but her training, her abilities—even her initial awakening as a neonati, thanks to Hayden—had all been atypical.

Did she have the flaw the curator claimed she did? Was conduit blindness tied to being a bellatorix, or was it the other way around?

Were the deaths her fault?

Chicken, meet Egg.

“If I suffer from conduit blindness,” she asked when the curator was between bites, “why has this issue taken two months to surface?”

The curator shrugged. “If I had to guess, and I suppose I do, it’s because you relocated to the coma station. The number of alucinators in comas here draws more wraiths in the first place.”

She hadn’t noticed more wraiths here than anywhere else, but she supposed she wouldn’t. “I see.”

“At your assigned castrum, nearly everyone can defend themselves, but here? The wraiths have their pick of helpless victims.”

“You’re saying the wraiths can sense who in the terra firma helpless and who’s not?” Do they have some all-powerful Master lurking in the dreamsphere right now, waiting to gobble us up?

And—the thought occurred to her—could she kill the Master like she’d killed the wraiths? But wondering that assumed Karen was more sane and less murderous than Maggie was willing to countenance.

“Do you know what wraiths do if they kill their creator?” As if they weren’t discussing something grisly and stomach-turning, he slathered honey on another biscuit. “They flee the alucinators. All alucinators. Unerringly. Once wraiths are in the terra firma and their creator is dead, there’s no way to track them beyond traditional methodology. Granted, that’s easier now than in my youth. But all this blasted technology has downsides. Cover-ups are ten times harder with all the camera telephones and the Internet and the Facebook.” He shook his head. “So yes, we believe wraiths can tell which humans are alucinators, trained to deal with them in their corporeal form, and which humans are not.”

Maggie’s mouth went dry. “My classes haven’t yet covered that.”

“They may never have, had you remained with a castrum. The things you’d have learned as a rank and file alucinator are only the tip of the iceberg. You’re lucky. As a scholar, Professor Mackey, think of the opportunities you’ll have to study original documents and theory.”

She knew the curators had secrets—and could admit to curiosity about them. Would she be taught what Adi had been trying for months to learn about dreamsphere healing? Would she get to read the Antipodes scroll?

She studied her fingers so the insightful old man wouldn’t notice he’d piqued her interest. “If the wraiths are so smart, why do they seek their creator in the first place? Why don’t they avoid the alucinators from the beginning?”

“Perhaps you’ll be the researcher who finally answers that question.” He smiled, revealing strong, rather yellow teeth that didn’t appear to be dentures. “I don’t see you as particularly martial, my dear. Though I must congratulate you. I hear you managed to dispatch several wraiths all by yourself during the code one.”

Surely he mention the corpses if he knew about them. “Zombies are easy. Comparatively. I killed one or two the night I awakened as well.”

“As long as they’re not the fast ones,” he joked.

When Maggie raised her eyebrows, he said, “What? You young people aren’t the only ones who stay abreast of pop culture.”

“When do you find the time?”

“Are you worried we’re all work and no play at the Orbis? We do manage some recreation. Vacations, too. There are even weddings and children born to our employees on occasion. I seem to recall the pitter patter of little feet at company picnics.”

She wondered if she should protest his assumption that she, as a female, would be reassured by the idea that marriage and children were still on the table for Orbis employees. “The Orbis has company picnics?”

“And bonuses and health and dental and a wonderful long-term disability policy. You won’t regret relocating, I promise you.”

She knew the Somnium had to operate as a business on some level, but the mind boggled. “I haven’t agreed to relocate.”

“You signed the contract, my girl. You did agree.”

Maggie had no response, since it was true. She’d read every word of her contract more than twice. She’d just never dreamed some of the more forceful clauses might apply to her.

“That doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.”

He took her hand. His skin, dry and raspy, was hotter than expected, like a reptile in the sun. “I know.”

“I don’t want to relocate. I know a lot of alucinators don’t have many relatives. But I do.” Humans with the potential to enter the dreamsphere rarely awoke if they were grounded into the terra firma by familial ties, and certainly by children.

“Your brother Hayden Thomas Mackey and your sister Allyson Jane Mackey.” He nodded. “Perhaps they would want to relocate with you? I would be glad to have them on my team.”

“Hayden’s happy with his current training program.” Not to mention winning the adulation of the entire division, plus Moody the curator, as he set records for neonati left and right.

The old curator patted her hand one last time and released her. “And your sister?”

“We don’t know where she is,” Maggie admitted.

“No word from her since you joined the Somnium?”

It shouldn’t surprise her that the curator seemed aware of her family situation. He had, after all, claimed to have been watching her. His kind brown eyes studied her with sympathy and interest, as if he truly wanted to hear her answer and discuss Ally with her.

She found herself telling him more than she usually confided in anyone but Zeke, Lill or Hayden. “I’ve called all the numbers we had for her. All our mutual acquaintances. We’re not going to find her if she doesn’t want to be found.” Ally had run away from home at fifteen. And at seventeen.

At eighteen, it hadn’t been considered running away anymore.

“I have faith she’ll crop up eventually,” the curator reassured her. “Perhaps she’ll want to relocate to the Orbis.”

“I doubt she’d want to live anywhere near me.” Her and Hayden’s relationship with their younger sister had always been difficult. Ally had done everything in her power to rebel against the expectations of their academic parents and overachieving siblings. She’d attended the funeral months ago, but Maggie and Hayden hadn’t seen or heard from her since.

What with all the changes in the Mackey lives, the situation had left Maggie and her brother regretful that they hadn’t tried harder with their sister. She hoped Ally’s itinerant ways meant she never woke into the dreamsphere, and all the perils and hardship that came with it. Potential neonati had to spend their sleeps in one area for a period of time before their nightmares broke through to the dreamsphere.

Maggie and Hayden had done that together, faster than they would have apart, because they’d lived in their parents’ house as they’d settled the estate after the funeral. Their combined grieving had burst the barrier between the terra firma and the dreamsphere, converting them to true dreamers on the same night.