Chapter 25

What remainsof Hekima spouts a fountain of blood.

I shriek.

Fangs busting out, Kain flashes toward the edge of the bridge. The beast must fear vampires, because it seizes the rest of Hekima in its jaws and disappears into the murky waters.

"What the hell?" Shaking uncontrollably, I lurch after Kain. "What was that?"

The vampire curses and glares at the water as though he's contemplating diving in.

"Are you insane?" I grab his shoulder. "Hekima is dead. Do you want to join him?"

He twists around to face me. "You're not going to tell anyone about this," he says through gritted teeth. "The rain will wash away the blood and…"

I don't know what he says next. Moving purely on adrenaline-filled autopilot, I pull out the hand sanitizer and clean my hands, as though the blood Kain speaks of is on them.

"Don't worry," I say numbly when he gives me a shake. "I won't tell anyone."

"And you realize that was another murder, right?" He stares into my eyes as though he's about to glamour me.

"It was?" I reflexively sanitize my hands again.

"Come inside." He grabs my fresh, clean hand and drags me behind him like a rag doll.

I'm not sure if he glamours me or not, but I somehow find myself back in his quarters.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" he growls. "Speak."

Shaking off the residual shock, I look around for listening devices. I don't see any, but that doesn't mean much. "Can you go to sleep again? No one can overhear us if we speak in the dream world."

He rolls his eyes but obediently stalks into his bedroom and puts himself to sleep. I slip into the dream world, ask Pom not to show himself, and find Kain. He's already deep within a dream of drinking blood from a woman I've never seen.

I make the woman disappear, convince him he's dreaming, and place us in my cloud office—in this case, to soothe my own raw nerves. Kain can fend for himself.

"Sit there." I point to where I usually sit and take the therapy couch myself. "Now, what was that thing?" I replicate the creature that ate Hekima a few feet away. "Do things like that live on Earth?"

He gives my recreation a baleful glare. "It was Nessie. She was a gift from the Council in Scotland."

I goggle at him. "As in the Loch Ness monster?"

He nods. "Humans got wind of the poor creature, so she had to be relocated."

Oh, crap—he's serious. I make Nessie disappear and create a stuffed replica of Pom's usual dream shape so I can hug him to my chest. "Why would you put something so dangerous in your moat?"

Kain shrugs wearily. "It happened before my time, back when the Council kept prisoners in the dungeon. Anyone escaping through the sewers became Nessie's lunch."

Disgusting. The cell they initially gave me as a room—if I'd used that hole-in-the-floor excuse of a toilet, I'd literally have been putting my butt on the line. I take in a deep breath and reassure myself that I never would've come near that hole to the sewer anyway, monster or no monster. Way too unsanitary.

Shoving the unpleasant image away, I ask, "Was this the first time Nessie's attacked people outside her domain?"

Kain dips his chin in a single nod. "I didn't know it was possible. Now that I think about it, I guess someone with Gemma's power could make Nessie act like that, but—"

"Is there someone else with Gemma's powers on the Council? They could be behind Leal's death and this murder."

Kain sighs. "She was the only one."

"What about probability powers?" I create a replica of Chester in front of us. "I imagine there's always been some small chance Nessie would attack someone by the moat. A trickster could've boosted those odds."

"Maybe. In theory. But why?"

I tell him my suspicions about Chester.

"That doesn't track," he says. "Hekima wasn't yet on the Council when they kicked Chester out."

Puck, that's right. Hekima wasn't on the list of people who voted against Chester—or anyone else, for that matter. There goes that theory.

I hug my Pom replica harder. "So maybe it was an actual accident. Maybe Nessie got hungry after all this time without prisoners to munch on."

Kain scoffs. "The monks feed her a goat per day. I think we need to treat this as a murder, which is why I told you to keep quiet."

I don't have a good feeling about this. "What do you mean?"

"As I said, if there's another murder, your fate becomes uncertain. To put it mildly."

My heart rate triples. Since this is the dream world, I zoom out of my body to calm it the puck down.

"I bet the real reason is his reputation as the head of the Enforcers," Pom—who must've gone invisible to listen to the whole thing—whispers in my ear as soon as I'm back.

He's right. This murder happened under Kain's nose. He's bound to look bad if anyone learns about it.

Making Dream Chester disappear, I ask, "What if Hekima upset him in some way?"

"Could be," Kain says. "Why don't you check his alibi?"

"I will. Do you happen to know where he was when Tatum was shot with that arrow, by any chance? He volunteered information about his whereabouts during Gemma's murder, but—"

"Vegas. I think he was in Las Vegas." Kain stands and starts to pace the cloud. "His lion has a girlfriend among the lions at The Mirage hotel, but that's just the excuse. Chester likes to walk into casinos and use his power to win at slot machines. Usually an unsuspicious amount."

I make a mental note to check on what The Mirage's casino looks like. "As soon as Chester goes to sleep, I'll check those alibis."

"Until then, you're to stay in my quarters so I can keep an eye on you," Kain says. "We're not going to discuss any of this, in case your paranoia is right. You're also not going to eat or drink anything. We want to avoid any unfortunate accidents."

I solemnly nod and wake us up.

Opening his eyes, Kain jackknifes from the bed and heads toward his dining area without a second glance.

Fighting the urge to lie down on the fuzzy coverlet, I follow him and plop onto a barstool by the kitchen counter. He's already on his laptop and ignores me completely.

I take out my phone and look up the casino to note a few key details. Then I put my phone away and just sit there, too tired to do anything else. After a while, the last remnants of adrenaline trickle out of my system, and the strongest drowsiness I've ever experienced hits me.

I jump up and begin to pace—but I still feel on the verge of falling asleep.

This is why humans on this world use sleep deprivation as torture. It is. I'd do anything to get some shut-eye. Well, evening is only a few hours away. Maybe I could nap? If I'm lucky, it'll be dreamless. But even if it isn't, at this point I'm willing to face my worst nightmares just to make this feeling stop.

"Can I use your bed?" I ask, stifling a yawn.

Kain looks up from his laptop. "To sleep? What about your vice?"

I drop my gaze. "It's been some time since I drank. There's a chance I might be able to fall asleep—a small one, but—"

"Be my guest." He returns his attention to the screen. "I'll wake you when I need you."

What a relief. I go into the bedroom, and ignoring the BDSM paraphernalia all around me, I hurl myself into the bed.

Of course, now that I'm horizontal, sleep doesn't come—typical of how this works on vampire blood.

I give it a good attempt anyway by counting moofts.

At 5,407, Kain walks into the room. "It's time."

I wearily roll to my feet. "You think Chester is sleeping?"

"I know it. Do what you must," Kain says and heads out of the room.

Without further deliberation, I touch Pom and enter the dream world.

The looft appears in front of me, turns purple, and squeals as if he's not seen me in forever. Then again, since he's in the dream world so much, his sense of time might be warped.

"Hey, bud," I say as I head to the tower of sleepers. "How are things going?"

"I'm happy to see you." He flies circles around me. "I was worried."

My adrenaline spike must've affected him. As a parasite—I mean, symbiont—he gets all my hormones.

His ears turn red. "You thought that P-word again."

"And you read my thoughts again. If you'd read them carefully, you'd know I mentally corrected myself."

"Still," he says grumpily. "You wouldn't like it if I thought of you as a meanie-poo and then reminded myself that you're just having PMS and it's your hormones to blame."

"I don't even know where to start with that." Reaching the tower, I skim the nooks for Chester. "You realize that thanks to your symbiontnature, when I have PMS, you do as well?"

Pom's enormous eyes grow wider. "I do?"

"You're flooded with the same hormones—and get just as cranky."

He wiggles his ears. "I think you're just so irritable you perceive me as cranky."

Ignoring him, I fly over to Chester's bed, where a cloud gathers above his head. "Puck."

Pom sniffs the cloud. "It's bad. Like rotten eggs."

I reach for Chester's forehead. "I'm going in anyway."