Lay the Ghost: Nightwatch Series book 4

by Cassidy, Debbie

  Karishma stepped back with a frown.

  Nope, I didn’t like that frown. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I have no idea. I’m not picking up any negative energy.”

  Oh, fuck. “Is he asleep?” Did the shimmer man have him?

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Fuck. Fuck this shit.

  His body heaved, as if in a sigh, and then his hind leg jerked suddenly. I jumped back, hand on heart, and watched as the paw began to morph and shift until … “Are those toes?”

  Karishma smiled. “Yes. I believe they are. It seems that your father is in stasis as his body changes.”

  “Changes … Wait, he’s changing into his natural form?”

  Karishma shrugged and pointed at the toes. “Evidence suggests as much.”

  “He said he couldn’t, that he needed more time. I don’t understand.”

  “I wish I had answers,” Karishma said. “I suggest we monitor his condition and give him space to do …” She waved her open hand over his body. “Whatever it is he needs to do.”

  All we could do was hope he didn’t take too long, because I had a feeling we were going to be needing his power and his expertise sooner rather than later.

  * * *

  I was on my fifth cup of coffee and my third book when Lark burst into the lounge. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright with excitement.

  Everyone looked up from what they were doing.

  “Please, tell me you did it,” Kris groaned. “If I have to drink another cup of coffee, I’m going to be sick.”

  Lark grinned. “We did it.” He held up a bottle filled with pale blue liquid. “First batch, but Poppy is making more. A spoon a day, and it should block REM sleep.”

  “Should?” Mai looked skeptical.

  “Trust me, it will work,” Lark said, but some of the excitement had bled out of his face.

  He’d worked hard to formulate the drug, and all we were doing was tearing him down. “I’m sure it does, Lark, and I, for one, am ready to give it a shot.”

  “No,” Kris and Jay said at the same time before exchanging sheepish glances.

  “I’ll go first.” Kris offered the room a lopsided smile. “As the test dummy. We need to be sure it works because we can’t risk Kat falling prey to the dream wanker.”

  “He has a good point,” Henri said.

  Jay tucked in his chin. “Lark, is there a way to monitor his brain waves?”

  Lark nodded. “I thought of that. I have equipment in the car. Just need a hand with it.”

  Bres stood. “I’ll help.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the EEG machine was set up by the sofa. Kris had taken a spoon of the drug ten minutes ago and looked more than ready to pass out. He lay on the sofa and closed his eyes.

  “Just relax,” Lark said. “We got you.” He attached the electrodes to Kris’s head. “I’ll be monitoring the readings, and at the first sign of REM cycle waves, I’ll pull you out.”

  Kris puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. “Okay, but can everyone else please just go do something else. I’m exhausted, but trying to sleep with several pairs of eyes on me isn’t going to work.”

  I sat down and picked up my book again. The others followed suit, and in a few minutes, there was nothing but the soft beep of the machine and the rustle of pages.

  * * *

  Sleep. Oh, God. I needed it so bad, and thanks to Kris playing crash test dummy, we knew the drug worked. He’d slept for six hours straight and woken naturally, refreshed. Bres closed the drapes to his room to block out the afternoon sun as I crawled into his bed. My mouth tasted icky from the drug, but it was worth it to get some sleep.

  Everyone had retired to their rooms. And Lark had given Karishma his bed, taking the sofa that Kris had slept on. Kris would hold the fort while the rest of the team caught a few hours of sleep. Death was still unconscious, but the toes were now a foot. There was definitely a change happening with him. I should ask Lark to check his brain waves. A yawn ripped through me. But did Death even have the same brain waves as a regular supernatural?

  I sank into the mattress with a sigh and closed my eyes, not bothering to open them as the bed dipped to accommodate Bres’s huge frame. Tris … Tris would have lain behind me, stroked my forehead, and hummed to me. Tris should be here. My eyes grew hot and pricked, but then Bres pulled me into his arms, and I nestled against his chest.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m here. Sleep.”

  And then there was nothing but blessed darkness.

  “I know you’re there, Kitty Kat.” The voice came from far away. “I can feel you. You think you can hide from me? Not anymore.”

  Ice gripped my heart as fear crowded my mind, but in the next instance, anger rushed through me.

  A spot of light entered the darkness. I was no longer alone. He was here with me. I could feel his presence like a creepy caress on the nape of my neck. I wanted to rush him, to slam my fist into his face and watch him bleed. But this was his domain.

  I had to wake up.

  “Nothing can keep us apart for long,” the shimmer man said. “We’re close, so close. Stop fighting me. Give me what I need, and I’ll let your friends live. I promise you.”

  How the fuck was this happening? This wasn’t REM sleep. This was darkness, the kind of darkness Tris had provided. The drug was working, so how was that fucker here?

  I opened my mouth to speak, to say something, but my gut warned me to keep quiet.

  “Come on, Kitty Kat, aren’t you going to say hello? Hmmmm?”

  Shit, he was closer now, but he wasn’t in here. I’d been wrong, initially. He was around me. Outside, pushing in.

  Don’t move. Don’t speak.

  “I know it’s you. I know it.” But he didn’t sound so sure now.

  He couldn’t see me. He could sense me, but he wasn’t certain of what he was picking up.

  I stifled a sigh of relief. Whatever this place was, it was as safe as I was going to get. He couldn’t get to me here. All he could do was coax me out. Push me to reveal myself and then trick me to follow him out.

  Like fuck was that happening.

  “Kitty Kat …” he sing-songed. “And more … Ooh, there are others here too. I can feel them like a tickle at the back of my nose. Interesting place.” His tone hardened. “You think you can hide here from me? You think you’ve found a loophole, huh? Well, we’ll see about that. We’ll see how long you hide.”

  Silence.

  He was gone.

  For now.

  Chapter Seven

  “He spoke to you?” Bres handed me a cup of tea in bed.

  I sipped the brew. “He suspected I was there. He sensed us all. The drug will work for a while, but not for long. We need to do something. Fast. Didn’t you see the dark place?”

  He shook his head, mouth turned down. “No. I closed my eyes, and then the next thing that happened was I woke up.”

  Was it real? What I’d heard … Was it real? “Maybe I’m going insane. Maybe the mutated fomorian gene in my DNA is finally taking effect.”

  “Or maybe it happened,” Bres said. “Maybe the mutated gene won’t have a damn effect on someone with demon blood or Death’s daughter.” His shoulders heaved. “Have faith in yourself, Kat. Everyone else does.”

  Oh, my knight in shining armor. I could smother you in chocolate and lick you all over. “Thanks.”

  The corner of Bres’s mouth lifted. “Anytime.”

  He pulled back the drapes to let in the moonlight, then stretched, so his T-shirt rose up to reveal washboard abs. Desire flared to life in the pit of my stomach.

  God, what I’d give to drown myself in sex with Bres right now. To shut out the world and just fuck the stress away.

  But there was no time.

  I drained my cup of tea and pushed back the covers. “Do you know if the books arrived from HQ?”

  “No idea.” Bres padded across the room toward the bathroom and tugge
d his tee over his head when he got to the door. “I’m going to shower before we hit the books again. Care to join?”

  He glanced back at me, his gaze hooded with desire, his fucking gorgeous torso on display, and butterflies beat their wings in my stomach as desire bloomed hot and liquid between my thighs.

  The end of the world could be around the corner …

  “Sure.” I followed him into the bathroom, heart pounding with anticipation as he turned on the hot water. The room began to fill with steam.

  He turned to me. “Clothes off, raspberry girl.” He hooked his thumb into the waistband of his joggers and ran it back and forth teasingly.

  Oh, shit. Heat rushed up my torso and hugged my neck. I pulled off my sleep shirt and quickly shucked off my shorts to stand in panties before him.

  He raked me over, and it was as if he were touching me, running his hands over me. I stepped back, taking the door with me and closing it with a click.

  “Stop staring and fuck me, Bres.”

  He was up against me in an instant, his mouth on mine in a bruising kiss that vented all the pent-up stress and tension. This, us, could be forever, or it could be for another day. It could be over in a blink, or it could last for an eternity.

  There was no knowing what would happen. No knowing if we’d stop the shimmer man, and in that moment, all that mattered was feeling something other than fear, anxiety, or grief.

  In that moment, there was nothing but the heat of his mouth on my breasts and the invasion of his fingers as they pushed into my wetness. As he tore off my panties and kicked off his joggers, there was no more time for thought.

  I abandoned myself to sensation, and the beat of hot water against my skin and the slick hot slide of flesh on flesh as Bres transported me to another place.

  The end of the fucking world would have to wait.

  * * *

  “Nothing yet,” Luther said down the phone. “Glory is hard at work, though. But it’s difficult when we’re not sure what we’re looking for. We’ve made notes on entities that may fit the bill, but none of them feel right.” He sighed in exasperation. “It’s highly frustrating.”

  Bres and I descended the stairs and hovered in the foyer. “I’ll text you my email. Copy me in on what you find. I’ll get Lark to drop off the drug he synthesized. Once you have it, you can get some rest.”

  “Will do, and Kat, be careful.”

  I’d filled Luther in on the dark place and my conversation with the shimmer man. If he took the drug, he needed to be prepared for what might happen. Bres may not have noticed anything strange when he slept, but Luther was a weaver. Maybe it would be different for him?

  “You be careful too.” I ended the call and followed Bres into the lounge.

  A table had been dragged into the room and was piled high with massive leather-bound books embossed in gold. It looked like the shipment from HQ had arrived.

  Karishma pored over the books with a frown of concentration, but she looked up as we entered.

  “I kinda wish I’d stayed at the Academy now,” she said wistfully.

  “You were at the Academy?”

  She winced. “Council business.”

  Which meant she couldn’t talk about it. “Did you see Indigo?”

  “Not at the Academy, but I was surprised to see her at Mirage Hills.” She smiled. “She’s tough, Kat.”

  Yeah, she’d had to be tough to put up with her cold parents. “You never did explain what the council was talking about when they mentioned her at my trial.”

  Karishma smiled wryly. “Indigo has the fomorian gene too.”

  I blinked in surprise. “I guess it runs in the family … Wait … how come she didn’t get put on trial?” I held up my hands. “Not that I want them to. Just wondering.”

  “Because her situation is different. The gene isn’t mutated in her. It makes her a shadow knight, and the council needs as many of those as they can get, especially ones with a little extra power at their fingertips.”

  Whoa. Little Indigo was a shadow knight, probably not so little anymore, though. Damn, I should have stayed in contact. Checked up on her. Maybe when this was over …

  “Did you sleep well, though?” Karishma asked.

  I made a meh face. “Well enough, but we’re not as safe as we think we are.” I filled her in on what had happened with the shimmer man.

  She rubbed the back of her neck. “This is bad.”

  “What’s bad?” Lark said as he entered the room.

  “The shimmer man knows where we are when we sleep,” Karishma said. “He spoke to Kat, but she kept her cool, didn’t let on his hunch was correct.”

  Jay, Kris, Henri, and Mai entered the lounge, and I filled them in on the weird not-dream. “It’s like when Tris was here.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “The dark place was safe, and this drug mimics it, except he was outside, hovering. Speaking to me. He said he could sense others, which I assume are you guys. Did you feel anything?”

  There was a chorus of no, but my attention caught on Henri’s expression. He looked … shifty.

  “Henri?”

  He sighed. “I don’t believe the drug works on golems.”

  “You dreamed?”

  He nodded, his lips pressed in a thin line. “It was nonsensical as usual. Just colors and the sensation of flying. A sense of freedom.”

  “You’re a contradiction,” Karishma said. “A soul from the Aether trapped in a golem body.”

  Henri stiffened at the assessment.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you.” Karishma looked wary.

  “You didn’t,” Henri replied. “I’ve come to terms with what I am, but hearing it out loud is still awkward.”

  “What are you intimating?” Jay asked Karishma.

  “That Henri may not be subject to the same rules as us. We have no way of knowing for sure, of course, but until we do, maybe Henri should avoid sleep.” She smiled warmly at Henri. “After all, your body doesn’t require it.”

  Henri nodded, but it wasn’t a simple nod of agreement. His mouth was turned down slightly, his blue eyes chips of ice. “I can play golem guard, you mean.” There was a definite edge to his tone.

  Karishma’s mouth parted in confusion. “I—I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s fine, Karishma.” I glared at Henri. “Now isn’t the time to bring up the issues about your genesis. What happened to you isn’t the fault of anyone in this room, so shelve the angst. You have an advantage. You don’t need sleep. So, yeah, we’re going to use it, just like we used Lark’s weaver ability and his kick-ass chem knowledge, or Karishma’s head weaver mojo. Everyone plays a part because we’re a fucking team.”

  His shoulders tensed up even more, belying his words. “Of course.” He nodded curtly at me. A sure sign he was pissed off. “I’m sorry,” he said to Karishma.

  What was his problem? This wasn’t him. He was all about the greater good, about the team, and protecting the innocent, or he had been when he’d been bound to me. It made me wonder how much of his personality had been influenced by me. It made me wonder how well I knew him. Wait, did that mean I’d fallen in love with myself?

  Mind fuck.

  “I’m worried that means he has too much control,” Lark said.

  Huh? I was lost, but a quick glance at the others told me I was the only one who hadn’t been following the conversation. This is what happened when I went off on an inner monologue.

  Lark rubbed his bottom lip with his index finger, his gaze on the fire, which crackled and popped. “The shimmer man is using the souls he traps in Somnium to fuel himself, and it’s working.”

  Right. I was on track now.

  “How many more people does he need to drag into slumber before he has enough juice to do whatever he plans on doing?” Lark asked.

  I shrugged. “He said he wanted to force me to go to him. I think he plans to keep going until the whole world is trapped in sleep.”

  I said it casually, flippantly, eve
n though the words spawned tiny pitchfork-wielding devils in my belly. Stab, stab, stab. Anxiety hurt.

  “What happens to the human body when it’s deprived of sustenance for too long?” Mai asked softly.

  It was a rhetorical question, so I bit off my response.

  “When there are no doctors awake,” Mai continued. “No hospitals operating to drip feed the people unable to wake up.” Her eyes were wide with dawning horror. “They’ll die. The world will die.”

  Yep, that had been my conclusion too, but I had an answer.

  My mouth was dry, and my pulse pounded in my throat way too hard. “It won’t come to that. If we don’t find a way to stop him, then I’ll go. I’ll give him what he wants.”

  “And let him out?” Henri snapped. “No. Not an option.”

  “Agreed,” Bres said.

  Jay shook his head. “No, he doesn’t want everyone dead. I mean, why would he want to lord over a dead world?”

  He had a point, but there was more to the shimmer man’s plan. Stuff they were forgetting. “He said he was going to unleash something, remember, or that something would come … Something sinister. Urgh, I wish I could recall the details. It’s like a fucking dream.”

  Ha.

  A dream.

  Of course it was.

  “He may just want to pass through,” Henri said.

  He had a point too. “He did say he was searching for something.” Wait, had he said that? Why did I think he’d said that?

  “And he thinks what he’s searching for is here,” Bres said. “In that case, the lives of the people of this world hold no value to him. All he cares about is finding whatever it is he’s looking for.”

  Karishma sighed in exasperation. “We can speculate all we want, it won’t help. We can’t know what he wants for sure until we know who or what he is.” She patted the pile of newly arrived books. “We focus on the research. Any entity or creature that matches the profile.”

  “Dickhead from hell?” I grinned, and the mood in the room immediately lightened.

  “Wanker from the beyond,” Mai added.