by Jody Wallace
After Zeke and Adi had returned from their chat, his attitude toward Karen hadn’t softened, but his hostility had been reined in.
And he’d been ignoring Maggie as if they had never kissed, much less made love this morning and admitted to feeling emotional about it.
Zeke wasn’t a player. Maggie knew that. But every time he touched Karen, which the training required him to do, Maggie’s stomach knotted.
And Karen smiled.
This was when Karen wasn’t crying and begging Zeke and Adi not to send her back into the dreamsphere. According to Karen, not only were wraiths intelligent, but they had a capital-M Master. A king wraith. A demigod amongst demons.
Whom no one had ever encountered in the history of the Somnium.
“The Master is waiting for me. I can’t go back,” Karen insisted for the fourth time. Her voice cracked, and she sipped water from a glass. Her hands trembled enough to slosh liquid onto her baggy scrubs. “Can’t Dr. Leifer perform a lobotomy on me?”
“No,” Adi said. “That would destroy your abilities, and he’s a theoretical physicist, not a brain surgeon. We’re lucky the ECT doesn’t seem to have affected you much.”
Zeke crossed his arms and stuck out his legs, one booted foot over the other. “Surely somebody at the coma station’s a brain surgeon. You got a whole staff of docs in trauma one.”
“Exactly. Thank you, Zeke.” Karen’s pale, watery eyes glowed at her former mentor, now her current mentor. “There’s no need to feel guilt, Ms. Sharma. It’s my choice.”
Maggie crossed her arms and stuck out her legs, mirroring Zeke. The metal chair wasn’t padded, and her butt was killing her.
“It’s not a choice I can condone,” the vigil said. “We haven’t exhausted our options. And please, call me Adi.”
Karen folded a damp tissue as if it were precious and added it to the fifty already in the bent metal garbage can. The outbunker was devoid of both high tech surveillance and most amenities. “Zeke understands me. He knows I don’t want to hurt anyone, ever again.”
“That ain’t exactly my understanding,” Zeke corrected dryly. Adi’s lips thinned slightly. Her patience with Zeke and Karen was admirable—even if her doubts about Maggie weren’t.
“I would prefer we focus the discussion on dream healing while we’re at liberty to do so,” Adi prompted. “I’ve received no notice of an impending visit from a curator, but it wouldn’t surprise me if one takes interest, since it was under their orders that we preserved Karen after Harrisburg.”
“What do the other vigils think?” Zeke asked.
Adi only mentioned the dream healing, wraith carcasses and desecration of the morgue when it was the four of them. There was no way, however, she could have kept the code one itself a secret. Reporting those was Somnium policy, and division scanners would have noticed the disturbances in the sphere.
“They’re aware we had a code one, as we sadly do on occasion, and are confident we have the situation under control. We haven’t disseminated the particulars beyond my personal staff. A team in my service at the manifestation tank will concentrate on the abnormalities.” Adi glanced quickly at Maggie. “However, another incident may attract attention—the curators’ attention.”
Adi had mentioned keeping quiet about the irregularities, but censoring them from the other vigils spoke of intrigue beyond Maggie’s ken. Was this because of the arm-breaker who might be on the coma station staff? Or because Adi didn’t want information to leak about Karen’s supposed self-healing?
“Don’t you want the curators’ help?” Karen placed trembling hands on the metal table. “A curator, in our presence, in the terra firma, would be a godsend. It might be the answer to our problem. What if one could defeat the Master?”
Maggie had never met anyone who actually wanted a curator to make an appearance. With Adi’s hunch about dream healing, the vigil definitely didn’t want a curator involved. Not until she had the knowledge she sought.
Unsurprisingly, Adi responded defensively.
“We can help you, Karen,” she insisted. “The curators have other duties, and they’ve encouraged the praetoriums to become more independent. As you all know, the intervention of a curator is not always in everyone’s best interest.”
“Then I definitely can’t enter the sphere,” Karen said with a helpless shrug. “If the Master seizes me, he could use me as a portal, like Harrisburg. I can’t finish my training with Zeke, and I can’t show you the ritual. I can only tell you.”
“If the Master could use you as a revolving wraith door, why is Harrisburg the only time he’s done it?” Zeke asked.
“I’ve been hiding from him. Fighting him off. But I can’t any longer. He’s too strong now.” Karen glanced at Maggie like Adi had. “You shouldn’t let her back into dreamspace, either. Not after what happened. It will be a disaster like no other.”
They’d considered sleep barricading Maggie, but Zeke would have to be the one to do it, so Adi had decided against it. Maggie suspected that keeping Zeke and Maggie apart was meant to pacify Karen. Hopefully that was also why he was acting so aloof.
“I’d rather not have a lobotomy. Thanks for thinking of me, though,” Maggie said. It took a lobotomy or some other drastic disruption of a high-level alucinator’s brainwaves to for them to retain a semblance of sanity when separated from the dreamsphere indefinitely.
Karen eyed her sadly—but continued to speak to Zeke and Adi. It was as if Maggie were a photograph and not actually present. “She won’t remember the Master at first. I didn’t. But the horde was proof he used her, which means he can get to her whenever she enters the sphere.”
Maggie shivered. She’d sensed nothing more deadly in the trance sphere than the ravening wraiths and Karen herself. There’d been no mega powerful boss casting his ominous shadow over them all. Anytime Maggie pointed this out, Karen claimed “the girl” wouldn’t have noticed…until the Master meant for her to.
“This Master guy you’re talking about didn’t trap you in the sphere, Karen. We electroshocked you into a coma,” Zeke said. “It’s not a new thing.”
“That’s what he wants you to think. Don’t let him get his claws into that poor girl. She’s only responsible for a few deaths—not hundreds like me.”
Karen sniffled, winding herself up again. The interrogation had been dragging on for hours because they frequently had to stop while Karen wept. They hadn’t convinced her to trance in and conduct the training exercises needed to promote her. Adi’s limited communication with Karen meant she was close, but no diploma. Maggie hadn’t found a chance to confide in Adi that she suspected Karen had known she was there.
“We cannot progress without completing your training, Karen. I need a complete link with you beyond our brief oration to decipher your healing ritual,” Adi said. “Zeke is not a trained assessor.”
“The Master’s too powerful,” Karen insisted.
“This Master is clearly a force to be reckoned with,” Adi said compassionately. Karen continued to draw in shaky breaths—prelude to another spate of tears. “We will do what we can to protect you, but you have share everything you know. It will help many people.”
Maggie couldn’t gauge how much of Karen’s story Adi believed. She had yet to make any frantic phone calls to her fellow vigils warning them about a super wraith. Either she wasn’t alarmed by Karen’s claims or she was that determined to keep the healing a secret.
It did seem likely, if healing were possible, the curators would know—and had themselves kept that knowledge hidden. What would they do if the rest of the Somnium found out?
And why, as Adi had pointed out, did no one remember anyone who’d become a curator? The man Lillian and the others had met—Maggie had only seen him in passing—had been no more than forty, but no one knew him from his pre-curator days. Did the curators do their own recruiting? What happene
d to the occasional L5 remanded to the curators, the ones people never heard from again?
“That’s all I ever wanted,” Karen managed, controlling her sobs. “To be able to help people.”
Adi nodded. “Did the Master teach you to heal, Karen?”
Karen clenched more tissues in her fist. Her pale hair had been washed and combed. Her skin boasted more color. While she hadn’t regained any weight in less than a day, she no longer appeared to be knocking on death’s door.
“He taught me only pain,” she said in a near-whisper. “I taught myself to shield my psyche, so I could survive it. So I could hold out long enough. I knew you’d rescue me, Zeke.” Karen laid a hand on his arm. When he glared at her, she removed it, crestfallen. “We meant so much to each other once. I know you can’t love me after what I did. I know it’s not permitted. But I’m so grateful you finally came for me.”
Zeke shifted uncomfortably. This wasn’t Karen’s first reference to the fact they’d been lovers or to the fact it was now verboten for mentors and disciples to be lovers. Had Karen guessed what Maggie and Zeke had done this morning? Or did she simply want to remind Zeke of his original affair?
“If the Master is as evil as you say, it’s a testament to your abilities that you survived this long,” Adi encouraged. “How did you learn to heal?”
“The barriers I erected inside myself,” Karen said. “When I endured his torture, my protections bled through to my body. Otherwise, I believe he might have killed me. It was so horrible.” She shuddered.
“So healing is a type of shield?” Adi swiped her tablet computer. “Would you compare it to a shield used for locomotion or to a stationary shield?”
“A shield within a shield,” Karen said. “It’s nothing I recall from when Zeke trained me. Have you heard of such thing?”
“No,” Adi said. “Groups of linked alucinators can shield together to create layers, but a single alucinator can only create a single shield.”
Karen sighed. “I can’t explain more. It was instinctive. I don’t know who can and can’t learn it.”
“I see.” The tablet computer beeped as Adi rapidly entered information. “When you double-shielded, were you conscious of healing your body in the terra firma, or was it a side effect?”
They no longer spoke as if the healing were hypothetical. Adi seemed relieved that she hadn’t imagined bones knitting themselves in days. Unfortunately, Karen had offered little information beyond the double shield—the impossible double shield.
Maggie would be willing to bet her parents’ house Karen was withholding. As recently as yesterday, Adi had assumed Karen would try to drag it out. Perhaps Adi’s gentleness was meant to sweet-talk Karen into confession.
And perhaps she believed everything Karen said and thought Harrisburg was as much of an accident as the code one Maggie had supposedly initiated.
“I assume my healing was a side effect,” Karen said. “I was just thankful the pain stopped. I didn’t know I was repairing my physical body until you asked me about the broken bones. The Master never said anything to me about it. No doubt he’d have stopped me from soothing myself if he’d realized.”
“How did you meet the Master?” Adi asked.
Karen’s eyes seemed to hollow out in her already hollow face. “He was always there. From the beginning. From the very first nightmare, before the Somnium found me.”
“So it’s his fault, all that shit you did?” Zeke hadn’t spoken much since Adi had taken him out of the room for that private conference. Hadn’t taken notes, hadn’t encouraged or discouraged—and certainly hadn’t acknowledged Maggie’s presence. “It sure felt like you were the one behind it when you trapped me in the sphere.”
“It’s my fault,” Karen said brokenly. “I was weak. I couldn’t prevent myself from being possessed and forced to hurt you. I would never have…” Her lips quivered and a fat tear rolled down her pale cheek. “I know you think my shields were stable, but they weren’t. I hid it from you, Zeke. I hid what the Master was doing to me, the way he was trying to overwhelm me with a flood of wraiths.”
“The wraith population was normal when we trained,” Zeke said. And still, he didn’t acknowledge Maggie, though he had to be thinking of her—and the wraiths that swarmed whenever she entered the sphere. Surely he wouldn’t believe it was due to the Master’s plot to disable her?
“Do you believe your Master’s scheme explains our overall increase in the wraith density?” Adi asked.
“Oh, yes.” Karen blinked quickly, as if holding back tears. Since she’d been crying on and off for hours, Maggie didn’t know why she bothered. No wonder she kept asking for more water. “The Master didn’t have as much power a year ago. Back then I could…I could… I distracted Zeke so he wouldn’t notice.”
Zeke’s response was a snarl of frustration. “You didn’t fucking distract me.”
“But I did.” Karen lowered her lashes, and her cheeks flushed. The redness was startling on her ashen countenance. “Anytime there were more wraiths than expected, we made love.”
A heavy silence fell. Maggie, who’d never been a violent person, imagined how satisfying it would be to kick Karen in the head like she had that wraith. The expression on Zeke’s face was unreadable, though a deep frown line formed between his eyebrows.
He might not be imagining Karen’s crushed skull, but at least he didn’t seem to be imagining her loving embrace.
After a moment, Adi cleared her throat. “What’s done cannot be undone. We can only control the future. To do that, we require knowledge.”
“I understand. I won’t hide anything. I only did then because I couldn’t bear for Zeke to be ashamed of me like…” Karen coughed and blew her nose.
“Like?” Adi encouraged.
“Like I was a failure.” Karen drew a shaky breath. “I knew how hard he was trying to teach me to be an alucinator and how disappointed he’d be in me. I love…loved him so much and didn’t want to lose his respect. It’s my fault the Master caught me and made me do things.”
“Reckon I was a touch more disappointed by all the people you killed,” Zeke said. “If any of this hokum’s true, you were stupid not to have told me.”
Karen, predictably, started crying again. Adi sighed. “This is your chance to make amends, Karen. Will you waste it in regrets?”
“I’m sorry. I’ll try harder to compose myself.” Karen wiped her eyes with her trembling fingers, not bothering with a tissue. “Ask your questions.”
Zeke lowered his chin, watching Karen like he might a cobra. “Here’s what I wanna know. Why’d he pick you? Why has nobody else met this guy?”
“You’re all strong. Skilled. Neonati with weak shields—he searches for us.”
Another condition that described Maggie, of course. Floods of wraiths, weak shields. What next? Female phase ones with bad hair and doctorates in cultural geography?
“The more he feeds on us, the more powerful he grows,” Karen continued. “He’s not far from being able to break anyone’s shields and turn them into a portal like I was in Harrisburg or the girl was yesterday.”
Considering Maggie was a decade older than Karen, the other woman’s repeated use of “the girl” was ridiculous. She recognized it for what it was—Karen’s attempt to diminish her—and refused to take umbrage.
“Yesterday was hardly comparable to Harrisburg,” Zeke said. “Besides, Maggie didn’t cause yesterday. You did.”
Adi and Karen exchanged a glance Maggie didn’t miss. Zeke’s jaw clenched, so he must have noticed it too. Adi wasn’t just sympathetic toward Karen. She seemed to be supportive of her over Zeke and Maggie.
“You were ready for it yesterday,” Karen said. “That’s why it wasn’t Harrisburg. But it will be so much worse if anyone falls into his hands now that he’s stronger. It’s a miracle you were able to free me from him. I can neve
r thank you enough.”
“Just following orders,” Zeke said gruffly. When Karen reached for him yet again, hesitant and trembling, he didn’t shake her hand off his arm. It could have been because Adi glared at him and it could have been for other reasons.
While Maggie understood why anyone would want to touch Zeke—especially someone who shared a tangible bond with him—she wished Karen was on the other side of bulletproof glass during this interrogation. Right now, right this very minute, Karen and Zeke would be pulled toward each other. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Her hand on his arm would feel like the most secure point in the world.
Right now, right this very minute, did Karen and Zeke want more from each other?
The thought of it sickened her. Sleeping with Zeke had been a terrible idea. Now she couldn’t deny the fact she in love with him. Like poor, pitiful Karen. Was she so different? Zeke had succumbed to the tangible, but Maggie had succumbed to her heart.
According to Karen, she’d succumb to this Master next.
“It’s true that weak shielders are atypical,” Adi said, “Shields are one of our most innate skills. Most alucinators succeed at shielding after a few training sessions.”
Maggie’s cheeks burned, though no one looked directly at her. She’d been the object of scorn with her delay in shield development but hadn’t realized the delay was so rare. To have Karen claim it made Maggie the target of this hypothetical super wraith—to have Karen claim it made Maggie a threat equivalent to Karen—seemed awfully convenient.
But Karen’s self-flagellation was getting to Maggie too. The woman vacillated between despair, salty regret, and hysterical fear that Adi and Zeke would pitch her back into the sphere. Sometimes it seemed so over the top it had to be an act, meant to incriminate Maggie. Other times it seemed miserably authentic. Maggie had begun this day ninety-five percent certain she hadn’t caused yesterday’s invasion.
Now her confidence was down to seventy percent.
