Chapter 16 Kingston #2
“But his spirit is close. He’s sensing things more like the baby did. He’s conscious of what’s happening here. Maybe if we can wake him up, tell him to stay here and wait for us, we’ll know where he is.”
“But what if he leaves before we get here? What if we can’t find him after?” Sky looked like he wanted to cry.
“Sweetheart, we don’t have a choice but to try.” I kissed his forehead, then leaned over the blanket-covered figure and gripped his shoulder. “When you wake up, remain here. Don’t run. We’re going to help you, but we have to find you first. It’ll help if you stay with us.”
“How do we get him to wake up?”
Reaching down, I petted the psychopomp-puppy. “Patchy. Can you wake him up? Can you try?”
The puppy jumped onto the figure, barking his little head off, and after what felt like an eternity—but was probably no longer than a handful of seconds, he disappeared right from under my hand. Patchy landed on all four paws and gazed up at me triumphantly.
The disembodied voice shrieked, breaking the sound barrier Sky had created to block him. “Nooooooooooo. Mine…he is mine!”
I nodded at Sky, and he picked up his pup and kissed the top of his colorful head. “Get us out of here.”
I woke with a start, gasping for air like I’d been stuck under water, drowning. Sky startled next to me. We took one look at each other and jumped out of bed, rushing around to get our clothes on.
“Where’s Patchy?” I asked as I tugged on my pants and zipped them up.
Sky shook his head while hopping on one leg and pulling his sock on the other foot. “I don’t know. He didn’t come back with us. I don’t know how it works for him, if he’s tired or what, so I’m going to leave him be until I talk to Rosie.”
That made sense, I supposed, but I thought Sky might be overthinking this.
While yes, I assumed Patchy needed sleep like everyone else—goddess knew Duchess spent plenty of time curled into a ball napping—I was pretty sure that he could rest anywhere.
The Dream-veil, here, wherever, but we had other things to worry about right now.
“I’ll drive,” I yelled over to Sky as we ran out of the house.
He’d been in Willowhope long enough to know his way around at this point, but he’d admitted he hadn’t spent a lot of time at the boardwalk, so I wasn’t sure if he’d know the closest parking lot.
There was no point in wasting time with things like directions when I knew exactly where we were going.
“I hope you don’t get pulled over,” Sky mumbled as I sped down Main Street toward Atlantic Avenue.
“Same,” I breathed out. I wasn’t a speeder or one to break the law in any way.
As long as you didn’t count crossing onto properties that had No Trespassing signs in the name of ghost hunting.
I really didn’t want to have to stop now.
There’d be no way to explain where we were going or why, and I didn’t want to scare this guy once we found him.
“Hopefully he didn’t run off once he woke up,” Sky said, peering anxiously out the front windshield.
Reaching over, I wiggled my fingers until he slid his hand into mine. “We’re doing all we can going to find him where he was. Let’s not borrow trouble.”
Ten minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot behind the ice cream shop and drove toward the back corner where the lighting was absolute crap. The township needed to fix that, but it was obviously why our dreamer had picked back here.
“Will we be able to get to him this way?” Sky asked. “The boardwalk entrance is back there.”
Parking, I leaned over and pecked a quick kiss to his lips as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “We don’t need that. We can jump over the same gate on this side that we did on the other side in the dream.”
“Oh, cool.”
We both jumped out, and I reached back for Sky’s hand to pull him in the right direction as I jogged toward where the metal fence line would be.
In all of the condos we passed, the windows were dark, and only a few porch lights were on, which made sense at 3:30 in the morning.
We skirted the side of the buildings and made it to the short fence, which I jumped with ease.
I turned over, and Sky eyed it dubiously.
“Uh. This is different in real life.” He approached it and put one foot on the bottom silver rung.
When I made grabby hands in his direction, he grinned, and let me lift him over the top, helping out by bending at the knees. “I could get used to that,” he teased as he straightened, letting both legs drop.
“We’ll visit that idea later,” I promised, then turned to examine the bushes and other lush foliage. Scanning our exact location from the Dream-veil. “Crap! I don’t see him.”
Then a little yip came from a little farther down. “Did you hear that?” I asked.
Sky’s head whipped toward me as we heard the yipping sound again. He grinned. “That’s Patchy, I know it.”
As we crept in that direction, I heard the gurgling sound of a raven.
Looking around, I saw one up on the building.
Sky was still moving slowly forward, so I quickly caught up to him.
The yapper sounded like Patchy, but that didn’t mean it was.
As we turned around another bush, we saw the psychopomp puppy pacing in front of a huddled figure on his butt, knees drawn up in front of his chest with his nose pressed down between them.
Sky and I exchanged a glance before we both hunched down. “Um. Hello. Excuse me. Are you…” What did I say? Are you the guy who we saw being attacked? Did we see you in your dreams? Are you waiting for us?
The man lifted his head and whispered, “Are you them?”
“Who? Who do you think we are?” Sky asked, shuffling forward.
“The dudes from…my dreams? The ones who…” He trailed off, sounding uncertain. Like maybe he’d made the whole thing up.
“We are,” I hastened to reassure him. “We’re so glad you waited for us.”
“We want to help you,” Sky threw in.
His head came up a little higher. “I wasn’t going to, but…” His gaze moved to the puppy, still pacing in front of him like a guard dog. “I only made it a few steps before he appeared and trapped me here.”
Sky giggled. “I think he was guarding you.”
Finally, the guy sat up straight, and in the glow of the moon, I caught my first real look at his face.
I’d been right. He was probably in his early twenties.
His skin was a golden bronze, darker than mine, so it pulled out all those rich undertones in a way I was low-key jealous of.
The halo of tight curls on his head was in need of a good shaping, and the blotchy scruff on his face reinforced my opinion of his age.
It was patchy, like it wasn’t fully coming in yet, so he needed a good shave.
But the gleam of his tawny eyes startled me.
They were piercing like he was looking straight into my soul.
“Don’t be scared,” I said. “I’m Kingston, and this is Skylar. I promise you, we’re here to help.”
“But how were you in my dreams?” he asked. “How did you help me escape?”
Sky snort-huffed another odd giggle. “That is such a long story.”
“Probably best told somewhere else.” I looked around. “Can we—”
He immediately shook his head no. “Sorry. No offense. I appreciate what you did for me back there, but I’m not going anywhere with you. I don’t know you.”
Okay, that was fair, but we couldn’t just sit out here all night. If we started explaining our story to him out here, one of the officers who patrolled the boardwalk at night might overhear us, and we’d all get in trouble.
“That’s fair,” Sky said. “Would you be willing to at least walk into town with us? You don’t have to get into a car with us or anything. Witch’s Brew opens pretty early, so we could just go into town and wait. Let us buy you a cup of coffee, maybe eat something. If you want to.”
He eyed us for several minutes, long enough that I began to worry that he wouldn’t even be willing to do that, when he finally gave one stiff nod. “Sure.”
As he stood up, Patchy ran to Sky. As the young man—who still hadn’t given us his name—swung his backpack on, I stepped toward the wadded-up blanket on top of a duffel bag. The guy locked his wolf-bright eyes on me, pinning me in place. “I’ll carry my own stuff,” he bit out.
Lifting my hands in the air, I stepped back. “No problem. If you need help, though…” I trailed off.
He snuck furtively looks in our direction until he was ready to go.
Sky gave a cheery, “This way,” like we were all friends here, and led back out past the parking lot to the main road, and we began the shuffling march toward Witch’s Brew.
I didn’t know what we’d do until it opened, but at least this was something.
The beginning of piecing together this latest Dream-veil mystery.