by Mallory, H P
He shrugged. “I’m still not convinced though starting to warm up to it.”
“And the fifth victim?”
“An elderly woman, Shirley Mickelson.”
Shirley Mickelson—I tried the name on for size and couldn’t say I recognized it. “Doesn’t sound familiar. Background on her?” I glanced at the file folders, noticing two were missing and faced him with annoyance. “Why didn’t you bring all the folders?”
“Travis and Shirley just happened, and Elsie didn’t have time to put the folders together.” Elsie was the receptionist at the ANC. Nice to know that Knight wasn’t able to do anything himself…
“What do you mean by just happened?”
“Travis was last night and Shirley was this morning.”
I couldn’t help the guilt that suffused me as I thought about the fact that while I’d been not exactly enjoying myself at Bram’s party, poor Travis Decker, the sweet boy I’d dated for all of a month during my junior year in high school, had succumbed to a Dreamstalker. “What do you know about this Shirley person?”
He shrugged. “Not much. She was a librarian at Rio High School in Moon.”
Hmm, I definitely knew nothing about Rio High, and my dealings with anything in Moon had always been limited because it was two hours from Splendor. “I still think it’s weird that two girls who were in second grade with me, my nanny and old boyfriend were all victims.”
Knight sighed, long and deep. “I think it’s weird too.”
I faced him in annoyance. “But not weird enough that it extends out of the circumference of coincidence.”
“Could be coincidence but could be something more threatening.” He paused for a moment before bringing his eyes back to mine. “I want you to stay with me.”
“What?!” I retorted, laughing in disbelief. “Are you kidding?”
“You’ll be safer if I can keep an eye on you.”
The sudden memory of Knight invading my dreams silenced an acid response that was perched on my tongue. My first introduction to Knight hadn’t truly been an introduction at all. He’d tried to reach me when I’d been dreaming about Quillan who had just happened to be dressed up as a pirate. As if the dream weren’t embarrassing enough, the fact that Knight had witnessed it had been enough to forever humiliate me. But, what concerned me most at the moment was the fact that Knight had been able to influence my dreams—maybe he could protect against a Dreamstalker?
“You first contacted me when I was asleep,” I started. “Does that mean you can…”
Knight shook his head with a heartfelt sigh. “Unfortunately not. I’m able to interrupt someone’s slumber to communicate with them but I don’t have the ability to protect them. But, that doesn’t change the fact that you’d be safer with me.”
So, as to living with him—there was no point. Besides, I wasn’t a stranger to living with Knight. During our first and most recent case together, we’d been shacked up in my little apartment for over a week, and it hadn’t been pretty. Knight was demanding, difficult, self-centered….ah, the list went on. “No way in hell.”
“If there is more to this situation than coincidence...”
“What part of ‘no way in hell’ don’t you get?” I demanded. “It was bad enough that I had to deal with you in my own apartment.”
He didn’t seem offended, maybe more amused. “I quite enjoyed myself.”
“I bet you did,” I said, when a bolt of jealousy ricocheted through me as I considered the fact that Angela wouldn’t exactly like it if I were living under Knight’s roof. “And what would you tell Angela?”
He shrugged, and a look of surprise pasted itself on his handsome face. “Why would Angela need to know?”
“You’re impossible.” I shook my head as anger wound its way up my throat, bypassing the boulder that was still resident in my gut. “I like Angela and if you play her and hurt her…”
“Who said I was playing her or going to hurt her?” He looked amused, entirely too amused.
I stood up and wasn’t sure why. It was like my body went into auto pilot and wanted to get as far away from him as possible. But, I didn’t retreat, I wouldn’t allow myself. “Remember when I said ‘mean what you say and say what you mean’?”
He nodded as I continued. “You aren’t doing a good job.”
Knight lumbered toward me, a smile on his mouth. He reached out to grasp my shoulders. “Your jealousy is very…becoming.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not jealous. I’m merely concerned for…Angela.”
“Angela’s a big girl.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means she can make her own decisions. She knows I’m not in the market for a relationship.”
I snaked out of his hold and backed away. “You are a pig.”
He chuckled but his laugh was laced with derision. “Why? Because I’m honest?”
“Because you want your cake and eat it too. Haven’t you considered that people have feelings, Knight? That you can’t just play a woman and expect her to accept it submissively?”
He studied me for a moment. “Where is this coming from, and why are you so upset?”
I felt a fiery flow of anger bubble up within me. Knight represented everything I disliked and distrusted about the opposite sex. He was another Jack, a clone of the asshole I’d dated two years ago, who had cheated on me and basically destroyed my drive to ever get involved with a man again. Someone who was only out for himself, for whatever he deemed his prize and then he was on to the next kill as pretty as he pleased. “I detest men like you.”
Knight’s eyes went wide, as if he hadn’t been expecting such rancor from me. He grabbed my arm, and I shrugged out of his hold. “Whoa, Dulcie, if you’re going to detest me, I at least deserve to know why.”
“I don’t like players.”
“Who said I’m a player?” His asked and he clutched my arm as if to say he wouldn’t release me until I’d given him a damn good reason as to why I detested him. Well, he was about to get it.
“The way you flirt with Angela and me and well, really, every woman alive, and pretend to be totally interested but then say you aren’t looking for a relationship…” I tried to pull out of his grip but he wouldn’t release me. His fingers were beginning to hurt.
He chuckled harder this time and grabbed both my arms. When I attempted to wiggle away from him, he clamped down…hard. “Allow me to defend myself. I am not what you term a ‘player’. I’ve never lied to Angela. On our first date…”
“Oh, there was a first date?” I snapped and suddenly felt a spire of embarrassment course through me. I hadn’t wanted to sound so freaking concerned.
“Yes,” he hissed. “I told her exactly what my intentions were.”
“And what were they?”
“That I’m not planning on sticking around Splendor for a long time, and I’m not looking for a relationship.”
I swallowed my pride. Hot Hades, why did I give such a damn about this hulking man? What was it about him that just set me off? He made me feel things I hadn’t felt in years. And what did it say about me that I had to fight feelings for someone who was such an…
“And Angela just blindly agreed to your stipulations?” I demanded, anger in every crevice of my voice. “Agreed to just have sex with you? Yeah, I really believe that.” And if she had agreed, Angela went way down in my estimation.
“Sex? Whoever said anything about sex?” Knight insisted, and his grip on my arms tightened, as if just the word sex had released the latent animal within him. I wondered if his eyes would start glowing again. Before they had the chance, he looked away for maybe two seconds before glancing back at me, apparently now more in control of himself. His strangle hold on my arms softened.
“Angela and I are friends,” he said softly.
I tried to break free of his grasp again and was surprised when he released me. I rubbed the soreness out of my arms and glared up at him again. “How stupid do y
ou think I am?”
“I don’t think you’re stupid at all, Dulcie,” he said firmly. “But, you won’t let me defend myself.”
I wouldn’t allow him to defend himself because there was nothing to defend. His alibi wasn’t exactly water tight. “So, if you and Angela are just friends as you claim, why was she all over you at Bram’s party?”
He shrugged. “She’d had a lot to drink.”
“And why were you all over her?” That wasn’t a fair question—he hadn’t exactly been all over her. In fact, any initiation of closeness had really been on her part. But, the words were out so no use in taking them back.
“I don’t recall that I was.” He was silent a moment before a smile captured his lips. “And any…attentions I might have paid Angela were merely to make a certain beautiful fairy jealous.”
I swallowed hard and if I’d had a baseball bat, I would have beaten down the ray of pleasure that visited me at his words. “You wanted to make me jealous?” I asked dubiously. “Why?”
Knight’s lips were tight and his jaw even tighter. He took a step closer to me, and I took one back. “Because in case you haven’t been paying attention,” he paused. “I like you.”
“But you aren’t looking for a relationship,” I spat back in his face.
“With Angela.”
I had to beat down another feeling of happiness. Was I really buying this crap? Was I, Dulcie O’Neil, known for being tough as nails, really succumbing to this trite shit? What the hell was wrong with me? “Oh, so you aren’t looking for a relationship in general, but you want one with me?” Good, my voice had sounded angry and laced with sarcasm.
He shrugged casually before offering me the sexiest smile I’d ever seen. “I wouldn’t be opposed to it.”
I dropped my eyes, trying to wipe away the visual of his smile and how it lit his entire face. “This whole conversation is stupid.”
“You brought it up,” he started, and there was something in his tone—something reserved and angry. “I was just defending myself against your accusation of me being a player. Regardless of what you think, I’m honest and I always have been.”
“This is becoming way too personal for me. Let’s shelve it and move on.”
Knight’s jaw was tight. “Let’s not. How about you tell me why you were with Bram last night?”
If his jaw was tight, mine was suddenly tighter. Who the hell did he think he was, questioning me? Granted I’d just questioned him but…so what? “That’s none of your business.”
“You made it your business to snoop into my affairs with Angela so I’m making it my business.”
I took two steps closer to him until we were nose to nose. I was fuming, irate. “You chose to answer my questions. That doesn’t mean I have to answer yours.”
“It doesn’t work that way, Dulcie.” He eradicated any distance between us until we were so close, I could feel his breath against my neck. A tremor started deep down in my belly and worked its way up into my gut.
“What is Bram to you?” Knight whispered, and I could feel hardness emanating between his legs and brushing against my thigh.
I didn’t drop my gaze but glared at him full bore. “He’s my lover,” I lied.
Knight laughed but it was an ugly sound. He grabbed the back of my neck, holding me immobile and returned my glare. “Liar.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Let go of me.”
“Tell me Bram is not your lover.”
“Why, are you jealous?” I asked.
“Yes,” he growled, and his eyes warned me not to play with him, not to incite him when he was this close to the edge. I was quiet as I watched him, watched that bizarre glow overtake his eyes and this time he didn’t avert his gaze to hide it. No, he wanted me to see what I was doing to him, that there was something in him he couldn’t control. I’d never been so turned on in my life.
“Bram isn’t my lover,” I said in a soft voice and nearly fell over when Knight released me. He grabbed my arm to stabilize me and immediately let go as if I’d burned him. Suddenly the smell of cheese was thick in my nose. “Smells like your lasagna is burning.”
#
I knew I was sleeping but my dreams had never been quite so lucid, images so vibrant and crisp, I felt as if I could reach out and touch them. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, finding the velvet blackness of night was still in full effect. There was something I needed to do, something that was on the brink of happening. Something bad. It was one of those gut feelings.
I stood up and was seized by a pain reverberating through my head. It felt as if my brain was being torn apart, all my memories and thoughts being dissected by a sharp blade. I fell to my knees and grabbed my throbbing head, willing the pain to go away.
And, just like that, it did. I was suddenly free of pain but I was somewhere I couldn’t comprehend—somewhere unknown to me. It was like I’d been plucked from my bedroom and deposited on a street I didn’t recognize. A cold wind whipped around my shoulders, and I glanced down at my white lace singlet and baby blue pajama shorts. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to ward off the cold and glanced up at the front of a townhouse—a modern structure that glared down at me in an array of hard angles and bleak whiteness. The numbers 3467 delineated the corner of the door, and somehow I knew those numbers were important, that I had to remember them.
Before I had the chance to think, something flashed by me. I couldn’t see it but I could feel the death imprint it carried—something powerful, something evil. In an amorphous blur of darkness, it vaporized into the door before me, and I had no choice but to follow. It wanted me to follow—I could feel the distinct urge to continue after it, as if it were beckoning me. I reached for the doorknob, and my hand went through it. Shrugging, I took a hesitant step forward and found myself merging with the door, entering the room beyond it.
The sounds of crashing and fighting snapped me out of my initial trepidation and I forced myself forward, following the noises down a dark hallway and into a bedroom where my eyes settled on the shadows of two men. One was in a huge bed that dominated the room and the other was atop him, pummeling him with fists full of hatred. The man in the bed didn’t resist his attacker. He merely lay there in quiet repose while the entity pounded him repeatedly. I had the sudden desire, the sheer need to protect the man in the bed.
I started forward and suddenly came up against an invisible barrier, something stopping me from reaching the bed. I shook my hand, waiting for the telltale sign of fairy dust to emerge in my palm so I could blow the dust toward the barrier and simply eliminate it but my fairy dust never materialized.
The man in the bed continued to lie there, immobile, amidst his blood-stained sheets. The thing atop him shifted to the side, pulling itself away from the bed and allowed me to gaze at the man. My heart about stopped.
“Knight!” I screamed and beat my ineffectual palms against the invisible wall. My voice just bounced off the unseen barrier and died in the air.
Knight’s attacker was no longer an amorphous shadow. He’d taken an outline of a man and was now facing me. I couldn’t make out his features, I couldn’t even see his face. He was just etched in darkness, outlined by night. But I didn’t have to see his face to realize what and who he was. I knew it deep down in my gut because he wanted me to know it. The Dreamstalker. I felt a smile radiating outward from him. A smile coming from that dark shade of his face.
He leaned over Knight while I held my breath.
I woke with a start, my heart pounding.
I couldn’t shake the nightmare from my mind. And the main reason was that I was convinced it hadn’t been a nightmare at all but an omen from my own subconscious. It had been a warning. A warning from the Dreamstalker.
I leapt out of my bed and glanced at the clock. It was two a.m. Reaching for the phone on my side table, I speed dialed Knight. It just rang.
I dialed again. It just rang.
I dialed again.
It just rang.
F
our
I wasted no time in throwing on a pair of panties, jeans, a bra and an oversized sweatshirt. I grabbed the Op 6 (a gun most similar to a 9mm Glock but loaded with dragon blood bullets instead of lead —dragon’s blood being toxic to any Netherworld creatures) from underneath my mattress and slid it into the waist of the back of my pants, the way I’d seen Knight do so many times. Slipping on my Reef thongs, I grabbed my keys and headed for my Wrangler which was luckily parked just outside my apartment.
I beeped the car unlocked with my remote, hoisted myself into the driver’s seat and tore out of my spot, headed for Shamrock Street. I could see the numbers 3467 in my head as if the imprint of Knight’s door was forever burned into my subconscious. I could only hope it was the right address and not some trick of my mind. I wouldn’t allow myself to ponder whether I’d just had a meaningless nightmare. Assumptions led to dead people and I wasn’t about to include Knight in that thought. Better to be too careful.
There was no one on the road at this hour which was just as well since I was driving like a demon on Bayn, the Netherworld’s version of speed. Unfortunately, Shamrock Street was on the opposite end of Splendor so I’d just have to drive that much faster to get there before Knight succumbed to whatever the Dreamstalker was doing to him.
Images of Knight being pummeled into a bloody mess continued to plague me, reinventing themselves into a myriad of bloody possibilities until I wanted to scream. Hoping to find a distraction, I turned on the radio and tried to focus on the inane chatter of the DJ. I took a turn a little too sharply and the tires squealed in protest. No matter, I was almost to Shamrock.
When I turned on Shamrock, it was like I was in slow motion—like I’d just entered my nightmare. Everything was as I’d seen it—a wide street with various cars interrupting the concrete line of the curb. Dark oak trees dominated either side of the street, growing out of the ground like gnarled and deformed hands. I didn’t need to look at the house numbers to know which was Knight’s—it was at the end of the street, on the right with the numbers 3467 vertically embossed on the door.
