Into Dreams: A Gina Harwood Novel (Gina Harwood Series Book 3) Read online

  “I’m still staying in here tonight,” he replied, running his own hands through his hair with a grin.

  “Morgan,” she started with a grimace.

  “Toma told me to steal happiness while I can. He’s right. We don’t know what happens when we get to this mountain.” He closed the distance between them again and embraced her, whispering into her ear. “Being near you makes me happy. I won’t say I’m not disappointed, but it’ll be more than enough.”

  She pushed him away with a grin. “Ugh, that is the sappiest thing I’ve ever heard a real person utter,” she laughed. “If you’re really like that, I’m not interested.”

  “Yeah, you are,” he said, shrugging. “You’re just contrary.”

  “Let’s get back downstairs,” suggested Gina, tracing her finger down his chest.

  “Fuck what they think,” he growled.

  “There’s food,” she said, standing on tiptoe to breathe her point into his ear.

  “Not that hungry,” he answered in a lower growl, his eyes following hers as she danced back into view. “It’s not nice to tease.”

  “You’re right,” she said, seeming genuinely chagrined and opening the door.

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching her leave.

  Gina opened her mouth to say something, but clamped it shut and merely raised an eyebrow before walking away.

  <><><>

  Gina woke from a fitful sleep, her dreams a recurring replay of the shadow falling over the realms, and reached out for her companions mentally before opening her eyes. Everyone was accounted for including the one lying next to her. She opened her eyes and saw his blue eyes staring back at her.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve been watching me sleep, because that’s horribly creepy,” she croaked, her throat dry.

  “I haven’t,” replied Morgan, blinking away sleep. “Your morning breath is terrible.”

  She smirked. “Yours ain’t roses either, sweetheart.” He merely smiled back at her, and she bit her lip. “You look weird with a beard.” Her eyes weren’t on his beard though, instead tracing a path down his bare chest to where the covers ended.

  “I’m sure you would too,” he replied, a small smile playing on his lips as he folded his arms behind his head. Gina’s eyes snapped back up to his and she moved to get out of bed. “Not yet,” he said softly, pulling her down to lie beside him. “Just give me a few more minutes.”

  “I kind of like it, though,” she continued, reaching up to play with the coarse hair. They said nothing more for several minutes, just lying against one another and feeling each other breathe. Had she thought about it consciously, it would have been strange to her, but she didn’t. She simply was, for a moment, and it was wonderful. But the moment was only that, and before she knew it, she was walking out of the city, their horses weighed down with enough to feed and water the party for a month and a new pair of desert boots on her slowly healing feet. There wasn’t enough dinieri to buy any additional mounts, but they were well-outfitted for the trip across the dunes.

  The mountain loomed in her mind as surely as the white dunes stretched flat to the horizon in front of her. She could see both superimposed atop one another, the mountain rising in the center of her vision wherever she looked, a ghostly crag that shimmered behind a thin veil. The aberration that circled the opening, waiting, gathering, preparing. Looming. Kyrri trotted beside her, chatting in his chittering voice, his armor plates whooshing over one another with every step. I can’t be distracted, she thought, setting her jaw and quickening her pace. Not now. Not until this is over. Not until everyone is safe.

  71

  The image on his screen wasn’t the highest resolution, but it was high enough for Victor to make out the burn scars of Marcus Owens on the corpse in the picture. He was sprawled across a rocky dirt trail, surrounded by bushes, and across his shirtless torso was scrawled the words “AT LAST.” He couldn’t be completely certain with one picture, but he would place bets that the cause of death wasn’t the deep gouges of the letters, some deep enough that he could see the pixelated white of bone showing through, but the slice across his neck that appeared to have nearly decapitated him. The wounds glistened in the flash, making them look even fresher than they probably were. The phone began to ring in his hand, his caller id blinking up to replace the morbid photograph, and Victor was entirely unsurprised to see it was Yori Hanagawa.

  “Mr. Yori,” he answered, glancing over to check the medical monitor. Still normal.

  “Get the picture?” asked the man in clipped tones.

  “Yes,” replied Victor. “I see that you found Marcus.”

  “What was left of him,” muttered Hanagawa, and there was a clatter in the background. “Gotta make this quick, Victor. I’m headed to Snow Hill. I can’t raise Charlie. I’m going to elevator into the barn and see what I see, but then I’m taking the talismans I have down to the wall.” He took a deep breath, and Victor waited for him to continue. “I have no idea what we’re going to do,” he confessed, sounding dangerously sober. “If this goes belly up, Victor, it was a pleasure to work with you.”

  Victor considered his response options, but most seemed either too grim, or not grim enough. He understood the meaning of the photograph. “You too, Mr. Yori,” he replied simply, and hung up the phone. There was nothing more he could offer the conversation, and he doubted Hanagawa had anything further to tell him. Honestly, the man hadn’t needed to call at all. The picture had said all that needed to be said.

  Victor opened the building security program and locked down the unit building. The emergency lights flashed on, illuminating his previously dark office with a sickly red glow. He adjusted the oxygen mask on Gina’s face and looked around at the eerily lit office before returning to his computer to weed through the exponentially growing number of emails, news alerts, and messages from people he couldn’t save.

  72

  Charlie heard the SUV roaring up behind her before she saw it, and she closed her eyes for a moment in relief. She desperately hoped it was Hanagawa to take over the situation and tell her what the hell she was supposed to do, but she would accept a few temp operatives with large guns in the meanwhile. The wall had expanded significantly, and the middle was distended, making it look more like a pregnant belly rather than the suspended amorphous liquid it had been before, and she cradled her useless phone. She had tried the cb, to no avail, and while her every instinct told her to drive far, far away from here, she knew there would be people coming, and that almost all of them would be less equipped than she was to handle whatever was boring its way through. Not that she felt terribly equipped to handle something of this magnitude herself. Not remotely. Charlie jumped out of the driver’s seat, and ran back to the parked vehicle, keeping her attention on the wall and her firearm at the ready. The driver rolled down the window and she was horrified to see Chaz.

  “You didn’t leave them…” she started, but Chaz opened the door between them and slid out of the car, his hands up.

  “No, everyone’s here,” he said, rushing into his next sentence before she could speak. “I called Yori. You weren’t answering. He’s on his way, he said to just come here.”

  “Give me your phone,” she demanded, ecstatic to see it light up. She dialed Hanagawa’s number. “Yori,” she said as soon as the line clicked active. “The wall, it’s… hatching. It’s coming. It’s different this time.”

  “I know.” He sounded rushed.

  “Don’t tell me you know, tell me what to do!” she hissed into the phone. “I don’t have Old One in my wheelhouse, and it didn’t go so great trying to wing it last time!”

  “I’m bringing weapons. I’m in the barn. I’m ten minutes out. Keep everyone alive.” He delivered the lines in short, clipped sentences and then the line went dead.

  Charlie tossed the cell phone back feeling moderately better. That was sort of a plan. She addressed the whitecoats, who were filing out of the v
ehicle and staring up at the abomination coloring the sky. “Okay, everyone. Lock and load. I hope you brought guns?” This was aimed at Chaz, who nodded. “Good. Now do NOT fire until I give the order. But when I do, shoot anything that comes through that.” She pointed at the suspended, fleshy, half-egg in the air, and the whitecoats stared at it, unmoving. Charlie snapped her fingers and they looked at her. “Now!” she ordered, and they ran to the back of the vehicle. “You three,” she sighed, peering into the backseat. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, he…” started Chris, but the considerable Mama LaVey placed her hand on his arm, shushing him silently.

  “Nate started seizing again, and howling, and talkin’ in tongues and daggers. Like he do,” she explained calmly. “That little girl, Melissa, took me over and warned Freckles that something was changing and that Locke was comin’. Then she left me and jumped into Nate’s head.” She pointed at the limp young man between them. “This been him ever since.”

  “Okay,” said Charlie. “Succinct. Thank you. Keep doing whatever you’re doing.” She extricated herself from the car and stood next to Chaz, who was handing shotguns and rifles to the whitecoats out of a massive pile in the trunk. “This is all you brought?” she asked.

  Chaz raised an eyebrow at her. “It’s every weapon from all the vehicles, plus extra ammo from the barn.”

  “I was kidding Chaz, you did good,” she said with a sigh. “Hanagawa will be here in ten. We keep everyone alive in the meantime.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, his voice breaking for a moment as he glanced up at the piece of sky giving birth to a monstrosity. “Keep everyone alive,” he echoed.

  “Don’t look at it too long,” she ordered. “That goes for everybody. Check your partner. Don’t stare.”

  “No problem,” muttered Chaz, loading a shell into his shotgun and shivering in the night.

  73

  Every day was long, and every night was too short. Gina wandered through the desert beside her companions and more often than not astride Mati, a constant sense of exhaustion pulling on her that seemed to grow with each step they took toward the mountain. She found it more and more difficult to follow conversations, concentrating instead on holding up the walls in her mind. It was strong, stronger than it had ever been, but it seemed like the entire world’s thoughts were battering against it, instead of just those of the few people around her. Worse was the familiar oily darkness she felt lurking at the edges, a patina of grime and shadow that waited, watching. The only respite came at night, when she’d grown comfortable enough with snuggling up next to her partner and falling asleep against his warmth that her mind fell empty, clear, just before sleep took her as its own. The first rays of morning always brought an awful, groggy consciousness and fleeting memories of the nightmares, but it was made better by the purring Cat next to her. Gina gave up requesting a watch shift each night, and it was never again offered to her. Agni and Kyrri settled into first watch consistently, and Morgan and Toma always took the last. Her companions had become ever more concerned with her withdrawal, but it was difficult to explain without barraging them with images, and they had learned to stop asking and let her remain generally silent through their conversations. She assured them she was listening, and that it was nice to hear the talking.

  There had been no more Brotherhood attacks during their journey through the desert, but the fact had given Gina little peace. She could feel the tension in the party; everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Each morning she awoke, feeling for the presence of everyone, tense until she accounted for each of their living, breathing bodies. Then came the arduous task of readying her wall for the day, repairing the holes torn during the night, by what she couldn’t - and didn’t want to - guess.

  On the sixth day, they reached the foothills of the mountain range that had been visible since the fourth, taunting them with its apparent nearness. Conversation had grown progressively more sparse on the journey, but it wasn’t only the companions who seemed to feel the emotional drag as they neared their destination. Mati and Aleka had either picked up on their humans’ anxieties or felt it themselves, and whickered tremulously.

  “Stop,” she commanded, as they descended into the trough between two hills.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Morgan, holding Mati’s bridle to keep him still.

  Gina closed her eyes and concentrated, frowning with the effort. It was difficult to let in just the right amount of information without being overwhelmed in it. “There are people. A lot of people. Up ahead. Close.”

  “Are you sure?” mewed Kyrri, looking at the desolate landscape in confusion.

  “We have seen no signs of recent travel,” commented Agni, but he glanced at her with a mixture of fear and respect. “But if you say there is, we should scout ahead.”

  “I should go. I’m fastest,” said Kyrri, bouncing lightly on his paws. “I’ll take Agni with me, he is good at being hidden.”

  “Agni can’t understand you, Kyrri,” replied Morgan, handing the horse off to the scarred mercenary. “I’ll go with you.”

  “I understand him enough. He hisses, something’s wrong,” grumbled Agni, and Kyrri rubbed his head against the man’s hip before nodding to Morgan and slinking around the hill.

  “Be careful,” reminded Gina. She watched the Cat and Morgan disappear from view with unease, allowing Agni to help her slide off of Mati’s back. There was a thrumming in her ears that didn’t match her heartbeat, and she cocked her head trying to place the new sound.

  “War drums,” whispered a startled Agni, exchanging a serious glance with the giant islander who stood agape beside him.

  “There can’t be an army,” scoffed Toma. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  The drums continued their beat, and the minutes dragged on in the heat of the sun behind them. Gina could just touch Kyrri - his feline mind was a unique presence, but Morgan was lost to her amidst the sea of humanity ahead. “There are hundreds. Maybe thousands,” she said, cocking her head and trying to understand what she was seeing. Each mind was like a pinprick of light, and she was blinded by the masses. She felt the Cat moving and opened her eyes. “They’re coming back.”

  “How do you know all of this?” Toma shook his head, amazed, as Morgan and Kyrri reappeared around the hill, their faces grim.

  “It’s a massive gathering of cloaks,” informed Morgan. “I’d guess five to six hundred. Kyrri thinks they’re all Brotherhood.” His eyes found hers, and they were fearful. “That’s not the worst of it. You were right. There’s a wall.”

  “It moves without moving,” added Kyrri, cleaning his face nervously. “It looks like someone poured out black water from the top of the mountain and it never hit the ground.”

  Gina echoed the description hollowly for those who couldn’t speak Cat, but her eyes never left her partner’s. “How do we get close?” she asked.

  “We don’t,” said Morgan, shaking his head. “That’s an army, and we’re five people. Well, four, and a Cat. I have one gun that fires one shot, and you’re out of ammo.”

  “We could get her close enough to do what she has to do,” offered Agni grimly, his jaw set.

  “And what is that exactly?” asked Morgan, searching her face. “I remember Snow Hill, Gina. This didn’t go well there, and we only had a few starving hippies in our way. Not an army.”

  “It’s different here,” she muttered, but her eyes dropped to the ground. This felt like a suicide mission for all of them, and she wasn’t comfortable with that. But it was more than that; something about what Morgan said tugged at her memory, but found little purchase, leaving only a nagging feeling of dread. “I’ll know what to do when I get there.” She hoped fervently that she was right. The vision left in her head by the king never featured an army of cloaked men ready to kill them, and ended with her approaching the shadow.

  “Leave the horses,” said Toma in a quiet, calm voice. She watched the giant man clap Morgan on the shou
lder and look at him with serious eyes. “We leave the horses and we go in. We say we have something for the leader, a gift, these two.” He gestured to Gina and Kyrri. “We know the Brotherhood’s been after them. That’ll get us close.”

  “And then what? We’ll be surrounded by then. What’s our escape route?” asked Morgan.

  “We defend the lady until she’s finished,” answered Agni, sliding several extra daggers out of his bag and sliding them into compartments in his armor. “Or as long as we can. The plan is good.”

  “The plan is not good,” replied Morgan, aghast. “Toma, we were attacked too. Do you really think they’ll just let us pass with our weapons on us?”

  Toma shrugged. “My fists are weapons. I will pass with those for certain.”

  Agni grinned and slapped the giant on the back. “And I guarantee they won’t find all of my knives. I only need one.”

  Morgan turned to her, his blue eyes pleading. “Gina, this is not a good plan,” he insisted. “We can do better. We just need to wait, and watch. Kyrri, you have to agree with me.”

  The Cat shifted uncomfortably. “I go where Gina-Dreamer goes, and I won’t let harm come to her while I’m still standing,” he said, picking his words carefully. “And my weapons can’t be taken either, unless they cut off my paws and knock out my teeth, but I will take them down before they can do either.” He bared his teeth for emphasis, and Gina shivered, remembering the speed in which Kyrri ripped out the cloaked man’s throat at Maestra Crow’s.

  No one else dies, she insisted to herself. No one else dies. Something deep in her clicked and she stood straighter. I can protect them. “We go in,” she said slowly, and all eyes were on her. “But let me lead, and keep calm.”