Free Blood Dreams by Kay Hooper

not even trying to match her tone.
    “Never. Dani, did you see the basement, or are you feeling it?”
    Feeling? Wait. That’s not the way my abilities work. I just dream things. I’m not clairvoyant.
    Paris is.
    Paris…
    “Stairs. I saw them.” The weight on her shoulders felt like the world, so maybe that was what was pressing her down. Or…“And what I feel now…He’s lower. He’s underneath us.”
    “Then we look for stairs.”
    Dani coughed. She was trying to think, trying to remember. But dreams recalled were such dim, insubstantial things, even vision dreams sometimes, and there was no way for her to be
sure
she was remembering clearly.
    But this
is
the vision dream. I know it is. It’s the vision dream, and for the first time I know that’s what it is even while I’m in the middle of it.
    While I’m dreaming.
    Because I am dreaming.
    I have to be dreaming.
    She was overwhelmingly conscious of precious time passing and looked at her wrist, at the shiny Rolex watch that told her it was 1:34 P.M. on Tuesday, October 28.
    Wait. Why is the watch different? And why is the time different? More than an hour earlier. Why would it be earlier?
    “Dani?”
    She shook off the momentary confusion, or at least attempted to. “The stairs. Not where you’d expect them to be,” she managed finally, coughing again. “They’re in a closet or something like that. A small office. Room. Not a hallway. Hallways—”
    “What?”
    The instant of certainty was fleeting but absolute. “Shit. The basement is divided. By a solid wall. Two big rooms. And accessed from this main level by two different stairways, one at each side of the building, in the back.”
    “What kind of crazy-ass design is that?” Hollis demanded.
    “If we get out of this alive, you can ask the architect.” The smell of blood was almost overpowering, and Dani’s head was beginning to hurt. Badly. She had never before pushed herself for so long without a break, especially with this level of intensity.
    Marc appeared out of the smoke as abruptly as the other two had and took her hand in his free one. In his other hand was a big automatic handgun.
    Wait. The sheriff’s department personnel carry revolvers, don’t they?
    “Where to now?” he asked. “I can’t see shit for all this smoke.”
    And why is that bugging me when Marc shouldn’t even be here?
    What the hell is Marc doing here?
    Hollis replied to his question. “Dani is guiding us.”
    He looked down at her, his expression totally professional but his eyes worried and gentle. “I always knew the beautiful assistant was the real magician,” he said. “Like the man behind the wizard’s curtain. Where to, Dani?”
    She felt a wave of dizziness, of almost wild uncertainty. This was wrong, so wrong in so many ways.
    This isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen!
    It was Bishop who said, “You don’t know which side they’re in.”
    “No. I’m sorry.” She felt as if she’d been apologizing to this man since she met him. Hell, she had been.
    Hollis was scowling. To Bishop, she said, “Great. That’s just great. You’re psychically blind, the storm has all my senses scrambled, and we’re in a huge burning building without a freakin’ map.”
    “Which is why Dani is here.” Those pale sentry eyes were fixed on her face.
    Dani felt wholly inadequate and terribly confused. “I—I don’t—All I know is that he’s down there somewhere.”
    “And Miranda?”
    The name caused her a queer little shock, and for no more than a heartbeat, Dani had the dizzy sense of something out of place, out of sync somehow.
    How could it be Miranda? I warned her. I warned her, and she went back to Boston to be with Bishop. But he’s here, he was always part of this. Only she shouldn’t be.
    And…where is Paris?
    Where is Paris, and why do I have her abilities?
    “Dani?” Bishop’s face was even more strained.
    Miranda. He asked about Miranda.
    And she had an answer for him. Of sorts.