Dream Walker (The Coven, Book 3) Read online

  “How long was I asleep?” she choked out.

  “Maybe three minutes,” Alex said.

  “How could I possibly go to sleep and have a dream so fast?”

  “It’s like you went into a trance,” Landon said. “When everything spiraled out of control, the power turned on us.”

  “Is the spell still in effect?” she asked.

  “No. When you went out, it broke,” Sandra answered.

  “You couldn’t wake me?”

  “Not if we dropped a bomb on you,” Mario said.

  “Did anyone ask about the skull?” Their silence was her answer, and she laughed humorlessly. “What do we do now?”

  “Not another truth spell,” Mario said.

  CHAPTER 26

  Avery jumped when the ringing of her phone pierced the silence. She looked at the coven and then at Karen’s name on her phone. Her heart leapt into her throat as she tossed the Book of Shadows she was holding aside. She still hadn’t talked to them.

  Lila sent her a message earlier saying she was swamped with school work and would talk later. Tina and Karen had remained conspicuously absent. Karen hadn’t answered when Mario tried calling her either.

  She’d wondered if Regan finally succeeded in chasing them away. It would be for the best, but she couldn’t deny it hurt. And now Karen was calling her. Talia had most likely died from a nightmare—Regan’s return coinciding with her death was too big of a coincidence to believe anything else—were Karen, Tina, and Lila having nightmares also?

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Avery!” Karen cried, and Avery heard the tears in her voice. “I am so sorry to be calling this late.”

  “It’s all right,” Avery assured her. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve been having these awful nightmares….” Her voice broke off as she started sobbing. Avery’s hand clutched around the phone so tightly she thought she would break it. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

  “You’re not bothering me. Tell me what happened.”

  Karen blurted her words so fast Avery had a difficult time deciphering what she said, but she got the gist of most of it—Karen was having the same nightmares as the coven. “I know it sounds crazy,” she gushed on, “but I swear to you, it’s true.”

  “I believe you,” Avery said. “The coven is going through the same thing.”

  “Really?” Karen asked in a choked, tiny voice.

  “Yes, we’re all here now and were awake when you called.”

  “Is it Regan?”

  “We think so. Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”

  “You already have so much to deal with.”

  “That’s crap,” Avery said and couldn’t keep the irritation from her voice. “You’re one of my best friends, we’ve been through Hell together, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Tina and Lila have been dodging my calls too, so I’m guessing they’re also having the dreams.”

  “I don’t know. We haven’t talked lately. They’ve been so distant…. Oh, they must be!”

  Avery closed her eyes as she contemplated telling her about Talia. She didn’t want Karen to go back to sleep, but she couldn’t terrify her while she was alone. “Call Tina and Lila; I’m sure they’re up too. The three of you get together tonight and then give me a call back, okay?” She’d tell them when they were all together.

  “Okay,” Karen said.

  “Can you come here tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be there. Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For being there.”

  “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be going through this!”

  “Regan is the reason I’m going through this. I’ll call you back soon.”

  Karen hung up before Avery could reply.

  “They’re having dreams too?” Reid asked.

  Unable to trust herself to speak, Avery nodded. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to cry or scream at them more.

  “We should have known,” Shawn mumbled.

  “Regan will go after everyone he’s had contact with,” Landon said.

  Avery’s jaw clenched at the thought of Regan tormenting her friends. “When I find out who has the skull, I will do everything in my power to destroy them. Those vows I took during my initiation will mean nothing.”

  She looked at each person in the room, and they all met her gaze.

  “No, they won’t,” Sandra agreed.

  • • •

  Avery paced around her room as she tried to hammer out the details of the plan forming in her mind. She ignored the questioning looks she received while twisting a strand of hair around her finger. If her plan did work, if she could pull it off, it might solve part of their problem.

  She glanced at the coven, Karen, Tina, and Lila before she stopped pacing to face them. “I think I have an idea.” They looked at her expectantly from their shadowed, tired eyes. “I think I have a way for you to sleep.”

  “How?” Shawn demanded.

  She started pacing again as she ran everything through her mind one more time. “The night of the car accident, I was able to reach out to Reid. I didn’t mean to do it, but he heard me. I might be able to open a connection with the rest of you too.”

  “But what would that do?” Tina asked.

  “Our powers don’t work in our dreams, but my powers might work in yours. Maybe I can stop the nightmare before it starts.”

  “I don’t know, Avery,” Reid said. “What if you can’t control it and you get sucked in too?”

  “I can control it.”

  “You lost control of the truth spell.”

  “Yes, but the truth spell was dangerous to begin with, and the strength of my powers caused it to have more adverse consequences. This is different. This isn’t trying to bend another’s will to mine; it’s connecting with another to help them. I can do this.”

  “What if you can’t connect with us and we go to sleep and end up trapped there?” Rosie asked.

  “There’s a chance it could happen,” she admitted.

  “Great,” Isla muttered.

  “I think it’s worth a try,” Avery said.

  “And what about you?” Reid demanded. “When do you get to sleep? What happens if you do reach them and get stuck in their nightmare?”

  Avery tugged at her hair. “I’m the only person here Regan won’t kill.”

  “He didn’t mind running you off the road,” Tina said.

  “No, he didn’t,” Avery said. “But I don’t think he was trying to kill me.”

  “Then what was he trying to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Avery said. “I don’t know anything about what he’s doing now. I just know I might be able to help all of you, and I think it’s worth a try. We’re never going to formulate a plan or fight him off if we’re the walking dead.”

  “You didn’t see what happened to you last time,” Reid said. “You can’t do this, Avery.”

  She stared helplessly at him. “There are no other options.”

  “I think we should do it,” Sandra said, and Reid shot her a look.

  “You know we have to try,” Landon said to Reid and rested her hand on his arm; he shrugged it off.

  “Who’s going first?” Alex asked.

  “I will,” Reid volunteered.

  Avery had hoped he wouldn’t be the one to volunteer. “I already know I can connect with you. It has to be someone else. Also, it should be someone who’s only had one nightmare. We know they get progressively worse; I won’t risk not being able to reach someone in their third dream.”

  That left only Isla, Shawn, Mario, and Alex.

  “I’ll do it,” Shawn said. “No matter what happens, I could use the sleep.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Avery held Shawn’s hand while she searched for a sign he was starting to dream. He’d been sleeping for almost an hour now. Only the faint sighs of tired breaths sounded, and Avery felt the anxiety in the room as everyone stared at Sh
awn’s sleeping form.

  She’d been staring at Shawn, but when his hand twitched in hers, Avery jumped. Then his eyes fluttered behind his shut lids. It was time.

  “Be careful,” Reid whispered.

  “I will be,” she assured him.

  Avery enclosed both her hands around Shawn’s and concentrated on bringing everything she knew about him into her. She thought of his gold-flecked, brown eyes, physical prowess, and love of football.

  Power welled up within her until it was nearly bursting out of her. On a rush, she drove that power at Shawn and pushed into his mind until he connected with her. Unable to stop it, she plummeted into a tunnel that sucked her forward like a spider in a vacuum cleaner.

  Bursts of light, like synapses firing, pierced the darkness, and then she realized they were synapses firing in Shawn’s brain. Shutting the lights out, she forced herself to keep concentrating on Shawn. She was afraid she’d get lost forever in the chaos of his mind if she let herself get distracted.

  The abrupt end of the tunnel launched her awkwardly forward. Avery staggered a few steps forward before regaining her balance to take in her surroundings. Everything was a blurry mass of strange objects, and she realized a dream haze distorted the room, but the details gradually solidified. A dresser materialized, then a closet, a trunk, and finally a bed.

  She was in a bedroom, but where and whose? A door swung open, and she spun as Shawn emerged from the bathroom. He stopped to gape at her.

  “What are you doing in my room?” he demanded.

  He stood only a couple feet away from her, but his voice sounded as if it had come from fifty feet away.

  “Don’t you remember what we’re doing?” she asked.

  Although everything had a dream quality to it, the details were becoming more evident. Everything was so solid Avery could almost believe she was in Shawn’s bedroom, and not just his mind. He stared at her for a minute before his shoulders slumped.

  “I’m dreaming,” he said, and this time his voice sounded normal.

  “Yes.”

  He glanced around the room. “So, where are the trolls?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The second the words left her mouth, she heard the first sounds of impending doom. The creaking of hinges accompanied a scratching as the closet door swung open. Eerie laughter drifted out before blue and yellow eyes blinked at them from the shadows.

  Avery’s mouth went dry, and she took an instinctive step back from the creatures in the shadows. Shawn stiffened, and a bead of sweat formed on his upper lip. When one of the trolls stepped out of the closet, its curved claws clicked on the wood floor as it chuckled. Small and deformed, it had a hunched back, oversized jaw, and hundreds of razor-sharp teeth.

  It crept forward with another one following closely behind it. Their heads swayed back and forth on their shoulders; she wasn’t sure they had necks. When one lifted a hand and pointed its claw at her, Avery straightened her shoulders and stepped toward it.

  The trolls’ laughter grew as they started bobbing up and down and their teeth clacked together. Their laughter was like nails on a chalkboard, and it took everything she had not to clap her hands over her ears to block it out. Shawn glanced frantically at her as he edged closer.

  “I don’t know what you plan to do, but I’d do it soon; I think they’re hungry,” he said.

  She got the same impression when one of them licked its lips with a bloated, black tongue. Please let this work. She did not want to be stuck in this nightmare and attacked by these things.

  It’s now or never.

  Taking a deep breath, she drew on her power until it swelled inside her. However, she’d felt this same thing in her nightmare. Doubt that she’d made a bad decision crept in as the trolls edged closer.

  • • •

  Reid’s body hummed with tension as he watched Avery sitting at Shawn’s side with her head bowed. Shawn’s chest rose and fell with increasing speed as his eyes moved faster behind his lids.

  Every eye in the room was locked on them; no one spoke or moved. In a trance-like state, Avery’s eyes were closed, and her breathing was steady. Shawn twitched as sweat broke out on his forehead.

  He never should have let this happen, but he never could have stopped it. Avery had made up her mind, and there was no stopping her. Now, all he could do was watch helplessly and hope everything went okay.

  Shawn twitched, and Avery’s breathing came more rapidly as her jaw locked and a muscle jerked in her cheek. He’d give anything to protect her from this, but he couldn’t.

  “Maybe we should stop this,” Karen whispered.

  “No,” Landon said. “We have to know.”

  “What about Avery?” Lila demanded. “What if she gets stuck in there too?”

  No one responded; it was a question they couldn’t answer. Shawn’s hand convulsed again as his eyes moved behind his closed lids. Avery hunched further in on herself as if she were preparing for a blow.

  Reid had a sinking feeling it wasn’t working.

  • • •

  Now, Avery told herself as the trolls crept closer. Release it now!

  Her magic erupted from her in a brilliant blue light she’d seen in her nightmare, but it hadn’t worked before. She held her breath as the power hit the trolls and flung them backward.

  They screamed as some of them flew into the wall while others toppled into the closet. Avery almost laughed with relief and victory, but the trolls bolted back to their feet and released a hate-filled shriek.

  “Kill them,” Shawn said.

  “Gladly,” she said.

  The trolls screamed, and their claws clicked on the floor as they lumbered forward. She felt no fear of them as the power coursing within her built her confidence. When she rereleased it, the blue light ripped through the trolls, tore them in half, and flung them against the back wall.

  • • •

  Avery blinked as she found herself staring into Shawn’s golden-brown eyes. He grinned at her and squeezed her hand. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  Avery released a strangled sob as her shoulders sagged. A small tremor ran from Shawn and into her as he clutched her hand.

  “It worked?” Sandra asked.

  “Yes, it worked,” Shawn replied as he sat up.

  Reid rested his hands on Avery’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she released Shawn’s hand. She was tired and emotionally drained, but she was also elated; she could protect her friends from Regan.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “She kicked some serious troll ass in there,” Shawn said.

  Avery felt as if someone had kicked her ass too, but she managed a smile for all of them.

  CHAPTER 28

  Avery felt like she’d gone through ten rounds with Mike Tyson and he’d won with a KO. Her head pounded, and she could barely see through her swollen eyes. She didn’t know how she could keep this up. She needed to sleep, but she was going on her third day without it.

  She’d been helping the others sleep by “dream walking,” as Eric dubbed it, and it was killing her. At least the others were doing a little better, but it was only a matter of time before she collapsed.

  She arrived at her French class and walked inside. Her mind no longer registered details, and her vision had narrowed to a tunnel as she headed to her seat. Sandra looked up when she passed by; shadows still surrounded her eyes, but she appeared more rested.

  “Are you okay?” Sandra asked.

  “Yeah,” Avery mumbled and slid into her seat.

  “Avery—”

  “Not now, Sandra.”

  Sandra sat back in her desk. The final bell rang, and Mr. Jefferies strolled into the room. He placed his books on his desk as he rattled on in French. His voice was like a piercing needle in her pounding head, and she barely made out a word he said. She rested her head in her hands while she massaged her temples.

  • • •

  The faceless beings circle
d her and moved steadily closer. “Do you know what it’s like to burn?” one asked.

  Avery didn’t reply; she couldn’t. Wake up. Wake up. WAKE UP!

  She knew she was dreaming, but she couldn’t make it stop. She was trapped in this nightmare with these things, and there was nothing she could do about it. Though she knew it was useless, she strained against the bonds tying her to the post behind her.

  “Can we beat her first?” one of them asked, its voice sounding like a distorted computer.

  A large bullwhip materialized in its hand; it unraveled the whip to skim the tip of it against the ground. Avery glared at them. She would not give them the satisfaction of hearing her scream again.

  “Beat the devil out of her!” another said, and the others all chirped in happy agreement.

  The one holding the whip stepped forward and lifted it. The whip whistled through the air before cracking against her stomach. Avery bit back a scream when it sliced into her flesh. Closing her eyes, she held her breath as another whistle was followed by a crack and her body jerked from the blow.

  Despite her intentions not to scream, a whimper escaped. Tears rolled down her face, and she bit her lip so hard she tasted her blood. Her body jerked when the whip slashed across her again, and the scream she’d been holding back erupted.

  • • •

  When Avery fell back, her elbows and tailbone smashed onto the floor. She cried out when pain erupted in her battered body. Sweat soaked her, and streaks of blood rolled forth to soak her red sweater. Tears welled in her eyes, but she somehow managed to hold them back.

  “Are you all right?” Sandra knelt before her and stretched trembling fingers toward Avery’s stomach.

  “Is she okay?” Mr. Jefferies demanded over Sandra’s shoulder.

  Sandra jerked her hand back and hunched protectively over Avery so he couldn’t see the wounds. “She’s fine.” Sandra gripped the leg of Avery’s toppled chair. Avery didn’t see what she did, but seconds later the leg came away in Sandra’s hand. “The leg on her chair broke.”

  Sandra set the leg on the ground before clasping Avery’s arm. With tender care, she helped Avery to her feet and held her so the class couldn’t see the front of her. Avery tried to not to, but she found herself slumping against Sandra.