He thought about it a moment then his shoulders relaxed. “This is a dream?”
“Yeppers. Your dream.”
“Why can’t I fly?”
“Dunno. Have you tried?”
A moment later he was hovering in the air in front of me, looking pretty silly as he did floating pirouettes in his football uniform. I backed away from him, leery of such close proximity.
“Cool,” he said, doing a flip this time.
Across the field, Katarina was still smiling at him, completely unfazed by his sudden ability to fly. I couldn’t help but glare at her. Why did Eli have to dream about her of all people? It was bad enough I had to see her during the school day. Maybe I could turn her into another snake.
“What are you looking at?” Eli glanced over his shoulder.
“Nothing,” I said, more sharply than I intended. “I mean, everything. That’s why I’m here, remember? We’re supposed to be solving a murder.”
He grinned. “Okay, Nancy Drew. But I got the idea we’re supposed to be predicting the next one.”
“Same difference.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.”
If I’d been on the ground I would’ve stomped my foot at him. Instead I let myself float down until I was standing again. He plopped down beside me.
I glared at him, considered pursuing the argument further, then decided I’d wasted enough time already. Regardless of what you called it, we did have a job to do here. An important one.
I looked around, trying to spy anything significant. As before, Eli’s dream was surprisingly undreamlike. Aside from a couple of little things like the faceless people in the grandstands, everything was exactly as you’d find it on any Friday night in the fall. Even the school band was its usual state of bad.
“Booker!” a gruff male voice shouted from the sidelines. Eli and I both turned to see the head football coach waggling a finger at him. “Get your butt out there.”
I grinned. “Yeah, Booker, why don’t you run along and play while I see if there’s anything useful around here?”
“No way. I’m not letting you poke around my dream by yourself.”
I wasn’t listening. Something strange had caught my eye. Perched on the rail that separated the field from the grandstand was a huge bird, nearly the size of a human. Slick black feathers covered its head and body while the feathers in its tail were a brilliant scarlet and gold. It looked a bit like a heron with its long neck and legs and narrow beak, but I didn’t think it was. There was something almost dragonish about it with its weirdly intelligent eyes, so bright a yellow against the black they seemed to glow. It was looking at me as if it had something to say, a bone to pick, maybe. A thrill of fear shot through me at the sight of it. It looked so real, and so very capable of snapping off one of my appendages in a single bite.
I stepped toward it for a closer look. Nothing in a dream could hurt me, no matter how scary.
The bird disappeared.
I glanced at Eli. “Did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Never mind.” I marched past him toward the grandstand to investigate. I thought I could see some dark marks on the metal railing where the bird’s talons had gripped it.
Eli grabbed my arm. I had a second to think, not again. Then the dream world disappeared, and I crashed back into my body. Disoriented and in pain, I lost my balance and tumbled backward off the chair. My flailing arm struck the table as I went down, knocking it over. A can of diet, caffeine-free Mountain Dew hit the floor, and yellow soda sprayed out, covering me in warm liquid.
“You okay?” Eli took hold of my arms and lifted me as if I were a toddler. But then his foot slipped on the wet floor, and we went down again. I landed on top of him, my face pressed against his stomach. Nobody’s abs should be that hard.
He grunted. “Are you always this klutzy or is it just because of me?”
I jumped up, shoving him in the chest as I did so. “You’re an idiot.” I waved my hand over the mess of soda and said the incantation for the only cleaning spell I knew, “Drasi-neo.”
The lightbulb in a nearby lamp exploded.
“Nice one.”
I scowled at Eli. It was his fault my magic was on supercharge again and that I was too dizzy to obtain the proper level of concentration required for the spell. “Didn’t anybody tell you not to touch me when I’m dream-walking?”
“Well, yes, but they didn’t say why.”
I rolled my eyes. “Typical. Leave it to you to break the rules.”
He stood up. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Before I could answer, he started grinning. “You can’t stay in the dream if I touch you, can you?”
Too furious to speak, I turned around, only to crash into Lance standing just beyond the doorway to the bedroom. I grabbed my nose, which had struck his ridiculously hard shoulder, my eyes watering.
“That was quite a show,” Lance said. “Do you straddle all your victims even after they’re awake, or is it something special you reserve for Eli?”
Heat burst over my body, turning my skin as red as my hair. I pushed Lance out of the way and made a beeline for the door. I sprinted down the hallway and didn’t stop running until I reached my dorm room and locked the door behind me.
Then I slumped onto the sofa, taking a moment to wallow in misery as visions of the ridicule I would face tomorrow played out in my brain.