Hunted Dreams Read Online Free Page B

other when you meet.”
    Mari pointed to the left, at some room filled with a large-screen television, all manner of speakers, and a couple of leather sofas. “This is our TV room,” she said, unnecessarily. “We consider all the members of Broschi our family, but we subdivide into smaller Families, such as ours, the Daleths. As for identifying others, it’s difficult, as you can tell from what we all had to go through to figure you out.” Her lips smoothed into one of her sunny smiles.
    “‘Broschi’? I remember Quina using that word,” Reed said, staring at the enormous TV and thinking it could have paid next month’s rent on his apartment.
    Alberto poured past him and grabbed a packet of sour candies from a crystal bowl atop the room’s glass coffee table. After popping one in his mouth, he happily explained, “It means ‘eater of the life force.’ Pretty cool, right? Always makes me think of Star Wars .”
    Reed did not respond. After a brief glance at her brother, Mari hastened to explain they didn’t really suck others’ life force; they simply fed off the incredible energy generated by pain, fear, fury, and other intense emotions.
    “What about happiness, surprise, love?” Reed asked. “Those are strong feelings.”
    Mari shrugged, and her silky blouse puffed and shimmered about her. “We don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with psychic frequencies or something. But the strong negative emotions seem to be the ones that satiate us.”
    They entered the room opposite the TV room. Before anyone could start extolling the virtues of Persian rugs, Reed asked how they fed.
    “Mostly on solid food, just like . . . everybody else,” Mari said. “We just need to supplement it psychically.”
    “Like taking a kiddy vitamin,” Alberto remarked, grinning. He popped another candy into his mouth for emphasis.
    “How often, and how do you do it?” Reed asked.
    “These are questions you can discuss with Quina,” Mari said smoothly. “Not everyone has the same needs.”
    “Is she the leader?”
    “Boy howdy!” Alberto said. “She’s our Family’s big mama.”
    “Did she adopt you?” Intimate question, but he figured they owed him some answers right now.
    “Nope. Like Quina said, we got us an organizational system just like any big business. The big bosses decide who can be Family leaders, and then they assign them their Family members. Mari and me are real, true brother and sister, but we’re not related by blood to Quina or Paul. But don’t you forget what Quina said earlier, man. Our Families are a lot tighter than anything they got in the human world.”
    Reed breathed out. The human world. Alberto had said it so easily, so naturally. Not even Maricruz, the more observant of the two, had noticed the slip. The goddamn human world.
    They put on a good show for him, these Broschi, painting themselves as humans with a few extra needs. Not psychic vampires—gosh, no! But not human. Separate from the source of their sustenance.
    If he were smart, he’d turn and run. He’d lock himself inside his truck and drive until he ran out of gas money.
    Where did he have to go?
    Moments later, at the end of a particularly narrow hallway, they reached a closed door. Feeling, or maybe imagining, a new heaviness enter the air, Reed stepped briskly forward and turned the knob. It was, of course, locked.
    “It leads to the basement,” Mari said smoothly, and he turned to her.
    He flattened his palm against the varnished wood. “What’s in the basement?”
    “Basement stuff,” Alberto snapped. “Come on, Reed.” He waved his bandaged arm. “You haven’t even seen the library.”
    The door dwindled in his vision as they sauntered down the hallway.
    In the end, Quina convinced him to stay one night. After all, she reasoned, their house had plenty of spare bedrooms. It would please them all, especially Alberto, to have him stay one more day. He could put off all decisions tomorrow and, if he wanted,