Night Veil

by Galenorn, Yasmine

  The spell began to break, slowly, dreams crashing to the ground.

  “Krystal, no—Mother! Mother!” I began to struggle, trying to free myself, but Krystal was strong—a lot stronger than I remembered. And then I realized that Krystal’s arms were long and sinuous and she wasn’t really my mother.

  Cicely! Break free, child. Break free of the illusion! A sudden gust of wind blew away the fog in the area in which we were standing and I gasped, for it blew away illusion, too. Instead of my mother, I was in the clutches of a short, squat, reptilian creature with tentacles waving. I screamed, shattering the last shards of the spell.

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t happy, and the grip around my arms and waist grew tighter as I pushed away from it. I could no longer understand what it was saying, and I struggled, trying to pry my way free from its grasp.

  I felt something jar against my back and glanced over my shoulder. Peyton was stabbing one of the tentacles with a butcher knife. And Chatter was holding his hands out and—Whoosh!—a white-hot flame shot out to envelop the creature. The thing made a noise sounding like a scream and let go of me. Peyton grabbed hold of my arm and ran, dragging me along behind her. There was another shriek from behind, and something grabbed my ankle.

  I tripped, falling forward, and looked back to see one of the scaly arms wrapping itself around my foot, and I twisted around, lunging forward as I whipped out my switchblade and drove it into the creature’s flesh. It uncurled from my ankle and then, with a final thrashing slap, it slammed against me, knocking me down, then retreated.

  I lay in the gathering fog, gasping for breath. Peyton and Chatter knelt beside me and helped me stand. Thoroughly confused, I glanced around. We seemed to be right back where we were when I’d seen . . . Krystal? Everything came flooding back.

  “Krystal? I know she’s dead—what the hell possessed me to go over to that thing? What the fuck was that? What happened?” Furious at myself, and bewildered, I looked from Chatter to Peyton, then back to Chatter again.

  He rubbed my shoulder gently. “Don’t blame yourself—you stumbled over a dreamweaver. They feed on the dreams and secret wishes of others and can look into your mind. The demons live primarily in the Court of Dreams, but now and then you might find one slipping over into our world as well. They tend to haunt the wild places. We don’t know what they are, only that they aren’t Fae.”

  Nerve-racked, I cleared my throat. “What would it have done to me?”

  “Sucked your mind clean. Left you a vegetable.” The offhand way he said it chilled me to the bone.

  “Let’s move on. Maybe you need to tether us together so we don’t wander off like I did.” I didn’t want to meander off the road again. In fact, I wanted to turn around and go home, but the monsters waiting for us there were just as frightening. And Kaylin needed us.

  Chatter cocked his head, looking curious. “Cicely, you didn’t wander off the path. The creature hid in the fog beside you and caught you in its trap before we could stop it. You stayed on the path the entire time.”

  I’d stayed on the path, hadn’t strayed, and still they came out of the mist and fog to hunt. Shuddering, I nodded, saying nothing.

  Are you all right, child? I tried to reach you.

  Ulean . . . You tried to lead me back to myself. But nothing seemed to penetrate that fog, my friend. Thank you for trying.

  There are so many dangers here. I am glad I came with you. But be wary—creatures like the dreamweaver are hard to fight and they use sweet honey as a lure.

  I thought about Krystal, and how I’d always wanted her to be a normal, loving mother. If my thoughts were that easy to read—if my secret hopes about my mother were that clear—then it was a good thing we hadn’t brought Rhiannon with us. Steeling myself, I nodded for Chatter to move on.

  We headed farther into the shadowy land. I sensed beings going by, catching whispers of sounds on the slipstream, but I couldn’t understand the languages, only the emotions . . .. . . a great sadness, loss . . . melancholy . . .

  . . . hunger, seething, angry hunger . . .

  . . . fear, constant wariness . . .

  . . . so tired . . . so very tired but no place to rest . . .

  “This place isn’t a happy one,” I said after a while, disengaging from the slipstream. It was too depressing.

  Chatter glanced back. “No, the Court of Dreams is not a happy place, although some people—like the Bat People—have their own measure of joy. This is the place where old dreams come to die, where jealousy and envy feed, where people lose their way and creatures can take advantage of sadness, insecurity, and hunger.”

  I had no clue as to how long we’d been walking—though I noticed that I wasn’t nearly as tired here as I had been wandering through the snow—when Chatter stopped and pointed. A tall mountain jutted out of the fog, stark against the twilight sky. A large cavern was visible against the side of the granite.

  “The home of the Bat People. That’s where we’re going.”

  As I stared at the inky opening, a sudden flip in my stomach told me that we had barely scratched the surface of the Court of Dreams.

  There were shadows entering and exiting the cave: tall, thin, bipedal, with wings folded back as they walked. They moved deliberately, as if they were in a procession, knees bent, their movements jerky and strong. I glanced at their hands; long talons shimmered like silver spikes. Whispers raced through the air . . . clicks—hundreds of clicks—echoing on the slipstream to the point where I could barely stand to listen.

  Ulean howled around me. So much energy flowing through the slipstream. Cicely, this is a dangerous place. Watch your step—these beings are not dreamweavers, but they are the eaters of hope and of love and of dreams. They can be wild and wicked.

  One particular shade turned toward us and, in a blur, moved to block our path.

  Chatter shivered, but he held up one hand and opened his mouth. He darted his head this way and that to match the bobbing head of our roadblock, and a series of clicks issued forth.

  So this is why Lainule bade me bring him along. There was far more to the Fae than being Grieve’s sidekick, and I was only now beginning to recognize how talented he was.

  After a moment, the blurred figure motioned to us and turned. Chatter moved ahead, gesturing for us to be quiet but stay close. Peyton and I fell in behind him again, and we entered the cave.

  I wasn’t sure if I was expecting total darkness or what, but the cave was an explosion of light. Globes of light dotted the ceiling, easily a thousand brilliant suns, creating so much light that I instantly developed a headache. The intensity was close to blinding, and I held up my hand to shade my eyes in the white-hot chamber. I could barely see anything, but a strange sensation filtered through my body—that of being analyzed, screened, and cleansed. I glanced down at my skin and saw a fine ash covering my arms. As I shook it off, my arms glowed, and I realized that the light had burned off the layer of dead skin on the surface.

  I glanced at the floor. We were walking on a thin mesh—as sturdy as stone, but essentially we were on a sieve that allowed the skin to drop through and far, far below, a flame burned.

  More terrified than curious, I moved closer to Chatter and touched his arm. He glanced back and I pointed toward the floor. He just nodded, a cautionary look in his eye. I kept my mouth shut, but moved back to Peyton’s side and took her hand. She looked as nervous as I was.

  We passed over the mesh and then into a second chamber, as dark as the other had been bright. Plunged into the blackness, I stopped short, unable to see, but then hands—from someone terribly tall and strong—gently rested on my shoulders. Sharpened nails curved around, lightly piercing my Windbreaker, and whoever it was gave me a shove forward.

  Too frightened to turn around, I moved as directed. A thick fog began to fill the chamber, and as I inhaled, it felt like I was breathing water. The fog poured into my body like syrup over pancakes, and I started to melt, the same way I had when Kaylin had taken
me dreamwalking.

  I closed my eyes as the lyrics to Gary Numan’s song “Remember I Was Vapour” began to run through my head. I mouthed them as we moved along, gliding, flowing, shifting. I wasn’t even sure we were still in body, but it was so incredibly relaxing that I ceased to care, just pouring along the floor.

  A waterfall cascaded into my body and washed me clean as I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. Drenching me through, the glistening currents washed away pain and weariness and lingering feelers from the dream beast.

  As we came to another door, abruptly I found myself back in my body. My hair hung, soaked—whether from water, humidity, or sweat, I didn’t know. I glanced around the dimly lit room and caught sight of both Peyton and Chatter, who looked as wet as I was. And, a ways back in the hall, a tall throne.

  Thrones are almost always obvious—they’re meant to impress and intimidate. And this one was about as impressive as I’d seen: tall, imposing, and narrow-backed; I realized that it was fit for a king—a king with very large wings.

  As Chatter motioned for Peyton and me to scoot close to him, there was a movement toward the back and a tall creature strode forward, knees bent, cloaked in a swirl of smoke, with wings towering above his head. He must have been ten feet tall, stretched thin and gaunt, and the only features on his face that I could see were his eyes, bulbous and faceted. He took his place, wings flanking either side of the tall throne, and pointed to the spot in front of him, then waited.

  Chatter pushed me forward, following with Peyton.

  He leaned forward and, in a voice so high pitched I could barely hear it, said, “Welcome to the Court of Dreams, Cicely Waters. What do you want from me?”

  I wasn’t sure how to address him, so I chanced a guess. “Your Majesty, have I the pleasure of addressing the King of Dreams?”

  He grunted. “Pleasure may not be the best word, but yes. I repeat: What do you want?”

  Sucking in a deep breath, I took a small step forward. “Your Majesty, I have been sent by the Queen of Rivers and Rushes on behalf of a friend. He needs help that only a shaman from your tribe can give us.”

  The King of Dreams did not blink—he did not have eyelids—but his eyes flashed and he tilted his head to the side. “Lainule . . . it has been many years . . .” His voice was soft, almost too soft to hear, and I caught the scent of regret in his words. “What help does your friend need?”

  I let out a long breath, feeling suddenly a very small speck in the universe. “I need a spell from one of your shamans for my friend Kaylin. His night-veil demon is waking up and he needs help.”

  There was a sudden shift in the room and I could hear a buzz of clicks behind us. The king froze, then reached one long, thin arm in the air and snapped his fingers. Another shadow-bound creature scuttled over to him, listened carefully to a series of clicks, and then nodded, taking off into the gloom.

  “Kaylin. I have not heard that name in some time. So he still lives?”

  I nodded. “Yes, he’s now a grown man and he’s slipped into unconsciousness. We cannot wake him.” And then, because I could not stop myself, I asked, “Are you one of the night-veils? I know Lainule called you the Bat People, but . . .”

  The king let out a loud noise that was either indignation or laughter—I hoped for the latter—and extended his hand to me. “We are not the demons, but the product of them. We are their children. But your friend—he is hybrid, he is unnatural, and there is no predicting what will become of him. We have watched him since his birth.”

  “You won’t take him away from us, will you?” I tried to imagine Kaylin—so full of life—locked away in this gloom-filled world of shadows. Though he might be a dreamwalker, he wasn’t cut out for this life. I knew it.

  “We will not bring him here, no. He would not survive. We live in the periphery of your vision. We are always a fingertip away from your touch. We speak so quietly that you can hear us whisper but not what we say. We are the shadows that move on their own. We are the people of the Bat, always transforming. Your Kaylin is far too substantial to live among us. But we watch—because there may be more like him out there, and if there are, we need to know what he will become. He embodies the next generation.”

  He fell silent, motioning for us to move back. Chatter led us to a corner where there was a pile of rocks, and we sat, waiting.

  I leaned forward, whispering into the slipstream. What is this place? I thought the Bat People would be like the Cambyra Fae.

  Chatter shook his head. No, they are an entirely different race. They take bat form in our world at times, but they can walk through our world in shadow. That’s where Kaylin gets his dreamwalking abilities. All of these creatures have night-veil demons merged into their souls. The demons have chosen the Bat People as their Chosen Ones. Their children.

  He stopped as another of the Bat People entered the room. “Ten to one, that’s the shaman,” he whispered.

  I nodded, but inside all I could think about was how much I wanted to go home. I didn’t like the Court of Dreams. It was too alien, too much of a reminder of how little humanity—and the magic-born—actually owned the world in which they lived. The Bat People would forever make me wonder. Was it a bat, or one of the Bat People, watching us as they flew out of the cave? And yet . . . and yet . . . how could I talk? I was also part Cambyra Fae.

  Suddenly I longed to turn into my owl self and soar off into the night. I needed to be in flight, needed to be out of reach of worry and uncertainty. As soon as we got home, I’d take wing and leave it all behind. At least for a little while.

  “You have the boy? The one locked to the night-veil?” The voice was so harsh it hurt my ears, and I cringed as the creature came up to me. The King sat back on his throne, apparently unconcerned as far as I could tell.

  “He’s not with us, no. He’s back in our world—unconscious. Lainule said that his demon is trying to wake and that he needs a spell from the Bat People to help him.” I forced myself to sit up and shake off my fear.

  The shadow laughed then, an ugly, frightening sound. His eyes burned, glowing green and sparkling with white pinpricks. “Yes . . . his demon must wake or he will forever drift in the depths of his mind. I will give you the spell, but you must be prepared. Your friend, in his new state, will be unpredictable. I bear no consequence from waking the night-veil. Make certain you want to do this, Cambyra. For once done, it cannot be undone, and I doubt that you can overcome Kaylin once he’s met and accepted his demon.”

  “Why did it choose now to wake up? I thought it died when it entered his soul in the womb.”

  “When the demon first enters the host, it dies, but it leaves behind a hatchling. After a long while, the hatchling begins to wake. It is simply the life cycle of the night-veil demons.”

  I glanced at Chatter, wondering what the fuck that meant. But I’d come to accept in the past couple of weeks that fear was the worst reason for holding back. Fear paralyzed. Hesitation was deadly.

  “Give it to me. I’ll take it to him and cast it, if I can.”

  The shaman clicked a series of notes, then held out a fetish—it was of a grotesque, twisted creature, and I had the feeling it represented one of the demons.

  “To call forth his demon to waking, cast a circle round him with salt and then inside that, a ring of crystals—quartz—and lastly, a ring of belladonna. Then follow these simple steps,” he said, giving me the rest of the instructions.

  “Thank you. We need Kaylin, and he’s our friend.”

  “Think you friend, think you foe. Either way it can go. But you must not tarry. If he lingers too long in the world of dreams, he will never wake, and his body will fade.” And with that, the shaman abruptly left.

  I tucked the fetish inside my pocket, making sure it was zipped shut. As we stood, I turned to look back at the King of Dreams. He was standing now, his wings outstretched in a terrifying wingspan that filled the area around the throne.

  “Cicely!” His voice echoed through
the chamber. “Go now. But do not forget—we are watching. And you have now caught the attention of the Court of Dreams. Lainule owes us a favor. As do you.”

  And then, with a swirl of shadow and fog, he was gone and we were outside the cavern.

  Shuddering, I turned to Chatter. “Get us out of here. Now.”

  He nodded. “I think it best we leave. Come.”

  All the way back to the portal, we kept silent, moving as quickly as we could. We entered the cavern, stepping into the vortex of the portal, and everything became a spinning top of energy as we passed out of the Court of Dreams and back into the cavern on our side.

  When we exited the cave, we found morning had arrived.

  I was dragging butt. “We were there all night. That’s kind of a good thing,” I said. “The Shadow Hunters will be hiding from the light.”

  “Yes, but we have to hurry. I have a great sense of urgency.” Chatter pushed us forward, not allowing us to rest. By the time we were partway through the underground tunnel, I was walking in my sleep, so tired. Peyton didn’t look much better, but Chatter seemed fueled by an inner fire.

  The snow was falling thickly when we emerged from the tunnel and began to work our way back toward the road. We’d walked a good fifty miles—since, I supposed, the day before, although time wasn’t fixed in the realm of Faerie—and my body ached. My mind was running on autopilot and I ignored the quiet hush of the snow as it layered deeper and deeper.

  As we neared the road, there was a rustle in the bushes and my wolf began to howl. I pressed my hand against my stomach and turned, knowing in my deepest core that he was there—watching me.

  And there he was. Panting with pain, leaning against a tree, Grieve stood, his gaze fastened on me.

  Oblivious to common sense, I raced toward him, my muscles screaming as I pushed them beyond their limits.

  He opened his arms and I fell into his embrace. “Cicely, oh Cicely, my Cicely,” he whispered, covering me with kisses. “I can’t stand this. I miss you. I need you. I have to have you.”