The Dream Thief (8 page)

"Because I have something Saundra will want, and if I'm dead I can't give it to you."

"Nice bluff, but I'm not stupid." He aimed at my chest. No more hesitation in his movements.

"Listen to me! My mother left me a little something in a safe deposit box. Don't you think Saundra would be interested in that? What do you think she'll do to you if you kill me and it turns out to be important?"

Marsh grinned. "Fine. Then I shoot him."

My heart lurched as he aimed at Will. "Same difference," I said, knowing as the words left my lips that they were true. "If you shoot him, you kill me."

"Aw, are we in love? Will it break your poor little heart if I kill your boyfriend?"

"Our hearts beat as one," I said. "It's a literal thing. We've been fused."

"That's bullshit."

I could feel Will's consciousness coming back into his body. A sympathy headache pulsed over my left temple, and even though I wasn't looking at him I knew the minute his eyes opened. I needed to keep Marsh from looking at him. So I took another step forward, barely breathing.

"Not so long ago I would have thought this dream business was bullshit, too. Look—I'm tired. Will needs a doctor. How about if we go get the stuff my mom left me, and you go home. Everybody lives and it's a total win. Okay?"

Will was up on hands and knees. Blood matted his hair, but his movements were smooth and purposeful and I hoped to all the gods he had the plan that I was lacking. All I could do was try to keep Marsh distracted and focused on me.

"Come on," I coaxed, taking a step toward the door. "It's not in here. Let's go."

He took a step after me, and then I ducked as Will lunged upright, jamming his shoulder into Marsh's ribs and knocking him sideways.

A shot reverberated through the barn, a thunderclap that made my ears ring. Dust sifted down from a floorboard above my head.

Will laid Marsh out flat with a blow to the jaw and had his hands on the gun in a heartbeat. Since he seemed to have things under control, I went off on my own to tackle the other problem.

 

 

E
vil isn't always obvious
. It likes to show up with a halo and shiny wings and insinuate all sorts of good intentions. Before I opened the door of the tack room I was clear on what I had to do. But when I looked in on all of those little glass jars and the array of experiences they represented, temptation up and smacked me in the face. Maybe they didn't really need to be destroyed, after all.

 Maybe I could restore Will's dad to himself, or fix what was done to Marsh. Maybe there was even something here that would override what I'd done to the house, or make Will love me again.

I ran my fingers over the bottles, looking at the labels, and thinking about all the things that could be done with them.

People would pay a lot of money for some of these, and the price would still be cheaper than what the Merchant exacted. Give them what they wanted in exchange for a comfortable life. I could fix up the house. Travel. Buy all sorts of things for Will to make up for what I'd done to him.

That was the thought that saved me. As if I could buy love, or use money as penance, climbing my way to some twisted happiness on the misery of others.

Pulling the door shut behind me to minimize contamination as much as possible, I raked my arm across the bottom shelf before I had time for second thoughts. Dozens of bottles crashed onto the floor. The assault on my brain and body was intense, an onslaught of images and sensations that nearly broke my grasp on reality.

Naked as the jaybird that earned me my nickname from Will. Marsh, also naked, pins my arms above my head and bites my neck, pressing up against me. I'm not fighting him, which is all wrong, but then I'm in a bar, half drunk, swinging my fist with a gratifying crunch into the jaw of a burly guy in a flannel plaid work shirt. He wipes blood from his lips with the back of his hand and balls up his fist to retaliate but then I'm stretched out, languid as a lazy cat on the deck of a raft, one hand trailing in cool water.

Water skiing, leaning hard to cut across…

the center line, the whine of my engine a rush of…

whitewater as the raft bounces and checks…

I gasped, digging my fingernails into my palms and letting the pain connect me with my own body, over and above all of the other sensations. I knew damn well I was standing in the barn with my feet rooted on those old floorboards but there was so much memory noise it was hard to feel even my own feet.

Still.

I sent the next shelf of bottles crashing to the ground.

Sunlight afternoon. My body feels heavier, more muscular. Dialing back my strength I lob a baseball to a kid with hair so fair it's nearly white. Love fills my chest with an unfamiliar warmth. My son…a smell of sawdust and fresh cut wood, the vibration of machinery, the buzz and whine of a saw…a rush of desire.

Guilt as I lock the door with the kids outside, but there are soft hands touching me and I want, I need…

Oh God. I'd found Mr. Alderson's memories. I felt a flash of regret that I hadn't been able to save them and give them back to him somehow, but it was too late; they were loose and blended in with fist fights and fishing and random sexual encounters.

Another shelf.

Football games. Hockey. Snow skiing. More sex. More fighting.

I could hardly breathe, my lungs not knowing whether we were jogging or swimming or kissing.  My overloaded brain shut down all visual circuits, leaving me blinded. Somewhere deep inside I retained a core of my own self, but it was very nearly drowned in a sea of jarring memories. I couldn't remember how many shelves were left and when I tried to guess my muscles got confused by too much input and quivered, feebly, but didn't move.

Just as I thought I might shatter like one of the little glass jars, I found my connection to Will.

He was anchored to my heart like a lifeline, solid and real and unalterably Will. He breathed in, and my own ribs lifted to follow suit. I caught the rhythm of his heart, a little fast, but strong and steady. His muscles were strong with purpose, ready for action.

In the middle of the chaos, he was my one solid thing.

My vision cleared. Only one shelf left to go, high and out of reach. I could do this. I flung myself at it, a human cannonball.

Oh, dear gods.

I'm dying. My family is gathered around the bed, but there's a veil over my eyes and I can't see them anymore. I hear the murmur of voices, all distant. What focus I retain is all on my breath, which comes hard, rasping in and out of my lungs, sucking energy from my last reserves. There is no fear, not anymore, only this focus on one more breath, my heart running down like a clockwork toy. Blackness leaches into my brain, relaxes all of my muscles, dissolves my pain. In the distance there is a sound of muffled weeping but it doesn't matter. I try for one more breath but my chest wall does not rise. For the space of a minute I drift above my emptied body, looking down and then…

I came to, flailing and gasping, immersed up to my neck in cold water. Will's face loomed over me, his hands clamped around my shoulders. Behind him I saw the lightning tree and the outside of the barn. A solid, smooth surface was beneath me and my feet and hands beat against something that rang like cymbals on contact.

"What the hell?" I floundered upward and Will stepped back, leaving me standing naked and dripping, up to my knees in the green water of an untended water trough.

Dried blood crusted the side of his face; his hair was matted with it. A dark bruise stained the skin under his right eye. My body felt unnaturally light, disconnected, and I wasn't entirely sure I wasn't dreaming.

Before I could say a word Will shook his head, then grimaced and put his hand to his temple. I couldn't feel his pain, though, or his heartbeat. And that was it, the thing that was wrong.

"You're not dreaming, J-Bird. Come out of there and let me get you warm; you're shivering."

I just stared at him, dazed, remembering the clamor of images and sensations that had knocked me out.
I died.
His brow creased, his eyes the color of storm clouds just before rain. "Are you okay?"

"I—think so. Where's Marsh?"

Will put his hands around my waist, the heat of his skin against mine a glorious thing. It took all of my remaining control to not just throw my arms around his neck and cling to him in a full out meltdown. He hated me, I reminded myself. For good reason. He was helping me because we were bonded together with that weird melding thing.

And then it hit me. We weren't. Not anymore. That was why my body felt so light. I couldn't feel the throbbing of his head, was not aware of the beating of his heart. If I got up and walked away there would be no invisible string between his heart and mine. This fact hit me with an inexplicable sense of loss. To cover it up, I bent down for my shirt.

Will stopped me. "I wouldn't put those on."

I looked at him blankly.

"The dreams, J. They spilled all over your clothes. Lovely as you are, I didn't strip you naked for the fun of it. Here." He pulled off his own shirt and slipped it over my head, putting his hand to the back of my neck and lifting out my hair, holding it away from me and wringing the water out of it.

Shivering wracked my body and I clamped my teeth together to keep them from chattering. "Catch me up. What happened?"

"
Coles Notes
version? Marsh and I were fighting while you smashed the jars. I had him pinned, and then…"

His voice broke and he stopped and swallowed. "I felt your heart stop beating. Marsh didn't matter, then, Jesse. I'm sorry. All I could think about was you."

"You let him get away?"

"That's my J-bird." He didn't sound angry, though—more amused, and I realized what I'd missed.

"Wait—I actually died?"

"No pulse. No breath. I figured it was the dreams that did it."

I let the truth of this wash over me. The tears were going to come now, with or without permission. I sniffed and scrubbed my cheek on the shoulder of Will's shirt. It smelled like him, and that didn't help.

"Talk to me, J." His hand was warm under my chin, turning my face up, making me look at him.

"You've saved me three times now! And all I've done is hurt you and blown you up in a shitty revenge dream and almost get you shot. Oh—not to mention getting you tangled up in some weird ass cosmic bonding thing—"

"Shhhh. Look, J-bird, I know you hate me—"

"I don't, Will. I was so stupid. There had to be somebody to blame, and all the time it was me…" My voice totally broke up then and I knew I was a mess and that my eyes would be red and all at once he was kissing the tears from my face.

His lips found mine.

If I could conjure up a kiss that I could dream on demand, it would be that one. In that moment, in the middle of my guilt and despair, his lips on mine meant pleasure and hope and comfort all in one. I felt like a new bond had replaced the one broken between us, one that attached my heart to his lips. He pulled my shivering body against his warm one.

I wanted to kiss him that way forever, but I broke away and buried my face against his bare chest, sobbing now because my heart was truly going to break at last.

"Don't cry, J. I never could bear to see you cry." His cheek was pressed tight against the top of my head, his hands smoothing the length of my back, which served to press me more firmly against the warm muscular length of him.

His forgiveness, in the face of all the ways I had hurt him, just made me cry harder. I couldn't do this, couldn't allow it to happen. When I tried to pull away he held on, tight.

"Let me go, Will. I can't do this. Not now, not like this."

"J-Bird." Only the one word, but his voice broke and I realized, hopelessly, that choosing to walk away would only hurt him more. But we couldn't possibly be together, not with the huge litany of my wrongs against him and his goodness toward me piled up between us.

"I knew it was too good to be true," he whispered. "Give me one more minute to believe."

"I'm not running," I said. "Not this time." I reached down, squeamishly picking up my jeans by the waistband and delving into the pocket. There it was, my saving grace, miraculously still intact. "Maybe this will make up for something."

He stared at the bottle I held out to him as though he thought it was going to bite him, and I grinned. "Read the label, Will."

"Guitar." He still looked confused.

"Remember that guitar in your house?"

"The one that makes no sense?"

"Only it makes all the sense in the world, Will." I waited for him to see it on his own, for the light to turn his eyes silver grey.

"So the other memories—of the crash—"

I put my hand over his lips. "You don't want to remember that. Trust me. I've got enough memories for both of us. Guitar good. Crash bad."

"You salvaged this for me—in the middle of all of that insanity? It matters that much?"

"Yes. You'll see." I twisted the top off of the bottle.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Hey—if I'm wrong, the worst thing that happens is we get attacked by a memory of somebody playing the guitar. How bad could it be?"

"Knowing you—" He broke off mid sentence as I poured the contents of the jar over his head, his eyes widening. For a moment he stood perfectly still, and then a tremor ran through him from head to toe. Tears streaked his face, and he drew a long, shuddering breath.

"Oh, J," he said. "I can't even…"

His hands cupped my face and once again his lips found mine. Love burned bright and clear and I wanted him in that moment more than I've ever wanted anything in my whole life. I wanted to believe we had a chance.

That love would win. That I'd paid for my sins and that the karmic balance was no longer against me.

I knew better. Dark things were brewing, and like it or not, Will and I were at the center. Marsh would be back with reinforcements. I had to get Will free of the Dream Merchant, deal with my haunted house, put a stop to an illicit dream trade.