“Come on up.”
Bas didn’t like the feel of the lobby or the mirrored elevator. There was definitely an aura in the place that rubbed him the wrong way. He didn’t know if it had anything to do with the dream monster or not.
“God, I hate fluorescent lighting,” Bridget muttered beside him. “It feels like we are in a hospital.”
“Morgue,” Bas replied, glad he wasn’t the only one the place bothered.
John Beauchamp looked exhausted, with bags under his eyes and a gray pallor to his skin.
“Thanks for coming. Kenna said you were some kind of expert?” he said, letting them into the apartment.
“I am. This is my assistant, Bridget. Can you tell us how long your wife has been unwell?” Bas asked gently.
“The nightmares started about a month ago. I thought she was just working too hard. Her anxiety grew higher the less sleep she got. She was disorientated and restless. Wasn’t eating. Last night, she tried to jump off the balcony, and when I stopped her, she lost consciousness and hasn’t woken up.”
“Did she mention a shadow man at all?” Bridget asked him.
His bloodshot eyes went wide. “Yeah, she did. How did you know?”
Bas didn’t want to tell him that there had been other victims. “Can I see her?”
“Ah, yeah. This way,” John said and showed them into a bedroom. It smelled of unwashed sheets and stale sweat. A woman was in the bed, eyes closed and dark hair spread out in greasy ropes.
“I need to look at the back of her neck, would it be okay to move her on her side?” Bas asked.
“What does her neck have to do with it?” John demanded.
Bridget made a frustrated sound. “Do you want our help or not? Because we are wasting time.”
John seemed to pull himself together, but Bas could tell he didn’t like her tone. He would have waited a bit longer before going in forceful, but Bridget didn’t have his patience.
With John’s help, they rolled his wife onto her side, exposing her neck. A curving red line was like a raised welt, half hidden in her hairline.
“Bridget? Can I get you to hold her steady? John, you need to hold your wife’s feet.”
“Why…” he began and then shut his mouth when Bridget glared at him.
Bas hid his smile. “Bridget, bring me back if I drift too long.”
“How?”
“Use your imagination,” he said. He touched her mind.You can always kiss me.
Because this guy isn’t freaked out enough? If I start kissing you over his comatose wife, he’ll call the cops when I don’t stop.
You’re right. We will do all the kissing later. Just slap me or something instead.
Bad placed his fingers on the welt on the woman’s neck, and the stale room dropped away.
Lily’s mind was a mess of fog and dense black forest. The trees were like twisted fingers, and everything smelled of terror. The shadows between the trees condensed into the shape of a man. It was no man. Bas could feel it like a great kraken of multiple tentacles, all reaching out to another sleeper, feeding off all of them.
“You,” a voice echoed through the trees. “You took my favorite from me. The woman who is a hawk and so very sad.”
“She ismine,” Bas said, his dragon rising so fast he didn’t have to think about shifting.
Like the creature’s true form was a tentacled parasite, Bas’s truest heart was that of a dragon. He was claws and fangs and flame.
“You can’t save them all,” the shadow man hissed.
