Page 40 of Succubus Shadows (Georgina Kincaid 5)

"They're tied to Nyx," pointed out Erik. Oh, yes. My friends were smart. Smarter than Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys put together. Maybe even Matlock too.

"The 'why' is irrelevant," said Jerome, speaking at last. "Whether it's Oneroi or Morpheans is also irrelevant. If something's taken her to the world of dreams, she's completely inaccessible."

Roman frowned. "Why? Can't you just go in there and pull her out now that you know?"

Jerome gave his son a smile that almost, almost seemed genuinely amused. "You're half-human, and it shows. Greater immortals can't go there. We don't dream. Only humans do. The way is barred to us."

"Because you have no hopes or imaginings of what might be," said Erik. His manner and tone clearly indicated he believed such a thing to be a failing for angels and demons. "You need a soul to dream."

"Well, if I'm half-human, then I'll go there," said Roman obstinately, cutting off any retort Jerome might have given. "I dream. So I can enter, right? And I can take on whatever's there." There was so much determination in his voice that I half believed he could take on an army of Oneroi right now.

"You have no idea what you're talking about," said Jerome. "Clearly. Do you have any idea what the dream world is like?"

"Do you?" asked Roman dryly. "I thought you couldn't go there."

"Dreams are what fuel human existence. Dreams of power, love, revenge, redemption...the dreams of mankind are vast, uncountable. Humans dream both waking and asleep. Those hopes and fears are what put them at risk - they gamble their lives and souls on dreams. You go into the world of dreams, and it's like stepping into a blizzard. Every snowflake is some human imagining flitting by so quickly, you can't even see it. All you see is a blur, a tangle of longings and chaos. If Georgina is there, she is one of those snowflakes. You would never find her soul."

Heavy silence fell.

Finally, Roman said, "That was like poetry, Dad."

"But he's correct," Erik told Roman.

More silence.

Roman glanced between the two of them incredulously. "So that's it? It's hopeless? You're giving up without even trying to find her?"

"Trying is hopeless," said Jerome. Demons might not dream the way humans did, but I suspected even he could picture what his superiors would do when they found out he'd lost a succubus. "Human magic could access the world of dreams, but it'd do no good." He glanced at Erik, who nodded.

"Someone lost among all that couldn't be called back. Not even the strongest ritual could do it. Her soul would never hear anything we could muster."

Roman's face was a mixture of emotions. Anger. Disbelief. And...resignation. That didn't surprise me. Jerome's face did, however. He had stiffened at Erik's words, a spark of insight flashing in those cold, dark eyes.

"But you could do the ritual, correct?" he asked Erik. "You're human. You're strong enough to open the way."

Erik eyed him warily. "Yes...but by your own admission, it would achieve nothing. The connection you had to her was theoretically strong enough to possibly summon her back, but you can't enter. All we'd have is a useless doorway."

Jerome stood up abruptly. He glanced at Roman. "Find your own way home." The demon vanished with a showy poof of smoke.

And I vanished back into the Oneroi's prison. They stood there in the dark, glowing from what they'd taken from me. In dreams, though I suffered, I never felt the horrific effects they caused until I returned from them. That was when the agony, energy loss, and confusion hit me. Yet, this time, I wasn't completely lost to despair.

"You were wrong," I said. I tried to put some smugness in my voice, but it came out hoarse from my exhaustion. Good God. I was so, so tired. I guess dreaming didn't necessarily mean sleeping. "My friends have figured it out. They know where I am."

As always, One and Two were nearly impossible to read. "What makes you think that was a true dream?"

Excellent question. "Gut instinct," I said.

"You believe you can trust it?" asked One. "After all this time? After so many dreams? How can you tell what's real and unreal?"

I couldn't. I knew when the memories were true - for now - but the "real world" scenes were harder. Maybe it wasn't my gut so much as my blind optimism that believed what I'd just seen was real.

Two guessed my thoughts. "You hope. And we've fed that hope, making you think you have a chance. So you will wait. And wait. And wait."

"It was real," I said firmly, as though that would make it so.

"Even if it was," said One, "it meant nothing. You saw for yourself. There is no way to bring you back."

"Maybe that was the lie," I said. "Maybe the rest was true. You mixed it. They figured out where I was, but you didn't show me the part where they learned how to rescue me. They're going to do that ritual."

"They will fail. Nothing can pull your soul from here."

"You're wrong." I didn't even really know what I was saying. My essence felt like it was tearing apart, and really, the only thing I knew to do was to keep contradicting them.

"And you are naive. You always have been. Lesser immortals carry that weakness over from their human days, and you're one of the worst. Our mother nearly used your weakness to free herself from the angels. Now it will be your downfall."

"What do you mean Nyx almost used it?"

The Oneroi exchanged glances - very, very pleased ones. "Your dream. Your fantasy," explained Two. "The one she promised to show you if you freed her. You wanted so badly to believe it was possible, that you nearly gave in."

For a moment, I didn't see them or that perpetual blackness. I was in a dream of my own creation, not theirs. The dream Nyx had sent to me over and over had been one of my future, with a home and a child - and a man. A man I loved whose identity remained a mystery. Nyx had never shown me the ending. Never shown me the man in the dream.

"You are so full of shit," I said. "You claim Nyx shows the truth - the future. But how could that vision have been true if I'm also supposed to be locked here for all eternity? They can't both be true."

"The future is always changing," said One. "That was true when she showed it to you. Your path shifted."

"Oh, come on! What's the point of having a vision of the future if it can change at any moment? That's not a truth or a lie. That's a guess. And I never believed her anyway. What she showed me was impossible - even if I wasn't here with you two ass**les."

"You will never know if it was," said Two. Then, he reconsidered. "Actually it was possible, but you will live with the knowledge that it's a future that's been taken from you."

"You can't take what I never had," I growled. "Succubi can't have children. I could never have that kind of life."

What I didn't add was that one startling thing had come from the dream. In it, I'd had two cats. At the time, I'd only had one - Aubrey. Not long after, I'd found Godiva, who was the other cat in the dream. Coincidence? Or had I truly been on the path to that future, only to have it ripped from me now? As always, the Oneroi could see into my heart and knew what I was thinking.

"Do you want to see?" asked One.

"See what?"

"The man," said Two. "The man in the dream."

Chapter 18

It started before I could stop it.

I stood in a kitchen, in one of those dreams where I was both watching me and feeling me. The kitchen was bright and modern, far larger than anything I could imagine a non-cook like me needing. My dream-self stood at the sink, arms elbow deep in sudsy water that smelled like oranges. I was hand-washing dishes and kind of doing a half-ass job at it but was too happy to notice. On the floor, an actual dishwasher lay in pieces, thus explaining the need for manual labor.

From another room, the sounds of "Sweet Home Alabama" carried to my ears. I hummed along as I washed. I was content, filled with a joy so utterly perfect, I could barely grasp it after everything else that had happened in my life - particularly after this imprisonment with the Oneroi. After humming a few more bars, I set a wet cup on the counter and turned around to peek into the living room beyond me.

A little girl sat in there, about two years old. She was on a blanket, surrounded by stuffed animals and other toys. She clutched a plush giraffe in her hands. It rattled when she shook it. As though sensing my gaze, she looked up.

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