Welcome to the Dream (A Celeste Cross Book, #1) (15 page)

The Yaoguai didn't make any
noise, didn't peel back its full electric lips, crack open its
pointed electric teeth and let out a blood-curdling cry. Instead,
it snapped off the table, limbs landing lightly on the floor of the
dining hall, claws scratching against it as it sprinted towards
McDougall.

The giant Scotsman didn't
move back, he kept his position, but he kept on blasting away with
his shotgun too.

In seconds, the Yaoguai
would be upon him. It would leap into the air, press its limbs into
his chest, and push McDougall into the ground, sinking its tail
into him as it did. It would then be lights out for McDougall; all
a Yaoguai had to do was touch its own electric, crackling blue
flesh to that of its victim for long enough, and then it would
start absorbing their energy. Left alone for little under 30
seconds, the victim would be dead.

Jack wasn’t going to let
that happen today.

To destroy a Yaoguai you had
to do two things. You had to find out where the infection was
coming from, and then you had to break the connection between the
relic and the demon. In doing so, you did not really kill the
Yaoguai – left alone, the infected relic would spawn another one
unless properly contained.

When a Yaoguai came out of a
relic, it was always attached to the relic with a thin blue line,
like an umbilical cord or an anchor. It was this that you had to
get rid of. Snap the string, and the Yaoguai would go hurtling back
into the relic. It was then just a matter of locking the artefact
and making sure you weren't stupid enough to disturb it again on
the trip back to base.

Jack had already located the
line connecting the Yaoguai to its relic: a thin, blue, circling
wave of energy that twisted through the room, and right through one
of the windows opposite him.

He didn't stop, and neither
did his team. Jack pressed down onto his left foot, bringing his
assault rifle up, and locking it in position. He then fired round
after round at the line, aim perfect. It took him a whole clip –
his finger locked on his trigger, as bullet after bullet slammed
into the energy anchor – before it finally snapped.

Though the anchor was a
small target, and though it looked like little more than a
thumb-width wide, as soon as it broke, it sounded like an entire
tree snapping in half. Sparks erupted everywhere, and there was a
massive flash of blue light.

Jack quickly turned, noting
that McDougall was pressed up against the other side of the room,
shotgun held protectively in front of him, shoulders caved in, and
a wince obvious even under his bulky goggles and helmet.

‘
That was bloody close,’
McDougall noted gruffly.

Jack snapped a hand towards
the window and he got onto his radio telling the rest of his team
where the anchor had gone to. Fortunately, he had guys on the
ground outside, and he didn't have to run like a maniac out of the
building in the hope of getting to the relic before it
re-spawned.

He swore softly. This wasn't
ideal. He'd hoped that the Yaoguai would be in the same room as its
relic. Now he had to pray the team outside had seen where the
energetic anchor had been connected to before he'd shot
it.

He ran over to the window,
jumping up on one of the chairs next to it and grabbing his hands
to the bars that encased it. He craned his neck to see as much as
he could of the grounds outside.

For a desperate second he
waited, breath frozen in his chest, until he caught sight of his
team outside. In another moment, he heard a crackling message over
the radio.

They'd contained
it.

Jack let go of the bars and
jumped off the chair, knees bending and then locking as he stood
straight, cracking his shoulders from side-to-side.

‘
I take it it's over,’ McDougall
stated, his Scottish brogue thick.

Jack nodded, pulling out his
earpiece so he could scratch his ear.

It was over. Well, not
entirely. They still had to get the Yaoguai-infected relic back to
base. Then they had to transport it halfway across the state to
Knight’s headquarters.

Jack ran a hand over his
jaw, thumbing his nose, and letting his assault rifle rest by his
side.

Though he had a great deal
more to think about, his thoughts returned to Celeste.
I wonder what she's
up to.
He thought as he
nodded at his team to retreat.

Celeste Cross

It had been almost two weeks
since her little run-in with the mysterious Yaoguai. She was
pleasantly surprised at how well she was dealing with everything.
After all, it was kind of a shock. Maybe all those years spent
dealing with her own fears, and coming to terms with the monsters
in her dreams, had somehow prepared her for it. Still, she did
pause occasionally as she tried to get to work or complete Susie's
exhaustive list of chores, to remind herself just how different the
world was from that which she had thought it to be.

Though Jack hadn't given her
a great deal to go on, and the small file he'd handed to her had
contained very little information about them, she did understand
the basics. The Yaoguai were demons. They absorbed people – or
something like that. They were made of a strange kind of energy.
Though Celeste didn't know much, it was still enough to ponder.
Where did they come from, and more importantly, why did they absorb
people's energy? Was it just a food thing? Were they a kind of
parasite? Or was it something more than that?

Celeste shifted against her
chair, using the ridges in the back to scratch her
shoulders.

Fortunately, the heat wave
had abated, but Gresham City was still sweltering. On more than one
occasion now, she'd trotted off to the private beach behind the
back of Susie's house to cool down in the surf.

She could get used to living
here, even if, as it had turned out, Gresham City was absolutely
full of surprises. The Yaoguai aside, it was really quite pleasant.
Her house was beautiful, or Jack's house . . .
because it did belong to him, technically, didn't it? Not for the
first time, Celeste found herself wondering just why Jack had never
moved in. She could guess it had something to do with his father.
Obviously, he had daddy issues, though it was pretty cruel to frame
it in those terms. Several times as she'd walked past that wardrobe
in the lounge room, she'd glanced up at the box on top, but she'd
resisted the urge to bring it down and rifle through. It was
clearly very private to Jack.

That didn't stop Celeste
from getting up and padding softly into the lounge room though. She
glanced at the box. Though it sounded almost stalker-like, she
wanted to know as much about Jack as she could.

No, no, this
is the wrong way to do it.
She tried to convince herself, and she shook her head and
turned back to the kitchen.
You've got to have principles,
girl.

After a forced, heavy
breath, she walked over to the front door, opened it, and peered
outside. She'd kind of hoped to see Jack's beaten up Land Rover
rolling up the gravel driveway, but of course, it wasn't. He'd
dropped in on her so many times after her ordeal, but over the past
week she hadn't seen him once.

Celeste wasn't a
particularly romantic type. She didn't go to bars, collect numbers,
and then bounce about on her couch wondering whether she should
call them. She didn't go to the supermarket, spy a handsome man
smiling at her, and then spend the rest of the day wondering just
what it meant. She was usually a little more direct about things.
She figured if someone liked her, then something would happen
naturally, and if it didn't, then that was ok too. However, under
the sway of the curious and thoroughly handsome Jack, she was
starting to find herself becoming, well, a bit too
girly.

In the past several days,
she'd always ensured she dressed properly, never slouching around
the house in a pair of shorts and singlet, but always wearing
something flattering, attractive, and neat. She always brushed her
hair too, and absolutely ensured that she was wearing a
bra.

Yet Jack hadn't come
around.

She'd thought of calling
him, but she didn't really need his help. Unless she crawled under
the house and attacked the hot water heater, there would be no
reason to bother him.

Plus . . . he had a busy job. She had
to keep reminding herself about that. The man . . .
must be under constant pressure.

Get it out of
your head – get over him.
She tried to tell herself again.
He's probably not interested in you,
and even if he were, he wouldn't have the time for a
relationship.

It was a sobering thought,
and it was one that kept on popping up in her mind. Jack West
wasn't just your average guy; he headed up some kind of team that
dealt with a secret and deadly threat. He wouldn't have time to
walk to the park, go out for dinner, or even have a conversation
for longer than five minutes without his phone ringing.

Just get over
him.
She pleaded with
herself again as she closed the door and walked back to the kitchen
table.

Sitting roughly, she pulled
her laptop close, opening a browser. Fingers hovering over the
keyboard, she nearly typed in the one word that would doom
her.

Yaoguai.

No
. She thought
bitterly, tucking her hands under her arms and leaning back in the
chair.

She’d had to stop herself
20 times already.
They're watching you – you know that.
She thought to herself as she shook her
head softly, her luxurious black hair tickling at her cheeks and
neck.

Though she understood the
stakes, it was hard to fight against the desire to look those
demons up. She wanted to find out as much about those creatures as
she could. Because one had appeared in her freakin’ bathroom.
However, she was dead sure that, if she casually looked them up on
the Net, she would come up on a Government list immediately.
Following that, no doubt, she would get a knock on her door from
Jack, but he wouldn't be coming in for a cup of tea; he'd be coming
in to drag her back to base.

Expelling air through her
clenched teeth exasperatedly, she leaned over, grabbed the cover of
the laptop, and closed it.

I need a
distraction.
She told
herself as she got to her feet again.
Perhaps I can go back into town,
maybe go out to tea or something.

The second she thought it
was the second she remembered the church. She'd thought about it a
couple of times in the last day or two. Before she’d known what
Jack did, she’d run into him just across the road from that church.
She could remember exactly how his expression had changed when
she'd told him about the Star of David she'd seen burnt into the
oak beams.

Fortunately, she didn't have
to access the Internet to know what the Star of David could mean.
She'd read a couple of really crappy over-the-top fantasy novels
that had dealt with demons and the like, and she knew that the Star
of David in certain circumstances was also called Solomon's seal.
Solomon, the biblical figure, had been quite into demons,
apparently, to the point that he'd known how to trap them and
conjure them up.

Suddenly Celeste found
herself shaking her head and chuckling. She was talking about
Solomon as if he’d existed, as if he was a real historical figure,
and, what was more, as if he'd really conjured up
demons.

She stopped just as suddenly
as she’d started. She'd taken home an innocuous-looking stone only
to find it had been infected with the Yaoguai; she should probably
have a more open mind about these things.

Still, regardless of whether
Solomon was an historical figure or not, the Solomon's seal was
famous in demonology. And Celeste couldn't shake the feeling that
the Star of David she'd seen in the church was in fact a Solomon's
seal. After all, it had been directly above that strange carved
tile with the demon on it. Could that be a coincidence? A couple of
weeks ago, she would have thought it was. Now things were
different.

She couldn’t forget the way
Jack had looked when she’d mentioned it either. His face had paled
with shock.

She really, really wanted to
grab her keys, drive into town, and head back to that church. She
wanted to check for herself, confirm that the Star of David was
still there, and have another look at that tile. She knew it would
be suicide though. Surely the church was being watched, right? If
it had to do with the Yaoguai, presumably there’d be agents onto it
or something like that.

Come on, girl,
go find something else to do. Go outside and garden or
something.
Celeste tried
to convince herself.

She battled with herself for
another half-hour until she finally went out to do the gardening.
She would have to get a handle on her curious side. She couldn't
research the Yaoguai and she couldn't go back to that church. If
she valued her freedom, she had to move on with her life pretending
that nothing had ever happened.