The Dream Crafter (31 page)

Easy chatter dominated until they were within a handful of miles. Then it got quieter, and the mercenary came to the fore as Merc readied himself for the next mission. “Amana, you should stay–”

Nope, he wasn’t finishing that sentence. “I’m coming with you. We need to stay together.”

“No, we really don’t.”

Nemesis interjected. “And that statement right there is how you can tell Merc hasn’t had many relationships. You might as well give it up. That face,” she said, pointing to Amana, “Is the face of a woman who will hurt you if she doesn’t go with you.”

“We’ve been over this,” Amana added. “Too many things can go wrong if you leave me somewhere far away with the Guild still after us. If we’re doing this your way, then the one thing I demand is to stay by you.”

Merc’s face was clear in how he really didn’t like this, but it was also clear in how he was resigned to her being right.

The Tower was located near the heart of the city, a section that was a mix of rapid development while still showing signs of the devastation the Great Collision caused. A lot of broken buildings and taped off wreckages still dominated the landscape.

Not many families or upstanding types around, and that made the location perfect for the Blackguard.

Nemesis couldn’t get very close, not with the spies that undoubtedly lurked in the shadows. “You got everything?”

Merc smiled, held out his forearm with a smile, and Nemesis returned both the smile and the gesture, complete affection in both. “We’ll make it.”

“Better. I need some future nieces to spoil.”

Merc graced her with a quelling look and got out of the car, holding his hand out to help Amana.

Nemesis peeled away, leaving them alone, and Merc took Amana’s hand and squeezed. “You’ll listen to me?”

“Yes, master.”

And here his grin turned more naughty than anyone’s ever should if they were going on a life and death mission. “Remember those words for later.”

Amana held Merc’s hand as they made their way through the city, Merc now at full alert and Amana following every silent command he gave.

As they passed an old dilapidated building, a fist punched through the rock and into the middle of Merc’s chest, sending Merc flying into the adjoining wall.

From the crumbling door burst forth the beloved face of her brother, his brown eyes lit from within.

No, not her brother. This was the
berserker
. He was bigger than Nakoa, his face twisted and savage, his eyes unholy in the low light of the street lamps. This was the
thing
everyone so feared when they sent him to jail, the rabid animal many wanted to put down, full of power and destruction.

“Nakoa!” she cried out, anything to get that ferocious focus away from Merc, who was struggling to get up. It didn’t work, as Nakoa headed straight for him in a bull rush, slamming Merc before he had his feet under him into the nearest wall, the combined weight of the two men reverberating through the alleyway.

Merc recovered from the daze and flung out his arm, striking Nakoa across the face. Nakoa absorbed the strike with little effect and brought his head down to hit Merc in the nose, Merc’s head jerking back at the impact against the brick wall.

“Nakoa,
stop!
” There was no time to marvel here was her brother outside prison walls, safe and sound and with her. No, only horror climbed through her body as her brother attacked Merc, driving the mercenary into walls and coating him with his own blood.

Merc was struggling, getting to his feet. From behind her brother, those beautiful hazel eyes cut to her.

And then she understood.

Merc wasn’t fighting…because this was Nakoa. Because it was her beloved baby brother, and he wouldn’t hurt her, not like that.

“No,”
she whispered, not until it hit her ears realizing it was said aloud. And Nakoa got in another strike before Merc could work up a defense, a cry spilling from his lips as Nakoa got him in a kidney punch. Louder now, “Merc, no! Fight
him
.”

Whether he would have or not, it was too late. The berserker had the upper hand, and that black film of magic which had stopped Laire and even managed to get past Fallon’s defenses had no effect on her brother. Nakoa shrugged it off, continued his vicious beating of Merc.

Merc was on the ground, and the berserker glanced her way, its face softening until Nakoa’s eyes once again resided in that face. He left Merc on the ground, long strides reaching her. “Do you have the Spellbook?”

Daydreams of this moment, of the thousand ways they would be reunited, and never had this horror crossed her mind, her Nakoa in front of her, covered in the blood of her beloved, leaving the beaten up body behind him.

Nakoa put his hands on her shoulders. “Amana, it’s okay. It’s me.”

She couldn’t answer, couldn’t comprehend. All in front of her was red and black, liquid pooling around her, lines made from draining life and oncoming death.

No longer waiting for her to answer, Nakoa pulled the bag from her shoulder and opened it. A quick nod when he saw the Spellbook, then he was grabbing her, pulling her away from Merc.

Now she woke up. “NO!
Merc.
”

She turned to the body lying on the ground, but a large arm wrapped around her waist and hoisted her up, and she was screaming, flailing, dragging her nails into the warm tanned skin she so loved to get back to the body on the ground.

She was thrown into the car and it sped off. Unlike that other capture, this time everything she wanted was in front of her – her brother, and freedom, and the promise of them together forever.

And she was selfish, because she swore this was all she ever wanted, that she would never ask for more if this was given to her, but now she was breaking that oath, because she still wanted a life with her brother, still wanted them holding hands and walking on the beach, but now she wanted Merc to be waiting for their return, cooking in the kitchen or painting because he would no longer be the mercenary, though he’d always be deadly.

She’d save her brother, but she wouldn’t sacrifice Merc to do it.

The other Amana was sitting next to her in the backseat of a car, an eerie parallel to their reunion not long ago. “You don’t have to choose. Both are possible, if you listen to me.”

“What would you have me do?”

Her devil smiled.

‡

T
he magic in
his skin was skittering in panic, surging throughout his body to try to deal with the damage.

Merc pushed up, cataloguing the myriad of ways he was fucked. He needed a healer now, but even if going to a hospital meant he’d be imprisoned immediately, he didn’t think he could move that far.

So this is the damage a berserker can do.
Impressive. Unlike anything he’d experienced, even in training. It went beyond mere power. There was an instinctive magic in Amana’s brother, magics that not only negated his own power, but were screwing with it and keeping him from even beginning to recover from the brutal beating.

Shisen would salivate over the possibility of getting his hands on that boy for training, because if this was what he was capable of untrained…

Shadows grew at the entrance to the alley, and four men appeared. Merc’s could pick up slight magic and evil intent. At full power, he’d laugh at these idiots.

He wasn’t at full power.

“Fuck, it
is
Merc. I thought you had to be shitting me, man.”

“Dead or alive, that’s what was put out.” Cruelty and avarice ran through the words. “The Guild always pays up.”

Strategies and ideas ran through his mind at lightning pace, but nothing worked, all of them were discarded, and four men now stood above his broken, bloodied body.

*

“Aren’t you going
to start bragging about knowing how Nemesis was still working with Merc and your idea to feed her information was brilliant?”

“I think I’ll wait until I actually have the Spellbook and not a sleeping berserker rolling around.” Fallon pulled the door of the car open and shook the unconscious Nakoa, who was not moving under the abuse. She tilted her head towards Laire. “Magic in nature?”

Laire came to Nakoa’s side. Keeping her hand three inches above Nakoa’s skin, Laire moved it over the length of his arm and over his head. “It’s not like anything I’ve ever felt. This is the Dream Crafter’s doing.”

Something large flashed in Fallon’s eyes, something worrisome and something feared. “We don’t have time to wait. See if your usual will wake him.”

Laire put her hand on his forehead, and a pulse of light had Nakoa pulling back, his hand coming up to grab at whatever was in front of him, and only Fallon pulling Laire out of the way saved her from Nakoa’s grip.

Nakoa shook his head, coming back to himself. “Where’s Amana?”

Laire’s usual attitude was now twice as strong as she straightened the wrinkles from her baby blue t-shirt and straightened her suspenders. “We were hoping you knew, considering you were supposed to grab her and all.”

“I…” he trailed off, his eyes shifting back and forth, and though reading a book seen only to him. He exited the car, huge and imposing and utterly lost. “I rescued Amana, but she was fighting me so I threw her in the backseat. We’d been travelling a few minutes when I felt her climb over the seat and come in front to me. Then I got sleepy, and that’s the last I remember.”

Laire’s arms crossed over her chest, her head tilting and her eyes doing that blinky thing she did when she was about to call someone out. “Don’t you think it might have been wise to see what she was fighting about?”

“Yeah, I…” It was interesting seeing a huge man cower in front of Laire’s nothingness. “The berserker was in control. It’s hard to think when I’m in that state.”

Fallon clapped her hand on Nakoa’s shoulder, steering him back to the city. “Well Berserker, you better take us back to where you fought Merc. I think that’s where we’ll find your sister.”

‡

S
he ran, grateful
for Merc’s insistence on physical activity, pushing her body to cover the space faster, to get to Merc sooner, to let her be in time and somehow fix everything that happened.

The entrance to the alley, and there were four men, four evil faces laughing down, and a foot kicked out with a solid thud against the prone figure on the ground.

Fucker wasn’t a threat…undeserved rep…piece of shit…

“Merc?” The figures had moved to show the bleeding, wounded man on the ground, gaping wounds and bits of gore and flesh littering the pavement and creating a landscape of pain and death.

The figures moved, she saw it, but she didn’t
see
. Every bit of focus was on the man on the ground, and she stepped forward.

grab the girl…

Words sounded around her, unimportant. All that mattered was the man laid low in front of her, his breathing catching on every inhale, painful sounding, each move a battle with his body to keep it going.

His head turned to her, and he
saw
her, through the pain and his body’s battles. He smiled, and even as that little affection covered his face, the light in his eyes was growing dim, muscles trembling in defeat and beginning to fall in surrender, the hand he tried to hold out to her falling to the ground. Why couldn’t this be a dream, where she could fix him, where he would stand and they would wander down a beach again, both of them barefoot and hand-in-hand.