Chapter 43 — Watchers

  “Are you okay?” Lana asked. She sat upright in the bed on her knees beside me, leaning over so she could shake my shoulders with each arm. Her hands were only inches from my neck.

  I started, sweeping an arm across hers to knock her grip free before I realized this might be the real Lana and that I was awake. Then again, it would be just like the Daemon to start the dream fresh like this in order to throw me off and give me hope of release.

  Without the support of her arms, which I’d expertly swatted aside, Lana fell forward onto me. Using her better marshal skill, she used her legs to push as she fell so her chest, rather than nose or forehead hit my face. We rolled apart and I stood from the bed, wrenching part of the sheet free as I did. I stood drenched in sweat, every muscle tense and ready for combat.

  “Cal? Cal? Are you okay? What was that?”

  “What was what?” I said hurriedly, arms still raised defensively.

  “You wouldn’t wake up! I was trying to wake you up for like fifteen minutes.” Lana sounded exasperated, and worried.

  “Really?” I said, hesitantly looking around and trying to determine if this was the real world or another dream. My sore muscles, the exacting detail of Lana’s room and feeling my core swelling within me with power made me relax.

  “It looked like you were having a seizure or something, you kept twitching. I was trying to figure out how to get an ambulance without a phone.”

  “Oh,” I said, distractedly as my eyes swept over the room, finding nothing creepy or off putting about it. I was tense and had been battling… well dying and being attacked most of the night. It was hard to let my guard down. The sun was up, Lana was dressed the same as she’d appeared several times in my dreams. While she looked incredible, it dredged up unpleasant memories. Most importantly she didn’t have the black eyes of the Daemon. She’d never had her true eyes in that place. “I’m sorry,” I said, allowing myself to relax.

  “What, was that? Is thatt a normal wizard thing? You slept like the dead.”

  “Definitely not,” I said with a sigh. “Nothing about that was normal.”

  Lana tilted her head. I saw two faint streaks where tears had run down her cheeks. She’d probably thought I was dead or dying. If only she knew how many times that had happened.

  “I’ve told you so little of what you need to know, and I feel like the mountain of information I need to tell you—so you can make a truly informed decision about us— keeps growing. I… I’ve been having nightmares.”

  Lana sat on the bed, curling her knees up close to her chest, and wrapping her arms around them. “Everyone has nightmares.”

  I chuckled darkly, “Not like this they don’t.”

  I filled her in on the basics of the dreams. The barest hint of how dark some of the deaths and event had been. I didn’t tell her she was in them now, or the things I’d seen happen to her or that she had done to me. It would only freak her out.

  “Fren and I think it’s a daemon of some sort. I think it might have sent whatever attacked last night. It’s like a hound hunting me for its master. The daemon is the force behind it.”

  “All of this is about you?” she asked, staring at one of the walls. “I don’t know. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. The murders and missing people have been going on for weeks.”

  “Yeah. It didn’t know where to find me before. Each night it’s come closer to it, I’ve had a dream like this. The night before the attack at the inn was the last one I had.” I tried to calm my voice and slow my racing heart.

  “But they only happen when you’re not at home?”

  “Yes, my protections keep me safe. It usually takes a few days for them to start. As bad as the dream last night was, it wasn’t the worst,” I felt my chest, where the daemon had recently turned my power against me and burned my flesh in the real world. “I was stupid last night. I didn’t set wards to protect my dreams, even if they don’t seem to be working. I was tired and not thinking clearly.” I looked at Lana now sitting cross legged on her bed, holding a pillow tightly to her chest. She nodded, but it didn’t have her normal cheery grin. “And I was very, very distracted.” My words did the opposite of my intension to lighten the mood.

  “I’m sorry,” Lana said, looking down, “I shouldn’t have made you come over, not with how beat up you were, you should have been sleeping for hours longer, safe at home.”

  “I’m glad you did. It was a night to remember. But I do need to see Fren. I need to make sure he’s okay. Also… you should sleep over tonight, at my place.”

  A hesitant smile crept onto Lana’s face.

  I grinned too, “Yeah—it will be much safer. I want you to stay over until we catch this thing.”

  “Normally I’d insist we have at least an official date first, but I’ll pack a bag.” Her usual jovial attitude began returning as she hopped off the bed and ran into the master bathroom.

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  I got dressed in my clothes from the night before, then found myself with absolutely nothing to do. I wanted to brush my teeth but didn’t have a brush.

  “I’m going to go look out back,” I said. “See if anything stands out differently this morning.”

  Lana yelled something but was obviously brushing her teeth and I couldn’t make it out through the door.

  I restrained my aura, knowing that last night in the throes of my dreams any damage that could be done, probably already had. Then again, I’d been exhausted and mentally separated from myself and power somehow. Perhaps I hadn’t destroyed everything in Lana’s home. It was a small redeeming thought.

  I hadn’t had power in my dreams, I hadn’t had my magic. I itched to use some, just to reassure myself that my core hadn’t been taken from me. Could a core be harvested while someone still lived? I didn’t think so, not with it being tied to a soul. It could simply have been a fear the daemon latched on. Or perhaps it was because my reserves were already so drained in the waking world.

  In the kitchen the fridge was still humming along and one of the porch lights was on and visible through the front door, so I took solace in that and went to the back yard.

  It looked bad last night but, in the daylight, it looked strangely worse and not as bad at the same time.

  The burned patches and charred bushes as well as the broken fence were worse, but without the shadows and unknowns, without the red and blue bright lights illuminating everything from patrol cars, it looked much more mundane. The grass was trodden down from dozens of footsteps in the night. My heart caught at another part of Lana’s life I’d ruined and hurt just by being present.

  The autumn weather was oppressive on the plants, the now flattened grass dormant and subdued. I could tell it wouldn’t bounce back the way it would have a few months ago. My Jeep was visible, parked in front of Lana’s external garage. A few new leaves sat on its hood, the deep fall colors matching the old paint job, leaves also covered the corners of the fence and around most bushes in reds, yellows, and browns.

  I surveyed my jeep; the exposed front window was covered in frost. Otherwise, it looked unchanged. I really needed to get a garage or install covered parking behind my shop because I hated scrapping windows.

  I walked over to check on it more closely. In the turmoil of the night the Jeep had largely been overlooked. I saw my discarded backpack one the way and grabbed it. It didn’t look like it had been disturbed but I was sure at least one Officer had taken a peek inside. Either iron knuckles were alright in Idaho, or they hadn’t found them. I walked back to my jeep and put the bag in the back.

  Unsure what to do next, I walked out front to look down the road. I felt bad, Lana would probably lose some of the ‘goodwill’ neighborhoods like this gave new move in’s after dumping a magazine into the fae creature last night. Things like that, from a young single girl in the neighborhood would freak people out or lead them to assume Lana wasn’t very stable. Perhaps when they heard about the animal attack that would change, but who knew.

  A few hundred feet down the road I saw an old mustang, a 69’ based on the trim on the doors, facing towards her house. It was pitch black and gleamed in the morning light. The windows were fogged, and the car was off. I could make out the blurred shapes of two men eating breakfast sandwiches from a local fast-food joint inside.

  One saw me and nearly dropped his meal, turning to the other. After a quick look they both tried to look anywhere but at me. My shoulders tightened. They had been startled to see me, which in and of itself was odd.

  There were a few other people out. A woman jogging along the road and an older man slowly walking the sidewalk, but the two men hadn’t responded to seeing them. The pair was parked across the road and about three houses down from Lana’s. The car parked exactly between two houses, which made it clear it didn’t belong to either one of them. I contemplated what to do, turning back to head inside as I did. It was strange, this was an out of the way street to pull over and eat breakfast. We were a few blocks from Sarah’s place and that was literally the closest eatery. But they’d gotten food elsewhere and come here for a reason, for a purpose, and my gut said it was me.

  Lana must have been waiting for me because she stepped out onto the drive from the kitchen when I walked into view. “I’m throwing some eggs on the stove. Sorry I took a little longer, my hair dryer was dead.” I could tell her hair was wet because of the water marks on her shirt. “Everything else has been working fine though.”

  “Sorry,” I said, knowing that we’d gotten off lucky. “I’ll buy—”

  “—Its fine. But it’s going to take a little longer to get ready, that’s all. Maybe start a fire?”

  “I think I’ll go on a quick walk,” I said. “Be back in like ten minutes.”

  “Do you think it’s safe,” she whispered. “For either of us to be alone?”

  “I won’t be far.” I didn’t want to concern her if the two men were completely innocuous, but I needed to be certain.

  I jogged into the back yard and dipped through the new hole in the fence. I discovered the fence line ran along a small canal, in the not-too-distant past it probably led to a farm. Now it served to irrigate the larger yards each of the houses in the neighborhood boasted, all the farms long gone in this area. It had a dirt road for maintenance running along one edge, which I used to get away from Lana’s yard in secret.

  The sun was up, cresting the foothills near the city. The air was crisp and clear, the sky blue. Kate was probably already at the shop, getting it opened. I owed her hugely. We took turns and this week was hers to open every day, but it had been a busy eventful weekend, and she’d covered extra since I was supposed to be out of town ‘hiking’. I wasn’t sure how reliable I would be next week with everything going on. I needed to stop this creature quickly. It was one thing to open the shop whenever I felt like and change that time on a whim if I needed, consistency be damned. But now I had a partner, and social media.

  I walked the sidewalk, approaching a turn that should place me a few hundred feet behind the mustang. I took it and only a few seconds after coming into view the car started up. It had a nice American muscle purr to it, but it wasn’t aggressively loud. The two men left driving slowly down the lane.

  It was weird and I had had about enough of weirdness the past few days. But it could be coincidence, or maybe they were watching the house and saw me coming up behind which spooked them? There was nothing to do for it but keep an eye out and see if I saw them again.

  I walked back to Lana’s and the eggs were done. We ate quickly inside the warm house; she packed a few last things and then we left. Lana left her car, after checking that it had still started.

  It thankfully did.

  We both hopped into the Jeep, and I drove slowly so we didn’t get too cold in the early morning air, especially with Lana’s hair still being damp. Pulling into the back alley I saw Kate’s car parked at far end by my shop’s back door and that she had indeed already opened up the shop. I parked beside her, and helped Lana grab her bags, leading the way up to the back door to unlock it and let us in.