Dreams of Shreds and Tatters Page 16

  Her lips tightened and she didn’t meet his eye. For a moment he thought she would refuse. “All right,” she said instead. “That’s only fair.”

  She caught another woman’s arm and pressed her into service as a backup hostess. When she turned back she was smiling again. Her armor, he realized, as much as Liz’s altruism and his own causticity. Or his drinking. He grimaced and set his empty glass aside.

  “Follow me,” Antja said, beckoning him down the hallway. “I still owe you a drink, anyway.”

  If it was armor, he might as well be properly fortified. He followed.

  LIZ LEFT THE crowd behind, and the noise receded until the only sound was the tap of her boots on the tile and the nearly subliminal hum of the lights. She tugged at the hem of her sweater, but stopped when she imagined security cameras capturing her nerves. She missed the red dress and the poise it lent her.

  Rainer’s muted voice answered her knock, and she eased the door open to find him sitting behind a desk, elbows propped and fingers steepled. His eyes were shadowed, cheeks dark with stubble. Nice to know she wasn’t the only one losing sleep.

  “You wanted to talk to me?” “Yes.” He half rose and beckoned her inside. “Thank you for coming.”

  The door clicked shut behind her as she stepped into shadows and lamplight. She kept her beringed and bandaged hands in her coat pockets despite the room’s warmth. Her head was foggy with painkillers, but at least the sickening pain in her hand had dulled.

  “I’m being a terrible host tonight.” Rainer shoved a stack of papers across the polished desktop and set an open bottle of wine in their place. “Antja will skin me when I finally show my face.”

  Liz shook her head when he offered her a glass. She wondered how much he’d already had—his accent was deeper than usual, his gaze less focused. The change from two nights ago was unnerving. He’d been so collected at the opening, cool and assured. Now he looked as bad as she felt. She quashed an upswell of sympathy.

  “You wanted to talk about Blake.” Her throat was dry and she wished for wine after all, but it was contraindicated by both her medicine and her common sense. She couldn’t play at small talk, not after last night.

  “Yes.” Rainer stared at his glass, then drained it in a single gulp. “You said you dreamt of Blake. Of Carcosa. What did you see? Please,” he said when she hesitated. “What do you see?”

  She couldn’t trust him, but his eyes were so tired and shadowed and desperate. She swallowed. “I saw him drowning. Then he washed up on the shores of Carcosa. He’s there now, in the city. In the palace of the king.” She glanced in the direction of the maze, and the painting waiting at its heart.

  Rainer stood, dark brows knitting, and circled the desk, leaning against the near side. “Can you find him? Can you bring him back?”

  His gaze was focused now, tipsiness vanished. It pinned her like an insect on a card. “I… I don’t know.”

  He pushed off the desk, stopped again as if caught by a leash. Tension tightened his neck and shoulders. “I need you to try.”

  “I have tried!” Too loud, and she flushed. “I am trying. It’s not easy.”

  He exhaled and retreated a few inches. “No. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what else to do.”

  “Neither do I.” She folded her arms under her chest, pressing sweaty palms against her coat. “But I’ll do what I can. What I have to.”

  Rainer sighed. “You love him.”

  “Of course.” And belatedly she parsed his intensity, the catch in his voice when he said Blake’s name. “You do too.”

  His shoulders sagged and he turned away. “God help me. I do.”

  Love or limerence? Care or desire? She didn’t understand where other people drew those lines. And in the end, did it matter? The absence of lust had never seemed to make her own relationships less complicated. “Does he know?”

  He laughed once, raw and humorless. “I’ve never said anything, if that’s what you mean.”

  She remembered Blake’s sketchbook, Rainer’s electric eyes captured in harsh pencil strokes. She clenched her right hand until the ring dug into her flesh. This wasn’t the time for distractions. “What the hell is going on? You were at the cabin that night, weren’t you? I saw the blood. I’ve seen what happens to people on mania. I’ve seen a lot of things I don’t understand—Carcosa, the king. What happened to Blake?”

  He slumped against the desk again. “I don’t know anymore. I thought I did, but… Blake opened a door. Then everything went to hell. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  “What was it supposed to be?”

  “Something beautiful. I only wanted—” He dragged a hand across his face. So tired. Tired and aching and helpless as she was. It was a trap and she was rushing headlong into it. She didn’t know what else to do.

  “What do you want from me?” The words came out harsher than she’d thought herself capable of. Rainer flinched.

  “I’ve tried every way I know to find him, to call him back, but nothing works. I tried to open the door myself, but I was... turned away.” His shoulders hunched with the words, then squared again. He stepped closer and his need crept like static over her skin. “But you can reach him.”

  “I’m not strong enough.” The admission stung, but it had to be said. “Carcosa is... not a dream I can control.”

  “What if there was a way to make you stronger?”

  She couldn’t break away from his gaze. “You’re talking about mania.”

  He waved the word aside. “Morpheus. That’s its real name. The king of dreams.” He pulled a narrow glass vial from his pocket.

  Curiosity drew her across the room in spite of herself. Such a tiny thing, but it weighed heavy on her palm. The liquid inside gleamed opalescent.

  Drink me, she thought, and swallowed a wild laugh.

  “It drives people insane,” she said, looking up at Rainer. “Turns them into monsters.”

  “How—” His expression was nearly comical.

  “I told you, I’ve seen it.”

  Rainer scowled. “It was never meant to be like this.”

  “Of course not.” Her fingers closed around the vial.

  “It expands vision. Expands talents. With gifts like yours, it makes them stronger.”

  “What do you mean, gifts like mine?”

  “You’re a dreamer, aren’t you? A true dreamer. The things you see in sleep are as real as anywhere in the waking world.” He cocked a questioning eyebrow. Liz could only nod, her cheeks tingling with shock, her tongue numb. She had kept that part of her life a secret for so long, ever since her childhood realization that no one else would understand. To hear it laid out so simply, as someone might notice that she was blonde, or a Pisces...

  Rainer grinned, a quick flash of his earlier charm. “I’ve heard of people like you, read books, but I’ve never met one before. Is there really a cavern of flame at the bottom of seventy steps?”

  “Yes.” She shook her head, shook away the questions crowding her head. All but the only one that mattered. “This will help me find Blake?” She lifted the vial, clenching her hand tighter to hide her trembling.

  Rainer’s delight drained away. “I can’t think of any other way.” He laid a hand on her shoulder, holding her eyes. “If I could do this myself, I would.”

  She wanted to disbelieve, but his sincerity washed over her. “What’s the price?”

  He blinked, and she used that heartbeat’s lessening of his magnetism to pull back. “What do you mean?”

  “The price. What does this drug take from me in exchange for awesome psychic powers?”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s... not without risk, I admit.”

  “So I could still end up a vegetable, or a walking corpse?”

  “Not from a single dose. I hope. I can’t think of another way,” he said again, closing his hand around hers. “I can’t reach Carcosa, but you can. I need you. Blake needs you.”

  “I have to thin
k about it.” A lie—delaying tactics. She knew what her answer would be. But she needed to catch her breath and regroup, and she couldn’t do that with him staring at her.

  With a sigh, Rainer let go of her hand. “Of course.” He held the wine bottle to the light, sloshing the last ruby-black drops back and forth. “I suppose this means I should check on the party.”

  NO MONSTERS WAITED for them in the stairwell tonight, and Antja led Alex into a loft on the third floor. His skin tingled as he crossed the threshold, reminding him of the cabin, and Blake’s apartment. Could this door hide itself as well?

  Antja turned into the kitchenette while Alex eyed the corners for creeping horrors. Glass clinked, and he looked back to see her pouring whisky. Lagavulin, sixteen year. Not the cheap stuff. And not, thank god, on the rocks. He took the glass from her, inhaling the sharp aroma of smoke and peat. He’d come for answers, but now he couldn’t find the right questions. There was nothing he could think to say that didn’t sound mad.

  No, there was one thing. And now he was embarrassed to have not said it sooner.

  “Thank you.” He sipped the scotch to ease his dry tongue. “For helping us yesterday. You didn’t have to.”

  She shrugged, looking almost as discomfited as he felt. “For all the good it did.” One hand brushed the thick folds of her sweater’s cowl.

  Which was true, but even Alex would be hard pressed to be so ungracious. “Be that as it may. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She glanced away, and now it seemed that her smooth veneer downstairs had only been an illusion. Her face was wan and drawn, eyes bruised darker than makeup could hide. Her shoulders slumped and she held herself with the stiffness of the old or infirm. He studied his drink to hide his disconcertment.

  Antja turned back to the bar to pour herself a glass of wine. When she returned she’d drawn on a smile. “But you came here for answers, didn’t you?”

  He frowned. Holmes would have already solved the case from a stray piece of lint on her sweater and Bond would simply take her to bed. So would Harry Palmer, for that matter, but at least he’d make breakfast. Alex imagined he was better off asking questions.

  “Is it true, what Lailah said? Is this all Rainer’s doing?”

  Her lips thinned. “Not all of it.”

  “But some?”

  “Some,” she admitted. “Is that really what you want to know?”

  Alex straightened at the challenge in her tone and cursed himself for it. “All I care about is making sure Liz doesn’t end up in the hospital with Blake.”

  “No, it’s not.” She set her glass down and waved away his denial. “Not all.” Her lips shimmered in the wake of a tongue-trace and color rose in her cheeks. She took a step forward, fragility vanished as if it had never been. “You’ve seen things. Amazing things. Impossible things.” The clack of her heels punctuated each word. “You tell yourself they can’t be real, but you can’t forget them. And now you have to know the truth.” Her eyes met his through a veil of lashes, their darkness shot through with gold. “That’s how it always starts.”

  She stopped within arm’s length and it was all he could do not to reach for her. Only his white-knuckled grip on his glass kept him from touching her cheek. Her perfume dizzied him, and he could almost taste her wine and lipstick. Another few inches and he would.

  No, he thought, even as his pulse sped. This was wrong. Never mind the ethics of it, or the wisdom—this wasn’t him. It was external, forced upon him. He’d felt it before, he realized, though it had been easy to mistake for adolescent lust at the time.

  “No!” He jerked away, sloshing whisky over his fingers. It chilled his skin as it evaporated.

  For an instant the world sharpened into crystalline focus and he saw it. A shimmering allure lay over Antja like a veil, reaching for him with warm opium-scented tendrils, ready to sink like fishhooks into his skin. Then he shook his head and it fell away, leaving only the woman in front of him, her eyes widening in surprise.

  “Don’t,” he rasped, stumbling back another step. He might have fled, but she stood between him and the door. Instead he downed a swallow of whisky and staggered back.

  “I’m sorry,” Antja whispered, one hand pressing her mouth. Pale and shaken again, and no lovelier than she ought to be. “This isn’t the first time, is it?” she said as he sank heavily onto the couch. “You’ve seen something like this before.”

  Fractured memories glittered behind his eyes: a chalk circle and voices, an electric blue twist of light, mocking laughter. It hadn’t happened, he tried to tell himself, the response worn soft and familiar with years of rote use. But it had—whatever it was—as surely as this was happening now. He drained the rest of his glass, coughing as smoky warmth seared his sinuses.

  “Nothing quite like this,” he managed, his dry tone ruined by a cough. “What we saw in the stairwell... That was real.” He meant it as a question, but it didn’t come out that way.

  “Yes.” Antja sank into the chair across from him. Alex was glad of the distance and coffee table between them. “They’re real.” Her masks stripped away, and he saw in her eyes a fatigue so deep it swallowed fear. Or was that only another mask itself?

  “What are they?”

  “I don’t know. I think… I think they’re after Rainer.”

  “He’s not the safest person to be around, is he?” He meant it to sting, but still winced at the sorrow that crossed her face.

  “No.”

  It wasn’t any of his concern and he had no reason to care, but he couldn’t stop the question. “Then why do you stay?”

  Her voice cracked. “He needs me.” She shook her head, but not before he saw the sudden glaze of moisture beneath her lashes.

  “I’m sorry,” they said simultaneously. Antja chuckled, wiping carefully at her eyes, and Alex fumbled a tissue out of his pocket.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said, even though he had.

  “And I didn’t mean to fall apart.” Her fingers brushed his. “I am sorry, about—” She made a vague gesture. “Before.”

  “What was that, exactly?”

  One shoulder rose and fell. “A simple trick. A fascination. I’m not very good at this, really,” she admitted with a rueful twist of her mouth. “Not compared to some. But I know a few things.” She drew a deep breath and raised a hand to her face.

  When she lowered it, Liz sat in front of him.

  No, he realized, even as he leaned in, breath catching. Not Liz. The ragged ash-blonde bob was right, and the pale oval of her face, but the cheekbones were too high, eyes too green and wideset. An idealized Liz, without the imperfections and asymmetries. “I could teach you.” The voice was perfect, soft and rough, with just a hint of hesitation. But Liz had never leaned toward him in just that way, eyes darkening, warmth rising in her cheeks. “If you want to learn.”

  He did, so badly it made him shudder like a fly-stung horse. Too much.

  “I don’t think that’s wise,” he said, his own voice gone husky.

  The false Liz melted and he closed his eyes against the sight. He opened them again to Antja’s raised eyebrows. “You won’t walk away now. No one does. You’ll have to find someone.”

  He frowned; it galled to be told what he thought, even if she was right. “I pride myself on auto-didacticism.”

  She laughed. “Even so.” She rose and turned to the bar, scribbling something on the back of a card. He felt the sudden distance between them like a severed cord. “If you change your mind,” she said, holding the pale rectangle between two fingers.

  He wanted to refuse, but instead he rose and took the card—and her number—and shoved it into his pocket. He rubbed his palms on his thighs. “I should find Liz.” He never should have left her alone for so long.

  “Of course.” Antja’s face was smiling and immaculate again. He wondered if he could see through her illusions now, but didn’t try. He didn’t want to know what lay under them.

  NEITHE
R OF THEM spoke as he followed Antja back to the crowded gallery. He was trying to muster the wherewithal for a polite goodbye when they turned a corner and nearly collided with someone.

  The man from the opening, Stephen. Still blond and sleek, but his smug smile was nowhere to be found as he stared at Antja.

  “Stephen.” She drew herself up, a chilly transformation that had more to do with anger than illusion. Her smile could have cut glass. “Did you get my message?”

  “I did.” Stephen’s throat worked above his shirt collar. “Antja—”

  “It was a clever idea. Pity it didn’t work out.”

  “It was a mistake.” He glanced at Alex and looked away again in dismissal. “You didn’t tell Rainer.”

  Her smile stretched even thinner. “I don’t need him to protect me. You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here tonight. But you always do, don’t you?”

  The tension thickened and Alex edged away. He couldn’t tell if the intimacy between them was born of desire or anger or both. Their voices were low, but the palpable intensity began to draw glances. Time to slip off quietly and find Liz.

  “If you want to kill me,” Antja said, and his attention snapped back, “now would be the time to try.”

  Stephen’s expression grew pained. “I said it was a mistake. I underestimated you. I’m sorry.” His eyes flickered to Alex again, and toward the people trying to eavesdrop behind them. “This isn’t the place for this discussion.”

  “Isn’t it?” Her eyes narrowed. “You weren’t invited tonight.”

  Alex swallowed the taste of ozone. His skin crawled and stung and the hair on his arms stood on end. Conversations faltered and died as more people clustered at the end of the hall to watch. So much for slipping away unnoticed.

  “Antja—” Alex reached for her arm, hoping to forestall whatever confrontation was in the making. A spark arced between them and he jerked back with a hiss. Overhead, one of the lightbulbs shattered with a pop and the shivery tinkle of falling glass. He retreated, brushing crystalline dust off his sleeve. The dizziness returned, worse than ever, and his chest ached.