without someone to keep them up, they’d fade away eventually, but if the previous owner hadn’t been gone very long… maybe…
Still, maybe I needed to pay more attention to my new “friend.” I stood up and turned a critical eye on the man, and his apartment.
Cameron himself looked obsessively neat. His dark hair was gelled into very fashionable (I’m sure) spikes. He had on jeans that were obviously brand-new, and a pair of hiking boots that probably just came straight out of the box. That was going to cost him some blisters on this hike. His shirt was still a button-up, but in plaid this time. Next to my I LIKE YOU, I’LL KILL YOU LAST T-shirt, he looked positively refined.
Aside from him, there wasn’t much to see. The apartment was largely empty, even for a bachelor’s pad. The carpet was typical renter brown, worn and matted from years of foot traffic. The linoleum at the front door was some generic shade of hide-the-dirt.
There was a lawn chair in what passed for the living room, and one of those do-it-yourself coffee tables. That small piece of furniture was covered in neat piles of books, but the only one I could see well was the enormous Bible on the top of the stack.
There was no TV, and I couldn’t see into the tiny kitchen to see if there were any dishes in the sink. Through what I assumed was the bedroom door, I could see an inflatable air mattress, bare of any sheets. No posters. No pictures. No half-broken beer light on the wall. No smell. Every lived-in place has its own smell, the scent of the person who lives there, of their food and their cologne and the mustiness of their books. This place was sterile, untouched except for the faint aroma of whatever cleaner they’d scrubbed the place down with between tenants.
This wasn’t a bachelor’s apartment. This was the apartment of someone who expected to bail on short notice.
“Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?” Cam shouldered his backpack, and apparently noticed my critique of his home. “Right before I moved, there was a fire. Lost everything.”
“That sucks, man. A car wreck, then a fire? What universal power did you piss off?” It didn’t… feel right. I had no reason to think the man was lying to me, and yet…
“I know, right? But hey, it saved me on moving costs.” He grinned and shrugged. It was charming, disarming… and something cold slithered across the back of my neck. Not quite my danger sense blaring, but it was at least perking up and taking notice. Hm.
“Always look on the bright side, I guess.” I led the way back out the door, watching as Cam stopped to lock it behind us.
There was no pause in his movement, no indication that he felt anything strange at all. Granted, most humans wouldn’t know the wards were there. They’d light up like neon for a magic user but most people would go about their merry way, none the wiser.
For me, caught somewhere between magic and mule, it was like having my nose pressed against the glass of a five-star restaurant. I could see it, smell it, but actually having any? Not so much. The feast was there, tantalizingly just out of reach.
Ivan and Mira both insisted that my magic ability was just buried, but I had my doubts. Just because the rest of the champions had mojo didn’t mean all of us had to. Right? So far, I’d done just fine without it.
It did occur to me on the way down the stairs, that regardless of who had set the protective spells, Cameron passed in and out of them unharmed. I guess that had to count in his favor.
And he had no tattoos. I remembered that from the barbecue. Now, most of my buddies had ink. Mine, the first two lines of the Tao Te Ching tattooed down each biceps. Marty’s, full sleeves of stylized Celtic animals. Will’s, a hookah-smoking caterpillar not visible without him taking off more clothes than anybody was comfortable with. Those things I didn’t care about. Those were safe tattoos. Normal tattoos.
But there were some I always, always, took a second look at. Tribal markings especially, the black vines and barbed wire that were so popular a few years ago. I look, because sometimes, just sometimes, those tattoos would wriggle under my vision, like heat waves off asphalt. They’d twist until my brain ached from trying to follow the impossible knots and whorls. Those were demon brands, marking someone who had sold their soul.
Oh yes, I checked for tattoos now. People passing me on the sidewalk, customers that came into the store, random drivers next to me at stoplights. I looked for that telltale smudge of black on the inner left arm. Because you just never know.
But Cameron had been wearing shorts and short sleeves at the house, and there had been no incriminating black scrawls on his skin. His arms were perfectly clean, like every other aspect of his life.
You’re getting paranoid. Yeah, well, that didn’t mean they weren’t out to get me.
5
My breath fogged the air in front of me, misting my eyes until I blinked them clear. My hand was numb on the hilt of my sword. I had to assume it was still there, because I could no longer feel the wrapping cord against my palm. “Quit stalling. I know you’re there.”
The red eyes gleamed in the darkness, always out of the corner of my eye, never where I could get a good bead on it. I knew what it was. I knew it would come from a direction I never expected. The dream never changed.
Even knowing I was dreaming, I was trapped there for the duration. I knew that too. Trapped in the darkness, in the silence, senses straining for the slightest hint, for the tiniest warning that would never come. “Come on! Come get me!” My voice echoed against… something. Unseen walls, penning me in place. Confining me with… that.
There was the faintest sound to my left, the sound of something soft, sliding across a smooth surface. Fur on stone. Knowing it was a mistake, I turned anyway, my dream self compelled to walk suicidally into the attack like every other night. My eyes straining against the blackness, I braced for a charge from the front.
And it came from behind. It always came from behind. No matter where I looked, what I heard, it was always behind me. Silver claws, gleaming in a light that had no source, sank through the links of my mail armor. Fangs sank into my neck and shoulder, ravaging flesh for the sheer joy of causing pain. It lifted me above its massive head like so much luggage, and it bellowed its triumph. Ribs cracked and broke under its viselike grip. Things in my chest burst under the immense pressure. I choked on my own blood, drowning in it.
The white-furred muzzle invaded my vision, the black nose quivering as it sniffed me all over. There was a guttural chuckle from deep within the barrel chest. With a negligent heave, it tossed me away, my body flailing helplessly through the air. I fell forever.. .
Waking from that dream was always a jolt, but this time I managed to stop myself from screaming. Instead, my eyes snapped open, and I kept my ragged gasp to a nicely controlled inhale. No one around me would be the wiser. My hand found the rigid line of scars that went down my left side from armpit to hip, and I rubbed the thick tissue, easing away aches that weren’t really there.
The black lanes of the highway rushed by the window, the glass just inches from the tip of my nose. The hum of the tires was a blessedly mundane background noise, normal and totally based in the real world. I clung to that for a few moments, forcing my mind to embrace reality and reject the craziness in my own head. Even knowing it was only a dream, I couldn’t suppress a shudder, and part of me still felt the warm, thick trickle of my own blood down my neck.
No… wait… Something warm and thick was trickling down my neck. “Ew, augh! Get off, you nasty beast!” With a canine grumble, Duke turned his drooling self around and squeezed between the piles of luggage in the back to lay down.
“Duke! Sit!” Marty snapped, a bit belatedly, from the driver’s seat. The dog just sighed as if to say, “I am sitting.”
“Have a nice nap, did we?” Beside me, Cole smirked in my direction.
I rubbed my face, trying to get the grit out of my eyes. “How long was I out?”
“Half an hour, maybe? Not long.”
Damn. This was going to be a long friggin’ trip.
