Wakeworld (16 page)

W
hat do you mean, the book is missing?” Weston demanded.

Deputy Flynne rubbed a hand over his jaw and then back over his head. “It was locked up in evidence. I have no idea how somebody could have got to it.”

Vivian felt like an emotional pressure cooker about to explode. Enough already. The locket, the spheres, the Key, and now some book that held valuable information. All stolen. She was tired of being considerate, tired of trying to think the best of people. And the evidence pointed clearly in one direction.

“Grace took it.”

Both men stared at her. It was Brett who finally answered. “Grace? As in Jennings, deceased, whose body you just dug up?”

“Grace, as in Jennings, who was not the body in the coffin.”

“I thought we weren’t going to tell him—”

“You’re saying there’s an unidentified body in the coffin? That’s not possible.” Brett’s face belied his words, and he ran both hands over his head as though it ached.

“You don’t know what you’re saying.” At any other time, Weston’s face might have frightened her. The only evidence she had that he hadn’t murdered his family in cold blood was his own word on the subject, and at the moment he looked sufficiently like a wild man of the mountains to be well outside the law.

“She had access to your father’s dreamspheres, and plenty of time to study sorcery. She left you a secret message to let you know that she was using the dreamspheres.”

“Goddamn it, Vivian, Grace is not a sorceress. They’re born, not made.” But there was doubt in his voice, and Brett jumped in.

“The woman was burned up in a house fire. I saw the body.”

Vivian fixed him with her full attention, not missing the way he took a step back under the pressure of her gaze. “How could you have seen the body? How old were you?”

“I had a habit of sticking my nose in where it didn’t belong. The fire was an obvious point of fascination, and I was seventeen and already obsessed with crime. Fire trucks, cops . . .”

“And the scene wasn’t off limits?”

“Please. This is Krebston. I shoved in with an offer to help. They knew me, were happy for an extra pair of hands. I saw her body—”

“It wasn’t hers.”

Brett sighed. “Oh come on, Vivian—if it wasn’t her, then who was it? No missing people in Krebston.”

“Could have been from anywhere. She has access to dreamspheres, do you hear me?” The rage was fire in her veins now, heating her body from the inside out.

“But when did she get them?” Weston sagged into a chair. His face looked old and haggard. There were smudges of dirt on forehead and cheeks, flakes of it in his beard.

“From your father’s coffin. She was found with the body before he was buried. From what you told me, I doubt she was grieving.”

The old man shook his head, but Vivian pressed on. “Her behavior that night made people so uneasy they sent her off to an orphanage.”

“I should have gone back for her.”

Brett looked from one to the other. “You guys seriously expect me to believe your friend here is what—a hundred years old?”

“A hundred and three.”

“Right. Well, you’ll understand if I have a problem with that.”

The room had shifted into sharper detail. Vivian could see into all of the shadowed corners, could smell Brett’s fear and Weston’s grief.

“Read him the note we found in the coffin,” she said. She wasn’t asking, and after a brief hesitation Weston complied.

“‘I tried to wait for you, but then the cancer came and I had to go. I took one of the dreamspheres—hope you didn’t need it. There are giants in it, so we’ll see how that goes. As for the body, I didn’t kill anyone so don’t fret. Come find me.’”

“Perfect,” Brett said. “Thank you so much for sharing. What am I supposed to do with that? We can’t take her word for anything—now I have to try to place this body.”

“I wouldn’t,” Vivian said, closing her eyes. “You have no idea where that body has been.”

“Might not even be human,” Weston added.

His voice sounded distant, the words close to meaningless.

It could be so simple, really. Allow the dragon fire to spread and grow, to bathe her cells in transforming heat. Give permission for the shift that was always there, always waiting. There was more to being dragon than scales and wings. There was power and a trick with doors. As dragon, maybe she could get through the doors and into the Between. Once there, she could track down Grace and take back the Key by force. That, and her pendant.

Simple.

And dangerous.

Mellisande, the dragon corrupted by Jehenna, had killed how many humans over the years? Even the young dragon, the one Zee had slain, had killed. Dragons were glorious, beautiful engines of destruction. Just considering the possibility, predatory thoughts flickered through her mind. A thirst for blood sent saliva flooding over her tongue.

Maybe she could exert control where the others had not, maybe the rest of who she was, Dreamshifter and sorceress, would make a difference.

But there was one more thing.

Zee. The look of hate that came onto his face when the word
dragon
was spoken. She remembered the paintings upstairs, lined up side by side. If she shifted again, she would lose him forever, if she hadn’t already.

But if she didn’t find a way to rescue him, he was also lost. And the dragon self was powerful beyond expectation.

“Vivian!”

The voices calling her name were distant but insistent. Her tongue felt thick, her skin tight. Inside something laughed. While she’d been debating the point her blood had escaped her control, had begun to make the change without her will and consent.

Freedom. A chance to shed the responsibility she’d been carrying since she was a small child parenting an unstable mother. Wings and a wide sky. Maybe she could be dragon, not for any noble purpose, but just to be, to fly. Voices whispered. Still she could not hear them clearly, not with the doors closed, but that too was a freedom. She could be power. Nothing and everything.

There was human flesh in the room, exuding the scent of fear. She could smell their blood, hear the beating of their hearts and the flurry of their breath. They backed away, slowly, edging for the door. As if they could escape her. What were they, other than prey—

No. They were men, with souls and with names. Brett Flynne. Weston Jennings. Human beings, with all the nerve endings and emotions, the burden of life and the fear of death. And what was she, that she should have the right to hunt them, to hunt anybody? With an extreme effort she focused on the kernel at her center that remained Vivian, clinging to all of the details that defined this collection of nerves and cells and made her like and unlike all of the other humans in the wide world.

Vivian drew a deep breath, and then another, feeling the coolness of the air, the small frailty of her bones.

“What’s with you guys?” she managed to say, clasping her hands together, surprised by the fine movements of fingers, the smoothness of skin on skin.

Brett stayed where he was, backed up against the door, his face shadowed with horror and disbelief.

“You might want to just forget what you saw here tonight,” Weston said, casual. “Or remember it as a dream. That would ease things for you.”

Brett looked down at Poe, who had decided to be friendly and stood pressed up against his leg. He shifted his gaze to Vivian and opened his mouth to speak. Then, with a jerk of his shoulders and a shake of the head, he turned and walked out the door.

“He’ll forget,” Weston said. “Men do. What the mind can’t encompass turns to dream, or this weird bit of daydream, or even hallucination. You know all this.”

“I know.” But she sank into a chair and sat without moving, looking at her feet side by side on the floor. One was a shade ahead of the other and she aligned them, toe and heel, as if it mattered deeply to the state of the world. Out of her peripheral vision she was aware of Weston plopping down in a chair across from her.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“What is there to say?” A weariness had come over her, and a deep and abiding sadness. She felt stripped to the bone. “How bad was it?”

“You didn’t change, not all the way. Your eyes started to glow, the scales popped out on your skin, there was steam on your breath. Pretty impressive. Thought Flynne was going to have a heart attack.”

“I noticed you didn’t look comfortable yourself.”

“Are you losing control?”

Letting her head fall into her hands she whispered, “I don’t know.”

“How long have you been dealing with the shifting?”

“Only a couple of weeks. It started soon after I found out I was a Dreamshifter, as if that weren’t enough.”

“Tough stuff,” he said. There was no irony in his voice, or pity. Just a quiet understanding. It made her feel better.

“I don’t think we have a lot of time,” she said. “I might be able to open the door as dragon, just so you know. I was thinking maybe I should, but I am worried about losing control, about hurting somebody.”

“Well, might just be a thing or two we could try before that.”

“You’ll help?”

“Penance. If Grace is a monster, I’m the one that made her into one. Only way I know to make amends.”

“Seems like maybe your father carries some blame for that.”

He shrugged. “I stood by while he killed everybody. My little sister had to shoot him to make it stop. What do you think that did to her? I could have saved her that, at least.”

Vivian had no words for that. A moment of silence, and then she flung her arms around his neck and hugged him. His body was stiff beneath the embrace, long enough for her to feel awkward and begin to pull away before one of his arms came up and patted her back. “Don’t expect too much, mind. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“That makes two of us. Where do we start?”

“A door. I’ve had little practice with calling them up, but I can find one.” His face creased into what was meant to be a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“You’re taking me to your usual spot. Where you lost your people.”

“I didn’t lose them. I know exactly where they are. I also know exactly where the door is. And if that doesn’t work, I have plan B.”

“What’s plan B?”

But he only shook his head and would not say.

D
eath,
Zee thought, but did not say.
Decay, despair, the end of all things.

The way ahead slanted sharply downward between walls of tangled thorns, thick as his arm, covered in spikes. A dank wind blew up into his face, carrying a fetid scent of refuse and rot. No trees ahead, no grass, not even dirt. The path turned to bare, harsh rock, riddled with gaping cracks and jagged stones.

Going forward was walking voluntarily into hell. Going back would be nearly impossible. Staying still was not an option.

He’d chosen a path that started off innocently enough, a grassy track between trees, sun dappled and almost airy. He had even scouted a little way along it and chosen it from all other possible options as the easiest way to travel with a wounded man.

There was also a small something inside him, a breath of dream memory that whispered, “Surmise is this way.” Maybe he had even been here before, in the alternate existence of the Warlord of Surmise. If he trusted his instincts, there was a hope of help and shelter by dark.

Once the way was chosen, it had taken a couple of hours to plan and build a conveyance that would save him from carrying Jared. A couple of sturdy branches, the blanket, some strips of leather cut from the pack to use as binding, and he’d lashed together a makeshift stretcher. The earth supported much of the wounded man’s weight, with Zee acting as packhorse between two staves, dragging his burden behind him rather than slung over his shoulder.

He filled the canteen with water, making sure that he and Jared both had a good long drink before leaving the clearing. Breakfast consisted of the last of the protein bars, wet from the dunking in the pool and falling apart, but still edible.

It wasn’t enough, though. Not nearly enough, and hunger sat tight and hard in his belly.

Jared seemed marginally better. He’d eaten a little, and drunk plenty of water. A long soak in the pool had brought his fever down and cleansed the wound. The blisters on his body seemed to be healing. Zee used up precious cleaning solution from the first-aid kit to clean and bandage them. He’d needed the blanket for the stretcher and ended up cutting his own flannel shirt into bandages to wrap around the leg.

With one thing and the other, it had been noon before they got under way, but they made good time at first, the conveyance sliding smoothly along a path that was mostly grass. Twice Zee had stopped to clear away scrub bushes, and once to move a fallen log, but at first he’d felt somewhat hopeful.

The change happened gradually. A thickening of the trees, so that the sun no longer filtered through. Underbrush closing in on the path, which became increasingly steeper and more narrow. Always in the Between there had been crossroads and branching paths everywhere, so many that it was hard to chart a course. Now there were none. No options but to keep going, or retrace his steps.

He felt Jared stir, the movement traveling through the wooden poles and into his hands. “You can’t be seriously considering going down there.”

Zee didn’t answer. Hours of walking, dragging the stretcher behind him, had left his muscles rubbery and trembling. His hunger was a constant pain now; the canteen was nearly empty. The sun would vanish over the tops of the trees soon, and it would be dark. They needed food, shelter, water.

The thought of retracing his steps felt like despair.

It would be all uphill, some of it gradual, some of it steep. And to what goal? If they went back, it would be to discount this one hope he had—that his dream memories rang true, that Surmise was to be somehow reached at the end of this dark road. And if all hope was gone, then there was nothing left but to lie down and die, a thing he had no intention of doing.

“Hang on,” he said, picking up the crossbars of the stretcher. “Gonna be a rough ride.”

Rough and dark. As he descended farther down the path, the sun was lost to view. Occasional rays of light filtered through the thick wall of thorns, just enough to let him see how treacherous was the way ahead. Every footstep was a tentative act of faith that there would be solid ground to hold him, that he wouldn’t go tumbling away into some deep chasm. He worked his way across cracks and fissures and around obstructing rocks, manhandling the stretcher behind him. Jared cursed and muttered at every jolt.

Zee’s arms ached with the weight of his burden. Thirst burned in his throat, dried by a cold wind that blew constantly against him, searching through skin and flesh and probing his bones. His face hurt and his teeth ached and he choked on the stench of bitter emptiness. It brought to his mind all of his darkest days—the first time he had looked into his mother’s eyes and seen the unlove and indifference, not quite recognizing it for what it was but feeling it through every cell of his four-year-old body. The first time he was arrested and dragged off to juvie after beating another kid senseless. Sitting in a cement cell behind bars and knowing he had lost control of his life and the ability to come and go with freedom. The moment in Surmise where the whole world had disintegrated around him as he hung by one arm from a fracturing doorway, whispering Vivian’s name. The other memory, the darkest one, of Vivian’s body morphing into that of an old hag, was too fresh and he pushed it back with all of his will.

“Death would have been more merciful than dragging me into hell,” Jared muttered. “You should have killed me.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

He stopped to rest, sinking down to the ground. The stone beneath his palms felt hot, as though the earth itself were stricken with fever. He needed a drink, but the water was almost gone. He heard a rustling from the stretcher, a dry cough.

“We’re going to die here,” Jared moaned. “You should have left me in the clearing; at least there was water.”

Zee’s fingers tightened around the sword hilt. It would feel so good to slip the tip of the blade between Jared’s ribs. Give the man what he asked for. Straight into the heart. Blissful silence would follow. Call it a mercy killing and be done.

When he was a kid, the neighbor’s dog had killed a chicken once.

“You need to kill that dog,” Zee’s father said. “Now he’s got the taste, he’ll never stop.”

The old farmer disagreed. “There’s better cures than that.” He’d tied that dead chicken around the dog’s neck. Left it there until it was so rotten it was falling apart. The dog understood the punishment and the shame. He crept around, belly low to the ground, meeting nobody’s eyes, carrying his odious burden.

Apparently, Jared was Zee’s chicken, and he hadn’t learned his lesson yet. Dragging himself back up onto his feet, he handed the canteen to the sick man. “Here. Drink.”

Trying to swallow past the desert in his own throat, he listened to the sound of precious water being swallowed and waited for the inevitable comment.

“It’s empty.”

“Astute observation. Buckle your seat belt.”

“You’re insane. We can’t go down there. Can’t you smell the evil?”

Zee could. Or he smelled something, at any rate. The stench of decay grew stronger the farther they went. And with the increasing stink the darkness increased as well. No more patches of light. The stretcher jolted and tipped and caught on stones.

Jared cursed and moaned by turns.

At last they were no longer descending but on a level. The path widened and smoothed. Dim light filtered in from above, enough to see that they walked on a wide road, with high stone walls on either side. It was much easier going, but the sense of danger and death increased and the smell became so bad that Zee pulled his T-shirt up over his nose and mouth to provide a filter. He heard Jared begin to retch and couldn’t help thinking of the waste of good water.

Something blocked the path ahead.

At first he took it for stone, but then it began to take shape. A long, sinuous neck. A broken wing. Ridged back and spiked tail. His hand tightened reflexively on the sword, but the creature was long dead, the curve of ribs visible through decaying flesh, and there was no longer any question about where the smell was coming from.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Just be thankful it’s dead.”

Zee wasn’t really thankful, though. He wanted to kill it all over again. For the first time he asked himself why he felt such hate toward the dragons. Maybe because his other self had suffered much on their account in Surmise. But he didn’t think that was all of it. This went deeper, a primal antipathy of warring races. The impossible tale the old hermit had told nagged at him. Why couldn’t it be true, considering all of the other impossible things he had come to accept?

It didn’t really matter. The dragon was dead. And the path he needed to take lay over its inconvenient and very smelly body.

“Tell me we’re going back,” Jared said.

Zee laughed, a sudden and inexplicable burst of adrenaline flooding through him at the insanity of this entire situation. “Hang on tight,” he said.

Gathering his strength, he took a few running steps to gather momentum. His feet slid in a litter of scales and he lost traction for a minute, but he kept moving. Tightening his grip on the stretcher poles, he leaped up onto the neck and let his weight carry him down the other side, pulling Jared’s weight up and over behind him.

Instead of continuing on down a clear path, he was forced to skid to a halt. A skeleton lay directly in his path. It was human in shape and composition but nearly double his own size, in both height and breadth. Scraps of flesh still clung to the bones.

No human could be that big. Some sort of giant monkey, maybe. The skeleton would look pretty much the same to his untrained eyes. But then, here in the Between it could be anything. A dream door stood in the stone wall a few paces away, tall enough to admit a creature as big as the one lying dead beside the dragon.

His first thought was that dragon and man-thing had killed each other in combat, but this theory didn’t sit right. The skeleton showed no evidence of fire and was intact. No dragonish eating of heads or limbs or other body parts. There was no indication of any struggle. The straggling plant life was untrampled. No scorch marks. Nothing but a lot of bloodstains. Some of it was the thick black sludge he recognized as dragon blood; the rest looked human.

The idea of something roaming around that could kill both a giant man-thing and a dragon without a struggle was enough to push Zee forward into a slow jog. His immediate goal was to put as much distance between himself and this place as possible. He didn’t trust that dream door to stay closed, wasn’t at all sure he wasn’t being tracked by the black dragon he’d encountered at the well.

Two paths branched out, at last, from the one he was on. Briefly, he paused. They looked identical, leading into old-growth forest. He chose the one on the right for no other reason than a vague familiarity coupled with the sensation that he was prey, and that the predator was never far behind. Run he must, and his gut told him this was the path most likely to help him survive.