Daniela

At first, Daniela thought they were all doomed. The boat had crashed nose first into the shallow water, timbers breaking apart, twine unlashing, but somehow Niamh had managed to hold it all together, and those still left clinging to the wooden pieces had been saved.

Daniela had seen Arrabelle go flying. She’d tried to grab hold of her coven mate, but she’d slipped out of Daniela’s grasp and disappeared into the darkness—though not before Daniela’s touch had brought her directly into Arrabelle’s mind. There she’d been exposed to the kind of personal information that no one needs or wants to know about their closest friends. It was a different experience than she’d ever had before. Within two seconds of touching her friend’s skin, the essence of Arrabelle had been downloaded into Daniela’s mind.

She felt like a magnet, collecting psychic energy, and she knew it had everything to do with the creature Niamh had put inside her. It was what had wrought this change in her power, and the strangest part was she seemed to suffer no ill effects from the experience. It was bizarre to think that before her deathbed revival, if she’d touched Arrabelle, she would’ve been destroyed for days. All her life, her brain had been jacked up royally every time she’d used her powers . . . but now she felt free, no more fear that her power would kill her because the worst had already happened: It kind of had.

“We need to go back!” Daniela screamed—eyes hungrily scanning the landscape for any sign of Arrabelle.

The others were fine. Dev sat hunched in the corner with Lyse, eyes wild with terror. Evan was turned around so he could face the back of the boat and look out for Arrabelle, too. Niamh just sat in the middle of the boat looking shell-shocked.

“Do you see her?” Lyse called back to Arrabelle and Evan.

Daniela wished the answer were different: “No!”

The darkness was beginning to fade behind them, and with it went any hope of finding Arrabelle. No matter how hard Daniela looked, there was zero sign of her friend.

“We have to stop and go back,” Evan yelled to Niamh, though she wasn’t in charge of their progress—Eleanora and Hessika were the ones who needed to make the wind turn them around.

“She’s gone,” Eleanora said, but their progress did slow, the boat not shaking so badly now that it was buffeted by less wind. “There’s no going back.”

“We can’t leave her,” Evan said, hands waving in emphasis. “She would never leave any of us!”

Eleanora listened to his outburst, but then she firmly held her ground.

“It took her. Don’t you see that?” she said, voice full of anger. “She’s not here to be found. I should’ve known it would come to this . . . picking us off one by one, the bastards.”

Daniela knew in her heart that Eleanora was right. The darkness was gone. No sign left to show it had ever been there, at all. Only miles and miles of placid, water-covered land stretching out behind them.

Daniela felt heartsick, but at least knowing that a part of Arrabelle had become one with the creature inside her was a kind of consolation. Crazy to think she had access to layer upon layer of Arrabelle’s thoughts and memories. She pushed it all away, not quite feeling right about invading her friend’s privacy. She decided she would keep that door locked for now.

“I’m not leaving her back there,” Evan said, ignoring Eleanora. “Stop this thing.”

Hessika waved her hand and the wind dropped away.

“It’s a waste of time,” Eleanora said, but Evan shook his head.

“You do what you have to do, but I’m going back to find her.”

The boat had slowed enough for Evan to get off easily. He clambered over the side, his feet sinking into the silt beneath the waterline.

“Niamh?” he asked, but she didn’t move.

“I’m sorry. I feel like I need to go with them,” she said.

He looked disappointed, but he didn’t get angry with her.

“I guess you have to do what you have to do,” he said, and then, without ceremony, he began heading back the way they’d come.

They watched him trudge through the murky, ankle-high water, his form getting smaller and smaller the farther away from them he got. No one said anything, just watched him slowly disappear as he headed off into the unknown.

“Will he be okay?” Dev asked.

There was no answer.

•   •   •

The irony was they only traveled for another half hour before they reached the Red Chapel. To have lost both Arrabelle and Evan when they’d been so close was ridiculous. And Daniela still wasn’t sure it was the right decision to let Evan go. Not that she had any idea what they could’ve done to make him stay. He’d been determined to go back and look for Arrabelle, and Daniela couldn’t fault him for it. She knew it was a futile gesture. Whatever the darkness was, it had swallowed Arrabelle whole and spirited her far away. If she’d thought there was any hope of finding Arrabelle, she’d have joined Evan—but her gut instinct told her his search would bear no fruit.

The loss of Arrabelle had affected them all. Lyse had remained stoically quiet, but Niamh had curled up into a ball in the middle of the boat and refused to talk to Dev when she’d made overtures of conversation. Daniela knew part of it was feeling guilty she hadn’t gone with Evan. He was the last remaining tie to her old life, and he’d been her coven mate for much longer than she’d known any of the Echo Park blood sisters. And yet she’d thrown her lot in with them without question.

Eleanora was harder to read. Death, and the process of becoming a Dream Walker, had changed her friend. The flinty granite of Eleanora’s personality had fully asserted itself, killing any softness left inside her. She wasn’t cold or mean in any way; there was just nothing left for Daniela to catch hold of . . . any empathic ability to connect to her old friend had been severed.

While Daniela watched, the landscape changed, the water drying up and becoming solid ground again. This didn’t seem to deter the boat; it just kept floating along as if it were still on a liquid surface.

“Should we walk?” Daniela asked, but Eleanora shook her head.

She decided that this was Eleanora’s ship and she, Daniela, was merely one of its passengers. After that, she’d kept her mouth shut. She would just have to wait and see how it all developed. She knew she was ready to leave the dreamlands behind and return to their world. There were a whole bunch of idiots back there who needed their asses kicked . . . and she was the one who was going to do it.

“That can’t be it,” Lyse said, and Daniela followed her gaze out toward the horizon.

She had to agree with Lyse . . . there was no way that squat wooden building ahead of them could be the Red Chapel.

“Remember, the dreamlands can be misleading,” Eleanora said. “Things aren’t always as they seem.”

The Red Chapel truly was nothing to look at it. Merely a small wooden square on a patch of green grass, a sprawling purple lake stretching out behind it. Daniela didn’t know what she’d expected, but it was not this. Maybe something grandiose to match the larger-than-life name? Instead, she found herself underwhelmed.

Niamh, on the other hand, had relaxed visibly when she’d caught sight of the place. Whatever she’d been expecting to see, it was obviously not this small wooden box.

Hessika slowed their speed as they got closer. Daniela felt Dev’s nervousness grow as they neared the building, her sense of excitement building, too.

“They’re inside,” she said to Daniela, her voice shaking. “I can’t believe I’m going to see them again.”

Daniela patted Dev’s shoulder, the leather fabric of her gloves separating her touch from Dev’s skin—but even this small gesture alarmed Dev.

“Are you sure you should be doing that?” Dev asked, a spike of fear punctuating her words.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Daniela whispered, putting her lips as close to Dev’s ear as she dared. “I think it’s done. I think I don’t have to use the gloves anymore.”

Dev looked startled.

“Wait. You’re kidding! How is that even possible?”

“It’s the creature inside me . . . I think it protects me. I think it consumes the energy I take in when I touch someone. I think it’s using me,” Daniela continued, keeping her voice low for Dev’s ears only. “But I’m using it, too.”

Dev shook her head, her focus wholly on Daniela.

“Are you going to tell the others?” she asked.

“Soon,” Daniela said. “Let’s get the girls first and I’ll do a little testing. See if I’m right about this.”

“Just be careful,” Dev said, seemingly satisfied by Daniela’s answer. “We’ve already lost Arrabelle and Evan. We can’t lose you, too.”

Daniela didn’t have the heart to tell Dev that she didn’t care what happened to herself anymore. If she died, it didn’t really matter. She just wanted to destroy Desmond Delay and The Flood, and then she could cease to exist forever and that would be fine by her.

Thankfully, their talk was cut short when the boat finally came to a stop. They touched down on the edge of the grass and as soon as they’d all disembarked, the boat began to fall apart, leaving a mess of timber and twine behind.

Dev, followed by Eleanora, went straight to the front door and pushed her way in. She was eager to see the girls.

“That was well done, ma belle,” Hessika said to Niamh.

“I’m so tired,” Niamh said. “I feel like I could sleep for ages—”

She didn’t finish her thought because her eyes rolled up into her head and she crumpled forward. Daniela was closest to her and, without thinking, she reached out and caught Niamh around the waist before she could hit the ground.

“Daniela! No!” Lyse cried, racing toward them.

“It’s okay,” Daniela said, as she set the girl down in the grass, careful to keep the back of her head from hitting the ground. “I think it’s all right now.”

Lyse knelt down in the grass beside her. Hessika joined them, but at remove.

“Are you sure?” she asked, concern rife in her blue eyes.

“It was Niamh,” Daniela said. “What she did when she healed me? The creature she put inside me . . . it protects me.”

Lyse was thunderstruck by this revelation.

“No . . . that’s amazing . . . and wonderfully insane.”

Daniela didn’t tell Lyse the worrying part. The creature wanted something from her and she didn’t know what. She was sure it would let her know its demands soon, but for now it was protecting her from empathic brain circuitry overload and she was thankful for that.

“It just means I don’t need these anymore,” Daniela said, and she removed the gloves from her hands and set them on the ground. “It’s pretty damn freeing.”

Niamh took that moment to open her eyes. She looked first at Hessika, who nodded, and then she turned her gaze to Daniela.

“So sorry,” she murmured, and sat up. She was groggy and wiped out, shaky from all the emotional and physical exertion of getting them to the Red Chapel.

“Just sit there for a moment,” Daniela said to her. “You’ve worn yourself out.”

Niamh couldn’t argue with that. Instead, she took Daniela’s advice and pulled her knees to her chest, resting her head on her arms. She closed her eyes and rocked back and forth, disappearing into her own head.

“Let her be,” Daniela said, smiling over at Lyse—and Daniela was happy to realize her little crush on Lyse had dissipated, replaced now by familial love.

“Okay,” Lyse said, smiling back at Daniela. “And I’m going to hold on to these guys just in case.”

She picked up the leather gloves, folded them, and stuck them in her back pocket.

“You don’t have to do that,” Daniela said, but Lyse wouldn’t argue with her, just stood up and offered Daniela her hand.

“Take it,” she said—and for the first time, the two women touched. It was a strange sensation, like when you touched your own face and were surprised by the softness of the skin covering your cheek. There was an immediate familiarity and the awareness that Lyse was a part of who she was . . . the same blood flowed in her veins that flowed in Daniela’s own.

“I always wanted a sister.”

“Me, too,” Lyse said. “Funny how you sometimes get what you wish for, but it comes at you in the strangest of packages and long after you’d forgotten you’d ever asked for it.”

Daniela laughed. It was true. They weren’t really sisters, not by birth, but they were sisters in all the ways that counted. Even if it had taken over two decades for them to connect.

“I’m better now,” Niamh said, looking up at them. “Can we go inside?”

“Of course,” Lyse said, helping Niamh climb to her feet.

The three of them headed to the front door of the wooden building, Hessika following behind them, but Daniela noticed that the Dream Walker was distracted. She kept glancing back, eyes narrowed, a thoughtful expression on her face.

“Don’t worry,” Hessika said to Daniela as the others crossed the threshold and disappeared inside. “It’s coming, but not as quick as it could be. But don’t let them dawdle too long. Only so much a lady can do to distract.”

“You’re not coming in?” Daniela asked.

Hessika shook her head.

“My time is near,” she said, her Southern drawl more noticeable than before. “Eleanora will look after you all from here on in, ma belle. But I’ll be thinking of you.”

There was an ominous sound to Hessika’s words that Daniela didn’t like.

“You’re speaking around your meaning,” she said, frowning at Hessika as the larger woman began to meander away from the door.

“No riddles, dear heart. Only what is supposed to be. It’s long past my time.”

“I—” Daniela began, starting to become alarmed by their conversation. But Hessika waved her away.

“Now you go on in before the door closes on you,” Hessika said, gesturing at the entrance to the Red Chapel. “It’ll be too late then for even me to help you if that happens.”

Daniela didn’t like being told what to do, but something in Hessika’s tone frightened her.

“Come in with me,” she implored, but Hessika shook her head.

“Keep them safe inside,” Hessika said, smiling sadly. “Keep the ones you love close to your heart, ma belle. What’s written can be unwritten. Don’t forget. Promise me that.”

Daniela didn’t understand, but she could see it was important for Hessika to hear her say it.

“I promise.”

The sadness left the giantess then, and she giggled like a little girl.

“What a pleasure to know you. To know you all.”

She blew Daniela a kiss, and then she began to slowly walk away from the Red Chapel, taking her time as she went, her long body swaying with every step. Daniela stood in the doorway for a few moments, watching her go. Then she turned around and went inside, the door gently closing behind her.

As soon as she was inside, she knew she’d made a grave mistake. She whirled back around, not wanting to leave Hessika alone outside—but what she found instead of a door . . . was a blank white wall.