Stillbringer (Dreamwalker Chronicles Book 1)

by Zile Elliven

  At that moment, all Marshall wanted to do was run into the night with his friends and not look back—he was pretty sure he could control both of them long enough to get them far away. Only the memory of those who died to protect him kept his feet rooted to the ground. Being a coward was no way to repay them for what they had done. Fire Team was going to have to stand and fight. He hoped the soldier had something special up his sleeve.

  “Adelle, on my mark, Sleep any norms you can find. The witches are probably protected, so don’t waste your time on them, but if you can take out the norms it’ll give us some breathing room. Jack, Fourteen probably has the heiress. Find him and get them to the Chapter House. Adelle will help you once she’s done giving the norms a nap, and I’ll meet you all there once I’m finished here.”

  “You aren’t going up against the demon alone, ass,” his sister said firmly.

  “Ditto,” Jack said mirthlessly.

  He hadn’t thought it would work, but he’d had to try. “Fine. When you get them a safe distance away, you can both come back me up. But only once the civilians are safe. Better?”

  “You’re damned right, I will,” Jack said, as if that had been the plan all along.

  “Barely, but acceptable.” Adelle was still frowning but less so.

  “You realize that I’m in charge here, right?”

  “Sure you are, sweetie.” Adelle ruffled his hair. “We got you that plaque and everything.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Aeyli

  Her face felt like raw hamburger as she peeled it off the ground. Aeyli rolled over to look up at a sky filled with a mix of ash and snow and wondered what she was doing on the ground. Her entire body felt like it had been thrown into a dryer with a bag full of tennis balls set to run on high.

  “That was not the best thing that could have happened,” her brother rasped out nearby.

  Aeyli shook her head to clear it, and her vision swam. She saw stars, moons, and entire galaxies of constellations dancing inside her head, crowding the edges of her vision. Reality was just a touch too far out of reach for her right now.

  She sat perfectly still, waiting for the effect to fade, but dared to ask, “What happened?” Only minimal constellations flared up from the effort.

  “Someone took out the ground underneath us. We only fell a few yards, but your champion is down there somewhere,” he said, pointing toward a chasm a few feet away.

  “Oh gods . . . Fourteen!” She leapt to her feet and promptly fell back to the ground as a supernova exploded in her head, and her foot gave out underneath her. Maybe she should lie still for one short minute before storming to the rescue—give her brain a chance to reboot.

  “I’m fine, by the way.” Hester muttered from underneath Sterling.

  “Thanks for breaking my fall, Mother,” he said, dripping with contempt. “Glad to see you can still be useful to us.” Grudgingly he rolled off Hester, allowing her to sit up. She gave him a poisonous glare and pulled her knees to her chest. After noticing a hole in her stockings, she extended her glare to blanket both of her children. Sterling rolled his eyes.

  When the sparkling lightshow inside her head faded to an acceptable level, Aeyli sat up slowly, trying not to dwell too deeply on how much damage she’d taken in the past forty-eight hours. The second she thought she could move without passing out, she crawled to the lip of the chasm, trying to make out Fourteen’s form. The sun had gone down at some point during her incarceration, and the fires were too far away to allow her to make out anything but darkness in the hole before her. If he was conscious, maybe he could hear her.

  “Fourteen!” Something green splashed a foot away from her face and bubbled violently before burning away. She flinched and scrambled backward, setting off a new round of explosions at the edges of her vision. Aeyli looked up and saw two more spells—one orange, one red—detonate in the air above them. “He can’t be far if his shield is still protecting us.”

  “Sorry, sis, that’s me. I activated my own shield the moment the ground gave way.” Sterling’s tone was regretful.

  A painful wail tried to claw its way out, but she clamped down on it before it could carry her away. She had to find Fourteen and escape this hellhole first. Hysterics could come later.

  “Can you get me down there?”

  “Not and keep the shield going, I’m afraid. Even with the power-up I got from Hester, it’s taking everything I’ve got to keep this barrage off us,” he said.

  As they spoke, the light show overhead intensified as dozens of spells exploded against Sterling’s shield.

  “This is amazing, Sterling, I had no idea you could make a shield like this. It’s enormous.”

  “It’s all thanks to dear old Mom, here. If it weren’t for the power I’m siphoning off her, we’d probably be dead now.” He poked the woman with a finger. “I’m surprised your people aren’t worried about hitting you in the crossfire. Care to enlighten us?”

  “No.” Hester turned her face away looking sullen.

  Sterling let out a surprised laugh. “It abandoned you, didn’t it? I guess that’s what a few generations of betrayal gets you.”

  “Sekt wouldn’t do that, he loves me. He needs me! Stella isn’t enough for him, she—” She broke off suddenly very interested in fiddling with the restraints on her hands.

  “She what, Hester?” Sterling shouted. “She won’t give him the sweet loving you can? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Aeyli ignored the argument and stared down into the dark, dust-filled pit that had swallowed Fourteen. She tried to find a way to climb down—a slanted ledge, a conveniently placed bundle of roots, anything—but all she saw was impenetrable darkness. For all she knew it was only ten feet deep. If that were the case, she could hang off the edge and jump the rest of the way. Or it could be a hundred feet deep and she would die, but if it was that deep, the likelihood that he would have survived the fall was slim. Her heart skipped a beat.

  “Fourteen! Fourteen!!!” She made to swing her legs over the edge of the pit and came against Sterling’s shield as it shrank down and nudged her away from the hole.

  “Sterling!” she snapped. “Let me out, I need to get down there.”

  “Sunny . . .” Sterling’s eyes were pained. “I know I’ve messed up in the past, but I don’t think letting you get yourself killed is a good way to make things up to you.”

  “Indeed it isn’t.” A lightly accented voice with Middle Eastern overtones interrupted their debate.

  “Sweet Vis! How did you get through my shield?” Sterling fell over in surprise and scrambled backward toward Aeyli.

  Fires raging in the distance framed the outline of an enormous man. With the flames behind him, it was hard to make out his face, but his size alone intimidated Aeyli. How were they supposed to fight this guy off?

  Hester’s only reaction was to draw her legs further into herself.

  “Dreamwalker.” The man poked himself in the chest as if it were an explanation.

  It must have meant something to Sterling because his face went from shocked to hopeful. “The Guard is here?”

  The Guard? Despite what she’d told Fourteen about them, Aeyli hadn’t been entirely convinced the Guard was anything more than the dreams and wishful thinking of children. She’d never seen any evidence of them before now and was affronted. If they were real, where the hell had they been while she was running for her life? Her chin came up stubbornly.

  “Some, but not enough for this shitstorm. I’m here to rescue you lot—heroically and quickly—so I can get back to where I am needed. So follow me and don’t lag behind.” When nobody moved to obey him, he sighed. “I do have the right group, yes? Missing heiress-who-doesn’t-exist and Guests?”

  Her teeth ground together hard enough to hurt, and she snapped out, “Yes, that’s us, but we aren’t all here.” She pointed to the hole behind her. “One of us is down there, and we aren’t leaving without him.” Mythical hero or not, she wasn’t taking
orders from this guy.

  “Of course you aren’t. And there’s no reason you should.” The man muttered. “Okay, let’s have a look.”

  He sauntered over to where Aeyli stood, acting for all the world as if a battle wasn’t raging all around him. An exploding flash against the shield illuminated his face showing Aeyli impossible eyes. Time slowed, and she had the sensation of falling into their depths. As she continued to fall, she swore she could see stars. Dizzy, she averted her gaze. After she was free, she realized she couldn’t have told anyone the color of his eyes if her life depended on it. It also occurred to her that he seemed as unaffected by her aberration as Fourteen.

  The guardian craned his neck, and Aeyli saw her brother’s shield ripple as his head passed though the edge of it. “Ah, there he is. I see your soldier boy, he’s down about ten meters or so. He’s moving, but it looks like someone really rang his bell.”

  After looking into his eyes, she didn’t question how the man could see so well in the dark. “Can you get him?” She found her anger toward the Guard receding. If she got Fourteen back, all would be forgiven.

  “I’ll see what I can do. My friend will be here soon—be nice to her, she bites. The name’s Jack, by the way.” Then he stepped over the edge of the hole and disappeared.

  Aeyli blinked, bemused, but before she managed to form any words a woman dropped down beside her.

  “Gods, you people have to stop doing that!” Sterling grabbed his chest. “I’m too young for a heart attack.”

  “Nice to meet you too, I’m Adelle.” The woman said wryly. Her golden hair draped elegantly over one shoulder, looking pristine. With her dark formfitting clothes, she looked like she belonged on a runway rather than a warzone. “I suppose you’ve met Jack.”

  “He’s down there helping our friend.” Aeyli pointed, beginning to feel a bit like the hostess of the hole.

  “Fair enough.” Adelle walked over to Sterling and crouched down. “This is a nice shield you have going, but you don’t look so hot. How long have you been holding it?” She put a hand on his forehead.

  For the first time, Aeyli noticed the sweat glittering on Sterling’s face and saw that his were hands shaking.

  “Not too long, I’ll be fine,” Sterling said, trying to sound tough.

  Adelle patted his head. “Moron. Here, this should help.” She closed her eyes, and Aeyli saw the world around the woman and her brother shimmer with a faint orange glow. When she opened her eyes again, she gave Sterling an appraising stare. “Well, that explains how you got the power to hold the shield in the first place. In any case, that should let you hold it for a bit longer. As for you”—in a smooth, fluid motion, Adelle settled in front of Hester—“you are a nasty little piece of work. You and I are going to have a talk later. I promise you.”

  Hester said nothing and stared into the distance, haughtily.

  Sterling put a hand to his chest and looked down at it, then back at Adelle, gaping in wonder. “T-thank you.”

  Adelle stood with enviable grace and glided over to Aeyli and crouched back down, looking her over in the scant light. “You must be the one everyone’s been looking for. You’ve caused quite a stir, haven’t you?”

  Under the woman’s penetrating gaze, Aeyli felt like more than her appearance was being examined. After her experience looking into Jack’s eyes, Aeyli was nervous, but when nothing extraordinary happened, she relaxed. “Um, they started it?”

  “Aeyliana!” Sterling hissed reprovingly. “She’s a guardian, be respectful!” He had stopped sweating but still looked entirely unnerved.

  The woman let out a low, rich laugh. “Your brother is right, I am a guardian, but”—her lovely eyes narrowed—“that doesn’t mean much to you, does it?”

  The woman was perceptive, Aeyli would give her that. She was also as unaffected by Aeyli as her partner was. Curious. “Should it?”

  “In a family like yours, you should have been taught much about the Guard by now. For that crime alone your family would need to answer to us. But now is not the time to begin your education, little one.” Adelle turned her head up to look at the ledge above them where a large chunk of the Blaike family had gathered and was doing their best to knock down Sterling’s shield. “Most of your family is protected from being put to sleep. I could do each one individually, but they would overtake us long before I finished. A distraction would be better, I think. Then you can escape while they are occupied.”

  Aeyli was getting tired of enigmatic people showing up and assuming they could tell her what to do. She drew herself to her feet, pulling as much dignity and confidence around herself as she could. “Listen, I appreciate your help but—” she had been going to say, I’m not going anywhere without Fourteen, but her injured leg gave out, dropping her to the cold ground in a pathetic heap. She was certain people on the other side of the compound could hear her disgruntled sigh as she lay there face down in the dirt.

  Adelle held up a hand to keep Sterling from running to his sister. “You save your magic to power the shield, I’ll fix your sister.” Adelle leaned forward to help Aeyli turn over, but when Adelle’s fingers grazed Aeyli’s bare hand, she sucked in a breath and snatched her own hand away in reflex. “You are full of surprises for someone so small.”

  Aeyli looked at the woman’s face, expecting to see fear or anger there and was surprised when she only saw wonder. “Why doesn’t it anger you to be so close to me?”

  Perfectly manicured eyebrows drew together. “I suppose it would present as anger in people who don’t understand what you are. Especially in a family like yours.” Adelle’s words were tinged with sorrow. “Oh, the crimes they have committed against you, little one.”

  Rather than explaining herself, Adelle gently placed her hand on Aeyli’s chest and closed her eyes.

  It didn’t feel like someone had a hand on her chest. Instead it felt as though Adelle's hand had sunk through her skin and reached right in to Aeyli’s soul. She felt the pinkness inside of her rise to meet the orange of the newcomer.

  Watch. You might need to do this sooner than either of us might wish. The words formed warmly in her mind. Neither surprising nor invasive, it felt perfectly natural to have this woman speak to her in such a way.

  Instantly, she was aware of three large dark spots in the pink and saw the orange weave tendrils through her essence until it met them. Aeyli watched as Adelle’s magic wrapped around her own, and like a mother guiding the hands of a toddler, the orange guided the pink, sinking into the dark places and encouraging them to heal. She felt power flow from Adelle to herself as they healed her wounds, but rather than diminishing, their power swelled until Aeyli felt as though she were about to burst.

  Adelle opened her eyes and smiled. “That was lovely, thank you. I feel better than I did when I got here.”

  “You’re welcome?” Aeyli flexed her hands and feet. The injured parts still felt tender, but completely useable. Even the persistent throbbing of her head has calmed. “I mean, thank you, too. I might actually make it out of here alive.”

  Adelle caught and held her eyes, searching. “If only I had time to train you, this fight would be over in minutes. You are a gift to us all, you know?”

  Aeyli snorted. “A gift? Lady, that’s the first time anyone has ever thought of me a gift, I can assure you.”

  Adelle’s eyes went to the chasm behind Aeyli. “I wouldn’t be so certain of that if I were you.”

  Aeyli followed her gaze, wondering if she had been referring to Fourteen. He had mentioned meeting some guardians earlier. Maybe this woman was one of them.

  “If it weren’t breaking all the rules, as well as going against my better judgment, I would take you straight to Marshall. He could use someone like you right now. In fact, he’s going to need all the help he can get against that demon inside your aunt.

  “Demon? I thought it was a nightmare.” Aeyli felt woefully uneducated about Other society.

  “No, it’s definitely a demon, bu
t I can see how someone untrained could make that mistake. Traditionally, nightmares can’t survive for long in the Real outside of a host. Once they are strong enough to take form and survive alone, we consider them demons. For some reason, this demon has continued to live in a host. I’ve never seen anything like it, I wish I knew what it’s end game was.”

  “I know. I had some kind of vision when I grabbed a hold of Hester—um, my mother, I mean. My great-great-great-grandmother Hester and this demon have been possessing the matriarchs of my family for hundreds of years. They use their souls to hide the presence of the demon. It—she called it Sekt—is planning on entering the Demon Realm as some kind of super power.”

  Adelle’s lovely face was twisted with horror. “We have to stop this thing right now. If it succeeds, others will follow in its footsteps. The Guard has been ruthless about nightmares for a reason. The demon population can’t be allowed to gain in numbers, we’re having a hard time holding them back as it is!”

  “I can help,” Aeyli said before she could stop herself. Until now, all she wanted was to get to safety with Fourteen and her brother, but she couldn’t take off if there was a possibility she could actually be useful. She’d never been useful before and the idea that she might be needed for something important was like catnip for her soul. “I think when I grabbed Hester, it made Sekt run away.”

  Adelle shook her head. “I’m sorry, little one. As much as it pains me to say no, I cannot accept your help.” She placed a warm hand on Aeyli’s cheek. “It really is too bad, help from one such as yourself would be invaluable right now.”

  Aeyli had had enough cryptic statements, and she knocked the hand away with an angry jerk of her chin. “Plain English, lady,” she snapped. “What exactly am I supposed to be?”

  Aeyli could hear the smile in Adelle’s voice when she said, “I promise I’ll tell you once we are out of this.” She cocked her head as if hearing something no one else could. “Jack is going to need one of my trinkets to get your friend out of that hole. Once we’re out, we can all go.”