Upside Down (COMPLETE) Inside Out, Book 2 [BoyxBoy]

Parker

Since the meeting, the dream always started as a silhouette.

The nightmare grew, and every time Parker woke up, he couldn't find his breath. It was like someone was strangling him in his sleep. Literally.

He refused to believe in the prophecies and predictions before, but things were different after Mage Vutoir spelled his head to track this hiding enemy. Parker started to see it as a dark shadow, and he kept finding himself waking up feeling terribly frightened ever since. The scariest thing about this was because he had no clue of what was trying to harm him. He had lived his life so many years free from fear and terror, always knew how to shield himself from danger.

However, Parker realized that nothing lasted forever. If this was the end, maybe he should let it go.

He knew everyone wanted him to die, and he didn't blame them for it. He had desired death since his Change, but none of the endeavors of his opponents worked. Some of them died in his hands. Some of them came close in ending his life, but they kept playing around on the surface of the water—if they dived deep enough, Parker was certain they would have already found victory.

As their attempts always fell short, they never succeeded in ending Parker, and it exhausted him. Maybe it was the vampire blood streaming inside of him, but it seemed like nature to fight back ever since he became an immortal. Violently. He was too vehement that nobody had prospered going against him.

To some, Parker was heroic, but most considered him the world's biggest threat. Even though he was no longer the killer he once was.

He didn't do things in a child's way. He was a slaughterer like a little boy in a playground—he didn't choose which playpen to go to, he just went for anything with his eyes closed. If the Custody didn't make a move, that murderer inside of him would remain deep in his soul. If the Clan was even a minute late, he knew he would be a monster by now.

Well, who didn't want to kill the most dangerous immortal in the world? It would be all over the news in the Hidden Community—werewolves, vampires and all immortals alike would unite for a huge festival to celebrate Parker Sebastian's nonexistence. There would be no more half-wizard half-vampire for the world to fear.

Many had tried to replicate the kind of creature that he is before, but none of the attempts worked. No magicians had survived the Change but Parker alone. He was the only one of his kind.

So the nightmare, and the existence of this enemy, didn't surprise him. For almost a decade, creatures across the globe were strategizing attacks on him from every single direction. Paranoia used to be his best friend, but menacing things kept coming to him so often that his brain had been wired to them. The killers that were assigned to murder him used predictable approaches and Parker found them to be boring.

But this time, his enemy decided to remain concealed in dark shadows. Parker couldn't tolerate this act of cowardice; it was foul-play, filthy and unjustified. He preferred his battles man-to-man, so he could see their eyes dropping tears as they screamed their pleas out or their smiles once they finally had his life on the edge.

He couldn't shake off the enemy's figure in his sleep, in his most vulnerable state. A wave of tremor had collided inside of his chest, torturing him, draining sweat out of his skin. It had been a month, and he couldn't tolerate these nightmares anymore. According to Vutoir, if the nightmares recur, it was a symptom of retaliation from the enemy.

Fever, nausea and fear were once again his loyal companions. Parker never searched for his rivals before, they were the ones who usually revealed themselves.

He said an oath to himself to not forgive this enemy of his. He swore to his immortal life that this would be the biggest battle in his life, and he would die for it.

He desired both outcomes: to find the death he desired, or to see the enemy bleed to demise.

"Next?" Venia, his assistant, asked as she handed him the Firestalk, an orchid mutated by one of the oldest spells ever known to magicians. He was perfecting a key to enter someone's dream, and now he was using it to enter his own.

"The venom," Parker told her. She handed him a small glass bottle filled with a faint yellow liquid—a poison from a blackhead python, a dark ingredient to intensify the potion. The last recipe didn't work probably because Parker had attempted the potion without it, but he was positive it would work this time around.

He poured the venom inside a long tube, and the liquid burned the orchid petals down, puffing out black smokes. He breathed the venomous air in and closed his eyes, visualizing the desired effect that he wanted inside his head. The stronger his will, the more effective this potion would be.

Last time, Parker didn't really care, like he was ready to let the nightmares win over him, so that's probably why the potion lost its effectiveness.

Things were different now.

He swung his wand in the air and pointed to the tube in front of him. Blue sparks flew into the black smokes and a red fluid started to bubble up from the bottom of the tube, filling up the thin capillary. The boiling effect strengthened, and Parker let out a spell to calm the particles down. Then, the boil came down to a simmer and the red liquid inside the tube consumed half of the container.

"I guess it's ready," said Venia, who had been standing to watch in awe, her face displaying a look of triumph. Parker wasn't surprised, she had always been happy for him.

"I'm ready," Parker said. "I can feel it. I can find the enemy tonight."

"So . . . if we hear you screaming later in the night, we don't need to worry?"

Venia chuckled and Parker felt a twinge of embarrassment. The nightmare had forced him to yell and shriek at night, and that's why the Clan wasn't fond of his situation. Their number one weapon was in danger. He could see it, as it bloomed clearly in Venia's eyes, that they were putting high hopes for his effort to work. They wanted him to trace the enemy so they could see it gone. Once everything was over, their firearm would be free from harm again, and they would remain the most powerful vampire clan in the universe.

He wondered how they would feel if they knew about him also rooting for the opposite outcome.

"You will find this coward," Venia said. "I'm certain."

Parker sniggered, now reaching out to the tube to take the potion. The red of the fluid was bright enough for him to believe it as blood, or maybe he was just hungry now.

Venia added, "Is it possible to kill the enemy from your slumber?"

Parker shook his head. "I don't think so. The intensity of the dream itself is unbelievable. The key now is to identify these hiding shadows. The potion will verify whether the hallucinations I had as real or nonexistent—if it's the former, then I can identify the enemy's location once I wake up."

The snake venom would pin the visions of his dreams inside his memory. Projecting these images could make the work easier—he would place them in the Door and portal right to the location.

"How do you know you're going to dream the nightmares tonight?"

Parker turned to look at Venia. He couldn't objectify the answer to her question, but he was certain for what he had in mind.

"It will come," he said. "It never goes away."

Venia moved, her straight shiny hair bounced in the air, her long legs walked slow and steady steps to the door. If he were still a mortal wizard like he had been years ago, he would have noticed her beauty by now. But neither she nor other women or men could return those feelings to him. The Change destroyed that part of him, and he knew Venia was trying hard to bring it back.

She winked as he took the tube. He didn't take his eyes off her when he drank the liquid in. He sipped it to the last, bright-red drop, and Venia still stood there.

"Sweet dreams," she said asshe stepped out of the room. She closed the door and Parker advanced toward hiscot, drowsiness already taking over his head.