Chapter 8 #3
She was already on her feet when the man shot up again, his fists pounding the glass, wild-eyed and bleeding.
“Help!” he screamed, voice cracking. “They’re here!
” Another desperate hit. “Help!” His eyes didn’t see her, didn’t see the library.
He was looking through it all, terrified, as if someone was behind him, hunting him.
And then, as suddenly as he came, he ran, and he was gone.
Daphne stood frozen, one hand pressed against her mouth, her heart one beat away from bolting out of her chest. The shadows from the window twisted on the floor like they had weight. The lights above her flickered again.
Maybe she would have lost it. She was dangerously close to it. But she heard the soft cry of the child, a helpless sound she remembered. She turned to look at little Noah, found him turned into a tiny ball on the couch, clutching his shark like a shield.
And that pulled her together.
Oh, hell no.
The panic got shelved. The questions could wait.
There was a child in her care, and he would not be alone.
She crossed the floor fast and locked the front door, then was back with him, knelt beside him, and said softly, “Hey, Noah? You’re safe, buddy. I’m right here with you.”
He made a little room for her, and she tucked him at her side. “There we go. Now we just wait for the sheriff. How did you like that story?” she asked, picking the book from the floor.
Her hands were still shaking, her mind was still reeling, but her voice was steady.
Because someone had to be.
“Good,” he said, his breath hitching with sobs.
She was just starting to relax, or at least her heart had slowed to something less than a medical emergency, when she caught sight of a strange, shifting haze forming in the non-fiction section of the library.
A conglomerate of white fog, thickening and condensing in the still air.
It swirled with purpose, like smoke with a destination, until it began to gather mass.
Vapor turned viscous. Shadows clung to it.
The shape started to form a figure. A man? Wait. Not just a man.
Hunter.
“Noah, buddy, can you wait here one second? A friend of mine is here.”
She gave the boy a reassuring smile and made herself walk, not run, to Hunter.
He saw her, pulled his palms out. “I know I said I would wait, but–”
He never finished because she ran straight into his arms. She held on, breathing hard, soaking in the promise of safety his arms always delivered while everything else was unraveling.
Then she stepped back and smacked him in the chest with a half-hearted fist. “What the fuck was that? The fog stuff. Is this more shit you didn’t tell me?
” she whisper-shouted. And before he could answer, she threw her arms around him again, burying herself against his chest. She was furious.
And terrified. And furious. And somehow, she still chose him.
She would always choose him. The bastard. “Damn it, Hunter.”
“Many mixed signals here, but alright.” He pulled back, took her face into his palms, studying it as if he could read her. “I told you I’m a Tulpa demon. That fog was me. And are you okay?”
“You’re fog?” She shook her head. “Never mind for now. How are you here? What are you doing here? And shit is happening, and it’s terrifying.”
“You were scared. No, I wasn’t in your head.” Frustrated, he gently shook her face. “I just know, okay? What is happening?”
She gave him a quick recap as she walked with him to Noah. “Harper is on her way; she should be here in minutes. Hunter, this is Noah. Noah, this is Hunter.”
Hunter sat on the floor in front of the boy, peeking at the books that had accumulated on the couch. “Nice reads.”
“Miss Daphne read for me,” Noah said. “She’s great.”
“Miss Daphne is awesome,” Hunter replied seriously.
Someone knocked at the front door, a firm but controlled knocking, not a deranged one, so she smiled at Noah, gave Hunter a look that said, wait with him, and went to open up.
Harper was waiting.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said as she let her in and locked the door again.
Of course, Harper noticed the locking up. “Got any trouble?”
“Only a man smashing his face on the window, screaming to help him because, I quote, they were getting him.”
“It’s a weird day, for sure. Feels like a deranged Samhain on steroids.” They made their way to where Noah waited, but Hunter intercepted them before they could reach him.
“Found the mom?” he asked Harper.
His question was met with an even stare. “And you’d be?”
“Hunter.”
Harper studied Hunter’s face for a moment longer. “He yours?” Her words were for Daphne, but her eyes never left him.
“It’s complicated, but yeah.”
This time, Harper addressed him directly. “You’re magick.”
“Sure am.”
Harper nodded, knowing, and turned to Daphne again. “Things with them are always complicated. We found the mom, by the way, or she contacted us minutes after you.” She leaned on one side to look at Noah. “Ready to go home?”
He jumped down off the couch and ran to the deputy to grab her hand. Harper gave Daphne a small, grateful smile. “Thanks for keeping him safe.”
Daphne nodded. “Anytime.”
With a quick wave, Harper guided Noah out the door. A moment later, the jingle of the bell and the soft click of the lock signaled their departure.
Hunter stuffed his hands in his pockets as Daphne turned the bolt. “Does she have issues with magiks?”
“Well, she’s married to one and works with another, so...”
They stood there for a beat, neither speaking, both with things on their mind, obviously.
But they were alone, and Daphne needed to find a way to navigate all the things that were happening inside of her and in the world.
She considered playing it cool and focusing on whatever deal waited outside.
But then.... She’d asked him for honesty, and to honesty she’d stick, too.
“Look,” she started. “I’m going with the truth here.
I’m pissed at you, and I’m trying hard to understand why I can not send you your way.
” She shook her head. “The thought only gives me anxiety, and I don’t normally do that shit.
Something in me knows you’re safe for my heart, but the way you handled it makes it iffy.
I’m not used to trusting my heart. What if you hurt me?
Like, bad? I don’t want to do that, Hunter. I hurt too much already.”
He stepped closer, his face softening in that crooked way that only he could manage.
“What if I’ve never felt the way I’m feeling, and I messed it up because I didn’t know what to do?
Now I know, and so what if I don’t hurt you?
What if I don’t make you give me the boot, because I can’t think of myself existing without you?
What if I’ll always try to make you happy? ”
“Yeah, well...” She brushed her knuckles against his shirt, turned into a heatless push. He didn’t budge. “And also, I really want to touch you because it does great things to me, and I’m mad at that, too.”
He had the decency to keep the grin to a minimum.
“I handled it like an ass, but it’s worth noting that I was extremely surprised, to say the least. And I legit couldn’t tell you anything.
But I’m honestly sorry. I can’t redo the past, but I can promise you only truth in the future.
” He offered her his hand. “And you can touch me any time you want. Gods know it makes me feel better, too.”
She’d be damned, but when their fingers linked, the sight that escaped her was pure relief.
Something inside her, deep enough it could very well be her soul, quieted and stretched toward him with joy.
They moved to the couch as a shout came from outside and died in the now afternoon, making her tighten the hold on him.
“The building is safe,” he said, reading her perfectly. “Nothing and no one will get in unless I let them in.”
Yeah, okay. There were so many things she realized she didn’t know about him. “How? You have powers or something?”
“Or something. Mostly energy I can bend and use. Every kind of magic I can harness and model. And there’s the mind thing. I’m not as strong as Dorian, because he’s older than I am, but we have the same kind of powers.”
She traced small nonsense on the back of his hand, murmuring, “I’m almost afraid to ask how old he is.”
“He came into existence when humans started having more elaborate thoughts and their subconscious became more complex.” He shrugged. “He’s been around.”
“Holy shit.” And that only called for another, even worse, question. “How old are you, then?”
“I manifested into the world during the absolute clusterfuck that was the Dark Age. It was the perfect storm of fear and despair, and voila, there I was.”
She looked at him. Looked some more as she tried to process that impossibility. “You’re almost fifteen hundred years old. Like, a thousand, five hundred years old.”
His mouth puckered and his chin creased in concentration as he thought it through.
Then nodded. “Sounds about right, give or take a panic-fueled uprising or two.” He crossed his ankles, conversationally.
“It was prime time for plague, superstition, mass hysteria, and a delightful lack of street lighting. Perfect nightmare fodder. I’m not gonna lie, Dorian and I had a lot of fun. ”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Eh, what can you say. It’s who I am. Dorian, I, and other demons did our things for a while.
Then the magiks came out, and the world slowly adapted to it.
The Dreamscape was created, and Dorian, logically, was asked to lead it.
He formed the Dream Devils, and now we get paid to do what we were created for. Pretty sweet deal, actually.”
“They, um, pay you.”
“They do. I have a proper bank account and shit.” He leaned in a bit, one blond brow arched. “You must know, Miss Daphne, I am what you might call loaded.”
“Oh my God.”
“I don’t need much, and the government is very generous.” He frowned for a moment. “I think part of that is because they are scared of Dorian and me.” Another shrug. “Go figure.”
Out of words, out of even thoughts, Daphne blurted out the first dumb question her brain vomited. “Do you have a last name?”
“Nah. Don’t need that. We’re too rare for it. The name I use is actually the nickname the Devils gave me because I was exceptionally good at dealing with assholes and driving them insane.”
“Oh. That’s, um, cool.”
“Right?” He was about to add something she would probably have trouble processing, too, but he looked to the other side of the room. “Company is coming.”
And for the second time that day, a fog, black as coal this time, started forming in front of the desk, and it solidified into Dorian. He straightened the knot of his black tie, and he strode to them. “The Dreamscape is compromised.”