“Okay, sorry.”
Karayan gave me an appraising look. “But that was pretty good,” she said. “Don’t worry. You’ll build up strength over time, and one day you’ll be able to push unwanted visitors out of your dream.”
I suddenly remembered the time I’d visited Karayan’s dream. “You tried to do that to me,” I said.
“Well,” her smile looked a little strained. “I wasn’t trying all that hard.” She brushed her hands, as though finished with a dirty job. “That should be enough to get you started. Maybe if you keep your head down, the incubus will leave you alone.”
I laughed ruefully. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
“Braedyn,” Karayan put a hand on my shoulder. “We have no idea how powerful this incubus is.”
“I know.”
“Good. Don’t be stupid. If he doesn’t come after you, don’t go after him. That’s all I’m saying.”
I pushed Karayan’s hand off my shoulder. “If he tries to hurt Cassie, I’m going after him.”
“That. That right there is stupid.” Karayan punctuated the words by poking her finger into my chest.
“Cassie doesn’t know the danger she’s in,” I said. “I do.” I turned away but Karayan caught my shoulder and spun me back to face her.
“If you’re not careful, your friend is going to get you killed.”
“There’s no way I’d leave her unprotected,” I said, getting angry. “There’s no way I’d leave any of my friends unprotected. That’s the difference between you and me.”
“No,” Karayan snapped back. “The difference between you and me is that I’m not wiling to throw my life away trying to win approval from a bunch of old men who’d just as soon see me dead.”
“You know, Karayan? Maybe the reason you don’t have any family is because you don’t understand what makes family family.”
My words struck Karayan deeply, as I meant them to. She jerked back as if stung. “Believe it or not, I really am trying to help you. The writing is on the wall. If that incubus is as strong as he seems, there’s a good chance he’ll open the seal like he plans.”
Her words drove like spikes into my chest. I tried to keep my expression neutral. “You should go now.”
“And once the seal is open and the Lilitu are freed, the Guard is going to be wiped out—you along with them if you’re still standing by their—”
With the smallest twist of effort, I closed the hole I’d found in my dream. Karayan winked out of my garden mid-rant. Fury boiled in my mind, but under that, an icy sea of terror opened up. My mind cast out, running along the walls of my dream. Everywhere I passed, I felt the walls of the dream harden, thicken into something like granite, seamless and solid, until no weakness remained.
Standing in the garden, I shivered. I may have cast Karayan out effortlessly, but her words were much harder to banish.
“Get up, Dad.” I stood next to Dad’s bed, dressed for school. The room was dark and still, filled with the peace of early morning. It grated on my nerves, contrasting sharply with the chaos of my thoughts. “Dad. Time to get up.”
Dad groaned. He opened his eyes and glanced at the clock. “Braedyn?”
“We need to see the Guard.”
“You found something?” Dad asked, sitting up.
“Hale’s up. I saw him coming back from his run.” I had waited in my room at the window since five, watching for Hale’s return.
“Okay. I’m up.”
“I’ll be downstairs.” I walked to the door, already caught up in another tangle of anxious thoughts.
“Oh, Braedyn,” Dad called from behind me. I turned as he swung his legs over the side of his bed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He gave me a tired smile. “Happy Birthday.”
I stopped with my hand on the door, running through the days in my head. But of course he was right. November ninth. I was 17 years old today.
It took longer to get everyone assembled than I expected. It was 6:30 by the time everyone had joined us in the Guard’s living room. Lucas and Gretchen were the last two down the stairs. When they sat down, Lucas’s jaw creaked with a massive yawn and Matthew ruffled Gretchen’s short hair affectionately.
“Okay, what’s up?” Hale asked.
“It’s Mr. Hart,” I said grimly. I told them what had happened last night. I even told them the part Karayan had played. When Thane heard her name his expression darkened with fury, but no one interrupted me. More than one of them looked unsettled when I explained how I’d touched Mr. Hart’s dream and felt nothing. That Karayan was surprised, too, made them more uncomfortable. “It’s him,” I finished. “Mr. Hart has to be the incubus.”
“Braedyn, honey.” Dad took my hand and looked into my face. His expression was deadly serious. “Is it possible, is it at all possible that this dream you had doesn’t mean what you think it means?”
“You think I’m making this up?” I asked, crushed.
“No. You believe what you’re saying, no question. But I need to know if there’s any possibility that Mr. Hart is human.”
“I’m telling you what I saw,” I said.
“I’m more concerned with what you haven’t seen,” Dad said gently. “You say you sensed nothing from his dream. Okay, correct me if I’m wrong, but that means if you couldn’t sense he was human, you also couldn’t sense that he was Lilitu, right?”
I opened my mouth to argue, but I couldn’t.
“And neither you nor Gretchen saw anything supernatural about him.”
“Gretchen?” I asked. “When did Gretchen see Mr. Hart?”
“I went to his house last night,” she said.
“And?” I asked.
“Sorry, Braedyn,” Gretchen said. “I was looking hard for anything at all, but,” she shrugged unhappily.
I glanced around the table. “That doesn’t mean he’s not an incubus. Angela told us, we don’t know enough about them to know if spotters can even see them.”
“Maybe,” Gretchen admitted. “But he lives with his wife and two little kids. If he’s an incubus, he’s gone to some pretty extreme measures to fit in.”
“I’m telling you, something’s not right with that guy,” I insisted.
“Braedyn can you tell me with 100 percent certainty that Mr. Hart is an incubus?” Dad asked, but then held up a finger before I could answer. “Please. Think hard, honey. Because you’re asking us to execute a man.”
The breath I’d taken to answer with left my lungs. Everyone watched me, waiting. My confidence wavered. What if they were right? What if I was misinterpreting the signs? “Maybe,” I licked my lips. “Maybe we should wait a bit longer.”
“Okay.” Dad glanced across the table and I saw Hale and Matthew relax. I suddenly realized that they had been preparing themselves to kill someone on my word. “Okay. We’ll wait.”
The doorbell rang, shattering the quiet morning with a peal of bells.
Matthew stood and answered the door in the foyer.
I heard an explosion of voices, and Matthew’s laughter. “Holy shit, man, look at you!”
“What about you, dude?” the guy Matthew was talking to answered. “I hear you let some woman put a leash on you. What’s up with that?”
I glanced at Gretchen, whose eyebrows hiked up, amused.
“You might want to watch what you say,” Matthew said as he and the newcomers walked into the living room. Four men in their early twenties dropped their overstuffed duffels onto the floor. They weren’t wearing uniforms, but something about them screamed soldier nonetheless. Matthew had his arm around the neck of a handsome black man, steering him roughly into the living room. “That’s her over there. Gretchen,” he said, “Meet Max. Max, Gretchen. I cannot wait to watch her take you apart on the mat.”
“We’ll see, we’ll see,” Max said, grinning. “What do you say, Gretchen? Up for a bout sometime?”
“Looking forward to it,” Gretchen said. Her smile was mild, but her eyes crinkled with antic
ipation.
Max’s eyes travelled around the room, snagging on me. “So come on, man,” he said, hitting Matthew in the stomach. “Introduce the crew.”
“Right,” Matthew said. He pointed out the newcomers as he listed off their names. “Privates Chris, Paul, and Jason. You already know Max.” Matthew turned into the living room, naming the rest of us for the newcomers. “Gretchen, Lucas, Thane, Hale, Braedyn,” he ended by sweeping a hand toward Dad. “And this is Murphy.” The newcomers reacted, eyeing my dad with more than a little amazement.
“For real?” the blond guy—Chris? Or was it Jason?—asked.
“In the flesh,” Matthew said.
“It’s an honor, sir,” the blond guy said, offering Dad his hand.
“Please,” Dad said, shaking it. “We don’t stand on formality here. Come in, put your feet up.”
The newcomers crowded around Dad and he was stuck fielding questions. I couldn’t help but grin. It was still strange to think of Dad as the living legend so much of the Guard saw him as.
“Braedyn?” Hale pulled me away from the crowd. “This probably goes without saying, but you should keep your secret under wraps for now.”
I glanced at the soldiers, my smile fading. “What about their spotters?” I asked.
“Marx and his team are recruiting the spotters for their mission. They’re just sending the fighters on to Puerto Escondido right now, so we have a little time to get them familiar with you before we drop that bomb.”
“Okay.” I let out a deep sigh. I wasn’t looking forward to another round of “what do you mean she’s a Lilitu?”
“Keep an eye on Mr. Hart,” Hale added. I glanced at him, surprised. “If he is what you think, we’ll take care of it.”
I nodded just as Dad managed to extract himself from his band of groupies.
“Why don’t you go home, honey,” he asked. He was smiling, but I could see his tension. It didn’t take a genius to work it out. He didn’t want me around the Guard soldiers any more than was strictly necessary.
“Sure, okay.”
“I wanted to make you breakfast for your birthday,” Dad said. He glanced back at the new Guardsmen. “But I think I need to help sort out the arrangements.”
“No, I get it.”
“I love you, honey,” Dad said, planting a kiss on my head. “I’ll make it up to you later. I promise.” But before I could tell him it was okay—who needed a birthday breakfast anyhow?—he was walking back into the living room.
My seventeenth birthday went from disappointing to downright depressing.
At school, no one even mentioned it. Cassie and Royal had been so eager to help me plan my sixteenth birthday. But they’d completely forgotten my seventeenth, being so caught up with the theater production.
Lucas was focused on Mr. Hart, waiting for the drama teacher to make any mistake that could reveal his true nature. I was late to lunch, and when I got there only Seth was sitting at our table.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“Dunno,” he shrugged, shoving another bite of food into his mouth.
I sat down and reached for the nearest bowl of food. Tater-tots stared up at me, covered in a slick sheen of oil. “Actually, I’m not all that hungry,” I said, pushing the bowl away.
“Does that mean...?” Seth eyed the tater-tots.
“Knock yourself out,” I answered. I pushed back from the table and stood.
“You’re not going to eat anything?” Seth asked.
“No.” I gave him a smile in apology. “Not feeling too great today.”
“Is there anything I can do?” He asked awkwardly, suddenly looking like a frog on a hotplate.
“No, it’s okay. I’m going to head over to the library. I’ve got a quiz to study for.” It was true, but when I left the dining hall I didn’t feel like studying.
Instead, I walked over to the performing arts building, thinking I might run into Lucas patrolling the halls for some sign of Mr. Hart.
I walked into the building, but it was empty. Which made sense; most of the students were at lunch.
Searching the halls for Lucas, I turned up empty handed. I stopped in the green room, frustrated. That’s when I heard the muffled conversation. It was coming from the costume closet. I cracked the door open and peeked inside.
Cassie and Mr. Hart were sitting on the worktable, side by side. He had an arm around her back, and she was looking up into his face. The moment was clearly private, intimate.
Instead of obeying my instincts and retreating, I pushed the door open with a cheerful, “Oh, hi, Cassie. There you are. We missed you at lunch.”
Cassie and Mr. Hart sprang apart, caught. Mr. Hart slid off the worktable and gave Cassie a careful smile. “Well. I don’t want to keep you from your lunch.” He walked past me quickly.
“I lost track of time,” Cassie said, laughing nervously. “Sorry. You didn’t have to come looking for me.” She gathered up her things and headed to the door. “What are they serving today?”
I closed the door before she could escape. She looked at me, startled.
“Cassie,” I said. “What was that?”
“What?”
“With Mr. Hart?”
“What? We were just talking.” Cassie’s cheeks reddened and she wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“That’s not what it looked like,” I said.
“What did it look like?” Cassie asked. I was surprised by the hostility in her voice.
“I just don’t want to see you get hurt. Like before.”
Cassie looked at me, genuinely confused. “Before?” I realized instantly I’d made a mistake. Her eyes narrowed. “You mean, like Parker?”
“Cassie,” I said, reaching for her arm. She jerked away from me, pissed.
“You too?” she said. Tears of anger sprang into her eyes.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I needed someone to talk to,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to—” she shook her head, disgusted.
“If you want to talk, why can’t you talk to Royal and me?” I asked.
“You?” Cassie laughed in disbelief. “You haven’t exactly been around lately and Royal... he still treats me like something that’s going to shatter if he’s not careful.”
“Okay,” I said, scrambling for the right thing to say. “But I just think Mr. Hart’s—”
“What?”
“Not... appropriate,” I mumbled under the heat of her glare.
“Listen,” Cassie snapped. “You want to be my friend? Stop trying to be my babysitter.”
Cassie pushed roughly past me and yanked the door open. I blocked her path, desperate to get through to her.
“Wait,” I said. Cassie wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I feel like I don’t even know what’s going on in your life right now.”
“Whose fault is that?” Cassie didn’t give me a chance to respond. She pushed my arm out of the way and marched out of the costume closet. I stared at the racks of old clothes lining the room. Cassie was right. I’d disappeared from her life, leaving a convenient hole available for Mr. Hart to slip right into. I couldn’t have made it easier for him if I’d tried.
My fault. This was all my fault.
Chapter 9
A storm was gathering across the mountain. Swollen, purple clouds crouched over the earth, casting darkness onto the land below. The anticipation of rain became a building tension that seemed to ache for release. I leaned my head against the school library’s picture window, unable to look away. This wasn’t a view you could get in most of Puerto Escondido. But here, standing at this window, I could see through the break in the mountains that encircled our town out to the land beyond. It felt soothing, looking down over the desert stretching away for hundreds of miles. A reminder of the larger world beyond my little town.
I saw Cassie’s reflection in the window and turned.
“So,” she said. She was standing there awkwardly, shuffling her weight from one foot to the oth
er.
I stood. “Cassie, I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Cassie said. “I—I know how it must have looked.” I could only shake my head, miserable. Cassie looked down at the floor. “But the truth is, I miss you.”
“I miss you, too,” I said.
“How about we take the afternoon and go down to Old Town.”
I brightened. “Yeah? You can do that? What about the show?”
Cassie shrugged. “Whatever. I doubt they’ll miss me for one day.”
I wasn’t going to argue with her. “I’ll drive.”
Cassie and I made our way to Old Town, and parked on a quiet residential street across from the main plaza. Stepping out of the car, I could smell a wood fire burning in someone’s chimney to ward off the November chill. The scent was filled with the promise of winter. When I was a little girl, that had meant snow, hot chocolate, Christmas trees and stockings. Now, the turning of the seasons heralded something different.
Winter solstice. The longest night of the year. A night when Lilitu were at their most powerful. Lucas and I had barely survived the last one. I shivered, trying to push the unwanted memories out of my head.
Cassie looked up from her phone, concerned. I saw her send a text, but then she slipped the phone into her pocket. “Are you warm enough?”
“Yeah.” I gave Cassie a quick smile. “So, where do you want to go?”
“I was thinking we could grab a Mexican hot chocolate from Sabrina’s.”
“Yes!” I said, suddenly eager. “It’s been too long.”
We headed into the plaza, steering our feet toward the ancient little restaurant on the edge of the square. The front steps led down into a thick adobe building. We had to bend our heads to keep from hitting them on the low door. Inside, the ancient windows were so tiny the space felt almost like a cave. But the roaring fireplace, coupled with candles sprinkled across every tabletop, filled the space with a rosy light. I couldn’t think of any building in town as cozy as Sabrina’s. It was a historical landmark; the old adobe building was over a century old. But with creaky wooden floorboards and exposed logs supporting the roof, it felt like a home.
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