Dreamer (27 page)

“Those
bastards!”
True anger lanced through his voice, and she had to bite
her lip to keep from smirking. Gods, he was easy to manipulate.

“I'm so sorry.” She gave a little hitching breath. “I tried
to get through, but...they hurt me.”

He was silent for a few minutes, but she could still feel
him in her mind. It took all of her willpower to keep her patience; she needed
him gone before that bitch got here. He could not, must not, see her.

“Then
I will have to continue taking their children until they are forced to come
after me.”

Maria pressed herself flat against the wall.
“Zachary, I have to go, it isn't safe here.”

“I
understand. Thank you for showing me what you're up against.”

With that, he faded from her mind. She waited until she was
sure he was totally gone and then pulled out her cell phone. When the person on
other end picked up, she said in a smooth and deadly voice, “Take them over.”

****

The noise of a crowd continued to swell, and Shan grabbed
Devon's hand and held it tight. “How the fuck are we supposed to get through
that?” They stood a block down from the beginning of the hospital grounds and
gaped.

A massive throng of people ringed the building in a sea of
bodies and signs. Even from this distance, she could make out words like
“Sinners” and “Repent” scrawled in giant black letters against neon orange and
green poster board. Police officers in navy blue uniforms and Temple Guards in
black fought to maintain a barricade around the hospital itself. Even though it
was just after six a.m., the crowd was still enormous and growing by the
second.

Across the street from them, an older couple, dressed in
their Sunday best and armed with a bullhorn, made their way toward the
hospital. Looking at them out of the corner of her eye, she was astonished by
the pure rage and fury on their wrinkled faces. Behind them, a nervous
shopkeeper began to raise the steel gate around his market then paused and
closed it again with a decisive rattle.

The street itself was filled with vehicles brought to a halt
by the mob, and angry drivers yelled at people to get off their cars. As she
watched, one man was yanked from his car and beaten by the mob. Farther off,
the bright tinkle of breaking glass mixed with the yelling as someone threw a
rock through a window. In front of the hospital, a group of protestors stood on
top of a public bus and waved their signs and fists at the completely
outnumbered security forces.

“I have no idea,” Devon said and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
Warmth flooded through her, and she hastily strengthened her shields. It was
difficult to concentrate with her new powers, but she was trying her best. If
they slipped even the littlest bit, she became hyper-aware of Devon and wanted
to throw him into the nearest dark alley and have her wicked way with him. All
that power and muscle focused on her pleasure. Those full lips teasing her own
as he tied her willing hands behind her back.

“Shan,” Devon said sharply and pulled his hand from hers.
Lust brushed over her, and she realized that her aura was wrapped around him.
Clearing her throat, she hastily tried to get control of her wandering energy
and stepped away from him.

“Sorry.” Heat filled her cheeks, and she jammed her hands
into her battered leather jacket. “Can Malik get us in?”

“No. He's up to his eyeballs in psychotic children right
now. If you think things are bad out here, wait until you get inside.”

“Fantastic.” The wind shifted and brought the smell of the
mob to her. She could actually taste their anger, their irrational hatred. It
coated her mouth in an oily film, and she tried to spit it out on the sidewalk.
“What the hell is that?”

Full lips pressed into a grim line, he moved a step in front
of her and put his body between her and the crowd. “Destruction. Can't you see
it?”

“Ah, no. I have my shields closed down tight so I don't
molest you.”

This brought his head whipping back around to her, and the
edges of his lips twitched. “Molest me?”

“Shut up.” Giving him an elbow, she moved around to his side
so she could see the crowd. He went to place a hand on her shoulder, and she
dodged it. “Can't think when you touch me.” The smug smile and way he puffed
out his chest made her snort. “Okay, what am I looking for?”

“Lower your shields the tiniest amount and look at the
crowd's aura.”

Trying to do what he said, she relaxed her hold on the
energy swirling inside of her and almost passed out. Strong arms held her
upright, and Devon said, “Shield!”

Struggling with what she was seeing, she gasped and shivered
against him. The world jumped into hyper-reality, and she could see every
brick, every crumb of mortar that made up the buildings around her. Sensations
continued to pour into her mind in an overload as it struggled to make sense of
the sight before her. Thousands of auras flickered and flared like brightly
colored fireflies caught beneath black cloth. At once, it was both beautiful
beyond words and terrifying. Her teeth chattered so they sounded like dice
being rolled in a can.

Swearing softly, Devon dragged her into the small doorway of
the building next to them and placed his hand over her eyes. “I said lower them
the tiniest amount, not all the way!”

Clasping his hand to her face, she gagged and fought to keep
the bagel down that she’d grabbed on her way out the door. After her dry heaves
had passed, she leaned her head back against the cool brick and closed her
eyes. “Gods. They're all...smothered in darkness.” A shudder of revolt ripped
through her body. “I don't want to walk through that.”

“We have no choice.”

She cracked her eyes open a tiny amount and exhaled with
relief. The world was back in its plain old ordinary focus, and Devon was
looking around the edge of the wall. “Your little fireworks display of power
has attracted some attention.”

“Oh shit.”

“That about sums it up.”

Joining Devon at the edge of the wall, she felt the crawl of
Destruction magic before she even saw the innocuous source. A matronly woman in
a smart ice-blue suit and carefully coifed silver hair slowly walked down the street.
She paused every few steps and sniffed at the air with her jowls trembling.
Before Shan's astonished eyes, a long black tongue slipped past her lips and
licked at the air.

Hyperventilating, she ducked back into the suddenly
far-too-exposed shelter of the doorway. “What the hell is that?”

“Demon of some kind, probably a tracker.” He loosened the
front of his brown leather jacket and the brass hilt of his knife flashed. “I
wouldn't worry about it as much as I would worry about who or what is holding
its leash. It doesn't have our scent yet, but as soon as it does, it will alert
the rest that we are here.”

“Why not just kill it?”

The look he gave made her squirm. “I think my knifing
something that appears to the rest of the mortal world as a little old lady on
a beautiful fall morning in the middle of the street might pose a bit of a
problem.”

“Great.” She shoved her hand into her pocket and clutched
the small pocketknife there. Before they’d left, she had begged Devon for a
gun, but after he learned that she had never fired a weapon before, he refused.
At the time, his answer about gun safety and her being more of a liability with
than without seemed logical. Now she wished she had grabbed every gun she could
carry.

“Shan, you need to pray.”

“Well, that's reassuring, why don't you just—”

His voice was a low growl as he said, “No, you need to pray
to your goddess. She brought you here. She can help you get through. But not
until you ask her for blessing.”

“Oh.” Feeling like an idiot, she closed her eyes and tried
to find the quiet place within herself that she went to when she prayed. The
slimy energy of the demon kept getting stronger, and her panicked mind did not
want to find its happy place. All of her instincts screamed at her to run, to
hide, or to snatch Devon's knife from him and kill that thing. That last
impulse scared her, and her eyes flew open. “Devon, I can't!”

Gripping her face in his hands, he lowered his voice until
it rolled with the same power and dominance that bent her to his will in the bedroom.
“Kitten, pray.”

His words rebounded through her, and she immediately closed
her eyes. The caress of his thumbs against her cheeks warmed her blood, and she
went soft against him. His pleased rumble relaxed her further. Nothing would
happen to her while he was here, no matter who or what was threatening her.
With him at her side, she would always be safe.

Goddess,
please show me the way to get into the hospital. I'm scared, and I need your
help. Please, tell me what to do, and I will do it.

The sensation of clean sheets sliding over her nude body ran
through her, and she sighed in pleasure. It was as if every good night's sleep
she had ever had was condensed into one perfect moment. The power pulled back,
but as it did, her goddess left her with the knowledge of what to do.

Opening her eyes, she found Devon had stepped away, and he
gave her a wry grin. “Good job.”

Giving him a gentle smile, she walked out of the doorway
with no fear. Cocooned in the grace of Chuang Mu, she walked past the demon
without a backward glance. The woman recoiled from her and hissed, slithering
beneath a parked car with an otherworldly grace that completely shredded any
vestiges of her human disguise.

A scream behind them indicated that they weren't the only
ones who had seen a grandmother suddenly turn into multi-jointed scrabbling
thing. Devon kept pace one step behind her, a menacing shadow that trailed her
every move. Getting closer to the mob of people, the air seemed to turn rancid
in her mouth. Shan faltered as the taste of evil filled her mouth and heard
Devon gag behind her. Her stomach clenched as the smell intensified into the
reek of everything horrible she had ever smelled. Spoiled meat, rotting
garbage, the taste of death.

Leaning against a lamppost, she rubbed her watering eyes and
spat again.
Help me
, she prayed, and
the scent of night-blooming flowers blew through on a gentle breeze. Jasmine,
roses, and some delicious scent she couldn't identify blew away the putrid
stench. Ahead of them, the tone of the crowd changed. Taking a deep breath and
looking up, she saw some of the people on the fringes of the mob moving away
and clutching their heads.

“Call Malik, tell him to be ready for us,” she said and
gratefully took a deep breath of the clean air. Devon grunted in reply, and she
scanned the crowd. More people were leaving now, taking deep breaths of the
flower-scented air. On top of the bus, the sign wavers and shouters looked at
one another in confusion. Deep within the crowd, darkness pulsed like the beat
of a rotten heart and
pushed
. A wave
of energy moved over the crowd, so powerful that even to her shielded eyes she
could see the ripple like heat on a hot summer pavement. The power moved around
her and Devon and actually seemed to avoid them, but the rest of the crowd felt
it and responded.

“What the...” Her words died in her throat, and a scream
replaced it. She dimly heard Devon say something into his phone in a deep
growl. The entire crowd had turned as one and now stared at them with a look of
such blind hatred that she almost collapsed beneath its weight.

The shouts of the security guards were loud over the sudden
silence of the crowd, and she shuddered as they breathed as one. If she lived
to be a thousand, she would never forget the hissing sound of over a thousand
people drawing in and releasing a breath as one. Fear coursed through her as
she tried to understand the amount of power it would take to control all these
people, to subject and imprison all these minds at once.

Their lips parted at the same time as they all said, “You're
too late, dreamer.”

Devon gripped her shoulder and pulled her back against him.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see people slinking closer. A young man
with a baseball bat in his hand and the glassy eyes of a doll paced around
them, looking for some opening in Devon's defenses. She could actually hear
Malik yelling and trying to make his way through the crowd, but he was back at
the hospital entrance. Evidently the crowd had formed a human barrier around
them.

“Devon,” she said in a wavering voice, “what are we going to
do?”

“Have faith.”

“Right, faith.” Chuang Mu hadn’t sent her all this way to
die. There had to be something she was supposed to do here, some trick she
couldn't think of past her overwhelming fear. In front of them. a young nurse
snapped her teeth like an angry dog.

Shan gave a small scream as Devon put his hands over her
eyes, and she struggled in panic against his iron grip. “Shhhh. I have you.
Nothing will ever harm you while I'm here. You know why?”

She gave a hysterical laugh, still trying to pull his hand
away from her eyes. Teeth came together in a loud snick, closer now. “Because
you're the biggest, baddest, most kick-ass motherfucker in the yard?”