8
SOMETHING WAS BEEPING. SHORT, SHARP BURSTS OF HIGH-PITCHED sound pushed their way into my throbbing brain, piercing my consciousness like arrows. Eyes closed, I reached out and hit at various objects on my nightstand until I managed to turn off the alarm.
I opened one eye. It made no difference whatsoever, thanks to the blackout shades. But when I turned on my side, the glowing red numbers on my bedside clock read 6:00 P.M., the time I’d set the alarm for. I’d been out about four hours. The last thing I remembered, I’d been attacked in the hallway, but here I was, tucked into my bed and feeling like someone had split my skull open with an ax. Gingerly, I touched the pain’s epicenter on the left side of my forehead. There was no goose egg, not even a bump. In fact, the pain was already fading. By the time I sat up, it was nearly gone.
The apartment was warmer. As I got out of bed, it felt downright toasty. I opened my bedroom door and listened. No chanting, but the clink of utensils drifted from the kitchen. I picked up the bronze-bladed dagger I kept on my nightstand and held it ready as I edged down the hallway, sliding my back along the wall. I stopped short of the living room and peered around the corner. The room was empty. On the coffee table, Kane’s roses had all wilted, slumped over as if in defeat. Still clutching the dagger, I crept through the living room to the kitchen doorway.
Juliet sat alone at the black-and-chrome table, sipping coffee.
Feeling paranoid, I tucked the dagger into my waistband at the small of my back and entered the room.
“Evening.” I took a mug from the cupboard. Inhaling the fragrant steam as I filled it with coffee, I felt almost normal.
Juliet looked up from the paper she was reading—News of the Dead, a real tabloid rag but the only newspaper specifically for the paranormal community—and smiled a closed-lipped vampire smile. She went back to the paper.
“So, um, what was going on here today?” I asked.
“Oh, did I wake you when I came in? I tried to be quiet.”
I stared at her.
Juliet, normally imperturbable, fidgeted, cleared her throat, and took a sip of coffee. She picked up her paper and put it down again. “All right. So I usually don’t come in after dawn. But thanks to those Goons, I got thrown off my stride last night. It took me ages to find a meal. We went back to his place, and by the time I left the sun was already rising.”
“Juliet, this isn’t about whatever time you got home. What were you doing in the living room? What were those creatures?”
She took another sip of coffee, her eyes boring into mine over the rim of her cup. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I nearly choked on my coffee. Vampires aren’t exactly famous for their honesty, but I couldn’t believe she was lying to me. “Are you kidding? You were chanting with a bunch of skeletons with industrial-sized choppers. I got attacked in my own hallway, for God’s sake.”
Juliet gave me a long, level look. “You must have been dreaming.”
I opened my mouth to deny it, to remind Juliet I never dreamed unless I wanted to. But then I remembered the Destroyer. Two dreams in a single day? Yesterday, I’d have said it was impossible. Today, I wasn’t so sure. I’d woken up in my own bed, with a fast-fading headache and no sign of injury. All Cerddorion are fast healers, so it was hard to know whether I’d really been knocked on the head.
But I’d been unconscious, not asleep. Hadn’t I?
Juliet flipped a page in the News of the Dead. She wasn’t giving anything away.
My need to talk to Aunt Mab was growing more urgent by the minute. Damn it, why didn’t she have a real phone? It would take too long to call the village pub and ask them to send her a message. And I couldn’t use the dream phone now. I had to meet Tina in less than an hour.
Juliet studied her paper intently. Maybe she wasn’t lying. Maybe I had dreamed the whole thing.
If Mab couldn’t tell me how to regain control of my dreams, I didn’t know what I’d do.
AS I ENTERED THE LOBBY OF TINA’S GROUP HOME, MUSIC blasted from the lounge. The zombie house mother, who sat reading a romance novel behind the reception desk, seemed oblivious. She regarded me over her reading glasses, smoothed a strand of gray hair that had escaped her bun, and smiled absently. “Tina’s in the lounge, dear.” She licked her thumb and turned the page, then reached for an apple from the bowl by her right elbow. The bowl by her left elbow held half a dozen cores.
The music got louder as I went down the short hallway. By the time I turned left into the lounge, it was rattling my teeth.
Tina stood in the middle of the room, holding a hairbrush like a microphone and screaming into it as she wiggled her hips. Even by Tina’s standards, today’s fashion choices were over the top. Along with her tight, tiny black miniskirt and gold halter top, she wore hoop earrings that would come in handy if someone wanted to play a pickup game of basketball. Her hair was teased halfway to the ceiling.
From the speakers, a voice snarled, “Grave robber …” and Tina wailed, “Oooooooo.” The singer shrieked, “Stay outta my grave!” and Tina echoed the words with a shriek of her own: “Outta my graaaave!” I don’t know much about music, but to my abused ears it sounded like she’d invented her own key.
I crossed the room and twisted the stereo’s volume dial to zero. Tina’s off-pitch howling filled the room, then stopped abruptly. She spun and scowled at me.
“What’d you do that for? I was practicing.”
“We’ve got a lesson, remember?” I shrugged out of my jacket and sat in my usual chair. We were finishing Russom’s chapter on water demons tonight, and I had a good story about merpeople in Boston Harbor I’d tell her if the lesson went well. I draped my jacket over the chair’s arm and pulled out a notebook, then turned its pages until I found the one I wanted. “Okay, so what can you tell me about Shabiri?”
Tina tossed the hairbrush on the coffee table, but she didn’t sit down or look at me. “About what?”
“Shabiri.”
“Um. Some kind of water demon?”
“Yeah. Like all the demons in chapter seventeen. What else?”
She chewed a hangnail and didn’t answer.
“I’ll give you a hint: The name means ‘dazzling glare.’ Now, what’s their habitat, and what effect do they have on humans?” She remained more interested in her nails than our conversation, so I answered the questions myself. “They sit on open water, and they strike humans with blindness. Does that ring a bell yet?”
She lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “Sure, whatever.”
Okay. I knew she was excited about the Monster Paul audition. Usually, she stayed on top of the reading. Maybe I could cut her a break tonight. In all my years of training, Aunt Mab had never once done that for me, but there were times I would’ve appreciated it. “If you didn’t get through all the reading, let’s just go over what you did study. Where do you want to start?”
Tina sat on the sofa and leaned toward me. “Vicky, I’ve been thinking.”
Tina? Thinking? Uh-oh. I raised an eyebrow and waited.
“This chance to sing with Monster Paul could be my big break. I mean, fighting demons is cool and all, but you know what the best part was? Being on TV after the Halloween parade. Having people come up to me like I was a celebrity. Some even asked for my autograph.”