No one should be awake at four in the morning. Especially me. I ripped the plug for my alarm clock out of the wall around three-thirty.
I forgot about the batteries.
The numbers on the clock taunted me like a green-eyed devil until I finally got out of bed. I fumbled in the dark to make a pot of coffee, refusing to turn on the kitchen light and formally acknowledge the day. I pulled my favorite mug out of the cabinet and filled it before settling at my table.
The dream came every night – technically morning – at three o’clock. I was used to running on little-to-no sleep, this bordered on ridiculous. Yesterday at the range I shot a target in the lane on my left. Fortunately, it had been Mason’s and I played everything off by exaggerating my sharp-shooting skills. Someone else could have had me banned. As it was, Mason thought I was being a competitive brat.
I wasn’t sure I preferred that to being a sleep-deprived danger to others.
I scratched my neck, pausing when I felt the delicate silver chain. I followed it down to the apple branch charm which rested on my chest. Weird. I could have sworn I took it off last night. I slid the charm back and forth as I went over the dream. Again.
After the first week, I’d broken down and started analyzing it. According to Freud, I had mommy issues. No surprise there. I seriously doubted my relationship – or lack thereof – with my adoptive mother was the cause of the recurring dream.
I fired up the laptop, unwilling to cease my search for answers. Instead of the trippy New Age sites I checked out last night, I went back to my trusty Google. I nodded off twice as I scanned the results.
What the hell did an old woman washing clothes in a river have to do with me? I might have written it off as paranoia or a side effect of all the spicy food I’d been eating, if not for the haggard old woman crooking her bony finger at me and called my name – every time.
I finally got a hit on an obscure mythology website. Bean Nighe, the washer woman of the Highlands. She scrubbed the bloody linens of those doomed to die. Knowing she was fae bothered me more than the knowledge the clothes she washed every night were mine. Impending death I could handle. Hell, I’d slipped through the Reaper’s grasp more than once. The Fae on the other hand, well they could be tricky.
The phone rang just as I got up for a refill. The fact someone else was not only awake at this ungodly hour,but calling me, meant it was bad news. No one who valued their life called me before noon unless it was an emergency – one of the perks of my new position as Regulator.
I was now in charge of one investigator, two trackers and a team of cleaners. It was a lot like it sounds. We investigate, we track and we clean up. We clean up everything, no loose ends. You don’t ever want to find yourself in need of a cleaner. Late hours came with the new job, hence the “no calls before noon” rule.
I glanced at the screen before answering and recognized the number immediately. It helped I had been dialing it for the last four years – it used to belong to Captain Matthison. Of course Mason, my fae boyfriend and member of the Wild Hunt, was the captain of SPTF now.
We’d been officially dating for a couple months, moved well past first base. Hell, I had a key to his apartment. Granted I hadn’t used it since the night he gave it to me. I’d been dragging my feet, leaving deep ruts in my wake where our relationship was concerned. My track record wasn’t all that great. I’d rushed in before, once because I was spelled and once because I wanted to.
Neither ended well.
Things were going great. I was afraid if I labeled it, changed it in anyway, the change would be catastrophic. Thankfully, Mason was a patient man.
Except when it came to a four a.m. phone call. My phone stopped then immediately started ringing again.
My answer was short and to the point. “Morning.”
“You’re awake?” He sounded more than a little surprised.
“I’m not really sure the state I’m in qualifies as awake.”
“Here I was, terrified to poke the dragon, and you’re already drinking coffee and talking in complete sentences.”
I snorted and took a sip of the aforementioned liquid gold. “Are you always like this in the morning?”
“If you’d let me sleep over you’d already know the answer to that question. Why aren’t you asleep?”
In general or just tonight, I silently wondered. “Bad dream. I’ve been tossing and turning all night. I finally gave in and got out of bed.”
Papers rustled in the background and when he spoke again, his voice was lower, intimate, “You want to talk about it?”
“Something tells me my nightmares are the least of our problems.”
“You have no idea. I need you to come down to my office.”
I sighed. “Can it at least wait until after sunrise?”
“Would I be breaking the ‘no phone calls before noon’policy if it could wait?”
“There really is no rest for the wicked, is there?”
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