the hair was always so close to his eyes. The hair and the Sesame Street tattoos on his shoulders were what had made me nickname him "Cookie Monster."
"What do you want, Haven?"
"What I always wanted: you," he said.
"You can't have me."
"Here I can. Here there's just me."
"Fuck you."
"Let's."
"You're dead. You're dead. I killed you."
"I remember."
"You're dead, you don't remember. You're just my guilt visiting every night."
"Am I?" he asked, and something about the way he said it made me ask, "What else could you be?"
Other figures stepped from the entrances around the square. Figures in white masks and black cloaks: Harlequin. I raised the gun and pointed it vaguely; there were too many of them, and I wasn't that fast, not even in dreams.
Movement made me glance at Haven; he was wearing a black cloak and held a white mask in his hand. "We're coming," he said, "wake up."
I woke staring at the dark ceiling, pulse thudding, throat almost closed around it, and then I heard it. The door, not the knob, but the brush of someone against it, like the first tentative touch. I drew my gun from underneath the pillow and tried to think how to warn Laila without them hearing me. They were either vampires or wereanimals; they'd hear any whisper. Then I realized they'd heard the change in my heartbeat; they knew I was awake.
I had time to say, "Laila, they're here!" The door opened as she sat up in bed but didn't reach for a weapon. Shit. There was no one in the doorway. It stretched pale and empty, filled with night and the artificial lights of the parking lot beyond. Then I heard it, a creak of board, and knew something was crawling on the floor, hidden from me by Laila's bed.
She had her gun in her hand now, and whispered, "What is it? Why is the door open?"
I started to say, "It's by you, on the floor," but one minute she was on the bed with her gun and the next a black shape whirled over her and she was gone. I'd seen the speed of lycanthropes and vampires, but all I saw was the cloak like a black sheet and it dragged her over on the other side of the bed with it. It wasn't just fast, it was as if the thing, whatever it was, was formed of the blackness of the cloth and nothing more. Fuck, that couldn't be real. Had it mind-fucked me? If the answer was yes, I was about to lose in real life and not just in nightmare.
"Yell for help and we kill her," a voice said on the other side of the bed. It was male and growly; I was betting shapeshifter of some kind.
"How do I know she's still alive?"
"Do you think I could kill her that quickly?" the voice asked.
"Yes," I said.
He laughed. "Say something, girl."
There was a moment of silence, then a small pain sound, and Laila said, "I'm alive."
"Are you hurt?" I asked.
"No."
"Oh, I'm sad that you think I haven't hurt you yet. The next thing I do to you, you won't doubt that you're hurt."
"Leave her alone."
"We will if you give us what we want."
"What do you want?" I asked. I had the gun pointed in the direction of the voice, but there was nothing to shoot at. If I was patient maybe there would be; nothing is faster than a bullet.
"You," and it was such a direct echo from my dream that it startled me.
"What do you mean, you want me? How? Why?"
"Does it matter? If you don't come with us, I'll kill your friend."
"Don't do it . . . ," Laila said, and was cut off abruptly, and this time the pain sound was a little louder.
"Ask her if she's hurt again," the growling voice said, and he sounded eager.
I'd heard that tone before in voices; I knew that they liked causing pain, so I did what he asked so he wouldn't hurt her again to make the point.
"Laila, are you hurt?"
Her voice was shaky. "Yes."
"What did you do to her?"
"Nothing permanent, yet," he said.
"She'll heal?" I asked, and as in the dream I pointed my gun toward the voice, but also at the open door. Most of the Harlequin traveled in pairs or more. But with their speed I wouldn't have time to shoot twice. I'd need a target and a decision before I'd really had time to decide anything.