“I guess it’s a gift.”
“Hmm. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the way you’ve been asking about my niece, would it?” I shrugged uncomfortably. “Come on, you haven’t gotten shy all of a sudden, have you?”
“I didn’t mean to offend anyone. I saw her at the funeral. I still don’t know why no one wants to talk about her.”
“How comfortable are you with truth?”
“I guess that depends on whose truth it is.”
“Nice evasion. Truth is, the girl’s none of your business. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Glad we understand each other. This is your place, isn’t it?” I turned my head and saw a small house lit by a bare light bulb that hung from the tiny front porch.
“Yes, sir. You already know who I am.”
“Sure. One thing you might have noticed, we’re a little protective where Dariana’s concerned. You might even call it paranoid. When you get dangerous people paranoid about something, it’s best to watch your step. Do you get it?” I nodded, opened the door and slid out. He grabbed my wrist before I got a chance to slam the door. “You should have fought Osmond. Someone should knock some of the niceness out of him.”
“Why? I like him.”
“Don’t tell me. You’re one of the nice guys? What, did Devlin send you to look after her?” Satan gave me another long look. “That would explain your fascination.”
“I never met Devlin.”
“No, but you wouldn’t have to. Good night, boy. Take good care of that uncle of yours.”
I slammed the door and watched as Satan pulled out, spraying gravel around him. I stood watching as the red taillights disappeared from sight.
4 Life is but a Dream…or a Nightmare
When I woke up, my dad was watching me from his chair. I could tell by the light outside my window that it was early morning.
“Good dream or bad?” he asked closing his book.
“Dad, don’t you ever sleep?” I rubbed my temples. The last time I’d dreamed about that soft-eyed boy, I’d ended up crying. I didn’t want to cry in front of my father.
“Not in the summer. About your dream…”
I shook my head. “I’m not comfortable talking about it.” My reaction to him was more defensive than I’d meant it to be. I let out a deep breath. “Sorry, dad. I’m not used to dreams being so vivid and intense. I’m not used to any dreams at all.” I didn’t want to talk about my reaction to some dream boy. I knew from my biology classes that it was perfectly normal for a seventeen-year-old girl to think about boys, but I’d never done it before Devlin died. Snowy would have taken him apart piece by piece from his haircut to his shoes like she always did. Devlin’s girlfriend or no, she wasn’t blind. I had always wondered what she was talking about and now I knew. It was something to talk to girls about, not my dad who I hadn’t seen since I was six.
“I can feel your emotions, you know, because of my Cool blood. I can tell how torn and excited you are, while you’re trying to stay calm. Dreams can be more than something in your mind; they can reflect reality in concrete ways.”
I stared at him. “Dreams can be real?” I tried not to think about him picking up my emotions. He shrugged. “It’s the same dream I had before, when I was in the car on the way here. It’s about a guy,” I felt myself blushing. “I dream that he’s in Sanders asking about me.”
“A boy from Sanders? One of the local boys or someone new?”
I shrugged. I didn’t understand how it mattered. “I’ve never seen him before, but it wasn’t exactly easy to see him since I was him.” I rubbed my temples. This conversation was very awkward. “It’s not a big deal. Nothing really happened.”
“Grim told me about two new people who moved to Sanders. There is one boy living with his retired uncle and a girl who moved in with her cousins.”
I stared at him and felt lightheaded. “The retired veterinarian?” I asked, my voice shaking a tiny bit. “You think it’s possible for me to have real dreams?”
My father looked at me and exhaled slowly. “I suppose it’s possible. After all, your soul hasn’t been in your body for a very long time. Soul flight isn’t unheard of, but it’s not exactly common either.”
We stared at one another for a few minutes before I had this insane itching inside of my chest. I don’t know how to explain it, but I had to move, had to run before I exploded out of my body. I leapt from the bed, crashing to the floor when my foot tangled in the sheet.
“Are you all right?” my dad asked helping me to my feet.
“Oh, I’m good. I’m really quite great.” I giggled hysterically before I stood up straight and gave my dad a firm handshake. “I am going for a walk before breakfast. I’ll see you later.”
I walked outside, managing to hold my enthusiasm in check until I was on the porch and vaulted onto the grass with a whoop.
If he was really alive and in Sanders, then I might meet him someday in real life! I spun around in the gravel ignoring the jabbing in my feet. The morning seemed to me impossibly perfect, the rustling leaves and the birds that were beginning to awaken to sing and compete for dominance in the new day. The first threads of light reflected off the green until it seemed like I was dancing in the middle of the first day, everything so fresh and greenly glowing I could smell it, taste it on the air if I breathed deeply enough. I was dizzy with the oxygen as I loped aimlessly through the trees, my feet finding firm footing in the crumbling undergrowth like a deer, a creature of the woods.
When I reached the edge of the lake, I never slowed down, taking the water face first as I jumped in. Luckily it was a deep drop and I didn’t mash my nose on the bottom. I did get a lot of water in it, though and came to the surface sputtering and coughing, laughing at my idiocy, the cold of the water, and the incomprehensible idea that my dream might be real. I floated on my back feeling like a Waterhouse painting with my long white nightgown spread out around me. I felt so light and buoyant; no mere material could bring me down. I kicked and splashed like a child, taking great delight in the spray I sent shooting into the sky to come crashing down on me.
I drank a good deal of the lake that morning and by the time I dragged myself to the shore I was exhausted but exhilarated. I lay for a few minutes in the scratchy grass that tickled my ankles, feeling the wet nightgown chafe my skin. I watched the golden sunshine spread through the greenery, sparkling and illuminating everything it touched like magic. I lived in a very wonderful world if magic was real, if my dreams could come true. I giggled as I tried to squeeze the water out of my nightgown. I’d run out of the house without explaining anything to my dad. He must think I was crazy, but if my dream was real… I felt a surge of warmth and jumped to my feet humming as I went back to the house.
After I changed into something dry, I found my dad in the kitchen.
I was starving and ate clumsily. My dad sat back and watched me curiously.
“You like this boy that you dream.” I looked up swallowing when he said it.
“I don’t know him.” I took another bite.
“I’m overwhelmed by your emotional response, not that I’d need to be a Cool blood to see how happy the idea that this person is real has made you. I’ve never seen you so happy since you were a little girl.” He sounded sad and I felt my euphoria deflate a little.
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say.
He cleared his throat. “Do you dream about anything else?”
I started to shake my head, but then a memory of darkness gave me goose bumps and I covered my arm with my hand. “I had a nightmare as soon as I got to Mother’s house. I dreamed about it again before I woke up, you know after I’d been metabolizing your blood. Do you think that if I have dreams that are real, then I’d have nightmares that were too?” My head spun as I remembered the heat of the creature, the scream that made every one of my hairs stand on end, the feeling as its fangs ripped through layers of flesh. I rubbed my arm harder, the ache in it bl
ossoming as if to prove what I should have known all along.
My dad shook his head and said soothingly, “Tell me more about the nightmares please.”
I shook my head no but I knew that I couldn’t hide under my blankets if a real nightmare came after me. Not talking about it wouldn’t make it go away. “There was a monster. It was like a horse with fangs, weird legs and glowing red eyes.”
His eyes widened and he jerked slightly then was still. “A horse with fangs? Was there a rider on it?” I nodded. “Of course, it had claws instead of hooves.”
I nodded, still staring at him, with no idea what this might mean. “I didn’t really notice the hooves. So that wasn’t a nightmare?” I felt sick. Why couldn’t there be one thing in this world that was just a good thing? Why did dreams always go with nightmares? I wrapped my arms around myself trying to straighten it out in my head. “So they’re both real and…” I shivered and couldn’t say anything else.
“Nether creatures like the one you describe don’t like to be ridden. There are Nether and then there are Netherkind like you’ve been dreaming.” He took a deep breath and continued trying to sound reasonable instead of upset. “I’ll have to see what I can do about keeping you in your body at night. If it’s pulling you out of your body, who knows how close it is, how much it…” His voice trailed off.
“Pulling me out of my body at night?” I stared at him wondering how the nightmare could possibly have anything to do with controlling my dreams. I hated the idea of something pulling me out of myself when I’d been out of myself for so long. I clenched my hands together and let my nails dig into the skin.
“Let’s call it ‘spirit walking’. It’s a skill not uncommon in some circles. Perhaps it has something to do with your body and soul being unbound for so long.” He pushed away from the table and started pacing, still swirling his goblet.
“Spirit walk? Okay. So you think that thing’s really out there? It scares you?” I could tell it did. He was difficult to unnerve, but hearing about the Nether had him worried.
“Completely terrified,” he drawled in a way that was so completely not terrified I couldn’t help smiling slightly. “If you are dreaming about it, chances are that the two of you have a bond of some kind. Satan said when he found you the fog smelled Nether. I should have taken what he said more seriously. It’s so bizarre that a Nether would have anything to do with a soulless…” He trailed off gazing thoughtfully into his glass. He started and blinked me back into focus. “It must have smelled your Nether blood. It gave you the soul.” He sounded completely certain.
“Is that supposed to make sense?” I asked just to see.
He grinned at me. “Sense? Nether don’t have to make sense. They don’t come from this world. They aren’t human. They don’t feel things or understand things anything like you and I and we’re closer to them than most people. Nether make people like your uncle Satan look rational. The only rule they hold is no harming of innocents.”
“That sounds like a really good rule.” I nodded enthusiastically. “So it only hurts bad people?”
He shrugged. “That’s the rule.”
“Are you using rule the way normal people use it or…”
“There are always exceptions and innocence can be defined in innumerable ways. Nether are impossible to hold to anything.”
“All right, but that’s the rule. So as long as I’m innocent, it can’t hurt me?”
He frowned and I had a sudden memory of taking down the animal and the blood that sprayed around me. “The soul you currently possess is not innocent.”
“Oh. So much for the rule.” I closed my eyes and tried to remember my dad’s words. He’d said something about the monster and the rider being Nether. “Which is the Nether, rider or monster?” I asked trying to match his composure.
“Both, although I don’t know much about it. I haven’t pursued in-depth knowledge of Nether. Where they are concerned, it seems the more you know, the less you wish you knew. I do know that the Nether can shift, change shape, create darkness and illusions and slip off into a different dimension, taking your mind with it. If it gave you the soul, it doesn’t wish you dead, but then again if it cared enough to be involved, it’s very unlikely to leave you alone.”
“So what does that mean? Is he going to come here and take my soul again?”
My dad looked tired. “I wish I knew. If I did I would have seen this coming. I didn’t. I expected nightmares along the lines of you recalling painful experiences with Devlin which I could help you work through, not that you’re manifesting an out-of-body experience with a night rider. I’m not even certain if you’re safe here. I have the hounds, but if the rider has that much control over a silver demon, who knows how much loyalty they’ll show me.”
“Hounds? Silver Demon?”
My father grinned at me. “They’re Nether creatures. I have some Blood Hounds in the area loyal to my Nether blood. Make sure that you don’t have any fresh cuts when you’re running around the yard. They get uncontrollable around fresh blood.”
I felt a sinking in the pit of my stomach. “Sure thing. My nightmare’s real and we have no idea what he wants with me. In the meantime, I’d better not antagonize the hounds by bleeding on them.” I giggled slightly. It was all so completely beyond me. “It’s too bad Satan’s not here. This seems like his kind of thing.”
He looked at me and shook his head slightly. “This is all more than I expected.” He grinned suddenly. “You’re right about Satan, though. He’d be having a great time trying to blow the Nether to bits with a bazooka or something. He could plant mines around the perimeter and really make some noise.”
We were smiling at each other and I felt better for absolutely no rational reason. “What’s with him, anyway?”
“Oh, where does one start with someone like Satan? He’s a Wild who always wanted to be Hotblood. He’s almost endearing sometimes.”
“Yeah. He’s adorable.” I shook my head and remembered how it felt to stand in his enormous shadow. “I felt safe with him though.”
“Did you?” My dad nodded slowly. “Good. He’s going to be there when you go back in the fall. Feeling safe is something that I want for you.” He stood up like we’d made wonderful progress and I let him pull me to my feet. “Ethel wants to teach you to knit,” he said, nodding towards the doorway. I turned and Ethel stepped into view carrying a basket overflowing with colorful skeins of yarn.
“Knit?” It seemed a world away from the conversation I’d just been having about Nethers and nightmares coming alive. After that, knitting seemed ridiculous.
“Hotbloods knit.” Ethel said striding towards me, her sensible shoes clicking across the stones. “It helps them learn to be mindful. Living in the present, being aware of the choices you’re making from one moment to the next helps more than just about anything with fury. I stayed at that academy for more years than I can count. Believe me, if you have the patience to knit, we’ll be getting somewhere.”
“I thought you were going to take me hunting or I could do Tai Chi,” I offered my dad, reluctant to man a pair of needles.
“I think we’ll save hunting for a time when I feel a little more comfortable leaving the inner compound. As for Tai Chi, tomorrow or this evening if you like. This day is unfolding at a voracious pace and I must run if I am to catch it before it disappears.”
“Sure. All right then.” He was so weird.
He disappeared and I spent the day with Ethel learning to knit. Actually I learned a dozen ways how not to knit while Ethel sat patiently adjusting my fingers for the hundredth time. Then when I lost my temper, she left me to it while she serenely knitted something with annoying ease until I asked for help again. She was right about trying to concentrate though. It took fierce concentration to move from one stitch to another without dropping the yarn and having the whole thing come undone. I looked up after I’d done two whole rows and saw that Ethel was making dinner. My dad was right; time was voracious.<
br />
My dad came in, and after a dinner where he talked about the weather and color theory, he invited me out onto the patio. We did Tai Chi while the sun dropped down behind the hills. The streaks of orange and purple were amazing. I wanted the sky to stay like that, the color to be frozen, but it faded away and the day was over. I sighed as my dad sat down at the iron wrought table and uncorked a bottle. He poured a glass for me. When I smelled it, my muscles relaxed as the scent of warmth and sweetness filled me. I jerked back abruptly as I recognized the smell. It was the smell of fallen leaves, of things ending, and dying.
“That’s death.” After the chicken the flavor was unmistakable to me.
“Not death, Autumn. I don’t think anyone’s figured out how to bottle death, though no doubt some have tried. This brew comes from an ancient recipe passed down on my mother’s side of the family. I think you’ll like it.” He smiled kindly as I took the goblet and looked down into the amber depths. Why did I have to find the smell of death so appealing? It reminded me of my dream of the nightmare, the Nether.
“First, drink this.” My dad pulled a vial out of his pocket and slid it to me across the table. I pulled off the stopper and wrinkled my nose. It smelled as bad as death smelled good. “Drink it quickly. It should help with the dreams.” Ah. So that was what my father had been doing all day. I took a deep breath and poured the stuff into my mouth. I gagged but my dad pressed the goblet to my lips and the putrid flavor was drowned in the taste of death.
My dad filled my glass again. By the time I was near the dregs, I felt like my head was going to fall to the ground if it didn’t hit a pillow first. He picked me up and carried me through the kitchen and up the stairs as if I weighed nothing and tucked me into bed.
“No nightmares tonight,” he whispered as he smoothed my hair and I drifted off to sleep.
It was a different kind of dream. The sun shone golden on me as I walked through the woods, stepping lightly beneath the canopy that rose so far above my head. I swung my arms and whistled back to the birds. I slowed down and giggled when I heard the boys ahead of me. Crouching behind a fallen tree, I watched Devlin’s bent head where he worked with his friends on their fort. He looked up at me, the still chubby cheeks of a child, but his blue black eyes were so serious in his face.
Hotblood Page 9
