Darksider: Reveler Series 3 (15 page)

Maisie was head over heels about the man, but Steve Coll was so quiet and composed by nature that Jordan couldn’t figure out what was going on inside his head. She didn’t like question marks where her sister was concerned. Why did Maisie attract the quiet, scary ones? “I’m still going to worry.”

“I know you are.” Malcolm lifted her up his body a few inches so they could talk nose to nose. “But I was asking how
you
were holding up.”

Jordan was restless. “I wish we had a plan already, but at least we’re trying to make one.” They were meeting later that night Darkside with everyone to confirm a few points, see if another Chimera marshal, Harlen Fawkes, was going to help them or not. “Otherwise, I’m good. Hanging in.”

Good
was a gross understatement. She felt more alive than she ever had. She was terrified and exhilarated to the point of exhaustion. Not since her mother’s death had she cared about anything so much, had she felt like something
mattered
—this task, this man, this Rêve. This wasn’t the slow, daily work and rent of her life before. This was important.

“I’m sorry you don’t get to paint.” There was real regret in his voice.

“I’m sketching more now than I have in the past six years.” She couldn’t stop, and her favorite subject was the man pressed up against her. Hot, brooding, erotic Malcolm whose gaze was always following her, and when she dared to meet it, she found his own hungry hope in its depths.

She knew this was the infatuation period of a relationship—everything new, the sex mind-blowingly incredible. And she knew sooner or later the sparks would float up to the sky or fizzle, leaving just him and her. The question was whether or not, without this early brain-fog of constant attraction, they’d be even better together. For now, it was all dreams.

His hold on her tightened, albeit with one of his hands finding the curve of her ass. “I’ll get us another loft with good light when this is over.”

Us.
He was looking ahead, too. The happiness was almost too much to keep the smile from her face. Her skin was smiling, though, every inch warm. “A fixer-upper,” she added. Like the last loft. She wanted to see
him
in the space, this rough and once-lost man putting up drywall. The fantasy was so sweet it was almost painful.

She hadn’t dreamed like this in so long. “Where will it be?”

“I don’t care.” His arms tightened around her again slightly, as if he already had what was important.

Her eyes prickled with tears, so she buried her face in his neck to hide them. Her body knew him in the waking world, and her soul kept tangling with his Darkside. Yes, she’d give up everything to feel like this. To try to make him happy, to find the keys to all the locks that kept him guarded, and piece by piece open him up to let the light in.

They only needed time, and on the run, they had plenty of it.

***

Malcolm Rook was just putting on his boots when a
pop
in his awareness blackened his vision for a second. He double—no,
triple
—blinked and shook his head to clear the residual fuzz that followed it. Then a cold sweat broke out on his skin. The pop was familiar, though it had been years. It was a signal—not quite a mental push but more like a flick to the skull.

Chuck had found him. Of all people, it would be Chuck.

“You okay?” Jordan adjusted the knit beanie on her head. She’d already put on her jacket to go out in the cold. Her brown hair was back in a ponytail. Face clear. Eyes narrow, reading him.

Rook had known that someone would find him eventually, tapping as he was into the old network. Staying under the radar—no credit, moving invisibly, leaving no trail—cost something, but it wasn’t a currency recognized by any bank.

“I’m good.” But his mind raced. He preferred if Jordan wasn’t present for the first meeting with Chuck, not until he’d had a chance to gauge the tone, the welcome. See what Chuck would demand for the protection of his silence. “But, um…” How to get her to go without her being suspicious? Never mind. She was too damn smart. She’d be suspicious regardless. “Do you mind going to pick up the food on your own?”

He’d kept her close since they’d fled Las Vegas and what they’d discovered there, always looking over their shoulders for the long reach of Chimera and the corruption associated within it.

Jordan lifted a brow. “You feeling all right?”

“Dizzy.” He was fine now, but that had been the truth thirty seconds ago.

She smiled sly and sexy. “Tired you out, did I?”

Screw Chuck and the food.
“Come here and we’ll see.”

“Nope.” She laughed. “I just got dressed, and I want lo mein.” She peeled a twenty from their dwindling wad of cash. “You rest up. I’ll get the grub, and then maybe”—her voice went mock husky—“after I’ve taken your temperature…” She waggled her eyebrows.

She had to be just as fatigued from keeping out of sight as he was, but she was putting on a good face, keeping her sense of humor. She’d gone from a respectable life with a steady job to the reckless life of a reveler, someone who came alive Darkside, in the dreamwaters of sleep. Her aptitude for crossing dreamscapes made her rare; in fact, he’d been the one to recruit her into Chimera, the legal entity in the US responsible for policing shared dreaming. ’Course that was before he’d known Chimera was corrupt.

They’d had to run, and the trouble behind them wouldn’t relent until they were dead, or worse. Yes, there was worse than dead. Jordan’s sister Maisie had barely escaped it.

“Grub and an
after
? We’ll be late meeting Coll and your sister.” Coll had recruited troublesome Maisie, and the two of them had fled, as well, also hunted by Chimera. But every night the four of them met Darkside.

“A few minutes won’t kill them.” Jordan’s voice dropped down to a purr. “And it might just save your life.”

If he had to be running again after all these years, it was damn easy with her around. “Be careful. Don’t talk to strangers.”

She opened the door to the studio apartment where they were staying. “I’m a big girl, Mal. I can handle takeout.”

Yes, she could. She seemed a calm and contained person, but he was learning—at his peril—that she was a force to be reckoned with. Soon he’d have to keep up with
her
.
She didn’t like to
wait
when she could
do
. She stirred him up, rocked him deep. The darkness couldn’t reach him when she was nearby.

The door shut behind her, and Rook glanced around the ten-by-ten space. Jordan was a tidy person, so their few belongings were folded or tucked out of sight, and the dishes next to the hot plate were on their shelf. Rook put his tablet on hibernate and slipped it in its sleeve then shoved it under the pillow. He grabbed the wad of cash and stuck it in one of Jordan’s gloves.

They were borrowing the apartment from a friend of a friend of a friend. But someone in that chain must have told Chuck where he could find them. Rook glanced out the window. Chuck knew how to hide himself, too, but Jordan’s leaving would be signal enough that Rook wanted him in and out before she got back.

Sure enough, not a minute later, there was a tap at the door.

“It’s open,” Rook said as he took one of the only two chairs in the place.

Chuck entered. He was leaner than he used to be, his black hair had receded some, but otherwise he had that same quiet, disarming presence that made people overlook him almost anywhere.

Someone else might’ve stood, said welcome, held out a hand, but Rook remained seated. They had history, and he knew better than to play games, even polite ones, with Charles Langer.

Chuck’s eyeballs swiveled to take in the place—mattress on the floor, backpacks neatly lined beside it, ready to go at a moment’s notice.

“When I heard you were back, I had to come see it for myself.”

Back
meant, back in the life of an illegal Rêve trafficker. And Rook wasn’t, not really, though the thought had occurred to him that if he and Jordan were to survive this, some compromises would have to be made, especially if they did one day hope to get a permanent place of their own. With their skills Darkside, they should begin thinking about how they could monetize them without Chimera knowing. Not so long ago, Rook had been a marshal within Chimera. His job had been to track down lawbreakers and identify them for prosecution in the waking world.

The alternative was black market work, where he’d gotten his start. Jordan would have opinions about the black market, though.

“More like passing through,” Rook said. “Getting the lay, so to speak.”

Chuck took the seat opposite him without invitation. “Things have changed since you left.”

“Seems to me things are exactly the same. What do you want, Chuck?”

Chuck sat back, crossed a leg, and heaved a sigh. For a second, he seemed older and world-weary. “The dreamwaters have gotten more dangerous lately. I’ve lost a few people. Don’t know what happened to them. They just never woke up. I had to put the last one—kid imported from the Ukraine—out of his misery in the waking world myself. And you know how I hate mess.”

Chuck had specialized in messes back in the day. But Rook wasn’t surprised; he had a pretty good idea what was in the dreamwaters, and it wasn’t for the faint of heart. No “imported kids” could survive it. Chuck had never cared about dangers Darkside before. A mere hint of aptitude for lucid dreaming, and he’d throw a person in the deep end. What did he expect? A few were always going to drown. Add monsters to the waters, sharks scenting blood, and their chances were even slimmer.

“How inconvenient for you.” Rook wished he’d hunted down Chuck and had him put in jail as soon as he’d made marshal in Chimera, but he hadn’t wanted to look back. The past had always had its hands on him, grasping, pulling. When Rook had walked off the streets with Steve Coll, he didn’t so much as dare look over his shoulder. He’d been little more than a kid himself then. Not so, anymore.

“My point is,” Chuck said, “I’m looking for talent.”

“Everyone’s looking for talent.” With the popularity of the Rêves, the corporate shared dreams designed for the masses, anyone who was attempting to do business in the waters wanted the few pitiful souls who could navigate them. “A piece of unsolicited advice: transfer your operation to the waking world. It’s only going to get worse Darkside.”

“I have a feeling you know about worse.”

“I do. It will literally eat you alive.”

“
You
seem fine.” Chuck gave him a considering look. “You seem good, in fact.”

Rook put ankle to knee and leveled with him. Jordan would be back soon, and he really didn’t want them to meet. “I’m not taking work right now. I’ve got too much heat on me, and it’s of a nature that would doom whatever I tried to do. My last two jobs both went bad.” Vince Blackman had been lost in the Scrape, and Jordan had been dragged out there by a nightmare creature and almost died. “Which is why I’m in this shithole.” And would be in a different one tomorrow.

“If I recall, you can navigate Darkside as well as if you’d never left the womb.”

Rook shook his head. “I said no.” Not for Chuck, who was so careless with talent. He could not, under any circumstances, learn about Jordan’s ability. Chuck could only know that Jordan was a woman Rook had been sleeping with. No connections. Everything temporary, like the old days.

“Of course, the increased risk would warrant extra compensation.”

Chuck wasn’t listening, so Rook refused to say more. He needed to check with some other contacts, get a feel for the business these days. Find someone who didn’t burn through his people like matches.

Rook was contemplating how to get Chuck to leave when he noticed the subtle flicker of light over the man’s shoulder—a vertical glow. His attention rested there. The more he looked, the more the light took on subtle dimension, human proportions. It reminded him of those ghostly online clips caught by security cameras or amateur videographers, “proof” of life after death.

This was no ghost, however.

Where he’d simply gone cold at Chuck’s arrival, now ice flowed through Rook’s system.

He knew what this was. Steve Coll, his friend and partner, could do it. And so could Didier Lambert, the international “hero” who’d introduced shared dreaming to the world and who sought some kind of dominion over it through violent and reprehensible means.

Rook’s throat went dry. He willed Jordan to stay away:
Danger! Don’t come back! Run!

“You
are
good,” Chuck said.

“Not my first waking dream.” A waking dream was an illusion that fooled the mind into thinking it was real. It was a daydream, easy to slip into, hard to recognize for what it was. Only those nightmare people could create them. And whoever was in the shaft of light brought the number of nightmare people Rook knew about up to three.

Chuck grinned. “So you do know just how strange things have become underwater.”

“Yeah, I do.” Rook kept his gaze on Chuck, pretending to ignore the light, but he concentrated on his peripheral vision to disassemble the shimmer, working his mind past the trick to the see the reveler as he was in the waking world.
She
, he corrected himself. Straight white-blond hair with blunt bangs. Heart-shaped face drawn into a pout. And, yeah, she had the freaky creepy eyes, too. “So is it you or the lady who I should be talking to?”