“The water is merely a conduit for sound. You have to relax into the hammock, and once you’ve caught the rhythm of the room, look up.”
So I did, leaning back carefully, gaze on the blurred ceiling as I began to rock.
“You have to wait for it, since you are attracted to it, and not the other way around.”
Whatever “it” was, I thought sullenly.
“It’s not fair,” Trish sighed as we waited, airy voice rising, flowing upstream. “When are we going to get a turn?”
Diana hummed her agreement. “She gets to do whatever she wants.”
“Shh,” Nicola chided harshly. “She’ll hear you.”
But then I heard it, coming at me like it was shot from a pistol, but also from another room, another world.
“Ready?” Nicola turned her sharp chin my way, and this time her fringe parted enough for me to momentarily glimpse a startling blue eye before the hair fell back into place like a curtain. “Say hello to your mysterious sound.”
The sound buried itself in the basin. Then the haze above us parted like curtains, and light from the basin beamed like a projector onto the ceiling.
He lay in a skiff shaped like a lily petal, made of glossy teak and edged with imposing symbols. Immediately recognizing one of them, the same as that carved upon the treasure chest at Caine’s, I gasped. He stirred in his sleep, rolling his head on the red velvet tufted pillow until his body positioning mirrored mine exactly. I lifted my hand to my mouth in shock. He did the same. I ran it through my hair. He echoed the movement in his sleep. Meanwhile I took in the sight of him-white-blond cropped hair, thick neck, wide shoulders, skin as dark as Carlos’s-committing to memory how vulnerable the fierce man looked. Hunter…but laid out here in his true identity: Jaden Jacks.
“Oh, this is interesting.” Nicola’s reluctance veered to interest as our movements synched again. I dropped my hand to my chest. He did the same. “It really is a soul connection.”
“Solange is going to be pissed.” Diana.
Singing again, Trish. “Something tells me she already knows.”
It’s Miss Sola wants you dead, girl.
“But that one would almost be worth the risk,” Trish murmured, shifting luxuriously. “I mean, since we’re destined to be incinerated anyway.”
I swallowed back the metallic taste in my throat, ignored the drugs crackling like sparklers in my bloodstream, and lifted my hand in the air. Still asleep, Jaden Jacks did the same. I’d kick myself later over how lovesick I was acting in front of women who would have no qualms about using it against me, but for now my heart pounded in raw beats, my body knowing what it wanted despite my mind’s holler to cease and desist.
“Hunter-” I whispered, the scratchy echo of my voice clanging clumsily against the ceiling. I winced…and his eyes rocketed open.
His gaze burned with the same honeyed hue I remembered, though it was alive with horror as he found my face. He lifted his head from the red pillow, lunging for me, but his head banged against our ceiling like glass.
I strained upward as well, echoing the movement, but the hammock wouldn’t release me…and neither would his shocked gaze. “Hunter?”
“Jo?” The strange face with familiar eyes went rigid. “Oh my God. What are you doing here? I’ve been trying-”
“No!”
No warning. Just that one strained, screeched word. The women around me screamed and scrambled as a face of feral beauty filled the sky, looming, thrusting forward to distend the sky. The others fought to untangle themselves from their hammocks, yet caught in Solange’s gaze, I couldn’t move.
She didn’t scream again. She didn’t have to. Her original cry never ceased as she too strained forward, unfortunately with greater result. Her face broke against the projection, the reflected water wrapping around her bulging eyes, like Saran wrap. Rage carved her brow, and pressing harder, she leered. Her teeth went black. Her eyes white.
The singing streams shifted into raging rapids, and my hammock began to shake. The other women were free-
Nicola, unsurprisingly, had moved the quickest-but they couldn’t find an exit to the room. A sound like nails over a chalkboard etched its way over my spine and a hairline crack formed along the walls. Sand began filtering in, slowly at first, then pouring and pooling as the walls began to shake and splinter.
“What have you done?” Trish cried, ducking low, staggering against walls as Solange’s face pressed closer. The hourglass was being tipped. Marble basins cracked, and the crystalline walls shattered. Sand poured from the borders of the sky. And I still couldn’t move.
“Carlos!” I yelled as loud as I could, the taste of tin and sand flooding my mouth, while my pounding heart sizzled as though in a fryer. Willing myself awake, I screamed again. The sound clanked against shattering glass.
Then Solange took a deep breath, and in her mad gaze was a reflection of my grave: crystal shards and sandy dunes. “He’s mine!”
The ceiling burst, the scream blowing me backward in a deafening heat. I turned my head to the side, body scorching like a marshmallow over flame, and somewhere, faintly, Hunter’s cry rippled in my mind. Then, like debris, it was swept away in the torrent of sand and water that mixed to cover my burns, soothe my skin, shield me from Solange…and bury me in the shards of the destroyed room.
13
I awoke to a heavy wet rag being dragged across my face. A foul heat and the stench of the unwashed dead accompanied the sensation, and though there was intermittent relief-brief moments when the rag was removed and my air passage freed-I’d barely filled my lungs before it started up again. It was a slow torture, and a terrible way to die. I was so concerned with catching my breath, I didn’t realize I’d been feeling disembodied until the tingling started up in my limbs. Immediately, and clumsily, I lifted my arms to push the rag away…which was when I touched the attached teeth. Jerking back, wiping forearms over my eyes, I squinted into the face of a dog as large and black as a tornado. One come to eat me whole.
Screaming, I scrambled backward, though since I was lying down, there wasn’t really anywhere to go. The mutant animal jolted, shook his muzzle back and forth, and advanced on me again.
“Now now. Don’t go and scare the baby girl.” An arm, just as black, came out of nowhere to calm the nowwhining animal. I squinted around splayed fingers-puny defense against nail-head fangs-in an attempt to see who the arm belonged to. “Interesting, though. She don’t usually like you mortals.”
“Th-That’s a warden,” I stammered, lowering my arms, staring into the dark. I was laid out like a sacrifice beneath a black light, which wasn’t as blinding as a bulb’s full glare, but still made it virtually impossible to see beyond the soft ultraviolet bubble. The last time I’d run into a Shadow warden-dogs, as opposed to the cats serving the agents of Light-the rabid bastard had tried to rip out my throat. Actually, there’d been two of them…though neither had been this big.
And because I’d made the mistake of releasing an arrow from my conduit into the first beast’s gaping maw, I also knew wardens grew instantly stronger and larger-not to mention really pissed off-when struck by the magical weapons. It seemed this fiend had seen plenty of battle. She ambled closer and I shielded my eyes and tried to sit up. “She probably doesn’t like agents of Light either, right?”
“Oh, she loves them.” Those strong dark hands reached through the violet rays and pushed me back down. A wide, round face followed them into view. “Bone in, still warm, and medium rare.”