In the Dark of Dreams

by Marjorie M. Liu

His silence was long and heavy. “You’re frightened now. Of me. Even here.”

  Was she frightened? And if she was, should it matter? She had a right to be uneasy, even of him. But only because of the way he made her feel.

  Nothing was safe anymore. And this was no longer a dream, where a girl could love without consequences.

  She backed away. Just two steps, but in the dream that might as well have been a quarter mile. Her legs bumped against the porch of that old dying house, and the blood on the boards burned her skin where it touched.

  She hissed, and he pulled her close again, but there was a roar in the air and the sand shook beneath her, and the sun disappeared behind a wall of water that was big as the sky.

  The man roared at the wave, pushing her behind him. Too late. Water slammed against them, crushing all the air from her lungs, tumbling her over and over in a blind spin. She heard nothing but the thunder of her heart, and no hands clasped hers. She was alone and dying, already dead.

  Until, suddenly, she was not.

  She floated, in darkness, insubstantial as a ghost. Water flooded her lungs, but it tasted good, and she could breathe.

  In front of her, bodies shimmered. One, larger than the others, broad and masculine. His lower half shone with scales and a silver fin. She could not see his face, but in the dream she knew him as well as she knew herself.

  He was caught. Trapped.

  Massive barbed hooks dug into his skin, attached to braided cords wrapped around the wrists of those who surrounded him. He fought, writhing and twisting, dragging his assailants—but the hooks were too deep, and there were too many. Blood drifted from his body through the water.

  Jenny tried to go to him, screaming as he screamed, but not one inch of her body obeyed her. Frozen. Floating in place like she was just as trapped.

  The base of her skull throbbed, and burned.

  For you, whispered that dry voice. For you he suffered.

  She woke up. Just like that. No lingering in the dream. She opened her eyes from the sea to a dark forest, and lay there, trying to remember who she was and why she kept thinking, No.

  Jenny, she told herself, a moment later. My name is Jenny.

  She heard movement and turned her head. Perrin was rubbing his eyes, half-sitting up from a spot so close to her she could have stretched out one finger to touch him. His long hair covered much of his face, and he moved as though his muscles were stiff, or just too tired to function.

  “You slept,” she said, her voice raw, hoarse.

  “Didn’t mean to. Closed my eyes for just a minute.” He sounded little better, and hesitated, peering at her through the curtain of his hair. “You were there.”

  “The beach.” Jenny rolled over on her back, closing her eyes.

  “The house. The wave.” Leaves crunched beneath him, and she thought for a moment he would touch her. She swore she felt the heat of his hand above her arm.

  But the heat faded, and she listened to him stand. “Bad dream.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at his scars. Wondering if hooks had caused those deep silver marks. “What else do you remember? After the wave?”

  “I woke up,” he said, not looking at her. Jenny couldn’t tell if he was lying. It didn’t matter. Real or not, what she had seen in that dream was nothing she would ever forget.

  She heard a crackling sound. Fish cooked over the fire, impaled on sticks. He must have started them before nodding off. She looked at Perrin again, but he seemed uncomfortable. So was she, Jenny realized. It had been different when she didn’t know the dreams were real. Just some figment of her obsessed imagination.

  Dreams were intimate. Dreams were part of the soul. She felt a little like she’d just woken up from having sex, and this was the awkward morning after.

  Perrin crouched in front of the fire, removing one of cooked fish. Steam rose from the cracked dark skin.

  Not quite looking at her, he extended his arm and waited for her to take the fish from him. She hesitated, and he finally met her gaze. Pale eyes. Piercing. Jenny stopped breathing, maybe with a twitch.

  “Don’t be afraid of me,” he said quietly. “Please.”

  Jenny held his gaze. “Why do you think I’m afraid of you?”

  Frustration filled his eyes, maybe a little helplessness. She couldn’t be sure. He turned his head before she could look too hard.

  “Take the fish,” he muttered in a cold voice. “You need to eat.”

  Jenny took the stick from him. The impaled fish looked at her with shriveled eyes.

  “Did it ever occur to you,” she said slowly, “that I might not be hungry?”

  “Earlier, you said you were hungry.” Perrin glanced at her. “When was the last time you ate?”

  Jenny opened her mouth to answer him but had to stop. Les had fed her something, maybe, but that had been a lifetime ago. Her stomach felt queasy at the thought of eating.

  “Eat,” Perrin said. “I don’t know where we’ll find our next meal.”

  Good point. The fish was hot beneath her fingers, but she managed to tear off a piece of flaky white flesh and pop it into her mouth. It tasted good, and her nausea subsided.

  Perrin removed another fish from the fire. He ate it with a little less care than she had. Jenny watched him openly, but except for a tightening of the muscles in his shoulders, he said nothing.

  Judging from what little sky she could see beyond the canopy, it was early evening or very late in the afternoon—though it might as well have been full night in the forest where she sat. It was dark amongst the trees, and the small fire’s light was welcome.

  Jenny drew in a breath to tell Perrin about the parasite, but her throat closed, and the words only came out as a hiss. An attempt to point at the back of her head failed when her arm refused to move. And when it occurred to her to just flop down and plant her face in the ground—so that hopefully he might catch a glimpse of the damn thing beneath her hair—she managed to twitch a full inch before her body shut down. Frozen as a statue.

  And thirsty. For salt water.

  Desperately thirsty.

  Hey, she called out in her mind, willing Perrin to turn around and look at her. Hey!

  But Perrin threw away the remains of his fish and stood. Still not looking at her. Silent, tense, every movement fraught with suppressed violence. Should have scared her, but she wasn’t afraid that he would hurt her. Her uneasiness was more intimate than that.

  The parasite frightened her more. The parasite baffled her. It was clearly intelligent—unless she was hallucinating that voice in her mind. And it was important, the key to whatever the hell was going on with Perrin. So why was it lodged in the back of her head?

  And what were the odds that it would have brought her and Perrin together again? Why, now, had all the broken shit of her life become tangled with him?

  What does all this mean? What happened to that scared little boy on the beach? Why did I dream about you, all these years?

  And how, how was it possible, he had shared her dreams? Shared them, until eight years ago—with her always naïve enough to think it was simply her imagination? Her desperate, sorry-ass, pathetic heart—aching for something it could never have?

  Jenny still remembered that first dream, that first night after she had found him. Falling asleep, only to find herself on the beach, with the sand beneath her feet and the waves lapping the shore, and the wind, the bright sun.

  And a presence. The boy.

  A flash of silver, pale skin. His hand warm on hers. A soothing touch. Sitting together, in the sand, watching the waves. Taking comfort in nothing but each other. Warm ghosts, with warm hearts.

  You searched for him. Searched so long and hard. And he was with you, all along. Inside.

  Perrin paced the edges of the sma
ll clearing. Studying the trees as though they were the bars of a cage. It wasn’t overt. Anyone else might have called it restlessness, burning off excess energy.

  Jenny knew better. She recognized that behavior. All the signs were there. And that upset her, more than she wanted to admit.

  “Have you ever been locked up?” she asked him.

  Full stop. Every part of him, rippling with unease. His skin was golden in the firelight. Silver hair fell over one eye and hung loose and tangled down his scarred chest. She could not see his eyes, but the rest of him was so beautiful, it almost hurt to look.

  “Why,” he said slowly, “would you ask that?”

  Jenny set down her fish, a little too carefully. “Maybe you’re claustrophobic. I could imagine that, if you’ve grown up in the sea, without walls. But there’s something more, in the way you move. Like you’ve been in too many closed spaces. Helpless.”

  Perrin was so still. “Helpless.”

  Jenny refused to back away from that word. “You’ve spent time on land. The way you speak and act. I don’t think it was pleasant. And then there’s the way you keep telling me not to be frightened of you.”

  He stood there, silent. Outwardly calm, though she could feel, washing over her, that inexplicable hum of ready violence coiled inside him, along with that same ruthless determination that had let him beat Les until he was unconscious: the same resolve that had saved her life, cared for her while she was ill; carried her through the forest to protect her feet, while his tore and bled.

  Innumerable little gestures so at odds with the rough anger in his voice and the remote coldness of all his other actions.

  I’m not scared of you, she thought, waiting for him to say something, anything, her stomach tight, heart aching. Of all the impossible things she had learned to believe in . . .

  Believe in yourself, she thought, leaning harder against the tree behind her. Believe in what you see. Believe in what you know, in your heart.

  Easier said than done.

  Perrin swayed toward her, his eyes still hidden in shadow, though the reflection of the firelight on the sharp angles of his face made him look even harder, more dangerous. “How would you know such a thing?”

  “I’ve seen it. I lived it.” Jenny tried to stand, but had to clutch the tree as a wave of dizziness made her sway.

  Strong hands gripped her arms, then her waist. Those familiar hands. That familiar voice, deep and quiet, that she had only ever heard in dreams.

  Those dreams.

  “Jenny,” he said, and hearing him say her name made her feel so strange. Words welled up in her throat, hard and pulsing, burning through her like fire. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend this was one of those old dreams.

  But this wasn’t the beach. This was real. She had chased mysteries all her life, for just one reason.

  “Jenny,” he said again. “You should sit.”

  “I feel small when I sit,” she told him, eyes still closed. He sighed and pulled her close, his arms sliding around her with heavy, comforting strength. He shouldn’t have felt so comforting. He was a stranger. No matter their history, tenuous and mysterious as it was.

  “What did you mean?” His voice was rough, coarse, though his touch remained so gentle. “What have you seen, and lived?”

  Her hand slid down between them, touching her stomach. A different kind of ache filled her. “The Consortium. The people who came for me on the yacht. The ones who were in that bad dream you saw.”

  “They hurt you, before.”

  Jenny tried pushing free, but he held on, and she found herself pressed against the tree. Not because of him. She had put herself there, backing away—but he followed, and now loomed above her, unmovable and warm. His hair touched her face, and Jenny shuddered.

  “Forget I said anything,” she said.

  Perrin didn’t budge. “You started it.”

  She shoved at him, uselessly. “Get off me.”

  He pushed her tighter against the tree—against him—one massive arm still around her. His other hand slid up her throat, stilling her, making every inch of her body tingle as his big warm palm pressed against her cheek. She had thought he would be extra careful after bruising her—and he was, so careful—but there was a determination in his touch, too. A thrill rolled through her body, followed by a hungry ache that she hadn’t felt in years.

  “Open your eyes,” he whispered. “Look at me.”

  He hadn’t been so eager before to stare into her eyes, but something in his voice cut her heart. Jenny looked up.

  There, his eyes. Pale as ice, glittering. But not cold. His eyes were soft with pain, and a loneliness that seared her, down to the soul.

  His loneliness. Her loneliness. Both the same. She hadn’t realized how lonely she had been, until this moment. Faced with it, in his eyes. Hit her in a rush, a great, heaving heartache that she didn’t know how to handle. Except not handle it at all.

  “Eight years,” Perrin said, his voice little more than a broken rasp. “Eight years on land. Some of that time in prison.”

  Jenny stared. “Prison.”

  His jaw hardened. “I didn’t understand certain things. I committed crimes. Added up to a year of my life.”

  She tried to speak but couldn’t. Her silence seemed to hurt him. Bitterness filled his gaze, and he pushed away from her. Jenny caught him, holding tight. He hesitated—then gently, carefully, pried her fingers off his wrist.

  Perrin walked away. Not far, just out of arm’s reach. He stared at the fire. Jenny had to lean against the tree again, steadying herself as she studied more scar tissue, old and rough, embedded in the muscles of his back and arms. The firelight softened the scars, but not the sense of barely contained violence—inside him, against him.

  Hooks, she thought, pressing her fist over her heart.

  “Tell me about the Consortium,” he said quietly.

  Tell me why you didn’t go back to the sea for eight years, she wanted to ask, but a terrible dread rose in her throat before she could voice that question.

  “They’re family,” she said.

  “Family,” Perrin echoed, and she waited for something more. But all he did was nod to himself. Cool, calm. Not the reaction she felt whenever she thought about the mess her relatives had created. Vomiting while screaming was more like it. Combined with insane rage.

  “That’s it?” she asked him.

  “Family can be cruel,” Perrin replied, as if that was all the explanation he needed to give. And it was. In a way.

  Jenny pushed away from the tree. “I work for a corporation called A Priori. My grandmother and her three sisters founded it during World War II. Finding lost objects and people was their specialty, although that’s changed in the last sixty years. Investments, bioresearch, oil, manufacturing.”

  “And things less mundane.”

  She wondered how much he already knew. “Yes. But that . . . was always on the side. My family has never been . . . normal.”

  “You said you knew about shape-shifters. You’ve been remarkably calm about what I am. You were brave in front of the sea witch.”

  Scared shitless, she thought. “I grew up around unusual things. People with unusual gifts. But the family split, decades ago. One of the sisters, when she saw the business changing into something increasingly commercial, broke away to continue her work as it had been originally intended: as a means of helping people. My grandmother and her other sisters, like I said, didn’t follow that path. And some of their children took it even further.”

  She joined him at the fire. Staring at the flames, unable to look at his face. Her throat felt tight, and her stomach hurt. She hated thinking about the past. Even though she was so good at it.

  “I have uncles, aunts, cousins . . . all of them with too much power. Up
here.” She tapped her forehead. “They can do things with their minds. Make other people do things. That was the line they crossed, but by the time my grandparents and everyone else realized just how far they had gone, it was too late to stop them.”

  “Those relatives betrayed all of you?”

  “Only after we tried to stop them. Turned into a war, briefly.” Jenny pressed her hand over her stomach. “When I thought you’d been . . . locked up . . . I assumed it was by them. They hunt, or try to recruit, humans who are born different, along with shape-shifters, and . . . other beings. I’m not sure how much you know.”

  “Gargoyles,” Perrin said, surprising her. “Witches, who are fey in the blood. Your Consortium hunts my kind, too, I assume. Though I imagine we’ve been even more difficult to find. The sea is . . . vast. And we take precautions.”

  There was something faintly ominous in the way he said that. “Do your people have a name?”

  He hesitated. “Krackeni.”

  “Krackeni,” Jenny echoed. “I always called you merman.”

  “It works,” he said, with a faint tilt of his shoulder. “What does the Consortium do with those they capture or recruit?”

  “Experiments. Breeding programs. Brainwashing. Like your sea witch, they seem to think the end of the world is coming and want to be at the top of the food chain when it does. I won’t rule out the possibility”—not after what the sea witch had said—“but I think it’s just some excuse to hurt people. Lets them sleep at night, when they’re not busy taking over almost every major criminal organization in the world. Drugs, human trafficking, weapons . . . follow the trails, and in the past ten years it’s become difficult not to find a link back to the family, and the bigger they get, the harder it is to fight them.”

  Jenny finally looked at him. While she hadn’t been certain what to expect in his reaction, she was surprised to see the deep-etched lines of strain in his brow, around his eyes. His gaze was distant, thoughtful. Unhappy.

  “What?” she asked, alarmed.

  His frown deepened. “Did A’lesander work for them?”

  Jenny frowned, rubbing her arms. “He said no. He killed their agent who attacked me.”