by P. S. Newman
CHAPTER SIX
I swallowed my scream on a sob, clutching my arms, my heart galloping against my ribs. I was covered in sweat, soaked in terror, drenched in sorrow.
A nightmare, I told myself, sucking in deep breaths. Just a nightmare. My hands were unharmed. My hair wasn't singed. I touched my face and it felt fine, too. The pain had disappeared.
I fell back into the pillows with a groan. I'd never had a dream like that. So vivid and real. Still, the discrepancies I'd encountered made sense now. The missing van. Getting the twelve miles from Rodeo Drive to La Plaza Park through a single building. The gazebo in La Plaza Park, where I'd fought a monster shade once before. Greyson showing up. Greyson, banishing shades to the dreamscape that didn’t exist in the real world. Greyson, unmarred by a bite. Greyson...
He’d been there, next to me, speaking to me, fighting alongside me, touching me. His presence alone should have tipped me off that this was a dream because, in the real world, he couldn't come to my rescue. He was only a figment of my desperate imagination.
And then it hit me. Maybe he wasn't.
I sat up, hope twisting in my chest. To my knowledge, I had never manifested a shade before. In fact, there was no documented case of a shade manifesting another shade from its dreams. Many scientists thought it an unlikely possibility, though that opinion was probably based on a good dollop of hope.
But my dream met all the necessary criteria. And it had felt so real. Maybe… Hope fluttered through my heart. Close. If he had manifested, he was so close. I could be at La Plaza Park in half an hour by car. I could help him eliminate the hellhounds which must have manifested with him, and then we could be toge--
The hellhounds!
I grabbed the phone off the bedside table and dialed 9-2-2. The call was answered on the first ring. It was the middle of the day, but the Order’s emergency hotline was always manned.
"This is the emergency hotline of your local Somni Order division, how can I help you?" the operator said.
"This is private shade hunter Eden Maybrey. I want to report a shade of at least a dozen hellhounds." A glance at my bedside clock told me it was four in the afternoon, rush hour prime time. If my nightmare had manifested, it would take me too long to get there before the hellhounds attacked civilians and scattered to the four winds. At least one of the Order's hunter teams was bound to be closer.
"Very well, class A chimeras by the dozen," the operator said. I heard the tapping of a keyboard, as she typed up a case description. "This was your dream, Miss Maybrey?"
"Yes."
"Did it meet all criteria necessary to manifest in reality?"
"Yes. I woke up during the dream and it was set in an existing place."
"Which was?"
"La Plaza Park."
"Is there anything the hunters should watch out for?"
Besides the hunky Viking warrior, a more formidable opponent than any hound, real or imagined? I should make it easy on myself and let the Order do their job. They would eliminate him like the shade he was. I never had to see him.
Trouble was, I wanted to. I missed him so much.
"Miss Maybrey?" the operator's voice shook me out of my daydream. "Are you still there? Anything the hunters need to pay extra attention to?"
"They mustn't under any circumstances touch the flames.” I couldn't give them Greyson. I just couldn't. "And they'll have to use blades. The hounds' heads need to come off. Shooting them likely won't kill them." In the dream, I hadn't even tried. That usually meant that it wouldn’t work in the real world, either.
"Thank you, Miss Maybrey, that's very helpful," the operator said. "Anything else?"
Did she sense my hesitation? I could usually tell when a client was holding back. Not that I blamed them. It was difficult to open up to a stranger about something as intimate as your dreams. For me, it didn't get any more intimate than Greyson Deynar. We’d been lovers, once upon a dream - Bella’s dream, to be exact. But that didn’t mean that my love for him felt like a dream. It felt heart- and gut-wrenchingly real.
I remembered, as if they had happened, our clandestine meetings in dingy diners, both of us afraid and at the same time secretly exhilarated at the prospect of being seen by an Order colleague. I remembered his hands on my body, his strong arms around me, the scent of his skin, the silk of his hair between my fingers, the touch of his lips on mine. The taste of him…
The turmoil in his eyes when I demanded we stop sneaking around because I felt insecure about his love for me. The guilt I’d felt at seeing his sense of honor and duty warring with his love for me. The last thing I want to do is hurt you… My thoughts, but he’d been the one brave enough to say them out loud. The one reasonable enough to stop the argument before it began, by making me feel sure of him. Sure of us and even of myself.
A yearning seized me, for the life we could have together. An impossible life suddenly made possible. Or at least a shade less impossible. Har-dee-har.
"Miss?" The operator knew there was more. Her voice was soft and understanding when she continued with the speech all Order staff memorized for cases such as this. "I know it can be hard to give up certain dreams. Especially when they've finally come true. But shades are dangerous and unpredictable, even the ones that appear benevolent and stable. There can be no exceptions, which is why it is illegal to withhold information on a shade's whereabouts, to hinder the elimination of a shade, or to harbor a shade. You may go to prison for up to twenty years if you are found guilty on any or all of these counts."
Not if we left together. Not if I found him and we started a new life somewhere far away. We could assume new identities. This call could never be traced back to the new me.
Stop it. It was a fantasy and could never be more. I didn't have that freedom. I owed Cecelia and especially Bella too much. But if the possibility remained that Greyson roamed the city, I would go looking for him sooner or later. I had to be sure he wasn't out there, waiting for me. The Order would make sure.
My one solace was that I wouldn't have to face him myself.
I took a deep breath and pushed out the words that didn't want to be born. "A man dressed like an Order hunter came to my rescue in the dream. Long blond hair, gray eyes. A warrior. He must have manifested, too."
The operator didn't miss a beat. "Does he have a name?"
"No." I couldn't give them his name. The Order wasn't discreet about the shades in their case files, which were accessible to the public. If someone decided to dig deeper into the case for whatever reason, Greyson's name could reveal too much. "It was just a hunter doing his job. Nobody specific."
"What weapons did he have on him in your dream?"
"He was using a saber and a dagger."
"Thank you for your cooperation," the operator said, satisfied that I’d now given her all the important details. "You did right to tell me everything, Miss Maybrey. We will eliminate your shades, hopefully before they harm anybody. It's the Somni Order's duty to make your dreams untrue."
The line clicked and went dead. I dropped the phone into my lap and rubbed my hands over my face, already regretting my decision. I'd just signed Greyson's death certificate.
He's not the real Grey, I told myself. There was no ‘real’ Grey because he’d never been real. Just Bella’s version of her hero. And this Greyson was my version of my lover. They were surely almost identical because the Greyson I loved was the one Bella had envisioned me being in love with. That didn’t change the fact that - in a twisted sort of way - the Greyson from my dream and the one from Bella’s dream, weren’t the same.
He’s not the real Grey, I tried to convince myself again. The trouble was, he could have been. A shade he might be, but that didn't mean he was soulless, no matter what the haters said. Not all shades were dumb, docile or deadly. They were whatever we dreamed them to be.
I heaved a sigh, thankful I’d left Aunt Vy hanging downstairs on her hook by the front door. She’d never been a fan of Greyson, not since the moment Bella had first c
onceived us in her dream. She didn’t need to know I had dreamed about him and I didn’t need to endure her wisecracks or patronizing advice.
The phone rang in my lap, making me jump. I was still on edge. "Hello?"
"Edita, it's me," Cecelia's voice thrummed over the line. If I was on edge, my best friend had already gone over.
"You sound stressed."
"I just got a call from Bella's school, asking me to come in for a chat."
"Not again. Panic attack?"
"Surprisingly no. She got into a fight with a classmate during martial arts practice."
"A fight?" That was new.
Cecelia sighed. "That's not all. She threatened to send a shade after him."
"On purpose?"
"Apparently she's been telling kids at school that she's able to do that."
"I find that hard to believe." Cecelia’s little sister never joked about shades, especially her own. "Was the guy hurting her?"
"I don't know, that's all I was told. They want me to come in to pick her up."
"And chat."
"Right. But-- hold on a sec." She must have muted the call because there was only silence for few seconds. Then she cut back in like crystal. "Sorry. The Chief appointed me to lead the investigation in a brand new murder case. I can’t leave right now. Could you pick Bella up and find out what happened? You're not her legal guardian, so they won't want to discuss it with you. Tell them I'll call to make an appointment. Pretty please."
"I'll go right away," I promised.
"Gracias, Edita." Relief dropped some of the stress from her voice. "I owe you one."
"You don't owe me anything," I said. In fact, I was relieved. Dealing with this issue might keep my mind off a certain shade I'd condemned to death not five minutes ago. "Go find your murderer."
"I'm on it. See you later."
CHAPTER SEVEN
I arrived at Bella's high school forty-five minutes after Cecelia’s call. Like most public buildings, it was a seven-story block of concrete so unremarkable that the eye slid right off. There were no distinguishing features anywhere, which made it less likely to become part of someone’s dream and serve as a specific location for a monster to manifest. Even the white sign with the name of the school imprinted in gray letters above the main entrance tried very hard to be forgotten as soon as it was read.
A twenty-foot steel fence ran around the school property. Signs warned that it was charged with fifteen thousand volts. Two smaller, non-electrified fences ran on either side, preventing the school kids from accidentally frying themselves on the big, shade-repelling barricade.
Despite these precautions, something had recently wrecked part of the building. Scaffolding had been erected around the east wing and three masons were working on closing a big hole in the wall. The shade had most likely manifested inside the fence. No matter how inconspicuous, schools remained especially vulnerable to shades. To the students and teachers spending their days there, it would always be 'their' school, and the teen dramas unfolding inside every day made for good dream fodder.
The guard watching the only opening in the fence - a steel gate that could be closed and electrified at the push of a button - waved me through. I parked the van in the visitor’s lot, killed the engine and looked down at Aunt Vy lying across the passenger seat.
“Sorry, no swords inside the school,” I reminded her.
“That’s the rule for the school kids, not adult shade hunters,” she argued.
“If I go in there with you, it comes across as confrontational. All I want is to pick up Bella, not threaten her headmaster.”
“Are you sure? If the headmaster was mean to the dear, I could set him straight. A little honest fear never hurt anybody.”
Why me? “Sounded like Bella was the one being mean this time,” I reminded her.
“Poppycock,” Vy scoffed. “You have to get to the bottom of this. Find out who made her say these things and why.”
“Or how they made her,” I added with a dollop of sarcasm. I agreed that Bella wasn’t someone to bully other children, but it was just as difficult to imagine that anybody could coerce her into doing something she didn’t want to do. ‘The dear’ likely wasn’t as innocent as Aunt Vy believed.
“Or how - exactly!” Aunt Vy agreed enthusiastically, my sarcasm bouncing off her like a rubber ball. My sword wasn’t one to harbor illusions, but she had as soft a spot for Bella as I did.
“Don’t move,” I joked as I got out of the van.
“Ha! No promises! Better handcuff me to the steering wheel.”
I jogged into the school building and straight to the headmaster's office at the back of the ground floor. The foyer to the headmaster's office was as drab and spare as the rest of the building; a gray marble floor, white walls, simple white curtains in front of the windows, and a heavy steel desk, the legs of which were bolted to the ground. No pictures on the walls. No motivational posters. No art of any kind.
Cecelia sometimes told stories about the time before the Surge. Back then, Cecelia’s high school used to be filled with children’s paintings and art on the walls of classrooms. The school colors had been represented on every banner, jersey, and cap. Today, we lived Pleasantville in reverse.
The steel bench standing off to the side was also secured against the wall. There were no cushions. Wouldn't want delinquent students to fall asleep on a warm, comfy seat and create a shade right there at school. Despite these precautions, Bella looked like she was about to nod off. She sprawled on the uncomfortable bench, her stiff leg lying across its length. Her head leaned against the wall, the dark curls creating a stark contrast to the white-washed walls. Heavy black eye-shadow on her half-closed lids emphasized the dark circles under her honey-colored eyes.
Mrs. Sievers, the headmaster's secretary, noticed Bella dozing off just as I walked in. She slapped a hand down on her desk with a crack. "No falling asleep at school!”
Bella scrambled upright. Her smartphone slid out of the folds of her green plaid skirt and clattered to the floor.
"I never actually sleep," she mumbled, bending down to retrieve the phone. She had to stick her stiff leg out at an angle to reach the floor. Had other kids been present, she would have tried to hide it. But with only Mrs. Sievers watching, she exaggerated the cock of her hip as if daring the secretary to mention it.
After working with high school kids for years, Mrs. Sievers wasn’t that easy to bait. "Just checking."
They both noticed me. Bella's eyes lit up for a fraction of a second, then dimmed as she shrank in on herself as if she expected me to be mad at her. The fingertips sticking out from behind a bandage on her right hand went white as she clutched her phone.
Mrs. Sievers turned to me and smiled. It reminded me of a shark. "Ah, Miss Maybrey. Good of you to come, although Headmaster Simmons was hoping to discuss this matter with Miss Perez. He had to appease the Powells when they came to pick up Louis. We take fighting between students very seriously, especially amongst juniors. At that age, they should know you don't resolve conflict with violence."
"I'm afraid Cecelia couldn't leave work on short notice," I told her, ignoring that last comment before she could start in on a lecture about how being witness to violence triggered nightmares, which in turn would only beget more violence. And nightmares and violence... "But she will call to make an appointment."
“Headmaster Simmons will call tomorrow if we don’t hear from her today,” Mrs. Sievers said. It sounded like a threat.
Bella came to stand beside me, clutching her backpack in front of her chest. "Let's go," she whispered.
We left the school at a pace that hopefully didn't look like a hasty retreat.
“What happened, dear?” Aunt Vy asked Bella before I’d even unlocked the van. “Did Eden take care of it?”
“There’s nothing to take care of.” Bella snapped. She deposited Aunt Vy behind the passenger seat without so much as a how-do-you-do, got in, and slammed the door so hard the whole veh
icle rattled. Aunt Vy, not used to being shoved behind anywhere, remained silent. Could shade swords die from heart attacks?
I was equally as stunned. Bella had never treated my sword this way.
She ripped the bandage off her hand as soon as I started the van and drove out of the school parking lot. “She tied it too tight,” she muttered in answer to my raised eyebrow.
I glanced at her knuckles. They were split and swollen, crusted with dried blood. "Looks like you clocked this Louis guy good."
She looked at me for the first time since I'd arrived. Hope joined the anxiety. "It hurt like a bit— birch," she admitted.
"Did you hit him in the jaw?"
Bella blinked and looked away, embarrassed. "Yes."
"I told you not to do that,” I said with a sigh. “You'll break your fingers before you break a jaw."
"It was the heat of the moment," she said. "I didn't think. It looks effective in the movies."
"Actors in movies don't actually hit each other. It's all for show."
"Yeah, well, maybe if you guys would let me watch more realistic movies…” The uncharacteristic vehemence in her voice tipped me off.
"Is that what this fight with Louis was about?" I asked. "A movie?"
Her jaw worked as she gathered the courage to tell me what happened. "He was taunting me about how I'm still not allowed to watch R-17 movies in the cinema, even though I just turned seventeen," she finally said. "He said I was a baby. That I was a scawed wabbit."
He'd hit the right nerve with that comment. She was afraid. Terrified. She hid it well, or thought she did. Louis had tossed that illusion out the window with a single taunt. "So you hit him?"
"Not then." She took a deep breath. "I told him I'd sic my next nightmare on him. On purpose. I wanted him to be the rabbit for a change."
“Was he scared?” Vy broke her offended silence, sounding half eager, half doubtful.
"No. He knows I can't follow through. I may create a lot of shades, but I can't control them. Nobody can."
I knew of a few people who were able to control their own shades, but it took years of potentially deadly - and illegal - training. You purposely messed with shades at your own risk. And everybody else’s.
