Bring Me A Dream: Reveler Series 5 (7 page)

Maisie took a deep breath that might as well have lasted for eons. Fucking dinosaurs could’ve evolved and suffocated under comet dust in the time this was taking. Steve-o was taking his sweet damn time. She intended to rant until he made it up to her.

She’d been a runner for a reason. She wasn’t made for the kind of stress this put her heart through. She was going to crumble. They’d find pieces of her. Eyeball here. Toe over there.

Finally, a soft caress touched her mind—someone crossing into her city—and a minute later, strong hands went around her waist from behind.

The worry fell away as her heart rose, new and shiny again. He was okay. He was here. She laid her head back on Steve’s chest. “So what was she like?”

“Unpredictable.”

It was the first time, aside from Didier, aka Diddy, that Steve had met a nightmare like himself. Met and had a convo with, that is, as opposed to fighting with.

“Can you please answer my question with more than one word?”

Steve was too used to being alone. Now he was not only sleeping beside her, he was sharing her dreams, too.

“She said a lot of things I don’t like, especially the stuff that presumed the existence of the Sandman. She’d been raised on it. That, and a God complex.”

Maisie laughed. “I hate her already. Did she get along with Blandman?” Vincent Blackman was so boring he was bland.

“It appears he likes that kind of thing, but then, he’s seriously mentally compromised.”

“And if the Sandman does exist?”

A silence. Steve was brooding. She gritted her teeth to wait again. Pushing didn’t actually make him brood faster.

Finally, he said, “I think he’s real. And I’d be interested to meet him.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“I’m not a fan of Demon Steve,” Vince said after the apartment door closed behind the Chimera marshal. Vince was trying to act normal, but dark waves of emotion still rushed him without reason or warning. “He doesn’t care that he’s throwing you to the wolves.”

The plan to infiltrate the Oneiros had been put together too quickly, with very little consideration for what would happen if the Ones suspected treachery.

Both Mirren and Elvis had risen and stood at the window, looking out. “They have little reason to trust me. Why would they?”

“They don’t trust me either,” Vince said. “And therefore
we
can’t afford to trust them.”

Her skin seemed to glow. “I’m listening.”

He knew he’d liked her. “We both want your father dead. We keep that as our main goal—”

“David is my primary goal.”

“Okay, David first. But then your father. And along the way, we can check out the Sandman for Demon Steve.”

Mirren’s full mouth lifted in a challenging smile. “You keep calling him that. Do you think I’m a demon, too?”

“You are a goddess.”

Her smile dropped. “Maybe I don’t want to be a goddess.”

Too bad.
“I don’t want to be insane, but I think I am.” He knew he was. “I have a feeling our choices are limited and will grow more so every day, so let’s decide this: You and me. Allies.”

She snorted and looked back out the window. “What happens
after
we have sex?”

So it was a foregone conclusion with her, too. Good. He didn’t know how smooth or convincing he could be anymore when it came to seduction. Now he just
craved
. “You and me. Allies,” he repeated. “Whatever happens.”

“You barely know me,” she said. “You can’t make that promise.”

“I can. I will. I’m ready to right now.” They were alike. Dark. Crazy. She had to see that.

“Okay, how about—” she sighed heavily “—you can’t
keep
that promise.”

“It might not be
sane
to, I agree,” he told her. “But I will, no matter what. Can you?”

When she turned from the window to face him, her eyes had changed. They were dreamwater dark, though some might see a malevolent gray. But they held the prospect of
rest
, which was very different from sleep. He was so tired. And there were moments when he thought he might understand her. Or come to.

Mirren looked at him for a long time with those eyes. “All right,” she finally said. “But you’ll regret it. My father shot the last man who got close to me. Who’d promised to be with me, no matter what. Shot him in the head.”

Vince grinned. “If your father gets that close, I’ll have another chance at him myself. In fact, I look forward to it.” As if a bullet scared him.

“Why not choose life and light instead?”

“I don’t know.” He paused a moment to feel out an answer. “Maybe I’m dead already. Maybe I died out in the Scrape and this is all that’s left.”

She made an
ugh
sound, her upper lip curling. “Have you always been this melodramatic? I hate drama.”

“No, the drama is new.” It had come with the black blood on his hands.

“Work on it.”

“I am. That’s what this is about. Relief.” Heat flashed over him again, some kind of brain fever that wouldn’t clear and sent odd signals to the rest of his body.

“And if you don’t find it?” she asked.

“Then you’ll have to get used to it.” A shiver followed the heat. “I’ll make it worth your while somehow.”

***

Mirren’s stomach was in knots. And she didn’t look right.

“You’re stunning,” Vincent said, after bringing the car he’d borrowed from one of his SpiderSly execs to a stop in front of the hotel. A valet was walking around the front to take the car.

The black dress she’d wanted hadn’t fit her bust without the material puckering underneath, so she’d had to settle for a deep-green one that was supposed to have an A-line, but tented her. Her consolation prize was that the shoes she wore were gorgeous pointed-toe black heels that added four inches to her legs. Four inches brought her to Vincent’s chin.

“Thanks,” she said. “You should know that I might throw up.” What if her father had freed himself already and was there?

“Deep breaths. You can do this.”

The doorman opened her door, and Mirren swallowed her grumbles as she ducked her head to get out of the car. She relaxed her shoulders and kept her head and gaze level, as if she knew exactly what she was doing. It’s how her father stood.

She would be her father’s daughter tonight. She had to be in order to pull this off, but also, she was curious. If her father hadn’t shot her fiancé and hadn’t tried to take David from her, if he’d loved her and had invited her into his world, what would her life have been like? What was she turning her back on?

A warm hand at the small of her back signaled Vincent had given over the car keys and joined her. She liked him by her side. He made her feel grounded, an irony that wasn’t lost on her. For a man so fraught, he was like solid stone beside her. She didn’t doubt his promise of loyalty, however much she doubted her own.

He wore a perfectly tailored tuxedo pulled from his closet and had both shaved and done something to his hair that set it waving handsomely back from his face. He was waking world Vincent: carelessly handsome with a Hollywood smile. The wariness in his gaze and hitch in his breath hinted at his inner struggle, but only she would notice.

They entered together, and she found that she fit the pocket of air at his shoulder perfectly. They moved as a unit, a first for her. The madman and the nightmare.

“It’ll be fun,” Vincent said in her ear.

“And why not?” she murmured back at him. The project was so foolhardy that she inhaled for courage and ended up giddy. She’d been running from her father, afraid. Now she was heading straight into his people.
Her
people.

Inside the lobby, dark polished wood was set aglow by oversized crystal chandeliers that hung like stars captured from space and displayed for the pleasure of the elite guests who entered. The effect was both cold and rich at the same time.

Vincent stopped at the concierge desk. “Senator Fleight’s Literacy Power event?”

They were directed to the Roosevelt Room.

A tapestry rug ran the length of the lobby before breaking into a matching runner that stretched down a long hall with a series of double doors, each pair labeled with the name of an American president. A man in a black suit, clipboard in hand, stood outside the Roosevelt Room.

“Vincent Blackman and Mirren Lambert,” Vincent told him with a sideways lean to look inside the room.

Mirren worked hard to keep the tension out of her shoulders. Confidence. Power. She was a goddess. Her father had told her as much, and Vincent had said so, too.

“I’m sorry. You’re not on the list,” the man said.

“We’re guests of Agatha Fleight, the senator’s daughter,” Vincent said.

The man was unmoved. “You must be on the list to enter.”

Vincent stayed friendly. “How about you speak with Agatha and give her our names? Vincent Blackman and Mirren
Lambert
. We’ll wait here.”

Mirren was impressed with Vincent’s calm. He had to be just as wild as ever under that smooth expression and well-mannered tone.

The man at the door frowned but stepped inside the room. He spoke to someone, who spoke to someone. Vincent gave Mirren a quick, white smile while they waited. It would’ve irritated her if he didn’t follow it with a head-to-toe shiver, gritting those same teeth together. The smile turned to a momentary snarl. He glanced over at her, forcing the smile back on his face. “Don’t mind me,” he said.

Here she was, about to show someone what she really was, her true nature, and she wanted to laugh out loud. Funeral humor, she thought they called it.

A woman with a bothered expression on her face—mouth tight, forehead tense—came to the door and looked at them each in turn.

Mirren recognized Agatha from the picture on Steve Coll’s tablet—no makeup but polished, a little harried to be called away from her important guests.

“I don’t know you,” Agatha said flatly. She was glancing up at the man with the clipboard as if to say,
Throw them out
.

“My father, Didier Lambert, said to come to you should I require assistance,” Mirren told her.

Agatha’s gaze darted back. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, I know I didn’t mistake my father’s instructions,” Mirren said as kindly as she could. “He was very specific about
you
.”

Agatha flushed. Ego. “How do I know you’re who you say you are?” She glanced again toward Vincent. “And who is he again?”

Vincent grinned. “I’m Vincent Blackman of the SpiderSly Company. Mirren and I are going to sleep together; we just have to get through this bullshit of her father’s first.”

“Ex
cuse
me?” Agatha said.

Mirren swatted at Vincent. “Don’t mind him,” she told Agatha. “He quarreled with my father recently.” Almost tore his head off. “They don’t get along very well but have to make do for my sake.”

Agatha shook her head tightly, as if very uncomfortable. “This event is reserved for contributors only.”

Mirren was stalling, and she knew it. The time was now. She smiled at Agatha, saying, “My mistake,” and taking Vincent’s arm to turn away, dropped the illusion. Agatha would have only a glimpse of her nightmare eyes. That’s all she was going to get.

Vincent patted Mirren’s arm, going along with her. “He can’t say we didn’t try.”

“Wait,” Agatha said behind them.

Mirren turned back, appearing perfectly normal again. “Yes?”

Agatha stared at her eyes. “I—”

Mirren flapped her lashes at her a couple of times. “Are you going to help us or not?”

“Let’s go to bed instead,” Vincent said low. “If she were really as talented as your father said, she’d know what you are, if not who.”

Agatha twitched.

Mirren looked up at Vincent with her true eyes, giving Agatha another sideways vantage. “Give her a chance,” Mirren said. He flushed, looking down at her, but he didn’t push her away.
Allies
, he’d said. When she returned her gaze to Agatha, she was slow to replace her illusion. “Have you seen one of my kind before?”

Agatha swayed on her feet. “You’re—”

“—my father’s daughter,” Mirren finished. “And he said if I needed help I should come to you. I need help, so here I am.”

Agatha visibly gulped. She looked over her shoulder into the Roosevelt Room and then back at Mirren and Vincent. “Did he say what I should do for you?”

Mirren tilted her head. “You want to discuss it here, in this doorway?”

Behind Agatha, Mirren could see an older woman approach. Every step was taken with authority. Her gray gown had a tasteful hint of sparkle. “Agatha,” the woman said, “the bidding is about to begin.”

“I think I have to leave,” Agatha told her.

Senator Fleight’s gaze sharpened on Vincent, then gave Mirren a quick once over. “Surely not. I need you.”

“I have to attend to Ms. Lambert instead.”

“Lambert?” the senator repeated as if she doubted the name.