The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons (38 page)

“Well, now the guy has my head, and he’s shaking it at the lady, still yelling at her. Whoops. A chunk of hair came loose. My head is bouncing down the hill. Guy and lady are chasing it. Hee-hee-hee. OK, that’s really funny in a horrible sort of way. Ah. Good for you, sir. He caught me again, and now he’s taking me back to my body, hauling the ox lady with him. Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

I struggled to get out of the dream, just as I struggled every time. It never did any good. The scene was determined to play out as it first had.

“Did he drop your head again?” Terri asked, her eyes wide.

Panic flooded me. “No, he just . . . Holy shit! I want out of here! Take me out of this dream or whatever it is! Wake me up!”

“Remain calm,” Barbara said in a soothing voice. “The images you see are in the past and cannot harm you now.”

“What’s going on? What did the guy do?” Terri asked.

“I want to wake up! Right now!” I said, clawing the couch to sit up.

“Very well. I’m going to count backward to one, and when I reach that number, you will awaken feeling refreshed and quite serene. Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome back, Corazon.”

“You OK?” Patsy asked as I gasped, my blood all but curdling at the memory of what I’d witnessed.

“Yeah. I think so.”

“What happened at the end?” Terri asked. “You looked scared to death.”

“You’d be scared, too, if you saw a vampire kill someone!”

I sat up in bed, torn from the dream at last, blinking as the dream memory faded and I realized I was safe in my own little apartment, alone, without the green-eyed, dark-haired monster who had killed a woman before my eyes.

I slumped back against the pillow, wondering why I kept dreaming about Patsy’s party and experiencing the awful past-life scene again and again. Why were the dreams increasing in frequency? Why I was doomed to relive the experience over and over again, the sense of dread and horror so great I could taste it on my tongue?

Sleep, I knew from sad experience, would be useless. I got to my feet and headed for the bathroom. I’d brush my teeth to get rid of the taste of my own fear, and go sit with a book until I was too numb with exhaustion to stay awake any longer.

And I’d pray that the green-eyed vampire stayed out of my dreams.

 

IN THE COMPANY OF VAMPIRES, A Dark Ones Novel
CONFESSIONS OF A VAMPIRE’S GIRLFRIEND,
A Dark Ones Novel
LOVE IN THE TIME OF DRAGONS,
A Novel of the Light Dragons
STEAMED, A Steampunk Romance
CROUCHING VAMPIRE, HIDDEN FANG,
A Dark Ones Novel
ZEN AND THE ART OF VAMPIRES, A Dark Ones Novel
ME AND MY SHADOW, A Novel of the Silver Dragons
UP IN SMOKE, A Novel of the Silver Dragons
PLAYING WITH FIRE, A Novel of the Silver Dragons
HOLY SMOKES, An Aisling Grey, Guardian, Novel
LIGHT MY FIRE, An Aisling Grey, Guardian, Novel
FIRE ME UP, An Aisling Grey, Guardian, Novel
YOU SLAY ME, An Aisling Grey, Guardian, Novel
THE LAST OF THE RED-HOT VAMPIRES
EVEN VAMPIRES GET THE BLUES

 

BLOW ME DOWN
HARD DAY’S KNIGHT
THE CORSET DIARIES
MEN IN KILTS