Tangible (Dreamwalker) (10 page)

Though the landscape didn’t change, there was an area to her left that seemed lighter. Was the deep grey more unstable there? Were the swirls more shimmery and less black? Were there sparkles, and was that good or bad? It was so subtle she’d never have noticed while the shield was down.

There was no noticing anything but fear and monsters and screaming while the shield was down.

She pointed. “
Is it that way?”

“Excellent.”
He smiled. “
Take us there.”

She did, closing on the shimmer until there was no doubting it. The sparks contained colors—colors that matched her and Zeke, colors from the real world, centered in one spot.

“That’s my exit,”
she said, certain now. “
Where is yours?”

“You wouldn’t be able to see it.”

“How do I use mine?”

He toed the sparks at their feet. “
Imagine yourself jumping into it.”

She did and felt herself being sucked down, down...until hands caught her shoulders and hoisted her back into the dreamsphere.

“Not yet,”
he said with a laugh. “
We’re not finished. Five to ten exposures to the wraiths is customary for a first session. We’ve done two. I’ll compromise and say three’s enough for tonight. I can swing one more if you can.”

Maggie eyed Zeke, surprised. “
I didn’t realize there was any question as to whether you could swing it.”

“One more,”
he repeated, once again nonchalant. Because they were linked, she knew he was worried about both of them. About his ability to handle her. About her being an L5 and what that meant for him. “
Training may go...slower with me than with someone else. And we’ll have additional issues. I’ll explain tomorrow. The rest of tonight, I’m going to maintain a wall between you and the dreamsphere and let you sleep.”

“You’re damn right you’ll explain,”
she responded, glad to hear they’d made progress but annoyed that there was so much she didn’t understand. “
How do you expect me to learn when you’re hiding information? Cooperation has to come from both sides.”

Was everyone’s reticence due to time constraints or fear of demoralizing her? She didn’t think Lillian and Rhys would have agreed Zeke should mentor her if they believed he’d fail, but she couldn’t forget the tension. The glances. The hints. Zeke’s anxiety confirmed there was more at risk during training than the fact he might violate professional ethics by having sex with her.

“I’ll start cooperating now and warn you about something.”
He met her gaze, the grey of his eyes nothing like the dreamsphere.
“When we return to terra firma, the tangible will be more pronounced.”

“Why? And what will that mean for me?”

“We’ve completed the link. The magnet sensation, that pulling thing, will be harder to ignore and may affect your emotions
,” he cautioned.
“You may, ah, find you want to be near me. Just remember what you’re feeling is because of the dreamsphere—not anything else.”

What she’d been feeling about Zeke was already hard to ignore. Even knowing there were monsters poised outside his shield, she wanted to kiss him. As the dreamsphere eddied around them, formless and nondescript, she realized this was literally what it was like when your world was reduced to nothing but the man in front of you.

His gaze dropped her lips. Since they spoke mind-to-mind here, did that mean he could read her thoughts?

“Are you ready?”
he asked.

For him to kiss her again? For luck this time. Good idea. She placed her hands on his chest and tilted her face to his. Would it feel as delicious here as it did there?

“I’m going to count down and drop the shield.”

Crap, he didn’t mean kissing. She braced herself.

“Three, two, one.”

His hands tightened on her shoulders. The shield disappeared.

Her senses, her skin, told her she’d just been dunked into gelatin. Not inch by inch, but abruptly, her whole self at once. The dreamsphere pressed at them. The hair on her arms and legs prickled as if she’d been given a shock.

“This isn’t the same as the first two times,”
she told him. Blackness engulfed them. Her eyes ached as she tried to adjust.

When she did, in the distance, Maggie saw red. Literally.

“Fuck me,”
Zeke muttered. “
That can’t be what it looks like. Your conduit is locked down.”

Whatever else he said was drowned by the sudden wailing of wraiths.

They struck. Her body convulsed. Again and again, monsters battered into and past her, buffeting her. Zeke held her so tight it was hard to breathe, but since the monsters were attacking from every direction, he couldn’t protect her completely.

“What’s going on? Make it stop,”
she begged.

“Something’s wrong. Very wrong.”

She clung to him.
“That much is obvious.”

An invisible wall slammed into them. Their bodies catapulted through the dreamsphere toward the red glow.

Zeke was cursing. They were wrenched apart and back together, as if attached by rubber bands. A rushing sound originated from the red area that sparkled like her conduit.

The dreamsphere lightened the closer they hurtled to the redness until she could see black and grey figures streaming into that vortex.

“Time to go. This is gonna hurt, sweetheart,”
he warned her, and suddenly everything did.

Pain wasn’t black. It was pure red, no sparkles. Scarlet agony, every nerve ending tortured.

But she didn’t scream. He’d told her not to scream. Eventually she swam out of the pain and heard fireworks. Yelling.

She was in her actual body and the mercifully vomit-free bed. Zeke held her. They barely breathed, both of them stunned by the aftermath of their encounter in the dreamsphere. She lay across his chest, clutching him like a life preserver.

Something inside the house crashed. Clattered. Above them were shouts, excitement and a series of thumps pounding down the staircase.

Zeke rolled off the bed. Smacked on the lights. Maggie kicked aside the blankets, heart racing, amazed she could feel more terrified than she had in the dreamsphere.

Or was it amazing? This was real. As was the rattle on the doorknob, followed by a vigorous hammering.

“Vampires wouldn’t knock, right?” she choked out.

Zeke snatched up the sword. “Get a gun. Shoot anything that looks wrong.”

“It’s locked,” yelled Rhys’s voice right before the door boomed. He was trying to bash it down.

Zeke yanked it open. “What’s all the fuss?”

Rhys stood at the door, a large piece of medical equipment in one hand and his walkie-talkie in the other. “I came to ask you that question. After I zapped the living daylights out of both of you. What the hell is going on?”

“Sleeping. Training. Something’s off in the dreamsphere.”

“No shit,” Rhys said. “We’ve got a third manifestation.”

How could that be? Zeke had said he could keep the wraiths from getting through. Maggie hauled herself off the mattress, surprised by aches and pains that had to stem from the dreamsphere. In real life, she’d been lolling in bed, and that didn’t lend itself to bruises. Unless somebody had beaten her while she slept.

Zeke stiffened. “Anyone hurt?”

“Not mortally,” Rhys said. “But wraiths keep popping out of closets like Jack in the Boxes. Did you screw her already, man? You couldn’t wait a couple months?”

“Go to hell,” Zeke said tightly. “I did not have sex with my student.”

Maggie added her protest to his. “Zeke and I didn’t have sex. Not even so much as a goodnight kiss.”

Rhys glared at Zeke. “Then why are we drowning in wraiths? The crazy bastards don’t even seem interested in tracking Maggie. They just fling themselves at the nearest alucinator’s throat. The only explanation for their being here is you lost yourself.”

“If I’d lost myself would I be awake right now?” Zeke started getting dressed and strapping weapons on himself. Fury bristled off him like quills.

Maggie wasn’t familiar enough with the dreamsphere to gauge what was lost and what wasn’t, but Zeke had never indicated they were off course. She’d located her conduit right before they’d been whammied into that red patch.

“If you aren’t lost, that leaves her,” Rhys told Zeke. His dark brown eyes stared at Maggie with a cold, implacable fury. “She tricked you. Tricked all of us. We’ve got another psychopath on our hands, and this time she doesn’t get a second chance.”

Chapter Six

“No.” Zeke’s sword flew up, the tip halting an inch before Rhys’s throat. “It’s not her.”

“Like it wasn’t her last time?” Rhys asked, but he wasn’t watching Zeke. He was watching Maggie, his gaze mistrustful.

“It’s not the same.” Zeke had been careful. He hadn’t pushed himself or Maggie, and his shield—defective as it was—hadn’t failed. “There’s another explanation.”

Rhys shifted his attention to Zeke. “You should have let me mentor her. I’m not perforated. She couldn’t have gotten past me and manifested a swarm. We wouldn’t have to take her out.”

“What do you mean, take me out?” Maggie asked. “I cooperated. I did everything Zeke said.”

Rhys looked ready to take Maggie out now, so Zeke didn’t let his sword waver. “If Lillian couldn’t connect with her, neither could you. You’re not a curator.”

“This has to happen, Zeke.” Something deep in the house clattered. Rhys glanced over his shoulder and back. “She’s dangerous. We can’t let her continue to manifest, or it could be the last screw up any of us make. Sean’s already out of commission.”

Rhys moved to slip his walkie into its holster, but it was too close to his gun for Zeke’s liking.

“Don’t think so, buddy.” Zeke prodded him with the sword and Rhys kept his hand in the air. He understood Rhys’s suspicions but they couldn’t be right. Zeke had been there, in Maggie’s dreamsphere. She’d been baffled by everything, barely able to master basic lessons, and terrified of the wraiths.

If she were like Karen, she could have faked her naïveté.

He didn’t want to distrust her, but movement flickered in the corner of his vision. Maggie, while he and Rhys argued, had gotten her hands on a gun.

She pointed it, the muzzle steady. “I’m not a psychopath.”

Zeke shifted sideways so he could keep his sword on Rhys and his eye on Maggie. Her hair bushed around her head and her skin was pale as milk. Freckles stood out on her nose and cheeks like paint specks. The bandage on her neck had disappeared, and the wound trickled blood onto her flowered satin PJs. Her eyes were practically all pupil.

“No offense,” he told her, “but you look a little psycho right now.”

“What is it you intend to do, kill me?” she asked Rhys.

“Neutralize you,” he said, “and the threat you represent. One way or another. That’s our job.”

Rhys didn’t explain how they’d neutralize her, but she’d read the paperwork word for word, asking a thousand questions. Zeke had thought she’d never sign.

She jabbed the gun in Rhys’s direction. “You’re not neutralizing me.”

“We could petition a curator to handle you, but trust me when I say you don’t want that,” Rhys warned her. “We’ll at least deal with you humanely.”

If she were like Karen, she hadn’t planned this very well.

Karen had been meticulous. Deadly meticulous. She’d taken her sweet time lulling them into a false sense of security. Maggie, on the other hand, hadn’t even been an alucinator for twenty-four hours.

“Why don’t you put the gun down, Maggie?” Zeke asked. “If it goes off, the neighbors might call 9-1-1.” They weren’t in much danger with the safety on—which she clearly didn’t realize—but he wanted her to understand he was taking her seriously.

“Use your brains a minute, gentlemen,” she scoffed, trying to hold the pistol steady with her other arm. “Why would I manifest vampires on purpose? Didn’t you say they’d eat me? I would indeed have to be crazy to think that was a wise plan. I don’t have a death wish.”

Karen hadn’t seemed to have a death wish, either. She’d been convinced
her
wraiths wouldn’t harm her, and they hadn’t, a fact still being investigated by alucinators way above Zeke’s pay grade.

At the same time, Maggie’s dreamsphere hadn’t felt like Karen’s. He hadn’t imagined Maggie’s fear or that second conduit, the active one he hadn’t had time to evaluate. It hadn’t been his, which left Maggie. How had it gotten there?

“We can’t take the chance,” Rhys said, his eyes sad. “This area is heavily populated. Too many lives at stake. If you put the gun down, this doesn’t have to involve violence.”

“Is this about Harrisburg? I knew I needed that story,” Maggie complained. “I can’t defend myself from something you won’t even tell me about. Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”

“The more I think about it, the more I don’t think Maggie conned us,” Zeke told Rhys, lowering the sword in good faith. “I’m going to explain Harrisburg to her. Then I’m going to explain to you why I don’t think this situation is the same. Will you give me that?”