Dreamveil by Lynn Viehl Read Free Book Online Page A

windows.
    It wasn’t as bad as some of the places Taire had slept. Once she’d spent a weekend hiding in the corner of a warehouse in the meat-packing district, and the stink of old blood and raw meat had made her so sick she’d puked up everything she’d tried to eat. She knew better than to try sleeping in Central Park, but she’d nodded off out of exhaustion one afternoon while sitting on a bench, only to wake up in the dark to find some old boozer groping through her jacket pockets for money.
    He hadn’t even been embarrassed over getting caught. Ain’t you got nothing you can gimme, little girl?
    Taire tried never to think about him, but sometimes she woke up smelling rotten breath laced with cheap wine, and seeing those bloodshot eyes bulging out as if they were going to pop out of his dirty, scabby old face.
    It wasn’t my fault. I was so tired.
    Once she felt sure no one was watching, Taire closed her eyes. A moment later she darted across the street and climbed through the narrow gap in the boards, pausing only to secure them again before moving toward the old reception desk.
    The city had cut off water and power to the building long before Taire had moved in, so the interior was as frigid as the outside, and the boards and sheets of plywood blocked out any light from the street. She’d bruised and scraped her hands and face falling over things more than once, but eventually she’d memorized every inch of the place, until she could walk freely in the dark. Now she moved confidently through the labyrinth of dry- rotting furniture in the lobby, sure of every step, leaving puffs of her breath to hang in the frozen air.
    To keep anyone from discovering her presence she’d been careful to disturb nothing, leaving the cobweb-laced drapes drawn open and the front desk to collect nothing but layer upon layer of dust and dead insects. Rats had been a problem for a while, until she’d found all the holes they’d been using to get in and sealed them from inside, where the repairs couldn’t be seen, using some drywall patches and filler that she’d taken from a supply shed at a construction site.
    Every time she stole something, guilt ate at her stomach. She wasn’t a thief. But taking something that didn’t belong to her was better than waking up to find some of her hair gone, gnawed off to line a rat’s winter nest.
    Since the elevators no longer functioned, Taire used the service stairs to go up to her room on the fifth floor. Along the way she checked each step for new footprints or signs that someone else had moved in. An abandoned building was an open invitation to anyone left out in the cold, and the plywood boards were getting old now. This winter was going to be a bad one; she could almost smell in the wind the coming snowstorms. If squatters broke in she couldn’t fight them; she’d have to go and start looking for another place.
    She thought of the faint blue glow that had appeared so briefly under Rowan’s sleeves. Or maybe I won’t have to.
    The door to the room she used was locked like all the others, but she’d filched one of the master keys from the manager’s desk and used it to let herself in. It was the smallest on the fifth floor, and contained only a single twin bed covered with a cheap brown and green paisley spread, an empty metal television stand (the heirs had gotten to the TV sets before the case went to court), and a cramped shower and toilet. The inch of water left in the toilet had frozen.
    Taire had chosen the room not because of the bed, which she never used, but for the closet tucked away behind the door. The small room adjoined another, larger suite, and the closet between them could be opened from both sides. If someone came in unexpectedly, she could take her things and slip out into the adjoining suite without opening the interior door or being seen.
    She went into the bathroom and stepped into the tub, tugging down her jeans before she crouched down low and emptied her