Thrall (19 page)

“You will address me with respect,” he said mildly.

The door opened and Dad entered, carrying our lunch. It took him all of two seconds to take in the scene.

“The hell I will,” I growled at the stranger. He lifted his hand to strike me a second time. Dad caught his wrist before he made contact. The stranger turned on Dad, outraged.

“You brought me here to train her,” the stranger said. “Let me do my work.”

I looked at Dad, horrified.

Hale burst through our front door. He stopped when he spotted the stranger pulling his hand free of Dad’s grip. Hale’s eyes darted to my face and he frowned. “Thane. I asked you to wait for us.”

“Why didn’t you tell me he’d arrived?” Dad asked in a tight voice.

“Gretchen picked him up from the airport fifteen minutes ago,” Hale said.

Dad brushed my cheek with his fingers. “He hit you?” His voice was quiet, but an undercurrent of rage ran through it.

“You’ve coddled her for long enough,” Thane said. “Do you want her prepared to face what’s coming or don’t you?” Dad turned on Thane, fist balled to strike. Hale threw himself between the men.

“We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here,” Hale said. “But Thane is right about one thing, Murphy. Someone has to help Braedyn prepare.” Hale turned on Thane, his jaw tight with anger. “And I don’t care how you’ve done things in the past. You lift a finger against the girl again, you’ll answer to me.”

Thane’s eyes flicked from me to Hale. He didn’t look pleased. With obvious effort, Dad stepped away from Thane.

“Maybe we’d all better sit down,” Hale said. He faced Dad, grim. “Thane’s brought some news you need to hear.”

Ten minutes later we were seated around the coffee table in the living room.

“So? What news?” Dad asked Thane, hostility thick in his voice. Thane glanced at me, hesitating.

“She’s part of this unit,” Hale said. “She needs to know.”

Thane frowned. “Last summer, a Lilitu killed one of the Three.” Thane said this with almost no emotion. A thick silence descended. Dad and Hale stared at Thane.

“One of the three what?” I asked numbly. No one answered me. “Are you...?” I stared at Thane. “Are you saying the angels are real?”

Thane’s eyes flicked over to me. Hale put a hand on my shoulder. When I looked at Hale, he nodded, his eyes shining with grief.

“Which... which one was killed?” Dad asked, shaken.

Thane’s eyes cut to the choker around my neck. “Semangelof,” he said.

“It was Ais,” Dad said. “Braedyn says she plans to break through the Wall at Winter Solstice.”

Thane nodded. “Semangelof’s death will have weakened it substantially. The tomes are unclear on a lot of this, but my research seems to indicate a strong Lilitu might be able to create a hole in the Wall the night of Winter Solstice - a hole big enough to bring a new army through.”

“If we’re looking at another major battle with the Lilitu...” Hale glanced at Dad, unsettled. “We’re not ready.”

The room grew quiet. I looked around. “Who is Ais?”

Thane answered me. “One of Lilith’s first daughters. An Ancient One. Powerful. It’s rumored that she can read the conscious mind.”

“We have to find her and stop her before she acts,” Hale added. “It’s the only way to preserve the integrity of the Wall.”

“Agreed,” Dad said.

Hale turned to me. “You need to start training with Thane tonight.”

“This is a bad idea,” Dad said. He glanced at Thane. “How do we know he won’t do more harm than good?”

“We’re out of time, Murphy,” Hale answered. “You know the longer we wait, the stronger Ais is getting.”

“I’m not comfortable with this.”

“Braedyn may be the only one who can find Ais in time to make a difference,” Hale said. “And Thane is the only one of us who can teach her. We have just over a month left before Winter Solstice.”

“You know what happened with Karayan,” Dad said. Thane made a sound and dad turned on him. “You treated her like a loaded weapon from day one.”

“I made sure she knew what she was, and why we needed her.”

“She was a child, Thane. She needed a father, not a drill sergeant.”

“I raised Karayan honestly,” Thane snapped. “She never had any illusions about her destiny.”

“And I’m sure that had nothing to do with why she ran away.” Dad’s voice was dry.

“Don’t congratulate yourself too soon,” Thane snarled. “This one obeys you now, but how long do you think it will last? One year? Five?”

“Go home, Thane.” Hale looked tired. Thane opened his mouth to add something but Hale didn’t give him the chance. “Now.” Thane stood and walked out of the house. “Let him cool off,” Hale said, turning back to Dad. “I hadn’t realized how deeply his failure haunts him.” He was silent for a moment. “But she is going to have to study with him.” Dad didn’t answer.

“I don’t know the first thing about any of this stuff,” I said. “How am I going to learn anything useful in a month?”

“Remember,” Hale said gently. “You were born to do this. No one had to teach you how to breathe, right? It should be the same with dreaming. When it’s time, your instinct should take over.”

“Instinct.” My doubt must have shown on my face.

“When you fell into the dream just a few nights ago,” Hale said. “Did anyone teach you how to do that?” I shook my head. “You see?” he said.

“Maybe you should start at the beginning,” I said. “Pretend I don’t know anything.”

Hale nodded. “We’re all connected. Most of us are never consciously aware of it, but as long as we are living, we share the same dream space. It’s what the psychologist Carl Jung called the Collective Unconscious. Most people dream in little pockets of constructed reality within this larger dream world. If you can break free of your own dream, you have access to the unconscious minds of all of humankind. Humankind and beyond.”

I met his eyes, uneasy. “And you think I’ll be able to break free of my own dream?”

“You’re a Lilitu,” he said in answer. “With practice, you won’t even need to fall asleep to access the dream world. For now, you should focus on the basics: learning how to escape your own dream, learning how to locate someone else’s dream, communicating with a dreamer. I’ll make Thane explain how he senses the connections between Lilitu and their victims, but we can deal with most of the advanced stuff later.”

“Advanced stuff... like what?”

“We’re a little sketchy on the details,” Hale said. “But some Lilitu powers extend beyond the dream. For example, we know that Lilitu can influence people’s thoughts. They also seem able to predispose people to make certain decisions or take certain actions. Which brings us to the other side of the equation. All of these things take energy.” Dad and Hale exchanged a look. An uneasy feeling pooled in my stomach.

“What kind of energy?” I asked. There was an awkward pause.

“I can handle this,” Hale said, turning to Dad. “It might be easier for you both if I do it.” Dad looked at me, clearly uncomfortable.

“This is The Talk, isn’t it?” I asked. Dad let out a long breath and nodded. I glanced at Hale. We’d been training together in his basement for weeks now, and he’d proven to be a patient, compassionate teacher. I nodded assent.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Dad said. “But if you have any questions...”

“I know, Dad.” Dad turned and walked into the kitchen. I stared at my hands.

“This energy,” Hale said. “It’s a spiritual energy, and it’s very powerful. It can aid Lilitu with healing, replacing the need for sleep, and other things we barely understand.”

“Am I immortal?” I asked quietly.

“We think so. Provided you take care of yourself. As your powers get stronger, they’ll drain more and more of this spiritual energy from you. You’ll need to replenish that energy somehow.”

“When you say ‘replenish...?’” I felt my cheeks grow warm with embarrassment. “Lucas... he called Lilitu soul-suckers.” I looked up at Hale, sick. “Is that what you mean?”

Hale took my hand in his. “No. What Lucas was talking about, that only happens when a Lilitu attacks someone in the physical world. Most Lilitu replenish this energy by visiting human men in their dreams.”

My face was burning. “And if I don’t replenish it?”

Hale leaned back, releasing my hand. “If you don’t replenish this energy, your Lilitu powers will weaken you and – eventually – kill you. We don’t know much about this, but a while back the Guard captured and held a Lilitu who... starved herself to death this way. She grew more and more exhausted. She slept longer, but woke up just as tired as she’d been when she went to sleep. In a few weeks, her body was twisted with pain and weakness. She ate everything we gave her, ate herself sick, but she never felt full. The soldiers who were there said it was like watching someone starving to death, only it was her spirit that withered away to nothing.” Hale met my eyes, worried. “I think that’s why you slept through the entire weekend. You used
the call
for the first time, and followed that by leaping straight into a dream from full consciousness.”

I stared at Hale, struggling under an avalanche of new questions.

“We need you to learn, Braedyn,” Hale said quietly. “If we can’t find a way to stop Ais, we will lose the war. We will lose the earth.”

“What about the Guard?” I asked.

“I hate to disappoint you, but what exists now is just a scattered remnant of the force we used to be. There are maybe a hundred Guardsmen left in the world, but we’ve only managed to make contact with two other groups. An army of Lilitu could hunt us down easily and there would be no one left with the knowledge of how to fight them.” Hale looked me directly in the eye, unflinching. “I’m asking you to take care of yourself. We can see to your physical needs, but only you can feed the Lilitu part of yourself.”

I looked away from Hale, light-headed.

“One last caveat.” Hale dropped his eyes, equally uncomfortable. “Please stay away from Guard members. We don’t want to risk... You’ll be around us all a lot. So.” He cleared his throat. “It would be best if you sought out some other young men to visit in your dreams.” He couldn’t have been clearer if he’d just said
stay away from Lucas.

“I... I’ve never even gone on a real date,” I said.

“I’m not talking about romance, Braedyn.”

“I am. You wanted Murphy to raise me like a human girl. Congratulations, he succeeded. It’s a little too late to decide you want me to act like a demon.”

Hale stared at me, startled. “We’re not asking you to... Even a simple kiss could replenish your energy.”

“There’s nothing simple about a kiss,” I said.

“Maybe this can wait a little while,” Hale said, unhappy. “It’s not like you’re going to be folding space anytime soon.”

“Folding space...?”

“It’s... not something you have to worry about.” But when he saw my confusion, Hale explained. “There have been rumors for centuries that some of the most powerful Lilitu can use the dream world to make a hole from one physical place to another, in effect folding space. It was one theory to explain how some of the Lilitu were able to get here after the Wall was built. But we have no proof this is possible.”

I considered this, intrigued. Finally, someone mentioned a Lilitu power that had nothing to do with hurting people.

“The truth is,” Hale continued, “there’s very little we actually know about them, other than that they’re weakest at dawn, strongest at dusk, and vulnerable to our daggers.” He smiled ruefully. “I’m learning new things about Lilitu every day.” It sounded like an apology. “All right. This has turned into a regular lesson, hasn’t it? And what’s a lesson without homework? Your first assignment is to find me in a dream, and tell me something I don’t know about you.”

“Something you don’t know about me? You mean, like...?” I started.

He cut me off. “Save it for the dream. Just ask me to remember whatever it is you tell me. Sound simple enough?”

Simple, right. I just had to figure out how to get myself into a lucid dream, search the vast dream world for Hale, tell him some secret about myself, and make sure he remembered what I told him. “Sure.”

Hale stood. “We’re going to do everything we can to help you,” he said. I nodded, and Hale walked out the front door, closing it gently behind him. My head was churning through everything I had just learned. I wandered into the kitchen and found Dad pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Coffee? Isn’t it kind of late for that?” I asked.

“This is your first attempt at lucid dreaming,” Dad said. Which meant he’d been listening to our conversation. “I figured, maybe you’d want your dad there, you know, for moral support.”

I nodded, moved. “What if I can’t do it?”

“Then we’ll try again tomorrow.” He stood, steaming coffee in hand. “You ready to give it a shot?” I felt a nervous jitter in my stomach. Time to see what this dream thing was all about.