Chapter 10

Only it doesn't smashinto me. With the speed a Secret Service agent would be proud of, Valerian yanks me behind him, taking the projectile in the chest in my stead.

The material of his outfit begins to sizzle, and terror rips through me. Pucking idiot! What was he thinking? Who made him my bodyguard? I want to yell at him, but there's no time. Hands shaking, I grab my hand sanitizer and squirt the cleansing liquid at the spot where the acid is attacking Valerian's suit.

The sizzling seems to lessen.

Valerian tears at the front of his suit, ripping a chunk away.

There's a nasty burn on his chest, which I squirt with more hand sanitizer.

I'll live, he informs me via LEGO letters. We have to go.

Grimacing in pain, he grabs my hand and pulls me toward the door as Erato's knife slices open the side of the bug trap.

We sprint for the elevator. Erato is on our heels, and the plants in the hallway try to stop us—except these are regular, non-deadly plants, so they fail.

As he summons the elevator, Valerian must spare a second to make Erato see something that isn't there because she hurls her knife in the direction opposite us.

We leap into the elevator, and he punches the button for the roof.

The doors close, shutting out the dryad, but I don't exhale until we get all the way to the top, where a flying car is waiting for us. As soon as we jump inside, it lifts off the roof.

I rip the stupid mask off my face and squirt more sanitizer at the burn on Valerian's chest. He won't die, I know that now, but I'm still furious that he took that kind of risk.

"What were you thinking?" I say through gritted teeth. "You could've—"

"It's okay." Removing his own mask, he covers my hand with his. "It doesn't hurt anymore."

"But why did you even—" I stop short because he pulls out a small vial and takes a sip.

His eyes close in that blissful O-face expression, and the wound instantly heals.

I narrow my eyes at the vial. "Vampire blood?"

He puts it away. "I only use it in case of emergencies."

I take a deep breath, some of my fury abating. If he had that with him, then he wasn't in as much danger from the acid seed as I thought. Still, the idea that he took that deadly projectile for me…

"Don't do that again. Ever," I say grimly. "The risking your life for me part, I mean. And be careful with that blood."

He arches his eyebrows. "I'm always careful. Do you have a problem with it?"

"I almost did." I tell him about my recent troubles with that highly addictive substance, and when I finish, he takes out the vial and demonstratively pours it out the car's window.

"No need to have that sort of temptation around you," he explains. "I don't need it that much."

Before I can process that, the car descends onto a landing strip on a rooftop. Distracted, I peer at it. It looks like a private rooftop, in which case Valerian is even richer than I thought.

We land, and as we exit, he tells the car not to expect us for a while.

I blink up at him. "It's your personal car?"

Most citizens of Gomorrah share rides—both driving and flying ones—which is how we don't have traffic the way they do in New York and other Earth cities. Only one percent of the richest one percent bother with private rides.

He lovingly pats the shiny surface of the vehicle. "Sometimes you order a ride, and it takes time to arrive."

"Sure. It makes sense to spend a fortune to avoid wasting those valuable milliseconds."

He grins and leads me to the elevator.

Surprise surprise. We only descend one floor, to the penthouse of this skyscraper—the most expensive dwelling you can imagine. He waves his hand, and the shiny black door quietly slides open, revealing an expansive loft-like space with twenty-foot-high ceilings made almost entirely of glass.

Talk about skylights.

That's not what makes my breath catch in my chest, though.

Someone put a thirty-foot-wide water pondhere, smack in the middle of the penthouse.

Is this real? I've never seen such a thing. Then again, I guess if you can have a pool, you can have a pond—if you're into throwing money away, that is. Unless this thing is an illusion, Valerian must own the floor below this one just to make room for the bottom of this body of water.

As I come closer, I see a few swamp flowers that have multicolored legusitting on them—frog-like amphibians that squeak instead of croak.

It's a whole pucking ecosystem, and a nice one at that. The scent of the flowers, their colors, the sounds of the water splashing, and the little squeaks all seem to be carefully calculated to pleasantly stimulate the senses.

"This is not an illusion," Valerian says before I can ask. "There's also riliving in the water."

Sure enough, I spot the little fish-like creatures. They look like rubies with fins and tails.

Valerian takes off his shoes, sits on the edge of the pond, and dips his naked feet into the water with a contented sigh. Catching my gaze, he grins and pats the spot next to him.

I gingerly crouch there.

"You can put your feet in." He curls and uncurls his toes, clearly relishing the feel of the water. "It's nice."

I grimace. "No, thanks. I could live my whole life without soaking my feet in the same place those legu and ri go to the bathroom."

"Your loss." His expression turns serious. "Are you ready to go into Erato's dream?"

I get more comfortable by twisting my legs into a lotus pose I learned in a yoga class on Earth. "Sure. What am I looking for when I'm in there?"

"Right." His gaze is intent on my face. "I have to tell you what the Senate asked me to do."

Finally. "Go ahead."

"How much do you know about Icelus?" His voice tightens on the last word.

Icelus? Is he talking about the secret society cult from Leal's notes? The one Kit dismissed as the dreamwalker being delusional? "Well," I say slowly, "allegedly, they did some bad things on Earth and—"

"What the puck do you mean by ‘allegedly?'"

I scoot back, startled by his vehement reaction. "I don't know. During my investigation for the Council, I got Leal's journal—you know, the dead dreamwalker?—and he'd made claims about Icelus that sound like conspiracy theories. Nobody on the Council took him seriously, so…"

Valerian's forearm muscles flex, like he's fighting not to clench his fists. "Whatever heinous crimes Leal accused them of, Icelus are guilty of far worse."

I give him an incredulous stare. "Worse than wars and terrorist acts?"

He nods grimly. "Their goal is to maximize the number and frequency of nightmares everywhere to serve their deity."

Huh, okay. Maybe Leal wasn't all that delusional. "That deity being Phobetor, the god of nightmares?"

"Do not utter that name," Valerian snaps. "Just like the nightmares, it gives him power."

Wait, what? Is Phobetor like Voldemort, He Who Must Not Be Named? Actually, I don't think Harry Potter's nemesis got more power when his name was said out loud. Either way, why does Valerian sound like he believes the same mumbo-jumbo as Icelus?

There's no way there's such a thing as Phobetor.

"I won't do it again," I say reassuringly, just in case. "How about I call him something safe, like Collywobbles? In English, that means stomach pain or queasiness."

"I know English well," Valerian says, his gaze softening slightly. "I've been on Earth more than you."

"Oh?"

"I immigrated there a while back."

I scooch back toward him, driven by curiosity. "What about your parents? Did they also immigrate?"

"No." His features darken. "Icelus took them from me before that."

The torment in his eyes makes my chest ache, and on my wrist, Pom turns darker than a black hole. Unbidden, my hand reaches out and rests reassuringly on Valerian's stiff shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," I murmur.

His shoulder minutely relaxes. "It was a long time ago." Eyes glinting, he adds, "The killer paid dearly for what he did."

No doubt. I don't even want to imagine what kind of horrific things Valerian can do with his powers to someone he hates.

He places his palm over mine, his gaze growing heavy-lidded.

Wow. His touch is like the heat of an exploding quasar. It spreads through my body and settles somewhere low in my core.

I snatch my hand away before I do something crazy, like lean over and plant a kiss on those sensuous lips. "Back to the Senate job."

"Right." His features grow taut again. "Since the government here knows of their existence, Icelus have been very careful when it comes to their operations on Gomorrah—until recently, that is. The Senate have reason to believe that Icelus are plotting something here, and they've asked many people, me included, to look into it."

"And that dryad—"

"Is the reason the Senate needed me for that part of the investigation. Because of some of the horrific genetically modified plants she recently patented, they think she's an agent or at least a lead to one, but they don't want to spook her. They want me to use my powers to extract the information from her without her realizing they're on to her, but I think your powers will work even better."

I massage the bridge of my nose. "You don't think our little visit spooked her?"

"Hopefully not. As we were flying, I got the Senate to replace the surveillance footage in her home and the rest of that building. When she checked it, she saw herself running around like a madwoman."

I whistle. "Isn't that illegal?"

He shrugs. "The Senate decides what's legal."

"Right. So much for the rule of law."

He splashes at the water with his foot. "Do you have what you need for the dreamwalking?"

"No. I could use an anchor."

He raises an eyebrow.

"Something that would help me get the right dream started," I explain. "Saves a ton of time."

"Use her patent filings." He gestures around, clearly activating his comms.

I check my inbox. Yep. A message from him is waiting there, full of attachments.

As I review the plant designs, a shiver goes down my spine.

These make the man-eating plants from her apartment seem like cuddly kittens.

The tamest one is a tree with blooms that remind me of corpse flowers native to Earth, but uglier. The pollen these trees produce would be toxic enough to fell even a vampire. With the right wind, a single tree could wipe out whole neighborhoods.

"She's insane," I mutter as I review more of the deadly flora.

"Icelus seek to create nightmare fuel whenever they can," Valerian says. "Even someone writing an article about these plants can be helpful to them."

"No kidding." I turn off the VR. "I myself might have a nightmare about a garden with these abominations. Do you think Icelus plan to unleash these plants on us?"

"That's what I want you to find out," he says. "Will those filings work as an anchor?"

"Only one way to find out." I rise to my feet. "Please don't disturb me as I go into my trance."

I don't know why, but I turn away from him before I touch Pom. I guess I still don't trust him with this information.

Hand resting on my looft's soothing fur, I dive into the dream world.