Howler's Night

by Marie Hall

  “How do you figure?”

  Her brows lifted. “Everyone here knows that if I had one weakness in this group it was Kem. I’m not sure how I feel about getting taught by some other Sloth that’s not him.”

  “No.” I rubbed her silken flesh, letting my fingers play along the paths of her scars. “I’m sure that’s not it. But maybe if we keep our eyes open tonight, we can figure out what’s really going on with the big man.”

  Nodding, she pressed her toes into my shin and scooted herself forward so that she could lay a kiss on me. “Now about that payback.”

  ~*~

  Pandora

  I hadn’t known exactly what to wear to this little shindig, so I’d put on some flannel jammies (not the sexiest of nightwear, but considering I was going to be in a trailer with Luc I wanted to make it clear I wasn’t there for sex), cause I was pretty sure whatever I did with Sloth would involve a bed, a pillow, and whole lot of snoring.

  Walking across several bundles of wires tapped down to the grass, I stared at the lonely looking RV trailer before us. Unlike most of my family, who decorated their trailers so it was as plain as day whose belonged to whom, Luc’s had no lawn chairs in front, no pink flamingos with flapping wings, no beer kegs, not even a picnic table with an ash tray on top. He’d owned his digs for over a decade, but the trailer looked like it’d just rolled off the lot tonight.

  The windows were dark, and so far as I could tell, no shadows moved around inside.

  “You think he’s even here?” I turned to Ash, then glanced at my wrist watch. “Nine o’clock on the button.” I frowned.

  His brows dipped as he gave the lot a thorough once over, searching the brush around us for any signs of life, or even for a trap. “I’m sure he is. He was pretty adamant about this.”

  A stiflingly hot Texas breeze blew hair into my face. Not that I needed lights to see by, but it would have been nice if Luc had at least left one on for us. I moved up the stairs and knocked loudly once I got to the door.

  After five seconds of silence, I knocked again, then tossed Asher a confused frown.

  Luc had moved his trailer far enough to the back of the fair grounds that there was very little sound to bother us, which meant he should have heard my knocking no problem.

  “Nothing.” I shrugged.

  Reaching around me, Ash was just about to pound his fist on the door when Luc’s scent of sulfur permeated the breeze.

  I twirled around and saw him walking up from behind us with a small, delicate pixie of a woman trailing behind him. Her silvery blond hair was long, hanging well past her ass, and also kind of snarled, as if she couldn’t be bothered to brush it.

  When I say she’s tiny, I’m totally not kidding either. She could easily be a size zero. Nothing but skin and bones. Not that we need to eat, but I doubt that girl’s ingested more than a handful of Ambiens in years. Her skin is so pale it’s almost bluish, which tells me she rarely leaves her trailer.

  That would definitely explain why I don’t recognize her; she’d not been among the faces to greet me the other day.

  With a small yawn that she smothered with her fist, she finally looked up at me. Her eyes were wide and luminescent, and my heart gave a little lurch at the familiar amber gaze. My throat clogged up as memories collided with reality, and in my head, I wasn’t seeing Keltse walking toward me, but Kemen.

  I clung to Ash’s shirt as Luc brushed past us. “You ready or what?”

  Unnerved by my reaction to the girl, I curled my lip at him. “We weren’t the ones who were late.”

  Rather than respond to me, Luc merely raised a brow and turned to face Ash. The steps leading up to his trailer weren’t very wide, which meant their chests were pretty much touching.

  Pissing matches could be so exhausting sometimes.

  “You stay out.” His voice was calm as he said it, but immediately I felt Asher tense up beneath my hand.

  “Why?” I asked, trying to diffuse the tension.

  “Because I said so.” Finally his cold blue eyes turned to me, and I sighed.

  I could fight this, or we could just go with it.

  Asher was the one to make the decision for us.

  “I’ll stay out here.”

  I frowned. “You sure, Priest? I really don’t mind—”

  He didn’t look back at Luc as he nodded. “I’m sure.” Then, after giving my wrist a kiss, he walked down the steps, quickly acknowledged Keltse—who gave him a wimpy wave of greeting—spread his wings, and, with a powerful downdraft, blasted himself into the air.

  I watched him sail toward a thick grove of hickory. And even though he was hidden within the branches, I could still feel his eyes on me. My priest hadn’t gone far, and I smiled.

  “He always such a fucking stalker?” Luc snarled.

  Determined not to let him bait me tonight, I gestured toward the door. “You gonna open up or what?”

  It took us less than a minute to move inside the trailer. At least in there I could see Luc. Nothing had changed, the inside of the place was a time capsule of sameness that immediately made me feel at home.

  He had a couch and two chairs facing a bookshelf full of crime and war books, a small kitchenette that he never used but which was always immaculately clean, and a narrow cot tucked away in his bedroom.

  Unlike most of us, Luc never manipulated space and matter to make the inside of his home any bigger than it had been designed to be. Luc was a minimalist in every sense of the word.

  But when the three of us walked into the bedroom, I finally saw just how different Luc had become.

  His room wasn’t just a mess. It was a war zone. Dirty clothes were strewn all about. And in place of the pristine and narrow cot I remembered, a large mattress lay on the floor. No box spring, no frame, just the mattress. There were no stains on the sheets, and when I sniffed I smelled laundry soap, but that was about the extent of cleanliness.

  Mingled in with his piles of clothing were panties, bras, and tassled garments of one variety or another. My brows shot up.

  Either he’d become a cross dresser when I’d disappeared, or he was having some serious orgy time. My vote was for the latter.

  Planting my hands on my hips, I turned to him, ready to ask him what the deal was, when I spied him ripping his shirt and jeans off.

  He’d never been one for boxers, and naked as a jay bird, he walked over to the mattress and took a sort of tumble onto it before rolling over onto his back and patting the bed beside him.

  “Come here, both of you.”

  “Right.” I chuckled, wondering if he’d kicked Asher out with the hopes of banging the not-so sexy twins.

  I was dressed like a grandma and Keltse was yawning like a half-roused lion.

  Glaring at me, as if reading my thoughts, he sighed. “I’m your victim tonight, Dora, so just get your ass over here and let’s start, okay?”

  His words were gruff and thoroughly confusing.

  “What?” I shot Keltse a look, at which she only shrugged and shuffled to the left side of the bed.

  She didn’t question what Luc was doing; in fact, she dropped down beside him, rolled onto her side, and in seconds had closed her eyes. Her chest slowly rose up and down.

  “Did she just fall asleep?” I growled, jerking my hand in her direction. “How the hell am I supposed to learn anything with Sloth, Luc?”

  A loud snore punctuated my statement, which only made me bulge my eyes and give him a-do-you-see-this look.

  Flopping an arm around her shoulder, he motioned for me to come to his other side.

  I didn’t really think Luc had an orgy on his mind after all when I spied just how flaccid his penis was.

  Now I knew why he’d kicked Ash out, but I still had a hard time understanding why he was willing to be my next guinea pig. Of course, if the point was just to help him sleep, then maybe that explained it.

  Luc looked like he hadn’t slept properly in months. Moved to sympathy for him, I rolled my eyes
, toed my shoes off, and, grumping the entire way, moved around to the right side of the bed before sitting.

  “You gonna lie down or what?”

  Twisting on my butt, I thinned my lips. “What is this really about, Luc? Why did you yank me away from Vyx tonight? If you just needed to sleep, couldn’t you have cuddled into the growling chainsaw beside you?”

  Keltse was nothing like my Kem. My gawd, the way she was snoring was practically criminal. Even so, I felt the quickening of Rip Van Winkle begin to weave it’s somnolent magic through me as my eyes felt suddenly stiff and full of grit.

  Yawning now, Luc tugged on my shoulders until finally I gave in and lay down beside him, stiff as a board, trying not to touch him too much. Mostly because I wasn’t sure how much of my touch he’d even want at this point.

  To say things were weird between us would be an understatement.

  “Will you fucking relax?” He took my hand in his and shook it until I no longer fought his movements.

  “Luc, there are so many other demons I should be focusing on other than Sloth. I can contain him; in fact, he hasn’t been much help to me since I got him anyway.”

  Sighing, he wrapped his other arm around my shoulders so he was the hotdog in our bun. Which is a strange analogy, but really the only way I could describe it.

  “Without sleep, everything else goes to shit. It’s why I had to go searching for Keltse to begin with. My nights have been fucked lately,” he said softly, and when I heard the thread of pain behind his words, I instantly regretted my anxiety.

  This was Luc. Even though we’d broken things off, I still hoped that somewhere inside him he felt some sort of familial love for me.

  Sighing, I patted his chest. “I’m sorry, Luc. For everything.”

  His fingers began to massage my scalp, and it felt good. Not sexual, just nice. I closed my eyes.

  “It is what it is, Dora. Now just close your eyes and sleep.”

  I wasn’t sleepy.

  Like at all.

  And I was just about to tell him so when I felt a darkness tugging at me. And it was strong, a black abyss that was growing larger and larger and larger, growing so big that soon it would encapsulate everything it touched.

  And when it brushed my flesh, I found myself sucked into its void.

  My eyes slammed shut.

  Then they opened again, and that drugged stupor was gone. I was wide awake and looking around, but I recognized nothing. It was so dark in there I couldn’t even see my hands in front of my face.

  “Luc?” I cried. “Keltse! Where are you guys?”

  A golden flicker of light caught my eye; it was far off in the distance but moving rapidly toward me, gaining not only in speed but in strength until it was so close and so bright that I flinched and had to shield my eyes.

  “Pandora, right?”

  The voice was dulcet and so lovely that I immediately wanted to hear it again. The light was dim now, muted so that I could tolerate it, and what I saw made me gasp.

  It was Keltse, but she didn’t look anything like the girl in the trailer. Her silvery blond hair rolled in soft, sexy waves down her back. Her clothes were no longer ill fitting and baggy, but were woven particles of light that danced and swayed around her slim body as she moved.

  Her brown eyes were mesmerizing pools of liquid amber. Then she smiled, and I felt myself at ease, felt my lips lift into a smile of their own, and the black that’d surrounded us rolled away to reveal a sunny, bucolic day.

  Jay birds sang in thick oak branches overhead. Robins chirped, digging through roots for worms, and beautifully painted cardinals sat perched on a white picket fence warbling back and forth to one another. The only thing we needed now was a princess throwing her hands out wide and singing for her one true love with a choir of violins playing grandly behind her.

  An apple-scented breeze tickled my nose and played through my loose hair. Somehow I was no longer dressed in my granny jammies, but was now barefoot and wearing a cream-colored tunic cinched at my waist with a pine-green belt.

  “Where the hell am I?” I snapped, taking a step back into a semi-crouch as I waited to spy at least one thing I recognized.

  “This is Somnium.” Keltse lifted a delicately boned hand, wearing the proud smile of a happy parent. “The land of dreams. This is my home, and this is where we’ll train.”

  Still not totally comfortable, I stood a little straighter. “So I’m dreaming?”

  Her pink lips tipped up into an amused smirk. “You were fighting it, so I had to yank you under, but yes, you’re snoring out there.”

  I frowned. “Then where is Luc?”

  “Around.” She plucked up a daisy and began tearing off one petal after another.

  “He said I was supposed to train on him.”

  “And you will.” She let the petals scatter to the breeze. “But you can’t do anything until you learn to harness the power of sleep.”

  I laughed. “The power of sleep? Do you realize how lame that sounds?”

  Her lips twitched, and suddenly I was no longer in the grassy meadow full of fairy tale idiocy, but clinging for life at the edge of a volcanic crater as the burnt-orange and red magma bubbled and hissed below me. I was also naked, and the sharp, jagged lava rocks were ripping into my skin.

  I tried tracing away from there, but my body was as solid as any human’s. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The stench of sulfur and thick ash made me gag and wheeze and cough violently.

  I didn’t know where Keltse had gone off to, but I had to get out of there. I took one step and winced as a sharp shard of rock shoved through the delicate flesh of my foot.

  And then I screamed when a droplet of lava sizzled through my thigh.

  I was about to cry out to Keltse, when suddenly I was back in the meadow and she was smiling up at me with her head cocked and her hair flowing. I wanted to throttle her.

  “You did that!” I snapped, taking a step forward and realizing that the pain that’d throbbed so violently in my thigh was gone.

  “Of course I did,” she said in a high-pitched spirited voice.

  Glaring, I dusted off the dress I was wearing again and grunted. I’d clearly underestimated the powers of the deadly sins. Again.

  A smug smile laced her full lips. “It is the distortion and manipulation of reality and dreams, but this demon is a powerful tool.”

  How stuck in my own world had I been that I’d never even thought to find out just how amazing the gifts we all shared were? I’d never once asked Kemen what he could do. I’d only ever crawled to him when I needed some sleep.

  Maybe if I’d taken the time to understand him more, made him see just how awesome and amazing he really was, maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to sacrifice his life as he had.

  It made me sad.

  “But how do you feed the demon?”

  “By making your prey sleep.” She smiled, brightly. “Of course the downside is that it makes you sleepy as hell too. It’s a constant battle not to get overwhelmed by your own gifts, but if you can learn to control Sloth, then you really don’t need to give into him as us Sloth-folk tend to do. You can feed him, Pandora, by simply siphoning off the dreams of others.”

  My lips curled. That could be useful indeed. In fact, that could be one of the most useful tricks under my belt.

  My lips twitched. “Very interesting. So how do I lull them to sleep?”

  She walked toward me and grabbed my hand as Bubba had done last night. Then, twining our fingers together, she pointed.

  A conduit of power flowed from her to me. Like sun reflected off hot asphalt, a shimmering mirage wavered before our eyes.

  And I didn’t even need to ask her whose mirage it was shimmering before us. I sensed the power that lived within it: sex and absinthe, fury, rage, and, threaded delicately behind it, love.

  “That’s Luc, isn’t it?”

  “Mmhmm.” She nodded excitedly. “That’s Luc’s soul. But in order for you to bring him in
here, you must first release the demon.”

  I was getting the hang of plucking only one demon at a time out of the dark box I kept them trapped in.

  Lust of course had been a more permanent fixture in my life since getting together with Asher, but I could sense her curiosity as she shared space with the sleepy demon that’d crawled out of the box.

  Suddenly I felt lethargic, and it was all I could do not to yawn.

  “You can fight it,” Keltse assured me with a nod of her head. “You just need to feed it first.”

  And using movements very similar to what Bubba had shown me last night, she began to draw Luc’s soul toward us, as if she were pulling on an invisible rope. She willed it our way.

  The moment my hand brushed his soul, I felt the lethargy streaming from out of our fingers and into the heart of him.

  My eyes opened wide, and I laughed with relief. Luc did not fight the tug of sleep; he tumbled straight into it, and I sensed that I shared space inside his head.

  Not my physical body, but my mind. His head was a long hallway full of door after door after door.

  I frowned. How come I couldn’t see him? I thought I’d be shifting landscapes on him. “Where is he?”

  Keltse was no longer holding my hand. She had hers crossed behind her back and jerked her chin in the direction of the doors. “There is more to dreaming than making others see what you want them to see. And that is what I’m showing you now.”

  As far as teachers went, she was nowhere near as good as Bubba had been. But I was willing to be patient and see where she led.

  “These are Luc’s memories. Memories which he compartmentalizes. His entire life is sectioned off.”

  “By what? Years? Moments?” I looked back down the hall. The doors were blank, giving no hint or indication of what rested behind them.

  She shrugged. “It’s different for everyone. You can spend an eternity inside the mind of an ancient immortal.”

  The hallway seemed to flow on into eternity. Years and years and years worth of thoughts and ideas and deeds hid behind each door, and to say that I wasn’t crazy curious would be a blatant lie. I wondered about our nascent years together, and about the time I’d run away from him for over a thousand years, but mostly I couldn’t help wondering what’d happened to Luc while I’d been held captive.