caught up in all of this.
'It involves immortal intrigue,' I warned. 'And the higher workings of the universe.'
'I live for those things,' he said wryly, settling into an armchair. 'Tell me.'
So, I did. He knew about my first energy loss but not the rest. I didn't tell him about the content of the dreams, merely that they drained me of energy. I also explained about the self-fulfilling prophecies and how I'd woken up damp one morning and thinking about Erik today. When I finished, I stared at the cell phone accusingly.
'Damn it. Why isn't he calling?'
'Why do you always tell me this at the last minute?' asked Seth. 'It's been giving you trouble for a while. I thought it had been a one-time thing.'
'I didn't want to bother you. And I know how funny you are about immortal stuff.'
'Things that affect you—that may be harming you—don't bother me. I mean, well, they do, but that's not the point. This all goes back to commun—'
The phone rang.
'Dante?' I asked eagerly. I hadn't even bothered to check the number.
But it was him. His voice sounded grim.
'You need to come over here. To Erik's.'
'The store?'
'No, his house. It's close to my place here.'
'What's going on?'
'Just come over.'
Dante rattled off an address and directions. With quick shape-shifting, I was dressed and ready to bolt out the door in an instant. Seth told me to wait, and in less than a minute—not as good as me, though still good—he was ready too.
I'd never thought much about Erik having a home of his own. To me, he just always sort of existed in his store. The address was about a mile from Dante's, in an old, yet well-maintained neighborhood. Erik's house was one of the small bungalow types so common in Seattle neighborhoods, and the front yard was filled with roses gone dormant for the winter. As we walked up the steps, I entertained a brief vision of Erik out there tending the flowers in the summer.
Dante opened the door before I could knock. I wondered if he'd sensed me or had simply seen us through the window. He displayed no particular reaction to Seth's presence and ushered us in toward the house's one bedroom.
The house's interior looked like it hadn't been updated in a while. In fact, a lot of the furniture reminded me of mid-twentieth-century styles. A plaid sofa with rough fabric. A worn velvet armchair in seventies gold. A TV that dubiously looked capable of color.
None of that triggered any sort of reaction in me, though. What startled me was one framed picture sitting on a bookshelf. It showed a much younger Erik—maybe in his forties—with fewer wrinkles in his dark skin and no gray in his black hair. He had his arm around a thirty-something brunette with big gray eyes and a smile as large as his. Dante nudged me when I stopped, an odd look on his face.
'Come on.'
Erik lay in bed. To my relief, he was alive. I didn't realize until that moment just how worried I'd been. My subconscious had feared the worst, even though I'd refused to let it surface.
But alive or not, he really didn't look so great. He was sweating and shaking, eyes wide and face pallid. His breathing was shallow. When he saw me, he flinched, and for half a second, I saw terror in his eyes. Then, the fear faded, and he attempted a weak smile.
'Miss Kincaid. Forgive me for not being able to receive you properly.'
'Jesus,' I gasped, sitting on the bed's edge. 'What happened? Are you okay?'
'I will be.'
I studied him, trying to piece together what had taken place. 'Were you attacked?'
His gaze flicked over to Dante. Dante shrugged.
'In a manner of speaking,' Erik said at last. 'But not in the way you're thinking.'
Dante leaned against the wall, appearing a little less grave than he had earlier. 'Don't waste her time with riddles, old man. Spill it.'
Erik's eyes narrowed, a bit of fire flaring in their depths. Then, he turned back to me. 'I was attacked… mentally, not physically. A woman came to me tonight…wraithlike, inhuman…wreathed in energy. The kind of beauteous, enthralling energy I see you glow with sometimes.' It was a sweet way to describe my post-sex glamour.
'Was she bat-winged and flame-eyed?' I asked, recalling Dante's long-ago joke about the mythological description of succubi.
'Not a succubus, I'm afraid. That might be easier. No, this…I believe…was Nyx.'
'Did…did you say Nyx?' Of course that was what he'd said, but I'd been waiting for him to launch into a discussion of Oneroi, not their mother. Nyx made no sense. It was one thing for dream spirits to appear in your bedroom and in your dreams. It was an entirely different matter for a monstrous primordial entity of chaos who had been instrumental in creating the world as we know it to appear in your bedroom. It was like saying God had stopped by for waffles on the way to work. Maybe Erik was still delirious.
'Nyx,' he confirmed, no doubt guessing my thoughts. 'Chaos herself. Or, more accurately, Night herself.'
From the corner, Dante laughed softly. 'We're all fucked now.'
'She's the mother of the Oneroi,' Erik reminded me. 'And, although dreams aren't her sole domain, she too is connected to them.'
'Then…' I tried to grasp the implications. 'Are you saying she's been responsible for what's been happening to me?'
'It almost makes sense,' said Dante.
Erik apparently agreed. 'She's linked to time and all the myriad potential fates that exist for the universe. Fate and time are forever moving closer to chaos—to entropy—and that's what she feeds off of. She's trying to create more of it in the world, to bring us that much nearer to ultimate disintegration. But she's a long way from bringing anything like that about, so she settles for small acts of chaos.'
I wasn't following. 'My dreams and energy loss are acts of chaos?'
'No.' Erik glanced at Dante again. 'We believe you're her instrument. Since she's connected to time as well as space, she has the ability to see pieces of the future. And there is no greater way to cause chaos in this world than by revealing the future to mortals. Such visions prove consuming, and if crafted in a certain way, they can drive a person to madness. That person will obsess on it, struggling to either stop it or bring it about in a way it's not actually meant to unfold. Both acts are futile. The future plays out as it is meant to. In trying to alter it, we only make it happen that much more quickly.'
'Like the Oedipus story,' noted Seth. 'His father's attempts to change the prophecy's outcome are what actually made it happen.'
Erik nodded. 'Exactly.'
I understood now too. 'Just like the cop who saw his partner getting shot. And the man who saw his family benefiting by him swimming the Sound.'
'It's how Nyx operates. Everything she shows them is true…just not true in the way they expect. The ensuing madness and destruction brought about by showing mortals their futures—futures that they end up bringing about —feeds her.'
'But where do I fit in?' I demanded. 'She isn't showing me my future or making me do crazy things.'
'That's where the theory ends, succubus,' Dante said. 'You're part of it, absolutely. And she needs you to do all this…but we don't know the mechanics of it.'
'This is insane,' I said blankly. 'I'm the instrument of an all-powerful primordial deity's wave of chaos and destruction.'
'That's kind of extreme,' said Dante jovially. 'It's not like you work for Google or anything.'
Seth gently touched my shoulder. 'Can I ask a question here? I'm confused by…like, how is it possible that
