Disciple: DreamWalkers, Book 2 (25 page)

“Of course he might be hiding it from—”

“His jealous psycho ex?”

“You know, he’s not the only one who’s displayed memory lapses. You have too.”

“Have I?”

Maggie tried to recall the specifics of the encounter they’d had after the code one yesterday. “For one thing, you denied cussing Adi out for hurting Zeke and vigil-locking the barrier.”

“Don’t remember that. I mean, I remember the vigil-lock but… Hmm. Perhaps you misinterpreted the situation. Confounding doesn’t exactly work on other confounders.”

“I didn’t misinterpret.” Maggie tried again. “We also discussed how helpful Karen had been in the sphere. At first you said she was useless, but then you seemed to forget. You told her you knew she’d been helpful. Could someone have gotten to you?”

Lill shook her head. “I haven’t let anyone touch me since I started noticing discrepancies. Last night I barricaded myself out of the sphere for sleep too. I didn’t take any chances.”

“I wish you’d warned me.” A vision of Lill smacking Karen’s hand away from Zeke’s face popped into the forefront of Maggie’s brain. And another one, recent, of Karen stumbling into Lill. “Wait. Someone did touch you. Karen. Do you remember smacking her hand away from Zeke yesterday, because you sensed something?”

“I… Yes.” Lill’s lips thinned.

“Today she stumbled into you.”

“She’s not a confounder, so she can’t—” Lill cut herself off. Her eyes narrowed with a lethal gleam that would have frightened Maggie if it had been directed at her. “I’ll kill her.”

“Karen is the one erasing memories.” The pit of Maggie’s stomach bottomed out. If Karen could confound Zeke, even Lill, then everyone was wrong about Karen being harmless. What else was she hiding beneath her victimized exterior? “I told you I wasn’t responsible for the manifestations. If Karen’s erasing memories, she could be causing the code ones as well.”

“Shit. This explains a lot. In Harrisburg, nobody understood how she created so many conduits—such a huge horde. It’s because she has a confounder’s ability to access the sphere for seconds at a time. I can’t believe nobody considered this, especially after she vigil-blocked Zeke. Hell, what if she’s responsible for hiding your signature from us too?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. Who knows what she can do?” Maggie was grateful to have someone to discuss this with. Lill’s consternation was similar to what Maggie had been feeling for days. “Have you ever heard of conduit blindness before?”

“Never,” Lill said. “I don’t think Adi had, either. I could tell by her expression when the curator described it.”

“This means Karen somehow tricked the curator too.” Many of the symptoms of conduit blindness he’d listed, such as wraiths thronging around Maggie, were damning—but was conduit blindness the only reason wraiths might throng around a person? “If she can create code ones whenever she likes and we confront her openly, Harrisburg could happen again. More people could die.”

“I’ll work on Adi. You work on Zeke. Someone who’s been confounded can be reminded of the hidden information with the right stimulus. Make sure you’re touching him when you pull him out of it. The trick to restoring confounded memories is to know what’s been erased.”

“I can’t pry him away from her.”

“Leave that to me.” Lill finished her lunch and stuffed the trash into the grocery bag. “Let’s go.”

While Maggie felt vindicated by Lill’s reaction after everyone doubting her for so long, she wondered how much Lill would continue to support her if she told Lill about being a bellatorix. But it wasn’t fair to deepen Lill’s involvement without giving her all available information. In this case, more heads were better—in particular, heads that hadn’t been confounded.

“One more thing, Lill. Have you ever heard of the Antipodes scroll?”

The last time she’d mentioned it in front of Zeke, hoping he’d bring Lill into their circle, he’d been confused. Perhaps he hadn’t been hiding information from Lill and it was collateral damage of the apparent confounding.

“Yeah.” Lill didn’t pause. Maggie had to jog to keep up. “It’s some fairytale about alucinators who can kill wraiths inside the dreamsphere.”

Maggie took a deep breath, inhaling sagebrush-scented dust. After she coughed it out, she said, “It’s not a fairytale. That’s where the corpses have been coming from.”

“A bellatorix?” Lill halted and turned toward her with interest. “And you think it’s Karen? You think she can kill inside the dreamsphere?”

“No,” Maggie said. “But I can.”

Chapter Sixteen

Zeke couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this tired. In fact, he couldn’t remember all sorts of shit that should have come easily. Effortlessly. The names of past students. Locations of area castrums and waystations. The periodic table.

Hell, who was he kidding? He’d never memorized the periodic table, but the rest of it? Should be right…there.

This morning when he’d woken, he’d forgotten he wasn’t in bed with Maggie. He’d rolled over to wake her before the alarm went off and found himself face to face with a grinning Karen.

His foulest nightmare come true.

Was he completely to blame that he’d screamed like a little girl and leaped out of bed in two seconds flat?

Karen’s thin face had scrunched with offense. Mindful of Adi’s instructions that Karen had to be kept happy, he’d offered a placating explanation. “I was having a bad dream.”

“And I made it worse?” she’d guessed.

No one had ever said psychos couldn’t be astute. He’d shrugged and sorted through his duffel bag, looking for clean clothes. A chilly hand on his back had nearly sent him leaping for the ceiling again.

“I understand,” she’d said softly. “You’re worried about losing me like you’re losing a student to the curator. You want to be a good mentor.”

“I’m not worried about that.” He wished he could lose Karen and keep Maggie. He did feel sorry for Karen, trapped alone for a whole year in dreamspace, but his sympathy faded the longer he was around her. The longer he had to humor her. He wasn’t sure he bought Karen’s story that the devil, aka the Master, had made her do all the shit she’d done.

She’d never seemed like she was under anyone’s control, then or now.

“You’re right not to.” She’d patted him. “It can’t be avoided.”

Zeke’s vision had hazed, like it had been doing more and more. He vowed to quit squinting at his phone screen today. He hated to admit it, but he might be approaching the need for some reading glasses. The headaches and blurry vision, plus all the time he’d spent reading on his phone to avoid conversation, added up.

His vow had lasted until the first ten minutes he’d been locked in a room with Karen and nothing to do.

Now, he, Karen and a few alucinators waited for Adi and the curator to finish whatever marathon bitch session they were having. Karen had been glaring at him ever since he moved off the sofa because he was sick and tired of her touching him all the time. Her tangible effect crinkled his nerve endings like nails on a chalkboard.

What was keeping Maggie and Lill so long at lunch? He’d asked the guard at the door. They’d headed down the dirt road to the west—nothing suspicious, but how long did it take to eat a sandwich?

Zeke checked the clock on his phone for the seventy-eighth time. It was three minutes past the last time he’d checked.

“We should discuss my next training session.” Karen had sidled to the edge of the sofa closest to his chair. She hung on the arm, staring at him. “Last night was restful, but we shouldn’t spend another night outside the dreamsphere, unless Adishakti is willing to approve my…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Lobotomy.”

“She’s not going to approve it until you tell her what she wants to know.” Zeke frowned when he realized he’d forgotten what it was Adi wanted.

Oh, right. The healing. Zeke yawned, not bothering to cover his mouth. Karen had had a cut or something and it had sealed itself overnight.

“I tried,” Karen reminded him. She clasped her hands in front of her. “Do you think the curator would help protect us from the Master? Perhaps then I’ll be able to relax and share my knowledge.”

Zeke glanced at the others in the room, but they weren’t paying attention. “That would require explaining everything to the curator, and I don’t think Adi’s okay with that.”

“The curator outranks her. She shouldn’t keep anything from him.” Karen’s eyelashes fluttered. “Curators have powers and abilities the rest of us don’t. Having the old man there may be the perfect solution.”

Zeke was spared from having to argue when Lill and Maggie returned. Lill made a surprising beeline for Karen. “The curator and Adi want to see you.”

Karen rose and smoothed her hands down her baggy sweats. “What for?”

“Something about tonight,” Lill said. “Come on, don’t make them wait.” She held open the door.

Karen paused in front of Zeke and stretched out her hand. “Shall we?”

Zeke eased back in the armchair, out of her reach. “They didn’t ask for me.”

Karen crooked a finger as if he were dog. “Don’t be silly. I need you with me. They understand we’re together now.”

“I’m your mentor. That’s the only ‘together’ we are,” Zeke said, conscious of Maggie pretending to ignore the conversation on the other side of the room.

“That’s what I meant,” Karen said, emphasizing the Ts. She’d been so faded and feeble since she’d woken, it took him a moment to recognize her annoyance. “Let’s go.”

“He’s not invited,” Lill drawled. “Just you, sunshine.”

Karen swiveled toward Lill. “Why would they send you instead of fetching me themselves?”

“Be sure to ask them that.” Lill flashed a smile at Karen, all teeth and hostility.

While it wasn’t unlike Lill to be acerbic, she knew as well as he did that Adi had instructed everyone to treat Karen with kid gloves. Karen’s fragility and tendency to burst into tears was offset, somewhat, by sympathy. What had Maggie and Lill discussed on their walk? What had changed?

Did he care if it meant he could get a breather from Karen?

He glanced at Karen, whose cheeks had pinkened with anger, and deliberately flicked on his phone. The snick of it coming to life was hard to miss in the tense silence of the room.

“See you later,” he said offhandedly.

Karen finally preceded Lill out the door. Zeke didn’t miss the significant glance that passed between Lill and Maggie.

As soon as the door shut behind Lill, Maggie approached him. “We need to talk.”

He’d been putting this off. Not that he could have managed his apology and goodbye to Maggie with Karen leeching him, but his gut hollowed out anytime he thought about it.

“I know. I’m sorry I couldn’t…” Pain socked him in the head, from temple to temple. “I should have been a better mentor. You shouldn’t have to go to the Orbis. You must be terrified.” As was he, on her behalf.

“It’s not that.” Her gaze cut to the other alucinators, who were hardly oblivious to the other people in the room. “I’m not thrilled about it, but I need to talk to you about something else. Alone.”

“Sure.” For Maggie, Zeke stuffed his cellphone into his pocket and didn’t even think about pulling it out. “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know how much time we have.” She bustled out the door, shutting it behind them. Biting her lip, she glanced up and down the corridor. “Hell. Let’s go outside.”

She led the way up the long staircase to the surface and out of the outbunker, nodding to the guard. Zeke waved at the guy, who had a bandage on his neck. “Getting some air.”

The guard logged them on the register but didn’t speak. Adi hadn’t ordered the outbunker’s residents to remain inside the underground facility, and the main compound was several miles away. There was nothing out here but the cars they’d driven in and a dirt road leading nowhere. The flatness of the surrounding landscape had made dispatching the wraiths during the second code one easier—nowhere for the bastards to hide.

The midday sun bored through Zeke’s hair and made his scalp prickle. His boots scuffed reddish dust. “Where are we going?”

“Not far.” Maggie grabbed his hand and led him around the corner of the cinderblock outbunker. Normal conversation would be out of earshot of the door, but yells would transmit both directions. So would alarms.

Zeke hesitated, staring down the road into the distance. He could see Maggie and Lill’s footprints from lunch. “This seems kind of obvious.”

If Karen—if anyone—caught him and Maggie hiding behind the bunker, they’d get the wrong idea. Lord knows it had been hard to keep his hands to himself during his time with Maggie, and he didn’t want people criticizing them for something they’d resisted.

If Maggie was interested anymore. He’d acted like an asshole during her entire training, so she might hate him now.

She tugged him farther into the shade. The touch of her soft hand on his—a hand that still hadn’t developed calluses after two months of combat training—sent a shiver through him. A good shiver. She leaned against the wall but didn’t let his hand go.

“There’s no easy way to say this.”

“I’m tough. I can take it.” Zeke found himself twining his fingers through hers. Her presence tugged him. Made him want more. Her tangible was so different from Karen’s, like a mental caress. God, he was going to miss her.

How had he let this happen? Was there anything he could have done—anything he could still do?

She licked her soft, kissable lips. “Karen’s been confounding you.”

That shocked Zeke out of his lusty haze. “No way. She doesn’t have that skill.”

“We had sex two days ago, before the second manifestation.”

“You and me?” Zeke asked, shocked. “We?”

“Well, it sure as hell wasn’t me and Karen,” Maggie said acidly. “Have you had sex with Karen recently?”

“Fuck, no. Adi didn’t say I had to be that nice.” Zeke freed his hand from hers and ran his fingers through his hair. He tugged it, trying to conceive of what Maggie was telling him. This wasn’t what he’d expected, but it didn’t feel like jealousy. Maggie wasn’t one for theatrics. “I wouldn’t have slept with her even if Adi had offered me a million dollar bonus.”

Not just because he had feelings for Maggie, but because he had feelings—hateful feelings—for Karen.

“Lill and I put our heads together and realized what’s been happening. Karen confounded Lill to forget certain aspects of the past several days, but because Lill is a confounder, she shook some of it off. We think Karen hit Adi too. Inside the sphere or out of it, we don’t know, but I did see Adi hurt you the time she set the vigil-block. I saw that happen, Zeke, and everyone denied it.”

“I don’t remember that. At all.”

“That doesn’t seem unusual to you? You have an excellent memory.”

“Fuck.” Zeke didn’t want to believe he could have been tricked so easily. Karen had always been slinky and touchy, so her clinging hadn’t been unexpected. But if she could confound, she’d had ample opportunity.

The headaches, the blurry vision, the forgetfulness. He didn’t need any damn bifocals. Horror washed over him as he comprehended the enormity of what Maggie’s information meant.

Why hadn’t he figured out what Karen was doing?

Because she repeatedly confounded him whenever he got suspicious.

“Lill said Karen’s ability explains how she could create so many conduits in Harrisburg,” Maggie continued, watching him with big eyes. “She said you’d understand.”

“I feel like an idiot. Why did nobody make that connection?”

“Because no other confounders use it like she did.”

Zeke stiffened, jerking his hands out of his hair. He still had blanks in his memory, but if the shit was about to hit the fan… “Is that what Adi and the curator wanted to see Karen about? If this is about to blow up in our faces, we need to get the people out of that bunker.”

“No. Not yet, anyway.” Maggie didn’t deny the situation was thorny. “That meeting was sort of fake, so I could get you alone.” She touched his arm. “I had to tell you everything as soon as possible. She’s had the most access to you, and Lill said frequent confounding is unhealthy. I’m—Lill and I are worried about you.”

“All of a sudden, I’m worried about me too,” he joked, though Maggie was being completely serious. The symptoms he’d displayed troubled him. “Why would Karen do this?”

Even as he said it, he knew. If she was willing to confound other alucinators for her own purposes, punished harshly in every echelon of the Somnium, she was willing to do anything.

She wasn’t broken. She wasn’t vulnerable. She was the same crazy, murderous psycho she’d been a year ago. The difference was, she’d found a way to blame other people for her manifestations. She’d found a way to blame Maggie.

A way even a curator believed.

“If Karen’s been confounding people, she’s up to no good. This probably means you’re not responsible for the code ones.” Zeke took Maggie’s hands. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

She shrugged. “You couldn’t help it. She was tinkering with your memories.”

“There is a benefit to this shithole of a situation.” Provided they all survived it. Who knew what Karen’s agenda was this time? “The curator can stick his conduit blindness up his ass.”

“I can’t figure why he’d think I had a disability.” Maggie slid her hands up Zeke’s arms to his neck, catching him in a light embrace. A gust of wind sent a swirl of dust and twigs against the concrete outbunker, and Zeke rotated to the side, protecting Maggie with his body. “He said the wraiths that crowd around me are a sign of conduit blindness.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if Karen was behind that somehow too.”

“And hiding my sig,” Maggie added.

Her touch settled him, lent him clarity. Now that he was thinking straight for the first time in far too long, Zeke’s brain zoomed. Conclusions popped inside him like overinflated balloons. “In Harrisburg, she claimed she could control the wraiths. We thought she was deranged, but maybe not.”

“The wraiths displayed a high density around me as soon as we started training. You should have told me it was out of proportion.”

He didn’t bother denying it. “I didn’t want to pressure you or give anyone some trumped up excuse to send you to the curators.”

Maggie kind of smiled, considering there was a curator here who intended to draft her. “Still. Karen was in a coma until three days ago. I don’t see how she could be responsible for crowds of wraiths all the way in Virginia, not to mention the ones that come after me in the terra firma.”

Materialized wraiths weren’t as insistent on hounding Maggie as dreamsphere wraiths, but in the terra firma, wraiths had definitely shown an interest in his student. His favorite student. Of course, some of the wraiths in the recent code one had also shown an interest in eating human remains, so nothing had been all that normal since—