The Dream Walker by Carly Fall, Allison Itterly Page B

gasps and some hushed whispers. Blake imagined they were quite the sight. All of them were over six feet, and all built like brick shithouses. Then there was the fact that most of them were wearing leather jackets. The congregation probably thought they were about to be robbed.
    Blake scanned the small crowd. He didn’t see anyone who looked out of the ordinary. “See him?” he asked Micah.
    “ No.”
    “ Now what?” Nico asked.
    “ If you gentlemen are here for the meeting, the stairs are to your left,” the priest called out to them.
    “ Now we go downstairs,” Blake said, smiling.
    “ Thank you,” Hudson said with a wave.
    They made their way down the stairs with Micah in the lead and Hudson right behind him, a gun in one hand and a knife in the other.
    “Don’t do anything stupid, Micah,” Hudson said in a low voice. “I’ll gut you first and shoot you later.”
    When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Blake heard voices, and all motioned each other to be quiet. He looked around the corner and saw four doors, two on one side of the hall, and two on the other. He could see light coming out from under one of the doors.
    Bingo! The meeting.
    Blake strained to hear what was being said, but couldn ’t make out the words. He figured they had two choices: first, they could go in full force. Not shoot anyone, of course, but go in tactically like a police force would. However, if this was nothing more than an AA or Tupperware meeting, how would they explain themselves? They wouldn’t be able to, and the cops would be called and . . . that wasn’t a good scenario.
    The second option was just to get closer and do some recon. That was what they had intended to do anyway. Might as well stick with the plan.
    However, it probably wasn’t a good idea for all of them to be down here. It would be too easy for someone to mess up, make too much noise and let whoever was in that room know that they were being spied on.
    Blake motioned Hudson over. “Take Micah upstairs and wait for us in the car,” he whispered.
    Hudson nodded, and got Micah ’s attention by poking his gun into his kidney. “Let’s go, big boy,” Hudson whispered.
    Blake waited until they were at the top of the steps, then turned to Nico and Simon. He nodded, and all three moved toward the door.

Chapter 20
    Alaina sat next to a balding man in his forties with a paunch belly wearing a black T-shirt and a pair of jean shorts who had introduced himself as Georg e. Daniel was across from her, completing the circle.
    “ I’d like you all to welcome Alaina,” he said. “Like all of you, Alaina is gifted. She is special. She sees the ash that only you can see.”
    No one said anything, just stared at her. So much for a warm welcome.
    “I met Alaina at her place of employment,” Daniel continued. “I stumbled up on her and her . . . abilities by accident. Alaina, I met everyone else here through different avenues ranging from the Internet to the bus.”
    Really? The Internet? This was getting creepy, even by her standards.
    “We’re here because we all have the urge to kill, Alaina, just as I’m sure you’ve had. These people are no different than you. I’m here to help you fulfill your wishes, to help them with theirs. I have killed many, many times, and I guess you could consider these people my followers, my students.”
    Alaina ’s breath caught in her lungs. Was this some sort of cult? And they all wanted to kill? Sure, she had some dark thoughts, but she didn’t want to act on them. Well, most of the time she didn’t. When she was angry, it was more pronounced, but she never would follow through, would she? And did he honestly say he’d killed many times? He had to be bluffing, right?
    “ How come I could see that stuff around you?” she asked.
    “ We’ll cover that later,” Daniel said. “Let’s check in with George. Did you do it, George?” He then turned to Alaina. “George hasn’t killed anyone yet. There are some in