Freedom. A chance to shed the responsibility she’d been carrying since she was a small child parenting an unstable mother. Wings and a wide sky. Maybe she could be dragon, not for any noble purpose, but just to be, to fly. Voices whispered. Still she could not hear them clearly, not with the doors closed, but that too was a freedom. She could be power. Nothing and everything.
There was human flesh in the room, exuding the scent of fear. She could smell their blood, hear the beating of their hearts and the flurry of their breath. They backed away, slowly, edging for the door. As if they could escape her. What were they, other than prey—
No. They were men, with souls and with names. Brett Flynne. Weston Jennings. Human beings, with all the nerve endings and emotions, the burden of life and the fear of death. And what was she, that she should have the right to hunt them, to hunt anybody? With an extreme effort she focused on the kernel at her center that remained Vivian, clinging to all of the details that defined this collection of nerves and cells and made her like and unlike all of the other humans in the wide world.
Vivian drew a deep breath, and then another, feeling the coolness of the air, the small frailty of her bones.
“What’s with you guys?” she managed to say, clasping her hands together, surprised by the fine movements of fingers, the smoothness of skin on skin.
Brett stayed where he was, backed up against the door, his face shadowed with horror and disbelief.
“You might want to just forget what you saw here tonight,” Weston said, casual. “Or remember it as a dream. That would ease things for you.”
Brett looked down at Poe, who had decided to be friendly and stood pressed up against his leg. He shifted his gaze to Vivian and opened his mouth to speak. Then, with a jerk of his shoulders and a shake of the head, he turned and walked out the door.
“He’ll forget,” Weston said. “Men do. What the mind can’t encompass turns to dream, or this weird bit of daydream, or even hallucination. You know all this.”
“I know.” But she sank into a chair and sat without moving, looking at her feet side by side on the floor. One was a shade ahead of the other and she aligned them, toe and heel, as if it mattered deeply to the state of the world. Out of her peripheral vision she was aware of Weston plopping down in a chair across from her.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“What is there to say?” A weariness had come over her, and a deep and abiding sadness. She felt stripped to the bone. “How bad was it?”
“You didn’t change, not all the way. Your eyes started to glow, the scales popped out on your skin, there was steam on your breath. Pretty impressive. Thought Flynne was going to have a heart attack.”
“I noticed you didn’t look comfortable yourself.”
“Are you losing control?”
Letting her head fall into her hands she whispered, “I don’t know.”
“How long have you been dealing with the shifting?”
“Only a couple of weeks. It started soon after I found out I was a Dreamshifter, as if that weren’t enough.”
“Tough stuff,” he said. There was no irony in his voice, or pity. Just a quiet understanding. It made her feel better.
“I don’t think we have a lot of time,” she said. “I might be able to open the door as dragon, just so you know. I was thinking maybe I should, but I am worried about losing control, about hurting somebody.”
“Well, might just be a thing or two we could try before that.”
“You’ll help?”
“Penance. If Grace is a monster, I’m the one that made her into one. Only way I know to make amends.”
“Seems like maybe your father carries some blame for that.”
He shrugged. “I stood by while he killed everybody. My little sister had to shoot him to make it stop. What do you think that did to her? I could have saved her that, at least.”
Vivian had no words for that. A moment of silence, and then she flung her arms around his neck and hugged him. His body was stiff beneath the embrace, long enough for her to feel awkward and begin to pull away before one of his arms came up and patted her back. “Don’t expect too much, mind. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“That makes two of us. Where do we start?”
“A door. I’ve had little practice with calling them up, but I can find one.” His face creased into what was meant to be a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“You’re taking me to your usual spot. Where you lost your people.”
“I didn’t lose them. I know exactly where they are. I also know exactly where the door is. And if that doesn’t work, I have plan B.”
“What’s plan B?”
But he only shook his head and would not say.
Twenty-three
Death, Zee thought, but did not say. Decay, despair, the end of all things.
The way ahead slanted sharply downward between walls of tangled thorns, thick as his arm, covered in spikes. A dank wind blew up into his face, carrying a fetid scent of refuse and rot. No trees ahead, no grass, not even dirt. The path turned to bare, harsh rock, riddled with gaping cracks and jagged stones.
Going forward was walking voluntarily into hell. Going back would be nearly impossible. Staying still was not an option.
He’d chosen a path that started off innocently enough, a grassy track between trees, sun dappled and almost airy. He had even scouted a little way along it and chosen it from all other possible options as the easiest way to travel with a wounded man.
There was also a small something inside him, a breath of dream memory that whispered, “Surmise is this way.” Maybe he had even been here before, in the alternate existence of the Warlord of Surmise. If he trusted his instincts, there was a hope of help and shelter by dark.
Once the way was chosen, it had taken a couple of hours to plan and build a conveyance that would save him from carrying Jared. A couple of sturdy branches, the blanket, some strips of leather cut from the pack to use as binding, and he’d lashed together a makeshift stretcher. The earth supported much of the wounded man’s weight, with Zee acting as packhorse between two staves, dragging his burden behind him rather than slung over his shoulder.
He filled the canteen with water, making sure that he and Jared both had a good long drink before leaving the clearing. Breakfast consisted of the last of the protein bars, wet from the dunking in the pool and falling apart, but still edible.
It wasn’t enough, though. Not nearly enough, and hunger sat tight and hard in his belly.
Jared seemed marginally better. He’d eaten a little, and drunk plenty of water. A long soak in the pool had brought his fever down and cleansed the wound. The blisters on his body seemed to be healing. Zee used up precious cleaning solution from the first-aid kit to clean and bandage them. He’d needed the blanket for the stretcher and ended up cutting his own flannel shirt into bandages to wrap around the leg.
With one thing and the other, it had been noon before they got under way, but they made good time at first, the conveyance sliding smoothly along a path that was mostly grass. Twice Zee had stopped to clear away scrub bushes, and once to move a fallen log, but at first he’d felt somewhat hopeful.
The change happened gradually. A thickening of the trees, so that the sun no longer filtered through. Underbrush closing in on the path, which became increasingly steeper and more narrow. Always in the Between there had been crossroads and branching paths everywhere, so many that it was hard to chart a course. Now there were none. No options but to keep going, or retrace his steps.