Dark Flame (Flame 3)

Brannick merely smiled. “Tell you what, why don’t you show us in the dreamglide, then we’ll go from there.”

Mary agreed. Her lips parted as though she found it hard to breathe. Her cheeks were drawn as well.

Juliet caught her arm. “Roche really shot you u

p with dark flame, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but it’s also made it easy for me to respond to your search.” She glanced around. “You dreamglide really well, Juliet. I had no idea you had such clarity of detail. You’ve been holding out on me.”

Juliet had never shared her secret about Brannick, and she had no intention of doing so now.

But at that moment, Juliet felt an entity moving near the dreamglide. She knew at once exactly who it was. “Roche is here. Mary, listen. We’ve got to get going and I mean fast. Can you pilot my dreamglide back to your cell?”

Mary frowned for amount. “Okay. I get it. That way, when you leave the dreamglide and you’re back here in the food court, you’ll know the way to Roche’s sex shop.”

“You’ve got it.” Juliet was grateful that Mary understood right away.

Mary faced the southern avenue. Juliet watched her shoulders grow very relaxed as she summoned her own dreamgliding power. A moment later, the dreamglide began to move and quickly picked up speed.

The underground world might have had more than one exit, but the corkscrew paths at the Fae Cathedral were the only ones Juliet knew about. Once they had Mary, they’d probably need to leave by the same path.

The street, though wide at the outset, narrowed in stages until it was the width of a car. The beauty of the courtyard had long since ended and most of the walls were rough-hewn rock with connected alleys and passageways and a few dim lights. At a main intersection, where a golf-cart lay overturned, Mary turned left.

The quality of air changed as well and the redolence of the teal-colored dark flame became more prominent. Even though they were still within the dreamglide, it was possible for fragrances or darker odors to permeate the space. In real-time, these scents would be much more profound.

“Can you smell the dark flame?” Mary glanced at Juliet, then shifted her gaze immediately back to the passageway. The dreamglide kept flowing, the edges of the space blurred.

“Yes,” Juliet said.

“Even if he hadn’t used a hypodermic on me, I think breathing the air would have made me addicted. One of the guards let it fall that Roche’s laboratory is in the vicinity.” She made a right, then a quick left.

The whole time the dreamglide moved, Juliet could feel Roche hovering around the edges, looking for a way in. She focused on the blocks that had kept Roche away for so long. But instead of engaging only her fae abilities, she drew on what had become a high level of integrated vampire power. She could feel the blocks solidifying, one after the other. She could also sense Roche’s frustration and knew the moment he gave up.

She hoped this was good news. But given Roche’s fae skill level, she wasn’t letting her guard down.

Finally, Mary began to slow, then drew to a stop. “You can take the reins, now, Juliet, because right around this corner is the back entrance to Roche’s sex club. I’ve stopped you here because once we turn the corner, you’ll see the guards, the whole set up. You need to be prepared. I wasn’t ready for what you’re about to see, either. It’s very distressing.”

~ ~ ~

Brannick felt a profound urgency to get on with things. His fae instincts told him time was critical. But when he started hearing a lot of screams coming from a different part of the underground building, he froze. “What the hell is that?”

“Roche showed me around when he first brought me here. Unfortunately, dreamglide sex combined with real-time often involves violence. The women Roche uses for his high-class clientele have strong dreamgliding skills. But he murders the women who don’t perform and of course sometimes they don’t survive the sex itself. This is a brutal place.”

Brannick’s jaw tightened. “Bastard.”

“He is at least that.”

Brannick reached for Juliet’s hand. He was surprised by her initial resistance. But when he glanced at her, the restraint in her expression disappeared. He thought he understood. He knew he was two different men with her, but he treasured his time in the dreamglide. It had come to mean everything to him, the reason he’d started feeling hopeful, like maybe he could have a life in Five Bridges.

The problem was, his conscious self was dug in and so far had only allowed a couple of memories to break through his refusal to engage with Juliet. She’d no doubt experienced his real-time distrust, and she’d responded accordingly.

But she drew close now and even held his arm as together Mary guided the dreamglide to the back entrance.

The double doors were wide open and four powerful, muscled fae warriors sat at a table playing cards. They were blurred so that Brannick knew the men weren’t actively inside the dreamglide, but rather part of the real-time setting.

Mary led them to the left then to the right and down what proved to be a double row of cells. Though she didn’t need to, she spoke in a quiet voice. “The dreamgliders, all women, live in cells like prisoners. Each is fed once a day, but injected with dark flame in the morning and at night. I’m the fifth on the right and sound asleep.”

Brannick saw that each woman wore the beige shift that Mary had on.