Incubus (19 page)

“No,” Karayan said. “This is
not
normal.” She looked at me, all traces of her characteristic attitude

gone. “Even with a really powerful Lilitu who’s shielding her dream, you feel something.”

“You’ve never seen this before? A dream that’s totally closed?”

“Not only have I never
seen
this before, I’ve never heard of this
happening
before.”

“So what now?”

Karayan pulled her eyes away from the sparkling dream. “It’s your show. You tell me. I’m just

your backup.”

“Okay. Let me think,” I said.

Karayan sat back, brushing her hair off one shoulder. Her eyes caught on something behind me.

She grew suddenly still. “Braedyn?”

Something in her voice alerted me. I turned around. A slender roll of paper was tied to the stem of

a beautiful rose with a red ribbon. I stared at it, uncomprehending.

Karayan’s eyes cut to mine. “Was that there before?”

“No.” My mouth went dry. Karayan and I were on our feet in an instant, instinctively pressing our

backs together, scanning the field of roses for any sign of the intruder. A wind ruffled the roses as my

fear found a way to manifest itself across my dream.

“Control yourself,” Karayan murmured, not pulling her eyes away from the field.

I forced my fear to the back of my mind. The wind died down. We stood there, back to back, for

several long minutes. Nothing else stirred. Whoever had broken into my dream and tied that scroll to

my rose—they were long gone.

“How did they get past us? How did they enter my dream without me sensing them at all?” I asked.

Karayan shook her head, unable to answer me. I took a step toward the scroll. Karayan caught my

hand, stopping me.

“I don’t know if you should do that,” she said.

“I’m not going to leave it there,” I snapped. “This is my
mind.
”

Karayan’s jaw tightened, but she let me go. I walked to the scroll. It was a thing of beauty. The red

ribbon shimmered with the luster of a pearl, and the scroll itself was a thick, cream-colored

parchment. I barely had to tug on the ribbon before it sprang loose. Freed, the scroll unspooled. I

recognized the bold handwriting instantly. It was the same as the handwriting on the note from

Cassie’s locker.

It was a simple message:
Apparently, my friendly warning was too subtle. Stay out of my way, little

sister, or I’ll be forced to sideline you. Permanently.

I turned back to Karayan. She was watching my face; something like concern had etched faint lines

into her brow. Wordlessly, I handed the scroll over. Karayan took it. As her eyes scanned the message,

her frown deepened.

“Okay. You played the brave little soldier, good job. Now it’s time to back off.”

“Back off? I thought this was my show.” I snatched the note out of her hands.

“I’m here to help, remember? This is me helping.” Karayan pointed at the scroll in my hands. “It

doesn’t take a genius to see that that’s a threat.”

“A threat is different from an attack,” I said.

“Come on,” she lifted her hands, looking around. “The guy can slip into your dreams undetected.

You want to tell me he can’t slip into your house?”

“If you really want to help me,” I said. “Show me how to shield my dreams so he can’t come

barging in here whenever he feels like it.” Karayan looked mutinous. “Please,” I said. Karayan gritted

her teeth. But instead of arguing, she waved her hand over the pool of dreams. It dried up, leaving the

ground unmarked.

“Shielding your dreams isn’t something you can do once and then forget about like locking a

door,” she said. “That’s not how this stuff works.”

Locking a door?
I glanced at her sharply, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“You’ve got to keep it going every time you fall asleep. Close your eyes.” When I hesitated, she

waved at me impatiently. “Close your eyes. This is easier to do if you can just feel it.”

Trusting Karayan wasn’t something that came naturally, but I swallowed my suspicion and did as

she asked.

“You can sense the edge of your dream, right?”

“Yes,” I said. In my mind’s eye I stood in the center of a snow globe, its curving wall of glass

separating this dream from the infinite dream it travelled through, like a bubble of air in water.

“Okay. You have to hold that edge in your mind. Search it for weak spots. Will it to grow

stronger.”

As she spoke, I let my mind probe the outer edges of this dream. I found that—unlike the glass

wall of a snow globe—this wall shifted under my touch. Some places were thicker, some thinner. And

then I came to a small hole in the wall, centered around a silvery cord. Curious, I toyed with the idea

of closing the hole. It started to constrict instantly.

“Stop!” Karayan said. “Unless you’re done with this lesson.”

My eyes sprang open. “You said to look for weak spots.”

Karayan looked exasperated. “You want me in here, you’ve got to leave one door open.”

“Okay, sorry.”

Karayan gave me an appraising look. “But that was pretty good,” she said. “Don’t worry. You’ll

build up strength over time, and one day you’ll be able to push unwanted visitors out of your dream.”

I suddenly remembered the time I’d visited Karayan’s dream. “You tried to do that to me,” I said.

“Well,” her smile looked a little strained. “I wasn’t trying all that hard.” She brushed her hands, as

though finished with a dirty job. “That should be enough to get you started. Maybe if you keep your

head down, the incubus will leave you alone.”

I laughed ruefully. “Yeah,
that’s
not going to happen.”

“Braedyn,” Karayan put a hand on my shoulder. “We have no idea how powerful this incubus is.”

“I know.”

“Good. Don’t be stupid. If he doesn’t come after you, don’t go after him. That’s all I’m saying.”

I pushed Karayan’s hand off my shoulder. “If he tries to hurt Cassie, I’m going after him.”

“That. That right there is stupid.” Karayan punctuated the words by poking her finger into my

chest.

“Cassie doesn’t know the danger she’s in,” I said. “I do.” I turned away but Karayan caught my

shoulder and spun me back to face her.

“If you’re not careful, your friend is going to get you killed.”

“There’s no way I’d leave her unprotected,” I said, getting angry. “There’s no way I’d leave any of

my friends unprotected. That’s the difference between you and me.”

“No,” Karayan snapped back. “The difference between you and me is that I’m not wiling to throw

my life away trying to win approval from a bunch of old men who’d just as soon see me dead.”

“You know, Karayan? Maybe the reason you don’t have any family is because you don’t

understand what
makes
family family.”

My words struck Karayan deeply, as I meant them to. She jerked back as if stung. “Believe it or

not, I really am trying to help you. The writing is on the wall. If that incubus is as strong as he seems,

there’s a good chance he’ll open the seal like he plans.”

Her words drove like spikes into my chest. I tried to keep my expression neutral. “You should go

now.”

“And once the seal is open and the Lilitu are freed, the Guard is going to be wiped out—you along

with them if you’re still standing by their—”

With the smallest twist of effort, I closed the hole I’d found in my dream. Karayan winked out of

my garden mid-rant. Fury boiled in my mind, but under that, an icy sea of terror opened up. My mind

cast out, running along the walls of my dream. Everywhere I passed, I felt the walls of the dream

harden, thicken into something like granite, seamless and solid, until no weakness remained.

Standing in the garden, I shivered. I may have cast Karayan out effortlessly, but her words were

much harder to banish.

“Get up, Dad.” I stood next to Dad’s bed, dressed for school. The room was dark and still, filled with

the peace of early morning. It grated on my nerves, contrasting sharply with the chaos of my thoughts.

“Dad. Time to get up.”

Dad groaned. He opened his eyes and glanced at the clock. “Braedyn?”

“We need to see the Guard.”

“You found something?” Dad asked, sitting up.

“Hale’s up. I saw him coming back from his run.” I had waited in my room at the window since

five, watching for Hale’s return.

“Okay. I’m up.”

“I’ll be downstairs.” I walked to the door, already caught up in another tangle of anxious thoughts.

“Oh, Braedyn,” Dad called from behind me. I turned as he swung his legs over the side of his bed,

rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He gave me a tired smile. “Happy Birthday.”

I stopped with my hand on the door, running through the days in my head. But of course he was

right. November ninth. I was 17 years old today.

It took longer to get everyone assembled than I expected. It was 6:30 by the time everyone had

joined us in the Guard’s living room. Lucas and Gretchen were the last two down the stairs. When they

sat down, Lucas’s jaw creaked with a massive yawn and Matthew ruffled Gretchen’s short hair

affectionately.

“Okay, what’s up?” Hale asked.

“It’s Mr. Hart,” I said grimly. I told them what had happened last night. I even told them the part

Karayan had played. When Thane heard her name his expression darkened with fury, but no one

interrupted me. More than one of them looked unsettled when I explained how I’d touched Mr. Hart’s

dream and felt nothing. That Karayan was surprised, too, made them more uncomfortable. “It’s him,”

I finished. “Mr. Hart has to be the incubus.”

“Braedyn, honey.” Dad took my hand and looked into my face. His expression was deadly serious.

“Is it possible, is it at all possible that this dream you had doesn’t mean what you think it means?”

“You think I’m making this up?” I asked, crushed.

“No. You believe what you’re saying, no question. But I need to know if there’s any possibility

that Mr. Hart is human.”

“I’m telling you what I saw,” I said.

“I’m more concerned with what you haven’t seen,” Dad said gently. “You say you sensed nothing

from his dream. Okay, correct me if I’m wrong, but that means if you couldn’t sense he was human,

you also couldn’t sense that he was Lilitu, right?”

I opened my mouth to argue, but I couldn’t.

“And neither you nor Gretchen saw anything supernatural about him.”

“Gretchen?” I asked. “When did Gretchen see Mr. Hart?”

“I went to his house last night,” she said.

“And?” I asked.

“Sorry, Braedyn,” Gretchen said. “I was looking hard for anything at all, but,” she shrugged

unhappily.

I glanced around the table. “That doesn’t mean he’s not an incubus. Angela told us, we don’t know

enough about them to know if spotters can even see them.”

“Maybe,” Gretchen admitted. “But he lives with his wife and two little kids. If he’s an incubus,

he’s gone to some pretty extreme measures to fit in.”

“I’m telling you, something’s not right with that guy,” I insisted.

“Braedyn can you tell me with 100 percent certainty that Mr. Hart is an incubus?” Dad asked, but

then held up a finger before I could answer. “Please. Think hard, honey. Because you’re asking us to

execute a man.”

The breath I’d taken to answer with left my lungs. Everyone watched me, waiting. My confidence

wavered. What if they were right? What if I was misinterpreting the signs? “Maybe,” I licked my lips.

“Maybe we should wait a bit longer.”

“Okay.” Dad glanced across the table and I saw Hale and Matthew relax. I suddenly realized that

they had been preparing themselves to kill someone on my word. “Okay. We’ll wait.”

The doorbell rang, shattering the quiet morning with a peal of bells.

Matthew stood and answered the door in the foyer.

I heard an explosion of voices, and Matthew’s laughter. “Holy shit, man, look at you!”

“What about you, dude?” the guy Matthew was talking to answered. “I hear you let some woman

put a leash on you. What’s up with that?”

I glanced at Gretchen, whose eyebrows hiked up, amused.

“You might want to watch what you say,” Matthew said as he and the newcomers walked into the

living room. Four men in their early twenties dropped their overstuffed duffels onto the floor. They