Smokeless Fire (10 page)

The tingling started in her feet now.

Her heart began banging in her chest.

Cold sweat broke out under her arms.

What the hell was going on with her? Was this some kind of food poisoning? That chicken at lunch
had
looked a little pink in a certain light.

As the pain grew steadily worse, Ari knew she needed to wake Charlie up. Something was seriously wrong with her. Holding in her panic, she reached over to shake him awake and bit back a scream.

Her hand.

Her hand was gone!

Ari watched in horror as the limb began to disappear, like some invisible mouse had come along and was
Photoshopping
her body out of the picture.

The organ in her chest slammed so hard and so fast Ari was sure it was going to explode. “Charlie,” she squeaked as the fading began to accelerate around her body. “Char—”

Her body was
no longer cushioned against the soft comforter and mattress on her bed. Cold seeped into her bones, blanketed by a hard surface that may as well have been a slab of Antarctic ice.

Had she fallen out of bed?

A sharp memory of her limbs disappearing before her very eyes sliced across her closed eyelids and Ari lifted an arm, patting her chest where her heart still raced.

It had been a dream.

Just a dream.

Thank the ever loving gods.

Groaning, Ari shifted her head and her neck complained with a crick, her hair sliding across a slippery surface.

What the…?

OK. I am definitely not in my bed.

Afraid to open her eyes, Ari took a minute, breathing slowly in and out, trying to calm her heartbeat, a heartbeat that was racing so hard she was close to throwing up. Another shock of icy chill slithered up and along her body from the floor. Ari’s eyes popped open.

Her chest instantly tightened, feeling the familiar symptoms of an oncoming panic attack. Letting go of a shaky breath, Ari pushed herself up, glancing down at the cold mirrored floor beneath her. Her shadowy reflection, mottled by the artistic bubbling of the mirror, flickered back at her like a stranger waving a friendly hello. Patting herself down as she drew to her feet, ignoring the bout of dizziness determined to lay her flat out back on the floor, Ari realized she was still wearing the same clothes she had been wearing at the party. Raising her head, her eyes took in her alien surroundings and she shook it, trying to rationalize, trying to stay calm. She was dreaming. Clearly she was dreaming.

She pinched herself and winced in pain.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” she whispered, her eyes catching on the stone walls that glittered and sparkled in the romantic candlelight. She peered closer, realizing the twinkling flash of color here and there could be attributed to the small precious stones inset into the stone walls. They looked like emeralds. “I’m just dreaming.” She nodded. “People have really vivid dreams like this. I’ve read about it. Maybe someone spiked my drink at the party and I’m on some kind of ‘trip’.” She exhaled heavily, glancing over the huge four poster bed with its billowing silk canopy made up of entirely fire colors. There was no comforter on the bed, which surprised her considering how cold the air in here was, but there was a decorative velvet blanket placed perfectly across the bottom of it, and millions of jewel-toned silk cushions scattered all over. The bed was the only splash of color in the entire place. The sparse furniture was as chilly as the atmosphere, cut and shaped from what looked like glass. “Must have been some drug,” she murmured, confused by the lack of electricity in the room. There wasn’t even a light switch.

So… what did one do on a drug trip? She glanced around. There was no one else here to entertain her. No TV, no laptop, no mus—

Oh.

A purple vase on the nightstand drew her attention. Heat seemed to radiate from it, making the vase appear as if it were pulsing with life. Intrigued, Ari moved tentatively towards it, her bare feet freezing on the mirrored floor. As she moved, the air cut around her and this musky, exotic scent tickled her olfactory senses, the floral headiness of it somehow familiar. It smelled like jasmine.

So she was dreaming in 3D IMAX with a scratch & sniff on the complimentary 3D glasses. Didn’t mean anything. “This is just a dream,” she whispered, reaching a hand out to the vase, sighing at the rush of heat that clambered happily up her arm when she placed her fingertips against the thick glass. Ari squinted. It really was unlike any vase she’d ever seen before. It was solid purple in color with a round fat bottom and a long thin flute of a neck. It reminded her of a genie’s bottle.

Genie.

“No.” Ari shook her head, stepping back. Creepy genie guy didn’t do this. It was a dream. Just a dream. In fact she was probably dreaming about this crap
because
of creepy genie guy. Rachel was going to pay for that little surprise. A gimmick genie at an eighteenth birthday party… what had she been thinking? And not just any genie. Hot genie. With evil, soulless eyes. Rachel was such a pa—

What was that?

Ari pricked her ears, straining to hear it again.

There it is!

Heart pounding, she turned, almost slipping on the floor in her hurry to follow the sound of voices. Voices calling in the distance. Ari shot off across the room towards a door buried deep in the shadows. Wooden and medieval in appearance, Ari wondered what the hell she had been watching or reading in the last few days to make her dream this stuff up. Grasping the iron handle that looked more like a door knocker than a knob, Ari pulled the wooden door inwards and gasped at the blast of cold air that sliced across her skin.

Her chest tightened. “OK. That was pretty real for a dream.”

Eyes watering from the sudden rush of oxygen, Ari blinked and tentatively stepped outside. Her feet were beginning to feel stiff and numb from the cold and the black flagstones beneath them weren’t helping wake them up. As her eyes stopped tearing, they took in the long stretch of flagstones before her. She was on some kind of huge balcony. The roof arched above her in stunning architecture, swirls and patterns carved into the stone, almost Middle Eastern in appearance. The roof curved down to a halt on her right side, held up by carved columns interspersed evenly along a waist high wall. Ari’s eyes drank in the colorful mosaic on the inside of the wall, mosaics depicting people and acts, almost like a story being told. It was like those ancient architectural reliefs her history teacher was always going on about. She followed the picture of a man on fire as his head reached the top of the wall and her eyes automatically looked out and over.

“Holy macaroons…” she gasped, stepping forward unconsciously. Beyond her perch in the balcony of this insanely amazing building, Ari took in the towering stone mountains that surrounded her, mountains that winked green under a winter sun. She squinted, trying to work out the flash and spark and realized the mountains were made out of the same stone and green gems as the walls of the room she’d been in. “Amazing.” Built into the mountains were elaborate homes that reminded Ari of the pictures she’d seen of Morocco, architecture that favored curves and color and arabesques. The homes grew steadily more modest the further they were located down a spiral into a valley hidden by a sea of foggy clouds. Ari’s eyes widened as she saw people in the distance, walking casually along rough-hewn paths teetering on the edges of the mountains. Just the thought of traversing those roads terrified the bejesus out of her. The voices she heard appeared to have been these colorful figures, who strolled back and forth, descending up and out of the fog in brightly colored, loose fitting robes and pants.
In this weather?
She shivered again, rubbing the goosebumps from her arms. These people were crazy.

They’re not real, Ari. Figment meet Imagination.

“Right,” she breathed. “
I’m
crazy.”

Just a dream
.

Ari’s whole body froze; her muscles tensed, her shoulders hunched to her ears, her ears pricked up, her heartbeat did its best to drown out her hearing by rushing her blood around her body super-fast. It was the kind of reaction someone might have to the sound of a thief breaking into their house at night.
Ari
was reacting to the low, deadly growl that rumbled from somewhere over her shoulder. She gulped.
Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream
. Slowly, hands trembling, Ari turned, placing one foot carefully after the other. Her eyes widened as she turned full circle and faced…

“Holy mother of crap.”

…the thing before her…
oh god, oh god, what is it, what is it?

The growling grew deeper and louder as she began backing away slowly towards the room she had just come out of and she felt the bile rise as the thing took an awkward unbalanced step towards her.

You are so seriously messed up if you can dream this kind of stuff up, Ari!

The monster – for that’s what it was – snarled. As far as Ari could tell its mulch-shaped head was really only half of a face. It had one eye, dark and lidless with thick, pulsing red veins flowing out from under its mud-colored skin, skin that crinkled like paper when it moved. It had no nose cartilage, no bone structure, just a hole in the middle of its… face?... that grew bigger and then smaller as it breathed its fury at her presence. As for the thing’s mouth…

“Just a dream, just a dream,” Ari chanted, backing all the way into the room now, her knees dying to buckle in terror as it followed her predatorily, saliva dripping between its black gums and razor-sharp teeth. The ugly horror of the creature was only increased by its lack of a left arm and lack of a right leg. Its twisted malformed body slithered towards her, somehow balanced despite its deformities. Its long, blackened claws clacked and scraped harshly in a high whine against the mirrored floors as it continued to back her into a corner.

Feeling faint and nauseous Ari stopped, struggling to draw breath.

“It isn’t real.” She shook her head, trying to still her body. “It’s OK.” She exhaled, opening her eyes to stare the creature down. “Just let it happen. It’ll attack and you’ll wake up. That’s what happens in dre—” She cut off into a silent scream as the monster launched into the air towards her, its mouth open wide. Ari threw her hands up to cover her face, closing her eyes tight and waiting for her subconscious to rip her out of the nightmare. Instead she felt the impact of it hit, her body slamming to the floor with a painful thud that knocked the breath right out of her, her head smacking against the mirrored floor in eye-watering pain. A sharp streak of light shot across her eyes and then she felt wet heat clampdown on her forearm.

Agony ricocheted through her whole system as the monster’s teeth tore through her flesh. She screamed, her eyes rolling back in her head as a wave of nausea swept over her.

“Vadit. Heel,” a deep, male voice commanded quietly and Ari felt the heat of the monster disappear. Air flowed across her wounds agitating the pain, and she felt the warm blood slip down her arm at too fast a current.

“It’s not real,” she whispered, tears leaking out from her closed eyes.
It’s too real
, she shook, gulping back panic, her body starting to shudder with the shock. Her chest tightened as her heart raced too fast and she felt her brain grow fuzzy, like there was too much crammed inside it.
I’m going to die, I’m going to die.
She struggled to draw breath as the panic attack took control.

“Ari,” a hard voice whispered in her ear and she felt the heat of someone bending over her. “Child, open your eyes.”

Dad?
The thought of the familiar, of having someone here on her side in a dream world she couldn’t awaken from, eased the tightness in her chest and her heart began to slow. Despite her pain, the overwhelming belief that she was going to die dissipated and she pried her eyes open. “D-d-d-dad?” she stammered through the shock.

But it wasn’t Derek who knelt beside her in dark trousers hand-sewn to his body, his muscled chest bare beneath his rich voluminous robes. The man was huge, perhaps in his mid-thirties, his dark face chiseled hard as if from stone. Ari’s heart clenched at the sight of this mammoth man and not because he was a stranger but because of his bleak black eyes that blazed down on her without feeling.

They were empty.

“Yes,” he whispered, stroking her hair back from her face, seeming oblivious to the fact that she was in agony and bleeding all over the place. “Child. It is your father.”

Ari’s heart stopped. “M-my w-w-w-what?”

Slowly her thoughts
swam up out of the murky waters they’d been drowning in and Ari gulped, drinking in the air of consciousness. It took her a minute to remember the dream. The nightmare. The pain.

She groaned, feeling achy all over.

And then her body caught up with her mind.

The floor was still cold and hard beneath her body, except from her shoulders that seemed encased in inexplicable warmth. When she gasped at the feel of wet licks across her forearm, she gulped down the overwhelming scent of spices and jasmine.