She went to the back door and turned to us when her hand was on the handle.
“Sweet dreams, Tina.” Her smirk was the same as it had been in the dreamscape. She was a real piece of work.
She left, and Mason held me tighter against him.
For a second, I wanted to just stay there, comforted by his touch. Then I remembered what it had taken to get to this point.
I pulled away. “I came here for her. Not for you.”
A lie, but it hurt too much to know he was still mad. Over something that hadn’t even happened.
“Tina, don’t go.” His voice had softened.
I was too afraid to look him in the eyes, not sure what I’d see there. “Mason, you’ve been ignoring me over nothing. I gave you space and it wasn’t enough. I can’t pretend that didn’t happen.”
“I just makes me so mad to think about you with anyone else.” He sighed. “I couldn’t think straight after that. I let it get to me too much. I’m sorry. Please, Tina. I’m so sorry.”
I turned to face him. He’d only done what I did whenever I was triggered. Run, hide.
I wanted to forgive him, but I wasn’t sure I could.
“Jimmy came to the Starlight because Selena slept with him. He thought it was me. Dawson too. That’s Lucy’s boyfriend, Mason. She thinks he’s the one. Then one of them left a fucking creepy note on my bed. None of this is fun for me, Mason. I’m scared.” I could feel my eyes start to water and I forced myself to calm down. I was starting to shake.
He moved forward and pulled me into his arms, hugging me close. “I’m so fucking sorry. I won’t leave you alone like that ever again.”
I felt how much he meant it, but his words were hollow to me now. He’d already made promises he didn’t keep. I was already losing my trust in him. It didn’t matter if I understood why he did what he had. It didn’t matter if it was the same thing I would do if the tables were turned. He’d hurt me, and I couldn’t just forgive him like nothing had happened.
I pulled back, thoughts swirling as I realised what I had to do. “I think we jumped into this when we weren’t ready.”
The horror in his eyes when I met his gaze made my stomach sink. He held onto my arms to keep me from backing away more. He shook his head. “No. Don’t say that. Please, don’t.”
“I think you were right, Mason. The past means something.” It meant we’d never really worked, and that wasn’t going to change just because we both wanted it to. I swallowed the lump in my throat, but it only came back. “I didn’t want it to, but it does.”
“I messed up back then. I’m doing it again now. Fuck! I wish I knew how to fix this. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” His eyes were pleading with me as hard as his words.
“I can’t be with someone who might decide to just abandon me, Mason. I can’t deal with that.”
So what if that meant being alone? It would hurt less than this. I’d never felt this awful when I’d lived on my own in the middle of nowhere. I pulled away until he let go.
“I would never abandon you, Tina. I love you.”
I knew the second part was true. I wished I could believe the first.
Chapter Nineteen
I sat in the car for ten minutes, staring through the pelting rain into space. Everything was starting to fall apart. Nothing felt real anymore. All the memories I’d made since I’d come back to town were warped now. Like I’d wanted everything to work out so badly I’d dreamed it into being, and now I could see the cold harsh reality underneath. I didn’t like it. This wasn’t what I wanted.
This was why I’d been so hesitant to agree to move in with him. It was why it had hurt so damned badly when he abandoned me after I opened up the first time. He could damage me too easily. I loved him too much.
“Fuck,” I cursed as it started to sink in.
The picture-perfect life I’d started to live had been a lie. I’d blinded myself to it, hid from the ugly truth for too long. It didn’t matter how much I wanted it to work out. It wasn’t going to.
I didn’t start the car. I decided if dream walking was going to take over my life, I was going to damn well do it right. I got out and made my way over to the host’s house, not caring that I had no idea what I was going to say to her, or how I was going to fix things, I only knew I had to speak to her.
It was the only way I’d stop going to the dreamscape when I slept.
I kicked weeds out of my way idly as I walked up the path to her door. The grass was badly overgrown on either side and moved eerily in the breeze. My hair was soaked within about five seconds of leaving the car. The sky was a dreary grey, clouds blocking the summer sun.
I went straight to the door and knocked. I could hear floorboards creaking inside. She didn’t answer her door. Sloth demon, remember, Tina? She probably never bothers to answer her door.
I knocked again, a little louder. The rain was falling faster, harder. Starting to shiver, I knocked again, and again. More creaking. The door remained closed. I turned the knob. Locked.
There was no clear path around to her back garden. I didn’t want to be out here all night. I didn’t want to risk seeing Mason again. Thinking about him made my throat tighten.
“Open up,” I called out, keeping up the barrage on her door. It wasn’t working. I was probably freaking her out. She might even be calling the police on the psycho on her doorstep. I laughed at the though of it. Knowing my luck, Dawson would come out.
I stopped knocking and bent to find and pick up the biggest stone I could get my hands on. This was probably taking things too far. I had no right to break a window. No excuse. I didn’t care when I stopped to think about it. I was trying to help this woman. There was no intent to cause harm. I wouldn’t attract a demon by breaking in to her house. I threw the stone. It bounced back, and I laughed harder. I was going fucking crazy right now and I knew it.
Lucy was going to kill me when she found out who Dawson had slept with. She didn’t know about my sister, and how pathetic would that sound if I told her anyway? I’d be evicted and fired on the spot. There was no room for excuses when it came to men and Lucy. I’d already lost Mason. I’d lose everything else soon enough.
Might as well leave town again. I’d screwed everything up to hell around here as it was.
I picked the stone back up and threw it harder. It still just bounced back. Not big enough. I got down on my hands and knees and looked around until I found half a brick. It was wet and slimy, and bugs rushed out from under it when I lifted the thing, but it had to be heavy enough to smash the goddamned window. I threw it as hard as I could.
The window smashed. The sound was loud enough to make me wince. I waited for the glass to fall before I clambered up and inside the host’s house. It was dark. This living room was empty and needed dusted badly. I coughed as I walked through the room.
There didn’t seem to be any lights on in the house at all. I realised why when I stepped into the hallway. There was a hefty wad of envelopes stacked up behind the door and scattered all over the ground. Had to be an electric bill or four in amongst that mess of mail.
“Hello?” I called out, as loud as I dared. I was inside now. There was no use being coy about it.
I walked into the kitchen and promptly back out. It was full of rubbish bags. The stink didn’t seem as potent as the kitchen in the dreamscape, but it was still pretty nasty.
I made my way up the stairs, noticing the creaking and realising it must have been where she went when I started knocking on the door. A feeling of dread settled in on me as I got to the hall and saw the faint glow of candlelight emanating from each of the four rooms. The doors were all open.
I shivered. I didn’t want to call out now. I knew she was up here. I wasn’t so sure she was alone now.
The candlelight was less harsh that the yellow of the dreamscape, but it was similar enough to make my skin crawl. I went to the closest door and peered inside, careful not to show myself. Someone was on the bed. Lying down. It wasn’t the wom
an, it was someone much taller, but more than that I couldn’t say without closer inspection. I watched until I was certain the person was breathing. The rhythmic movement of the chest made that obvious, at least.
I moved quickly to the next door, across the hall. This one might be the woman. Again, she was lying on the bed. I could tell she was breathing. She wasn’t snoring exactly, but she was noisier about breathing than the other one had been.
I didn’t like this. Someone had made those stairs creak while I was at the door. I moved to the next door. Two people on the bed this time. Both breathing. This was getting so damned weird. It was probably seven p.m. Unless these were unwell seniors, I doubted they were all sleeping just because they felt like it. The last door was the doozy.
The room was empty. Somehow, that made it seem like a smart idea to creep inside. I don’t know what I was thinking right then. I only know my head was so screwed up I didn’t care if I was putting myself in harm’s way. I’d officially stopped caring when I smashed the window, really.
The door closed when I was creeping towards the wardrobe. I turned and saw Selena smiling at me, her hand on the now shut exit point.
“Oh, Tina. You have no idea how happy I am to see you right now.” She moved closer, one measured step at a time. I saw her raise her hands. When the spark of electricity jumped between her fingers I stumbled back into the wall.
How was she doing that? I tried to call my weapon, knowing it had been possible before. It should be again. Nothing happened. I tried again.
She laughed. “Oh, hell. You really are useless.”
She was getting closer now. I had to do something. I’d fight, even if I didn’t have anything more deadly than tooth and nail. She wasn’t going to take me down without one.
“What did you do to them?” I knew something was going on now, something I’d never been taught.
“They were all hosts, Tina. Demon magnets. They’re never going to be productive members of society again.” She touched my arm and I bit back a scream. The pain was unbelievable. I punched with my other hand, but she barely flinched as she grabbed onto me and sent brilliant blue light searing over my body. “I’ll show you what happens when a dream walker controls demons, instead of destroying them. You’ll never go back to killing them again.”
Her words swirl through my head as I lose consciousness. The dreamscape pulled at me. I sank into it. The pain floated away. I never wanted it to come back.
Chapter Twenty
The colours hurt my head as I glanced around the room. The bedroom in the host’s house was bathed in a maelstrom of yellow, green, orange, and purple. Sloth, Envy, Greed and Lust. No one person has this many demons inside them. I’ve only ever encountered someone with two before, once.
This isn’t one person, I remind myself as I get up. My head is thumping. My body aches. Selena did something to me to send me here. She said something before she did. She controls demons? What the hell does that even mean?
I move out into the hallway on slightly unsteady legs. I wasn’t sure what might happen here. I didn’t know what this was. It wasn’t a normal dreamscape. I moved towards the closest room. The one with two people in the bed. The colours here are green and orange. The couple are still sleeping. I breathed out a relieved sigh that I wasn’t going to have to go through their personal dreamscapes to rid them of their demons. Then my stomach turned. Of course not. That’s the last thing Selena would want. She’s not destroying demons, Tina, remember. She’s controlling them.
That means trapping them. That was what this place must have been. A dreamscape created by her for this singular purpose. I’d heard of dreamscape creation. I didn’t know how exactly it was done. I’d never needed to do it; there was never any real reason to. Gran had called it dangerous. She’d said there was always another way.
I moved on to the next room. The one with the sloth. It was the same as the other. The meaning of that clicked into place slowly. They were all lying dormant right now. Waiting for Selena to command them.
The thought made my skin crawl. Any second and I could be swarmed by demons. Two at a time had been hard enough to handle. Four would be next to impossible.
I swallowed and tried to prepare for what might happen. Then Selena appeared in front of me.
“Well?” She asked, raising her hands.
“Well, what?” I didn’t know what she was expecting here. Did she want me to be impressed?
“Well, do you want to see what we can do with these awesome dream walker powers of ours, or do you want to waste time arguing over that moody boyfriend of yours?” She crossed her arms.
“What do you mean, see what we can do?” I didn’t like the sound of that.
She took my question to mean I wanted her to show me. She grabbed me by the wrist.
“Open your palm.”
I shook my head. “Tell me what you’re doing first.”
“Ugh. You were raised uptight.” She pried my fingers open with a spark of electricity.
I gasped as she placed a cold stone in my hand. It glowed purple, and I put two and two together quickly. This is how she captures the demons? I frowned at her. “What is this?”
“This, my sister, is a present. What you do with it will tell me how trustworthy you are.” She smiled. “I’ve seen how obsessed you’ve been over this sad little demon host’s plight. You need to let that shit go. The woman is a husk. She’s nothing. The demon, on the other hand…” She laughed. “Oh, you’re going to have fun with this one. He’s a real mind-fuck of a thing.”
“You want me to what? Use the demon as a weapon?” She had to be kidding. Did she even know me?
“Oh, you’ll use him, and you’ll like it too. If you don’t, guess which kind of demon I’m going to use on your happy little trio of lovers, Tina? All three of them are already obsessed with you. This will just be pulling the trigger.” She flashed another purple stone at me before she stepped back.
“I don’t even know how to use this.” A weak protest, but at least I was trying.
“All you do is hold it and think about the person you want the demon to attack. It’s not quite the same as giving him a permanent residence in a sinful host, but it’s just as thrilling to watch happen. He’ll cause some havoc and then return to the stone.” She shrugged. “Oh, and just to keep things exciting, here’s a nice little time limit for you. Twenty-four hours.”
“How will you know it’s done?” Could I get away with lying?
She smirked at me. “Oh, I’ll know. I’m not going to divulge how, exactly, but that demon in your hand belongs to me. If he doesn’t feed in the next twenty-four hours, I will know. And your lovers will suffer for it.”
“Better wake up, Tina. You’ve got a deadline now.”
She disappeared, and I went back to the room I’d gone to sleep in. I lay down, closing my eyes and allowing sleep to take me. When I opened my eyes in the real world it was cold and rain was pelting the window hard enough to make me shiver. Twenty four hours to make an impossible decision.
I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do, but I was going to have to figure it out.
Chapter Twenty-One
Finding my way out from this rock and hard place dilemma wasn’t going to be easy, but there had to be some way around it. Some option I wasn’t thinking of. I stood outside the room with the sleeping people for a few minutes, considering the damage unleashing another demon on one of them would create. It turned my stomach to even think about it. These people were already hurting enough.
Without knowing the full implication of enslaving demons, I knew that the human hosts were going to be empty shells by the time Selena was through with them. Maybe that should have made the decision easy.
It didn’t matter. I couldn’t force myself to see them as already lost. As long as they were alive, they were salvageable. Using them wasn’t the answer.
So I ran out into the rain and got into my car, hoping the damn thing would start. Though I suppose
I was already half-drowned in the few seconds it took to race from the house to the car. I wouldn’t get any more soaked if I had to run back to the flat.
I sat in the driver’s seat for a few seconds, staring out at the downpour and wondering what the hell to do.
Using a demon to attack someone was plain wrong and it would only work on someone who was already on a dark path. Yet another reason to attack one of those people in that house. A sneaky thought occurred to me at the same time.
Selena hadn’t specified what the outcome had to be. I could unleash the demon and then exorcise him. It would still count, and if nothing else she’d be down one of her slaves.
I was considering this when my phone vibrated, making me jump in my seat. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at the screen. Piper was calling. I answered before I could think twice.
“Piper, what’s up?”
“Tina, I’m really worried about Jimmy.”
“What happened?” I asked, a ball of dread forming in my gut.
“He came to the cafe totally out of it, and I left work early to look after him,” Piper told me, her tone anxious. “He collapsed when I got him into my place. He’s crashed out on the living room floor. He’s too heavy to move.”
“Shit,” I murmured, trying to ignore the voice in the back of my head telling me this was perfect. Jimmy’s always been troubled. The demon would latch onto him easily. I could take care of it before he even woke up. The demon would be gone.
“Can you come over?”
“Um, sure,” I heard myself say. “Just give me a while, I’m having car trouble.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Guilt doesn’t nip at me until I put the phone back into my pocket. She sounded so relieved when I agreed to come over. She was worried about him. He’s a friend.
And I’m considering setting a demon on him to save my own ass.
Piper would never forgive me if she knew.
I started the car. It moved on the third attempt.
Quicksand Nightmares (Seven Deadly Demons Book 2) Page 6
