"Captain!"
Connor didn't look up. He rolled onto his back again and extended his arm full-length, holding his attacker aloft by the throat. A glaive whistled through the air and sliced off the top of the man's skull. Gore splattered everywhere.
"What the fuck was that?" Trent cried, standing just above Connor's head with the killing blade in his hands.
"Hell if I know." Connor tossed the body off to the side. He looked down at himself in disgust, touching the gunk that coated him with a tentative finger. It was thick and black, resembling old blood and reeking like it, too. His gaze moved to the corpse whose face from the eyebrows down was still intact. Brown hair grew overly long around the man's ears and nape. The skin had an unhealthy pallor and the flesh was clinging to bones. The hands and feet were both capped with long, thick, reptilian claws. But it was the inky black, sightless eyes and gaping maw that were so frightening. They turned a gaunt, sickly looking man into a formidable predator.
It wore only loose white pants that were stained and torn. On the back of its hand was a seared brand—"HB-12." A quick look at the cell from which it escaped revealed a thick metal interior liberally gouged.
"Your room is definitely more interesting than mine," Trent said. The levity of his statement was ruined by the crack in his voice.
Connor's chest labored more from his anger than from his exertions. "It's exactly this sort of shit that forced the rebellion!"
Most everyone would say that leading a revolt went against his easygoing nature, and they'd be right. Hell, he still had trouble believing he'd taken this step. But there were too many goddamn questions and all the answers he had were lies.
Yeah, he was a man who liked things painfully simple— wine, women, and kicking ass, as he used to say—but he had no qualms about stepping up to the plate and swinging when necessary.
It was his job to protect others, both Dreamers and the gentler Guardians. There were thousands of his people, all were divided into certain specialties. Each Guardian had their strengths.
Some were tender and offered comfort to Dreamers who grieved. Others were playful and filled in dreams of sports heroes or baby showers.
There were Sensuals and Healers, Nurturers and Challengers. Connor was an Elite. He killed Nightmares and guarded his people. If he had to protect them from the Elders, too, so be it.
"There's no way to pretend that the Temple wasn't breached now," the corporal pointed out.
"Nope," Connor agreed, "no way." And he didn't really care at this point. In fact, he wanted the Elders to know that their secrets weren't safe. He wanted them looking over their shoulders. He wanted them to feel as unsettled and wary as he did. They owed him that much, at least, after asking him to lay his life on the line for a fake cause.
Wager came running into the room with two more Elite directly behind him. "Whoa!" he said, skidding in the splatter before catching his footing. "What the hell is that?"
"Fuck if I know." Connor wrinkled his nose.
"Yeah," Wager agreed. "It stinks. It's also probably what set off that alarm on the console. My guess is reinforcements are on their way now, so we better get out of here."
"Did we get anything useful out of the database?"
Connor asked, grabbing a towel off one of the push carts against the wall. He scrubbed at his torn skin and clothes to remove what he could of the blood-like substance clinging to him.
"I downloaded what I could. It would take eons to get all of it, but I tried to focus on files that sounded the most intriguing."
"That will have to suffice. Let's go."
They left with the same caution they'd used upon their
arrival,
their
eyes
scanning
their
surroundings carefully. Still, none of them saw the Elder whose dark gray robes blended so well with the shadows.
He stood silent and unnoticed. Smiling.
Chapter 2
"Where's Lieutenant Wager?" Connor asked, glancing around the main underwater cavern, which served as headquarters for the rebel faction in the Twilight.
Above their heads, hundreds of tiny vid screens flashed various scenes like movies, glimpses into the open minds of thousands of "Mediums"—
Dreamers brought here without sleep. They hovered in the Twilight, more awake than not, but lacking full comprehension.
The humans called the process of forcibly inducing subconscious thought "hypnosis." Whatever name one gave to it, the Mediums' destination was this cavern. Here the Elders had watched over them and prevented the Nightmares from hitchhiking on their stream of subconscious to reach the mortal plane. It was the only known way to travel to the world of the Dreamers and it was the route Aidan had taken when he'd left the Twilight to protect the Key.
"In the back, sir," replied the Elite warrior standing guard at the mouth of the pool, the only physical entrance or exit.
With a nod of acknowledgment, Connor turned on his heel and strode the length of the rock-lined hallway. Carved into the very heart of the mountain, it seemed to have no end and was disorienting with its matching arched doorways on either side. Thousands of them. All filled with glass tubes, which held Elders-in-training in stasis of some sort. His men had yet to discern who the occupants were, or why they were being kept in that manner.
Frankly, Connor thought the whole thing was creepy, and he was shaken by the realization that he'd lived centuries never knowing anything about his world or the Elders who ruled it. It made him sick to think of how stubborn he'd been when Aidan asked him to consider everything that was unexplained. He had refused to see the signs that bothered his friend for so long.
Connor's boot steps echoed rhythmically as he traversed the distance to his second-in-command with a rapid, agitated stride. Soon the sounds from the largest room faded into silence. Sadly, using "large" to describe the size was only possible when comparing the room to the others down here.
The space was actually pretty damn small, having been designed for the comfortable occupation of only three Elders-in-training. The main cavern was cramped by a half-moon console and the massive screen of rapidly flickering images. Depending on one's angle, a Guardian could see right through the display into the room beyond, a massive space filled with slipstreams—wide beams of moving light that represented streams of subconscious thought.
Snorting, Connor acknowledged for the millionth time that he still didn't quite grasp the whole concept of the Twilight. Aidan had badgered their teacher at the Elite Academy with endless questions about where they'd come from and where they now were. The simplest explanation Connor had heard was that he should think of the Twilight like an apple. Abbreviated space is the hole bored through the center by a worm, or a
"wormhole." Instead of coming out the other side though, the Elders found a way to suspend the Guardians inside. They called that pocket the Twilight. Connor called it confusing.
"Wager!" he roared, as he passed through one of the arched doorways and found the lieutenant engrossed at a console.
The younger man jumped, then glared. "You scared the crap out of me!"
"Sorry."
"No, you're not."
Connor grinned. "No. I'm not. I had my share of scares today. It's your turn."
Shaking his head, Wager pushed to his feet and stretched his tall, wiry frame. "It's good to see you smiling." He crossed his arms and stood with widespread legs. He was a handsome lad, with an appeal the female Guardians described as "bad boy."
Women. They loved trouble.
"There's not a whole hell of a lot to smile about.
Some freak of nature attacked me today, my best friend has run off with the Key, and I need to get laid."
Wager threw his head back and laughed. "I bet the ladies are missing you, too. I've heard poems are written about your stamina and on Girls' Night Out they compare notes."
"No way."
"Yes, way. Morgan calls you the golden god with the golden rod.'"
Connor felt his face heat and ran a self-conscious hand through his slightly too-long blond hair.
"You're full of shit. She wouldn't say that to you."
Black brows rose. "Morgan?"
A mental image of the dark-eyed slender Player Guardian entered Connor's thoughts. His lips curved ruefully. "Yeah, I suppose she might."
"First Cross takes off, now you're in exile… I bet there's more than a few broken hearts."
"You're a popular guy yourself."
"I have my charms," the lieutenant drawled.
"Sometimes when I'm waiting for Cross to connect to the Twilight, I look over the rise at the Dreamers' slipstreams and seriously think about hopping into one. If only for a half hour or so."
Wager's merriment faded into the intensity that made him a damn good warrior. "How is Captain Cross's stream? Is it coming in clearer yet?"
"No." Connor scratched the back of his neck. "It's still murky. I'm guessing that has something to do with the fact that his slipstream connects to that barren plain instead of in the Valley."
For most Dreamers, their subconscious connected to the Twilight in the Valley of Dreams. They touched the lives of Guardians through wide golden beams that rose from the valley floor and pierced the misty sky until they could no longer be seen. The varying streams of subconscious thoughts spread as far as the eye could see.
"Actually, I think that's a manifestation of the problem, not the cause." At Connor's raised brow, Wager explained. "Because we are physiologically different from humans, I suspect our brain waves function on another wavelength entirely. That's what causes Cross's slipstream to connect to the Twilight in a different place and to come across with a degraded intensity."
When Aidan entered the dream state, he came to them in a blue stream. While the other slipstreams where clear enough to look through—