Tangible (Dreamwalker) (5 page)

She rubbed her eyes one last time, erasing the images she didn’t want coming to life. “What now?”

“Now you need to cooperate. You saw what we’re up against.”

“Cooperate how? I can’t stop the dreams and I can’t stay awake forever. My limit’s three days. And if they can show up when I’m awake, what am I supposed to do?” An ominous memory of Zeke commenting they should let the vampires eat her scrolled across her brain.

He laced his fingers and watched her, unblinking. “You’re thinking we kill dreamers, aren’t you?”

“N...no.” Rhys had said they’d all been through this at one point. “Do you?”

Zeke slid his arm behind her on the couch and angled himself until their knees grazed. This close to him, the temptation to touch him swelled in the back of her mind like carbonation in bottle of soda. “I won’t lie. That is one remotely possible outcome if other remedies don’t take.”

Her pulse accelerated. Did he look like a man who would murder the woman he’d saved? How about the woman he’d kissed? “That’s not reassuring.”

He licked the corner of his mouth, his eyes hooded. She shouldn’t—she shouldn’t—but she wanted him to kiss her again. Relieve the pressure.

He tweaked a strand of her hair where it clung to her jaw. “That won’t happen to you. Not this time.”

“What do you mean this time?”

“We’ve made improvements. To our methodology, to alternate remedies, to our detection process.” He tucked her hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering. Her skin heated wherever he touched. “Certain mistakes won’t be repeated. You’ll be protected. Although if you have a family history of psychosis, tell us now. Don’t make us hunt it down.”

“I don’t. I’m so average I’m boring.”

His gaze dropped to her lips as his thumb brushed her chin. “You’re far from average.”

Behind the sofa, Rhys cleared his throat. Maggie and Zeke jumped apart.

“Don’t scare Maggie more than you already have.” Rhys rested his huge hand on Zeke’s head, who ducked and batted it away.

“Cut it out,” he snapped.

A gleam flashed in Rhys’s eyes before he continued. “What our fearless leader is getting around to telling you is we will train you to control the dreamsphere. The caveat is that once we bring you over, you’re expected to do your part. Help keep civilians safe from wraiths.”

“My part?” Maggie wanted to be as far from the nightmares and everything related to them as she could get. “What if I don’t want to be involved?”

Zeke watched her from the corner of his eyes. “We take the decision out of your hands.”

When Rhys didn’t correct him, Maggie’s insides lurched. “Is there a way to stop the dreams? Drugs or something?”

Rhys nodded. “A few ways. Electric shock, for one. We’ve found customized ECTs—electroconvulsive therapy machines—to be somewhat effective in a crisis. Lobotomies are a long-term option we prefer to avoid. Before lobotomies, you don’t want to know.”

Maggie couldn’t stifle a gasp. “Seriously?”

“Don’t worry, Maggie.” Rhys patted her shoulder. “We’ll take care of you.”

“I’ll take care of her.” Zeke glowered at the larger man. “Back off, Rhys.”

“You’re the one worried about the tangible,” Rhys said blandly. “With good reason.”

“I know, I know.” Zeke let out a frustrated sigh. “Hellfire.”

Maggie couldn’t decipher the undercurrents so she returned to the previous subject. “What if I accept the training but not the involvement?”

“Ah, deadbeat dreamers.” Rhys patted the breast pocket of his black leather jacket as if it held something significant. “You’ll be signing a legal contract that authorizes us to garnish your wages in the event of insufficient assistance. Since many of us don’t have time to hold down regular jobs, we have to finance our operation somehow.”

Based on the state of their equipment, she guessed funding was limited. “I see.”

“No contract, no training. No training, no control. No control, and you’re in a heap of trouble.” Zeke unbuckled his weapons belt and placed it on the coffee table in front of them. “Do you want to be in a heap of trouble?”

She frowned. “You’re blackmailers.”

“You have choices,” Rhys assured her. “There are all types of assignments. Many individuals maintain normal lives while supporting the organization monetarily.”

“Not very well,” Zeke added.

Rhys continued as if Zeke hadn’t spoken. “They’re called funders. The fundi.”

“That sounds about my speed.” No one could go back to normal after learning what she’d learned, but if she could approximate normal, that would be her top choice. “Exactly how big is your operation?”

“That’s all we’re gonna tell you until you sign. And you will sign. Everyone does.” Zeke rubbed his shoulder and her gaze was drawn to the muscles flexing in his arm, the way his long fingers splayed on the planes of his chest.

With a quick headshake, Maggie yanked her attention to the matter at hand. “Is this a government black-ops thing?”

“No, ma’am. Nobody knows about us except members and sometimes their families. Our contract includes strict nondisclosure clauses.” Rhys pursed his lips as if considering how to phrase the next statement. “We’re very careful when we clean up any complications.”

While a legal agreement promising support and confidentiality for a secret group of vampire slayers sounded ridiculously unenforceable, Maggie decided not to dispute it. Decided to accept that all of this was real and she wasn’t under the influence of hallucinogens or a TV crew.

To survive the madness that had overtaken her life, she needed to cross bridges when she came to them and hope the trolls beneath weren’t hungry.

“Don’t rule out active participation so soon, Maggie,” Rhys said. “You could be an asset.”

“How? I can’t kill monsters.” She scrunched into her corner of the sofa and crossed her arms. “I pass out if I see blood.”

“You’re quick with that pepper spray,” Zeke pointed out. “And wraiths don’t bleed. You may be better than you think.”

“I’m pretty sure I won’t.” Based on Zeke and his team, her age wouldn’t automatically be a problem, but her lack of athleticism would. “So, these wraiths. They come from some type of alternate dimension? I can’t believe I’m even asking that.”

“You dream ’em up, we take ’em out,” Zeke said. “Big, little, stinky, slimy, toothy, hairy. They can all be killed once they’re on this plane—the terra firma.”

“Because I’m an...alucinator...any dream I have can manifest?”

“Any nightmare,” Zeke corrected. “Good dreams don’t come true for alucinators any more than they do regular folks.”

“If I have a nightmare about somebody dying, does that mean...” She had to know.
Please don’t let it be true.
“If I dreamed of a car wreck, could I have killed my parents?” Tears burned her eyelids and she breathed deeply to stave them off.

Unexpectedly, Zeke clasped her hand. Warmth that was disproportionate to the contact rippled through her. “That was a month ago, right? You didn’t make that happen, sweetheart. But you’re active now and you need a mentor.”

Through watery eyes, she could see the concern in his face. Concern for her or the people her visions could hurt? “How long does training take?”

“A week or two for minimum control. For you, it might be longer.” Zeke’s grip tightened when she tried to withdraw. “I’m the one who sensed your breakthrough. Your first nightmare in the true dreamsphere. It took us all day to locate you since the dreamsphere doesn’t have exact geographical coordinates, and your reading was particularly complex. We were worried we wouldn’t find you in time.”

“Zeke was our area monitor last night.” Rhys rounded the sofa and lowered his bulk onto the coffee table. Zeke shot him an unreadable glance. “We screen the dreamsphere for disruptions, and when we sense a manifestation, a field team is assembled. We can tell if it’s a neonati or someone we know, and that helps us decide how to handle it.”

“You were in my head?” she asked Zeke. Maybe that’s why she felt like she’d met him before—because she had.

“I was.” He stroked the inside of her wrist and Maggie shivered. “I sensed you, I connected with you, and I brought the team to find you.”

He made it sound intimate. His caress ebbed and flowed inside her. “What do lessons involve? How do we fix me?”

Zeke and Rhys exchanged a glance, and Zeke jerked a thumb at the door. “We have a decision to make. Wanna go get Lillian?”

“No, I want to stay right here,” Rhys said. “In the same room as you and the pretty neo.”

The skin around the men’s eyes tightened. The two of them seemed to emit subsonic growls. The hair on the back of Maggie’s neck lifted.

“Just tell me,” she insisted. “What do I have to do?”

“Fine.” A roguish expression crossed Zeke’s features that transformed him from good looking to mouth-watering. “We meditate every day and sleep together every night.”

Maggie jerked her hand free. “Excuse me?”

Rhys laughed. “What he means is you share a bed with your mentor so he can monitor your dream state. If you want a chaperone at first, that can be arranged.”

“Why, so we don’t have to get married?” Zeke joked. “It’s the twenty-first century.”

“You’re my mentor?” she asked Zeke.

“You have choices there too,” Rhys said with a frown.

“Technically, I’m supposed to be,” Zeke said. “But you don’t like me much, do you? That might get in the way.”

“I don’t know you,” she said primly. Parts of her liked him lots. Other parts couldn’t help but notice how much friendlier he’d become once he’d confirmed there were no more monsters and once she’d stopped accusing him of hosting a TV show. “I’m withholding judgment.”

“I won’t kiss you again,” he assured her, but something in his mesmerizing gaze promised the exact opposite. “That was only to shock you out of your panic.”

“It doesn’t matter if she likes you. What matters is if you like her,” Rhys said. “I think you do.”

Zeke shrugged. “I’m withholding judgment.”

“But you’re recusing yourself?” Rhys asked.

“Haven’t decided.” Red tinged Zeke’s cheeks. Maggie couldn’t tell if he was aggravated or embarrassed. “HQ was clear on how they wanted this to go down. If we get on their good side, maybe we can get some damn upgraded comms.”

“I’m happy to sleep with Maggie,” Rhys offered. “She’s going to need at least an L4—Maggie, that means someone with a higher-rated ability—and my bed’s empty.”

“Forget it, Casanova,” Zeke snapped.

“Hey, now. I’m not the one who kissed her.” Rhys inclined his head toward her. “Not that you’re not attractive, Maggie, but that’s not how it works.”

Zeke slid closer to her on the couch, his body language blatantly possessive. “We’ll ask Lillian. Or we can ship Chloe in.”

“Or I can handle it,” Rhys said, “like you asked me to already.”

“That was before.”

“You’re jealous, aren’t you?” Rhys turned up his palms. “That’s the opposite of good. Started like that in Harrisburg. We’ve barely recovered our standing from that and you want to go again? You can’t do this with a clear head.”

“Fuck you, Rhys.” Zeke’s thigh brushed Maggie’s as he bristled at the larger man. “I don’t care about standing.”

Rhys shrugged. It was odd to Maggie that he was unperturbed by Zeke’s antagonism, but she didn’t know either of them well enough for conjecture. “Well, I do care about standing,” Rhys said, “and I won’t apologize for it. Or for the fact I don’t want your pong stinking up my plans.”

“If I’m not the one in Maggie’s bed, HQ will pitch a hissy. That’ll hurt your plans too.”

Since Maggie was already crammed into the couch corner, there was nowhere to go to escape Zeke. Every time she blinked, he seemed to be a centimeter closer. The idea of sharing a bed with him gripped her imagination like a vise.

She clenched her legs and released a shuddering breath. “I don’t know. This bed sharing stuff sounds like a scam.”

While Zeke and Rhys looked nonplussed, a new voice answered.

“You’re not the first lady who’s wondered that.” The woman from the team lounged against the doorjamb. She was by no means the least menacing of the group, but she had warm brown eyes and a weathered face Maggie instinctively liked. “The simplest explanation, which my coworkers conveniently failed to mention, is that skin contact is required so your mentor can find you in the dreamsphere. It’s a big place and your mentor has to be with you to protect and train you. Since the easiest path into the sphere is during sleep, that’s where the bed sharing comes in. It’s practical.”

Practical and other things. She and Zeke had barely known each other an hour. Her libido had no place in her decision-making. “Will this stop the nightmares?”

Zeke shook his head. “Not exactly. But training stops manifestations.”

The woman—Lillian—ambled into the room and handed Maggie a wet washcloth and a bottle of antiseptic that she recognized from the upstairs medicine cabinet. “The boys always make it sound skeevy. The stunt Zeke pulled in the alley probably isn’t reassuring you, either.”

Zeke’s mouth tightened. “She panicked and I didn’t have a pie. I had to do something.”