The Dream Awakened Read online

  The Dream Awakened

  Hands of Time: Book Two

  Leann M. Rettell

  To Nancy Shrader

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Leann M. Rettell

  Falstaff Books

  Friends of Falstaff

  1

  Malcolm did not want to make this wretched phone call. He stared at the black, devious device, anxiety looming with every passing second. Sweat glistened on his palms, and he huffed out a breath. He flipped the phone onto the couch, growled, and then arched his neck and placed his interlocked fingers over his forehead. He was stalling, yet again. What a coward he’d become since transforming into a human.

  Debbie’s bare feet patted along the hardwood floors from the kitchen. “Just call him.”

  He jerked his hands away, and they landed with a smack upon his thighs. “What am I supposed to say?”

  “The truth. They’re going to find out sooner or later.” Debbie flung a dirty dust rag over her shoulder. They’d moved into their new home in Ballantyne, North Carolina only a few days ago, and she’d spent most of those days cleaning and unpacking. He’d hated leaving Chicago and his antique bookstore, Eye of the Beholder, but since Debbie had tried to have him committed before she’d understood the truth, the two of them couldn’t stay in Chicago anymore. Her father lived in a nursing home in Charlotte, North Carolina. His dementia had worsened, and she wanted to be closer to him.

  The little suburb near Charlotte ranked high on Malcolm’s favorite places to live, and this location would give them some much-needed space but allowed them to see her father often, and the airport was close by for ease of travel. Despite that, he missed his friend, Juan, and his large family. He held his tongue, not wanting to upset Debbie, but Juan had become his one true friend over the last few years. Now that his life had changed so drastically, he had lost the opportunity to stay and deepen their friendship. He sighed, pushing those thoughts away, reminding himself the new technology-heavy world could shorten the distance. He could keep in touch with social media, video chatting, and quick airplane rides. It was something his ancient mind still couldn’t quite adapt to—the tech, not airplanes. He’d been one of the first to embrace planes. He’d considered taking lessons, but one fiery plane crash changed his mind on that.

  Debbie had grown weary of the winters in Chicago, and images of Debbie in a bikini by their new pool gave him something extra to look forward to. At the thought of her, he felt himself grow hard. Again. He made no effort to hide his excitement. Debbie’s eyebrows creased, and she slipped the rag from her shoulder and flicked it at him. “Oh my god. You’re incorrigible. Worse than a teenage boy.”

  She wasn’t wrong. “Just making up for lost time.” He reached forward, grabbed her by the wrist, and guided her onto his lap. She feigned resistance, but the wide smile on her mouth gave her away. He pressed himself against her leg as she leaned in, her floral scent and cherry lipstick stirring up a greater longing within him. Their lips touched, but she pulled back after a chaste kiss.

  “Uh, uh. Not until you’ve made that phone call.” She gave him a quick peck then hopped up. He growled his displeasure.

  That only made her laugh wickedly and flash him a devious smile that promised she’d make it up to him later. “I’m going to go start on the kitchen. Later we’ve got to get some groceries. I’m tired of takeout food.”

  He adjusted himself, still a little mentally shook from the change to human parts, as well as the way his appetite could switch rapidly from Debbie to food. The new small bulge above his belt also freaked him out. For the first time ever, he’d gained weight. Too much takeout indeed, but who could blame him? As a dream thief, he couldn’t eat food or drink anything but simple syrup, tea, coffee, and alcohol. He also only looked human but didn’t have the parts to match. As of a month ago, all that had changed. At his last regeneration, he fell to earth as usual, but with one, he wouldn’t call it tiny, addition.

  He’d been indulging himself in all the things denied to him before now. He couldn’t get enough pasta, pizza, burgers, cake, and cookies, but none of that compared to losing himself inside Debbie. Day or night, it didn’t matter. As he’d gotten almost no work done and already lost his muscular stomach, he figured he needed to start trying to live life in moderation. He might have to start, he shuddered, exercising!

  He’d failed to report all these changes to the rest of the dream thieves, hence the excuses not to call.

  He stared at his cell phone again. “Debbie!”

  “Are you stalling again?” Debbie leaned against the white doorframe.

  “How am I going to tell them?”

  She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “Such a big immortal baby.”

  He swept from the couch and strode toward her in three quick steps. He hadn’t lost his height. “Not immortal. Not anymore.” He tilted his head up to stare at the vaulted ceiling. “You don’t understand. I have to call them. I know that, but how am I supposed to say goodbye? How do I end relationships I’ve had since before history existed?” How do I tell them that I’d gotten what we’d all hoped for, and they hadn’t?

  She closed the distance between them, stood on her tiptoes, and wrapped her arms around him. “You don’t have to say goodbye. Just because you aren’t one of them anymore doesn’t mean they aren’t your people, your family.”

  He hadn’t thought of it that way. Not that he’d count all of the dream thieves family or friends. Aelia had gone off the deep end, as the humans put it, killing two targets and threatening to kill his last target. Lother, another of his brethren, grated on every nerve he had, and if he had to spend more than a few hours with him, they’d be back at each other’s throats. Malcolm had beheaded him once, forcing a regeneration. After the centuries since that long ago fight in Ancient Japan, the feel of the blade severing Lother’s neck from his head brought Malcolm deep satisfaction.

  Still, most of the others he adored. Not that they had spent a lot of time together in the last decades.

  “Tell me what’s really bothering you.”

  His forehead touched hers, and he closed his eyes. “I wanted this, dreamed of it for eons. I’ve been enjoying every damn minute of it, every minute with you, but the guilt is eating away at me. Why have I been released from the servitude?”

  “Servitude?”

  He stepped back, walking around her to the kitchen, opening the fridge. He leaned in, removing a Chinese takeout container. Debbie waited as he piled a heap
ing pile of General Tso’s chicken on a plate, set it in the microwave, and hit the cook button. He’d heard of stress eating, but he’d never thought he’d suffer from it. That too made the guilt rise. “None of us really discussed our existence, but it was servitude, in every sense of the word. I had to be on all the time, any time, day or night. I had to be ready at a moment’s notice to transport to a target and steal a dream.”

  The microwave beeped, and he pulled out the halfway warmed food, stirred it with a fork he’d gotten from the drawer, and put the food back in the microwave. “After I stole a dream, I had to find my own way back home. Up until planes were invented, I could never have a home or friends. I had to keep all my belongings on me at all times. Sometimes I’d transport across the damned world. If all that wasn’t bad enough, after I’d stolen a dream, I had to deal with the ramifications of the images of the future I’d avoided as well as the new future implanting itself in my brain.”

  “You’ve told me all this before.”

  The microwave beeped. He removed the steaming food, burning his fingers. “Ouch!” He stared at the red fingertips, shocked to find the pain not vanishing. He’d also lost the ability to heal instantly.

  “Here,” Debbie grabbed his hand, avoiding the tips of his fingers, and led him toward the sink. “Let’s run some cold water over them.”

  As the water cooled the burn, he savored the first sting of what he’d also lost in becoming human. Debbie moved away from him and returned moments later, placing the insufferable cell phone beside him. The phone glared at him, bringing a panic he’d suspected humans felt when death came for their loved ones. He dried his hands and picked up the phone for the thousandth time.

  “But why me? Why have I been given freedom? Why do I get to enjoy food and…” He paused, not wanting to say the last part.

  “Sex…?” Debbie said.

  “No. Love. In all its forms. Not only with you, but I can make true friends now. I might be able to have a family of my own.”

  Debbie’s eyebrows lifted at his words.

  He smiled, waving a hand toward her. “Not right away. I don’t know if I’m totally human. At least in that way, but it’s a potential possibility I never had before. The others deserve what I have, what we have, too.”

  Her smile warmed the entire room. She stepped to him, caressing his face. “You’ve told me none of you know who created you or picked the targets. Whoever it was also gave you this gift. I suspect, like everything else, you probably will never get an answer, but despite not knowing why you were put on this earth as a dream thief, you still did it and found joy. Do the same with this. Don’t let the guilt and lack of knowing the answer spoil it for you. Life’s too short.”

  Malcolm nodded, convinced he could stall no longer. He scrolled through the contacts until he found the number to the Cave of Scrolls, or Cos, the dream thieves’ base of operation. His finger hovered above the dial, but he couldn’t make the damn call.

  The phone vibrated to life in his hand. Cos blazed across the screen. “What the?” He answered. “Hello?”

  “Gabriel, my brother. I’ve missed you. How was the move?”

  “Obadiah, always using the true names. I’m,” he brushed a hand through his already tousled hair, “more than good. We’re settling in. Listen, I’m glad you called. We’ve really got to talk.” The loaded statement rippled through his stomach, making him feel as if he needed to use the bathroom. That turned out to be one human thing he could’ve done without.

  “I’m glad to hear it. Unfortunately, brother, I need your help. We have a big problem.”

  Malcolm leaned forward, placing his elbows on the counter. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to help you.”

  The clicking of keys echoed through the line. “It’s not a request Gabriel. This is an order from your Librarian. Come to Rome. Get here as fast as you can.”

  Instinct took over as his brain drifted into familiar patterns and concerns. “Did someone miss a target?”

  “No. I really don’t want to say over the phone. Get here.” The command rang through Obadiah’s voice, an unnatural and melodic urging that today’s technology couldn’t disguise, but it no longer held the pull it once had.

  “You can’t command me anymore.” He closed his eyes, blocking out the new gray walls with crown molding and the buffed dark hardwood floors. “You can’t command me, because after my last regeneration,” he gulped, “I came back human. I’m not a dream thief anymore.”

  2

  What are you talking about? Don’t be preposterous.”

  Malcolm felt an ache in his chest he hadn’t expected. “It’s true. I’m no longer fast or strong. I am a full man, if you get my drift. I can eat and drink anything.”

  The key strikes vanished. “You can’t be serious.”

  “The internal alarm is gone.” The familiar singularity residing inside him since the dawn of time hadn’t returned with him the last time he’d regenerated. He couldn’t tell Debbie the full extent of his feelings. He couldn’t decide whether his new human form, and therefore human lifetime and all its many frailties, was a punishment or a reward. Malcolm swept past the couch and stepped through the front door, clicking it shut behind him. He took a seat on the new wicker chair with the teal cushions at his back. The warm heat wrapped around him, and vibrant green grass already inched a tad too high. Mowing the grass in early May would’ve been almost unheard of in Chicago. The thought of something as mundane as mowing the grass brought him immense pleasure. He’d never had that luxury before.

  Obadiah remained silent on the other end of the line.

  “I haven’t told you all the details about what went down with Dharma Knight, the bioengineer. We’ve been busy.” Malcolm kept his voice low, not that he expected any neighbors to be able to overhear him. “I ran out of time. You remember Aelia threatened to have Dharma terminated if I didn’t stop her. I tried to reason with Dharma, but she resisted. I entered her mind while she was awake.”

  “We can’t do that.” Obadiah’s voice didn’t rise, but the reprimand laced in it still stung.

  Perhaps that had been the deciding action in not letting him remain a dream thief. He wiped a sweaty palm on the side of his jeans. “I panicked. I got the dream, but her husband shot me afterward. Headshot. I regenerated, but when I woke up, I’d been turned human. I still don’t know why.”

  Obadiah sighed heavily through the line. “Just like everything else about us, you’ll likely never to find out.” A chill ran through his blood, as if this too had been preordained. Obadiah’s admission that the dream thieves lacked knowledge about their very existence surprised Malcolm more than anything else Obadiah had done. Ever the optimist, Obadiah almost never wavered in his beliefs that they were sacred, bordering on holy. He believed they were some kind of angels following God’s quest. Malcolm hadn’t agreed; he thought if they were angels, they must’ve sided with the rebels and were part of those who were cast out, wings lost, and forced to live out eternity in servitude to humans. He’d never voiced such thoughts to Obadiah, and he certainly held no hatred toward humanity. If anything, he’d been jealous. Now he’d been cast among them and didn’t feel worthy.

  “Regardless, I want you to come. To me, you will always be one of us, regardless if you have the luxury of growing old and dying.” The Librarian’s command rolled over him. He shuddered, slumping into the chair, mouth dry. Terror raced along his nerves and sent his heart into a thundering gallop.

  Now that immortality wasn’t a constant in his life, he no longer found the concept of growing old and dying a luxury. Perhaps Obadiah, his longtime friend, would understand. “Well my brother, I’ve lived hundreds and hundreds of lifetimes, but now the thought of dying petrifies me.” Many nights since his return he’d been almost asleep and awoken with a random thought popping in his head, “One day you will die. One day you will be a corpse, cold, rotting, dead, and gone.” Sleep would scatter as his new, weak, and mortal heart shuddered again l
ike it had when Dharma’s husband pointed a gun at his head. He shoved the thoughts away to where they lurked at just the edge of consciousness during the waking hours. It was a temporary action at best, as they would wait for the night’s exhaustion to strike again.

  “One can hope that your death will have meaning.”

  Malcolm clacked his nails along the brown wicker chair. Yes, he would hope that. How many had he witnessed come and go with no record that they’d ever been alive? Then again, dying a hero’s death also meant dying before the greatest thief of all—time—stole you from the world.

  Malcolm waved at a neighbor jogging by the house. Her small black dog stretched to the end of its leash, barking at him. He shook his head after the woman passed, deciding he’d much rather succumb to the distractions of being human, like food, sex, and mowing the grass. How humans went through life, day after day, knowing sooner or later it would end, he couldn’t comprehend.

  “You understand why I can’t come? I’m not a part of your world anymore. I have to move on.”

  Obadiah avoided Malcolm’s question. “You and I both know Aelia eliminated targets. She violated the sanctity of our sacred duty.”

  Obadiah hadn’t let him off the hook, but at least the conversation had steered in a different direction. “Yes. Aelia ordered Caelieus’s last targets eliminated. Has he been found?”