Chapter 9

Dressed in an army uniform,Ariel is running effortlessly with a hundred-pound pack on her back. She looks stunning, as usual, despite being sweaty, barefaced, and covered in grime.

I've been in a version of this dream before. This is an echo of Ariel's Army training.

"Ariel," I call gently.

She stops short and pulls out her gun, panic in her dark brown eyes.

Just in case, I turn the bullets into cotton. "I'm Bailey. You know me."

"I do," she says, still obviously disoriented. "What are you doing here?"

"You're dreaming," I tell her.

She looks confused for another moment, then a grin slowly spreads across her face. "I'm at the rehab facility?"

"Not sure. I'm doing remote therapy right now, so I have no idea where your body is."

I take us to my therapy space in the clouds above the ocean, and before she asks me to do so, I change her clothes into her favorite little black dress.

Instead of sitting down on the couch, she shifts from foot to foot. "So… what did you want to do today?"

I give her a soothing smile. "That's a question for you. Did you want to experiment with memory or—"

"No!" She tenses like a cobra ready to strike. Then she deliberately relaxes and, in a calmer tone, asks, "Can we do some more of that exposure therapy? I feel like I'm almost ready to be around vampires without freaking out."

As I thought—Ariel has deep trauma she's not ready to deal with. A terrible thing happened to her during her service, an event I witnessed in a trauma loop when I first started working with her. She's blocked her waking memories of it. I've been coaxing her to go there again, but she's clearly not ready. At least she's up for some forms of dream therapy. Not like some other patients of mine… and definitely not like Mom.

I've always suspected that Mom has been through something traumatic, but I have no idea what it is, as she's never let me treat her in any capacity. Quite the opposite: The mere idea of my dreamwalking in her sends her into a fit. When I was a kid, she made me swear never to enter her dreams, and I've kept my oath to this day. I sometimes wonder if she came to Gomorrah—a place without humans and their power-boosting beliefs—to lose her dreamwalking abilities completely. Maybe our powers are somehow tied to whatever traumatized her.

Familiar guilt floods me at the thought. The morning of Mom's accident, we argued about this very topic. I said things I regret and wish—

Ariel clears her throat.

"Sorry," I say, "what kind of exposure should we start with?"

"Blood," she says, her gaze downcast. "I feel brave today."

She doesn't need to say more. Vampire blood addiction is the reason she checked herself into rehab. She got hooked after she was healed by the substance and then started using it recreationally, probably as a form of self-medicating.

"Blood it is." I take us to a room I've used a few times, one modeled on a club in Gomorrah frequented by vampire blood aficionados. There are so many toys and instruments of sexy torture you'd think a BDSM dungeon threw up in here. Chained to a cross in the middle of it all is a vampire, who I make look like Filth—a small token of spite.

Ariel picks up a big knife and approaches Filth. I get out of her way and observe.

"You know you want it," Filth says in a tone much friendlier than I think the real version of him is capable of. "Drink from me."

With small, careful steps, Ariel draws near enough to cut a deep gash on his forearm. I try to make sure the blood pours slowly and, for lack of a better word, temptingly.

Ariel stares at it, hypnotized. I do as well. I sometimes worry I'll become addicted myself, thanks to my use of vampire blood to banish sleep, but so far, I seem to be okay. Then again, even if I were a blood addict, I doubt I'd be tempted by Filth's blood.

Ariel's face shows her mental turmoil. I hold my breath. She's either going to lean in and greedily gulp from the wound, as she's done during most of our sessions, or she's going to turn away, as she's managed to do only a couple of times.

Sweat beading on her forehead, she turns away from the blood and walks toward me.

"Great job." I pat her shoulder and usher us back to the clouds.

Ariel still looks doubtful. "This is all well and good, but I don't know if I'd be able to resist such temptation in the real world."

She doesn't give herself enough credit. "I think you'd be able to. You're—"

The whole world quakes.

"Open your eyes, bitch," booms a voice that sounds like Filth's.

Ugh, not now.

A slap wrenches me from the dream world, and I find myself back in the limo, Filth looming over me.

"What?" I snap.

"You're not supposed to dream," he hisses.

"I wasn't. That was a meditative trance."

"Don't do that, either."

I slather hand sanitizer on my stinging cheek and glare at Kain accusingly.

The head of the Enforcers shrugs. "We know you can communicate with people in your sleep."

"So what? Even the police allow an arrested person a phone call."

"We don't." Filth settles back into his seat with a sneer. "Close your eyes again, and I'll cut your lids off."

"Don't talk back," Felix urges in my ear. He sounds on the verge of fainting. "He looks like he means that."

It's true. Filth looks eager to mutilate me.

What a puckwad.

"Firth," Kain says, "she's not to be harmed." He turns his glare on me. "Do stay awake until we arrive at our destination."

"Fine." I stare at Filth for a few miles straight, doing my best not to blink. The bastard doesn't seem to care, though. He just sits there with a smirk on his weaselly face.

Deciding that the stare-off hurts me more than him, I look out the window instead. A full moon illuminates picturesque forests and distant mountain peaks as we drive into a fenced area past a sign that forbids trespassing. As we approach one large mountain, the dirt road turns into a nicely paved one, and a few minutes later, we reach a blockade manned by vampires who salute us—or rather, who salute Kain.

My hopes of escape evaporate.

Enforcer vampires are everywhere.

The limo crosses a moat and heads toward skyscraper-sized doors on the side of the mountain, thrown wide to reveal a medieval castle that puts even my dream palace to shame. The craziest part is that the entire castle is inside the mountain—a Cognizant with stone control must've helped with this project, because it's truly impressive.

The limo pulls into the mountain, where very unmedieval lighting illuminates gorgeous bastions and crenellated towers. I mentally file away the images in case I want to plagiarize them for my own dream architecture.

The limo comes to a stop.

"We're inside the bailey," Filth says libidinously.

I force out the most maniacal false laugh I can muster. "You're so clever."

He grabs my upper arm and drags me out of the car.

"Let go of her," Kain orders with a frown.

Filth releases me, and I massage my smarting arm as I apply more sanitizer to it. Pretty sure I'm going to have finger-shaped bruises there.

Inside the castle, we pass through cold stone corridors filled with hooded figures of monks. One of them hands a folded bundle to Kain without saying a word.

"Is that the Brotherhood?" I ask no one in particular.

"Speak only when spoken to," Filth barks.

"Yes, they are," Kain replies almost at the same time. "Don't you have them on Gomorrah?"

"I think so," I say, "but I've never met them myself."

The Brotherhood is a group of Cognizant without any powers, or at least any powers I'm aware of. They follow some strange religion, the details of which I don't know.

Eventually, we reach a large set of doors opening into a miniature indoor coliseum lit by candles floating in the air—a nice touch.

Filth points at the circular platform in the middle. "Stand there. Don't go to sleep."

"That will be all," Kain says to his minions.

As all the Enforcers leave, Filth included, Kain unfolds the bundle of fabric given to him by the monk. It turns out to be a black robe with a hood.

He puts it on. "Now we wait for the Council meeting. It's going to happen first thing in the morning."

"That's a long time away," I say. "Any chance you can tell me what this is about?"

"No. But what I can do is make the time pass faster while you wait."

"Sure, but how—"

As his eyes turn into mirrors, I realize my mistake.

He's about to glamour me.

I'm resistant to vampire glamour, at least from the run-of-the-mill vamps, but Kain is clearly powerful, and drinking vampire blood does make one more susceptible to their—

"You won't remember the next five hours," Kain says in a voice made of melted caramel.

The next thing I'm aware of is how stiff I feel standing in the same spot.

Only now I'm surrounded by the Council.