Dreamseeker (32 page)

“Why would they give me this?” he whispered hoarsely. “They threw me out. They cut all ties between us, forever. Why would they think I even wanted something like this? So that I could pretend I still had a family? So that I could remember what I lost and feel even more pain?” There was a murmur of curiosity from Jacob, so he turned the picture so the ghost could look at it—

—and he saw that something was written on the back of it. In his mother's hand.

Startled, he moved the note closer to the lamp so he could read her message.

V wanted you killed
.

His hand trembled as he lowered the note.

What?
the spirit pressed.
What? What? What?

Why had Virilian wanted him dead? Because Isaac had broken the rules one too many times? Because he'd corrupted a spirit belonging to a powerful Shadowlord? Or maybe Virilian suspected that Isaac had played a part in the destruction of the Gate. Whatever the reason, if the Guildmaster condemned Isaac to death, no one in the Guild would dare challenge him. Isaac's fate would be sealed.

His father must have protested that judgment. No one of lesser status would have the standing—or motivation—to pull off something like that. Isaac tried to remember what Virilian had said to his father, when the Domitor finished her work.
You have my permission to exile him.
He'd thought at the time that his father wanted to get rid of him, but what if that wasn't the story at all? What if the Antonin patriarch had asked for permission to send Isaac away as an alternative to Virilian killing him? In order to save his son's life?

The Guildmaster would never have allowed that unless the pain of Isaac's banishment was so extreme that the boy would wish for death. Agreeing to anything less might have been viewed as an act of mercy, and a Guildmaster of Shadows was not supposed to be merciful.

“That's what this was all about,” Isaac whispered, staring at his mother's note. “The lifetime banishment, the mark of shame . . . he was trying to be harsh enough that Virilian would agree to spare my life. That's what my mother was hinting at when she came to my room. She couldn't tell me outright, not with all the dead watching.”

Tears were flowing down his face, and he couldn't stop them. He didn't want to stop them. The dam inside had finally crumbled and emotions were pouring out, all the feelings he'd been struggling to deny since leaving home. Pain, fear, hopelessness, despair . . . but no anger. Not anymore. Shadowlord Antonin had dared to challenge the
Guildmaster himself to give his son a chance to survive. Even though the odds of that survival were slim to none. And even though it meant the Shadowlord would never see his son again. Because the alternative to that was death by Virilian's order.

Lowering his face into his hands, Isaac
wept.

B
ERKELEY
S
PRINGS

W
EST
V
IRGINIA

J
ESSE

H
OME.
The word felt strange on my tongue, especially in reference to a house I had only lived in for a week. But it was good to be heading back in Berkeley Springs. The people that I loved were there, and I hungered to rejoin them.

Seyer offered to drive us home, and despite my desire to separate myself from everyone and everything connected to Alia Morgana, I did need a way back from Pennsylvania, so I accepted. So did Rita. I would be relieved when we finally parted company; the stress of feigning friendship with her was wearing thin. But the day might yet come when I would need someone with access to Morgana's circle—besides Seyer—so I did the best I could to make her believe that nothing was wrong, even while I fantasized about wringing her neck.

As soon as we got in the car I retrieved my cell phone and started texting, first to let Tommy know we were on our way home, then to check up on Devon. Apparently he had recovered from his strange bout of illness. No big surprise, if its sole purpose had been to keep him from travelling with us. Rita was in the seat right behind me as I texted him, so I had to be careful what I typed, but I did manage to
send a quick warning while she was looking out the window.
Rita was the spy. Details later.
I wanted to tell him what I suspected about the source of his illness, including the fact that Rita might have played a part in arranging it, but this wasn't the time or place for that discussion.

Is she with u?
he texted.

Yeah.

Still friends?

Was he asking if I had decided to overlook the spy issue, or if I was pretending everything was okay? I waited until Rita looked out the window again, then texted,
She thinks so.

What about ur mom?

Healer coming,
I typed.
Family only. No friends allowed.
We hadn't discussed his coming back to witness the healing, but some things don't have to be said.
Potter rules,
I added.
Sorry, I tried.

There was a long pause.
I understand.

Their call, not mine
.

Keep me updated?

K

As soon as Seyer pulled into the driveway, Tommy burst out of the house and bounded down the front stairs, yelling my name as if he'd never expected to see me alive again. When I got out of the car he hugged me so tightly that he squeezed all the air out of my lungs. For a long moment I just hugged him back, drinking in the essence of Terra Colonna through our contact. Then I saw Mom on the porch, and this time it was me who did the running. I hugged her like the world was about to end, and since she had no clue what I'd gone through the previous week, she was probably a bit confused by that. I buried my face in her hair so no one would see my face, knowing I could never explain to these people why coming home affected me so deeply. Not until I felt I had control of myself again did I let her go.

Seyer watched our reunion for a few minutes, then said she needed to leave. “It was a pleasure to have you as a guest,” she told me, with a faint ironic smile. “If you ever want to visit again, you know
how to reach me.” I nodded politely and thanked her for the offer, and didn't tell her what I was really thinking, a scenario that involved flying pigs and snowballs in Hell. Then Rita said that she should probably check in with people back home, would Seyer mind giving her a lift to the bus station? And so that final problem was solved.

It was surprisingly hard to say goodbye to Rita. For all my anger about her betrayal, she'd been by my side through some pretty harrowing experiences, and that made for a bond that even rage couldn't banish entirely.

“Good luck with your mom,” she whispered. Then she got into Seyer's car, and I watched as it pulled away, feeling a vast weight lift from my chest.

Of course Rose had to feed us all, and over a hearty lunch she made me tell her all sorts of stories about my imaginary week in the mountains. It was hard to make up enough stories to satisfy her, but eventually I was able to turn the conversation to my real business. I said that Seyer had introduced us to a healer who might be able to help Mom, and would they be willing to give that a try? I knew that Rose and Julian were New Age folks at heart, and the Fleshcrafter had coached me on how to present the matter to them. So when I explained that this was a New Age healer specializing in reiki massage, who thought that restoring the proper flow of qi to Mom's brain might clear out some of her spiritual blockage, I was speaking their language. In truth I think they would have supported any activity that gave Mom a taste of hope, if only for an hour. As for Mom, she wasn't into that kind of stuff, but if everyone else thought this was a good idea, she was willing to give it a shot. What did we have to lose?

After lunch I was finally able to get some time alone with Tommy. I filled him in on what I'd
really
been up to the last week, which was damn refreshing after hours of lies. He listened with wide eyes, surprisingly subdued. “Wow,” he said when I was done. “That's just . . . wow.”

I sighed. It felt good to unburden myself to someone I trusted, but retelling the story just reminded me of how many things in my life
still weren't resolved. Some of which involved people who wanted to kill me. “Yeah. I know.”

“They're never gonna let up, are they? Not as long as they think there's a Dreamwalker out there. They may not know it's you, but they're gonna keep looking till they figure it out.”

I remembered Virilian's reaction when the reaper appeared in his dream, and I could only imagine his rage once he realized that a Dreamwalker had been messing with his mind. “Yeah,” I muttered. “I'm afraid so.” Thank God I'd thought to disguise myself in that dream. It wouldn't protect me forever, but hopefully it would buy me time to come up with some kind of plan.

“So,” Tommy said, “what can we do about that? I mean . . . there has to be
something
we can do, right?”

I sighed.
Real life isn't like a computer game,
I wanted to tell him.
There's no finite, predictable universe filled with puzzles that have neatly scripted solutions, where all you need to do to defeat a powerful enemy is to assemble the right team and arm them with magical weapons. Real life is messy, and it doesn't always have neat solutions.
“If I could find other Dreamwalkers, they might be able to help. Maybe they would know how to destroy the reapers.” But the only other Dreamwalker I knew about had spent her last moments casting a tsunami at me, and I didn't know if she was alive or dead right now. Even if others of my kind existed, how was I supposed to find them, when their lives depended on hiding their Gift?

The dream tower was the key, I thought. The coma boy had seen it. The avatar girl had run to it for safety. Even the reaper had been there at some point. The tower tied all of us together somehow, and maybe I could use it to find others of my kind. But how did you search for something that, by its very nature, did not exist in the real world? If I searched for it in my dreams I could wind up with all seven reapers coming after me.

It was too much to think about. I closed my eyes for a moment, sighing deeply.

“You okay, Jess?”

“Just tired,” I muttered. “It's been one hell of a week.”

Was it only a month ago that I'd been struggling to deal with normal teenage angst? Final exam stress, family issues, concern over finding a part-time job for the summer so that I could afford a car next year? It had seemed like so much to deal with, back then. Overwhelming. That was the one upside about being hunted by monsters, I thought dryly. It really put things in perspective.

“Hand me the phone,” I told Tommy. “I'll tell the Fleshcrafter we're good to go.”

The Potter arrived at eight o'clock sharp. Whatever I'd expected our assigned Fleshcrafter to look like, the stocky, ruddy-cheeked senior citizen who showed up at our front door was not it. But apparently Selena Hearst was the perfect person to win my family's trust, and soon Rose was setting out tea for us all and asking about Eastern massage techniques. The Fleshcrafter was surprisingly patient and showed us a collection of river rocks that she used in her work. She said she'd collected them from spiritually significant waterways. Would Rose mind warming them in the oven a bit? They worked better that way. Oh, and Selena would like to brew a special herbal tea for my mother, would it be possible to get some hot water for that? I wasn't sure how much of her performance was real and how much was just cover for her real business, but I suspected it was strongly weighted toward the latter.

Finally we all retired to a back room with Mom, where a table had been laid out with a camping mattress on top of it. I'd asked Rose to get us a couple of boxes of donuts, as per the Potter's request, and they were waiting on the sideboard, their lids folded neatly back. The room smelled of confectioner's sugar.

The Fleshcrafter had Mom drink the tea and then lie down, and she made a show of arranging the newly warmed river stones around her in a pattern designed to channel her vital energies. Or so she explained to Rose and Julian as they watched. Soon Mom's eyes shut,
and it looked like she'd fallen asleep. Selena requested politely that everyone but the children leave, as too many people in the room would make it hard for her to channel Mom's qi properly. My aunt and uncle didn't want to go, but clearly they respected Selena's expertise. Soon the four of us were alone.

As Selena reached for a donut I noticed a change in her body language. Gone was the aura of homey warmth that had so charmed my family, and in its place was a sharp and sparing manner, totally at odds with her physical appearance. I must have been staring at her, because when she finished her first donut she looked over at me and said, “No, I'm not really old. Not female, either. That simply seemed like the most effective way to deal with your family.”

“It was,” I agreed. I looked at Mom. “What did you give her?”

“Something to shut down non-essential mental activity. I can no more fleshcraft an active brain than a surgeon can operate on a moving body. Not safely, anyway.”

She (he?) took another donut. “You understand, my goal here is to restore the neural network as it existed before the fire. Any cells which died left their mark on the surrounding tissue, so there are ingrained patterns for reference. I can prompt the body to create new cells exactly where the old ones were.” She started inspecting Mom with her free hand as she talked, touching her gently at various points on her face and skull. “Neurotransmitters, on the other hand, are temporary in nature, reabsorbed after every use. I can't judge how effectively they functioned before the fire, so I can't adjust their strength now. The brain will do that naturally once the neural network is restored, seeking its original balance, but that will take time. You should expect a period of confusion, with intense and possibly disturbing dreams. None of which will have any medical significance, save as a sign that she is healing.”

Yeah, but it'll be hell to explain to my family, after I gave them a song and dance about how you would make Mom feel better
. “For how long?” I asked.

“She seems highly functional, which suggests that repairs will be
minimal; I'd be optimistic about the time. A week, perhaps.” She looked up at me. “We're in the primary Terran Cluster, correct? Only one moon?”

“Uh . . . yeah. One moon.”

She nodded. “One month at most, then. If disorientation lasts longer than that, contact me.”

“Will there be any pain?” Tommy asked.

“Usually there is. The human body doesn't surrender its birth-form without protest. But since brain tissue has no pain receptors, your mother should be fine.”

She finished off the donut and waved us to silence. “No more questions now. I need to concentrate.”

Tommy and I watched her fleshcraft. Or more accurately, we stared at a man in an old woman's body while she leaned over our sleeping mother and nothing visible happened. The Potter spread her fingers over Mom's face and skull, lowered her (his?) head until their foreheads nearly touched, then closed her eyes and seemed to go into a trance. Periodically she would awaken from it long enough to get another donut, study Mom as she ate it, then return to her trance. Eight donuts in all. It was a long time to wait for something to happen. At one point I saw Tommy take out his phone and text somebody. Later I took paper from the nearby desk and started sketching the shapechanging castle that I'd seen through the reaper, angling my work so that even if the Potter looked in my direction she wouldn't see it. But the building defied my best attempts to capture it on paper; it was as if it existed only in the world of imagination and couldn't be translated into materials as mundane as pencil and paper. After several tries I gave up, closed the drawing pad, and waited in silence.