Let Her Sleep (Dream Walker Chronicles #1)

Chapter 3

Reid woke up, but kept his eyes shut just a while longer.  His cheek and arm stung where the girl had scratched him in her terror.  Her blurry figure filled his mind.  Who is she?  She has to be like us…but shouldn’t we have found her years ago?  Dream walkers trained from a very early age; about 7 or 8 when their walking ability solidified.  Most children had a natural ability to flit through dreams, it came with their amazing imagination.  Somniun Vigilor, the organization over dream walkers, found and trained them.  How did we miss her?

A rustling alerted Reid that his mother was waiting for him to wake up and report.  Stubbornly, he feigned sleep a few more seconds before sitting up.  His mother, Beth Shaw, sat in a nearby glider.  As a child, he’d assumed this was where she had rocked him to sleep.  That was before he realized she was not the kind of mother to rock a baby.  Sometimes he wondered why she’d even had a child.  He was treated more like a valued employee or prize livestock than a son.  She wore her usual uniform of black slacks and a black button up shirt.  The top button was undone…that was as casual as his mother ever got.  She was eyeing him carefully, as though she suspected his reluctance, her arms crossed tightly around her body and her back too straight.

Reid ignored the look, after all, if he quailed every time she gave it to him he’d be groveling at her feet.  The stare-down lasted several tense seconds before she uncrossed her arms.  She picked up a glass of water and handed it to him.  Her short, silvery blonde hair shone bright in a small ray of sunlight slipping through a crack in the dark curtains.  “Did you find anything?”  Her voice was hopeful and her eyes darted to his injuries.

Reid took the proffered cup and sipped the tepid water.  He debated several seconds before answering.

“I torched an obscure.”  His mother sank back into the chair, sighing.  How she managed to put so much into a single sigh was beyond Reid.  He knew that wasn’t the answer she wanted.  She wanted to hear that he had found a part of the ever elusive amulet.  The amulet supposed to give the wearer control over the world by controlling its dreams.  Reid thought the whole idea was farfetched.  Heaven knew he was all too aware of the obscures’ reality; people who traveled through dreams using dark magic, feeding off the nightmares of others, they, too, searched for the amulet.  The whole idea creeped him out, but he’d seen it too many times to doubt.  Reid figured if dream walkers focused on hunting the obscures rather than splitting their efforts between that and searching for something that might not even exist, they would all be better off. 

He kept his opinions to himself though.  His mother, if nothing else, was intensely loyal to Michael Goode, the unofficial leader of Somniun Vigilor.  Besides, Michael had been nothing but kind to Reid, treating him like the son he never had and in return Reid looked up to him like the father he’d never had. He pushed back the guilt he felt at hiding the girl’s existence.  No need to get anyone’s hopes up until I can get more information.

Beth’s eyes narrowed.  “Are you sure that’s it?  The smallest detail could be important, change everything.”  She leaned closer, her body tense.  “Gabriel will—“

“I know, Gabriel will stop at nothing to get the amulet.”  The words had been pounded into his head since before he could repeat them.  This too was not something he positively believed in.  Gabriel hadn’t been seen since the fourteenth century.  Even if he had figured out a way to extend his life, surely he would be dead by now.  Most likely he’d been followed by a succession of heirs that just pretended they were the original Gabriel.  His mother gave him another hard look but moved towards the hall, pausing in the doorway.  “We have a meeting with Michael later.”  Reid nodded, laid back down, and rolled over, forcing his eyes closed.  As soon as he heard the snick of the door closing, he flung the blanket back off and went directly to his computer desk.