“No! No we aren’t joining the coven!” I drew back. “Aveline get up!”
She shook her head. “I can’t. You made that decision for us, when you stayed with them instead of helping Cian. Isn’t this what you want?” She reached outward, nodding at the cards. “Pick a card, George!”
I reached out automatically, picking a card.
The Ten of Swords.
“No. No!” I threw it down on the table. “Get up! Get up so we can leave!”
Aveline only smiled and cried.
Turning on my heel, I ran to the front door and threw it open.
There was nothing. Only blackness, but I wasn’t able to stop myself in time and I fell, screaming, as my mind seemed to close around me one more.
“Aveline!” I screamed, just as my knees landed hard on a wood floor.
Tarot cards surrounded me.
The Ten of Swords was in my hand.
I was in Cian’s house.
“No!” I threw the card to the floor and stood, this time running up the stairs instead.
I didn’t make it far.
Akiva sat at the top of the stairs, head in his hands.
“Go away,” The lich breathed, not looking at me. “Just go away, George. Haven’t you done enough?”
“I didn’t…Akiva I would never–“
He laughed humorlessly. “We’re all dead because of you. Why couldn’t you just tell us the witches were helping Lucia? Why couldn’t you warn us?”
“I want to!” I cried. “Please believe me. I want to warn you. I want to get out of here and help you!” I knelt down beside him, pulling his arms down from his face.
He held something in his hands. It shifted in my vision. A bottle. A box. A jar.
A phylactery.
“Akiva…” I barely whispered the words. “Is that-“
“It’s my soul,” Akiva said in agreement.
“Why are you holding it?”
“Because without Cian and Indra, I’m already dead anyway.” His fingers tightened around it and I heard the glass crack.
“No! Akiva don’t–“ I reached out, but I was too late to do anything. The phylactery broke, a wisp of white escaping it.
Akiva slumped back against the wall, stiller than I’d ever seen him.
I stumbled, nearly falling down the steps as I opened the front door to get out of here-
Right into our living room where the same reality show flickered on the television.
Tears ran down my face. I heard voices again, and once again my cousin called for me to join them.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t do this.
“Wake up,” I begged, sinking down into a crouch and covering my head amidst Aveline’s more insistent calls. “Please George, please wake up. This isn’t real. It’s just a dream. You just need to wake up!”
Nothing happened.
Something touched my arm but I ignored it. I couldn’t do this again. The touch returned, something pressing against my arm insistently.
“Go away,” I hissed, eyes closed. “Please. I just need you to go away.”
Whatever it was scoffed, and finally I did peek out of the gap of my arms to see what new nightmare was waiting to confront me.
It was a fox.
Not a normal fox, I realized, as nine tails dragged the floor behind it. This fox was white, with black tipped-ears and gleaming white fur.
Yellow eyes stared at me, unimpressed.
“Not you too,” I moaned. “There’s no way this will affect you, Merric. How are you in my nightmares?”
The fox scratched my arm and I yelped, surprised that I could even feel pain in a dream.
He turned, beckoning me with a ripple of his tails.
This couldn’t get worse, I reasoned, and sitting on the floor of my dream living room wasn’t helping. I stood and followed the fox’s waving tails as he walked slowly and pointedly down my hallway, paws testing the floor in front of him as if something might give way.
“What are you doing?” I asked, but he didn’t answer.
The fox turned into my bedroom, pushing my door ajar with his small, pointed nose.
I went to it, surprised to find the door difficult to open, like I was pushing it through water.
In the end, I had to put all of my weight against it and shove.
When it opened, I stumbled into my room unceremoniously, almost falling on my face with a gasp.
But this was not my room.
This was the coffee shop, where I’d originally met Merric.
Rain pounded on the windows as I let the door close behind me. No one stood at the counter, but the smell of freshly brewed coffee drifted through the air.
Turning, I found that Merric stood at the window, in his true half-shifted form again, and stared out at the rain.
For a moment he didn’t speak; I was afraid of dream-Merric almost as much as the real Merric.
“This isn’t your dream,” the kitsune said, as if reading my mind.
“Yes it is,” I replied.
He looked at me shrewdly, mouth hitched in a half grin. “No, it’s not. If it was, shouldn’t I be bleeding or throwing cards at you? Shouldn’t I be blaming you for leaving me?”
“You don’t even like me that much,” I pointed out, confused. For some reason, I wasn’t afraid or as anxious as I had been. It was as if I could think more clearly here.
I also remembered exactly what had happened to get me into my crazy-loop of dreams.
“If this isn’t my dream, where are we?” Gingerly I sat down on a bench, folding my arms as I stared at him.
“It is a place I made, just for this. I almost brought you back to my dream, but you wouldn’t have liked that much.” He threw me a grin, though he didn’t try for his normal façade. “Everyone is looking for you.”
My eyes narrowed. “It hasn’t been that long, has it? A few hours since she put me to sleep?”
The fox’s gaze turned sharp. “George, you’ve been missing for three days. Your cousin called Cian two days ago, thinking you were with them. He called Yuna and me yesterday.”
Three days?
I jumped to my feet. “You have to get a message to them! You have to
