Nadya/Nadia Ch. 06

The Dream Walker carefully backed out of the mage's dream feeling filthy and full of revulsion. She quashed the feelings quickly. She wasn't out of the dream yet and did not want to arouse suspicion. The mage would never feel those kinds of emotions about what he was dreaming so they had no place here.

Mages thought they were clever — they protected their bodies, houses, cars, clothes, labs, the ill-gotten magical objects and potions, and even their victims, but not one of them had ever thought to protect his dreams, leaving her free to roam the perverted and revolting delusions they aspired to.

They didn't know about her, that she could see what they dreamed of doing to witches, or that she used the information they unwittingly so brazenly displayed to her every night to annihilate as many of their dreams as possible.

She would have to call Elijah. She smiled as she finally escaped the mage's dream and began traveling the Dreamscape. She had never given him a name to use for her. Her given name wouldn't mean anything to him, and it amused her to be addressed as The Woman On The Phone.

"Oh," he'd said, the first time she'd contacted him and explained what she wanted him to do. "You think I should just go track down a random woman in a coffee shop and make out with her so I can drain her magic just because another random woman says to? You're just the woman the phone. I don't know you."

And she'd been The Woman On The Phone ever since.

She'd managed to talk him into going to the coffee shop, if for no other reason than to see if the woman she told him about was there, and if she was being watched. He'd found the woman, saw the mages stalking her, and managed to drain her moments before one of the mages "accidentally" bumped into and scratched her to get a sample of her blood. The woman hadn't had a lot of magic in the first place, and being drained by an incubus had erased any trace of it. The mages left when their test failed, and the woman went on with her non-magical life, blissfully unaware of how narrowly a tragic fate for her had been averted.

Elijah still hadn't trusted her completely. She hadn't blamed him. She had never planned on meeting with him face to face for a few reasons, and she never told him what she was, who she was, or how she obtained the information she gave him. But once he realized she was right, every single time, he'd gladly joined her crusade, happy to have a way to channel the demon that lived inside him for something good.

She wondered how he was doing with the witch. Witches. That situation was not going according to plan at all. It wasn't often she missed a single minor detail, never mind one as big as a silver eyed witch.

She hadn't found Nadya through a mage's dreams directly. Instead, she'd found the mage dreaming of draining a different witch, and found that witch's dream, or, rather, her nightmare. In her nightmare the witch had been curled up into a tight ball against a wall in a room full of shadows that clawed and bit at her while she muttered the same phrases to herself over and over in a monotone voice, dead eyes looking straight into nothing as she rocked herself back and forth.

"She's bound. She doesn't know. She's bound. She doesn't know. Unbound and bound again. If it wakes it wakes! Search for a daughter. Unbound and bound again. Search for a daughter. If it wakes it wakes! Unbound and bound again!"

The Dream Walker didn't have much magic when she was awake, but she ruled the Dreamscape. She had conjured a bright light to cast out all the shadows and spent hours sitting next to the woman, until gradually the witch had calmed down and realized she wasn't hallucinating, that the Dream Walker was real.

The witch had been powerful once, but she'd been a prisoner of mages for almost a decade and was a shell of what she had been. She'd begged the Dream Walker to find The Daughter and help her unbind her magic. If The Daughter had a daughter, the magic would transfer to the descendant. If there was no descendant, the magic would bind itself on its own and return to its sleeping state. Nadya was The Daughter, and the witch had been able to tell the Dream Walker enough for her to pass on to Elijah so he could find her.

The witch hadn't mentioned the magic bound was that of a silver eyed witch.

Maybe the witch hadn't known. If the magic had never woken on its own maybe the silver eyed witch hadn't appeared before. The witch's lucidity hadn't lasted long, and she had quickly become incoherent, unable to answer the simplest of questions much less questions about the history of the magic that needed to be bound again or its history. Having delivered her message and done the best she could for The Daughter, the witch had retained enough strength for sanity to surface one last time and begged the Dream Walker to kill her.

It wasn't always true that if you died in your dreams your body died as well, but there were places where the Dreamscape touched other realms that it was possible. Unable to help the witch in the physical world, and knowing she herself would rather be dead than in the hands of mages, the Dream Walker had led the witch to one of those places and the witch had thanked her before she went into oblivion.

The Dream Walker had heard stories of the silver eyed witches. One rumor went that only a silver eyed witch could wake the power in another silver eyed witch, but no one knew how the first one came to be. Mages, vampires and shifters all coveted them for their power, but only as long as they could be controlled. Most of the silver eyed witches were as wild as the magic they wielded, and they wielded terrifying amounts of magic. Ruled by primal emotions, a calm silver eyed witch was dangerous enough, one that was in a rage could level a small city with little more effort than thinking about it.

Child like in many ways, silver eyed witches usually were not set on hurting anyone. They were playful and easily amused by simple things. They also had prodigious appetites, and not just for food. There were worse places for a silver eyed witch to be than with an incubus. If Elijah could keep her calm and satisfied with enough sex then staying with an incubus was probably the best thing for her, and hopefully he could buy them enough time to figure out what to do.

Silver eyed witches had always been rare, but hundreds of years ago an entire coven of them had emerged from seemingly out of nowhere, and the males of the supernatural world had resented the shift in the balance of power. Mages, vampires, and shifters had worked together, uniting in an unprecedented alliance to orchestrate betrayals and a bloodbath that had resulted in the extermination of every silver eyed witch and their families so there could be no more of them.

Or so everyone thought.

The Dream Walker returned to her body and woke. She had to figure out how to leave her sanctuary. Her space was so heavily warded no one and nothing could find her, which was the only way she had survived as long as she had. Well, since she had died the first time, anyway. Aside from her sojourns into other people's dreams, she had not left her sanctuary in decades. There was no reason to, since she was able to manipulate the dreams of others to bring her what she needed to survive.

The worst of the worst were looking for her, and she did not want to lead them to Elijah or a silver eyed witch. As bad as it would be for her if she was found, it would be much worse for a silver eyed witch that couldn't access her magic.

ELIJAH

After the backlash of Nadia's magic rebounding had hurled Elijah out of her mind he'd tried to get back in, but her mind was firmly shut against him and she'd been unconscious ever since. He'd lifted her limp body up and curled up with her on the couch in a room off the kitchen, holding her and trying her to wake her through sheer force of will.

He was more confused now than ever. He'd eagerly followed her into her mind, enjoyed their game of chase, and been amazed as she led him to the source of her magic. He'd seen the source of his own magic before, both that of the witch and that of the incubus, but his magics were dwarfed by hers. Hers was a luminescent kaleidoscope of silver lights, of not only the shades that made up her and Nadya's auras, but at least twelve other hues of silver besides. But it wasn't so much its varying aspects that had impressed him as it was its utter vastness. He could sense no bottom to the well of her power. But well wasn't the right word. If his magics were contained in wells that could be drawn on, hers was an entire world of nothing but water.

The two shades of tendrils that were constantly whirling around him had beckoned him forward, and he'd gone with them until he'd heard Nadia cry out in pain and rushed back to her.

While he'd been going towards her magic, her magic had gone on the attack, but it hadn't come after him, it had gone after her. He'd done his best to shield her from her own magic, trying to feed on as much of it as he could, and knowing he didn't have any hope of draining enough of it to be of any use. He was trying to drink an ocean.

He'd formed a shield to try and divert some of the magic attacking her, but Nadia had rose up in a fury, and he knew firsthand that did not bode well. He'd shouted at her not to attack, shook her when she wouldn't look at him, but it hadn't done any good and she'd launched an attack on her own magic. His magic had been ripped to shreds and he'd been summarily ejected from her mind.

He was out of his depth here. He'd never seen anyone attack their own magic, or their own magic attack them before. His magics were so much a part of him he couldn't imagine them as something separate from himself much less how a battle could be waged between them.

So he held his witch as he thought about what he could do for her. He needed to contact some other witches. The woman on the phone said she would come, maybe she would have some ideas. He even knew a few mages, but he was torn between trying to keep her safe and finding out more about what she was. The woman on the phone had mentioned witches like Nadia had been killed, a lot of them, all of them, in fact. He didn't want to tell anyone about his silver eyed witch if it might put her in danger, but at the same time he didn't have the answers she needed.

He crooned a lullaby his mother had sung, and willed Nadia to come back to him.

NADIA

Nadia didn't know how long it had been, but she was tired of weeping and how useless it made her feel. She rose and faced the door. The hinge Elijah had broken off the door lay on the ground, but the fractures that had been there were gone now, and the lock was still firmly in place. She kicked the door, but it was a lackluster attempt. She couldn't muster any anger. Despair had disappeared. Happiness had fled. All the emotions she'd felt from Elijah were gone. She wanted to hate him for showing her so many new emotions, emotions she was robbed of feeling now, but even her hate had vanished.

She didn't feel anything. She couldn't even be bothered too feel sad or frustrated as she turned her back on the door and walked away.

She felt empty when she woke. Someone was speaking, no singing, and she listened.

All through the night,

I'll keep you safe and stay with you.

All through the night,

You dream the dreams that I'll make come true.

All through the night,

You are revered and you know no fear.

All through the night,

From you and me bad dreams disappear.

All through the night,

There is no end and time is beguiled

All through the night,

I'll find your dream and we'll stay there awhile.

She stirred, and Elijah's arms closed tighter around her.

"You're awake," he said, the relief he felt clear in his voice. "How do you feel?"

Nadia didn't move. "I don't feel anything."

"Are you hurt? Can you move?" Elijah asked, sitting up and trying not to jostle her. "We were hit with some powerful backlash."

"I don't feel anything," Nadia said again. She sat up and faced Elijah. Her movements were robotic and jerky as she pushed him down and straddled him. Her eyes stared into another place, not seeing him. She wanted to feel something. He'd always made her feel something with sex. "I need to feel something. I can't feel anything." She fisted her hand around his cock and jerked on him.

Elijah tried not to wince at the rough treatment. "It's probably a temporary thing," he managed to get out. He'd never lied to her and he didn't want to start now, so he couldn't make her any sort of promises about her magic.

She wasn't nearly wet enough to take him, but she tried to anyway.

"Nadia, slow down," he said, reaching for her.

"Don't touch me!" she snapped. "You made me feel EVERYTHING and now I can't feel ANYTHING!" The words were said with emphasis, but there was no heat in them.

She forced herself down on him and moved in rough, spastic motions that brought neither of them any pleasure. She wanted to want him, part of her magic was reaching for him even now, the silver tendril curling into the air, but a part of her was repelled. She wasn't disgusted by him, this felt more like they were two magnets that used to draw one another, and now something had reversed in her and the pull towards him had changed to a push away from him.

He reached for her again and hissed when the skin of his palms was burned. Pulling his hands away, he sent green tendrils out to her, trying to slow her down and give her some pleasure, but they were unable to reach her and could only swirl and coil uselessly in the air around her. She'd locked herself away from him completely.

She finally began to get wet and made a contented sound as she was able to slide up and down on him more easily. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, putting her hands to either side of him instead of on his chest to brace herself as she rode him, touching him as little as possible.

She knew this should feel good, better than good, but it just felt like completing a chore. She was just doing it because it needed to be done. She used him to bring herself to orgasm, but when she came if felt perfunctory; the rush of pleasure and bliss wasn't there. Some of her magic returned, though, and pooled under her skin. That was all she needed.

Was this the only way she was going to be able to feel her magic now? Everything was all wrong and she didn't know how to fix it. At least she finally felt something now, even if it was just broken.

She pushed herself off of him and left the room, her bare feet making light thumps as she went up the stairs. She looked in every room until she found a bathroom and showered, the drive to scrub all traces of Elijah from her body an overpowering need and directly in conflict with the urge to fuck him again to regain some more of her magic.

When she felt clean she wandered through the house until she found the room Elijah kept his mother's things in. Settling in behind the desk she picked up a journal and began to read, but there was nothing in it about wards.

She threw the journal across the room. "Why can't I find what I need to know?" she ranted to the empty room. "I want to know about wards!"

The little bit of magic she'd regained flowed out of her and a book near the bottom of a stack she hadn't touched yet glowed briefly. Could it be that easy?

Knocking the other books aside, she picked up the one that had glowed and flipped through its pages. The whole thing was about wards.

For two days Elijah stayed out of her way for the most part. He'd tried bringing her clothes, food, drinks, and making conversation, but she'd ended each of his attempts to be nice to her by dragging him to the floor and fucking him. When she used him to make herself come her magic increased, her power returning ever so slowly. There wasn't any pleasure anymore, but that didn't matter. Pleasure wasn't as important as getting her magic back.

Some distant part of her knew Elijah deserved to be treated better than as a battery for her magic. That same distant part of her even wanted to feel badly about what she was doing to him, but she couldn't do it. She didn't have any other way to rebuild her energy, and she needed it as she experimented and learned about wards and how to break them.

ELIJAH

He was losing his witch. She'd been distant ever since her own magic had attacked her and rebounded at them, and he could only watch her drift farther from him. Her silver aura had disappeared. She wouldn't speak to him. Her eyes held no spark of life. She touched him only as much as was necessary to fuck herself and didn't allow him to touch her at all.

He'd spoken with other witches and asked broad questions about different kinds of magic, but none of them knew anything other than the magic they used. He'd even contacted two mages he knew, men that were happily married to witches and would never think about hurting one, but they were no help either. The woman on the phone hadn't arrived, but she'd left a message saying she was being watched and couldn't get away quite yet. She told him to keep the witch calm.

Keeping his witch calm wasn't the problem, and he almost wished she would fly into a rage and throw the contents of a room at him again. He'd gladly take the pain over the indifference that was all he got from her now. The incubus didn't mind being used for sex, but it was a stretch to call what Nadia did with him, no, to him, sex. The third time he'd touched her and she'd burned him Elijah had stopped trying to participate. He let her use him as she liked and left as soon as she was done with him. He had no idea what was happening with his witch but fervently hoped she'd work her way through it soon.

The morning of the third day Nadia was ready to put her plan into action. She needed magic, though. She had to deal with the wards and to be able to reach Ember somehow, and the little bits that came to her when she made herself come riding Elijah weren't enough. It had been three days, three days but her magic hadn't built up on its own like it used to.

The deep, hidden reserve she'd used to destroy Elijah's bedroom and guarded so carefully from him was full to the brim, but cut off from her. She could sense it, but she couldn't reach it. No more magic leaked from the door. She clenched her fist and slammed it down on the desk as hard as she could, gasping at the pain. She smiled as an idea came to her.

She went downstairs and found Elijah in the kitchen. Instead of grabbing him she opened the refrigerator and peered into it, frowning as she shifted some of the contents around.

"You look disappointed."

"I was half expecting to see iv bags of blood for your vampire."

Elijah hadn't been expecting a response and was pleased she was talking to him. "I don't need to drink blood. I've never had fangs, and I don't have any venom to use on a victim."

"The vampire doesn't need to satisfy himself the way the incubus does?"

"He probably would, but I've never let him out."

"Never?"

"No. The vampire has always been locked away. I use compulsion when I have to, but that's it."

"Why do you let the incubus out and not the vampire?"

"Because the incubus is only a demon. The vampire is a monster."

"There's a difference?"

"If you know how to deal with a demon they will fight you, but they have to obey you, whether they want to or not. The incubus was made part of me, I wasn't created from part of it. It was forced to adapt and become something less than it was before I could control it to any extent, and sometimes I'm not even able to do that as well as I'd like.

"A vampire will lie, and doesn't have any rules or laws to obey. They live solely to prey on others. I don't want to do that. I don't want to become that. You stir something dark I didn't know I had in me, and the incubus is all for it, but the vampire would be even darker. I was born half vampire, and if I let it out I don't know that I could control it or shove it back down. It might hurt people. It might enjoy killing. The vampire that raped my mother certainly did. Right now I balance human with incubus and I'm able to use the incubus to feed only on those who we hide from mages. If I let the vampire out, I go from half human to only one-third human, and I'm not sure that's enough to remain human, or retain any humanity, at all. The idea that I could become something like the thing that repeatedly raped and tortured my mother horrifies me, and I have no plans to ever let that monster out."