Disciple: DreamWalkers, Book 2 (30 page)

Maggie clapped a hand to her face.
“Damn. That hurts.”

Zeke squinted, which relieved some of the unpleasant sensation.
“She’s in the middle.”

Now that he could see roughly where she was, he could sense her tangible. Either that or she knew they had found her and ditched her camouflage.

Lill halted before they splashed into the edge of the roiling blackness. Zeke could distinguish nothing inside, no conduit sparks, no forms. But she was there. He could practically hear her cackle.

The hair prickled on his neck. The setup resembled the incident a year ago when she’d trapped him in Harrisburg. He’d entered a black hole just like this. He’d lost his shield just like Adi had, but the difference was he hadn’t been able to get himself out.

He wasn’t alone this time.

“Holy buckets of Hell. How are we going to get in there?”
Lill asked.
“That mob of wraiths crapped out Adi’s shield. Who knows what it’ll do to ours?”

Maggie shifted her weight from foot to foot.
“We may not have to get inside. They’re coming to us.”

Indeed, as Zeke watched, the wraiths’ symmetry shifted. The giant hell blob convulsed along one side as wraiths spilled toward them. Toward Maggie.

Maggie’s chin lifted. She slipped out of his grasp.
“Time to be useful.”

“Maggie, no!”
Zeke lurched toward her, but he was too late. She slipped outside the shield and held out her arms, bracing herself for the onrush. Lill grabbed his shoulder when he tried to vault across the barrier and drag her back.

“Give her a chance. Let’s see what she can do,”
Lill said.
“She has enough sense to wake herself up or get her ass back in the shield if she’s overwhelmed.”

The wraiths surged. Maggie launched herself into them, and Zeke’s stomach launched itself into his throat.

Her hands tore through the blackness, shredding it like tissue. No blood, no guts, and no glory, but lots of high-pitched keening as wraiths shimmered out of existence. Maggie whirled, kicked, clawed. Her insufficient combat training didn’t seem to matter, because the wraiths fell beneath her touch each time.

She was doing it. She was killing them, inside the sphere. Zeke’s nails cut his palm. He tried to unfist his hands, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t bear to see her in so much danger, yet he was so proud.

Her fury crumbled the monsters. He watched her flip her hands as if shaking off pain before plunging shoulder deep into the blackness. Wraiths shrieked their terror. She ripped a channel into them, caught a trailer of wraith in her fist, and thrashed it into nothing.

The wraiths cleared a space around her after that. Zeke and Lill, dead silent, floated closer to her so the shield could partly protect her back. Wraiths oozed behind them, cutting them off. Lill clutched his shoulder firmly as if she expected him to jump to Maggie’s defense at any moment.

Lill was right to do so. A cut appeared on Maggie’s cheek, and she winced. Zeke charged forward.

Lill barely stopped him.
“Dammit, Zeke. You can’t do what she’s doing. You’re defenseless out there.”

“She’s hurt. Let me go.”
In a fair fight, he could possibly take Lill, but she didn’t give a shit about fair. Only about winning. She plunged her hand in his hair and yanked viciously.

He lurched back, flailing.
“Fuck!”

“Your balls are next. Settle the hell down.”

“Goddammit, let me go.”
Zeke thought about punching Lill, but she was right. Maggie, like it or not, was an L5 alucinator. A fighter. A smart, adult woman who knew the risks. She’d gone outside the shield willingly, and it wasn’t his place to treat her like she was a defenseless child.

As long as she didn’t get another injury.

Maggie punched and kicked. The wraiths avoided the majority of her blows now. She didn’t have the training or the reflexes to catch them. She smashed a few but they seemed to be learning her rhythm—wraiths, that had no intelligence, that were always the same. They seemed to be slowly besting her.

Slowly edging her away from Zeke’s shield.

Suddenly the wraiths closed around her. The last thing Zeke saw was Maggie’s head being yanked back—by Karen, who’d used the wraiths’ darkness to hide her approach.

Chapter Twenty

Lill couldn’t hold Zeke back this time.

He leaped outside the sphere and into the wraiths, toward the place he’d last seen Maggie. All he had to do was reach her and toss up a shield. He had to move too fast to maintain one for now.

Brutal blows knocked him back, stealing his breath. He could vaguely hear Lill yelling at him, but his ears buzzed with rage.

As he’d seen Maggie do, he grabbed at a wraith. Shocked the shit out of him when he felt something besides mist and pain at the other end of his arm.

His fingers closed on—what the hell was it? Putrid, half-congealed flesh that yielded when he hooked his fingers into it like claws. Mucus, tar and gobbets of tissue tore apart in his grasp.

The smell walloped him like a football to the head. Unavoidable and intense, it was a weapon in its own right. Gritting his teeth, he waded into the fray, killing everything he could get his hands on.

Praying he could get his hands on Karen.

He didn’t care why he was bellatorix too, just that he reached Maggie before Karen could hurt her.

Maggie had described the sensation of killing wraiths to him—and she’d been spot on. It was more satisfying to kill them in the sphere, with his bare hands, than with swords and guns. It was easier to go berserk when his feet weren’t on solid ground and his comrades weren’t in as much danger.

Zeke plowed deeper, using the trick the curator had taught him to sense Karen. He couldn’t sense Maggie, which meant Karen was camouflaging her.

Or she was already dead.

No, he couldn’t think like that. He pivoted and kicked forcibly through the wraiths that had begun to dodge him. His actions impacted them more than Maggie’s had. His reflexes were quicker, his blows sweeping. It was a different style of combat that he was used to—melee. No weapons but himself. He used his body as a ram, as a cleaver, as vengeance.

He would figure out a way to kill Karen if she’d harmed one hair on Maggie’s head. Fuck the curator’s orders.

Zeke burst through a soul-sucking wall of wraiths into a clear central area like a bull’s eye. Karen, hands raised and her back to Zeke, stood above Maggie’s prone form like a vulture.

“Kill her,”
she commanded her wraiths.
“I don’t care if the Master wants her. He can have the others. Kill her now.”

The wraiths closed on Maggie, who raised a shaking hand. Their black, blobby forms hesitated until Karen screeched at them again.

Zeke lunged across the short distance and tackled Karen. She keened, exactly like the wraiths. Uncanny.

Wraiths hissed all around. The red sparks of conduits burst inside their black forms.

Zeke caught Karen around the throat and hauled her to her feet.
“Call them off. Now.”

Her blue eyes widened at the sight of him. Her face blanched pasty white in the roiling shadows of the sphere.
“Zeke, thank God. You’ve come to rescue me. The Master is nearby. I can feel him. He’s watching us, and he wants you all. But I can save you, Zeke.”

“Don’t give me that shit. If your Master wants us, tell him to come get us.”
He tightened his hands on her throat, and she gagged. The first time he’d wanted to euthanize Karen in the hospital bed, Adi had stopped him. He’d never killed another human. Could he?

In the corner of his vision, wraiths crept toward Maggie. She kicked one. It squealed. Her wrist appeared to be broken. Karen had done that—ordered that.

Yes, he could kill another human. If it was Karen.

“I’m going to trade the others for you. A curator is a prize I never thought I could give the Master. It will work. It has to. It’s the only way you get to live.
” Karen scrabbled at his arm unsuccessfully.
“Please let me help you like you helped me.”

“Call. Off. Your. Wraiths.”
He half-dragged her until they stood over Maggie. The wraiths recoiled. They might be afraid of what he and Maggie could do, and they might be afraid of Karen. He didn’t care.

“Your student is weak.”
Tears trickled down Karen’s cheeks, but her breathless, helpless routine didn’t fool him.
“She’s sick. It’s her fault the wraiths are here. The Master wants her. If we let the wraiths have her, they’ll go away. They won’t kill her. They’ll just take her to him. It will buy us time to plan—to find another way to stop him. She has to be sacrificed.”

“If they hurt Maggie any more, you’re dead. I’ll kill you myself. Right here, right now.”

“Zeke,”
she pleaded.
“What do you mean? No damage one alucinator does to another translates to the terra firma. Don’t you remember the times we made love in the sphere and—”

“Don’t remind me. And you’re wrong. I’ve learned a new trick since you’ve been gone.”
He’d learned a new trick ten minutes ago, courtesy of Maggie.
“You’d better rethink your strategy.”

Karen met his gaze. As he glared at her, hatred consuming him, her pupils dilated until her blue irises were nearly invisible. In a completely different voice, she said, deadly cold,
“You cheated on me. You had sex with her. I saw you.”

“I love her,”
he answered bluntly.
“You and I aren’t a couple. We have no relationship. You’re a criminal and a murderer. Nobody would blame me for taking you out.”

Her nostrils flared.
“You can’t do that. You love me.”

“No.”
Zeke wouldn’t lie to her when honesty was sufficient.
“I might have thought I did once. But I could never love a killer. I could never love someone who was responsible for Harrisburg—who was responsible for the past couple days. Even if I hadn’t met Maggie and learned what it really meant to give my heart to someone, I couldn’t love you now or ever again.”

Karen caressed his arm and her eyes narrowed.
“You do. You will.”

A familiar whiteness fuzzed Zeke’s his mind, and he shook Karen until she stopped. Next to his feet, Maggie murmured something appeasing. He would have thought she’d be gung ho about him taking Karen out, but apparently not.

“Don’t try confounding me,”
he warned Karen.
“It might confuse me temporarily, but I’ll never forget I hate you and I’ll never forget I love Maggie. You can’t erase true emotions from someone—only the sequence of events that led to them.”

Karen stilled. Her arms hung limply at her sides, and he felt the weight of her body drag at him. He allowed her to fall until she was kneeling beside Maggie but retained his grip on her throat.

He brought his face next to Karen’s, though not close enough for her to bite or head butt him. He was furious, not stupid.
“If you stop the manifestations, close all the conduits and order your wraiths to surrender, I will allow you to live.”

“If I can’t have you,”
Karen began, but Zeke interrupted her.

“What, if you can’t have me, nobody can? Could you be more cliché? What are you going to do, send your wraiths after me?”
Zeke hoisted her by the arm and towed her to the closest barrier of black. The wraiths churned and hissed as he approached, shying away from him like ripples. Karen’s weight slowed him just enough that the wraiths were able to evade him.

He paused until the wraiths calmed, then dropped her ass and darted toward them. With ease, he caught one and shoved it in Karen’s face.

It was like trying to hold a garbage bag full of vomit. He had to restrain himself so his fingers wouldn’t pierce the surface and release the goo.

She flinched away from the wraith. Zeke squeezed the tendril he held—he wasn’t sure how body parts corresponded in a vomitus mass—until it screamed so loud Karen clapped her hands over her ears.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it!”
she yelled.
“You’re scaring it.”

“I’m killing it,”
he corrected. He shook it like a dusty rug. The glutinous, veiny blob shuddered and faded into mist.
“Nice trick, huh?”

She gaped at him, her hand pressed to her throat. His fingers had left marks he could see in the dimness of the sphere, confirming his suspicion that bellatorix abilities likely affected other alucinators as well as wraiths. The curator hadn’t mentioned that.

“That’s why you think you can hurt me. She taught you that, didn’t she?”
Karen accused, casting Maggie an evil glance.

“You taught us. You kept sending the wraiths after her, trying to murder her. That’s why we can do this. Defensive response, the curator called it. And it’s your fault, Karen. Your fault.”
Not that he believed her about her Master, but he couldn’t resist the taunt.
“What will your Master think about that?”

She huddled at his feet, small as a child, and didn’t deny his accusation.
“I don’t understand. How can you hurt them? I can’t hurt them, and I’m special. The Master told me I’m special.”

“Special enough to control wraiths for a year while you were in a coma.”
Zeke considered grabbing her again, but she didn’t look like she was going anywhere.
“How did you manage that?”

She cast a coy glance up at him.
“I could make a deal with you. If you tell me how to kill the Master, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I’ll help you.”

“I can’t teach it. The curator said it’s instinctive.”
He’d described too much already. The last thing they needed was for Karen to develop the skill to murder inside the dreamsphere in addition to outside it.
“The most important thing is that the wraiths are dead, thanks to me. And the next one will be, and the next one will be, and they all will be. Maggie and I—we’ll kill them together. You can’t win against us.”

Maggie clambered to her feet, hugging her arm to her side. She toddled over to Zeke.
“The curator forbid us from killing her.”

He was grateful she could stand, though she was in obvious pain.
“I’m the one making deals here, Karen. Tell us how to heal Maggie’s arm and we’ll take you to the curator instead of kill you,”
he said.
“Is the healing real or were you tricking everyone about that too?”

“I’ll never help her.”
Karen’s pupils dilated more—until her eyes went black. Black like the core of a wraith. Beside him, Maggie blew out a breath. “
I’ll die first.”

“I can make that happen. You’re done.”
Zeke braced himself. He was going to do this. Execute her. She deserved it, and it would halt the manifestations. It would save lives.

He reached for her grimly, and she scuttled backward.

“We’ll see who’s done, you fucking idiot,”
Karen screeched, and her body disappeared as if it were a dying wraith.

Several wraiths exploded into red sparks. A conduit opened to their left. Then another to the right. Karen was sucking all these wraiths into the terra firma, where they would kill everyone at the coma station and the outbunker. The number of wraiths she’d collected here seemed endless.

Zeke cursed and threw a shield around himself and Maggie. He should never have let go of Karen’s metaphysical body, but they had her geocoordinates now. They could, with Adi’s help, vigil-block her ass long enough to put a stop to this once and for all.

“Lill,”
he broadcast.
“Karen got away, and Maggie’s hurt.”

“There you are.”
Lill’s shield pushed through the soup of wraiths like a submarine. They joined shields so they could talk more easily.
“The wraiths stopped hustling me as soon as you disappeared. What the hell has been going on in here?”

Zeke sighed. On one hand, he should have killed Karen when he had the chance. On the other, this meant he didn’t have to assassinate a human being. He couldn’t decide which emotion was stronger.
“Tried to talk Karen into cooperating. Newsflash—she wouldn’t.”

“I take it you couldn’t convince her to seal the malingering conduits?”
Lill asked.
“So much for your masculine wiles.”

“I could barely even convince her I was serious,”
Zeke said.
“She says the Master is watching us, by the way.”

Lill rolled her eyes.
“Whatever. I played around with the curator’s camouflage piercing trick, and there’s nobody else here. It’s a shame he’s gonna take it from me.”

Zeke nodded.
“I agree. The Master is Karen’s split personality. And now, I think I’ll kill some wraiths—take them out of the equation.”
There were various theories about whether the total number of wraiths in the sphere was finite or infinite. He didn’t care. He was about to reduce the local population in the most satisfying way possible.

“It’s a perk, isn’t it?”
Maggie said, eyes shining.
“We’re bellatorix. It makes sense. You’ve been surrounded by them every time I have.”

“Are you kidding?”
Lill threw up her hands.
“I’m jealous as hell. What’s a girl gotta do to learn that trick?”

“Be stalked by a murderer. I don’t recommend it,”
Maggie said.

Zeke vacated the shield, ready to do battle, but the wraiths blipped away as he approached. He chased after a few, and they evaded him. Rather quickly, the local population disappeared, sucked through conduits, afraid of Zeke, or no longer directed by Karen to nip Maggie’s heels. The trance sphere regained the gray, distorted panorama he’d rarely experienced during his time training Maggie.

Yet it was still agitated. The number of active conduits he could sense would be intimidating if he hadn’t known to expect it. As it was, Zeke had no idea what type of situation they’d be facing when they woke. They were needed outside—needed to fight in the standard way. Now that the monsters had dissipated, he and Maggie couldn’t kill enough wraiths in the sphere for it to make a difference.

“I wish Adi had found out more about the healing,”
Maggie said wistfully. “
My wrist hurts.”