Disciple: DreamWalkers, Book 2 (14 page)

“Because she shouldn’t be out of that coma,” Zeke said. “Why is everyone forgetting what she’s capable of?”

“No one is forgetting anything. But Dr. Leifer wants to exploit your connection with Karen as we proceed with our investigation.”

Zeke blatted out a disgusted noise. “Dr. Leifer is an idiot.”

“Dr. Leifer, whom you met one time for the space of ten minutes,” Adi said dryly, “is one of the top theoretical dreamspace researchers in the world. We’re lucky to have him here.”

When were Maggie and Zeke going to get another chance to talk to Adi privately? There was a wealth of information in what Adi wasn’t telling them. Maggie could shut her eyes and see the writing on that wall.

In fact, she did shut her eyes. Until a hand closed on her shoulder, shaking her awake.

It was better than a gun barrel.

“This is all gonna have to wait. I need to put Maggie to bed.” Zeke urged her out of her chair but thankfully didn’t force her to do jumping jacks. God, she was tired. She smacked her cheeks to wake up. It always worked in the movies.

“I’m not a child,” she fussed through huge yawn. Her whole body seemed to be draining into her feet.

“That’s another thing,” Adi said. “After tonight, I’ll need Zeke with Karen Kingsbury twenty-four-seven until she matriculates. Think of it as an express GED program.”

“What the fuck? I don’t want to be with…” Zeke stopped himself from complete mutiny and muttered a few more curses. If the North American vigils cared about insubordination, Zeke and many others would have been dishonorably discharged long ago. “What about Maggie? Her shielding is imperfect and she can’t lock herself out of the sphere.”

Maggie rested her heavy head one hand, hoping she wouldn’t fall asleep while standing. Her shield had experienced a leap in quality, but she hadn’t been able to sustain it in the trance sphere—and she’d manifested wraiths as a result. How many had been “hers”? The ones that ate entire people?

Could another code one happen anytime Maggie slept? Was Adi so obsessed with finding out how Karen’s broken arm had healed that she’d risk everyone here?

“We really need to talk,” Maggie said. It came out more like “taaaaaaa” as she yawned. She had to tell them this was a bad idea, tell them she’d been there when Karen had manipulated them. “I made it to the sphere.”

“We realize that,” Adi said. “The code one was a bit of a giveaway.”

Maggie was too tired to argue. Unfortunately, she couldn’t prove Karen was responsible for anything besides malice. She couldn’t prove she herself wasn’t weak, couldn’t prove she wasn’t a nascent portal the wraiths intended to use to attack the physical plane. But didn’t Adi and Zeke need to know Karen had realized Maggie was there? Didn’t they need to know Maggie had kicked in that wraith’s head? She’d created the carcasses being studied in the bowels of the facility.

Best not to introduce this when she was standing next to a camera.

“Tonight,” Adi told them, “you can sleep together.” She paused while that sank in. They’d need to make good use of the time. Dreamsphere conversations could be private in a way terra firma conversations couldn’t.

“Maggie’s shield will need to be at phase two by tomorrow,” Adi continued. “I hate to sleep barricade an L5 disciple. It could deteriorate her progress.”

“I’ll take her in once a day,” Zeke said. “I can handle two phase ones.”

“Nobody can handle two phase ones,” Adi corrected, not ungently. While most alucinators needed to touch base with the sphere regularly, they couldn’t spend all their time inside it. It was both Somnium policy and good sense, since it led to irritability, hallucinations, and paranoia.

Except for curators. Or maybe that explained curators.

“I have to. She’s not ready, and she sure as fuck doesn’t need to be in there alone if you’re letting Karen into the sphere,” Zeke said. An increase in irritability would probably send Zeke over the edge.

Adi wouldn’t meet Maggie’s eyes. “She’ll have to be ready, and Karen will be with you, so she cannot harm Maggie. You must remain in top form, Zeke. You’re needed.”

Meaning she, Maggie, wasn’t needed, not like Zeke.

He crossed his arms. “Well, you’re not calling a fucking curator to take Maggie if you won’t call one for Karen.”

“I haven’t petitioned a curator for anyone, for the obvious reason that I don’t want one involved.” Adi smiled bitterly. “Unfortunately, classified information has a way of becoming unclassified. A curator may become interested no matter what. Would you feel better if we summon Lill to help her? I trust Lill completely, and she has no phase one students at this time.”

“My area will be short-staffed as hell if we lose another sentry to this mess,” Zeke said gruffly. “But at least Paolo’s back from paternity leave. He can confound instead of Lill.”

The alucinator skill of confounding witnesses—erasing memories when people saw things they shouldn’t—was highly valued for field teams and missions involving deadbeat dreamers. It was one of the primary reasons the dreamsphere had been able to stay hidden from humans throughout the ages. The skill was even more in demand now that technological advances complicated…pretty much everything. Confounders could basically write their own tickets.

“Where do we bunk?” Zeke asked.

“Blake will show you.” Adi opened the door, and Maggie, half supported by Zeke, finally got to leave the holding cell.

She didn’t miss the distrustful glances thrown her way by everyone she passed. Whether it had been confirmed the attack had been Maggie’s doing or not, she knew who was catching the blame for it.

The incompetent phase one disciple—the one who couldn’t shield for shit according to her own mentor.

The one who had one more sleep to get it right before her mentor had devote himself to his psycho ex-lover.

Chapter Nine

Zeke watched Maggie undress for what he knew could be the last time. While they didn’t get naked together, two months of sharing a room with her had given him a minor immunity to her half-nudity.

Very minor. Her back to him, she unbuttoned her blouse and draped it over the chair where her blazer already hung. The wide straps of her plain beige bra might not have been suggestive on anyone else, but to him she was sexy no matter what she did.

Shoving her cold feet against his legs at night?

Sexy.

Sparring with him in class—verbally or physically?

Sexy.

Eating a bowl of oatmeal while she read a book?

Sexy.

Cutting her fucking toenails, with her legs twisted and her eyes all squinty?

Sexy.

Getting ready for bed in a tiny bunkroom with two hostile guards stationed outside and his homicidal ex-girlfriend sleeping in the same building?

Still sexy.

He wanted Maggie to ditch that bra and tell him she’d been wrong to cut him off in the SUV. That she wanted him right here, right now.

Yeah, he had it bad.

She popped her nightgown over her head, one of her ugly flannel ones. The coma station was colder than base. With some shrugging and fumbling, she managed to unhook the bra under cover of the gown.

“It’s amazing how you do that,” he found himself saying. “You’re a contortionist.”

“What?” She slid an arm out the sleeve, wriggling her hand free. She paused for a huge, cracking yawn. The facility’s lights were night-dim but not off. It was dangerous to allow dark corners in a place where wraiths might manifest.

He waved his hand in her general direction. “The bra thing.”

“Beats flashing the people I have to share a room with.”

“I doubt it would burn my eyes out of their sockets.” He hadn’t gotten his hands on her gorgeous breasts in the SUV, but he’d almost touched her pussy. She’d been wet, even through her panties. And she’d stopped him.

Maggie was the grown-up in this relationship.

“You’re fixated on breasts.” She folded the brassiere in half and stashed it in her duffel bag as if she didn’t want him to see it. Was she thinking about the SUV make-out session like he was? “It’s tedious.”

“Not to me.” He flipped back the covers. He was always first between the sheets. It took her longer to get ready. “Come to bed.”

She fell onto the mattress beside him with a groan. “The last time I was this tired, it was the night my parents…” She cleared her throat. “I’m really tired.”

She never talked about that night—the incident each alucinator experienced that shoved them into a downward spiral. If their sleeps took place in the same geographical location long enough, their nightmares broke through into the sphere.

That was when they found out monsters were real.

“I was eighteen,” he said abruptly. He wasn’t one to share, either. But tonight, possibly his and Maggie’s last night together—he found himself wanting something he couldn’t name. Something that had nothing to do with his hard-on or her breasts. He wanted that too, but he always wanted that. Tonight, he wanted something more. “My parents and sister. A fire.”

Untimely family deaths were sometimes, but not always, the instigation. Alucinators tended not to have children, as parenting seemed to lend potential dreamers a balance that kept them from going over the edge. Eighteen was about the youngest anyone came over.

Her cool hand slid into his. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too.” He’d grown up poor, with two working parents. Latch-key kids in a rough neighborhood. His home life hadn’t been fantastic but hadn’t been bad enough in and of itself to send him over the edge. That had happened after the tragedy—as it generally did.

It no longer felt like yesterday that he’d lost his family and gained a calling. He’d been an alucinator more years than he hadn’t been one. For Maggie, though, the wound was fresh, even though she had Hayden to share her pain with.

She could have Zeke if she wanted him.

“You can talk about it if you like,” he offered. He hadn’t encouraged that brand of intimacy, afraid it would beget other intimacies.

“It’s too depressing and I’m too tired.” The bed was narrower than the king-sized ones allotted to mentors and disciples at their base. His arm pressed hers. His leg pressed hers. The flannel of her gown was soft and old, and her warmth seeped through it.

At least thinking about his parents and her parents had taken care of his hard-on.

“Zeke,” she whispered. “Do you think you can get me to phase two by tomorrow?”

“No.”

Her hand clutched his harder. “What?”

“You can get yourself there.” Zeke stared at the ceiling instead of her, though he wanted to memorize her profile, her lips, her eyelashes. “You’re close. I don’t know if I’ve been teaching you so much as watching you teach yourself.”

“Huh?”

She sounded mostly asleep. He wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her. Or did he want to comfort himself? Tomorrow he had to allow Karen into his life and his dreams. He had to be around her. Touch her. The woman he’d discovered in the dreamsphere had been weak, frightened and twitchy, the opposite of the old Karen. But she was still manipulating the situation—whether to ditch the monsters she claimed were intelligent or achieve some other goal, he didn’t know.

He wanted nothing to do with her. As shitty as it was, he wished she was dead. “Maggie, I’m not happy about tomorrow.”

“Mmm-hmmm.” She released a long sigh. Her grip went limp.

Zeke swallowed hard. “I want to keep sharing my bed with you. Not her. I think you can hit phase two, but I’ll miss this.”

She didn’t respond. Already asleep, as he should be. Every minute he spent awake was a minute he wasn’t with Maggie.

The dreamsphere, as far as Zeke knew, didn’t heal wounds, but one’s physical condition didn’t necessarily transfer over.

Maggie latched on to him as soon as he entered the sphere. The dreamsphere had revitalized her. She was no longer worn out and distracted. Despite the smoky grayness of the sleep sphere, her eyes were as bright as he’d ever seen them, and she crackled with restrained energy.

She’d beaten him here. Wraiths gathered, a pool of black. She shoved her arm through his and bumped him with her shoulder.
“Raise your shield, pokey.”

“You do it. You shielded for over an hour the last time we slept. Longer if you count the time before you kicked me out.”

Cross, she threw up a wobbly barrier. It would suffice—here. She wouldn’t be able to protect herself in the trance sphere with it. If it turned out Maggie’s shield duration didn’t last the regulation six hours, Lill could hopefully orate with her. Offer moral support. Pop out and wake her if Karen so much as looked at her in the sphere.

He wasn’t abandoning Maggie.

He was following orders.

He was going to wrap up Karen’s situation as fast as he could.

“I’ll shield for now, but we need to talk.”
She speared him with those bright eyes. They were dressed in the exact clothing they’d worn to bed. Her in an old flannel gown and him in boxers.

He was so used to wearing imaginary clothing in dreamspace, he felt exposed.

“Yes, we do need to talk. About how you’re going to shield us the whole time we’re training so I won’t worry…”
He slid free of her arm. He needed to maintain distance between them since he wouldn’t be here to supplement her tomorrow. She had to ace this.
“I don’t want you to screw up.”

“Forget that.”
Maggie grabbed him again, but she didn’t seem to be exploiting their tangible to enhance a shield. She had both hands on his arms, staring up at him. “I saw you and Karen in the sphere.”

He knew she’d attempted to access the sphere, as Adi had ordered, and had no reason to distrust her.
“Why didn’t you respond when I called you?”

“I did. I was standing beside your shield, yelling like an idiot. I could hear all three of you, Adi included, so as a side note—my oration abilities have improved.”

“Any idea why we couldn’t sense you?”
Zeke asked, though it was a stupid question. Maggie was no curator, capable of camouflaging herself in the sphere, and she’d had no reason to do so anyway.

“None. Trust me, it was frustrating.”

“Karen said the wraiths were hiding you.”
There was no doubt something unusual had happened. Not that he wanted to believe Karen, but if the wraiths had been hiding Maggie’s signature, they could have hidden her conduit. In fact, they could have hidden Karen’s conduit—the conduit that would have allowed her to launch the wraith attack.

But if Karen had possessed a conduit, she wouldn’t have remained quietly in a coma for over a year.

“Karen also said wraiths have high IQs and a leader who wanted to kidnap me. Yet here I am.”

“If you heard that, I guess you weren’t in and out really fast and that’s why we didn’t notice you?”
he asked hopefully.

“I was there fifteen to twenty minutes, dreamsphere time. Until Karen told you I was lost and to pray I was dead. Remember that?”

“I knew she was lying.”
While Karen had seemed desperate enough to be honest, he had to wonder whether anything Karen said was worth shit.

“Lying or mistaken. I’d go with lying, all things considered.”
Maggie pulled a face.
“After she said that, I fumbled my shield and had to evacuate. I guess her prayer didn’t come true. I’m not dead.”

Maggie, now that she had his full attention, dropped her hands from his arms. Her shield quivered as the wraiths’ inky blackness pressed the walls.

“Careful.”
He raised a second barrier to bolster her. Training could wait while they discussed this.

Maggie heaved a sigh.
“Thanks.”

Zeke thought about all the things Karen had said about Maggie. When Karen had provided him with details she shouldn’t have known, like about Hayden, he’d begun to worry. He’d faltered. And he’d awoken to a code one.

A code one Karen had warned them Maggie was responsible for.

“At any point while you were tranced in, did you scream for your brother?”
he asked her.

“Why would I yell for him? He’s in Virginia.”
Maggie shook her head slowly, like she couldn’t believe he’d ask another stupid question.
“Believe it or not, I yelled for you. Fat lot of good that did me.”

“She said you called for Hayden.”

“Zeke, come on.”
Maggie crossed her arms.
“She knew I was there. Looked right at me. How much of her crap are you going to swallow? You think the wraiths were using me or hiding me? You think she’s a poor, sick alucinator, a victim of the wraiths’ evil plans? You think I’m the next weakling on their agenda?”

Zeke studied Maggie. No, he’d never call her weak. Stubborn, sometimes irritable, and a touch bigheaded—but not to the point of weakness. Shield excepted.
“I don’t trust Karen, and I don’t think you’re weak.”

“That’s a start.”
Maggie scratched the back of her head for a minute, her body language awkward. She stared at an area near his bare knees.
“The way you were hugging her, it looked like you trusted her. Is your tangible so strong you couldn’t resist? Might I point out, you have no trouble resisting me.”

Maggie had no idea how hard it was to resist her—or why he’d been forced to touch Karen. The woman had flung herself at him as soon as he’d located her. Every time he tried to extract himself from the sobbing octopus, she’d collapsed. He hadn’t been able to get any coherent explanations out of her until he’d held her upright and waited for her to calm the hell down. The tangible had been intact, but it hadn’t felt like his connection with Maggie.

It had been more like a boathook in his gut than his magnets attracted to her magnets. Karen made him feel queasy and unsettled.

“You sound jealous,”
he told Maggie. She’d kissed him in the SUV. She’d wanted him for the space of five minutes. Momentary lapse or true sentiment?

Her lips tightened.
“I’m uncomfortable at the thought of you exposing yourself to her. The tangible could influence you. You’ve lectured me on that for months. You and I have been careful, and you weren’t careful when you were training her the first time. I’m not criticizing or rehashing your past. It’s simply a fact.”

“She’s a different person than you.”
Zeke had fallen into a dumb, sexual relationship with Karen, but he hadn’t initiated it. He hadn’t even been that attracted to her at first. Maggie, on the other hand, had turned his crank since the moment he’d met her.

That, however, was “simply a fact” he’d be keeping to himself.

He continued. “
She’s completely nuts, and you’re not.”

Maggie didn’t appear mollified. “
That only makes it worse for you to be involved with her again. What if she gets you alone and traps you again? Look at it from my perspective.”

“I am, and you sound jealous.”
Which was okay by him. The fear that he might be losing her to a curator had forced him to confront his desires. They’d bubbled over and he’d kissed her. Now that the situation was possibly worse than a curator taking over her training, he thoroughly regretted the fact he’d been such an asshole to her for months.

That wasn’t how he wanted to treat her. She deserved his best—anyone’s best. He’d given her his worst. Was it any wonder she’d pushed him away in SUV?

“I’m not jealous in the commonly accepted sense.”
Maggie held up her hands.
“I’m having to postpone my training because of Karen. It endangers me and others since it’s possible, once I’m prematurely booted to phase two, I could mess up. What’s worse, if something happens to you, I’ll definitely get sent to a curator.”

He didn’t buy that Maggie’s response was so selfish. That wasn’t the woman he’d come to know. And because he’d come to know her, he saw what she was doing. He himself did it all the time. She was acting like a butthead to stave off touchy-feely, emotional shit.