Stormbringer dreamwalker.., p.25
Stormbringer (Dreamwalker Book 1), page 25
Charlie returned some twenty minutes later. My pulse quickened in anticipation as he drew near my cot, but when he crouched down next to me, he smiled and said softly, “He’s on his way.”
I stifled a sob of relief at the news, pressing the heels of my palms over my eyes to keep myself from crying. Micah was okay. He was alive. And he would be here soon.
“I’m going to head up to meet him,” Charlie continued, “so I can escort him down. Is there anything I can grab on the way back?”
I lowered my hands. “No. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you so much.”
He gently squeezed my shoulder. “Anytime. We’ll be back in about half an hour.”
I watched him leave, then settled back into my cot to allow Rita and the Bloodcaster to continue working on me. Rita tended to my hygiene, thoroughly washing my feet and arms and face with the quiet diligence of a nurse. Every now and then, she would sit me up so that I might drink some water and then lay me back down to resume washing. I just about cried when she parked herself behind my cot and, with a basin full of warm water in her lap, began scrubbing my hair and scalp. In the wake of my abduction, that one simple, menial gesture meant more to me than even the wound care.
“Rita,” I murmured, “how have you been these last several years?”
She expertly lathered her way through greasy strands of hair. “Well enough,” she said with a faint smile. “The Lord and Lady have provided for our needs. I can’t complain. But over the years, I’ve noticed more and more of our kin flocking to the cathedral in search of sanctuary. Many of them are fearful and hopeless. They’ve been evicted from their homes, tormented by the CEA, harassed by noncasters… Charlie and I try to provide what small comforts we can, but I worry it’s not enough. Our kindnesses won’t address the conflict in the upper city.” She lifted her gaze skyward, fingers pausing on my scalp. “I’ve lived in this cathedral for years, and while I’m happy to serve those in need, I know we’re addressing a symptom, not a cause. Until something changes upstairs, the Pit will only continue to be inundated with refugees.”
“And the influx will strain resources,” I concluded. “This isn’t a good situation for us.”
“It’ll only get worse.” She started rinsing the suds out of my hair, dumping handfuls of water over the top of my head, and soaking the rest directly in the basin. “Many refugees have already reported an increased CEA presence out on the streets this past week. It’s making a lot of people nervous.”
“They’re looking for me,” I said quietly.
Rita met my eyes. “Have they found you yet?”
“No.”
“Who inflicted your injuries, then?”
“Other casters. A coven, to be precise.”
The Bloodcaster glanced up sharply. She was in the middle of mending my stab wound, knitting the flesh closed after having drawn out the infection. I returned my gaze to Rita, but even she had gone still.
“When Micah gets here, I’ll tell you everything,” I added. “It’s a long story.”
Rita nodded. “I’m almost done here,” she informed me, and once she had finished rinsing my hair, she set aside the basin and dried my head with a towel, gently squeezing out the moisture. The sensation sent more goosebumps racing across my skin.
“Thank you for this, Rita. And to you as well, miss,” I said to the Bloodcaster.
“You’re very welcome,” the Bloodcaster replied. “I need to apply a salve and bandages, and then I should be done.”
So I shut my eyes and forced myself to relax while the Bloodcaster poked around the Dreamblight, applying a cool and unctuous substance to the stab wound. Though she was gentle with her application, the pressure on the blight kept my abdominal muscles tight with tension. I was glad when Rita began combing her fingers through my hair, smoothing down the frizz and disentangling any residual knots. Her touch might’ve lulled me to sleep had I not been so antsy for Charlie’s return.
Nearly half an hour had passed when the Bloodcaster finally considered her work done for the moment. “There’s not much else to do but rest and heal,” she told me before retreating across the infirmary to check on a few other patients. Rita fetched me canned soup from the kitchen, and while the dense, salty broth was a bit hard to stomach, I managed to finish it. I washed it down with water and laid back down at Rita’s insistence, but I couldn’t stop myself from watching the clock across the room, even though the warmth of my blankets exacerbated my fatigue. Charlie was late, and every minute that passed inspired a whole host of imaginary terrors, from car crashes to murders.
Rita came and went, leaving water and snacks at my bedside table. I knew better than to expect her full attention; she was the caretaker for the entire cathedral, after all, and juggled more duties than I could count. Still, part of me craved her motherly mien as a child might crave the protective glow of a night-light. I was desperate for some measure of warmth or familiarity.
So when the infirmary door cracked open and admitted an anxious, denim-clad Micah, the rigid dam on my emotions collapsed, and I broke down in a torrent of tears.
***
Micah crossed the room in several quick strides, dropped onto his knees beside my cot, and took me into his arms. I sobbed into the side of his neck, my tears darkening his denim jacket. He smelled strongly of cigarettes. I felt a pang of remorse on his behalf; he only smoked when he was deeply stressed. But he was here, solid beneath my fingers, warm and steady and sure.
“Are you all right?” he asked me, his voice high and strange. He drew himself back a little so that he could inspect me more closely, his eyes lambent copper in the lamplight.
I nodded, my throat thick with emotion. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, trying desperately to regain my composure. Micah, ever skeptical, examined me more thoroughly, his hands patting lightly down the length of my body.
“When Charlie called,” he said, hauling himself up to sit on the edge of my cot, “I assumed the worst. I thought for sure he was gonna tell me you were dead, that someone finally found your body. I’ve been bracing for that news ever since you vanished from the arena. Everyone kept saying you’d vaporized in the blast.” He stared at me as though trying to convince himself I was real. “And then I got your voicemails.”
“They got through?” I managed to ask.
“Yeah, and they scared us shitless.” Only the barest hint of humor. “Me, Carina, and Gahera…we were scouring the city for any sign of you. We thought maybe you’d escaped to the Pit somehow and simply had no means of contacting us, so we spent a fair bit of time down here. That’s why you couldn’t get through to me. I had no damn service when you called.”
“Did the Bloodcasters find you?”
He shook his head. Pale and weathered, Micah struck a miserable figure, his eyes shadowed, his hair greasy and unkempt. His stubble was darker and fuller than I’d ever seen it. I wondered when he had last showered—when he had last slept.
“No one came for us,” he said.
Had Morys been lying, then? Or had he truly called back his assailants? Either way, I was awash with relief. I wiped my leaking nose on my wrist and sighed.
“Nikkeah,” Micah began carefully, “this Bloodthorn Coven you mentioned…were they the ones who did this to you?”
Again, I nodded, saying, “I want Charlie and Rita to hear this. Are they busy?”
“I’ll go find them.”
He rose, and for a split second, I felt a jolt of panic at our separation, a brief, illogical fear that he might leave and never return. I watched the door intently once he vanished beyond it and only felt at ease when he returned with Charlie, Rita, and even Carina in tow.
“Hey, champ,” Carina greeted me with a solemn smile. “You holding up okay?”
“Better now,” I said, mirroring her expression. “You?”
“Likewise. I’m glad we found you in mostly one piece. That was quite the magic act you pulled off: disappearing into thin air.”
I grimaced. “Believe me, the truth’s going to sound ludicrous.”
“Then shall we discuss it in our room?” Rita suggested.
Micah helped me off the cot and held me steady while we filed out of the infirmary and into another room a few doors down. This was Rita and Charlie’s private quarters, although I knew from experience that Rita kept an open-door policy. It was unlike her to shut out a soul in need.
She closed the door behind us, saying, “Nikkeah, you can have one of the beds if you’d like.”
Packed with cozy clutter, the room was warm and lived-in, with two twin mattresses occupying one corner and a table and chairs wedged in the other; the walls were adorned with shelves and utility hooks for storing all manner of tools and daily supplies, from toiletries to screwdrivers. Squat bookshelves housed secondhand books, candles, and thrift store antiques. Stacks of blankets towered in baskets. Papering each bare patch of wall were drawings in crayon and marker, as well as photographs depicting younger versions of Rita and Charlie posing alongside dozens of unfamiliar faces.
I turned in a slow circle, marveling at it all. I’d always considered life in the Pit to be a temporary arrangement, a judgment-free zone for casters needing a safe haven to get back on their feet. But this room had all the earmarks of a permanent residence. I’ve lived in this cathedral for years, Rita had told me. Did she have any intention of getting out?
Micah eased me down on the end of one mattress, which rested atop a foundation of cinder blocks, and then plopped himself down on a footstool beside me. Rita settled in an old armchair jammed in a corner while Charlie and Carina pulled up the dining chairs.
“Start from the beginning,” Micah instructed me.
And so I began with Reva de Antolia, the Rock Candy, and the ambush at the gala. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carina nodding gravely, surely recognizing similarities between my experience and Lidia’s. Rita and Charlie did not seem at all surprised by my mention of the Rock Candy, however.
“It’s been circulating in the Pit for at least several years now,” Charlie informed me. “But we didn’t know where it was coming from until about a year ago when the Dread Initiative started recruiting in force. They’re marketing it as the ultimate weapon to use against mundanes.”
I felt Rowan’s loss acutely, a hollow in my chest, a gunshot wound. What I did, I did for you. For us.
I pushed the memories away. “You know about the Dread Initiative?” I asked.
“They congregate in the Strip, mostly,” Charlie explained. “But they’ve slapped posters and propaganda everywhere. ‘Restrain the mundane’ or ‘Cast off the shackles.’ Things like that. They’ve come to the cathedral before to play the religious angle, but when we didn’t give them the reaction they wanted, they left and never came back.”
“Well, they were the ones who drugged and abducted me,” I said, “but I need to back up first.”
I regaled them next with the story of the Invocation: my struggle with the Rock Candy, the death of Lidia, and the subsequent fight with Reva de Antolia, culminating in the micro-storm that wrecked the stadium and threw me into the Echoes. Expressions across the room sharpened with fascination and disbelief.
“The Echoes,” Micah repeated skeptically. “Are you sure it wasn’t a hallucination or something? Maybe the steroid screwed with your perception?”
“I’m sure,” I said, cupping my hands around a point in the air. “I can prove it.”
The moment I began channeling my magic, Micah snatched my wrist and halted my progress. “Don’t. I believe you. So…what happened once you were in there?”
“I stumbled around for a while, trying to make sense of things,” I answered, resting my hands in my lap. “I thought I was dead or dreaming. There’s no color in the Echoes. It’s weird. Everything looks like an old film or an ink painting. I only saw violet when I was set upon by these shadowy entities called Shades. That’s what my rescuer called them, anyway.”
Micah’s eyebrows shot upward. “Your rescuer?”
“A Dreamer found me in there. Vision, they said their name was. They helped me escape the Shades and the Echoes.”
“Vision,” Rita murmured. “We know of him.”
Charlie elaborated, “He’s a sort of…fortune teller, I suppose. A seer. Makes his living providing various services to the locals.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Readings, mostly. Except he doesn’t need divination cards to do them. He just dreams. Apparently, he can access a whole host of information that way. People swear by him.”
“I’m not surprised. I would’ve been screwed without his help,” I said. “He told me I could get out of the Echoes by creating another rift, so that’s what I did. I’d been looking for your car, Micah, so I landed in the garage. By that point, though, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t even get up. That’s when Millan and his mentor found me.”
“Millan?” Carina and Micah echoed the name in unison.
So I told them everything about my time with Bloodthorn Coven, from my first memories of the medical room to Jacovaea’s arrival. I sensed the slow burn simmering in Micah, a righteous indignation that erupted at mention of my torture.
“He experimented on you?” he snapped.
I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what Morys was trying to get out of me. He said that sword would help me ‘control’ my magic, but I couldn’t even tell you what happened when he stabbed me with it. I remember a lot of pain, a lot of power…but after that, nothing. I woke up in some strange, abandoned house on the other side of the Pit.”
“And you don’t remember how you got there?” Carina wondered.
“No. It was like…one moment, I was chained up; the next, I was waking up in a dusty library. I’d never seen the house before. It looked like it could’ve been a small estate over a century ago, back when it was on the surface. If someone brought me there, they were long gone. I didn’t know where else to go, so I came to the cathedral.”
Micah shot to his feet and began to pace the small room. Carina’s eyes followed him for a moment and then settled back on me. “You know, champ, I figured you’d been through hell these past couple weeks, but never in a million years would I have expected any of this.”
Her words gave me pause. “Couple weeks?” I repeated uneasily. “That's how long I've been missing?”
“It’s been two weeks since the Invocation. Winter solstice is around the corner.”
That was certainly disconcerting. I had assumed I had spent about a week in Bloodthorn’s custody. My sense of time had been thoroughly mangled, it seemed.
“The CEA is out in force,” Carina continued after a moment. “Most people think you died, but until your body is found, you’re still a wanted caster. Navigating the upper city is going to be a challenge for you—for all of us. Micah and I have already been interrogated, as well as your sister, but it’s extremely likely we’re all still under surveillance.”
“Gahera,” I said. “Where is she?”
“At home,” Micah answered from across the room. He had stopped pacing. “She’s been spending a lot of time scouring resources at the Leo-Nostriano.”
“Had a lot of helpful information to offer, too,” said Carina. Then, with a glance over her shoulder at Micah, she added, “Think we can smuggle Nikkeah up to your place for a night or so?”
Micah did not look particularly confident when he said, “We can give it a shot.”
“At least you have tinted windows.” Carina returned her attention to me. “We’ll have you stay at Micah’s for now, but I think we ought to consider a more permanent arrangement—one that keeps you out of the CEA’s line of sight.”
“You’ll always be welcome here, dear,” Rita spoke up.
I smiled faintly. “Thank you.”
“It’s a good idea, but it won’t protect him from the Dread Coven,” Micah argued. “Sounds like they want him bad.”
“At least Dread doesn’t want to kill me,” I pointed out. “Or strip my magic. It might be easier to deal with them than the CEA.”
“He has a point,” Carina agreed grimly. “Until we figure out a long-term plan, our priority needs to be keeping him alive. For now, though, let’s get him topside. He needs time to recover, and Gahera’s eager to see him.”
Micah strode forward, offering his hand first to Charlie and then to Rita. “Thank you for taking care of him,” he said to them. “If there’s anything I can do for you or your people, let me know.”
Rita dismissed the matter with a wave of her hand. “Attend to Nikkeah. That’s all we need right now. Charlie and I will keep an eye on things down here in the meantime.”
I peeled myself off the bed and leaned down to embrace Rita. Her musk perfume rose up to greet me. “Thank you for all your help,” I murmured into her ear.
She patted me fondly on the back. “Be gentle with yourself, sweetling. We’ll be here when you need us.”
I shook hands with Charlie, who offered me a pair of his own sneakers for the trek back up to the surface. “They’re a bit worn, but they should do the job,” he said, watching me slip my bare feet into them. He and Rita then escorted us to the cathedral doors, where I cast a lingering look up at the room I used to share with Rowan.
I’ll be back, I promised silently.
And we ventured, the three of us, into the dark.
25
REST
The journey to the surface was just as taxing as it had been from the old manse to the cathedral. I walked between Micah and Carina, leading them through the back alleys so that we might evade recognition from the Pit’s more perceptive denizens. Micah’s grip on my shoulder was steadfast the whole way up; his quick reflexes kept me from slipping and falling on some of the more treacherous terrain.
