The Last Dream Keeper (19 page)

“Hello, Lyse,” he said in a voice as taut as piano wire.

Fear cascaded through her, and she gritted her teeth to keep him from seeing her lips tremble. The violence of her reaction to him was palpable, and she could smell the raw, feral scent of herself coming off her body in waves: under her armpits, at the small of her back where her flannel shirt hung over the waistband of her black jeans. She wanted to reach up and wipe the moisture from her lip, but she was held in place by her bindings.

She let her gaze drift to the tan flesh of her uncle's exposed neck, her eyes focusing in on its smoothness. She would've done anything not to have to stare into the dead man's eyes ever again.

Not that she regretted killing him.

He'd kidnapped her from Eleanora's bungalow on Curran Street in Echo Park and hidden her away in a place where no one would ever have found her body. His intent: to kill her slowly and with as much mortification as possible.

Yet here he was again, alive and breathing and less than three feet away from her.

Lyse remembered how crushed and dead he'd looked underneath the ruin of the Lady of the Lake. It just didn't seem possible for him to have survived—but somehow he had, or at least some incarnation of him. It was as if she'd imagined the whole horrific nightmare . . . and maybe she had.

Seeing him now made her question her sanity once again.

There was the clatter of metal on metal and then a small, mousy woman stepped into the light. She held a tray carrying a metal pitcher and two glasses, the pitcher sweating with condensation.

The woman's eyebrows pinched together in concentration as she walked, the pitcher clattering against the tray as she slowly maneuvered her misshapen body closer to the table, her gait unsteady as she tried to keep a safe distance between herself and Lyse's uncle.

As she approached the table, the woman lifted her gaze to catch Lyse's own. What Lyse saw there almost turned her stomach. The woman's once-beautiful face had been transformed by a livid pink scar that ran down the right side of her cheek and cut through her eye, the skin puckered from jaw to brow. The instrument that caused the wound had left behind a milky white iris that was a ghostly twin of the untouched forest-green one that was still intact. Her brown hair was cropped close to her scalp, revealing a small dark hole where what was left of her right ear's cartilage curlicued around like a nautilus shell. The damage to her face and ear continued down her body, the right side—arm, torso, hip, and leg—gnarled and twisted. The effect was magnified by the thin black cotton dress she wore, the fabric clinging to her deformed frame, enhancing rather than hiding her disability.

Because of all the scarring, it was hard to tell how old the woman was, but as she set the tray down on the table between Lyse and the old man, Lyse caught a glimpse of the woman's good left hand—unblemished and smooth, the fingers supple, well-shaped and unlined by age. She realized the woman couldn't be much older than she was.

The woman sensed Lyse's interest. She raised her eyes, dark lashes fluttering.

—Escape if you can, or they will do the same to you.

Lyse started as the words came into her brain, unbidden.
She forced herself not to look around, but to hold the woman's gaze.

—Fire and a knife,
the woman said without physically moving her lips.
Cut and burned for my supposed “crimes.” And I'm one of the few lucky ones they've allowed to come and serve them.

Lyse wanted to respond, but she didn't know how. She tried thinking her response, but the woman just stared back at her, unblinking.

“That's enough staring,” Lyse's uncle said, grabbing the woman's twisted right arm and dragging her away from the table, the sheer violence behind his grasp clear to anyone watching.

“David—” the old man said, his tone a warning.

The woman's face spasmed in pain, but when she opened her mouth to cry out, no sound escaped her lips—and Lyse saw that there was only a nub of fleshy pink skin where her tongue had been brutally cut from her mouth. Despite the pain, the woman caught Lyse's eye one last time, her telepathic presence returning for a final parting shot:

—We are here when you need us.

The words were either a promise or a threat, Lyse did not know which—and then Lyse's uncle dragged the woman off into the shadows, the darkness swallowing them whole.

Before she could stop herself, Lyse found herself speaking.

“What happened to that woman?”

The old man nodded, as if he had been expecting the question.

“She was tried as a witch, but she confessed to her crimes and begged for absolution.”

“
That's
absolution?” Lyse asked, incredulous. “Taking someone's tongue, burning them until they're half dead?”

The old man held up his lion-headed walking stick, shaking it at Lyse to emphasize his point:

“The tongue ensures that the lies of her past are never spread, and the burning is to cleanse. Fire cleanses best of all. Better even than water. Once we learned that lesson, that water was not
the easiest of ways to destroy your evilness, we went back to the work of our forefathers, and things changed quickly.”

Lyse shook her head, trying to clear it of the images the old man had called into being in her mind's eye.

She woke up the first time underwater. Eyes bulging from lack of oxygen, she screamed, but no one could hear her, the sound muffled by the water . . .

These were the words she'd read in her grandmother's journal. By some strange trick of exhaustion or magic, as Lyse had read the manuscript, she'd fallen into the slipstream of Eleanora's memories. Here, she'd seen and felt the torture her grandmother had endured as a young woman, when she'd almost been drowned by a group of religious zealots just like the one sitting in front of Lyse now. They, too, were trying to
cleanse
, to destroy some imagined evilness they saw inside the woman who'd raised Lyse.

It was a defining moment in Eleanora's life, and it had culminated with her leaving Massachusetts, never to set foot again in the state of her birth. It had also brought Eleanora to Echo Park and to Hessika and the coven, sealing her grandmother's fate forever.

As these thoughts ricocheted inside Lyse's head, she began to get a very strange feeling.

“She never told you about me, did she?” The old man asked, becoming excited for the first time since the bizarre interrogation had begun. “About
her
and
me
?”

Lyse's blood ran cold. She did not want to believe what the old man was implying.

“No,” Lyse said, the softness of her tone forcing him to lean farther across the table to hear her. “No, that's not possible.
You
can't be possible.”

The old man's face split into a wide grin, his pleasure evident.

“Yes, what you are thinking,” the old man said, then cackled with glee. “It's all true!”

Lyse fought back her revulsion, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much he'd upset her.

“I am the bringer of the end, the crest of the wave, a follower of the only truth . . . I am a rider of The Flood . . .
and I am your grandfather
.”

Lyse realized that her senses hadn't been wrong. There
was
a monster in the room with her.

Only it wasn't hiding in the shadows.

It was sitting right in front of her.

“Y
ou think I'm scared of you, you've got another thing coming,” Arrabelle said as she crossed the space between herself and the creature, closing the gap in a few long strides.

She wasn't going to let this Frankenstein wannabe intimidate her—she'd laid waste to men his size before, and she thought nothing of fighting dirty if the situation called for it.

The words were no sooner in her head than the giant was slamming his entire body weight into her. She'd hardly seen him move and suddenly he was pinning her to the ground, crushing her rib cage with his deadweight, his body convulsing over her.

She felt the dirt pressing against her back, errant shoots of brown grass scratching at her neck. Her lungs screamed for air, but her hands were pinioned underneath her and were already beginning to go numb.

“No!”
She heard Niamh scream as the car door opened and then slammed shut.

“It's okay. I've got her.” A new voice.

Upon its arrival, all of her instincts kicked in and a surge of
adrenaline shot through her body. She was fighting again—and she hadn't even realized she'd given up.

“Help me roll him off her.” That same, oh-so-familiar voice.

“But . . . he's so heavy,” Niamh said—and Arrabelle knew she was close by, maybe even beside her, though she couldn't see the girl.

“We'll both push. It'll work. I promise.”

“Okay,” Niamh said, though she didn't sound too sure about this plan.

The man stopped seizing, and now Niamh could get her hands under the man's deadweight. Arrabelle felt the man's body began to shift, and, for a moment, she had enough space between her chest and the man's body to enable her to draw a breath—but this was short-lived as the weight crashed back down on top of her.

“One more time,” she heard the voice say—and then there was a massive push from her rescuers and the man was pushed off her.

She rolled onto her side, gasping for breath and coughing at the same time. The grass tickled her cheek and nose, but she didn't care. She was just so damn happy to be alive that she could barely contain her joy.

“Bell?”

The voice. He was right there beside her. All she had to do was sit up and look at him . . . but she was scared. She didn't know if she had the wherewithal to deal with the reality of what was happening. Arrabelle, who was never scared of anything, was terrified to face the person she loved more than anyone else in the whole world.

“Bell . . . open your eyes . . . please.”

She did as she was told, and all the feelings she'd held at bay rushed to fill the void that had been created in her heart by Evan's absence.

“Evan,” she said, his face swimming in front of her like a dream come to life. “I thought you were gone . . .”

The same liquid brown eyes she'd always loved—chocolate irises ringed in a halo of gold, thick lashes that belonged on a catwalk model, not a skater punk dude—stared back at her. She reached up and touched his face, fingers brushing across one cheekbone, following the line of his angular jaw until she reached the soft flesh under his chin. He smiled down at her and she saw the familiar empty space where his right eyetooth should've been.

It had happened when he was ten, showing off for his younger sister by hanging upside down from an apple tree in their grandparents' orchard in San Luis Obispo. Swinging back and forth and laughing like an idiot, pleased as punch that he was doing something he knew would piss his grandfather off—and then the branch had snapped in half and he'd fallen on his face.

A cracked skull, a missing tooth, and a fat lip . . . his parents had been none too happy, and his grandfather had forbidden him from playing in the orchard for the rest of that summer.

“I knew you'd come,” Evan said, grabbing her hand and helping her to her feet.

It was then that she noticed how skinny he'd become. The kind of emaciated that was terrifying to see on someone you loved . . . because it meant they were sick.

“Evan . . . ?” The question was there in that one word. Once upon a time, they'd known each other so well that they hadn't needed words to communicate. Arrabelle hoped that there were still vestiges of that old connection left between them.

“Don't,” Evan said, brushing the dirt from his hands onto the sides of his olive drab khakis. “I'm okay. It looks worse than it is.”

The blue wool fisherman's sweater he wore swam on his gaunt frame, and Arrabelle could see the cords of his neck standing out in bas-relief. He'd jammed a woolen knit cap onto his head, but Arrabelle could see that he'd recently
shaved his head. There was a little bit of red stubble on his chin—he'd never been able to grow much in the way of facial hair—and the dark circles under his eyes were very defined.

“What's happened to you?” She couldn't stop herself from asking. Worry was making her sound hysterical, but she didn't care. “What can I do?”

He shook his head.

“Nothing. At least, not for me.”

“But—” she began, and he shook his head.

“Please, we'll talk later. I promise.”

She nodded, not wanting to capitulate. She would never give over to anyone else, but this was
Evan
. He was different. She realized she'd do anything he asked her to do,
had
done things for him that she'd do for no one else.

The wind had picked up just in the few minutes they'd been standing there, and Arrabelle shivered. Evan nodded to Niamh, who handed over the thick down jacket Arrabelle had dropped before wading into the fight. It warmed her instantly when she slipped it back on, and her teeth stopped chattering.

“We should go. There are more of these bastards hanging around the island,” Evan said, gesturing to Arrabelle's rental car. “That you? Mind if we take it?”

Arrabelle shook her head.

“Of course.”

While Evan and Niamh made their way over to Arrabelle's car, she stopped to check on the monster, and to see what Evan had used to subdue it. She knelt down in the grass beside the giant man, palpating his neck until she found his carotid artery. She found a pulse, albeit a weak one, but it was slowly fading. As much as she didn't want to get crushed to death, she also didn't want Evan killing anyone on her behalf—but that seemed to be a moot point now.

“Now what did you use?” she muttered to herself, and was quickly rewarded with an answer.

She pulled a small dart free from the only smooth tissue
on the man's back, careful not to touch its tip, and wrapped it in some tissue she dug out of her coat pocket. Thus, safely concealed, she slipped it into a zippered pocket on the outside of her coat and stood up. There was nothing she could do now for the giant. Death made its way on swift wings and it would not be deterred.

She said a little prayer to the Goddess and left the monstrous man to his fate.

*   *   *

They drove the first few miles in silence.

Niamh was in the driver's seat, having already been there, waiting, when Arrabelle came back from checking the giant's body. Evan was in the backseat, and when Arrabelle started to open the front passenger door, he stopped her:

“Come back here with me.”

He patted the seat beside him, and Arrabelle didn't hesitate. She closed the door she'd just opened and climbed into the back with him.

“I'm really happy to see you,” Evan said, reaching over and taking her hand. He squeezed it between his own thin fingers.

Niamh put the car in gear and it lurched forward.

“Sorry,” she said, catching Arrabelle's eye in the rearview mirror.

“Don't worry about it. It's a rental.”

After that, no one said a word. Niamh seemed to know where she was going, but her long hair was like a veil hiding her face from Arrabelle's view. A few times she fiddled with the control of the heater, adjusting the defrost, and once she accidentally pulled the seat too far forward when she tried to get her legs—which were shorter than Arrabelle's—closer to the pedals.

Arrabelle slipped off her coat and gave a silent
thank you
to the younger woman for doing the driving, allowing her and Evan to reconnect. As the heater flooded warmth through the car, Arrabelle closed her eyes, savoring Evan's presence.
They were sitting almost on top of each other, so near that she could feel Evan's bones through his clothes; hip bones touching hip bones, arms and shoulders pressed tightly against one another.

The hand that Evan held tingled, his flesh on her flesh. His skin was so thin that she could feel the pulse at his wrist as it beat sluggishly beneath her fingers. She closed her eyes, realized how rigidly she was holding her body, and let out a shuddering breath as she forced herself to relax.

“Okay?” Evan asked, and Arrabelle smiled.

“Yes, of course.”

There was so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted to ask, but nothing came out. She was terrified of breaking the spell, of Evan going away again. She just wanted to live in the present moment, filing every second into a secret compartment in her heart to be taken out and savored at her convenience.

With Evan, there was no such thing as the future. He was an elusive creature, unwilling to be pinned down by anyone—especially Arrabelle. He may have told her that he loved her in that note, but she doubted he would ever tell her the same to her face. That was his nature, to stay silent about his feelings. He'd never said as much to her, but she'd always had the impression that he didn't trust emotion, that being vulnerable was anathema to him, and he'd do anything rather than give over to sentiment.

No one would ever call Arrabelle romantic, but there was something about Evan that brought out the feminine in her, heightening her need to love and be loved. A heart that never wanted or needed anything was useless, she now knew. She
wanted
and
needed
Evan both, the two things becoming one overarching passion where he was concerned.

“Where are we going?” she asked, choosing a neutral topic. She knew asking about his health or about their relationship would just make him clam up.

“Away from here. It's not safe,” he replied. “We were just
waiting for you. I'd hoped you'd go to the general store like I'd said in the letter—having people around is helpful, stops me from having to take out things like that giant back there. But you never do it the easy way, do you?”

That was the truth. She'd never been able to just follow directions, wanting to be independent and blaze her own trail at every turn. It made her life more difficult, that was for sure, but it kept things interesting.

“No, I guess not,” she said, unapologetically. She'd never seen the need to be sorry for who or what she was.

Evan squeezed her hand.

“Well, you're ever constant, Bell. I should've known better than to tell you what to do.”

He'd given her the nickname one day almost as an afterthought. There'd been no buildup, no teasing or testing out of possible nicknames . . . just a casual reference to her being a “beautiful belle” and that was that—she'd been Bell ever since.

“I hope you know that it's not just happening here,” Evan said. “It's everywhere. They're taking the covens apart, bit by bit—”

He stopped talking and the color drained from his face. He went rigid beside her, gripping her hand hard. He grimaced in pain, and she watched, unable to do anything, as his whole body was racked by an intense seizure that rippled through him, dissipating as quickly as it had come.

After a few moments, he began to breathe normally again.

He released her hand and she looked down at her fingers, wiggling them a little to make sure they still worked.

“Sorry . . . about that,” Evan whispered, a sheen of cold sweat breaking out across his brow and upper lip. “I'm fine. So don't even ask.”

Arrabelle hated that he knew her so well, had called out her next move before she could make it. She glared at him and reached for his wrist. He let her take his pulse, and she frowned; his heartbeat was wild and erratic.

“You're not well.”

He grinned.

“Very observant of you.”

“Evan—”

He shook his head. “Not now. Later.”

She sighed, releasing his wrist even though she hated to let go, to not be touching him, somehow.

I'm like a teenager,
she thought.
My brain is a mess when he's around. It's not good. It's gonna get someone killed.

“I know what you're feeling, Bell,” Evan continued, lifting her chin with his finger so he could look into her eyes. The tension between them was palpable. “I feel it, too, but it's for another time.”

She swallowed, her mouth dry. She was having trouble focusing because her entire body was reacting pleasurably to Evan's admission of attraction. She could feel it in her breasts and belly . . . between her legs. It was a delicious warmth and it washed over her like an ocean wave cresting against the sand. This was the most he'd ever said on the subject, the only time he'd ever acknowledged that there was something potent between them.