Wrong Night (Miles Sterling #8)

PROLOGUE

The dream always started the same way.

James Clancy stood at the edge of a cliff he had never seen in waking life, looking out over an expanse of clouds that stretched to the horizon.

The wind pressed against his chest with enough force that he had to lean into it to keep from being pushed backward.

Below him, the world was nothing but white vapor and distant shadows that might have been mountains or cities or nothing at all.

He stepped off the edge.

The fall lasted only a heartbeat before the wind caught him and he was flying.

Not floating or gliding but truly flying, his body cutting through the air with purpose and direction.

The clouds rushed past on either side and the cold wind stung his face.

He could feel every current and eddy, could sense the way the atmosphere held him aloft through some mechanism he understood completely in the dream but could never remember upon waking.

It was beautiful in a way that made his chest ache.

The freedom of it. The absolute absence of everything that weighed him down in his regular life.

Up here there were no expectations or disappointments or the constant awareness of his own limitations.

There was only the sky and the wind and the sensation of moving through space without resistance.

But the joy never lasted long enough.

The fear always crept in at the edges, subtle at first. A reminder that human bodies were not meant for flight.

That gravity would eventually reassert itself and drag him down to whatever waited below those clouds.

He tried to push the thoughts away, tried to focus only on the feeling of the wind and the beauty of being untethered from the earth.

The wind shifted. The currents that had held him so perfectly began to falter.

Clancy felt himself dropping, slowly at first and then faster.

The clouds rushed up to meet him and he passed through them into clear air where he could see the ground approaching with terrible speed.

He tried to find the currents again, tried to remember how he had flown just moments before, but the knowledge was already slipping away.

He always woke just before impact.

Clancy opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of his bedroom, his heart hammering against his ribs.

The dream clung to him like moisture, the sensation of falling still present in his muscles and bones.

He had experienced this same dream at least once a week for as long as he could remember.

Sometimes more often. It had terrified him as a child, those nights when he woke up screaming and his mother would come running to hold him until he calmed down.

But somewhere along the way, the terror had transformed into something else. Into longing.

He sat up slowly and got out of bed. The alarm clock on his nightstand read 3:47 in the morning.

He had fallen asleep just after midnight, which meant he had managed less than four hours before the dream pulled him back to consciousness.

It was enough. He had learned to function on fragments of sleep.

Clancy stood and walked to his desk on the far side of the room.

He switched on the small desk lamp, and warm yellow light spilled across a surface covered almost entirely with weather maps and charts.

He grabbed his old inhaler from the midst of it and put it to his mouth—an action he figured he had performed thousands of time throughout his life.

As he puffed from it, he looked down at the maps.

They were spread out in overlapping layers, some held down at the corners with weights to keep them from curling, others stacked in neat piles along the edges.

Barometric pressure systems drawn in red and blue.

Wind speed calculations written in his own precise handwriting.

Altitude measurements, temperature gradients, and all the data that governed the movement of air across the Pacific Northwest.

The balloon equipment occupied what little desk space remained.

Nozzles and valves and lengths of reinforced tubing sat arranged in careful order.

A small pump rested beside his laptop. Rolls of heavy-duty plastic sheeting were stacked against the wall, the kind designed to withstand extreme conditions without tearing.

Everything he needed was here, organized and maintained with a rigorous attention to detail.

He powered up the laptop, nudging aside a few weather maps to make room.

The machine hummed softly as it booted up, the screen casting blue light that mixed with the yellow from the desk lamp.

Clancy navigated to a folder buried deep in his file system, protected by passwords and encryption that would take law enforcement months to crack if they ever thought to look.

The folder contained video files. Dozens of them, organized by date. Clancy selected the most recent and double-clicked.

The video opened in full-screen mode. It showed a wide shot of open sky, the camera positioned at ground level and angled upward.

The footage was steady despite having been recorded with a handheld device.

Clancy had learned to control his breathing and minimize movement during these recordings. Every detail mattered.

A figure appeared in the frame, rising slowly.

A woman, suspended beneath a cluster of weather balloons that pulled her steadily upward.

Her arms and legs hung limp, her body relaxed in a way that suggested complete surrender to the experience.

Or unconsciousness. The balloons carried her higher and higher until she became a dark speck against the clouds.

Clancy rewound the footage and watched it again.

And then again. Each viewing revealed new details.

The way the wind caught the balloons and caused them to drift slightly to the east. The rate of ascent, which he had calculated to be approximately 1,000 feet per minute based on the balloon specifications and helium volume.

The moment when the figure passed through a layer of thin clouds and briefly disappeared from view before emerging on the other side.

She was living the dream. Experiencing the flight that Clancy could only access in sleep. The freedom and the terror and the beauty of being unbound from the earth, of rising into the atmosphere with nothing but air and altitude between her body and the infinite sky.

He paused the video and sat back in his chair.

The image frozen on screen showed the figure at maximum altitude, barely visible against the pale morning sky.

Soon after this moment, the balloons would have reached their breaking point and burst. What happened next was not captured on camera, but Clancy knew.

Had studied the physics of it enough times to visualize every second.

The fall. The terminal velocity. The impact.

The full realization of what it meant to fly without wings.

His work was not complete. There were others who needed this experience, who deserved to understand what he had learned through years of study and observation.

The Elementalist had shown him the path forward, had demonstrated that the elements themselves could be tools for transformation.

Oxygen, air, and all the gases that made up the atmosphere were not just scientific phenomena to be measured and predicted.

They were forces that could be harnessed to help people transcend their earthly limitations.

Clancy closed the video file and opened a new document.

He needed to choose his next target carefully.

The selection process required research and patience.

Not everyone was suitable for ascension.

He looked for specific qualities. People whose lives demonstrated an excessive connection to the ground, whose movements and choices showed they had forgotten how to look up at the sky.

Each ascension brought him closer to understanding his purpose.

Each launch refined his technique and deepened his appreciation for the work the Elementalist had begun.

Gabriel Kane might be imprisoned, locked away in a cell where he could no longer directly guide the mission, but his teachings remained.

His vision of elemental purification through calculated intervention continued through those who truly understood.

Clancy glanced at the weather maps spread across his desk. A high-pressure system was moving in from the Pacific. Clear skies were forecasted for the next several days. Perfect conditions for another launch.

He smiled and began to type, making notes about potential candidates and optimal locations.

The dream would return tonight and the night after that, pulling him into the sky only to drop him back to earth before he could truly experience the freedom he craved.

But through his work, through helping others make that final ascent, he was learning to make peace with being grounded.

Some people were meant to study the sky. And some people were meant to help others reach it.