A Shade of Vampire 43: A House of Mysteries(7)

“Did anyone else have weird dreams?” Aida asked the table.

I looked at her in surprise. “No—what happened?”

She shrugged. “I can’t even remember… They were vivid though—and I know that all of you were in them, just not what we were doing.”

“Was it a nightmare?” Vita asked.

“No, I don’t think so.” Aida shook her head, looking puzzled as she tried to recall them. “Just weird.”

“This might sound stupid, but maybe you should start keeping a dream journal or something?” I replied. “I read somewhere that it helps you remember your dreams…Now that you’re an Oracle, maybe you should take them more seriously, try to keep track of them.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid,” Field agreed. “They might be visions—or partial visions, getting mixed up with your subconscious. It’s worth trying.”

I smiled to myself. Now that Field had agreed with my suggestion, I could practically see Aida becoming a lot more receptive to something that she would have dismissed as hokey if only Vita or I had mentioned it. Aida caught my smile, and nudged me sharply under the table.

I turned toward the wall, hiding a snicker.

“Where’s the Druid?” Aida asked loudly.

“We haven’t seen him yet,” Phoenix replied, leaning back in his chair. Almost as soon as the statement left my brother’s lips, the Druid entered the room. He glanced over the remains of our breakfast, looking pleased that we’d managed to finish most of it. Mainly thanks to Jovi.

“Are you ready to begin training?” the Druid asked.

Phoenix glanced over at Vita and Aida. They both nodded.

“Okay,” my brother replied, turning back to the Druid. “Where do we start?”

“By following me back to the basement.”

Oh, great.

More time in the serial killer hangout. I wasn’t sure what was worse—the cold, damp rooms below the house, or the humid and blazing heat above it. Still, there was no way I’d miss out on the training session. I might have trusted the Druid more than the others, but I still wanted to keep an eye on him and my friends. I also had the feeling that this was something I wouldn’t want to miss. It wasn’t every day that your best friends and brother got to see into the future.





Vita





[Grace and Lawrence’s daughter]




We followed the Druid from the dining room, walking down the better-lit hallway till we came to the room where the Druid habitually sat in front of a roaring fire. To my astonishment, it was lit again, creating a sweltering room that was completely unnecessary considering the weather outside. Bijarki was standing by one of the windows, and he smiled broadly when he saw us, his gaze homing in on me and making me feel instantly uncomfortable. Well, more uncomfortable than I was feeling already. I was dreading the training session—the nausea of the visions, and the weakness I experienced after, but not only that. I was half worried I’d fail completely. That it would be like my fae abilities all over again, knowing that the power was in there somewhere, but not being able to access it properly. It would be humiliating, and there would be no Zerus to put my mind at ease.

I ignored Bijarki as best I could, and stepped in line next to Serena, shielding myself from his approach as we all descended the staircase to the basement.

It was cooler down here, and I was grateful for that, but it was also damp, and the smell was even more musty than in the rest of the house. The hospital beds were gone, which was a relief, but in their place were three metal tubs—dented and worn with age, and filled with water and ice.

“What are these?” exclaimed Serena the moment she entered the room. “They look like some kind of psychiatric torture. Tell me it’s not for them?”

The Druid, with a slight but perceptible tightening of his jaw, ignored Serena and turned to the three of us—me, Aida and Phoenix. He cleared his throat, and began his lesson.

“The best way to bring about your visions is to get you into a semi-conscious state. The mind has a better chance of accessing itself if it’s not trying to attend to the rest of your body—freeing it up, in a way. Ideally, we want your bodies in ‘sleep’ mode, while your brain is still active.”

From the conversation we’d just been having about Aida’s dreams, this made a lot of sense to me. I had also seen the Oracle when I was in a sort of semi-conscious state—my body bone tired, but my mind whirring with the events of the last few hours.

“We’re going to replicate that state, using these.” The Druid gestured to the ice baths. “The water will shock your body into slowing down the heart rate and metabolic process. Your brain will survive, going into overdrive while the body is neglected.”