Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer, #1)(106)

“I thought you were waiting in the car,” Farooq-Lane said.

“I wanted to see if you were all right,” Liliana said.

“Aw, honey,” Ramsay said, “you want to help us out, you can get that next vision coming when you get a chance. World to save and all that.”

I am that feather, Farooq-Lane thought.

She was not that feather.

She punched J. J. Ramsay hard enough that he fell ass over tits, chair wailing right over backward, depositing him flat on his back with his legs all tangled around the chair’s legs.

There was complete silence. Ramsay had had his breath and idiotic words knocked right out of him. His mouth moved as if he was trying out some of the idiotic words he was going to say when he got back enough breath to say them.

Farooq-Lane’s fist smarted as if it had just been smashed against a douchebag’s face, because it had just been smashed against a douchebag’s face. Biting her lip, she risked a glance at the new Visionary, the Visionary she was, according to Moderator guidelines, trying to recruit to their noble cause.

Liliana looked from Ramsay to Farooq-Lane and said, “I’ll follow you anywhere.”





67

Because Hennessy was so clearly scared shitless, Ronan hadn’t let on his reservations about his plan. Lindenmere, after all, was sensitive to all thoughts, and the last thing he wanted to do was give voice to something it would manifest for them.

But it was dangerous.

Opal and Hennessy sat cross-legged in the middle of a clearing in Lindenmere, on top of a pretty little hummock sprouting the kind of thin, hairy grass that grew in the shade. A fairy ring of dull white mushrooms encircled them. A little brook, dark with leaf tannin, mumbled by at the edge of the clearing. Opal sat behind Hennessy, back to back, looking self-important. Ronan was relying heavily on Opal’s ability to act as intermediary between him and Lindenmere.

Because Ronan could accomplish what he needed in dreams back at the Barns, and because he preferred to have all dream consequences happen far away from his physical body, he didn’t usually use Lindenmere like this. He came to Lindenmere to feel understood, to feel the power of the ley line rush over himself, to feel connected to something bigger, to make sure it did not need him, or vice versa.

He did not usually come here to dream.

Dreaming in Lindenmere meant making one’s thoughts reality immediately. The monsters were there the moment you bid them. The ocean rose around your very real waking body. The copies of yourself were fact until you or Lindenmere destroyed them.

But he didn’t know how to show Hennessy how to dream otherwise.

The only other way might have been to meet her in dream-space as Bryde had met him, but he wouldn’t have had the same kind of control. The consequences of Hennessy waking with another deadly tattoo were too dire to risk without the big guns.

“Lindenmere,” Ronan said out loud, “I’m going to need every bit of you for this.”

And Hennessy began to dream. Not truly dream, because she was awake. But rather, Lindenmere began to have her dream for her.

It was dark.

The light became dim in the clearing.

There was music playing. It was an old jazz recording, some woman’s voice pitching and lilting along as the sound fuzzed and popped. Hennessy hadn’t mentioned this to Ronan when she described the dream.

A woman stood in the glen, only it was no longer a glen. It was a closet. The lights were out. The only light came from a small, high window, and the light was gray. The woman was dressed in a bra and underwear and a robe. She did not look like Hennessy, but she didn’t not look like her. Mascara was drawn down her face. She was holding a gun.

The woman in the bathrobe put the gun to her own head.

The door opened (there was now a door). Hennessy stood in it. Not the Hennessy who was dreaming, but another Hennessy. She was standing a little differently than Hennessy did now. A little more softly, her shoulders a little more sloped. She wore a white T-shirt, nice jeans, flowers embroidered on the butt pockets.

“Mum?” Hennessy said.

“You won’t miss me,” Hennessy’s mother said.

“Wait,” Hennessy said.

The gun barrel flashed.

The dream dissipated with the reverberation of the shot, and Hennessy came to with a second Hennessy staring at her from the edge of the fairy ring, the mushrooms trampled.

Ronan looked at that new Hennessy for a split second and then said, “Lindenmere, take her.”

The forest dissolved the second Hennessy, incorporating her at once into the fine grass as if she had never been. The original Hennessy reeled, her hand pressed to her throat.

“That’s not the dream you described to me,” Ronan said.

Hennessy was breathing slow and hard, unfocused.

Ronan stalked over to her and pushed her shoulder with his boot. “That wasn’t the dream you told me. Was that a memory? Did that happen?”

“Give—me—a—tick,” Hennessy said.

“No,” Ronan said simply. “You don’t need a second. Lindenmere is dreaming for you. You aren’t doing any heavy lifting here. Did that happen?”

When Hennessy didn’t answer, Opal tenderly scrambled round into Hennessy’s lap. She pulled Hennessy’s hand away from her throat, kissed it, and hugged it.

“Did it?” Ronan asked.