Dreams’ Dark Kiss (5 page)

What had happened to her last night? This was not the way of a psychopomp. Maybe Keoni was right about her becoming a Somnian.

The sensation of pushing through a fog thick as cotton and the dizziness of her stomach dropping to her knees preceded her return to the dreamscape. Finally the fog cleared, parting in a rolling curtain. The black dog greeted her, jumping to press dexterous front paws into her thighs. Its glowing yellow gaze held hers for a moment; then the dog bounded away. The fog closed in behind the retreating tail.

Brilliant. On her own and back among nightmares.

Keoni waited, gliding through the dreamscape on bare feet in the same manner he skimmed water on his board in the Waking World. Ciaran didn’t return. Either she’d woken up, or that sweet little body of hers concealed even more surprises than he knew and she could hide herself within the fabric of the Dreaming. He’d never encountered someone of her unique makeup before. Of course, if she could hide herself, she never would have been caught by the bane. Things weren’t adding up.

Calling on his power of imagining, he reshaped the dreamscape around him into his version of Hanalei Bay. The half-moon-shaped beach on the North Shore of Kauai was a boss spot to surf—especially in winter. Dreamscape fog churned, billowing upward and out, manifesting white sand and a rise of the sheer rocky cliff above it. Keoni’s mind began to clear. He needed to ride Hanalei’s waters. He needed to think.

Newly formed waves rose to accommodate him. He nodded in anticipation, the curve of his lower lip revealing his excitement as he pushed off to meet the challenge of the surf he’d created. Now he could think.

No doubt Ciaran had begun to take on Somnian powers. This was clear from her availability as a mate, but also in her ability to call out to him and his brahs. Somnians picked up on the distress of dreamers; dreamers did not call out to them. The Waking World had no idea the Dream Guardian Guild existed. Ciaran could call on them because she’d become one of them without a doubt—a newbie, but definitely one of their own.

True, yet Keoni remained at a loss to explain the confusion of powers she’d displayed. Especially when she hadn’t shown the most basic of Somnian defenses and changed the dreamscape around her to help fend off the bane. Any dream guardian would have done so instinctually, which said she was more psychopomp than Somnian. And the contradictions came full circle. He knew she couldn’t still be a psychopomp. Unless it was possible to be both…

Talk about a hard rub. What entity could survive the double workload?

Nothing about his little bird made sense and the only thing he knew for certain was she couldn’t defend herself well enough to be set loose in the dreamscape outside the protection of a psychopomp journey. The image of her returning alone and with limited knowledge of defending against a bane attack bothered him.

Another conundrum, banes attacked Somnians all the time; fledglings even more often. But normally the creatures’ intent was to kill, to thin the ranks of their dream-guardian nemeses. He had never seen any of the creatures’ three forms—the beneficent howlers, the rapacious banes, or the demonlike ankou—try to mate their prey. It was lolo.

Keoni’s board hit the beach. He trotted a few steps onto the sand before he flipped his board and paddled back out.

Of course, the descent from howler to ankou epitomized crazy. In their true forms, the howlers were indeed nightmares, but they were things of obsidian beauty, huge lupine beings necessary to human development. Whether people knew it or not, howlers forced mankind to face their phobias and helped them learn to fight for themselves. The nightmares became rapacious only when tainted by hunger for fright. When a howler began to feed on fear, it turned bane. The banes distorted the human mind through tortures built of terror. If allowed to devolve unchecked, banes took root within the human heart and mind and eventually hijacked the host body, entering the physical realm to become ankou. An old-school power play if ever he’d seen one.

That’s where the dream guardians came in. Somnians did their best to exterminate the creatures at the bane stage, because once they perpetrated a hostile takeover of a human being, they transformed flesh into living horrors worse than serial killers and mass murderers. Ankou—the death bringers, demons that ripped people to shreds and fed on the destructive energy.

A wave broke over Keoni, and he shot through the barrel it formed, trailing a hand along the water wall behind him.

Banes were strange, twisted things, but in this case he’d witnessed one lusting after Ciaran. His
manu li’i
was special—in some really disturbing ways. He and the rest of his Somnian brahs recognized it the moment her distress call went out. Each of the alpha bachelors—Jay, Alexi, Archer and Keo—had responded to her cry for aid and the mating imperative held within.

Pride expanded his chest. She had chosen him, had even intuited his true name. But when he should have been able to hold her in the Dreaming, she had popped out of her own accord, which should never happen. No psychopomp or fledgling on any level should have been able to break the hold of a pro dream guardian. But she had.

Wings fluttered at his ear, and he gazed upward. The sound hadn’t been made by a bird; it was an alert. Sure enough, Archer’s symbol, the head of a raven, the wings sweeping around and over to form a circle, projected against the backdrop of dreamscape clouds. He and his brahs had been summoned.

He swept his senses over the dreamscape one last time.
Where are you, manu?
No response. Not even a blip. He sighed in resignation. His first instinct said Archer could wait, but he knew better. His squad leader’s call couldn’t be denied. Keoni would have to wait for Ciaran’s return to the Dreaming to settle things between them anyway.

Calling his power to him, he dissolved his illusion of the bay, and waves pulsed to life at his feet. He turned and shot forward on the crest, glancing back at Archer’s symbol. The brah definitely had style. You’d have thought he was Batman. Heh, come to think of it Batman’s creator, Bob Kane, very easily could have seen Archer in a dream and based the iconic character on him. Stranger things had happened, and Archer was old, older than any human could be, and every other dream guardian was most definitely human. Archer? Who knew.

Keoni chuckled. The dreamscape became a blur around him, coalescing to reform in various scenes. To his left, two little black girls played patty-cake in a field of flowers, the brims of their hats filtering sunlight. Ahead and to the right, a boy wizard mourned the loss of his gray-bearded mentor. Something moved at the edge of his vision, and he turned in time to see an image of the Caped Crusader swing over Gotham’s rooftops. The array of images from books were always a sure sign the Somnian home base was nearby.

More vignettes shaped the iridescent substance of the dreamscape, each of them a beloved moment from a book, any book ever read by a dreamer or dreamed by a writer. He’d reach the Libros Arcanum in four, maybe five more scenes. Keoni rubbed his hand through his hair and shook his head. He had no idea why Somnians chose such pretentious names for things. It wasn’t even proper Latin.
Libros Arcanum
. He scoffed. Why not call it what it was? The Secret Library or, mo’ bettah, the Big Ass Library—BAL for short. Heh. The BAL: home to the Dream Guardian Guild, and basically the Somnian Embassy.

The end of his musings brought him to stop at the stone steps leading into the big-ass library in question. The Libros Arcanum, every library in existence or that had ever existed—all and none simultaneously. The pair of griffin statues standing guard at either side of the front steps shook free of their stone facades. Springing to life, they bounded circles around Keoni. Not to be denied, they dipped their heads beneath his hands and lifted, forcing him to pet them. The Hawaiian patted their feathered crests and furred flanks. One jumped up and laid its front paws on his shoulders.

“Easy,” he said, amused by their antics and impatiently swishing tails. He knew what they wanted, and materialized the comic books from memory. Flipping one to each, he chuckled as the pair gulped their treats in single snaps of their beaks. They’d befriended him because he fed them the tastiest morsels, Alce, the gilded griffin, preferred Marvel while Keythong, the agate stone one, craved DC Comics.

The griffins’ rapturous enjoyment of their snacks reminded Keoni he’d need to eat soon. Hopefully Archer only wanted to touch base and the squad didn’t have a mission, so Keoni could return to the Waking World for some grinds. He had a hard time focusing when he didn’t eat, and his stomach did not like to wait.

Keoni left the griffins and thoughts of food behind, taking the steps two at a time. Before he reached the top, the studded bronze doors swung open in anticipation of his arrival. He stared into the nothingness. Churning clouds of raw dreamscape flickered before him, internally lit by bursts of lightning. You had to know where you were going when dealing with the Libros Arcanum. Otherwise you’d step off the stone entry, drop into unformed imagination and never stop falling.

“For Whom the Tale Tolls,” he said, and the library leaped to fulfill his request. The clouds became modular and began to fold and flip into new shapes. The movement reminded Keoni of a grid that decided to expand into a cube and then, just as suddenly, the interior of a bar.

With the basic structure of the library’s pub in place, the lines softened into the curving backs of chairs and archways. Iridescent building blocks took on wood tones and grain or thinned into glass. The hum of the patrons rose as they faded into view and solidified.

“What’s up, big man? You’re late,” Jay said, leaning back into one of the square leather couches and throwing his feet up on the matching ottoman. Keoni flopped down into the armchair, facing his friend.

“I’m never late, always right on time.”

The Mohawk snorted with good humor in response and brought a bottle of water to his lips. Keoni glanced at Alexi, the other occupant of the two-person couch. The pale-haired man leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, completely oblivious to Jay and Keoni’s conversation. Keoni shook his head. He’d used the term two-person couch ’cause he refused to call it a love seat as long as those two occupied it. Keoni threw an arm over the back of his chair and scanned the bar. A wild array of characters both real and imagined filled the place, but no sign of their leader. Archer either hadn’t made it yet or remained out of sight for reasons of his own.

Keoni turned back and almost laughed at the intent expression on Alexi’s face. He could have slapped the man and Alexi wouldn’t have taken his gaze off whichever of the pub’s servers held his attention. No worries there. Their squad of four bachelors—scratch that, now only three remained single—frequented For Whom the Tale Tolls to watch the girls. Well, no need to lie to himself. Neither he nor his brahs did a lot of watching. They weren’t the kind of men who sat on the bench. They ran a lot of game, and the ladies loved to play along.

An image of Ciaran, her hands on her hips in disapproval, quickly sobered Keoni. No more sexy barmaids for him. He sighed good-naturedly. He wouldn’t miss them but hoped Ciaran wouldn’t mind his coming to the bar to hang out with the brahs.

Any place you could find within a book, you could visit in the Libros Arcanum. But For Whom the Tale Tolls was a singular convention found only here, and it boasted the baddest barmaids ever written, dreamed or drooled over—bar none. Sexy librarian barmaids in colorful eyeglasses; hair pulled back in buns; white dress shirts unbuttoned one button too many and tucked into pinstriped pencil skirts.

A nervous tremor ran through Keoni’s gut just thinking about it. Shit. His bachelor status had only changed an hour or so ago, and guilt already played the monkey on his back. It almost felt wrong to think about the stilettos and the…

“Look at the ass on her,” Alexi said, tilting to one side. “That’s enough wiggle to make a man’s leg jump.” In illustration, Alexi’s leg bobbed up and down several times, and he added a woof of appreciation.

“Put the dog away until we know what needs doing,” Jay said, not bothering to ogle the servers. He was the least likely to hook up, in the dreamscape or the Waking World. Jay didn’t often have the patience for women or wooing.

Keoni leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms and exhaled. He was losing his desire to look too. Ciaran had his sex drive trussed up and focused solely on her. One of the sexy librarians leaned over him, and he jumped. Actually jumped. The woman gave Keoni a strange look. “You doing all right, Keo?” she said before placing his usual drink order on a coaster.

Shit.
Newly mated man guilt was unconscionable.

Jay worked so hard to hold in his mirth, his faced screwed up with the effort. Reconciling Jay’s
Billy Badass
style with the boyishness of his expression still proved tough for Keoni, even after their many years of friendship. Especially knowing the reason for the tattoo and what it hid.

On the flip side, Alexi didn’t have Jay’s tact and doubled over in shoulder-shaking amusement. His spiky white hair danced with the movement. Alexi was the youngest among them, and he loved living—balls out—but he respected life more and bore a weakness for the underdog. His willingness to sacrifice himself for the smallest needs of others would probably cost Alexi his life one day, but Keoni knew his friend well enough to know he wouldn’t mind a bit.

Keoni gave them the stink-eye while swirling the contents of his glass. The menacing stare continued long enough for them to catch the point before his usual grin lit his face. His brahs straightened in their seats, humoring him.

Heh, classic dog-and-pony show. He downed his drink. The cocktail of one part pineapple juice, three parts rum and a twist of lime chased away any remaining embarrassment, and the warmth spreading through his chest caused him to signal the barmaid for another.

“If the girl’s got you paranoid twisted this soon, why didn’t you bring her with?” Alexi asked, a knowing glint filling his cerulean eyes. He grabbed a handful of bar nuts, settled back onto the couch and popped them into his mouth one at a time. “You’re scanning the dreamscape for her as we speak.”

Truth. But Keoni would be damned if he’d confirm it.

Jay chimed in on the tail of Alexi’s comment, tag-team style. “You’re missing the whole issue, Xi. This big idjit lost his new woman, and he can’t stand not being there to rescue the damsel.” Jay manifested a huge strand of pearls around his neck and clutched them with a swoon. Alexi caught him and frantically fanned Jay’s face with the Southern belle-style fan he’d dreamed up. The two struck a tableau, paused, then both the fan and the pearls dissipated as Keoni was treated to a round of guffaws.