Nightmares and Daydreams: Chapter 22

“Everyone’s a suspect,” Bo said. He really took to the role of detective. Even had the exasperated expression and exhausted eyes.

“That’s not helpful,” Dray growled.

“It actually might be.” I tried to keep the conversation from taking the left turn to doomsville that Dray seemed determined to make. “It means we can’t assume anyone is the traitor based on circumstantial evidence.”

“That’s what I’m trying to get at,” Bo said. “The traitor is someone we know. Possibly know well. Look at what just happened to Rain. Her own aunt, someone she was very close to, had been working against her all this time.”

The betrayal was deep and dark. No one saw it coming. The ripples were still making their way through the House of Gatlin. At least my betrayal at the House of Axl was more obvious. Everyone knew shit was weird there, they just didn’t know how weird.

“Well it isn’t Bethany or Belynda,” Dray said with a slash of his hand through the air. “I won’t even discuss that option.”

There was no scenario—not one—that would lead me to believe their aunts, the women who raised them, would ever betray them. “I agree. And I find it impossible to believe it’s a Wren at all. You’re all too close.”

“But what about extended family? Many of them live here. They’re family, but they’re not us.” Bo said all of that with a deep frown.

Dray ran a hand down his face. “And if we can’t trust our own family then we can’t trust anyone. Fuck.”

“But there’s good news,” Bo said. “Everyone will be at the House of Axl tonight. Everyone who has worked on this project, everyone who walked our library, will be in the same room.”

“Can Rain use her gift to sense who might be lying?” Dray asked me.

Which made me feel really weird because we all knew that wasn’t a cool thing to ask. “Dray.”

“I know.” He put his hands up. “But this might be life or death. I’m not asking her to read the mind of everyone in the room. Just…can she maybe sense a darkness in someone?”

“I won’t know until I talk to her. But I will talk to her. She might say no and never forgive me, but I’ll do it.” I was being overly dramatic and I didn’t care. The more intense things got the more drama seemed to come naturally to me. “What should we be looking for tonight?”

“I have no idea,” Bo said. “What does a traitor look like? I doubt it will be obvious.”

“We’ll need to rely on instinct. The Plane will guide us,” Dray said. “Tonight we find our traitor.”

Something made the hair on the back of my neck prick up as I walked from the ruins of the House of Axl to the bunker where casks of wine were stored in a partially underground cellar that also served as a large auditorium.

Maybe it was the memory of my first time coming here. It had all been so overwhelming. One minute I was a college kid with no family, and the next I was a vampire princess with magical gifts, a Destiny, and a Fated Mate. Sitting in this cool, dark room, lit by a sea of candles, beside a grandfather I just met, was so surreal. More like a strange dream than a memory. I took a moment to let those old feelings move through me, then cast them aside as I stepped fully into the cool, cavernous room.

Representatives from each of the Houses gathered together in the lower section. There were still candles, but much fewer. Everything was concentrated around a main stage. It would have been intimate if there weren’t nearly five hundred of us. Some Houses sent larger delegations, others smaller, but with ten different Houses in the samhain world, some with multiple Houses in different parts of the world, the number added up pretty quickly.

Rain didn’t hesitate when I asked for her help. I think she was more rattled from what her aunt and uncle had done to her than she let on, which was why she jumped at the idea so quickly. Now that we knew we had bad actors all around us, it was hard to hold to old traditions about what was right and wrong, especially when lives were at stake.

“Anything?” We stood in a shadowy section under a row of casks.

“It’s hard,” Rain said. “Up until recently I’ve been on or off. No in between. It takes finesse to let down my walls just enough to get some readings, but not so far that it overwhelms me.”

Kris was going to be pissed when he found out. Not just that Rain was doing this, but more specifically that she was doing it without him there. All the males in this family were so damn protective it was almost suffocating, but also very, very sexy. And since I wasn’t related to any of them by blood, I could appreciate that fact.

“I’m here if you need me.”

She took my hand and squeezed it. “I know. And I’m grateful. It’s…it’s nice having someone who gets what I’m going through in my life.”

Our gifts were different and so were our paths, but there was no one else whose story and abilities were close to mine. I appreciated the hell out of Rain, too.

“Oh this is interesting,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “The Djanga don’t want to be here. They’re as cold as ice to me.”

“Why don’t they want to be here? Can you tell?” Was it because they planned to hurt us all tonight? It would be a prime opportunity to hit every House all at once.

And now that I thought about it, getting us all together seemed like a not-smart idea. At least there were only three Heads of House. It was agreed months ago that there would never be more than three in the same place at the same time. After tonight there would probably be no big gatherings of any kind until this war was over. That meant no parties, no ceremonies, and no meetings. Life was about to get very dull.

Until it got really crazy.

“Stand down. It’s nothing nefarious. Their stories are very important to them and they do not like sharing like this. They feel like this isn’t sacred enough for what’s about to happen. The tall one in particular is kind of pissed that no ceremonial rites are planned.”

“Shit, that’s probably my fault. I did a lot of the planning.”

“And you’re still new.” Rain smiled. “It’s not too late to throw in some ceremony.”

Especially if it would ease some tension with such a large and powerful House.

“I don’t get any alarm bells from the Nala or Gatlin. The Himsai are tired. This isn’t a good time of day for them. Huh, the Volci are restless. Like…like they’re anxious more than restless. Ivy might just have a panic attack and Ender is full of emotions, most of them on the anger spectrum.”

“Shit.”

“Wait. The Argo are acting weird, too. They’re…suspicious of everyone.”

“Even Max and Ronan?” We worked with those two extensively. Day in and day out. They were grumpy and standoffish at times, but I didn’t peg them as traitors.

“No. Max and Ronan aren’t with the delegation. And I don’t read anything strange from the group except some unease towards their own delegation.”

That was definitely weird. I knew Dray would already have his eyes all over Ender, so I tasked Bo with watching the Argo while I tried to be unbiased and watch everyone else.

Saoirse agreed to lead off with ceremonial rites to welcome the Plane into our presence and open our minds to understanding. She performed some magic I absolutely needed to learn, not only because it was so cool, but because it relaxed everyone in the room. It set the mood and brought us together.

Cass opened the night by giving the room a brief review of why we were there in the first place. She stood in the center of the semi-circle, young and poised as she spoke. “Just a few months ago we were all here at the House of Axl. It was here that we fought for the first time in generations. And it was here that the tears in the fabric of our reality broke open for the first time since the Dark Times. Since then, we have learned that our past is not in the past. It is also our future. There are traitors amongst us,” she paused to let the accusation ring through the air. “And we are not prepared for the war to come. Which is why the Houses joined together to dig into the recesses of our archives in search of information about a time we thought would never come again. Over the course of these weeks and months we’ve compiled facts and stories and compared all the ways they are similar and different. Tonight we present the stories we think are most important to our future in the hopes that some of you will have even more insight than we’ve already gathered. Our first story tonight will be told by Navia. The House of Nala is home to a story about the Dark Times that is very relevant to today. Navia.”

As Navia took Cass’s place I took a look around the room. Almost everybody was looking forward and waiting expectantly. Ender and Ivy had their heads together talking furiously. The Argo stared forward like statues. But it was Bo who caught my attention. He wasn’t watching the Argo at all. He gazed at Navia like she was a fairy floating into the spotlight.

Fascinating.

Especially because I wouldn’t necessarily have pegged Navia as his type at first. So far I’d only seen him with extremely feminine wispy females with long hair and big eyes. Navia was a badass. She had awesome hair, was quick with a knife, and a very quick wit. Which, now that I thought about it, made a lot of sense. She would eat Bo for breakfast and, knowing the males of the Wren house, he would enjoy every bite.

“Our stories are full of magic,” Navia began. “And not just the Nala magic you all know. I mean spells we’ve never heard of. Fairies, dragons, trolls, and mermaids. We always knew the Loch Ness Monster was real, but what we never understood was how. Now we do. Our stories tell of a world that existed with another. A world that, even when it slid into the shadows, still touched our own. Monsters are real.”

She explained how there are vulnerable spots around the world where the veil between our worlds is very thin. The thinnest of all at the doors, which are required to keep their reality from crashing into ours. But at certain places, like a fragile lake, the monsters that live in the other reality can be seen as shadows…or ghosts.

“Like the Grista we saw here. To us they look like ghosts. But in their reality they are real. Which brings me to a very particular story. It involves a battle between beings that don’t follow all the rules of physics and a bending of reality. Banshees weaponized for war.”

Banshees only had a ceremonial purpose to the Gatlin. But Rain’s uncle turned them into an army that could attack from the Plane. Navia detailed an old Nala story from the Ancient War in which banshees also served as an army. It was terrifying. Especially after the way Rhine used them against us. But could we use that same ability against beings of another reality? That was the question we simply couldn’t answer. Yet.

After Navia’s three stories about magical beings and banshees, the Heida told stories of bears in battle fighting against flying demons. The Gatlin had an old story about a war between angels and demons, a power war of energy and thoughts that was fought on another Plane of Existence. The demons could summon darkness itself as a weapon.

We took a twenty-minute recess after that and I stepped outside with Dray to get some fresh air. “I love the stories but I’m getting overwhelmed by the number of people in there. I bet Rain is miserable.”

“It’s a lot but it’s best we get it all taken care of.”

“Have you noticed anything worthwhile?”

He shook his head. “Ender and Ivy are upset about something, but I suspect it’s personal. You?”

I sort of lied by omitting Rain’s observations. “Nothing to talk about. The Argo are acting real stiff.”

Dray snorted. “When don’t they? The only time they don’t have a stick up their asses is when they’re having sex.”

That…was fair. It still baffled me that Bridge had a fling with them. They were so stoic.

The temperature outside was surprisingly cool. It was more like we were up at Blood Falls than in wine country. The wind picked up, dropping the temperature even more. I pulled my sweater tight around me.

Dray noticed and wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me into his chest. “We’re halfway through. And who knows. Maybe Atsila is wrong. Maybe no one is a traitor and the Volci have a perfectly reasonable explanation for their movements. Maybe there’s some sort of moon alignment they’re trying to reach.”

“But then why not answer the Heida’s questions?” There was definitely something going on. I felt that much in my bones.

The temperature dropped even more. “Okay this is weird right?” Dray held me closer as he glanced over the horizon. “It’s like someone left a freezer door open.”

I shivered. “It’s definitely weird. I never experienced anything like this when I lived here.” It just kept getting colder and colder and a weird sensation began to wash over my skin.

It was familiar somehow. It reminded me of the day of the battle here at the House of Axl. But it also reminded me of a vision Dray and I shared just a few days ago.

“Rhysa. What’s wrong?” Dray began to pull me back towards the door.

But it was already too late. “Dray, we need to run!”