Chapter 15

The yummy scentof manna fills my nostrils as I appear in the lobby of my dream palace.

Pom pops up next to me. "I've missed you."

I grin at him. "We're attached, you know. But yes, I've missed you too."

Pom turns purple, and his ears flap in a sort of happy dance.

I tell him an edited version of the events that have transpired so far, which boils down to getting "hired" to solve a case for the New York Council.

When I get to the part about Valerian, he says, "I can tell if he really looks the way you think. I can see through any illusion."

I look my furry friend up and down, which doesn't take long, given his small stature. "How?"

He floats up to my eye level. "I see through your eyes when I'm awake. Pretty sure the illusionist would have to target me with his powers to make us both see the same thing."

"See through my eyes, right. Perfectly normal behavior for a symbiont. Not something a parasite would do at all."

"Indeed," he says, oblivious to my sarcasm. "And it can be useful."

I snort. "Not really. You said you have to be awake. You're almost never awake."

His ears turn the color of carrots. "But you can wake me up."

"I can? How?"

"By mentally shouting for me." A lightbulb appears above his head. "Why don't you wake up and try it right now?"

Intrigued, I exit the dream world and open my eyes back at the lab.

Pom, I mentally shout. Pom, wake up!

Then I look at my wrist.

The way to tell if he's awake is that his fur will start to express his emotions instead of mine. Oh, and on a rare occasion, he'll deign to speak as a voice in my head.

The fur is light orange, which could be his curiosity or mine. There's not a peep from him in my mind.

Pom! Pom, wake up.

No reaction.

I touch his fur and draw myself back into the dream world.

"What happened?" he asks when I reappear in the palace. "You didn't do it."

"I shouted from the top of my brain like a lunatic." I shake my head. "I don't know, Pom. I don't think you can be roused."

He huffs. "With all that lack of sleep, your mind is just too muddy."

"Sure, blame it on me."

He gives me a furry frown. "It's a wonder you can function at all."

I just barely hold back an eye roll. "You know what? Let me tell you the rest of it." I proceed to explain about the bits of dreamwalker diary—my reason for coming here in the first place.

"Do you have a link to a werewolf to see this inner wolf business?" he asks when I'm done.

"Afraid not. I've never worked with their kind. I guess I'll find out what they're like when I have to deal with the werewolf on this Council."

The tips of his ears darken. "Remind me not to join you when you do. Sounds scary."

"Deal." I scratch the top of his furry head until his ears turn purple. "Now I'm going to attempt the whole ‘double consciousness' thing."

"I'll watch." Flying up a few feet, he stares down at me intently—an act that makes him look borderline freakish, thanks to his tea-saucer-sized eyes.

I exit my body, becoming a dream ghost, and create an exact duplicate of that body. So far, so good. Next, I attempt to return to both bodies at the same time. I end up in only one—the original. The second body just stands there like a mannequin.

I exit my body again, give the two Baileys fiery hair, and will myself to enter both.

Nope. Still end up in just one.

Pom zooms down and pokes the second body with a toe. "Maybe you need to turn this into one of those dream characters you like to have sex with?"

"Pom!" I give him a menacing glare. "How many times do I have to tell you that's private?"

He turns beet red. "You didn't ask me not to spy on you every time. I assumed it was okay."

Great. First, I'd forgotten to make myself invisible when dreamwalking in humans, and now it turns out I'd also forgotten to ask Pom for privacy during my R R. Must be the sleep deprivation.

"Let me try your idea," I say and replace the body in front of us with a dream character of me, something I've never tried before.

"Hello," the new me says sensually. "How can I be of service?"

Pom looks between me and my creation. "Do they all want to have sex?"

I shrug. "They're just like any person you meet in a dream."

"What we dream characters say and do is driven by the dreamer's subconscious," my other self says. "That's how I know she's often wondered about this." Leaping at me, she plants a wet kiss on my lips.

"Hey!" I push her away. "Not in front of Pom."

She smirks. "I'll stop if you admit it."

"Fine. Guilty as charged. I have thought about it. You. Doing things with myself. But I've never done it because it seems a bit narcissistic."

She strikes a centerfold pose. "Anyone you have sex with in this dream world is essentially me. I may pretend to be them, but we both know it's really you, or a part of you, pulling the strings."

This is not going as I'd anticipated. "Just stay still," I command her.

She freezes in a comical pose. I focus to see if my consciousness is in both of us.

Nope.

I float out of my body and attempt to land back in both bodies.

Another fail.

I dismiss the second me. "Looks like I'm not powerful enough to pull off the double consciousness."

"Or you might be too sleep deprived to use your power properly," Pom suggests helpfully, flitting over to sit on my shoulder. "It's like I told you. It's been more than four months since—"

"You're like a nagging husband." I grab his furry body and hold him in front of my face. "I can't raise enough money for Mom's bills if I waste time sleeping. Now I also need to solve this case ASAP."

His lavender eyes are unblinking. "So you're not avoiding sleep because you're afraid of bad dreams?"

Ugh. Who died and made Pom my therapist? "Remember that privacy thing we talked about a minute ago?"

His shoulders slump.

"Yeah, you guessed it." I set him down. "Can I please get some for the next few minutes?"

"If you insist," he says glumly.

"I insist. And you must promise not to spy. I mean it."

"I pinky swear." He extends a three-fingered paw.

Since every digit is the same, I guess the rightmost to be the pinky and solemnly shake it to seal the deal. "Now scram."

He performs the slowest Cheshire Cat disappearance ever.

When I'm sure he's gone, I change my surroundings to my favorite bedroom in the palace and let my mind drift to Valerian. Even if his looks were to impress me, they were impressive. Visualizing him is easy; I guess his mouthwateringly hot face is burned into my imagination.

Without further ado, I make a dream version of Valerian appear in front of me, dressed in the same suit as in the real world.

"Hi, gorgeous," Dream Valerian drawls. "Miss me already?"

"Shut up." I try to keep my voice steady. "You know what I want."

He grins wickedly, and unbuttoning the top button of his shirt, he comes toward me. Even though I'm in the dream world and he's a simulation of what was likely an illusion, my body's response feels quite realistic—down to every detail.

This will be fun.

Even if the real Valerian doesn't look this way, I owe him for inspiring this dream design.

Moving with predatory grace, Dream Valerian closes the distance between us and kisses me. His sensual lips are as soft as I imagined. I melt in his arms, feeling his—

"Bailey," Felix's voice booms from all over. "The door."

Seriously? I had no idea Felix was such a cockblocker.

"The investigation, remember?" Felix shouts from the outside world. "Someone's here."

"Fine," I growl, and leaving a disappointed Dream Valerian, I return to the waking world.

The cooing of the cannibal birds is back, as is the stomach-turning smell of their cages.

I open my eyes. The door is already open, and Kit is standing much too close to me, a look of curiosity on her face.

I step back awkwardly. "Hi."

"I'm here to take over for Kain for a bit," she says, turning into him. "Did I come at a bad time?"

I plaster a smile on my face. "It's fine. I was waiting to get out of here."

"To do what?" she asks in Kain's voice.

"I want to interview the strongest members of the Council. Anyone able to rip a person in half."

"I see." Kit morphs back into her anime character self. "Who would you like to start with?"

I prepare to watch her reaction. "You."

Her face reveals nothing.

"With your power, you could turn into an orc and have its strength, right?"

She morphs into a giant green orc—a muscle-bound creature that Earthlings might confuse for the Hulk with tusks. "I'm a suspect?" she booms.

Being next to something this big activates primal fear in my amygdala, so all I can do is bob my head.

"Okay then," Orc Kit growls and smashes a fist into the door. The heavy wood shatters into tiny pieces, answering my question about her strength. The birds stop cooing and blink at the orc with panic in their cannibalistic eyes.

I know what they're thinking: We're about to die.

Then again, they might be thinking how delicious my remains will be.

"Now," Kit growls, taking a menacing step toward me. "Let's talk."