I’ll love you forever.
She sent the whisper out to his mind, hoping it reached him. Her beloved warrior. Whatever had gone wrong wasn’t his fault, but she knew him, knew he would carry the guilt for the rest of his life.
“I really didn’t want to use this dream, but you visit here so often. I didn’t want to get blood on my clothes. It really bothers you, doesn’t it?” He waved his arm in a half circle to encompass the lake of blood with so many victims crying out for justice. “Who are these people to you? Nothing at all, but you make yourself suffer for no reason in an effort to appease them. You can’t save them. Someone wanted them dead for a reason.”
“Money.”
He shrugged. “Or revenge. It doesn’t much matter. Someone was going to kill them. Why not gain from it? I wouldn’t have killed you, you know. I found I looked forward to our little game, but I can’t have you knowing who I am.”
He stepped close, right in front of her, so close she could smell him in spite of the overwhelming scent of blood. It took an effort not to gag—or cry out in fear. She forced herself to be still, to gather her strength to fight.
Dunbar shook his head. “It’s my dream, remember? You won’t be able to fight. You aren’t a dreamwalker.”
He struck then, astonishingly fast, his hands spanning her throat, thumbs digging deep, cutting off air. He was very strong, something she hadn’t expected. When she tried to struggle, to fight him, she couldn’t lift her arms any more than she could move her feet. Her lungs burned. Her mind began to panic.
Tansy fought down the terror and forced her brain to function in the short time she had left. Her mind reached for his. He was controlling the dream, and that meant he had found a trail leading to her, or he couldn’t have drawn her in, but she had the path that led to him. She followed it, trying not to succumb to the black edging around her and the white dots that swam in her vision.
She struck hard in his mind, ripping and clawing, shredding walls, trying to rip the dream apart. She attacked him using the same method as his attacks on Tom Delaney, clotting the blood, beating at the skull, shrieking until his mind was filled with pain and devastation. Dunbar screamed and let her go, grabbing his head with both hands.
“You bitch.” He grabbed her again, throwing her forward, grasping her by her hair and shoving her down—down—holding her head so she couldn’t break free.
She went under, the red blood thick and dark, pouring into her mouth and nose, flooding her mind and lungs, rising like a tidal wave, her worst nightmare. Hands reached for her, pulling her deeper; faces stared blankly, horror in their wide open eyes.
She knew she was dying. There was no way to think, no way to fight. She reached for peace, let it happen, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing or feeling her terror.
Kadan lay beside Tansy, listening to her breathing. It was the only way he could monitor what was happening to her. He wasn’t a dreamwalker, and it was his job to guard her body while she was in Jeff and Nico’s care. Something had gone wrong. The rhythm of her breathing had changed completely, until she was nearly hyperventilating. She was frightened. He shared her mind, although he couldn’t enter the dream.
Jeff and Nico had assured him it would be safe. They would pull her into the dream they spun and hope the puppet master took the bait. There would be plenty of cover for them. Dunbar wouldn’t know they were there until it was too late. He’d never get close to Tansy. They’d kill him and be back very fast. Once done, they’d alert Ryland. He was standing by in Dunbar’s house, ready to destroy the body. If they failed, he would dispose of the man the moment he awakened. The details of the dream were still playing on the recording, Jeff’s hypnotic voice designed to draw Tansy into the dreamscape he’d created.
Kadan hated the loss of control. He wanted to be the one protecting Tansy, standing between her and danger, yet he could only sit in a room with her body and wait for her. He wrapped his hand around her wrist, needing to anchor her to him when she seemed so far away. The phone rang. His heart jumped and he swept it up instantly, listening with dread to Jeff’s theory.
“She’s definitely in a dream. She’s distressed. Her heart rate went up; she’s breathing faster and shallow,” Kadan reported. “I’m going to wake her up.”
“You can’t just wake her up,” Jeff said, alarmed. “We don’t know what’s happening on the other side. I need to know what she dreams as a rule. Does she tell you?”
“Sometimes it’s vivid enough that when she wakes up, it’s still in her mind and I get images. Will that help?”
“Tell me. Don’t leave anything out.”
While he related the details of Tansy’s nightmares, Kadan kept his gaze glued to her face. His hand shook as he held her to him, pulling her wrist against his chest and holding her palm over his heart.
“I trusted you with her, Jeff. Bring her back to me. I’d never survive intact without her.” God help them all, because that was a threat. Kadan took a deep breath and let it out, trying to find a place inside of him that was warm. There wasn’t one.
Jeff didn’t bother to reply to him. He hung up, leaving Kadan more desperate than ever. There’d been a terrible sense of urgency in Jeff’s voice. He could hear Nico in the background urging Jeff to hurry. It was silent in the bedroom once again; the only sounds were the clock ticking and Tansy’s frightened breathing. He had talked her into this, dreamwalking with Jeff and Nico, promising her she would be safe. He had sent her off without him, trusting his friends, and they’d lost her.
He stretched out beside her and gathered her into his arms, trying to comfort her, even though he knew her mind was somewhere else. When he tried to enter her mind, there was a void, as if she had been yanked from him to another realm.
I’ll love you forever.
The words whispered in his mind and they sounded like finality. His heart jumped and he sat up abruptly, his dark gaze on her face.
“Get off her!” Jeff Hollister burst into the lake, diving deep, grasping Tansy by the shoulders and kicking his way to the surface.
Nico slammed hard into Dunbar, driving him back and away so that he lost his grip on Tansy. The two men fought, hand to hand, their bodies close together, each man straining for the upper hand. Nico had the physical strength, but it was Dunbar’s dream and he was trying to control it. Unlike with Tansy, however, he couldn’t control Nico.
Jeff burst from below, surfacing almost at their side, pulling Tansy with him. He swung her into his arms and raced for shore.
“Keep him alive. You can’t kill him,” Jeff yelled. “If you do, the dream collapses and she’s trapped here. We won’t be able to revive her.”
Dunbar broke free and tried to wade away, hoping for enough distance that he could end the dream. Nico refused to let him go, wrapping his fingers like a shackle around the man’s neck and jerking him over backward into the sludge.
“Hurry up, Jeff,” Nico called, concerned that Dunbar might be able to find a way to wake before they were able to kill him. Everything depended on reviving Tansy.
Jeff reached down and felt for a pulse. There was none. Swearing, he tipped her head back and began CPR.
Kadan watched the emotions chasing across Tansy’s transparent face. Sweat dotted her forehead and around her mouth, and fear crept into her expression. When he took her hand in his, her skin was clammy. She felt unnaturally cold. Suddenly her body shuddered and arched. She gasped audibly for breath. He actually saw fingerprints on her throat, pressing deep, and she struggled, desperate for air.
Heart slamming against his chest, he fought to find the fingers, to try to pry them loose, but there was no way to find invisible, intangible hands. Her face reddened, her eyes opened wide, then just as suddenly she was free, dragging hard, audible breaths into her lungs so that her chest rose and fell.
Kadan found himself inhaling when he hadn’t realized he had been holding his breath. Tansy flinched, her mouth opening wide, eyes wild with terror, then she looked like she was holding her breath. A minute. Two. She struggled at first, her body straining against an unseen hold, until she just slipped quietly away, out from under his hands, her body going limp, the breath stilling in her lungs. Her eyes closed.
Kadan felt his own heart stop. “No!” He pressed his palm against her lips, checking for air. His fingers tried to find a pulse. He tried CPR. He even hit his fist over her heart, frantically trying to start it. Nothing. He tried to fill her mind with him, but there was only emptiness.
“Tansy, no.” His eyes burned. His throat felt raw. “Fucking don’t do this.” He shook her again, trying to find a way to revive her. Her body remained limp and lifeless in spite of the air he tried to breathe into her. In spite of the stimulation to her heart and mind.
Kadan roared like a wounded animal, lifting her limp body into his arms, cradling her against his chest. Cold spread like an encroaching glacier, desperate to put out the firestorm of wild grief tearing through him. His heart shredded in his body, his mind went from clarity to chaos, thunder crashed in his ears, and for a moment, all civility was gone and he was standing primitive and stark in his raw, unrelenting agony. Only one other time in his life had he felt so utterly lost as a human being. He had sworn never to go there again, never to kill in cold blood, but the monster inside him was loose now, craving, needing,
demanding
vengeance.
Tansy. Don’t leave me. Baby, please. I’m begging here.
He buried his face against her throat. There was no heartbeat, no warmth, no gentle hands to touch him.
He remembered a once-innocent child begging his mother, his father, even his brother and sister.
Don’t leave me.
But they had, and with them, they’d taken all the warmth in the world, leaving an ice-cold killing machine behind. Last time, he’d known his enemy. This time, who would pay?
He placed her body carefully on the bed again and knelt there for a moment, his hands framing her face. He hadn’t touched his family, but he wasn’t going to let her go without telling her. Saying it aloud.
“I love you, Tansy. With everything in me, good and bad. I absolutely love you.”
He swallowed the last of the fiery grief clawing through him and stood, allowing the arctic cold to consume him, inhaling, drawing the ice into his veins and lungs and into his mind, welcoming the glacier taking him over, and then he began to assemble his weapons.
“Don’t you die on us, Tansy!” Jeff yelled. “You’re not going to die on us.” He slammed his fist hard on her heart, turning her on her side, trying to drain her lungs. “It’s not real. You can’t let him kill you this way.”
Nico jerked Dunbar close to him, face-to-face, staring into his malicious eyes. Without warning, Nico slammed his forehead hard against Dunbar’s face, shattering his nose, driving the man backward and down. Before he could fall, Nico caught him by the throat, his fingers—with their superhuman strength—choking the air from the man. He dragged him across the macabre lake, wading through blood and victims as if they weren’t there, to throw Dunbar on the ground beside Tansy.
“Don’t let this son of bitch move,” he ordered and crouched down beside Tansy.
Dahlia, his wife, had always been the one to focus energy, and then Nico had done the healing with Kadan, but this was a dream, not reality. Whether or not he could heal on his own outside the dreamscape world didn’t matter—he was certain he could here. Tansy had woven the dream, and the puppet master had used it against her, but Nico could twist the dream for his own purposes, just as Jeff could.
He rubbed his hands together, gathering energy from the violence so thick in the surrounding air. When he’d acquired a pool large enough, he focused the energy between his palms, aiming it directly at Tansy’s heart and lungs. White light burst from his skin, shining around each individual finger. The light hit Tansy’s body, rippling over her like a wave. Her limp body shuddered.
“He’s fighting us,” Nico said, his voice flat and calm, wanting to scare the puppet master. “Kill him.”
Dunbar’s eyes widened in horror as Jeff’s fingers tightened around his throat. “You can’t,” he gasped, his voice hoarse. “I’m holding the dream.”
Jeff looked into the man’s eyes, shock blossoming. “He’s lying, Nico. This is Tansy’s dream. She pulled him into her dream.”
“Are you sure?” Nico asked.
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure.”
Jeff released Dunbar and then swung his hand hard, the edge slamming into the puppet master’s throat, crushing the larynx and smashing the trachea. “See you in hell, you bastard,” he muttered.
Dunbar fell back, gasping for air, strangling, his face turning a mottled purple.
“This is her worst nightmare,” Jeff explained. “It was powerful enough to supersede anything the rest of us were doing. She’s a dreamwalker as well, which is why she’s so good at what she does.”
The moment Jeff broke Dunbar’s hold on Tansy, the light soaked into her body. She shuddered, coughing. Gasping. Fighting to draw in air.
“Wake up, Tansy,” Jeff ordered.
Ryland slipped into the neighborhood like the ghost he was, easing his way through the streets until he found the house he was looking for. The backyard was protected from the rest of the houses on the street, and he went up and over the fence and through the landscaping to the small toolshed. It took only minutes to open the lock and go inside.
The shed was amazing. Each wall was lined with shelves holding every kind of nut and bolt and screw possible. Tools hung neatly, each clearly labeled. There wasn’t a speck of dirt anywhere. On the table were Dunbar’s carving tools, the various blades razor-sharp and laid out neatly like surgical instruments. Beside the tools was a small piece of ivory, the shape of a frog emerging.
Ryland searched through the drawers and found a laminating machine and thick card stock. There was an index box of cards already laminated, and each card had precise instructions detailing a murder: the name or names of victims, address, how the victims had to be killed, and the time frame allotted. There were points awarded for each detail, and at the bottom of the card, there was the total number of points each murder could accumulate. Ryland had found the actual game, along with a website he was building for an online game.