Tangible (Dreamwalker)

by Wallace, Jody

  Glancing up and down the hallway, he took Maggie’s arm. His boot crunched a piece of the broken radio as they hurried off. They ascended a flight of stairs, a narrow corridor to the third floor.

  “Maybe it was from an episode I didn’t see,” she whispered. “That vampire show ran seven or eight years and I’ve only caught reruns.” A door, partially splintered off its hinges, canted at the top of the stairs. Maggie groaned. “Right now I’m thinking home repairs, not monsters.”

  “Sorry,” he told her, right before he kicked the door and sent it crashing into the room, hopefully dislodging any beasties behind it. There was nothing inside the large, jumbled area but tables full of computers, dusty windows, a pool table, a treadmill strewn with clothing, and tons of fast food bags. No vamps, no Lillian, no brother.

  “Hayden’s bedroom overlooks the street.” Maggie pointed to a door at the end of the space. “This was Mom and Dad’s rec room.”

  “Stay close.” He saw no signs of wraiths, not that anything would have shown in all the trash. “Jeez, this place is a wreck.”

  From behind him, Maggie said, “I don’t clean here. It’s Hayden’s space.”

  A crossbow, followed by Lillian, popped out the door Maggie had indicated. “Thought there was a vamp out here. They’re coming out of the woodwork.”

  Maggie surged forward, sidestepping obstacles, and Lillian’s face creased into a smile.

  “Maggie,” she said, “I’m glad to see you’re not dead.”

  “Glad to be not dead. Is he in there?” She rushed past Lillian into Hayden’s room.

  “I didn’t think she was another Karen. Her signature’s way different.” Lillian studied Zeke, her brown eyes compassionate. “You okay? Any of her nightmares catch you?”

  Lillian’s question, while legitimate, yet again reminded Zeke why he had no business mentoring Maggie. “I’m good. We got out fine. Killed a vamp on the way upstairs, though, and broke my damn radio.”

  “We need new ones anyway.” Lillian clicked the safety on the crossbow. “What was in the dreamsphere?”

  “Didn’t Rhys tell you? Second conduit.” Zeke slid his stake into a holster. “I assume it’s from your shift.”

  Lillian raised a single eyebrow. “Blaming me, huh? That’s a long time for a malingerer. She’s been awake, asleep and awake again.”

  “Not blaming.” Zeke sidestepped through the trash toward the window overlooking the narrow side yard. He peered through the glass, checking for wraiths on the loose. “Trying to figure this shit out and hoping we don’t need a curator.”

  “I hear you.” Lillian used a crossbow bolt to scratch her back. “The guy who showed up in Harrisburg has paid more than one visit to my dreams since then.” She coughed. “I mean, nightmares.”

  “Harrisburg is my nightmare.” Finished inspecting the yard, Zeke considered the staircase, a dark maw that could spew monsters at any moment. A door wouldn’t improve the situation. Wraiths could materialize anywhere.

  Lillian inclined her head. “I don’t want to see anyone get hurt, not you and not Maggie. Is she L4, you think?”

  “I’m guessing L5,” Zeke said with a sigh.

  Lillian sighed too. “I was afraid of that. What gives, Zeke? Should we try a shot of ECT?”

  “I’m not positive we have all the details.” There was a time for honesty and a time for something approximating honesty. “I wanted to, but I didn’t have sex with her. In case you were wondering.”

  “I believe you.” They froze as a crash sounded in the room beneath them. When no wraith materialized, Lillian continued talking. “Not that I trust you, but I warned her to turn you down. Women have more self control in these situations.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I didn’t even try anything,” he lied, since he had indeed tried something with Maggie. She’d slipped away from him instantly, proving Lillian right.

  “Of course, we’re assuming sex is required to make you susceptible,” Lillian mused. “With that tangible and you having the hots for her, I wonder if that’s enough to let her slip past you.”

  “The perforations weren’t an issue. It’s something else.” Even with what seemed like damning evidence—Maggie being the only neonati here—Zeke couldn’t shake his conviction they’d missed something.

  “In this business nothing’s impossible. It just hasn’t happened yet. An L5 your first time back out. A tangible after a geolocation. Malingering conduits. Must be Zeke’s mission.”

  “Shut up. Conduit’s gotta be closed by now,” he said. “Maybe it did open on my watch, not yours. Lasting ten, fifteen minutes past wake-up wouldn’t be that out of the ordinary for a multiple.” Karen had tranced in and out of the dreamsphere during the Harrisburg incident, remaining just long enough to open conduits before hopping out to relish the chaos. He’d seen no evidence Maggie was trancing in and out, so her malingerers ought to seal themselves soon.

  “Interesting. You’ll shoulder some blame to save your ladylove from electric shock therapy,” Lillian said archly.

  “Come on, Lillian,” Zeke said gruffly. “I don’t love her.”

  She just smiled and unclipped her cellphone from her belt. “I think it’s calmed down enough to check in with base and HQ. Of course, HQ will order us to use the ECT immediately.”

  “Call base, but not HQ. Not yet.” Zeke fingered his chin. “I want to trance in and see what’s going on in there.”

  “You can’t do anything if you don’t have her with you,” Lillian said. “They’re her conduits. Might as well take care of two birds with one stone.”

  “You think I should piggyback her in?” Zeke asked, surprised. A neonati forced into the dreamsphere while conscious—he didn’t like those odds. Wake-up provided an innate escape from the dreamsphere for everyone, from newbie to a curator. Going in awake, which was required to perform many tasks, took skill and preparation.

  Lillian nodded. “It’s an option. You’ve piggybacked alucinators into the dreamsphere before.”

  “They’d had some training. Maggie hasn’t.” Zeke squeezed his forehead, considering and discarding alternatives.

  “Look at it this way. We ECT her now for sure, or you piggyback her in, fix her up, and yank her out, and hopefully we can nix the ECT.”

  “Don’t like it.” They couldn’t twiddle their thumbs. With the manifestations this persistent, they had to have answers—and solutions. “We could tranq her and go in during sleep.”

  “Then we might have trouble waking her,” Lillian said. “We don’t want an L5 stuck in the dreamsphere beyond the help of the ECT. God, Zeke. Only you.”

  Zeke ducked his head and pulled his hair. Even in natural sleep, neonati without help could become trapped. Trained alucinators could too, if they couldn’t handle trancing—or if a psycho like Karen happened to trick them. A dreamer as strong as Maggie could manifest hundreds of wraiths like the psycho had.

  If the dreamer couldn’t be shocked out of the dreamsphere by mentor, curator or ECT, the only remedy for a dream coma was death.

  Interrupting his lack of resolution, a window shattered close by. Maggie screamed. Zeke and Lillian rushed the door to Hayden’s room, Zeke reaching it a scant second before his companion.

  Chapter Seven

  Maggie swatted the approaching zombie with the folding chair as hard as she could. It stumbled, moaning, before righting itself and shuffling forward. She stepped backward toward Hayden, who was sound asleep on the old twin bed.

  She screamed for Zeke again. Where the hell was he?

  The door burst open. He and Lillian bounded into the room, weapons out.

  Lillian’s crossbow twanged. A wooden shaft protruded from the zombie’s chest before Maggie had a chance to yell again.

  “That’s not a vamp!” Lillian exclaimed.

  The zombie batted at the arrow. Its path shifted toward Lillian and Zeke. Drool oozed out of its mouth. Maggie glanced around frantically for another weapon.

  Zek
e cursed and leapt at the zombie, sword flashing. The monster’s head flew off. Bloodless yet disgusting. The body shambled toward Zeke another second before collapsing into a hiss of sand.

  “I hate zombies,” Zeke muttered.

  “There shouldn’t be zombies.” Lillian slammed the door behind her, strode through the wreckage of Hayden’s room, and poked at a broken pane with her crossbow. “Did it come from outside?”

  “No,” Maggie said. “I broke the glass when I threw a barbell at the zombie.”

  “Was there just the one?”

  “Yes. I certainly didn’t slay one myself.” Maggie rubbed her arms. If it took cutting their heads off to kill them, she was going to have to learn blade work. No matter what her role in the Somnium ended up being, she wanted to be able to protect herself.

  Zeke took her by the shoulders, looking her over. His grip wasn’t soft. “What have you been doing, Maggie? Sitting in here thinking about monsters?”

  “Hardly.” In fact, she’d been thinking of hiring a maid. She picked up the trash bag beside Hayden’s bed and shook it. Rattles and clinks disrupted the sound of her brother’s snores. “I was cleaning.”

  He inspected the messy floor. “If you say so. Where’s the vest?”

  “I took it off,” she said defensively, realizing how dumb that had been. “It made it too hard to bend over.”

  He released her. ”If I tell you to wear a vest, wear a vest. Is your brother hurt?”

  “Hayden’s out cold. Believe it or not, he’s not much of a drinker.” She worried about him, but his state of unconsciousness was for the best. “He won’t remember any of this.”

  Zeke eyed the man sprawled across the mattress. Maggie knew there wasn’t much family resemblance. Hayden was huge and rangy where Maggie was small and rounded. Weeks of black scruff disguised the lower half of her brother’s face, and his clothes were ill-fitting and ragged. He exuded an odor not unlike the alley behind a bar where customers snuck out for a piss.

  “Good.” Lillian bent over Hayden and checked his pulse. “Then I won’t have to make him think he imagined it.”

  Maggie’s trash bag konked her knees. “You can do that?”

  “Close enough.” She straightened, crossed her arms, and speared both of them with a level stare. “Zeke, you realize what the zombie means, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.” Zeke rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze on the French doors.

  “What?” Maggie asked.

  “Yet another conduit.” Zeke sighed and took her hand. “I don’t know how this happened, but we have to go back in and tie you off better.” He led her to a loveseat and swept rubbish to the floor so he could sit.

  Maggie remained standing, nerves twanging with adrenalin. “I didn’t make that zombie.”

  “Who else could?” Lillian asked regretfully. She kicked aside debris, and Maggie hoped she wouldn’t topple any half-full carryout cups. “Even if we didn’t trust our team, they’d know they couldn’t get away with this. All it takes is one of us going in tranced to pinpoint any signature. It would get picked up on area scans too. All known alucinators are tagged.”

  “It’s not on purpose.” A cold chill passed through Maggie. Why couldn’t she stop making monsters? What was wrong with her? “Swear to God.”

  “We know. It’s malingerers. Loitering conduits. But it has to be taken care of.” Lillian cleared her throat. “You understand that, don’t you?”

  “I’m trying my best.” It was hard knowing she was responsible when she didn’t want to hurt anyone. When Zeke drew her onto the small sofa, Maggie popped back up. “Lord, I can’t do this. Every time I sleep, things get worse.”

  “We’re not sleeping.” He rubbed her palm with his thumb, coaxing her. “We’re going in conscious.”

  “You said that was too rough for me. That I was too new.”

  “It is. You are.” He tugged her again and this time he didn’t let go.

  Maggie felt that pull—that alluring pull—all through her bones, and sank into him with a sigh. It satisfied something inside her to touch him, and she remembered what he’d warned her about the tangible. “If it’s so dangerous, why not wait until I’m asleep?”

  “We can’t postpone it. I need you there now so I can shut the conduits connected to you once and for all.”

  Her forehead brushed his jaw. A hilt of some sort jabbed her ribs, and his bandolier scraped her arm. He dripped with weapons and smelled of metal and burlap and her bath gel. She wanted nothing more than to get closer to him, uncomfortable as it was. “I swear I wasn’t thinking about zombies.”

  “The subconscious is powerful.” His jaw moved against her forehead, and his lips brushed her hair. “Put your hand on my neck.”

  She did, her fingers glad to touch him. Her body glad to be held by him. He slid his hand inside the sleeve of her pink robe.

  Maggie wriggled against Zeke, trying to relax. The dreamsphere had been a frightening place. A horrible place. He’d said what she’d seen before had only been the half of it. “How will this be different than when we were asleep?”

  Zeke and Lillian exchange a glance before Zeke said, “More chaotic. More confusing. More...nightmarish. More sensations, sounds, smells. More like reality. My shield won’t work great, and the wraiths can hurt you in a way that carries over. There’s also... Well.”

  “Tell her,” Lillian said, before loading her crossbow.

  Maggie didn’t like the sound of that. She tilted her head back until she could see his face. “What?”

  He sighed, his breath tickling her temple. “It’s harder to snap out when you go in awake. It’ll be worse since you’re not trained.”

  “I can try to sleep. God knows I’m short on it.” She closed her eyes. When she heard a thud downstairs, they popped back open. “Earplugs could help.”

  His expression tightened. “Can’t wait. Manifestations keep happening. Gotta find out what’s going on, and if you’re not with me, all I can do is look.”

  This just got better and better. “Crash course on how to escape,” she insisted. “Don’t toss me in without a cheat sheet.”

  “It’s not automatic. You won’t be sucked through your conduit just because you think about it. You have to shove the dreamsphere away from you instead of yourself out of it. You push it with all your strength. It’s not easy.”

  “Do you think I can do this?”

  He didn’t nod. “We won’t be there long, and I’ll be with you. It’s this or the ECT. Got a preference?”

  She bit her bottom lip. The dreamsphere she’d entered before and survived. The ECT sounded painful, risky and potentially life-threatening. “This.”

  “If you two are ready, I’ll fetch the ECT anyway. Just in case,” Lillian said. “Don’t get eaten while I’m gone.”

  After Lillian left, Zeke slipped off his bandolier and sword and shoved them to the side. He adjusted their position so they leaned against the arm of the loveseat. Maggie reclined between his legs. “Our connection is raw, but the tangible will help us.” His hands slid back into her robe sleeves, increasing skin contact. “Do you feel it?”

  “Yes.” She reached up and touched his face. Her fingers tingled. “All through me.”

  “Concentrate on it. Head to toes.”

  She did. It made her pulse pound in a way that was inappropriate to the situation.

  “Yeah. That’s it. It’s stronger than I...” His gaze fell to her lips and he caught his breath. “You smell nice.”

  “You smell like my soap.”

  “I used your soap.”

  She had a good idea what he’d done with the soap. What she wished she could do with him. To him. It was as if a giant hand were pressing her into him, like clay into a mold. She didn’t want to stop him like earlier...not so quickly, anyway.

  Couldn’t she have a taste? “This is a little intense.”

  “Fixate on it. On what I feel like.” He cleared his throat. “My skin on yours.” His hands cares
sed her arms. “My touch. When you’re in the dreamsphere, if you follow this, you’ll find me.”

  “Will you fixate on my skin?”

  He half-laughed. “I already have.”

  She licked her lips and braced her foot on the opposite arm of the loveseat. Her robe fell open. “What else are you imagining?”

  His jaw flexed. His chest rose and fell. “Shit, Maggie. What do you think?”

  She nudged herself an inch further up his body. Their breath mingled.

  “That’s not your gun, is it?” she murmured.

  Zeke caught her face in his hands. With a yank, he closed the distance between their mouths.

  She met him with her lips already parted. His tongue stroked inside her, tangling with hers. She moaned. He caught her bottom lip with his teeth and his hand fisted in her hair. After several dizzying kisses, he pulled her hair, tilted her head back, and sucked her throat.

  Maggie wished they weren’t in a warzone—wished they weren’t clothed. She wanted him so much it would be easy to convince herself Lillian’s warning about sex was wrong. His hand cupped her breast beneath the robe. His thumb slid across her nipple, which was covered by the satin pajama top. When she exhaled with pleasure, he caught her breath in his mouth, kissing her until her head started to swim.

  She drank him in, memorizing his flavors.

  “This is bad.” He nuzzled her cheek and throat. His hands fumbled with her top until his fingers found her skin. “What we feel. It’s not real.”

  How could this not be real? How could the ache between her legs be fake, how could her longing to take him inside her be a sham? She found his erection, hard against his jeans, and squeezed. “You’re saying this isn’t real?”

  “Oh, honey, that’s real enough.” He closed his beautiful grey eyes a moment, his dark lashes sweeping down. “But it’s not going anywhere. More’s the pity, ’cause it’s a damned distraction. And you and I—we have to go somewhere.”

  He pulled her down, kissed her again, his tongue and lips swallowing whatever protest she might have uttered. He rubbed her bare breast, her nipple, and shivers of delight coursed through her. She melted. Whimpered. Wrapped her arms around his neck. His touch was more electric than any ECT.