Tangible (Dreamwalker)

by Wallace, Jody

  Zeke stiffened. “Anyone hurt?”

  “Not mortally,” Rhys said. “But wraiths keep popping out of closets like Jack in the Boxes. Did you screw her already, man? You couldn’t wait a couple months?”

  “Go to hell,” Zeke said tightly. “I did not have sex with my student.”

  Maggie added her protest to his. “Zeke and I didn’t have sex. Not even so much as a goodnight kiss.”

  Rhys glared at Zeke. “Then why are we drowning in wraiths? The crazy bastards don’t even seem interested in tracking Maggie. They just fling themselves at the nearest alucinator’s throat. The only explanation for their being here is you lost yourself.”

  “If I’d lost myself would I be awake right now?” Zeke started getting dressed and strapping weapons on himself. Fury bristled off him like quills.

  Maggie wasn’t familiar enough with the dreamsphere to gauge what was lost and what wasn’t, but Zeke had never indicated they were off course. She’d located her conduit right before they’d been whammied into that red patch.

  “If you aren’t lost, that leaves her,” Rhys told Zeke. His dark brown eyes stared at Maggie with a cold, implacable fury. “She tricked you. Tricked all of us. We’ve got another psychopath on our hands, and this time she doesn’t get a second chance.”

  Chapter Six

  “No.” Zeke’s sword flew up, the tip halting an inch before Rhys’s throat. “It’s not her.”

  “Like it wasn’t her last time?” Rhys asked, but he wasn’t watching Zeke. He was watching Maggie, his gaze mistrustful.

  “It’s not the same.” Zeke had been careful. He hadn’t pushed himself or Maggie, and his shield—defective as it was—hadn’t failed. “There’s another explanation.”

  Rhys shifted his attention to Zeke. “You should have let me mentor her. I’m not perforated. She couldn’t have gotten past me and manifested a swarm. We wouldn’t have to take her out.”

  “What do you mean, take me out?” Maggie asked. “I cooperated. I did everything Zeke said.”

  Rhys looked ready to take Maggie out now, so Zeke didn’t let his sword waver. “If Lillian couldn’t connect with her, neither could you. You’re not a curator.”

  “This has to happen, Zeke.” Something deep in the house clattered. Rhys glanced over his shoulder and back. “She’s dangerous. We can’t let her continue to manifest, or it could be the last screw up any of us make. Sean’s already out of commission.”

  Rhys moved to slip his walkie into its holster, but it was too close to his gun for Zeke’s liking.

  “Don’t think so, buddy.” Zeke prodded him with the sword and Rhys kept his hand in the air. He understood Rhys’s suspicions but they couldn’t be right. Zeke had been there, in Maggie’s dreamsphere. She’d been baffled by everything, barely able to master basic lessons, and terrified of the wraiths.

  If she were like Karen, she could have faked her naïveté.

  He didn’t want to distrust her, but movement flickered in the corner of his vision. Maggie, while he and Rhys argued, had gotten her hands on a gun.

  She pointed it, the muzzle steady. “I’m not a psychopath.”

  Zeke shifted sideways so he could keep his sword on Rhys and his eye on Maggie. Her hair bushed around her head and her skin was pale as milk. Freckles stood out on her nose and cheeks like paint specks. The bandage on her neck had disappeared, and the wound trickled blood onto her flowered satin PJs. Her eyes were practically all pupil.

  “No offense,” he told her, “but you look a little psycho right now.”

  “What is it you intend to do, kill me?” she asked Rhys.

  “Neutralize you,” he said, “and the threat you represent. One way or another. That’s our job.”

  Rhys didn’t explain how they’d neutralize her, but she’d read the paperwork word for word, asking a thousand questions. Zeke had thought she’d never sign.

  She jabbed the gun in Rhys’s direction. “You’re not neutralizing me.”

  “We could petition a curator to handle you, but trust me when I say you don’t want that,” Rhys warned her. “We’ll at least deal with you humanely.”

  If she were like Karen, she hadn’t planned this very well.

  Karen had been meticulous. Deadly meticulous. She’d taken her sweet time lulling them into a false sense of security. Maggie, on the other hand, hadn’t even been an alucinator for twenty-four hours.

  “Why don’t you put the gun down, Maggie?” Zeke asked. “If it goes off, the neighbors might call 9-1-1.” They weren’t in much danger with the safety on—which she clearly didn’t realize—but he wanted her to understand he was taking her seriously.

  “Use your brains a minute, gentlemen,” she scoffed, trying to hold the pistol steady with her other arm. “Why would I manifest vampires on purpose? Didn’t you say they’d eat me? I would indeed have to be crazy to think that was a wise plan. I don’t have a death wish.”

  Karen hadn’t seemed to have a death wish, either. She’d been convinced her wraiths wouldn’t harm her, and they hadn’t, a fact still being investigated by alucinators way above Zeke’s pay grade.

  At the same time, Maggie’s dreamsphere hadn’t felt like Karen’s. He hadn’t imagined Maggie’s fear or that second conduit, the active one he hadn’t had time to evaluate. It hadn’t been his, which left Maggie. How had it gotten there?

  “We can’t take the chance,” Rhys said, his eyes sad. “This area is heavily populated. Too many lives at stake. If you put the gun down, this doesn’t have to involve violence.”

  “Is this about Harrisburg? I knew I needed that story,” Maggie complained. “I can’t defend myself from something you won’t even tell me about. Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”

  “The more I think about it, the more I don’t think Maggie conned us,” Zeke told Rhys, lowering the sword in good faith. “I’m going to explain Harrisburg to her. Then I’m going to explain to you why I don’t think this situation is the same. Will you give me that?”

  Rhys set down the heavy ECT unit and raised both hands. Maggie hadn’t taken the gun off him. Safety or no safety, Rhys would have the sense not to make any sudden moves. Guns—so noisy—were generally a field team’s last resort. “I’m listening.”

  Zeke turned to the woman he’d been ordered to mentor. He was supposed to protect her, train her and enable her to play her part in the Somnium. In her eyes, he read pain and confusion, and his immediate response was to kiss her fears away. Which wouldn’t help shit.

  Would she have any respect for him after he told her what he’d done? He didn’t like telling this story. Hadn’t told it, in fact, since he’d reported to the curator assigned to the incident. Everyone in the Somnium had heard the details through the grapevine so there’d been no need to enlighten anyone. No need to rub salt in his own wounds.

  But Maggie deserved to know. She watched him and Rhys expectantly, aiming the gun between them.

  Zeke shoved his hand through his hair and sighed.

  “In Harrisburg, I developed a tangible with another disciple I mentored, an L5 named Karen.” He’d meant to relay the story impassively but couldn’t prevent himself from scowling. “After several weeks of training, I had sex with her. I ignored protocol and followed my dick. I screwed up big time. I’m still paying for it.”

  Maggie’s gun barrel lowered several inches. “Go on.”

  “As it happened, Karen was an undiagnosed sociopath of some sort. The others suspected but I argued for her. Overlooked discrepancies. Lapses. I wouldn’t let anyone close to her, wouldn’t let anyone trance in, because—well, because I was obsessed. Combination of tangible, sex and my utter stupidity.” He thumped his forehead with his fist, remembering. “My God, I was the one in her fucking head. I should have known.”

  “But you didn’t,” Rhys said, his voice a rumble. “I’m still waiting to hear why this situation isn’t the same.”

  Many of the others had assured Zeke they didn’t blame him for Harrisburg. The cur
ator and vigils had cleared him. But Rhys had never been entirely mollified. “I’m getting to that.”

  “Is it because I’m not a psychopath, and Zeke and I didn’t have sex, perhaps?” Maggie, her eyes narrowed at Rhys, didn’t sound as upset as she had, but her composure wouldn’t last.

  Zeke had to finish the tale—finish proving to her why she might be better off with a curator. After this night was over, he wouldn’t blame her for choosing an unknown mentor with a reputation for ruthlessness over a fuck-up like him.

  “One night during training,” he continued, his voice rough, “Karen trapped me in the dreamsphere. You can do that if you know how, which she shouldn’t have. She left me there to die and tried to murder my body. Her nightmares absorbed my consciousness. Rhys and Lillian freed me, but not before my shield became perforated. I don’t have as much ability in the dreamsphere as I used to, and I could be susceptible to my disciple’s nightmares. That’s why I didn’t want to mentor you. Mostly.”

  “Is that why there was a manifestation?” Maggie asked. “Because of your shield? If that’s the problem, Rhys, you owe me an apology. Sounds like you owe Zeke one too.”

  “Maybe,” Rhys conceded. “Did the shield fail?”

  “Don’t think so,” Zeke said. “Far as I could tell, my shield held when I meant it to. I got us out, no problem. Karen, unlike Maggie, was slick as shit in the dreamsphere, advanced beyond anything I’d taught her, and convinced she could direct the wraiths she manifested. She could trance too. Pop in and out like a trap-door spider.”

  “So it’s possible to control wraiths?” Maggie’s gun barrel sank further. Zeke hoped that meant she didn’t want to shoot anyone, but it might just mean her arm had grown tired.

  “She summoned five hundred and fifty-three monsters and they didn’t kill her. Killed a lot of other people, though,” he said bluntly. “We don’t know how she managed to survive it. If the curators know, they ain’t saying.”

  “Harrisburg,” Maggie breathed. The gun, at last, fell to her side. “It rings a bell but...”

  Zeke closed his eyes. “The plane crash. It was all over the news.”

  “Oh, God.” She paused. He heard her footsteps as she walked toward him. “That was her? You?”

  “Cover-up.”

  “What stopped her?”

  Zeke sighed. “I did. I neutralized her. It’s something we can do with the ECT. She’s in a coma now, her brain broke as hell. She’s never going back to the dreamsphere and maybe not even terra firma. I didn’t want to kill her outright, and the curator didn’t arrive in time. It was the best solution.”

  “You want to put me in a coma?” she asked Rhys, her brows knitting. “All because a few more wraiths showed up?”

  Rhys shrugged, not the least bit sheepish. “It’s nothing personal.”

  “That’s the Harrisburg story.” Zeke tried to read Maggie’s expression but he’d never been great at that. “Now I’ll explain to both of you why this isn’t Harrisburg. Maggie’s dreamsphere is nothing like Karen’s. Ask Lill. Maggie’s is pure chaos. She’s got no bearings in there. It’s messed up.”

  “Lillian did mention it was blotchy,” Rhys said with a frown. “Which is odd but not automatically psychotic, I suppose.”

  “Karen plotted a month before she made her move. This is the first time Maggie’s manifested. Well, first couple times. That’s inarguable.”

  “Also true,” Rhys said.

  “Remember how there were two types of wraiths during Lillian’s nap with Maggie?” Zeke was thinking aloud, pitching explanations until one seemed right. “That means two conduits. I saw an extra as well. What if one from Lillian’s time didn’t get shut down?”

  “Maggie’s awake.” Most of the tension had left Rhys’s stance. Zeke could tell he no longer feared Maggie was about to sic a herd of zombies on them. “Any conduits she opened would have closed.”

  “Multiples don’t always follow the rules,” Zeke reminded him. “They can linger if the dreamsphere barrier’s thin. Don’t you think a high-level neonati sleeping here for a month would have put a strain on it?”

  “Malingerers,” Rhys said. “Wonderful.”

  “Karen opened how many—forty? We can’t jump to conclusions. We’re talking about a woman’s life.”

  “The woman would like to be part of the conversation about her life,” Maggie said.

  “All right. I’m convinced.” Rhys lifted one hand higher, palm displayed. “As nasty as this latest batch of wraiths was, I expected to find both of you unconscious or dead. That didn’t exactly make me jump for joy. Forgive me for assuming the worst when I found you awake. And Maggie, I apologize for thinking you’d have the poor taste to sleep with Zeke.”

  “I accept your apology,” Maggie said. “Are you going to apologize to Zeke?”

  “Nope,” Rhys said with a broad grin, his teeth white against his face.

  Zeke, relieved they could move past suspicion, sheathed his sword. “Have you phoned the base? We need to find out how this manifestation looked to the monitor.”

  “I haven’t contacted anyone since we initiated the background check,” Rhys said. “Been a little preoccupied. Eight wraiths out back, ten upstairs. Clumps, but sporadic. One, then two, then three. Most of them made no effort to find Maggie. They just came after us. If Lill hadn’t been watching the brother, he’d be dead.”

  Maggie laid the gun on the bed. “Did Hayden get hurt?”

  “He’s not dead,” Rhys repeated. “He sleeps like the dead, though.”

  Zeke tightened his sword belt. “Who’s with him now?”

  “Lillian, in case he needs to be confounded.” Rhys eyed the backdoor, which was visible from Maggie’s bedroom. “The whole thing’s irregular. All these wraiths and now malingering conduits. How are we going to close them? ECT?”

  “No thanks,” Maggie said.

  “We can wait until they sync with Maggie’s wake-up. Shouldn’t be long.” With the initial pressure off, Zeke hustled into the rest of his clothes and checked for stakes, knives, throwing stars, guns, silencer, ammo. He didn’t want to resort to the ECT, but if wraiths continued to appear, that would be one solution—jolting the conduit closed, via Maggie.

  And he’d pray she didn’t end up like Karen.

  Rhys glanced at Maggie. Zeke was glad to see his second in command no longer looked merciless. “Miss Maggie, you sure are causing a lot of commotion.”

  “Not on purpose,” she said. “I don’t understand why this is happening.”

  “That makes all of us.” Zeke grabbed his protective vest from the corner. All these manifestations so close together. He hadn’t listened to his instincts in Harrisburg, or anyone else’s concerns, and it had been a mistake. Right now, his instincts were telling him this wasn’t due to Maggie and he needed to search for clues.

  “Put this on.” He offered the vest to her. She slipped into the bulky garment without protest, and he helped her with the fasteners. Unable to resist any longer, he caught her in a quick, one-armed hug. The vest armored her well.

  “We’ll get through this,” he whispered. “The manifestation period is probably over. You’re fully alert. Trancing takes a lot more training than you’ve had. But try not to think about monsters.”

  And he’d try not to think about how HQ would react if he lost another L5 disciple.

  “Right.” Maggie straightened, her gaze steeling. She tossed a plush, pink robe over the vest and slipped her feet into tennis shoes. After she scrambled through her purse and thrust her pepper spray into a pocket, she said, “I want a stake. And I want to see Hayden.”

  He touched her cheek before handing her a weapon. She hefted the pointed stick, fear and determination warring on her face.

  “What the hell?” Rhys exclaimed. “There’s another one, and it’s headed outside.”

  He disappeared. Zeke heard another team member run across the porch.

  Maggie clutched his arm as he moved to guard her. “I swear,
I’m not thinking about... Okay, I am, but I wasn’t before.”

  He gave the back of her neck a squeeze, hoping his touch could convey the message he didn’t have time to voice. “Let’s find your brother.”

  On the second floor, eerily vacant, a wraith popped out of a bedroom and flew at them like a giant bat. Maggie screamed and hurled her stake, which missed by several feet. Zeke shoved her behind him.

  The vamp closed on them, its clawed fingers extended. Zeke batted one hand away with the bracer on his jacket sleeve but was too late to stop it from grappling with him. Its talons raked his bandolier and caught on his radio, which smashed to the ground into pieces.

  Hell. He hated the old walkies, but he needed it. He gripped the vamp’s arm and hurled the creature into the wall.

  It thudded heavily. Pictures clunked to the floor. Before the creature gained its footing, he staked it from behind.

  It exploded with a poof. This vamp didn’t have the same appearance as the ones from the alley. It was pale, hairless and dressed in black robes. Solo instead of part of a pack.

  Must be the other type of wraith his teammates had mentioned, which made sense, since the second conduit Zeke had spotted had been the red, active one.

  “What was that thing?” Maggie picked up her stake and pressed her back to the wall.

  “You don’t know?” Generally neonati could identify the wraiths they’d created, whether they admitted it or not. The monsters were, after all, their own nightmares.

  Maggie’s expression was anxious but contained no recognition. “Was it an alien?”

  “Vampire.”

  “Not any kind I’ve ever seen,” Maggie said with a shudder.

  Zeke grunted. The vamp had been old style, more Nosferatu than Whedon. All the common monsters—and a lot of uncommon ones—had gone for his throat at some point. Media, myth and culture tended to shape the universal subconscious; manifestations were rarely a total surprise. Some Somnium employees’ entire jobs consisted of scanning horror movies and television to help field teams prepare. Thank God giant tarantulas and T-Rexes never appeared at full-size. Wraith bodies in the terra firma did have limits.