We are a lesser evil.Nice of them to admit it out loud, but still.
The whole thing was ridiculous, especially the idea that she wouldn’t trust her own senses.Sure, they could have drugged her—but what drug in existence would give herpreciselythat kind of hallucination without any other side effects?
The portion of her psych degree spent going over pharmacology was coming in handy now.Even recreational substance use in college could have given her a clue.Unfortunately, though, paralegal experience only worked when there was a court willing to take on a malefactor or two.
Liv had also spent some time listing, in two columns,what if it’s trueandwhat if it’s not.The implications of either were unpleasant, but honestly… it didn’t make sense for them to spend all this time or effort, not to mention cash, if all they wanted was a pliant captive for rape or control.
The biggest weight on the scale was, of course, the dreams.
Liv moved restlessly again, punching a pillow—allergy-free down substitute, or so the tags said—into submission and wishing she could slide a bare foot from the blankets’ stifling embrace.It was the only way to cool off properly, but the strange, childlike idea that there might be something waiting in the darkness to close cold bony fingers over her ankle was too strong to permit risking the maneuver.
It didn’t help that she sensed one or another of the guys outside the suite’s door.They probably slept in shifts.Monster hunters needed rest, too.
Take a deep breath.Think this through.
If it weren’t for her vivid nightmares, the goddamn constant ever-loving dreams, she’d be able to chalk all this up to kidnapping with an as-yet-unknown endgame, and be on her guard.
But Erikknew.She had never, ever described the nightmare about the yellow door to anyone, not even her mother.
Liv winced.Thinking about Mom was not good this late at night.Or early in the morning, whatever.Even Mika only knew Liv’s dad had gone in a car accident and her mother had passed some time afterward, not… the rest.
Unless the fellow came in through the chimney, the detective had said, and Liv wanted to scream.It would probably be intensely therapeutic to wail into the pillows, except one of the men might knock at the door and want to know if she was that most absurd of things,all right.
Nothing was going to be all right ever again.
She turned again, this time onto her back, arms and legs starfish-spread.It was a nice bed, the kind you could eat breakfast in before reading a transcript on a lazy weekend morning.Plenty of room, and the mattress, like Baby Bear’s, was just right.Plus her eyelids were so heavy.
Oh, the dreams.They showed her terrible things, and part of the reason she’d chosen a psych degree was to figure out why nightmares and déjà vu mixed so frequently inside her head.A few times the terrible thingshadactually happened, and the swimming feeling that she’d seen it all before was enough to make her doubt her own sanity.
Finding out she perhaps hadn’t been at the mercy of faltering neurons wasn’t even remotely comforting.
A sudden swift falling sensation swallowed her, and she jolted back into wakefulness.That was the thing about dreams—youhadto rest or go insane, and the evanescent bastards lay in wait just beyond the door of conscious thought, grinning with stained, blood-grimed teeth.
Sleep-deprivation psychosis was looking more and more appealing all the time.
The Mad God, they said.A nonsense word, because we don’t mentionhisname.Funny, when they talked about the guy, the stress onheorhimmade it perfectly clear who they meant—and wasn’t that thought-provoking too, that super-fast, super-strong monster hunters had something they wouldn’t even name?
Yeah.It provoked a whole lot of thoughts, not to mention feelings.
The first few faint tinges of grey were blooming at the window’s edges when she finally dropped off, curled on her side, her breathing deepening.After a long motionless time, her eyelids began to flutter, and her lips twitched.
She dreamed of a dark well, curved cyclopean stone blocks fitted together without mortar, a vaulted ceiling receding as she fell into a dark throat.Strange variegated fire coruscated in rainbow ropes up the sides, and she knew, with the sudden startled certainty of dreams, that it would hurt very much when it touched her—ifit reached her before she hit the bottom of the well, ramming against stone flooring with the force of an exploding star.
Daylight strengthened; a faint, formless mutter slipped from Liv’s lips, and she drifted deeper into slumber.
Safe Than Sorry
The salle—oncea small refectory—was long and high, its walls pierced by high narrow windows, soupy winter sunshine highlighting golden motes of falling dust.A stone floor had been washed almost daily for years, but nothing could remove the faint odor of institutional cooking and the sharpish odor of men crammed shoulder to shoulder on hard wooden benches, hunched over their bowls.
Racks of weapons stood at prescribed distances—but nothing modern.The salle was where a Son trained with edge, bludgeon, and chain, not with bullet or bolt.
“Good night?”Erik held the satin-polished iron bar level, his back straight, and waited for his Younger to inevitably lose patience.
“Exciting.”Jake’s hair glowed under buzzing fluorescents and thin grey winter sunlight.His eyes hooded as he moved in, stave blurring and bending fractionally as both velocity and gravity clawed at its length.
The noise was immediate smithy-clattering slipslither music punctuated by soft exhales when a blow landed exactly as planned.Erik played it safe, holding defense against Jake’s battering.Younger Sons often had an edge in speed, but as Father said, age and treachery were more than enough to meet youth and skill.
“Everyone wants a piece,” Jake continued, backing up a few steps and regarding him.“We were on the jump all night long.Here?”
