Tangible (Dreamwalker)

by Wallace, Jody

  “I can’t believe this is happening.” Her voice cracked on the last word. “Why does nobody know about these monsters?”

  “People do know,” he said. “We know. Our organization knows. Now you know.”

  Tears gathered in her eyes. “I don’t want this.”

  Zeke fought the urge to embrace her again. Instead, he said gruffly, “None of us do, but somebody’s gotta deal with it. Now quit bitchin’ that life’s not fair and move your ass.”

  Maggie jerked as if he’d slapped her. Oh, she hated him all right. He kind of hated himself.

  Rhys stepped in, his voice a soft rumble. “We understand what you’re going through, Maggie. We all suffered through it ourselves at one point or another.” He placed his huge hand on her arm and guided her toward the street. “Consider us your support group and Zeke your go-to guy.”

  “Your go-to-hell guy,” Zeke muttered. He stifled the urge to shove Rhys away from her. He didn’t want to mentor this woman. Didn’t want to open himself up to anyone like that ever again and put the world in danger because he couldn’t maintain his professionalism.

  But he didn’t like Rhys touching her. He didn’t want anyone touching her, mentoring her, sharing her dreams and her bed.

  Possessiveness and lust had tagged along with the tangible. Just what he needed. She was shaping up to be a Harrisburg retread and he didn’t think it was fate giving him a chance to make it right.

  Fucking odds.

  “Don’t mind Zeke.” Rhys shot him a searching glance, as if he suspected what was going through Zeke’s head. His teammates didn’t usually have to apologize for him this much. More like half this much. “He had a rough night last night.”

  He’d had a rough night, all right—locating this woman in the dreamsphere so his team could slay her nightmares. Now he was expected to tutor her without getting attached, or her nightmares would become his own.

  This was not going to happen again.

  Chapter Three

  Maggie shivered as Zeke, emanating frustration, caught up to her and her escort. Zeke’s spicy taste still on her lips, she tried to concentrate on the important thing—the vampires. The cut on her neck where one had bitten her. Were there more at the house? Her brother hadn’t been home this early in weeks, but if he was now, if the monsters found him...

  “Does the rule about vampires requiring an invitation to enter a house apply?” she asked. If so, no problem. Hayden wouldn’t welcome anyone into the house. He wouldn’t even answer the door.

  “Told you. They’re not vampires. They’re wraiths.” Zeke’s coat sleeve brushed hers, and she clung more tightly to Rhys. The added support increased her chances of staying upright considering how Zeke’s touch melted her knees. And other parts.

  This was a dumb time to dwell on melting parts, despite the fact she’d never met a man who exuded so much raw sex appeal she could feel it in her bones like the throb of a giant motor. Zeke’s touch made her warmer—literally. He had a fever and she was catching it.

  Yet everyone behaved as if their steamy kiss had never happened. Maybe they didn’t dare mention it. Zeke, though one of the shortest in the group, was clearly their leader—from the way they responded to him to the way he carried himself. He radiated as much authority as he did sex appeal.

  He inspected the alley, a frown between his eyebrows, and with his slight Southern accent said, “If they want in, they can get in. They could already be there, waiting for you.”

  His matter-of-factness sharpened her unease. “I share the place with my brother, but it’s unlikely he’s home.”

  Zeke nodded. “Let’s hurry.”

  She accelerated her pace. They reached the next-to-last Victorian townhouse and she gestured into the rear plot, cordoned off by a carport and a chain-link fence. “That one.”

  “We haven’t recorded a swarm of wraiths this large since...since a while,” Zeke said to the team in a low voice. “Watch your step, everybody.”

  Zeke and Rhys preceded her into the enclosure, gliding through the shadows of the tall, tightly-packed houses. Buildings in the Fan were often divided into apartments, but the one she and her siblings had inherited from her parents last month was a single-family residence. Not that their paths often crossed. She and her brother had been too caught up in their private grieving to interact more than sharing the kitchen required, and their sister had split after the funeral.

  After Zeke scanned the backyard, he motioned the others forward. They were all people she’d hate to meet in a dark alley—unless, of course, they were saving her from vampires. Two of the silent team flowed between the buildings toward the main street.

  Her stomach flopped. Was Hayden home this early? Surely not. He’d be at a bar or still in DC. They really should call 9-1-1. If people’s dreams could create demons, there was no way the police and government didn’t know about it.

  Zeke crooked a finger at her. “We need in the backdoor. Quietly, Maggie.”

  Hands trembling, she opened the screen, crossed the sleeping porch and unlocked the inner door, intent on disabling the alarm system. He caught her hand before she took two steps into the house.

  Again, she experienced that faint thrill as their cold skin touched, paired with an eerie sense that she’d met him before tonight.

  “Stay here,” he said. “Let me do my job.”

  In addition to thrilling, his hand seemed strong and capable, with calluses at the base of his fingers. A far cry from the academics she normally interacted with. She pulled free, almost as unnerved as she’d been after he’d kissed her.

  “I have to disable the alarm.” She pointed at the bleeping keypad on the wall. If Hayden were home, it wouldn’t be set. He never bothered.

  Zeke tilted his chin down in a gesture she was already familiar with. “What’s the code?”

  Inviting armed strangers into her home was bad enough, but sharing her alarm code? “I’d rather keep that to myself.”

  He held up a finger to silence her. Annoyance crinkled his features. He closed eyes that could have been hazel and could have been blue. Not that she cared what color his eyes were. “I don’t have time for this. Change your number as soon as I’m done—I don’t care—but you’re not going into that house till we secure the premises.”

  They had ninety seconds to disarm the system. They’d spent thirty arguing. If it went off, the police would come.

  She stalled. “If those things had broken into my house, the alarm would be wailing.”

  “Are you trying to drive me crazy? They could have materialized inside. Give me the damn code.”

  “All right, all right.” She’d seen the creatures appear from the shadows herself. She was so frightened, so off-kilter, she couldn’t think straight. “One two three four.”

  He snorted. “Nobody’d ever figure that out.” He slid into the house and handled the keypad.

  She and her brother hadn’t lived here long. After the accident, she’d taken a sabbatical from her assistant professorship at the University of Virginia, and her brother was attempting to maintain his DC-based consulting business from Mom and Dad’s third floor. They were still getting used to the idea their parents were gone, deciding if they wanted to keep the house and its memories, as well as the other properties. The inheritance was complex, considerable and wholly unwelcome.

  The rest of the team nudged past her to search the house. She waited, tension zinging along her nerves. Zeke remained beside her and scrutinized the yard and alleyway behind the carport. After several quiet conversations into his walkie-talkie, he allowed her to enter.

  “Nothing inside so far,” he said. “You positive your brother’s not here?”

  This time she didn’t balk. “If he was, the alarm wouldn’t have been set.” She hoped Hayden stayed gone. She had no idea how he’d react to a troop of heavily-armed militia types searching the house for vampires. “What will you do if he comes home?”

  His expression didn’t change. “We’ll d
eal with that when we come to it. He won’t be harmed.”

  “He gets home late. Really late.” She wasn’t coping much better than Hayden with the grief, but at least she wasn’t alienating everyone with anger and mood swings. No, apparently she was experiencing nightmares so vivid they jumped out of her head and tried to eat her.

  “No signs of anyone inside,” Rhys confirmed when he reappeared. “If you don’t mind, Miss Maggie, we need your driver’s license and social to run a background check. Are they in your purse?”

  They could take her pocketbook if they wanted, so Maggie handed it over. What else could she do? If this was the world’s biggest scam to steal her life savings, it was so persuasive there was no reason to be ashamed of falling for it.

  “Are you under treatment for any mental or physical disorders we should know about?” Rhys asked.

  “Healthy as a depressed horse,” she said. “I’ve seen a counselor several times in the past month but I’m not currently on medication.”

  “Thank you for cooperating. We appreciate that.” Rhys pulled out a cellphone and strode down the hallway.

  Zeke led her to the private den she used as an office and seated her on the couch. Mom and Dad’s couch. Nothing felt like it was hers except the clothing and books she’d brought with her.

  “With the monsters gone, does that mean we’re safe?” she asked.

  Zeke lifted a shoulder. “Until the next time you fall asleep.”

  She removed her down jacket and clasped her cold hands in her lap. The hems of her pants and her shoes were sodden but she didn’t want bare feet in front of Zeke. “I’m ready to listen.”

  “You might want to get yourself a drink.” He shrugged out of his coat, exposing a battered flak vest of some sort, which he also doffed. Under that was a plain T-shirt that clung to lean musculature. A belt full weapons and projectiles wrapped his hips. “It helps.”

  “No thanks.” She needed all her wits and then some. “I want to be sober when you explain what’s going on.”

  “I can understand that.” When he sank onto the leather cushions beside her, his legs—in water-spotted jeans—sprawled across half the couch. To her surprise, he seemed to have shed a lot of his hostility with the coat. In fact, he looked relieved. And sexy. But also relieved. The frown wrinkle between his eyebrows had vanished.

  “How’s your neck?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t hurt much.” She curled in the corner of the sofa, reluctant to touch him. She’d never responded so powerfully to the embrace of a stranger. Heck, she’d never responded so powerfully to any embrace. She watched him like a canary might watch a hungry cat.

  His angular features and sun-streaked hair wouldn’t have been out of place on a model, while full lips and lines beside his eyes spoke of humor and sensuality. A deadly combination. His drawl pinpointed his origins as the American South. Wide shoulders, slim hips. Faded denims and boots that had seen better days. Tattoo on his upper arm. His dark T-shirt did nothing to hide his muscular physique and his jeans bulged at the...ankles. Guns? Knives? She had no idea. She’d never been around this much weaponry.

  When he returned her stare, his regard stripped her veneer and assessed her from every angle. What did he see when he looked at her—the fashion-challenged, forthright, thirty-mumble academic she knew herself to be, or something else entirely? She questioned, again, the wisdom of allowing these strangers into the house.

  Especially strangers who kissed her without invitation. Who melted her like chocolate on a sunny dashboard. Who stirred her desire when she should feel nothing but fear.

  Especially strangers whose eyes were that particular shade of pale grey. Not blue or hazel, after all.

  But those vampires had been real, and this stranger had saved her life.

  The mild charge when they touched? Could be static. Could be lust. Demented, breathtaking, oh-my-God-my-life-will-never-be-the-same lust.

  If it was anything else, he wasn’t saying. “If you don’t need a drink yourself, then talk,” she told him. He wasn’t the only one who could give orders.

  “There’s an idea. What’ve you got? Any Jack?” he asked. When she glared at him, he sighed.

  “There’s a lot of things in this world most folks don’t notice,” he began, never taking his gaze off her. “Horrible things. Nightmare things. Contrary to legends, they’re all the same. Same spooks wearing different faces. We call ’em wraiths, and your imagination drags them out of the dreamsphere, which is a harmless place unless you’re what we call an alucinator. In English, a dreamer.”

  If she hadn’t seen her dreams come to life before her eyes, she’d never have believed it. As it was, her brain cramped with the painful onset of knowledge. “Why me? Did I inherit the wrong DNA?”

  “Nothing we’ve found in the DNA indicates when a person can be an alucinator. No virus, no germ, no physical indicator. It’s unpredictable and rare.” He laughed. “In other words, could be anyone. Why not you?”

  “Are the monsters always vampires?”

  “They take different forms, depending on the alucinator and the dream. Not every nightmare manifests. You’ve been having nightmares a while, haven’t you?”

  She nodded. “Since...” She swallowed and prayed her voice wouldn’t shake. “Since my parents died in a car wreck in February. This is their house.”

  “Last night was different.” Another statement—not a question.

  “Yes.” She hadn’t opened up to her brother about her dreams. He’d become so withdrawn after the funeral she worried every day he’d disappear like Allyson.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Maggie.” Though he said it brusquely, he seemed to mean it. “Your parents’ death would be the originating event. That’s one thing we know for certain. Something tragic, something that breaks your heart, jumpstarts every dreamer.”

  “It happened to you?” When he nodded, she asked, “What jumpstarted you?”

  “Long time ago. It doesn’t matter anymore.” He shifted his gaze to the bay window where large trees lined the residential street. Fancy iron lampposts, a snowy sidewalk and gingerbread townhouses with tiny front yards completed the scene.

  “All right.” Tragedy could be a very private thing. “Please continue.”

  “Once a dreamer is active, she can cause a manifestation anytime she sleeps. We have people on the clock twenty-four-seven scanning the dreamsphere. When we trip on something, it’s generally a neonati like you. We try to get a team to the source before much damage is done.” He leaned forward, propped his elbows on his knees and ran a knuckle thoughtfully across his lips. The yellow glow of the table lamp limned the hair on his arms.

  Her gaze was drawn to his lips, his fingers, his arms, as she recalled the sensation of his hands on her face. His tongue sliding across hers. He caught her staring and a wry smile twisted the corner of his mouth.

  This had to stop. She wrenched her thoughts back to the dreams, which had visited the first night she’d cried herself to sleep in her parent’s house. Night after night she’d woken sweaty, heart pounding from another brutal vision. She’d tried yoga, exercise, white noise, therapy, anti-anxiety meds, herbs, meditation, no snacks after eight. Nothing helped.

  Still the dreams had come. Every night, demons chasing her. Ghosts haunting her. Vampires stalking her. She’d watched television at all hours, afraid to sleep, but no matter when she passed out the dreams found her. Last night’s dream had culminated in a scene so tactile she hadn’t been entirely stunned when vampires had stepped out of the shadows of the alley and surrounded her.

  The stunning part was the fact she’d survived it.

  “Why have I not heard about this before?” she asked.

  “Humans can be oblivious if something don’t—I mean doesn’t—suit their belief system. Nobody believes the stories.” He cracked his knuckles. “’Till they do.”

  She could appreciate that. The world was now a darker, scarier place. “Everyone keeps commenting about t
he number of monsters I, uh, made. What does that imply?”

  He appeared to chew the inside of his cheek a moment, jaw flexing, before he answered. “Our brains form a conduit to the dreamsphere when we’re connected. Turns out your conduit was sizeable, hence the swarm. This happens when someone has the potential for trancing, which is going into the sphere purposefully, while awake.”

  “Are you saying I can go to this dream place anytime and make monsters?”

  “You have powerful thoughts,” he replied, a non-answer.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose and willed herself not to think of the vamps and their horrible teeth. If she thought about them would they appear?

  Think of puppies. Ice cream. Zeke without a shirt. Dammit!

  She rubbed her eyes one last time, erasing the images she didn’t want coming to life. “What now?”

  “Now you need to cooperate. You saw what we’re up against.”

  “Cooperate how? I can’t stop the dreams and I can’t stay awake forever. My limit’s three days. And if they can show up when I’m awake, what am I supposed to do?” An ominous memory of Zeke commenting they should let the vampires eat her scrolled across her brain.

  He laced his fingers and watched her, unblinking. “You’re thinking we kill dreamers, aren’t you?”

  “N...no.” Rhys had said they’d all been through this at one point. “Do you?”

  Zeke slid his arm behind her on the couch and angled himself until their knees grazed. This close to him, the temptation to touch him swelled in the back of her mind like carbonation in bottle of soda. “I won’t lie. That is one remotely possible outcome if other remedies don’t take.”

  Her pulse accelerated. Did he look like a man who would murder the woman he’d saved? How about the woman he’d kissed? “That’s not reassuring.”

  He licked the corner of his mouth, his eyes hooded. She shouldn’t—she shouldn’t—but she wanted him to kiss her again. Relieve the pressure.

  He tweaked a strand of her hair where it clung to her jaw. “That won’t happen to you. Not this time.”

  “What do you mean this time?”