Chapter Three

 

 

Eric went over the numbers, and he couldn’t make them add up. The requests for nightmares were in, but the delivered dark dreams were down.

“Kimmy, what the hell is going on here?”

His sister walked over, and she pulled the ledger to her, turning it around. “There is a deficit. Some of these contracts were not honoured.”

“Yes, but they are a little peculiar. They appear to all be directed at the same person.”

Kimmy looked and nodded. “Yes. She must have done quite a bit of ill toward folk to have them wish this torment on her.”

He took the ledger back and tapped the explanation segment of the page. “I thought so, too, but there is nothing here. It is blank.”

“What?” she grabbed the book again and glared at the page. “That isn’t possible.”

“Oh, it’s possible, but what worries me is that this woman is back on the schedule tonight, and fifty of our sisters are in line to torment her. She will go mad.”

“Are you going to intervene?” Kimmy gave him a serious look.

“I believe I have to. Do you have any information on the dreamer?”

“She has just entered the Crossroads.” Kimmy checked the dark shadow in the map portion of the page.

“Shit.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I will have to get clearance to get to her in time.”

Kimmy lifted his phone and started dialling. “You had better get talking.”

She held it out to him, and he could hear it ringing.

 

Eric walked out of the portal and nodded to the guardians. “Hello.”

The man who greeted him nodded and gave him a narrow-eyed look. “I didn’t think you were real.”

Eric nodded. “I get that a lot. Our kind walk the winds of magic so regularly that we have been neglected as shifters.”

“Right. Well, I am Tony, and my mate is Teal. The woman you mentioned is on loan to the Crossroads. She is providing entertainment for a few weeks, and the concert is going to be amazing. Are you sure that she is about to get bombarded by nightmares?”

“I am sure. She will be trapped in a dimensional torment that allows no relief. I can get her and bring her out, but it is tricky as I can’t stop a nightmare in progress.”

“Why can’t you stop them?”

“Like other herd animals, I can warn them away or kick them when they are already there, but I can’t stop them throwing the dark energy.”

“This is highly irregular, and we have seen some bizarre stuff in the last few years.” Tony ran his hand along his head.

“Don’t worry. If I get to her before they do, I will be able to minimize the damage.” He sighed. “Once she is out of danger, I am out of your hair.”

“Right. Right. Well, she is at the Axion, but you might not want to stay there.”

“Guardian, I need to be where she is. My comfort doesn’t matter.”

“Right. The Axion it is. Please, grab your bag and come with me. It is right this way.”

Eric followed Tony out and into the street. Around him, couples and singles wandered around, all laughing and several had the obvious look of folk on holiday.

“Why is this place so crowded?”

Tony looked at him. “I thought you knew. The fey king’s master musician is playing tonight and for the rest of the week, and you are going to try and keep her alive.”

Eric mentally cursed. “The fey king’s pet?”

“His musician. Yes. Trust me, she is no one’s pet.”

They continued the walk until they reached the obviously fey structure. The Axion was a standard fairy tale castle.

Tony led him to the door, and it swung open in welcome.

An elf with golden skin and silver hair stood in the entryway. “Tony, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Drak, this is Eric, and he needs to be in a room as close to Elenora’s as is possible. She is in danger from his people, and he must be near her to prevent anything untoward from becoming permanent.”

Drak looked at Eric, and he sized him up. “You are not a standard shifter.”

“No, I am not. I am of the dream runners. We are shifters who walk between the physical and the dream realms.”

The proprietor extended his hand, and Eric completed the clasp. The contact of fey and shifter flesh was filled with energy, and visible static ran up their forearms. The two men stared at each other, taking the measure of the other’s strengths and looking for weaknesses.

When Tony cleared his throat, Eric released the other man’s arm.

Drak inclined his head. “Please, come with me. We are fairly full, but I am sure I can locate you something close to Elly. Please come with me.”

Eric followed the man up a sweeping stairwell. Most of the guests were fey, and he stuck out like a sore thumb. It didn’t matter; he had a job to do. He didn’t know what had caused the psychic interference with the musician, but he would do his best to minimize the effects.

 

* * * *

 

The amphitheatre was amazing. Elly sat on the edge of the stage, and she took out her flute. The few low tones she began with soared out to the seats in the side of the hill and rang in rich notes.

She played a song that she had composed for the king’s bride when she was old enough to have an interest in music, and from there, she swung into a lullaby.

The music came so easily there at the Crossroads that she was tempted to just keep playing, but that would be stupid. She needed all of her focus for the evening’s concert.

“Well, that shows good acoustics anyway.” She tucked her flute back into its bag, walking away from her performance venue and heading to the café for a cup of coffee. She didn’t need to be nodding off before her first performance.

The walk was nice. She was stifled at the palace, but it was the only safe place for her. This little jaunt to the Crossroads was going to be fun, but it was work for the king. It wasn’t something she was going to forget.

The shifters were in their animal forms, bolting across the meadows, chasing each other and in general frolic mode. Elly imagined that they didn’t get much chance to just throw caution and social convention to the wind and behave like teenagers again.

Elly’s personal rebellion was in the form of jeans and a t-shirt. She enjoyed the freedom of movement afforded by just wearing one layer. The court clothing was stifling for stuff that looked gauzy, wearing it and working all night was an exercise in endurance.

Inside the café, she found a seat at a tiny table and asked for a coffee when the waitress stopped.

The couples and singles in the room had a comfortable feeling of familiarity with the space. Elly enjoyed looking casually around the place while she tried to determine if the person she was looking at was fey or shifter. It was a fun game.

A few of the men and women glanced her way, but she kept her hands around the coffee and thought about the order of the performance for the coming evening.

“May I join you?”

The deep voice rustled through her. She loved that tone. A few of the fey had a voice that reverberated in her bones, and the ones that did she stayed far away from.

“Only if you are prepared to talk.” She smiled brightly and waved him to sit with her at the tiny table that looked child sized when he seated himself.

She extended her hand. “I am Elly.”

He blinked slowly and reached up to grip her fingers. “Eric. I am here for your safety.”

She felt the jolt of shifter energy and something far stronger. When he released her hand, she wanted to grab his, to keep that power running through her.

“Great. Wait. My safety? Who sent you?”

Eric crossed his arms and leaned back; the chair he was on creaked under the weight of all that muscle. “I have been made aware of a danger to your sanity.”

“Have you been talking to the fey prime minister? He would insist I am a right nutter. His words, not mine.”

Her new companion smiled, his teeth flashing white in his mahogany face. His dark mane of hair slid over his shoulders and gleamed against the matte black of his t-shirt. He was wearing black from head to toe and didn’t even have a wristband.

“Hey, you don’t have a charm.”

He smirked. “And you thought we had just met. Obviously, you know me.”

She blushed. “That isn’t what I meant.”

“I guessed as much, but you are in danger. There are nightmares coming for you.”

Elly sighed, having it confirmed by a stranger was worse than the words from a friend. “I know.”

That surprised him. “You do?”

“I do. A few of my kinswomen are hostile toward me due to my blended nature. My court occupation makes it even worse. We are a family of musicians, and everybody wants to catch the ear of the king.”

He frowned. “Wait, your family? You have done something horrible to your kin?”

“Of course not. I don’t even know them. I was raised at boarding school and before that, an orphanage.” She wrinkled her nose. “The boarding school is where I met my first nightmare.”

His eyes widened and then narrowed. “You have met them before?”

“Just one. I was whimpering at shadows for weeks until an instructor figured out what had happened and tracked down the fey that had put the price on me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that new people in a social system make folk fear for their status. They lash out. I just had no idea that it was still going on with my new family members until I was asked to perform here.”

“You came anyway? You left your safety and came here to perform for these idiots?”

She laughed. “I came because I am out for the first time in five years. The nightmares will come, and I will scream and sob and live out all my terrors and then the morning will come, and I will get up and get back to work.”

“It isn’t that simple. It isn’t just one nightmare coming for you.”

She paused with her coffee halfway to her lips. “Not one? How many?”

He sighed, and his muscles flexed. “All of them. They are all coming for you, and they are coming tonight.”

Elly nodded and inwardly braced herself. “Right. I had better make this a helluva concert then.”