All four ladies were in long white nightgowns with their hair hanging down and barefoot. I didn’t know if this was part of the ritual they’d perform while we were in the Dream-veil or what.
Booker sat on the couch with Carli and Cassi on either side of him, speaking to him softly. Chance and Ego sat on the loveseat with Jetty standing behind them like a bodyguard, and Marc and Malcolm were sitting in chairs by the window, observing.
“Wow,” Sky said, coming to stand at my side with his face freshly scrubbed, freckles on full display, and his glasses on his face. “This place looks incredible.”
Bending over, I kissed the tip of his nose. “You look incredible, sweetheart.”
He smiled, clearly pleased by the compliment. He patted my butt. “You’re not too bad yourself, big guy.”
“Boys, stop flirting,” Gran said. “It’s time for hot chocolate.”
In other words, it was time to begin.
Blinkingat the scene around me, I cursed.
“What the heck? How are we here?” Sky demanded with a stomp of his foot.
“I don’t know,” I said grimly, viewing the field that we’d hung out at so many times before when we didn’t have a mission, or whatever we were supposed to call it when we had someone to help.
Sky clutched my arm. “Does this mean that Booker’s alone with that thing?”
Shaking my head, I looked around. The countryside was the same as it was each time we were here. It was nighttime, with a quarter moon this time. The trees surrounded us, and the sounds of insects sounded in the night. “I hope…” I trailed off, unwilling to give that dire thought voice.
“You don’t think we’ve been pulled from Booker, do you? Since we haven’t helped him yet?”
Welp, there it was. So I wasn’t the only one worried. “I don’t know, sweetheart,” I admitted.
Then that gurgle I’d come to recognize as a raven came from a tree limb nearby. Maybe I was slipping from reality, but it felt like it was trying to tell me something. Since I hadn’t suddenly gained the ability to speak bird, I wondered if the psychopomp would understand it.
“Where’s Patchy?” I asked.
“He disappeared right before dinner. I thought maybe he was tired, and I knew we’d need him, so I let him be. I’ll call him now.” He took a deep breath?—
We were in the family room of the manor. It was a distorted version of the scene we’d left behind. Gran, Elyse, Carli, and Cassi sat on the floor in a circle, holding hands, and it lookedlike they were chanting. Chance sat at the foot of the blow-up where Sky and I lay sound asleep. Jetty, Marc, Scotty, and Malcolm were still as statues, like they weren’t real, and there were no signs of our ghostly found family.
Ego sat on the floor by the couch, near Booker’s head, stroking his hair back, his lips moving like he was singing softly. Booker’s body, the most solid image here in the veil, shook slightly. “Maybe we didn’t come straight here because it’s not attacking.”
Sky cocked his head, lifted a finger in a shushing motion, and closed his eyes. I opened my mouth to ask what he heard when I noticed the swirling red and purple energy beginning to settle over his skin. Then faintly, like whispers in the night, I heard the voice of the mimic.
“Youuuuu…you filthy human. Soooooo…dirty. Sooooo..alone. Soooo…broken. Youuuuu…are nothing. Youuuu…are evil. Unwooorthy…human.”
“I hear it now,” I murmured in Sky’s ear.
He opened his eyes and stared toward Booker. Holding out his arms, his voice was a mere breath as he called for his familiar. Patchy appeared, immediately growling low in his chest. Sky turned to me. “Stay behind me, please.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.” He kissed the top of Patchy’s head. “Let’s do this, boy.”
He set the pup down on the ground. “You know what I need.”
As he stood up, candles appeared around the room in the Dream-veil, layering perfectly over what they’d set out in the natural realm. Sky breathed out a sigh of relief as they flamed to life.
The mimic’s voice cut off, then there was a hiss before it began again, louder and more insistent. “Youuuuu…filthyhuman belong to me. Youuuu…are mine. Sooooo…alone. Soooo…broken. Youuuuu…are nothing without me. Youuuu…are evil. Unwooorthy…human. Youuuu…need me. Come…to meeeeee.”
Booker rustled, slowly waking up. “No. Go away.” He covered his ears with his arms, whimpering to be left alone.
It started up again, taunting Booker, but I was fixated on Sky as he raised his arms up in front of him.
