The Last Dream Keeper

by Amber Benson

“David, please make our guests more comfortable. I want them to understand what is about to happen to them,” Desmond said, a sense of sadness belying the triumph in his words.

  Lyse’s uncle circled the table until he was standing behind the prisoners—behind my mother, Daniela thought, her misery building. He wore a fitted green sweater over olive-drab pants, the thin fabric showing off his muscular body and impeccable posture—but all Daniela could see was the evil emanating from him like a plague.

  He reached for the prisoner who was slumped over, pulling them bodily back against the chair before grabbing a swatch of the fabric and lifting it over their head. The woman slumped forward again, her body slack as a corpse—but Daniela saw she was breathing . . . that she was conscious.

  Francesca.

  She was older than Marie-Faith, and had always been a grandmother of sorts to Daniela. She’d lived with them when Daniela was little, looking after her while Marie-Faith traveled on Council business. For a long time, Daniela had believed that Francesca was actually her mother because her real mother had been in such short supply. Of course, all of that changed when Marie-Faith had realized Daniela’s empathic talents were destroying her . . . that was when her mother had taken center stage in her life. She’d made her daughter the priority, taking a leave of absence from the Council so that she and Francesca could look after Daniela properly, show her how to protect herself from her powers, how to use the gloves as a barrier from people.

  David moved to the other prisoner, grasped the ends of the sackcloth, and roughly pulled it over Marie-Faith’s head. Her mother was alert, her brown eyes flashing with rage. She’d fought her capture, that much was apparent. She wore her split lip and black eye like prizes. The thin gag between her lips had prevented her from talking before now, but as soon as David untied it and it slipped from her mouth, a wave of invective poured out of her.

  “You lousy goddamned son of a bitch,” she seethed, her words a poison wraith. “If I could slip my hands around your throat, I’d crack your windpipe and watch you die slowly and painfully—”

  David slammed an elbow into her back and she gasped with the pain, her body shoved forward against the table by the impact. She took the blow, unable to defend herself because her hands were bound behind her back. She gritted her teeth, refusing to cry out, but the tears that filled her eyes and slipped down her cheeks could not be stopped.

  “David, please, control yourself,” Desmond said, admonishing the younger man.

  “I apologize, Father. I didn’t care for the way she spoke to you.”

  But he moved back from Marie-Faith and Francesca, keeping his distance.

  “Father . . . ?” Marie-Faith groaned and blanched, the color swirling away like pigment down a drain. “And who is his mother?”

  Desmond closed his eyes and sighed.

  “A youthful dalliance. I believe you know her. Eleanora Eames.”

  Marie-Faith’s eyes flared and she gathered herself enough to stare across the table at Desmond.

  “And you never said a word. Not even after all these years . . .”

  She shook her head, unable to wipe away the tears that formed at the corners of her eyes.

  “It had no bearing on us, Marie-Faith,” Desmond replied.

  “No bearing? That Daniela had a sibling—”

  No, no, no, Daniela thought. Not possible.

  The scene in front of her froze . . . and then Francesca lifted her head. She spoke directly into Daniela’s brain—and it was extremely clear that this was her memory:

  “Doesn’t matter,” she whispered, eyes full of fire. “Your mother wanted you to know, and now I have fulfilled my duty. But it’s of no consequence. Get the Dream Keeper to the sacred Pillar before the blood moon passes the meridian. I have given her the knowledge of what to do to pass the word on to the world.”

  Francesca dropped her head again. Marie-Faith and Desmond and the horrible interrogation room began to fade out and Daniela was no longer a witness to the past . . .

  * * *

  Lizbeth was standing over her, her cheeks pale as milk. She blinked, relief flooding her face as she realized that Daniela wasn’t dead.

  “You . . . you weren’t breathing,” she murmured, all the cockiness drained out of her. “I . . . I think I hit you. I’m so sorry . . . I haven’t been myself.”

  Daniela inhaled, and the air filled her lungs, recharging her brain . . . her brain. There was definitely something wrong with it. One eye was sharp and clear, the other—not so much. She closed the bad eye and felt a little better, but the massive headache throbbing behind her temples and at the base of her skull instantly took over, the pain jackhammering itself through her sinuses and into her jaw and teeth.

  “Are you okay?” Lizbeth asked, sounding worried.

  Daniela sat up and the thrumming ache in her head got worse. Instinct made her press the heels of her palms into her temples, hoping to alleviate the pain, but it was a stopgap, barely stifling the pounding—and now she was feeling nauseated, too.

  “Headache,” she said, and it came out as a whisper. She wanted to say more, but she just couldn’t summon the energy.

  All Daniela wanted to do was lie back down and press herself against the rock floor, letting the cold absorb her agony.

  “Daniela?” Lizbeth said, kneeling down beside her—though careful not to physically touch her.

  Daniela swallowed back a wave of nausea, the edges of her vision tunneling into darkness. She fought the urge to pass out, grabbing hold of reality and desperately trying not to let go.

  “I . . .” Daniela began, but had to stop in order not to vomit.

  “I can’t help you,” Lizbeth moaned. “I’m scared to get any closer than this to you.”

  Daniela managed a weak shake of her head.

  “No . . . no closer.”

  She, too, was terrified of what would happen if she were to come into contact with Lizbeth’s flesh.

  “It’s just supposed to be your hands,” Lizbeth said, guilt permeating every word. “I didn’t know. I really didn’t.”

  Daniela tried to smile at her, to reassure the kid that everything was going to be okay, but it came out as a grimace. Besides, she wasn’t sure anything was going to be okay. Not after what she’d just learned.

  “I just . . . need to rest,” Daniela managed to get out before the last of her energy reserve was tapped and she rolled onto her side, eyes closing of their own volition.

  * * *

  When she opened them again, the nausea had passed, and she was on her back, staring up at the rock ceiling. The weird vision quirk was still there, making everything seem slightly fuzzy, but the headache had lessened. Now she felt strong enough to crawl onto her knees and look around.

  “You’re awake,” Lizbeth said, eyes ringed with worry. She was sitting with her knees tucked up under her chin, her back against the rock wall.

  “Yup,” Daniela murmured, covering her bad left eye with her hand. “My eyes are all messed up.”

  “I think something burst in your head,” Lizbeth said, unprompted. “I think it was really bad, is still really bad. Bad enough to go to a hospital.”

  Daniela almost laughed out loud, but the balance between functioning and not functioning was too precarious and she didn’t want to do anything that would push her over the wrong side of the divide.

  “No hospital,” Daniela whispered as she slowly dragged herself over to the same wall Lizbeth was seated against. “We have to get you out of here.”

  “But you’re not well—”

  “No hospital,” Daniela said, interrupting Lizbeth. “Not happening.”

  Daniela ignored Lizbeth, and, using the rock wall for support, she gingerly began to inch herself up onto her feet. She dug her fingers into the rock face, grasping the craggy stones like handholds, careful not to push too har
d, and to treat her body with delicacy. When she was finally standing again, she leaned back against the rock. After a few minutes, her sense of balance—for the most part—had returned and she was able to stay upright on her own.

  “You were out for a while,” Lizbeth said, climbing to her feet. “I did a little exploring. You were right. There’s no way back up the slide.”

  Daniela wasn’t surprised. Glancing at the pool of water in its rocky basin, she knew it had been dug there specifically to stop a person’s forward momentum. To have that kind of velocity, you had to be moving pretty fast, and that required a slick surface like the one on the stone slide . . . which meant there was no way in hell they would be able to climb back up without help.

  “What’s through the doorway?” Daniela asked, careful to stay well clear of Lizbeth.

  She didn’t trust her enough yet to get within slapping distance. She understood why Lizbeth had gotten upset, but that didn’t make the girl’s outburst all right.

  “You should see for yourself,” Lizbeth said, walking over to the rune-encrusted doorway. This left Daniela no option but to follow her. “It’s where they keep them . . . all of them.”

  Daniela sighed and trailed after Lizbeth, her energy ebbing even though she was starting to feel better. At least her vision had finally begun to stabilize, the bad eye less fuzzy and out of focus. But now there were these strange neon flashes of light—probably floaters of some kind—that were really annoying.

  Ahead of her, Lizbeth slipped through the doorway and disappeared.

  “What the hell . . . ?” Daniela murmured. One minute Lizbeth was there and the next she was missing in action. “Lizbeth?”

  She heard Lizbeth’s disembodied voice coming from the other side of the doorway:

  “Come in. It’s safe. I promise.”

  Daniela was not faint of heart. She’d always been fearless, was always ready to jump into the fray and get the shit kicked out of her if necessary. An enchanted doorway did not scare her, but her lack of energy did—she was winded just crossing the small chamber to get to the door’s threshold.

  “I’m not freaked out about it being safe,” she called back to the invisible Lizbeth. “I’m just old and beaten. My body’s not really listening to me right now.”

  She’d never experienced anything like this malaise before, and it was beginning to unsettle her. She was thinking that maybe Lizbeth was right about her going to the hospital.

  “Okay, coming through.”

  She placed her hand on the doorway and felt something instantly come to life beneath the fingertips of her black leather gloves. The runes were not just decoration. The swirling curlicues and angular geometric shapes had been cast for protection. She yanked her hand back, afraid the door would cause something else to go haywire inside her head. Then she realized how stupid she’d just been . . . if the door were going to affect her, it would’ve already done so with that first touch.

  “Idiot,” she mumbled to herself—and then she placed her hand back on the doorway and stepped through to the other side.

  The room was actually a small alcove hewn from the same volcanic rock as the rest of the catacombs. But it was full of a thousand man-made nooks and crannies, each one containing a small earthenware jar. Over each one was a flickering candle set into a holder in the wall above it. Among them was not a single matching taper; each was a different size, shape, or color . . . and the flames, too, were in a rainbow of hues.

  Lizbeth stood in the middle of this magical cavern, eyes lit with excitement. She was looking at Daniela expectantly.

  “What?” Daniela asked, having no idea what it was Lizbeth wanted from her.

  Lizbeth frowned and clasped her hands in front of her. Daniela could sense the change . . . now it was guilt, not excitement that Lizbeth was feeling. The emotion was so bold Daniela could smell it like an animal musk. She wished she could tell Lizbeth to forget feeling bad, that everything was fine between them—but it would’ve been a lie. Daniela did not trust Lizbeth fully anymore. Would never be one hundred percent comfortable around the girl ever again.

  “You don’t hear them?” Lizbeth asked, scrunching her brows together thoughtfully. “Nothing? Not a sound?”

  Daniela cocked her head, listening.

  “Not a thing,” Daniela said, finally, shaking her head. “What is it?”

  Lizbeth paused for a moment before speaking. As if she were weighing exactly what to say before answering:

  “Dream Keepers. There are so many of them. Each of these jars contains one.”

  She sighed, listening again to something that Daniela could not hear. Then she laughed softly, a sense of wonderment on her face.

  “And they’re singing to me. They want us to set them free.”

  Devandra

  Devandra thought her mother ought to write a pamphlet called I Know Everything about Everything.

  It would make a mint.

  No, I’m just being snarky, she thought as she stood over the antique O’Keefe and Merritt stove in her kitchen, stirring a large stockpot of chicken soup she’d made to feed her steadily growing household. I’m glad she’s here and that she and Thomas seem to know what to do. I just wish she’d give me a little more responsibility. Making soup wasn’t quite what I had in mind.

  While her mother and Thomas went to Arrabelle’s house—with one of the keys Dev kept for emergencies—to collect the necessary herbs for their “raising of the dead” spell, Dev was busy holding down the fort. In the only moment not fraught with drama, Freddy had taken the girls to the L.A. Zoo for the day. It meant pulling them out of school, but they’d decided it would be the best way to keep them safe and entertained.

  Dev did not want them running around the house, asking questions about why their grandmother, mother, and aunts were doing crazy magic spells in the backyard. It was bad enough they’d been exposed to Thomas—a man her mother seemed to trust implicitly, even though Dev still had her doubts about him.

  Freddy had appeared to like him, too, but that only meant her partner had felt sorry for the guy. Because as kindhearted as Dev was, Freddy was even more of a softie. Everyone thought he was all charm and machismo, but that was just a façade. Inside, he had the gooiest of centers.

  She’d once seen him buy twenty bucks’ worth of tacos from the taco truck next to the Walgreens and give the food to a homeless old man, who’d wolfed the carnitas tacos down like no one’s business. It was in moments like these when Dev was most reminded of why she loved Freddy. Even though he was just as flawed as the next guy, he could always be counted on to try to do the right thing.

  The sound of the front doorbell spooked Dev, and she dropped her wooden spoon into the stockpot.

  “Darn it,” she mumbled, pulling a pair of metal tongs from a drawer and fishing out the spoon.

  She set the spoon and the tongs down on the counter and wiped her hands on the floral print apron she wore, then lifted it over her head. She smoothed out her pale yellow skirt and laid the apron over one of the spindle-backed kitchen chairs before hurrying to answer the front door.

  “Coming!” she called as she ran through the living room.

  She undid the locks and threw the door open to find her sister Darrah standing on the porch smiling up at her. She was wearing a gray trench coat and a stylish beret, her copper-colored hair tucked into a chignon at the back of her neck. She and Dev had the same eyes, but her mouth was thinner and her nose more hawkish. She set her overnight bag down on the ground and the two sisters ran into each other’s arms.

  Darrah was the nearest of Dev’s siblings in age, and this had made them much closer. Because of their ages, they’d shared a lot of the same experiences—doing their bonding before Daphne and Delilah had even been born. In fact, Darrah had been with Dev the first time she’d met Freddy.

  It had been a warm summer night and the two
sisters had gone skating at the Starlight Rollerway with a group of friends, neither knowing that it would be an evening both of them would never forget. Dev had met Freddy and Darrah had ended up in the emergency room with a broken ankle, the aftermath of a roller limbo competition gone horribly wrong.

  “You look amazing, lovey,” Darrah said once they’d broken apart and Darrah had pushed Dev an arm’s length away, so she could get a better look at her. “Scrumptious.”

  Dev grinned, ridiculously happy to see her younger sister.

  “You look amazing yourself,” Dev replied. “And everyone and everything is good at your house?”

  Darrah nodded and followed Dev inside.

  “All the kids are well and accounted for.”

  Like Melisande, she stopped in the front room and inhaled the scent and feeling of the house. But unlike their mother, she didn’t comment on what had or hadn’t changed. That this was now Dev’s home was an implicit understanding between the two sisters; there was no mention of wanting things to remain unchanged. Darrah respected Dev’s choices and if she had any criticisms, she kept them to herself.

  “There’s just something about the old homestead that fills you with a sense of longing,” she said, instead. “Not for the house, but for what it represents. For being a Montrose.”

  Dev nodded in agreement. Her sister was correct. No matter where she went, or how she changed, the old Victorian in Echo Park was the heart and soul of who and what she was at her core. She knew deep down that her mother and all of her sisters felt the same way.

  “Is Daphne coming?” Darrah asked, Dev leading them into the kitchen so she could check on the soup.

  “She says so. Mom spoke to her earlier. She’s supposed to get in to Burbank in a few hours.”

  Darrah sat down at the kitchen table and Dev saw that her sister looked tired.

  “Long flight,” Darrah said, catching Dev’s worried glance. “I’m fine.”

  “Mom said you’ve pulled the same spread . . . ?” Dev launched in without preamble.