CHAPTER 18

My dream-self sprinted out of the kitchen and toward the sound of the crying. Aubrey and the mystery cat jerked their heads up, surprised at my sudden movement. On the other side of the living room, the little girl sat on the floor beside an end table with sharp corners, a small hand pressed to her forehead. Tears streamed down her checks as she wailed.

In a flash, my dream-self was on her knees and had wrapped the little girl up in a tight embrace. I could feel what the other Georgina felt, and I nearly wept as well over the feel of that soft, warm body in my arms. My dream-self rocked the girl, murmuring soothing, nonsensical words as she brushed her lips against the silken hair. Eventually, the girl's sobs stopped, and she rested her head against my dream-self's chest, content to simply be loved and rocked.

I opened my eyes and stared at Seth's plain white ceiling. He lay beside me, curled up near my body and still smelling like the massage oil. Even awake, the dream's images were still strong and so real. I knew exactly how my daughter's hair had felt, the way she smelled, the rhythm of her heart. My own heart pined so much for her that I could almost ignore the fact that last night's energy was now gone.

This was turning into a real problem.

I sat up, gently pushing Seth off of me. But as I tried to figure out what to do about this latest dream, a strange thought kept pressing into the back of my head.

Erik. I couldn't stop thinking about Erik. It was nothing in particular, either. No specific problem. But, whenever I tried to think about something else—my job, the energy loss, Seth—it was Erik's face that appeared in my head. I didn't understand it, but it worried me.

Seth's arms reached for me as I slipped out of bed, but I skillfully avoided them. Grabbing my cell phone out of my purse, I headed off toward the living room. No one answered when I dialed Arcana, Ltd. It was almost ten…usually he was open by then. I called information in search of Erik's home number, but it appeared to be unlisted.

A sense of dread was building in me. Desperate, I dialed Dante's store.

"Dante, I think something's happened to Erik, but I don't have his home number and—"

"Whoa, whoa, succubus. Slow down. Start from the beginning."

Backing up, I explained how I'd dreamed again and woken up obsessed with Erik.

"Maybe it's nothing, but after the drowning thing…I don't know. Do you have his home number?"

"Yeah," Dante said after several moments. "I do. I'll…I'll check on him for you and give you a call back."

"Thanks, Dante. I mean it."

I disconnected as a sleepy Seth stepped out of the bedroom. "Who's Dante? Was that a collect call to the Inferno?"

"They won't accept the charges," I murmured, still troubled. Seth's face turned serious.

"What's wrong?"

I hesitated, not because I was afraid to tell him about Dante but because I didn't know if I wanted him 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.