by Vicki Leigh
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© 2014 Vicki Leigh
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For Grandma,
who first showed me what it meant to love a good book,
and who, even when the world told her she was blind, found a way to read.
nvisible, I leaned against the wall at the back of Eva’s bedroom, waiting for her to fall asleep and for the Nightmares to arrive. The crows’ feet around Eva’s eyes crinkled as she smiled and shut the book she’d been reading before smoothing her blankets out around her and flicking off the light.
“Do you always have to be so brooding? While most people die, you get to continue to live. You should be more grateful,” my partner, Marlene, said.
Ignoring her, I closed my eyes. As Protectors of the Night—me a Dreamcatcher and she a Dreamweaver—we were both sworn to guard humans for the rest of eternity. Marlene created dreams; I fought off Nightmares. Which meant I was spending nearly every day in battle, and I would never get to see the Heavens. When I died—for good this time; I was already dead—I would just cease to exist. Lost in a black void. Not much of an eternity, if you ask me.
Marlene gave an exasperated sigh and stepped away to do her job. “Just be on alert, okay?”
When wasn’t I? Not like I hadn’t been doing this for two-hundred years or anything.
I’d been just seventeen, sent from England to fight in what was now called the War of 1812. Why I’d wanted to be a soldier, I no longer knew. I could’ve stayed in my family’s home, the son of an Earl, and have married and fathered children. But instead, I’d gone overseas to the Americas and died. Not my cleverest move.
Now, I was still that young soldier, just in a different kind of war. Good versus evil. The cliché kind. I’d agreed to this afterlife because I couldn’t bear to be away from the family I’d left behind. But when the last of my kin were finally gone… I never should’ve tried to cheat death.
The smell of sulfur hit me and my hair stood on end. I uncrossed my arms, opened my eyes, and grabbed the daggers from my weapon belt. Marlene was still straddled over Eva, her hands hovering above the woman’s head. The dream she created shone above Eva’s bed, like a movie projector played video on the wall. Standing on the balls of my feet, I waited for the attack.
The first Nightmare entered the room through the wall by the door, its scaly, humanoid body twisting like a character from an exorcism movie. Stepping toward it, I gripped my daggers tighter and raised a blade like an American football quarterback prepping to lob a pass. The beast’s red eyes glowed as it slithered toward the bed. I wasted no time throwing my dagger. The blade stuck in the creature’s skull right between the eyes. The glow in the monster’s beady eyes faded as it crumbled to the floor without a sound.
Grimacing, I tore the blade out of the Nightmare’s head and wiped the black blood from my knife before pulling out a lighter and setting the beast on fire. The twisted body burned as fast as the oil in a Kerosene lamp, then turned to ash. Remembering how difficult it’d been to get rid of Nightmares’ corpses before someone invented the lighter, the corner of my mouth twitched. I could build a house with all the wasted matches.
“Something’s wrong,” Marlene said, panic coating her voice. “Her mind… it’s like I can’t pull the memories anymore.”
The dream above the bed flickered like a television before the power went out. I’d protected enough people to know what was happening.
“Just do your best. Give her something to hold onto as she passes.”
Marlene looked at me, her lips in a frown. This had been her first real case, taking over when my former partner transferred to a more difficult assignment. “You mean…”
I nodded, and Marlene turned away with tears in her eyes.
Maybe I should’ve been sad, but I’d watched over cancer patients, kidnapped girls, and soldiers. I’d even protected a little six-year-old boy who died in a coma after a drunk driver killed him. Eva was my first charge who had lived a full life and died in her sleep at a normal age. She deserved to go peacefully like this. And if I were being honest, as someone who had died young—and would remain so forever—I was jealous.
Turning away when the scent of sulfur hit my nose again, my eyes searched the room for the second Nightmare’s point of entry. The monster crept through the far corner near the window with a snakelike hiss, claws extended from its hands. I waited until the creature was a little closer to us before stepping forward to throw my blade.
Its claws contracted and the Nightmare’s hiss died, but I threw my blade anyway, ridding the world of one more evil. Still, I knew what had happened, why the monster was no longer interested in feeding.
Eva was dead.
With my arms crossed over my chest, I stood at the back of the funeral home, invisible to human eyes. Exhaustion filled every muscle and joint in my body, but I needed to pay my respects. Eva might not have known I was there, but after spending every night with her for eighty years, I felt like I at least owed her a goodbye.
A hand touched my shoulder.
Jumping, I dropped my arms from my chest. “Bloody hell!” I hated when she did that.
“Always so stoic, Daniel. You make it easy.” Samantha smiled from ear to ear. Since she’d become a Dreamcatcher almost one hundred years ago, she’d been what they called my “understudy.”
Every Protector of the Night spent about one hundred years as an understudy before taking their trials and becoming a lead. If anything were to happen to me on a mission, Samantha would take over in my place. Our charge always held priority in our eternal lives and should never be left alone during the night for more than a minute—that’s all a Nightmare needed to attack a person’s mind. And the more a Nightmare invaded someone’s head, the more that human suffered from insanity—insanity that often led to violence or suicide.
But the likelihood of Samantha having to step in for me was slim-to-none, and we both knew it. Besides, until she took her trials, I wasn’t going to let her fight on her own. Call it a dated notion, but I was responsible for her. Our souls were dead, but our bodies still worked like the living. We could still bleed—and die. The last thing I wanted was for her to get hurt. So, Samantha had resorted to playing pranks on me in her everlasting downtime.
“Doesn’t that get old?” I crossed my arms again and stared straight ahead. Standing like this had become my usual pose when I was either bored or didn’t want to be bothered. Right now, it was the latter.
“Nope.” She mimicked my stance and watched one of Eva’s granddaughters bend over the casket to touch Eva’s hand. The granddaughter burst into tears and fell into her husband’s arms.
“Why do you watch this?” Samantha asked.
“What do you want, Sam?”
“Giovanni’s asking for you.”
I sighed. Giovanni was our Leader and the second oldest in the entire company. He had mastered the arts of both Catching and Weaving, a prerequisite for leading the Protectors of the Night. He was a royal pain
in the ass, but no one avoided him. They’d be benched for a century. And as I’d yet to take more than a few months off, I didn’t want Giovanni to break my streak.
“All right. Let’s go.” Uncrossing my arms, I closed my eyes to evaporate to Rome. When I reopened them, I stood in the grand foyer of Il Palazzo di Santo Stefano, our twelve-story mansion where Catchers and Weavers trained and lived when we weren’t on assignment. The building sat right in the middle of the city, but when living humans walked past our front door, they thought they were passing a laundromat that reeked of dead cat and horse shit. It’s how we kept them out. If any of them could look through the veil, though, they would see a brick fortress that rivaled the most beautiful castles in Europe.
I stomped my black boots on the cream-colored marble floor as I crossed the room, wondering what Giovanni could want with me right now. We usually got at least a week of down time after our charge passed on. The Tuscan-gold walls blurred as I took two stairs at a time up to the twelfth floor, just wanting to get this over with. The staircase split each floor in half, and I turned right toward Giovanni’s study.
Samantha stayed on my heels and paused next to me as I knocked on large, double doors of finished, cherry wood. From inside, Giovanni’s burly guards opened them. Immediately, I was hit with the smell of Giovanni’s cigar and coughed. I had never enjoyed the smell of cigar when I was alive. It was no different now that I was dead.
I passed Seth, Giovanni’s understudy and my best friend, and nodded a “hey” in his direction. My feet trudged across the white carpet to the ornate, cherry desk in the middle of the office. A laptop sat open on it, a sign of Giovanni’s recent technological undertaking, and files were tossed about. I rolled my eyes at his inability to keep anything organized.
“You called for me, sir?”
Behind the desk was a wall-sized window Giovanni continued to stare through, watching the city as if he hadn’t heard me. But I knew he had.
“Shall I come at a later time?” I asked.
At this, Giovanni turned around, staring at me with eyes so black I could see my reflection in them. His dark brown hair had been slicked back today into a small ponytail. I wondered if he knew how much he resembled Dracula with his hair like that. Still, he would’ve blended in with any Italian on the street, so I supposed that’s what he was going for.
“No, per favore. Sit.” He motioned to the dark brown, leather loveseat opposite his desk. I took my seat, moving a gold pillow from underneath me as he continued. “I heard Eva passed earlier this week. How did it happen?”
“In her sleep, sir. She was comfortable.”
“That’s good to hear. It’d be a shame if she died in fear after all these years. Now tell me, how many times did you have to fight off the Nightmares for her?”
“Twenty-five thousand and twenty four, sir.”
“Mamma mia,” he said, his eyes wide. But then he leaned back in his seat, and his face drew back into apathy. “Is that all?”
My jaw clenched. Nobody had gone as long as I had without a break. Any human who died at an old age usually had two Catchers protecting them over their years. Even a week of relaxation kept us from getting overworked and burnt out.
I balled my hands before speaking. “Yes, sir.”
At this, Giovanni stood up. “Well, then I think we must do something about that. You’re my star player. I can’t have you getting rusty.”
I hated when he used sports references like I wasn’t risking my eternity every night.
“How would you feel about taking on a tough case?” His eyes filled with wonder. If I wasn’t so exhausted, I might have been more excited to know what had made our serious boss so intrigued.
“Forgive me, sir, but I did just finish a very long assignment. Might I have at least a year to refresh?”
Giovanni stared at me then shrugged. The reaction was so out of character it unnerved me. He turned to Samantha and pointed. “You. How would you like to take on a very dangerous case? It could be the highlight of your career.”
A wave of heat ran through my body as I snapped my head to stare at her. The last thing I wanted was for Samantha’s first charge as a lead to be a difficult one. She could be killed. Giovanni needed to give her a young child with a short lifespan. There’d be fewer chances to fight Nightmares that way.
Samantha perked up. “I’m ready, sir. Absolutely.”
I jumped up. “No way. She is not ready, Giovanni.”
A flash of anger sparked in his eye at the use of his first name. “And who else should I go to, Daniel? If not you, then I want the Catcher you trained. One of you two will do it, whether you like it or not.”
My jaw twitched. He was using my understudy as a way to get to me. I wanted to push him and his cavalier attitude out the window he stared through so often. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
Samantha’s face reddened. I’d pulled the rug out from underneath her. But she was immature, impatient and had yet to Catch on her own. If she hated me, so be it. At least she’d still exist.
Giovanni smiled in victory. “Glad to hear you’re on board. I’ll send Seth to your room later with the file. For tonight, enjoy your dinner and get some rest. You will need it.”
I turned and stormed out the door, past Seth’s apologetic eyes and Samantha’s hateful stare. What I wouldn’t give to trade places with Eva right now. At least then I’d be on my way to the Heavens instead of putting my eternity on the line for another stupid assignment.
itting at the dark oak desk in the far corner of my bedroom, I shoveled food into my mouth while reading through my original copy of A Tale of Two Cities, one of my favorite novels. After two hundred years of Dreamcatching, I’d had plenty of time to collect books. I’d probably read this one fifty times.
“Come in,” I said when someone knocked on my door. I marked my page with a leather bookmark and turned in my chair to see who’d come to visit. Seth. Standing, I greeted my friend with our “secret handshake.” We’d seen people do one of those fancy handshakes once, and it just kind of stuck. I smiled a little as our hands moved back and forth like floppy fish.
“You not goin’ to your party?” Seth asked, his Alabama drawl still strong fifty years after his death.
“I never have.” Although it was a nightly event—Protectors celebrating the peaceful passing of their charges—I had yet to attend one of my own congratulation parties. Something about celebrating death bothered me.
“Come on, man. You could at least enjoy a few beers, find some pretty lady to follow you upstairs.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
I shook my head and smirked. His thoughts were always in the gutter. “Why don’t you give me the file, and then you can go downstairs and party for the both of us?”
Seth smiled and held out the file. I took the manila folder and sat back in my chair. The corner of the desk bumped one of my bookshelves and nearly sent books falling to the floor. Seth plopped down on my bed and hung his legs over the edge, his dark skin in extreme contrast to my off-white comforter. People often said my room looked like a hospital with white walls and white bed sheets. But I preferred life simple.
“So where you goin’ next?” Seth asked.
When I opened the file, the first things I noticed were her eyes. They were hazel, and the gold in them framed her pupil like the sun on a bright, summer day. She had soft, feminine features, lightly tanned skin, and long, brown hair the color of a dark chocolate Hershey bar. The strands looked like they would be soft to touch. She was pretty. I glanced at the name. Kayla Bartlett. How could she be a tough case?
“Well?” Seth probed.
“Ohio. There’s a girl there who lives…” I’d been so immobilized by her face, I hadn’t yet checked where she lived. “In a mental ward.” And there was the catch. Great. Giovanni was sending me to a loony.
“Is she hot?” Seth jumped off the bed to peek over my shoulder. “Damn, she’s fine.”
“And insane.” Snapping the folder closed, I mad
e a mental note to check the rest of the details when Seth was gone.
“So? When she gets naked, it won’t matter if she’s all there or not.” He bounced from side to side and pretended to smack an imaginary girl’s behind while he bit his lip in a display of ecstasy.
I shook my head and used a phrase I had heard in passing by one of the newest Catchers. “You, my friend, need to remember to think with your upstairs brain.”
Seth burst out laughing. “Man, did you really just say that?”
I couldn’t help but smile. I wasn’t always without a sense of humor. “Tell you what. I don’t want to go to my ‘party,’ but I could use a good beer. Want to go to Bellandi’s?” I hadn’t seen my best friend in months, and if I was going to be in the United States for god-knows-how-long, I didn’t really want to sit in my room all night by myself. There’d be plenty of alone time when I was holed up in a flat in Columbus. As long as we didn’t reveal ourselves to our charges, there was no rule that said we couldn’t exist amongst the living.
“Yeah, man. I’ll change and meet you there.” Seth held his hand out to me for a fist-bump.
When he evaporated from the room, I returned to my desk and opened the file.
Replacement position for Jessica Atwol who was mortally wounded in combat, along with her understudy.
Kayla Bartlett, 16, was referred to St. Mark’s Home for the Mentally Challenged by her mother, Meredith, a neurosurgeon at St. Andrews Medical Center. Her father died in a drunk-driving accident when she was ten-years-old. She claims that on her sixteenth birthday she burned a man alive with her own hands. Her psychiatrist has diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder, clinical depression, and possible schizophrenia.
Great. There wasn’t going to be a single night when the Nightmares didn’t try to invade. The beasts loved to pick on those with a tortured past, especially those that would be easy to break—like the insane.
Following Giovanni’s rules, I lit the file on fire and tossed the papers in my metal rubbish bin. But those eyes—her eyes—never left my mind.
