black squares and quietly pulsing water; as the center of a scary night-dark maze it wasn’t bad. It could have been worse; and then, of course, worse stepped out of an opening on the other side. Worse was six feet and a little more of slender, muscled handsome. Haven’s hair was still short, gelled into spikes on top of his head, all of it done in shades of blue as if some artful hairdresser had pretended that blue could be a real hair color and have highlights. The hair made his pale blue eyes look more blue than they actually were, I think; it was hard to tell since the hair was always so close to his eyes. The hair and the Sesame Street tattoos on his shoulders were what had made me nickname him “Cookie Monster.”
“What do you want, Haven?”
“What I always wanted: you,” he said.
“You can’t have me.”
“Here I can. Here there’s just me.”
“Fuck you.”
“Let’s.”
“You’re dead. You’re dead. I killed you.”
“I remember.”
“You’re dead, you don’t remember. You’re just my guilt visiting every night.”
“Am I?” he asked, and something about the way he said it made me ask, “What else could you be?”
Other figures stepped from the entrances around the square. Figures in white masks and black cloaks: Harlequin. I raised the gun and pointed it vaguely; there were too many of them, and I wasn’t that fast, not even in dreams.
Movement made me glance at Haven; he was wearing a black cloak and held a white mask in his hand. “We’re coming,” he said, “wake up.”
I woke staring at the dark ceiling, pulse thudding, throat almost closed around it, and then I heard it. The door, not the knob, but the brush of someone against it, like the first tentative touch. I drew my gun from underneath the pillow and tried to think how to warn Laila without them hearing me. They were either vampires or wereanimals; they’d hear any whisper. Then I realized they’d heard the change in my heartbeat; they knew I was awake.
I had time to say, “Laila, they’re here!” The door opened as she sat up in bed but didn’t reach for a weapon. Shit. There was no one in the doorway. It stretched pale and empty, filled with night and the artificial lights of the parking lot beyond. Then I heard it, a creak of board, and knew something was crawling on the floor, hidden from me by Laila’s bed.
She had her gun in her hand now, and whispered, “What is it? Why is the door open?”
I started to say, “It’s by you, on the floor,” but one minute she was on the bed with her gun and the next a black shape whirled over her and she was gone. I’d seen the speed of lycanthropes and vampires, but all I saw was the cloak like a black sheet and it dragged her over on the other side of the bed with it. It wasn’t just fast, it was as if the thing, whatever it was, was formed of the blackness of the cloth and nothing more. Fuck, that couldn’t be real. Had it mind-fucked me? If the answer was yes, I was about to lose in real life and not just in nightmare.
“Yell for help and we kill her,” a voice said on the other side of the bed. It was male and growly; I was betting shapeshifter of some kind.
“How do I know she’s still alive?”
“Do you think I could kill her that quickly?” the voice asked.
“Yes,” I said.
He laughed. “Say something, girl.”
There was a moment of silence, then a small pain sound, and Laila said, “I’m alive.”
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“No.”
“Oh, I’m sad that you think I haven’t hurt you yet. The next thing I do to you, you won’t doubt that you’re hurt.”
“Leave her alone.”
“We will if you give us what we want.”
“What do you want?” I asked. I had the gun pointed in the direction of the voice, but there was nothing to shoot at. If I was patient maybe there would be; nothing is faster than a bullet.
“You,” and it was such a direct echo from my dream that it startled me.
“What do you mean, you want me? How? Why?”
“Does it matter? If you don’t come with us, I’ll kill your friend.”
“Don’t do it . . . ,” Laila said, and was cut off abruptly, and this time the pain sound was a little louder.
“Ask her if she’s hurt again,” the growling voice said, and he sounded eager.
I’d heard that tone before in voices; I knew that they liked causing pain, so I did what he asked so he wouldn’t hurt her again to make the point.
“Laila, are you hurt?”
Her voice was shaky. “Yes.”
“What did you do to her?”
“Nothing permanent, yet,” he said.
“She’ll heal?” I asked, and as in the dream I pointed my gun toward the voice, but also at the open door. Most of the Harlequin traveled in pairs or more. But with their speed I wouldn’t have time to shoot twice. I’d need a target and a decision before I’d really had time to decide anything.
“Yes,” he said.
“What do you mean you want me? Sexually?” I was almost hopeful on that one; it wasn’t a fate worse than death and it certainly wasn’t a fate worse than having Laila murdered while I listened to her die.
“We’re not allowed,” he said, and he sounded sad.
“You’re not allowed to have sex?”
“Just not with you.”
That was interesting. “Then what do you want with me?”
“My master is outside. Simply put down your weapon and walk out the door to him. I will release the girl and follow you.”
Laila said, “Don’t do it, Anita!” She yelled it, and then she screamed for real. Edward and the other marshal were next door. Help was coming.
The cloak rose up, and I saw the white mask, but Laila was held in front of him like a shield. Her eyes were fluttered back in her head, but she was alive. I raised the gun barrel higher so I’d hit the white mask and miss her. Then he was gone; I swear that he moved so fast Laila simply stayed in the air where he’d held her, and he was through the door and gone before she began to fall.
Edward shouted, “Anita!”
“I’m okay, did you see that?”
“I saw something,” he called back.
I kept an eye on the doorway as I searched for Laila’s pulse. Edward was in the doorway: shirtless, boxers, with a gun in each hand. I let him watch for bad guys and looked down at Laila. Her arm was broken at the wrist and maybe higher up. There was blood, too, and it wasn’t from the arm. Fuck.
I heard the other marshal go back toward the room. “I’ll call for an ambulance, and then will someone tell me what the hell just happened?”
Edward kept watch out into the night, but said, “Her warrant is vacated. I guess we have our warrant of execution.”
“I didn’t want it this way,” I said.
“She’s alive, Anita. It could have gone the other way.”
He was right. I knew he was right, so why did I feel so shitty? “I don’t know where the blood is coming from, but somewhere on her back. I don’t want to move her, but there’s too much blood. We need to find the wound and put pressure on it. If she bleeds out, nothing else matters.”
He knelt down to help but kept his side toward the door so he could still see movement. “We can hunt them now, Anita, our way.”
He helped me lift her and try to keep her neck from moving. It probably wasn’t a spinal injury, but back
