Kay Hooper - Blood Dreams

"Oh, it's all right. I realize you didn't have me there to remind you. But that's all changed now." A hit gingerly, fighting his dislike of the sensations, he gathered up a handful of her hair and began cutting.

"Oh-oh, don't-"

"Don't be ridiculous, sweetheart. You know I have always preferred your hair short."

Tears were leaking from the corners of her eyes, and he paused a moment to enjoy the way they sparkled in the glare of the spotlight high above her.

Then he went back to cutting her long hair short, saying cheerfully, "You know, I had no idea there were so many shades of dark brown. And I couldn't really remember which one I preferred. So I bought half a dozen. We'll find just the right one."

"Oh, God," she whispered.

"Just the right one. You'll see."

He continued with his work, and long blond hair began to fill the basin underneath her changing head.

Bishop sat up in bed with a jerk, his heart pounding, breath rasping as though he'd run miles. There was a leaden queasiness in the pit of his stomach, and for a few moments he thought the only way to rid himself of the poison was the literal one.

But no.

That wouldn't work. Not this time.

He finally slid from the bed and went into the bathroom, without turning on a light. He rinsed the sour taste from his mouth, splashed cool water on his face.

He didn't look into the mirror even to see the darkness.

When he returned to the bedroom, it was to go to the window, standing to one side out of habit as he pulled the edge of the heavy curtains aside far enough to look out.

Nothing moved out in the motel's parking lot. Or beyond. And Bishop had the odd sense that it was more than the usual middle-of-the-night stillness. That it was something unnatural, a threat beyond his ability to sense it.

You need to rest, Noah. Sleep.

His wife's voice in his mind, as natural and familiar as his own thoughts and far more soothing.

I need to catch this bastard. Before he does that to another woman. Before he does it to you.

I'm safe.

Are you? Then why is Dani still dreaming you aren't?

You know the answer to that. We both know.

Bishop rested his temple against the hard window frame and continued to stare out at the still, still night, this time without really seeing it at all.

I couldn't risk you.

I know. I understand.

But will Dani? Will any of them?

Yes. When it's over. When that animal is dead or caged and the world is a safer place without him. They'll understand then. They'll understand, Noah.

" I hope so," Bishop murmured aloud. "I hope so."

Thursday, October 9

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND why Bishop and Miranda sent you," Dani said.

"Careful, or you'll hurt my feelings." Hollis Templeton was on her feet, leaning forward with her hands on the conference table as she stared grimly down at crime-scene photos taken the previous day.

"You know what I mean. I told Miranda all about the dream, all the details I could remember. She told you, didn't she?" Dani was too worried to be able to hide it. "Yeah."

"Then what the hell are you doing here? I mean you instead of another agent. If what I saw is how this thing ends, then you're there. In a burning building with the roof caving in. Going down into a certain trap, to confront a-a deadly evil. Don't tell me you signed on for something like that."

Hollis straightened and offered the other woman a rueful smile. " I didn't know what I was signing on for when I joined the SCU. I don't think any of us did. And it has certainly been an adventure I could never have imagined back when my life was normal."

"An adventure is one thing," Dani pointed out, "but willingly stepping into a situation that will likely end in your violent death is just-just-"

"Stupid?"

Dani lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. "Well, isn't it?"

"I don't see you going anywhere."

"That's different."

"Is it? Why?"

"Because it's my dream, dammit."

Hollis was still smiling faintly. "And do your dreams always come true?"

"The precognitive ones do."

"All the time? Absolutely, one hundred percent the way you dreamed them?"

"Well… there are always little things different."

"And some things are symbolic?"

"Sometimes. All right, a lot of the time. But the major elements, the ones that don't change, are almost always literal. And one thing that's been utterly consistent in this dream every single time is the way it ends. We go down into the basement of that warehouse with the roof caving in behind us."

"And then?"

Dani blinked. "Like I said, that's where the dream ends."

"So you have no idea what happens next?"

"Well… no."

"Then you've really just seen the stage set. All the players in their parts, the atmosphere thick with smoke and menace, everything primed for a really tragic ending."

"That's not enough for you?"

Hollis smiled. "Believe me, I have strong feelings about not dying. Very strong feelings. I'll tell you all about it someday. In the meantime, if I've learned anything during my stint with the SCU, it's that the universe puts us where we need to be, when we need to be there. As for your vision dream, the warning is duly noted. Clearly it's a bad situation all the way around. Unless we can change it, of course."

Dani frowned at her.

Hollis took a chair on her side of the conference table. "Dani, I know you guys inside Haven don't have the same rules, the same watchwords, hell, maybe not even the same beliefs as we do in the SCU. But there's a truth we've learned to rely on, one I'm pretty sure you know as well as I do."

Reluctantly, Dani said, "That some things have to happen just the way they happen."

"Exactly."

"And our fiery deaths are on that list?"

"I don't know. And as you've just admitted, you don't really know either. Not for sure. Because if you knew for sure that's the way this whole thing would end, you wouldn't still be here."

It was true, but that hardly helped. Dani hated feeling responsible for the fate of others and was already regretting that she had shared her vision dream with anyone other than Paris.

Except…

Miranda had known without having to be told. Oh, she had asked Dani for details but also made it clear that she and Bishop had seen something with their shared precognitive ability, and whatever they had seen had brought her to Dani.

That didn't really help Dani's worry or her sense of guilt either. The weight she had been aware of during the vision dream, the pressure bearing down on her, had become a conscious thing now, a waking thing, as though something dark and heavy loomed just above her head.

She was afraid to look up, afraid she would actually see something there.

Trying to ignore that oppressive sensation, she said to Hollis, "Okay, then. Why did Miranda go back to Boston and send you down here?"

"Because those were the logical next steps to make if she knew nothing of your vision, if she just continued along the path she was on before coming to Venture and talking to you. She couldn't stay here, obviously; no prominent member of the SCU could be here, not officially, not with the Director watching like a hawk."

"I get that. That she couldn't stay."

Hollis nodded. "If she'd been missing from the task force in Boston more than twenty-four hours, it would have been noticed. Questions would have been asked. And her and Bishop's quiet maneuvering to track this killer all these weeks without the Director realizing what they were doing would have been for nothing."

"And you're here because…"