Eventually, the pleasure subsides, leaving only the equally unwelcome sexual arousal.
Wow, this time was bad. Even diluted, it’s affecting me almost beyond my control. I’ve got to solve this case and save Mom so I can get off the vile substance, else I might end up following in Ariel’s footsteps. For now, I dilute the half-empty vial with water until it’s full again. Maybe an even more diluted version will work more like it used to?
Now I wish Kain would come back so I could do something useful.
Actually, there is something I can do. If Kit has gone to bed, which would be reasonable, I could check if she’s behind all the crimes. Despite what she said about Tatum, she’s still one of my main suspects.
Touching Pom, I go into a trance and meet Pom’s dream form in my palace. He floats contentedly in the air, waving a furry paw at me in greeting.
“I’m going into Kit’s dreams.” I give myself my fiery hair. “I’d like some privacy.”
If Kit didn’t lie, her dreams will be X-rated, and that’s not an experience I want to share with a fuzzy creature with no visible genitals.
“I’ll go play Jenga,” he says. A tower of wooden blocks appears on the floor. “Go do what you do.”
I pat his head and hasten to the tower of sleepers.
I’m lucky for a change. Kit is here sleeping, and so is Felix—my earlier guess was right.
I touch Kit’s forehead and end up smack in the middle of an orgy featuring every type of Cognizant I can think of, plus some I’ve never seen. Alrighty, then. It should be easy to morph this dream into the situation Kit described earlier.
I begin by giving Kit a sense that this is all happening on the date and time when Gemma was ripped apart. Then I remove a dozen or so participants and turn one of the remaining ones into Lola.
Almost there. The problem is that this Lola isn’t doing what Kit described. Feeling like a total perv, I take control of Dream Lola and have her ask Kit to turn into whatever she described to me earlier, making sure to request the right number of phalluses while I’m at it.
The scene starts to look like what Kit described—and as soon as it does, I know it’s a memory.
Whew. As much as I want this investigation to be over, Kit is my friend, so I’m really glad she’s not the culprit.
On the way out of Kit’s dream world, I contemplate talking to Felix but decide against it. Between the vampire blood and Kit’s dreams, I’m too sexed up to face him.
But there’s something I can do to take the edge off.
With a deep, delicious inhalation, I think back to the luxurious bedroom Valerian created around us using his illusionist powers. I begin the recreation with the big bed swathed in silk sheets and covered in rose petals before creating the man himself, in all his (probably fake) glory.
“Hi, beautiful,” Dream Valerian murmurs. “Finally found time for me?”
“Come closer.” I make my clothes disappear with a flick of my powers.
Ripping the buttons off his shirt, he strides toward me.
My overclocked libido goes into overdrive.
Dream Valerian kisses me deeper than last time, his right hand stroking my lower back as his left slides—
“What is the meaning of this?” Kain’s voice sounds like thunder.
With a sigh, I pull myself away from the dream world and open my eyes to Kain’s fury.
“You said your power has limits,” he growls with a lisp, due to his extended fangs. “How dare you waste it on pleasuring yourself?”
What the hell? How does he know? Can he smell it on me?
Yuck. I need to bathe my brain in sanitizer.
Seeing his eyes turn into mirrors, I blurt, “I was doing my job.”
His eyes fade to normal, giving me hope that I’ll never learn what he intended to glamour me into doing.
“Explain,” he hisses.
“Kit. I verified her alibi, and it checks out.”
“I see.” His fangs retreat. “I spoke to Lola the day after the murder, but it’s good to confirm Kit’s story. That nymph would say anything to protect her insatiable girlfriend.”
He knew? Then again, Kit has never been shy about her adventures. Oh, well. I grab a water bottle and pocket my hand sanitizer. “I’m ready to connect with others and check alibis.”
“Let’s go to my quarters.”
His quarters again? Why?
Given the earlier threat of glamour, I don’t ask.
When we reach our destination, he leads me toward his dungeon/bedroom—which makes all my earlier concerns resurface.
Just before entering the dreaded room, he wheels around, so quickly I nearly smash into him.
“This is going to stay between us,” he says harshly. “Understood?”
Chapter Nineteen
I stare at him, my heart rate doubling.
“It’s a delicate situation,” he continues. “The woman hates dreamwalkers with a passion.”
I blink at him, even more confused.
“Just go inside,” he snaps. “Go, or I’ll make you.”
With Pom turning pitch black on my wrist, I enter the cursed room and freeze, unable to believe what I’m seeing.
It’s Gertrude.
She’s lying on Kain’s bed, staring emptily at the ceiling.
“She’s my primary suspect,” Kain says as though she’s not there. “She envied Tatum and Ryan’s marriage—don’t ask me why—and she fiercely and openly despised Gemma. You already know how she feels about dreamwalkers.”
“But no one died by rotting to death,” I say.
“Of course not. She’s not stupid enough to kill that way—she’d be the only suspect.”
I peer at her unmoving body. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I had to glamour her,” Kain says. “She has a huge problem sleeping in front of others, to put it mildly.”
“She’s got good reason.” I step to the side and back, putting him between me and Gertrude. “Between her REM Sleep Disorder and the gangrene-giving, it would be dangerous for any witnesses.”
“And yet I’ll make her sleep, and you’ll check to make sure she’s not behind the murders.” He turns to the empty-eyed woman and instructs in a honey-laced voice, “Gertrude, cuff your right ankle to the right bottom corner of the bed.”
She sits up and does as ordered. Another command, and she locks her left ankle and right hand, leaving herself mostly spread-eagled. I expect Kain to do something about her left hand, but he doesn’t.
“With that arm free, she can still grab one of us and make whatever she touches rot,” I tell him. “You’ve got to lock it up.”
“Do you want to lock it up?” he asks with a sneer. “I’m not getting anywhere near her skin.”
So vampires can rot. What a gross discovery.
I look Gertrude over. With her short skirt and sleeveless top, she’s showing way too much skin to approach without a hazmat suit.
“Gertrude, sleep,” Kain croons.
She closes her eyes right away, her breathing evening out.
Wow, I’d give a lot for that particular power.
“Now do your thing,” Kain orders.