P.C. Cast - Time Raiders - The Avenger

Okay, even before she’d witnessed Tessa’s messed-up leap back in time, and gotten serious Something’s Wrong vibes from the lab fire, Alex had rejected their offer. The reason she’d given—that she was totally not interested in returning to anything resembling the military in any form—was true. As was her other reason—the fact that she had a great job as lead botanist, guide and docent for Oklahoma’s Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve.

But the truest reason she couldn’t handle being a part of Project Anasazi was because she couldn’t handle leaving the prairie. It was the only place she could find any measure of peace, any break from the ghosts who haunted her.

It wasn’t true that ghosts hung around because they wanted someone to help them with unresolved issues. Well, maybe that was true in some cases. But most of the time ghosts hung around for the same reasons anyone, living or dead, hung around a place. Because they wanted to. Sometimes they were bored. Sometimes they were happy. Sometimes they were sad. Sometimes Alex didn’t know what the hell they were, except terrible gossips and seriously noisy. They were just there.

It hadn’t been so bad when she was younger. The U.S. Air Force had even helped for a while. At least there she’d been an accepted member of a group, that is until her “knack” for “knowing” what messages needed to get to whom had caused her to be singled out from the herd of airmen who schlepped around the main communications center of Building 500 at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. Her ability, honed from countless hours of listening to gossipy ghosts, had brought her to the attention of the NCOIC in charge of the communications center, CMSgt John Domonick.

One thing had led to another between the two of them, and eventually she’d ended up in his bed and he’d ended up knowing her freakish secret. Oh, she’d also ended up in a special assignment called TA, or Traffic Analysis, which basically meant gathering ghost gossip for John and, eventually, the colonel who was his commander.

It had been early in her comm center debacle that she’d started cramming in botany classes at the local university whenever she could. And when Alex’s next reenlistment had come around, instead of re-upping for another four years, she’d said goodbye to John Domonick and the USAF, and hello to a degree in botany— and an internship at Oklahoma’s beautiful, and mostly untouched, tallgrass prairie—where the ghosts somehow, some way, mostly left her alone. So that’s where she planned to stay. Forever if need be.

She was not going back into the military—not in any way, shape or form.

Still fuming over the phone call, Alex sucked down the rest of the glass of wine, and only realized when she got up to wash her face—and stumbled into the bed—that the glass had mysteriously been the last in the bottle, which was now empty.

Alex was definitely going to have a headache in the morning. Ugh. And she had to lead a group of wannabe ranch hands out on a sunrise bird-watching tour to Buffalo Ridge, which was a good three miles away.

“Well, crap,” she grumbled to herself as she snuggled under the covers. “I’m gonna have to remember to hydrate…”

It was spectacularly beautiful in Alex’s dream. The land around her was lush and so green it almost made her eyes ache. She’d never known there were so many variations of the color green! And the trees! Alex had never imagined trees could be so big and thick and dense. Sure, her dream self had found a path through the incredible woods, but damn! It was like she’d conjured up a version of the Lord of the Rings movie set and plopped herself down in the middle of Rivendell. She recognized chestnuts and oaks and even something one of her professors would call a witches’ beech. They were all massive and had a look of untamed health—as if a contractor would never even consider cutting them down to build a highway or, worse, a development of suburban double-income-all-basically-the-same houses.

Yeah, she’d definitely dreamed up her version of Rivendell. Now all she needed was to conjure Aragorn and she’d be all set. So while she waited for Aragorn to show up, Alex strolled through the lush woods.

Obviously, it was early morning—just barely dawn. The soft young daylight complimented the deep and varied green of the woods, making everything around Alex magical. She was following a small, winding path. On either side of it the forest floor was spongy, carpeted with thick moss that looked so soft she started to have thoughts about pulling the tardy dream version of Aragorn off the path and having a roll in the moss with him. Or at least she’d do that when he finally showed.

It was then that she heard a voice speaking. At first it was just a faint sound coming from somewhere in front of her. Alex paused, listening hard, and sure enough, the sound came again. This time it was recognizable as a voice, a deep, strong, male voice.

She practically skipped down the path in glee. Back in the waking world she might be working on a raging hangover, but here in this gorgeous dreamland she was going to play Arwen to a handsome Aragorn. And in this world she was actually going to have sex.

“Come back…”

The words finally became understandable, and they jolted Alex to a halt.

“Come back?” she said aloud, more to herself than to a randy, but invisible Aragorn. “But I haven’t found you yet.” The voice still came from somewhere in front of her, so she kept walking.

“Come back to me…”

Again the compelling voice pulled her forward.

“I haven’t gone anywhere!” Alex shouted, annoyed at her dream self. She got more annoyed as mist started to pour in from the woods, creeping over the moss and washing across the deer path like unsubstantial fingers.

Alex usually liked fog. It had a romantic, mystical quality that appealed to her. Plus, it wasn’t like she was scared of any boogey men it might be hiding. She was way too familiar with ghosts to be freaked by them.

But there was something weird about this mist. It moved oddly, swirling around her body, with tendrils of gray licking against her skin. It was almost liquid in its touch.

“Come back to me! I need you!”

He sounded as if he was standing right in front of her, but by this time the fog was so dense she couldn’t see through it.

“Where are you?” she called.

“I’m waiting for you! Come back to me…”

“I’m trying to find you! Where the hell—” Alex bumbled off the path and fell, facefirst, into the mossy ground.

“What the hell!” Gasping, Alex tried to sit up, but was totally entangled in her comforter. For an instant she was still in the dream, and she flailed around, thinking that the moss was clinging to her. And where was he? Where was the Aragorn guy with the incredible voice who kept calling for her?

Then a spike pierced her temple and she realized her mouth was dry and disgusting, which meant she had a hangover headache and a cottony mouth.

She wasn’t in an amazing, misty dream forest. She was in her room in the bunkhouse on the tallgrass prairie. Alex freed her arms and shoved off the comforter, rubbing her eyes and glancing blearily at her alarm clock. The luminous dial read 5:10 A.M., exactly five minutes before her alarm was set to go off. She sighed and, with a groan that sounded as if she were almost eighty-five rather than almost thirty-five, hobbled into her bathroom, going through her mental to-do list. She’d shower. Hydrate. Take aspirin. Eat breakfast—a light nongreasy one. Lead the city folks to Buffalo Ridge. She would not let her hangover kill her. She would forget about the weird dream.