Blood Dreams

you.

I'm safe.

Are you? Then why is Dani still dreaming you aren't?

You know the answer to that. We both know.

Bishop rested his temple against the hard window frame and continued to stare out at the still, still night, this time without really seeing it at all.

I couldn't risk you.

I know. I understand.

But will Dani? Will any of them?

Yes. When it's over. When that animal is dead or caged and the world is a safer place without him. They'll understand then. They'll understand, Noah.

'I hope so,' Bishop murmured aloud. 'I hope so.'

Chapter Eight

Thursday, October 9

'I DON'T UNDERSTAND why Bishop and Miranda sent you,' Dani said.

'Careful, or you'll hurt my feelings.' Hollis Templeton was on her feet, leaning forward with her hands on the conference table as she stared grimly down at crime-scene photos taken the previous day.

'You know what I mean. I told Miranda all about the dream, all the details I could remember. She told you, didn't she?' Dani was too worried to be able to hide it. 'Yeah.'

'Then what the hell are you doing here? I mean you instead of another agent. If what I saw is how this thing ends, then you're there. In a burning building with the roof caving in. Going down into a certain trap, to confront a-a deadly evil. Don't tell me you signed on for something like that.'

Hollis straightened and offered the other woman a rueful smile. 'I didn't know what I was signing on for when I joined the SCU. I don't think any of us did. And it has certainly been an adventure I could never have imagined back when my life was normal.'

'An adventure is one thing,' Dani pointed out, 'but willingly stepping into a situation that will likely end in your violent death is just-just-'

'Stupid?'

Dani lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. 'Well, isn't it?'

'I don't see you going anywhere.'

'That's different.'

'Is it? Why?'

'Because it's my dream, dammit.'

Hollis was still smiling faintly. 'And do your dreams always come true?'

'The precognitive ones do.'

'All the time? Absolutely, one hundred percent the way you dreamed them?'

'Well… there are always little things different.'

'And some things are symbolic?'

'Sometimes. All right, a lot of the time. But the major elements, the ones that don't change, are almost always literal. And one thing that's been utterly consistent in this dream every single time is the way it ends. We go down into the basement of that warehouse with the roof caving in behind us.'

'And then?'

Dani blinked. 'Like I said, that's where the dream ends.'

'So you have no idea what happens next?'

'Well… no.'

'Then you've really just seen the stage set. All the players in their parts, the atmosphere thick with smoke and menace, everything primed for a really tragic ending.'

'That's not enough for you?'

Hollis smiled. 'Believe me, I have strong feelings about not dying. Very strong feelings. I'll tell you all about it someday. In the meantime, if I've learned anything during my stint with the SCU, it's that the universe puts us where we need to be, when we need to be there. As for your vision dream, the warning is duly noted. Clearly it's a bad situation all the way around. Unless we can change it, of course.'

Dani frowned at her.

Hollis took a chair on her side of the conference table. 'Dani, I know you guys inside Haven don't have the same rules, the same watchwords, hell, maybe not even the same beliefs as we do in the SCU. But there's a truth we've learned to rely on, one I'm pretty sure you know as well as I do.'

Reluctantly, Dani said, 'That some things have to happen just the way they happen.'

'Exactly.'

'And our fiery deaths are on that list?'

'I don't know. And as you've just admitted, you don't really know either. Not for sure. Because if you knew for sure that's the way this whole thing would end, you wouldn't still be here.'

It was true, but that hardly helped. Dani hated feeling responsible for the fate of others and was already regretting that she had shared her vision dream with anyone other than Paris.

Except…

Miranda had known without having to be told. Oh, she had asked Dani for details but also made it clear that she and Bishop had seen something with their shared precognitive ability, and whatever they had seen had brought her to Dani.

That didn't really help Dani's worry or her sense of guilt either. The weight she had been aware of during the vision dream, the pressure bearing down on her, had become a conscious thing now, a waking thing, as though something dark and heavy loomed just above her head.

She was afraid to look up, afraid she would actually see something there.

Trying to ignore that oppressive sensation, she said to Hollis, 'Okay, then. Why did Miranda go back to Boston and send you down here?'

'Because those were the logical next steps to make if she knew nothing of your vision, if she just continued along the path she was on before coming to Venture and talking to you. She couldn't stay here, obviously; no prominent member of the SCU could be here, not officially, not with the Director watching like a hawk.'

'I get that. That she couldn't stay.'

Hollis nodded. 'If she'd been missing from the task force in Boston more than twenty-four hours, it would have been noticed. Questions would have been asked. And her and Bishop's quiet maneuvering to track this killer all these weeks without the Director realizing what they were doing would have been for nothing.'

'And you're here because…'

'Because I was the logical team member to send. I haven't been a full-fledged agent for all that long, so I'm well under the Director's radar. I wasn't on another case. I haven't been with the task force. As a matter of fact, I'm still officially on leave, after the last case I was on ended… painfully.'

Dani asked a silent question with lifted brows.

'I got shot.'

'You-'

Hollis waved away concern. 'I'm fine. I heal fast. Which is a good thing, apparently, because I hold the distinction of being the member of the SCU wounded the most times in the line of duty. Technically, the only member ahead of me on the list is Bishop, because he died. Death trumps multi-wounded.'

Dani blinked. 'You're not serious.'

'No, being dead really does top being multi-wounded. Quentin decided. You draw even with dead only when you've been wounded a dozen times or else spend at least a month in a coma.'

Dani hadn't met Quentin, though since he was one of the more infamous members of the SCU she had