Dreamwalker

by Allyson James

  The next hurdle was a reception desk near the elevators, behind which sat a pleasant young woman with dark hair and a desert tan flanked by yet another security guard.

  The young woman’s smile deepened when Mick approached, and even the security guard gave him a cordial nod.

  “Are you back, Mr. Burns?” the woman asked. “I’m afraid Mr. Smith hasn’t returned.”

  “Yes, he has,” Mick said. “I saw him.”

  Mick hadn’t seen him—I knew that—but I too sensed Emmett here. He’d passed through this lobby recently. The dark gray aura he’d left behind was unmistakable.

  The young woman flushed. “All right, you caught me. But he doesn’t want to see anyone. You have to book an appointment a year in advance with his personal assistant to get in with Mr. Smith.”

  Mick leaned on the tall counter and looked down at her, his half smile affable. “Call upstairs. Give his assistant my name, and also tell him his friend Janet Begay is here. If he sends us away, then …” Mick lifted himself from the counter and shrugged. “We’ll stop bothering you.”

  The young woman flushed again. She so wanted to help Mick, but I saw a touch a fear in her eyes. I didn’t blame her. If I were her, I’d be intimidated by Emmett too.

  Mick deepened his smile. He rested his fingers on the counter again, and I saw a spark of magic move from them down to the telephone on the desk. The guard and the receptionist noticed nothing.

  Mick gave the woman a nod, said, “All right,” and gestured for me to turn away with him. At that very moment, the receptionist’s phone rang.

  “Oh, wait.” She held up one slender finger as she pressed a button on the phone and spoke through her headset. “Yes?” A pause, and then she looked relieved and delighted at the same time. “I will. Thanks.”

  She hung up and beamed at Mick. “It seems Mr. Smith is expecting you, Mr. Burns. Take the second elevator straight up. It only goes to his floor.”

  Mick thanked her as though she’d done him an amazing favor, and he ushered me with his hand on the small of my back to the elevator. I felt the woman watching Mick all the way—he does have a nice back view.

  As the nearly silent elevator doors slid closed on us, the chill in my bones returned. I was never meant to be inside a concrete and steel building, sailing upward in a box that confined me like a coffin.

  Mick saw me shiver and slid his arm around me. “He can’t do a lot to us in front of other people,” he said.

  I wasn’t so sure. “It’s not Emmett that bugs me. It’s this place.” The decor of the lobby, the elevator, even the doors, was cold and industrial—white, black, gray, steel. “It’s like death.”

  “True, it’s not inviting,” Mick agreed. “Emmett’s probably going for chill to intimidate his clients.”

  “His clients.” I pondered the word. “What does he actually do?”

  “On the surface, he runs a private bank. Below the surface, he hires himself out to help others make money, for a hefty percentage. Like what he did with the hotel Cassandra used to work for.”

  Cassandra had been the manager of a boutique hotel called the “C” in Los Angeles. Her boss had used Emmett to help fulfill the wealthy clientele’s more bizarre requests.

  We couldn’t say more, because the elevator doors opened, spilling us out onto a floor of polished black. Steel gray walls and etched glass surrounded another receptionist’s desk, but she was far less friendly than the young woman below. Her black hair was pulled into a severe bun and her makeup made her face a pale mask with black-lined eyes and scarlet lips. She took in our jeans, dusty shirts, and Mick’s tatts askance, but told us coolly that Mr. Smith expected us.

  Her tone implied that we were late, although we’d come straight from the lobby, traveling as quickly as the elevator let us. She pushed a button under her desk, and one of the steel panels on the wall slid open, revealing a short hall that ended in another steel door.

  She had no intention of leaving her chair to escort us. The door at the other end of the hall opened, however, and a young man in a gray business suit stepped out to wait for us.

  As we entered the hall, the steel door to the reception area glided shut behind us, sealing us in. I seriously didn’t like that.

  “Mr. Burns? Ms. Begay?” the man asked. “I’m Mr. Smith’s PA. Follow me, please.”

  The door behind him led to yet another short hall, one wall of it lined with floor-to-ceiling windows. We were about thirty stories up, and my stomach turned over to see the cars and people moving such a long way below. I’d been to the top of the Empire State Building but hadn’t experienced the vertigo I did now.

  The PA touched a button on a remote, opening yet another gray, brushed-steel door. Beyond this, at last, was an office.

  The office took up about an acre of space and rose two floors, the walls on three sides nothing but windows. Standing in the middle of it was like being on the edge of a cliff. I had to admit that the view of the mountains to the south, east, and north was spectacular, as was the vast grid of streets laid out in precise right angles spreading out below. In Phoenix, all streets, with very few exceptions, ran north and south or east and west. I’m sure that exactness appealed to Emmett.

  Emmett was just rising from a desk across the vast floor, which here was polished white. Though it felt solid enough, the expanse of gleaming white did nothing to help my vertigo. The desk had a glass top on a brushed steel frame, and was empty, except for one slim computer monitor and a small keyboard. No paper, pens, files, or paperclips cluttered Emmett’s desk. I’m sure they didn’t dare.

  “Thank you,” Emmett told his PA. “I’ll call if I need you.”

  The PA looked doubtful about leaving his boss with two such disreputable-looking characters, but he nodded and withdrew through another seamless door. The nameless PA was human, I knew from his aura, which was clean and without taint of magic. He was simply a man doing the job he’d been hired to do.

  Emmett was as scrupulously neat as ever, a new pair of glasses on his nose. Or rather, a different pair—he might have many. These had emeralds on the temples, which went with the subtle shade of his green silk tie.

  His aura, unlike the PA’s, roiled dark gray like winter storm clouds. Every magic he’d learned or stolen from other mages whirled within him, making his aura inky, thick, and evil.

  “Janet,” he said in a pleasant tone. “I am pleased to see you have recovered without permanent damage. I hear the Hopi County sheriff’s office and jail did not emerged unscathed. They have to level the place and build again. Hard on the taxpayer.”

  I ignored his observations. “How did you get into my dream?”

  Emmett’s eyes widened the slightest bit. “Riding dreams is easy. Doing anything effective there, on the other hand, depends on the person having the dream. I could never hurt you inside your dreams, my dear. Your instincts are too quick, and your magic is strong. I could only hurt your physical body while you were lying in bed having the dream—that is if you weren’t constantly protected by a dragon.”

  Mick said nothing, but he didn’t have to. He regarded Emmett calmly, as though unworried about anything that might happen in this place.

  “You did a spell on Mick that tore him apart,” I said to Emmett, my anger rising. “It was horrible.”

  “But saved his life.” Emmett came around to the front of his desk and leaned his hip on it, for all the world looking like an executive trying to speak casually to an important client. “He was about to become dragon offal.”

  “Are you saying that if Mick had died in the dream, that would have been real?” Cold horror spiked through me.

  Emmett shrugged. “Who knows? I haven’t studied dreams extensively—I’ve never needed to. Or dreamwalking, which is what you seem to have been doing.”

  “Because you spelled me to!” I said in fury. “You sent me into comas so you could try to steal the mirror!”

  Emmett’s eyes opened and closed once, slowly. “I admit I
have tried to kill you. First with John and Monica, second with the self-destruct spells in my lackeys. Both were backup attempts—I couldn’t be sure you’d go near either of them. John and Monica—they’re perfectly ordinary humans, if you want to know, but they love being with demons and will do anything for me, because I pay well. They were only supposed to wait in bar in case you came in and then lure you to their hotel room. I had no idea you’d let loose a horde of demons, Janet. But you did. You can’t keep out of other people’s business, can you?”

  “And in case I didn’t die all the way, you sent me dreams to drive me insane.”

  Emmett was already shaking his head. “No, Janet, you have that wrong. I can’t coerce you in dreams to give me the mirror. You need to die, or we need to come to some other kind of agreement. I’m not the one sending you dreamwalking.”

  “You keep saying dreamwalking. What does that mean, exactly?”

  Emmett made an expansive gesture with one hand. “Just what you’ve been doing. Reliving your past, either trying to change it or reacting to what might have been.”

  Not helpful. “The dreamwalking doesn’t change anything … does it? Mick obviously never got de-dragoned.”

  Emmett shifted his stance, crossing his feet at the ankles and resting his hands behind him on his desk. He was the very picture of an important man condescending to be friendly to the less important.

  “Are you claiming that you had nothing to do with my dreams?” I asked, skeptical. “I don’t believe you.”

  “It doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not. I have nothing to do with your dreams, I assure you. I could spell you to dream and reveal secrets to me, but that method is unreliable. I prefer a more direct approach.”

  He meant torture and dire threats. “Then why did you wish me sweet dreams after you took me home in your limo?”

  “Being polite. Showing you I could still be nice after your boyfriend blew up my favorite car.” Emmett’s eyes flickered with brief annoyance. “It’s what people say to each other, isn’t it? If your subconscious took it as a suggestion, I can’t help that.”

  I took a step forward. “Dreams in which I forget all about my current life, Mick almost gets killed, other people from my present wander in to interact with me …”

  “Your hang-ups are your own, my dear Janet. Dreams often show you what you wish for and what you fear. They reveal your frustrations and desires—often both at the same time.”

  “Regardless,” I said firmly. Mick, beside me, had not said a word, but I couldn’t ask him why at the moment. “Whether you have anything to do with this dreamwalking or not, I’ve come to tell you to give up on taking our magic mirror. If we have to kill you to stop you, we will. Less work for everyone if you simply give up.”

  Emmett gave me a pitying look. “I haven’t even begun to try to wrest the mirror from you. If you had died in one of my little traps, well and good, but those were incidental—just in case. When I come for the mirror, you’ll know.”

  “And we’ll fight you,” I answered. “Trust me.”

  “Oh, I do trust you, Janet,” Emmett said softly. “I also like you a little bit, which is why I’m giving you fair warning. Now …” He straightened up, the businessman finished with the interview. “I have another appointment in about five minutes. If I keep the client waiting, my PA will have a conniption. Ah.” He paused as though remembering something. “By the way, I’ve sent the cleaning bill for my shirt, the one the Nightwalker bloodied in his vain attempt to bite me, to your hotel. I believe it came to two-hundred dollars.” He gestured toward the door through which we’d entered. “My receptionist will see you out now, fetch you a taxi if you need one.”

  The door he pointed to was closed, the wall unbroken, but I had no doubt it would open to release us when he wished. I turned around and started for it, ready to get out of this chilling place.

  I was halfway across the glaring white floor when I realized Mick hadn’t followed me. I turned to see him still facing Emmett, his hands at his sides, his dragon aura crackling.

  “Smith,” he said.

  His voice was quiet and steady, but everything in me came alert. I headed for him, uneasiness surging.

  “If you ever try to hurt Janet again,” Mick continued without a break. “I will rain hell down upon you.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Emmett said. “I believe—”

  He never got a chance to tell us what he believed. Mick brought up his hands, his dragon aura rushed outward, and the entire office exploded into flames.

  I let out a cry and shielded my face with my hands, but the fire didn’t touch me. Mick and I stood in a clear, five-foot space on the white floor, while the flame raced around us and through the rest of the office.

  A rope of fire lifted Emmett’s desk and tumbled it end over end straight through the thick glass wall. The windows were meant to withstand impact—and Emmett no doubt had his bulletproofed—but the desk crashed through the heated glass and flew out into the bright daylight. Fire consumed the steel frame and the computer, raining ash to the city below.

  Emmett himself was on fire, a pillar of flame, but he only stood there, no screaming, no flailing. He watched, with me, as darkness filled the room, and every window melted and flowed to the pristine floor in a thick river of glass.

  Sudden wind blasted through the three open sides, sweeping both Emmett and me off our feet, the wind tunnel sucking Emmett out into open air.

  I skittered on my stomach across the smooth floor, hit the edge, scrabbled for hold, and found myself swept into empty space.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I screamed and screamed as I fell, knowing that nothing between me and the thirty floors of air would stop me. My arms pumped, as though some primordial ancestor whose DNA I carried instinctively tried to fly.

  I tumbled, dizzy and sick, for all of two seconds—a very, very long two seconds—before a talon caught me and pulled me up into the sky.

  “Mick!” I yelled. “You …” I choked off my words, knowing he’d never hear me, and slumped down into the now-familiar dragon’s claw.

  Mick didn’t like to go dragon in front of anyone, but he should have thought of that before he destroyed the windows of Emmett’s building and dove out to a metropolis of five million on a bright, clear-skied morning.

  We soared far too high above the teeming city, the freeway streaming with cars to our left, arteries feeding into it. Mick flapped over the baseball park, the roof open today, letting me see down to the green of the field too far below me. He winged his way toward the airport, then turned and streamed north just before we reached the flight path of the landing jets.

  As he passed over the freeway in the middle of town, cars flowing into a short tunnel staggered to a halt, quickly building a jam that began to stretch for miles. Mick let out a screech that I knew was a dragon laugh, then flew straight north, following a main avenue that crossed low mountains to northern suburbs, then beyond to open desert hills.

  Mick headed skyward to navigate the eight-thousand foot mountains of Rim country and off to the high desert of Magellan and home.

  ***

  Mick landed with precision on the other side of the railroad bed from the Crossroads Hotel about an hour and a half after he’d destroyed Emmett’s office.

  I fell to my knees when he set me down, weariness and reaction taking over. By the time I hauled myself up, Mick had shifted back into his human form and was helping me with strong, warm hands.

  I glared at him. “You enjoyed that!”

  “Fuck, yeah.” Mick grinned down at me, his eyes smoky black. “Even if Emmett can protect his body from my fire, I’ll destroy every single thing he enjoys until he leaves you the hell alone.”

  I shivered, suddenly cold though the September day was plenty warm. “If you irritate him enough, he’ll come after you.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass. I will make his life a misery. Wherever he turns, there I’ll be, ready to—how
did I put it?—rain down hell. I want him out of your life.”

  Mick’s smile had vanished, his anger taking over. Mick rarely lost his temper in a big way, but when he did, continents took cover.

  I clasped his hands in mine, closing over his hot fingers. “I don’t want him taking you away from me, Mick. When I thought you were dying in my dream, it was …” Empty, terrifying, a dark hole in my life. “I never want to feel like that again. I was ready to make a deal with the devil to keep you alive.”

  I had told him everything about the dream as I recovered in the hospital, though some of the details had gone. Mick squeezed my hands.

  “Maybe that’s what the dream was telling you—that you’d go to Emmett if you were desperate. That you’d give him anything.”

  I shook my head. “I think it was telling me I’d do anything to keep you safe.”

  Mick’s voice went quiet. “I’m supposed to be keeping you safe. From dragons, Beneath goddesses, powerful mages, and your own magic.” He took a step closer, right into my personal space, his body heat warming me. “You’re my mate. I live to keep you safe and next to me.”

  I liked the way my heartbeat quickened. “Yeah? Well, you’re my mate. It goes both ways. Either lock me on your island lair or let me protect you.”

  Mick growled low in his throat. “Don’t tempt me.”

  I knew damn well he’d fly me out to the atoll in the middle of the Pacific and make sure I couldn’t get away if he thought I’d be safer.

  To keep him from deciding to go there right now, I pressed myself against him. While I’d been in the hospital, there had been no way to be completely intimate, and last night in the hotel room, Mick had insisted I sleep, not that I hadn’t passed out as soon as my head touched the pillow.

  I still wasn’t quite at my normal strength today, and the impromptu flight home had drained me a bit. It was also broad daylight, the sun shining on Mick’s bare skin, and the hotel was full of guests.

  Even so, I gave his hands a little tug, indicating we should go inside. I was ready to show him how much I appreciated him springing to my defense.