Disciple: DreamWalkers, Book 2 (3 page)

“Not that I know of,” Heather answered.

Maggie read, “Not that I’d tell you,” in the subtext of her tone.

“You’re supposed to be here at oh sixteen hundred,” Zeke pointed out.

“I’m only thirty minutes off.” Heather arranged the lumbar cushion to her liking and settled into the old desk chair. The Somnium, despite having widespread fundi, had a strict budget. Nonessentials like ergonomic desk chairs received short shrift. “Set your clock for five point five hours. My sleep starts at twenty-two-hundred.”

Like a normal person. Lucky Heather.

Zeke shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Phase one sessions are six hours.”

“What difference is thirty minutes going to make with…” Heather’s gaze met Maggie’s. “Look, that’s what Rhys told me to do.” The North American division wasn’t as formal as a few of the other divisions. Nobody licked boots for anyone lower than a vigil.

“Now I’m telling you to stick to regulation hours,” Zeke said.

“If you need to countermand Rhys’s orders, talk to him.” Heather waggled her walkie. While cellular phones were useful, the Somnium preferred walkies for short-range communication. Wraith manifestations could disrupt cell signals. “He revised the master schedule. I can’t touch it. The last time I did that for you, I got in trouble.”

Zeke’s fingers tightened the smallest bit on Maggie’s. Would he pick a fight with Rhys? Ever since Maggie had turned albatross, Zeke’s disputes with his fellow sentries—Rhys in particular—had increased. Not that Zeke had confided in Maggie, but Lillian, whom Maggie counted as a friend, had been a godsend in understanding the pecking order.

Maggie had hoped to escape the departmental politics at the university where she used to work, only to find the Somnium was a hotbed of wrangling about more serious matters. When you argued with coworkers about who deserved grants, it had little relevance to anyone but yourselves. When you argued with coworkers about saving the world from wraiths, the scale of importance shifted.

Zeke didn’t say anything—or switch his alarm.

Maggie closed her eyes and settled into the mattress. “Good night, Heather,” she said.

“Sweet dreams,” Heather replied absently. The desk chair creaked. “See you on waking, Zeke.”

“No doubt,” he answered.

One thing Maggie’s time with the Somnium had taught her—work hard, sleep fast, sleep naturally. Tranqs interfered with dreamsphere manipulation. She catalogued the aches and pains of her thirty-something, slowly-getting-into-shape body like sheep jumping a fence. Soon she drifted off and into the sphere.

Chapter Two

“Maggie, you have to concentrate.”
Zeke snapped up his shields and held his student at arm’s length. The dreamsphere phased back to dull, gloomy darkness as his mental protections shut out the wraiths.

Were there more of them tonight than ever before?

And did he think this every night?

Yes, yes he did.

But he couldn’t tell her that. She needed to believe her circumstances were similar to other L5 neonati. Confidence was everything. Confidence and lack of fear.

And he hadn’t figured out why she attracted more wraiths than a whole building full of dreamers in comas. What could he tell people that wouldn’t get her immediately shipped off to a curator, never to be seen or heard from again?

It hadn’t been easy concealing the wraith density. Tricky scheduling, smokescreens and lots of relocating during training. Two nights ago, he’d broken down and told Lillian the truth. Invited her to observe a session and Maggie’s swarm. Maggie had promptly detected, identified, and communicated with Lillian, but Zeke hadn’t complimented her. He didn’t want her to figure out how out of whack everything about her training was going.

Lillian, also surprised Maggie had orated, had been disturbed by the wraiths. He and Lill had decided he should keep doing what he’d been doing—concealing Maggie’s training sessions from onlookers—and pray she learned to shield soon so she could get back on track.

It wasn’t fair to Maggie. None of this. He considered giving her a hug. Her shoulders, beneath his fingers, were as tense as carburetor belts. She barreled straight for him whenever she felt threatened. He didn’t know if that was because of the tangible, her fearfulness or…other reasons. Other reasons that drew them together no matter how hard he tried to drive her away.

“I was concentrating. Unfortunately, I was concentrating on not vomiting
.” She’d cut her hair after an incident in hand-to-hand combat. Chin-length, the wiry curls tickled his fingers.

“You didn’t barf, so I guess you succeeded, but you lost shield integrity way too fast. You gave me, what, eight minutes?”

“I wasn’t counting,”
she said grumpily.

“You have to multitask. In the sphere, Mags, everything is mind over matter. You control the space. You control your body. You control your shield.”
An alucinator could manipulate small things about his appearance in the sphere, so Zeke had on T-shirt and jeans instead of boxers. It wasn’t that it was cold. It was just…easier to be around Maggie in more clothes rather than less.

“Easy for you. You’ve been doing this nearly twenty years.”
She shrugged off his touch and rubbed her cheek self-consciously with a thumb.
“They’re disgusting on so many levels.”

“They can gross you out but they can’t hurt you. Get over it.”
When wraiths attacked in the sleep sphere, they did no damage as long as the alucinator wasn’t scared to death…and didn’t allow them to manifest. That didn’t make wraiths pleasant. Their odor was akin to sun-heated road kill. Their signature of greasy wrongness was like rotten bacon. Their texture was pus and ooze and tendrils of god-awful, rip-apart webbing.

Little girls? Sugar and spice.

Little boys? Dog tails and video games.

Wraiths? Rot, stench and evil.

“You’ve got to be getting used to it by now,”
he continued.
“You’ve always got a lot of wraiths hanging around.”

An understatement.

“There’s no getting used to that.”
She shuddered.

“You have no choice. This is your life now.”

She brushed her hands together as if wiping away the last bits of wraith.
“Some life.”

They didn’t have to touch to communicate anymore, and she was careful to stay behind his shields. Her shields weren’t strong enough for the onslaught, but it wasn’t like he could test her under normal circumstances. He had no idea how Maggie would rate as a student under normal circumstances.

She might not be half bad. There were a number of skills she excelled at already. Just not shielding, and it was the basic ability every single alucinator had to ace.

“This life is better than being dead. Let’s try shielding again. If you can’t handle that, Maggie, nothing else matters.”
He couldn’t let up on her, not for a minute. She was a risk to herself and others without control of the dreamsphere and too likely to attract unwanted attention.

“Not yet. I need a breather that doesn’t include wraith pong.”
She zipped to the edge of his shield, staring out at the murk. It wasn’t supposed to be murky. The sleep sphere was supposed to be pale gray with the occasional streak of smoky wraith.

Except when Maggie was present.

She cruised the shield’s edge, her figure curvy against the wall of hate outside. Her geolocation skills were impressive. He could take her anywhere, and she could identify the terra firma approximation with ease and find her way home.

Her talent may have been enhanced by the fact he locomoted them during training to hide her gruesome fan club from casual observers.

Then again, her skill could come from that cultural geography mumbo jumbo she used to teach. Geography, right? He didn’t know why she wanted to be a coucher.

“Do phase one students normally manage to orate with other alucinators?”
she asked suddenly.

She wasn’t looking at him, but he shrugged anyway. “
Every dreamer’s progress is different.”

“In theory class, we learned that the ability to orate signals a disciple’s readiness for matriculation. It means an assessor can link in and evaluate the student’s condition.”

“I don’t think you want Adi to test you yet, Mags. Your shields are shit and you have to pass your final eval in trance. Which we ain’t learned yet.”

Not only did he not want her—or Adi—to realize how wonky her dreamspace experience was, he didn’t want her to get full of herself like her brother. Rhys’s protégée was cruising for a damn fall. Too bad. Zeke had gotten to where he kind of liked the guy. Hayden threw himself into his work in a way that the Somnium could utilize.

And none of what Maggie had accomplished would matter if she couldn’t conquer shields. He didn’t even want to think about exposing her to the trance sphere.

The wraiths would eat her alive like a chocolate bunny, starting at the head.

Once she finished a complete circuit of their enclosure, Zeke offered Maggie a little encouragement. Maybe it would help.

“But you’re getting better. You held out five minutes longer before you went bust that time.”
In the dreamsphere, because he didn’t have to touch her or swing weapons at her, they got along better. The relationship dynamics settled into teacher and student. In the terra firma, though, the tangible and everything about Maggie was an infuriating distraction.

He—well, he hadn’t been sociable. It was for her own good.

“Call the curators. It’s a miracle,”
she joked.

He sensed her shields go up, then down, then up, then down, alongside his barrier. Her response time was decent. Her shield form was too. The thing was, he wasn’t sure any neo’s shields could handle what waited out there, not even Hayden’s.

According to Rhys and everyone, the sun shone out that guy’s bunghole.

“Shield me too,”
he said to Maggie. When alucinators could link, they could combine their efforts at various tasks.

She wrapped him up snug. The double layer of protections almost erased the wraith stench. Inside her walls, it seemed lighter too, like she glowed.

He studied her. She didn’t glow. Same Maggie. Pretty, determined, smart, great tits, and a mouth on her that didn’t need to be egged on by Lillian. He’d never known any alucinator besides Lill to give a curator crap. He didn’t want to think of Maggie pulling stunts like Lillian did. Ranting and raving to anyone who’d listen. Endangering herself.

He didn’t want—he really didn’t want—Maggie coming to the notice of the curators. She was the kind of powerful, unusual L5 they liked to…engage.

And then he’d never see her again.

He couldn’t want her. Couldn’t have her. He’d gotten over that fantasy real quick when a couple vigils had chewed him out after he’d collared her. With the tangible—and his history—they intended to place her far away after she graduated. He’d been not so politely requested to forego any ideas about romancing her.

Ever.

He hadn’t told her. She didn’t seem like she cared anymore, anyhow.

“Not bad,”
he told her after she’d held the shield ten minutes. He wished there was a way to let a few wraiths into his outer shield. Would a limited number of monsters freak her shit out, or could she swing them?
“Expand your barrier edge to mine and we’ll locomote. See what you can sustain.”

She nodded. He felt her shields supplement his. They had more harmony in here—the harmony Adi wanted them to have out there. But how could he be mellow and teacherly around a woman he frequently imagined taking to bed? The best remedy for his situation was being unfriendly to her. It didn’t cool his jets, but it pissed her off enough that she was more likely to punch him than kiss him.

He just wished he was a better teacher. Or something. His mixed feelings about Maggie—wanting her for himself yet not wanting to screw up her training yet not wanting anyone to know he might indeed be screwing up her training—were probably causing as many issues as her fear.

Zeke mentally sped them through the dreamsphere on a path that kept their psychic presence far from base. Dreamsphere travel was a hell of a lot faster than terra firma travel. Too bad you couldn’t pop out wherever you wanted and drag your body with you. That would cut the Somnium’s gas budget exponentially, and maybe he could get some new damn equipment.

Gorgets. The teams really needed fang-proof gorgets.

The wraiths tried to keep up with Zeke’s pace and failed. The black swirls next to his shields dissipated. The faster he went, the more the dreamsphere lightened. Many alucinators couldn’t maintain a shield at this pace.

When the sphere looked normal—pale gray and cloudy—he slowed. Wraiths gradually congregated around them like iron filings to a magnet, cutting off their window to the outside.

Maggie pulled a face.

“Where are we now?”
he asked her.

She’d remained on the other side of the bubble from him. Since the shield covered three hundred square feet, it wasn’t so dark that he couldn’t read her expression. The illumination came from the watery gray of the ground, where wraiths didn’t appear. She glanced at her feet, at the paleness there, as if it would display their coordinates.

“One hundred and ten miles south-southeast of base,”
she said after a minute.
“In the same remote area in the mountains we used last week for training.”

Time for another head pat.
“You’re good at that.”

Her lips quirked in a smile.
“I’m glad I’m good at something.”

“You can also lock your conduit as tight as a cat’s ass.”

“Lovely imagery.”
She smiled fully instead of just the corner of her mouth.

Had he been taking the wrong approach, not wanting her to get a big head? Compliments earned him smiles. Maybe they’d earn him some better shielding.

“You’re good at arguing too. You have a lot stamina for it. Your brother can’t hold a candle to
—
”

She held up a hand, palm out.
“This is a Hayden free zone.”

He could respect that.
“Ready to shield solo again?”

“No.”

He couldn’t respect that.
“Want to make your shield small or keep it large?”

She scooted over to him.
“I’ll shield, but I want to hold your hand.”

She should be past the need for link enhancement—in and out of the dreamsphere. He should have been a good enough mentor to help her get past it.
“I won’t always be available.”

“You’re available now.”

He considered it. It had been a rough night. Why the hell the wraiths wanted to eat Maggie so bad, he had no idea. When she was in the dreamsphere, the bastards practically ignored everything and everyone else.

This hinted wraiths might be finite, which had always been a subject of debate. Not that he could broach the topic with anyone besides Lillian. He suspected Adi knew some details about the situation via the counseling sessions, but perhaps not the extent of it. Besides, as the vigil in charge of the coma station, where the Somnium’s specialized medical patients were tended, she was used to more wraiths hanging around. It was believed the monsters could sense where there was likely to be a breach in the barrier caused by the vulnerability of an alucinator trapped in a dream coma.

Maggie wasn’t a coma patient…but her crappy shield was a huge vulnerability. He couldn’t have her weak, defenseless, in danger. He was determined to toughen her up.

“Try one more shield alone,”
he insisted.
“Maybe you’ll do even better.”

“I’ve done it ten times alone tonight. I’m tired. Hayden says his shield walls don’t turn black like mine do. He thinks I’m exaggerating.”

“You’re L5,”
he hedged. He hadn’t exactly told Maggie how disproportionate her wraith experience was.
“That makes you magically delicious. High levels have to deal with more of the bastards than the rest of the Somnium.”

Zeke couldn’t keep a lid on it forever, but he could try—at least until she mastered shields. He needed to be able to defend her with, “Sure, she attracts a lot of wraiths…but she can handle it. The curators don’t need to be involved.”

Maggie’s lips twisted.
“Hayden’s L5 too.”

“I thought this was a Hayden free zone?”

“Would you just give me your hand?”
She reached for him.
“I’ll do another solo after this one.”