by Sarah Noffke
“Exactly, and I know that his men don’t have that same restriction. They can give themselves to someone fully,” Rox said, the implications strong in her words.
Chapter Fifteen
“The place a person visits while dream traveling is referred to as the dreamscape. Only Dream Travelers can access this place. The dreamscape is an exact replica of our waking world. The events happening in real time are something those dream traveling can witness. However, those in the physical realm are unaware of the Dream Traveler observing.”
- Dream Traveler Codex
Either Mika had been scammed, or he wasn’t strong enough to teleport. Charles Knight, his old mentor, had sold him the information on teleporting, but for all his efforts, Mika had yielded no results. It was hard to believe that he’d paid a large sum of money for a set of instructions, a philosophy mostly. When he’d first been given the information he’d complained to Knight that he doubted the likelihood that it would work based on thought alone. To Mika, science was always behind everything, but maybe that was because he was so accustomed to manufacturing skills and creatures now. Knight had simply batted his eyes, devoid of eyelashes, at Mika and said, “If you don’t believe then you won’t be successful. Teleportation is about the thoughts we hold, not about our physical body.” And then Knight had vanished. Literally. That’s how Mika knew that he actually held the power of teleportation and was willing to pay him for it. However, after trying for days now, he’d yielded no results. Not even anything that could be considered a result. Mika only remained firmly standing in the same place, unmoved.
Knight couldn’t be found now though. However, that wasn’t atypical of Knight. He had disappeared after training Mika years ago. Actually, it had been Knight who had found Mika recently, asking for an investment in his new venture. That’s when he asked him to train him on teleporting, but Knight refused, saying instead he’d sell him the information. What he gave Mika wasn’t working and he doubted that this would change.
“Haiku just radioed to give you good news,” Drake said, from behind Mika. He turned to find the older man framed in the doorway to his office. Maybe his problem with teleporting was the constant interruptions.
“Why is it that you feel the need to introduce information rather than just telling me outright? You do realize I’m a busy man, who has two companies to run,” Mika said.
“I do realize that. And I apologize for the way that I speak,” Drake said, not sounding sorry about all. “Maybe I can create a drug to change the way I am.”
Mika scratched his eyebrow, not because it itched, but rather because he was irked. “This news…” he said, trailing away, allowing Drake to fill in his sentence.
“Haiku and his team have Derek in custody and are returning him to Olento Research,” Drake said, his hands behind his back as he rocked up on his toes and then back on his heels.
Well, that was something, at least. Derek was the true runt of the pack, but that shouldn’t be dismissed as unimportant. It is often those who are underestimated who go on to do great things. However, Derek was also the trusting sort, which was exactly how Mika suspected that he was abducted this time. Those who throw around trust are as wasteful with their safety as those who walk into a road without looking both ways for traffic.
“I wonder what his skill will be,” Mika said, his eyes on the large globe in the corner that rested in an elaborately carved holder. He’d been to every country on that globe and it only made him hungry for more.
“According to the short conversation I had with Haiku, he’s a technopath,” Drake said.
Mika should have been the one to receive the call, but he’d been directing many of his tasks to the scientist since he was spending all of his time working on teleporting lately. That endeavor would have to end though. Not micromanaging everything was a surefire way for his company to suffer.
“Why does he think that he has the power to control electronics?” Mika said.
“Because Derek awoke from the chloroform and the radio, phones, and other devices were doing strange things. He couldn’t call me until he gave the order to sedate him again, after figuring out it was the werewolf who was making his phone not work,” Drake said.
“Interesting,” Mika said, stroking his goatee, a habit he was trying to break himself of. The runt did in fact have a power that made up for his small stature. In this day and age, someone who ruled electronics was incredibly powerful and useful.
“Have Haiku start his conditioning the very same moment they arrive. It sounds like Derek could be rebellious if left to his own devices,” Mika said, cringing at the accidental pun. He despised things like puns or jokes. Anything related to humor. It was such a distraction.
“Sir, I’d like a chance to check over Derek. He’ll be sedated, which will make it easy, especially if I’m given permission to keep him like that for a little while. I didn’t have the chance to examine Malcolm when he came in,” Drake said.
“That’s because he was drunk and we were trying to capitalize on his hunger. But yes, that’s fine. He’ll be even hungrier if we keep him sedated for a day or two. That will make conditioning even easier, in theory,” Mika said.
“Yes, as long as you don’t take it too far and lose him to starvation like that one subject,” Drake said, his tone teasing.
Mika didn’t like teasing either. It was in the same vein as joking and had no use at Olento or Parantaa Research. “Where are you with Project Vampyyri?”
“I’ve lost three more subjects,” Drake said, his tone shifting to more of a growl.
“Only three?” He’d expected that Drake would have tested the process on many more subjects by now, tweaking the procedure each time. “What else are you working on?”
Drake’s eyes rose up to the ceiling. “No other projects, sir,” he said.
That was a lie. People often looked up and to the right when they lied. Mika had learned that long ago from his mentor, Charles Knight.
“What other projects are you working on?” Mika repeated.
“Only the ones you assigned me to update the formula for your enhancements,” Drake said.
“Then why didn’t you say that the first time?” Mika said, still skeptical of this chief scientist.
“It skipped my mind,” Drake said.
“I want six more subjects put through Project Vampyyri. I’m counting on you creating a vampire. That’s how we are going to catch Zephyr and his beta,” Mika said, putting his back to Drake, dismissing him at once.
Chapter Sixteen
“Dream Travelers in the dreamscape pass through those with a consciousness in the physical realm.”
- Dream Traveler Codex
Sitting with his elbow on his knees, Clay Morris leaned forward, studying the concrete under him. This had always been his favorite place. The levee was where he’d go as a boy to skip rocks. Later he made out with the girl of the month on one of the steps. And then he’d made the decision to join the Marines while sitting in the place where he was now. However, currently, the usual calm that he gained by visiting this treasured place wasn’t entering his body. Actually, if he was honest, he hadn’t felt that calm since before the labs. Since before they changed him into a werewolf. He’d thought that by returning to his roots in Baton Rouge, he’d invite the calm back into his being, making the werewolf have to exit. In his mind, peace and the wolf couldn’t exist in the same being. However, he was wrong about the wolf leaving him and he was right about how the two couldn’t coexist.
Clay lifted his chin to look at the cityscape across the Mississippi River. He’d once worked in one of those shiny buildings. Wore a suit to work every day. He’d been someone. But then he’d been abducted all because he’d decided to go out for a late cup of coffee at his favorite diner. Most people tucked their children in at night or read a book or maybe talked to their spouse. That’s how others found peace. Clay drank coffee. There was something about the aroma, the nostalgic flavor of chocolate and bitter
undertones that always gave him a sense of peace. He drank it even when he wasn’t tired. However, the coffee didn’t offer him the same serenity anymore, although he never went back to the diner after the abduction. Maybe their brew with its special chicory flavor would do the trick, although he doubted it.
Blowing out a hot breath, Clay pulled his gaze away from the buildings that were too far away and also too close. He hadn’t gone back to his old job as a stockbroker. He hadn’t really done anything but returned to his hometown. And now he wasn’t surprised to find himself lost. How could he create himself anew when he didn’t know who he was? That’s why it hadn’t been a lie when the homeless shelter asked him who he was. He told them that he couldn’t remember. That wasn’t untrue. Who was he? A werewolf, but who was the man in him? Everything was blurring now. He needed to reestablish roots, but how does one do that when they change into a monster once a week?
Bringing his gaze back to the concrete of the levee, Clay let out a scream he’d been holding in. It echoed off the opposite bank and made a flock of birds startle and fly into the air. And then the concrete under him cracked and splintered. He’d finally let it out and Clay was sure it would only get worse. Since he escaped the lab he’d had the ability to move the earth. Crack it. Do things to it with his intentions. But now his emotions wanted out and he was afraid of what would happen to the land around him because of them.
Chapter Seventeen
“Objects in the dreamscape can be moved by those dream traveling, but they will be moved in the physical realm, creating a poltergeist effect. Ren Lewis is crowned with creating more poltergeist effects in the 1980s than any other person in history. It has since been made illegal by the Lucidite Institute to move objects while dream traveling.”
- Dream Traveler Codex
With her eyes pressed gently closed, Adelaide drew in a breath to a four count. On the exhale she focused her intention, repeating her mantra. We’re only energy and that can be displaced. Something stirred deep inside of Adelaide, like her insides were made of feathers and an internal wind had just swept through her. She opened her eyes, firmly believing she’d teleported.
“Fuck my life,” she said to the empty room. Adelaide stood exactly where she’d been. Not an inch over or a foot to the right, and certainly not in the other room, where’d she intended to teleport.
She’d been working nonstop for hours, trying to master teleporting. It was the hardest of all the skills, more so than creating illusions in the physical realm and much more difficult than hypnosis.
“Mum! Mum!” she heard Lucien call from the living area. Dropping her shoulders with defeat, she stomped for the other room. Teleporting would have been so much easier.
“What’s up, Lucy?” she said to the toddler with a head full of red hair and freckles spread over the bridge of his nose.
“Ren!” he exclaimed, pointing at the entrance for the kitchen.
She jerked her head in that direction and then slumped further with defeat when she found only an empty space.
“No, Lucy. Ren isn’t here. Remember, we talked about this? Ren isn’t with us anymore. He’s…” She trailed away. Telling her son that his granddad was dead just felt wrong. Or maybe the concept was what seemed wrong.
The little boy stomped over to the entrance of the kitchen and pointed up into the air. “Ren! Ren! Ren!”
Adelaide paused and studied the space. Was her son in fact seeing Ren? Like he was a ghost, but in another dimension? A parallel universe, maybe? She didn’t like the way this idea gave her hope, hope that would make the healing process longer when it turned out to be nothing. Adelaide tentatively strode for the kitchen and ducked her head around the corner to find the room dark and, sadly, empty.
“No, Lucy,” Adelaide said, shaking her head at the boy. She leaned over and picked him up, and he pinned his chubby thighs around her hips. “Ren isn’t here. I know you, just like me, like to pretend he’s still here. But that’s not the case. He can’t ever come back. He’s gone.”
Ren Lewis, for as much as he loathed kids, was strangely loved by Lucien from birth. The infant cried nonstop, but Ren could strangely get him to stop. And as the boy grew up, he always watched Ren with a polite fascination. It had been Ren whom Lucien first walked to. And it was his name that was his first word. Adelaide had been selfish in not recognizing how much Ren’s death had affected her son. She placed her hand on his back and pressed him into her, hugging him as much as he’d allow.
“Ren,” he said, his voice less adamant.
“I know, Lucy. I’m sorry. Look, maybe this will help,” she said and pointed her gaze at the center of the living room, focusing all her energy at pulling from the elements. From the carpet a figure rose up until at full height. A man with red hair to match Adelaide’s stood before them, his green eyes discerning the pair in front of him. He wore a dark green suit and an expression that said he was bored with irritation.
“Ren. Ren,” Lucien said, flailing in Adelaide’s arm to get down. She let him slide down to the ground where he ran for the figure. The boy pointed at the illusion of Ren and said, “Ren.” Then he pointed next to Adelaide and repeated himself. “Ren!”
“No, we just have the one and he’s not even real,” Adelaide said, studying the almost perfect illusion of her father. He blinked at her impassively.
“You really should be able to teleport by now. You’re such a bloody loser,” the illusion said in the voice of Ren, his Estuary accent thick.
From the hallway Adelaide heard a gasp. “Son!”
Pops moved faster than she’d seen him since she knew him. He didn’t stop until just in front of his son and then threw his large arms around the illusion, where they swept through it.
“Oh no! I’m sorry, Pops,” Adelaide said, pulling her illusion down and covering her face. “That was an illusion. I’m so so so sorry.”
Pop’s eyes widened from shock as he turned to her, not really seeing anything. His hand clapped to his chest and he heaved in gigantic breaths. “Oh…an illusion. Yes, of course. I just thought…”
“I know. I’m sorry. I produced it for Lucy,” she said, guilt pulsing through her stomach, making her think she’d throw up from the anxiety.
“Ren was the only person I’d ever heard of who could create illusions in the physical realm. You can do that?” he said, awe now in his expression, although the stress of the prior moment still marked his eyes.
“Yes, I learned it from Ren’s book. He learned it from a man named Chase. They were probably the only ones able to do it,” Adelaide said.
“Wow, that would make Ren happy to know you’d mastered that. I really thought that was Ren. It looked just like him,” Pops said.
“Thanks. But I don’t know about that. I can’t master teleporting,” Adelaide said.
“And your father didn’t until a few years ago, so ease up on yourself,” Pops said.
She nodded, watching as Lucien fixed his gaze on the entrance to the kitchen at her back.
“Yeah, I just wish I knew what I was missing,” Adelaide said, her voice absent and her focus far away.
“You’ll figure it out,” Pops said, patting her shoulder as he passed her on his way to the kitchen. He always made his tea in the afternoon, the way Adelaide knew good British people did. She wasn’t a good British person, but rather the slum that filled up the inner cities and didn’t even know what tea tasted like. Well, that had been her, but she still felt like the impoverished child, most days.
“Hey, Addy, what’s this about?” Pops called from the kitchen.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” she said, shaking her head at Lucien like they were commiserating on how Pops sometimes thought Adelaide could read minds without touching him.
“The statue of sorts that you’ve made,” Pops said.
She tossed her hair over shoulder and reached down and picked up Lucien. “Let’s see what the old man is talking about,” she said to her son.
Upon
entering the kitchen she found what he meant. It was nothing really. Just the tray Pops used for his afternoon tea sitting underneath the knife block in the middle of the kitchen floor. All the knives had been removed and were nestled by the backsplash, as far from the edge of the counter as they could be.
“I didn’t do that,” Adelaide said, staring at the center of the floor.
“Well, it couldn’t have been Lucien. Why would someone put that in the middle of the floor? And why a tray under a wooden block?” Pops asked.
“Wait…” Adelaide said, her mind sensing there was a message here. Was it from Ren? Was he responsible for this? “What did you just say?”
“Which part? The tray under a wooden block part?” Pops said.
“Yes, which sounds a lot like Trey Underwood,” Adelaide said.
“Indeed it does. But what does the Head Official for the Lucidites have to do with anything?” Pops said.
“Tell me. Do you know who taught Ren how to teleport? Chase taught him how to create illusions, but the book doesn’t say where he learned teleportation,” Adelaide said.
“Well, I’ll be. I do believe it was Mr. Underwood, one of the gentlest souls I’ve met in all my life, save for Mary or you,” he said, affectionately thinking of his deceased wife who had been gone for over twenty years.
A chill that shook Adelaide to the core made her arms vibrate with Lucien still in her arms. “Lucy?” she said, looking straight at the boy. “You saw Ren here. Didn’t you? Not my illusion, but the real thing?”
The boy nodded profusely in her arms, then stuffed his hand into his mouth.
“Pops, I think this was a message and I think your son figured out a way to give it to me,” Adelaide said, looking at her granddad with a haunted look.
“That son of mine. He was too clever for his own good. If anyone could communicate from beyond, it would be Ren,” Pops said, staring down at the wooden block on top of the tray with a great deal of sentimentality.
