He reached over; found her gone.
He leaped out of bed, snagging a pair of boxers on the run. He called out for her, but he knew-before he saw the door standing open, he knew where her own dream lured her.
He was out the door, into the cool spring night, and running, just as he’d run in the dream. Bare feet slapping in a wild tattoo on brick, asphalt, grass. Fetid smoke hazed the deserted streets, stinging his eyes, scoring his throat. All around him, buildings roared with flame. Not real, he told himself. The fires were lies, but the danger was real. Even as the heat scorched his skin, as it seemed to burn up through the bricks to sear his feet, he ran.
His heart hammered even when he saw her, walking through the false flames. She glided through the smoke, like a wraith, the mad lights from the fires rippling over her body. He called, but she didn’t turn, didn’t stop. When he caught her, yanked her around to face him, her eyes were blind.
“Layla.” He shook her. “Wake up. What are you doing?”
“I am damned.” She almost sang it, and her smile was tortured. “We are all of us damned.”
“Come on. Come home.”
“No. No. I am the Mother of Death.”
“Layla. You’re Layla.” He tried to push himself into the haze of her mind, and found only Hester’s madness. “Come back.” Chaining down his own panic, he tightened his grip. “Layla, come back.” As she fought to break free, he simply locked his arms around her. “I love you. Layla, I love you.” Holding tight, he drowned everything else, fear, rage, pain, with love.
In his arms, she went limp, then began to shudder. “Fox.”
“It’s okay. It’s not real. I’ve got you. I’m real. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I can’t think. Are we dreaming?”
“Not anymore. We’re going to go back. We’re going to get inside.” He kept an arm firmly around her waist as he turned.
The boy skimmed along the fire. He rode it as a human child might a skateboard, with glee and delight while his dark hair flew in the wild wind. As the rage rolled into Fox, he poised to spring.
“Don’t.” Her voice was thick with exhaustion as Layla leaned her weight against Fox. “It wants you to, it wants to separate us. I think we’re stronger together, holding on to each other.”
Death for one, life for the other. I’ll drink your blood, boy, then plant my young in your human bitch.
“Don’t!” This time Layla had to lock her arms around Fox’s neck to keep him from rushing forward. She pushed her thoughts into his head. We can’t win here. Stay with me. You have to stay with me. “Don’t leave me,” she said aloud.
It was brutal, walking away, struggling to ignore the filth the thing hurled at them. To continue to walk as the boy whipped around them in circles, taunting, howling as it flew on its skate of flame. But as they walked, the fires sputtered. By the time they climbed the steps to his apartment, the night was clear and cool again, and carried only the dying hint of brimstone.
“You’re cold. Let’s get back in bed.”
“I just need to sit.” She lowered to a chair, and helpless to do otherwise, let the trembling take her. “How did you find me?”
“I dreamed it. Running across town, the fire, all of it.” To warm her, he grabbed the throw his mother had made him off the couch, spread it over Layla’s bare legs. “To the park, to the pond. But in the dream, I was too late. You were dead when I pulled you out of the water.”
She reached for his hands, found them as icy as hers. “I need to tell you. It was like back in New York, when I dreamed it raped me. When I dreamed I was Hester, and how it raped me. I wanted it to stop, to end. I was going to kill myself, drown myself. She was. I couldn’t stop her. It had my mind.”
“It doesn’t have it now.”
“It’s stronger. You felt that. You know that. Fox, it nearly made me kill myself. If it’s strong enough to do that, if we’re not immune-Quinn, Cybil, and I-it could make us hurt you. It could make me kill you.”
“No.”
“Damn it, what if he had made me go into the kitchen, get a knife, and stab it into your heart? If it can take us over when we sleep then-”
“If it could have infected you that way, to kill me, it would have. Offing me or Cal or Gage, that’s its number one. You come from it and Hester, so it used Hester against you. Otherwise, I’d be dead with a knife in my heart, and you’d be going under for the third time in the pond. You’ve got a logical mind, Layla. That’s logical.”
She nodded, and though she struggled, the first tears escaped. “It raped me. I know it wasn’t me, I know it wasn’t real, but I felt it. Clawing at me. Ramming inside me. Fox.”
As she broke, he gathered her in, gathered her up. There was no hell dark enough, he thought, cradling her in his lap, rocking her as she sobbed.
“I couldn’t scream,” she managed, and pressed her face to the plane of his shoulder. “I couldn’t stop it. Then I didn’t care, or couldn’t. It was Hester. She just wanted to end it.”
“Do you want me to call Quinn and Cybil? Would you rather-”
“No. No.”
“It used that. The shock, the trauma, to push your will down.” He brushed at her hair. “We won’t let it happen again. I won’t let him touch you again.” He lifted her face, brushed at her tears with his thumbs. “I swear to you, Layla, whatever has to be done, he won’t touch you again.”
“You found me, before I found myself.” She laid her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes. “We won’t let it happen again.”
“In a few days, we’ll take the next step. We’re not going through this to lose. And when we end this thing, you’ll be part of that. You’ll be part of what ends it.”
“I want it to hurt.” On that realization, her voice strengthened. “I want it to scream, the way I was screaming in my head.” When she opened her eyes again, they were clear. “I wish there was a way we could lock him out of our heads. Like garlic with vampires. That sounds stupid.”
“It sounds good to me. Maybe our research ace can come up with something.”
“Maybe. I need to take a shower. That sounds stupid, too, but-”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Will you talk to me while I do? Just talk?”
“Sure.”
She left the door open, and he stood leaning against the jamb. “Pretty close to morning,” he commented. “I’ve got some farm fresh eggs, courtesy of my mother.” Switch to normal, he told himself. That’s what they both needed. “I can scramble some up. I haven’t cooked for you yet.”
“I think you opened a couple of soup cans during the blizzard when we stayed at Cal’s.”
“Oh, well, then I have cooked. I’ll still scramble some eggs. Bonus feature.”
“When we went to the Pagan Stone before, it wasn’t as strong as it is now.”
“No.”
“It’ll get stronger.”
“So will we. I can’t love you this much-scrambling eggs much-and not get stronger than I was before you.”
Under the hot spray, she closed her eyes. It wasn’t the soap and water making her feel clean. It was Fox. “No one’s ever loved me scrambling eggs much. I like it.”
“Play your cards right, and that might bump up one day to my regionally famous BLT.”
She turned off the water, stepped out for a towel. “I’m not sure I’m worthy.”
“Oh.” He grinned as he trailed his gaze over her. “Believe me. I can also toast a bagel, if I have the incentive.”
She stopped in the doorway. “Got a bagel?”
"Not at the moment, but the bakery’ll be open in about an hour.”
She laughed-God what a relief to laugh-and moved by him to get the robe she stashed in his closet.
“Lots of excellent bakeries in New York,” he commented. “The city of bagels. So, I’ve been thinking, as I like a good bakery, and a good bagel, after this summer I could look into taking the bar up there.”