“Mmmm,” Lara purred, licking her lips. Then those silver eyes, swirling with faint whirls of violet and blue, so easy to stare at, turned to meet my gaze. She wasn’t afraid of my eyes anymore. She’d gazed upon my soul, and I upon hers, and she wasn’t afraid.
For a second, I wondered if I could say the same.
“Delicious little appetizer,” Lara murmured. She took my hand and drew me up from the bed. “But it’s time for the main course.”
—
“This is a dream,” I rasped aloud, and opened my eyes.
I found myself in my chambers in the basement of the castle. There were still a couple of candles burning. I had thrown the covers off me and was covered with sweat and trembling. Mister the cat looked up from the bed I’d made for him halfway up my bookshelf, and blinked his gold-green eyes at me, before arching his back, stretching a little, and settling back down again.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My head was pounding ferociously. My neck ached from collapsing with it at an odd angle on the pillow. I’d drunk too much Scotch, and my burning stomach crept around the inside of my torso as if looking for a way out.
On the low table next to the little couch in my room, there was still a Monopoly game set out. The place where I’d been sitting had very few dollars left next to the empty fifth. The empty spot across from me had most of the money and most of the properties.
No one was there.
“It doesn’t have to be a dream,” said my voice, from the other side of the room.
I twitched and squinted. I stepped out of the shadows. Well. Not me-me. It was that other guy. That other me. He was dressed in black and had a goatee and didn’t have as many scars as I knew I would have if I looked in the mirror. He didn’t look younger. Just infinitely better preserved.
“The hell was in that bottle?” I muttered.
“Veritas, maybe,” said my double. He went across the room and looked down at the Monopoly board, at the little dog and the thimble. “I’ve never understood why you like to be the thimble.”
“It’s useful,” I said. “And it protects.”
The other me snorted quietly.
“We’re going insane, aren’t we?” I asked.
He studied me soberly for a moment and then said, “We’re deciding.” He looked at me and shook his head. “There’s a future out there, you know.”
My heart tried to rip its way out of my chest and crawl over to the Monopoly board. “Fuck the future. I don’t want it.”
“That’s our pain talking,” the other me said.
“Our pain?” I demanded.
“I miss her, too,” he said. “She was a hero. It felt good to have a hero protecting us.”
“Fuck you,” I said in a flat, dead tone.
“Self-pity isn’t going to accomplish anything. For anyone.”
“I’m doing my fucking best. Asshole.”
“You know, you don’t talk like this to anyone else,” the other me pointed out. “Not to Mab. Not to Marcone. You didn’t even talk like this to the ghoul. You’ll curse at them, but you save the real venom for yourself.”
I sat there and thought about that for a moment.
“Just pointing out the obvious,” the other me said. He looked around my room. It was a mess. It was most nights. I would put it back together before I went out to face the day. He nodded toward the Monopoly board and said, “That really isn’t very healthy.”
“Don’t care,” I told him.
“Obviously.” He shook his head. “Look. I know we don’t always see eye to eye when it comes to your moral and ethical limitations.”
I snorted. “You and everyone else.”
