Delirium (5 page)

She waited for him to turn around and walk where she indicated, and he did. But a greedy taint came off him and bled into the waters, warning her that his sidestep was about to turn into a lunge and a grab.

His arms banded around her, and time seemed to halt, a screaming pain bolting through her nervous system as if someone had lit the fluid in her spine on fire. But she’d already gathered her fight and was in motion. She bucked forward, fast and deep.

In dreams, everything was exaggerated, and Peter flew overhead, then slid across the pavement before rolling and clawing to a stop. His face tipped up, a snarl on his mouth.

She swayed, aftershocks of whatever he’d done to her making her arms and eyes twitch. Her breath was a shallow, staccato pull-and-push that didn’t quite balloon her lungs. Flaring her nostrils, she forced a deep draw that almost steadied her.

“You need to go,” she said, pointing down the street to where Scrape sand dusted the pavement, then heaped like drifts of golden snow, and beyond that, the dark void of the Scrape. “I won’t ask you twice.”

He made a mock fraidycat face as he stood up again. “Nightmares out there.”

“Too bad.” She could tell he wasn’t scared. Just surprised. Amused.

She was surprised, too. Not so much amused, though.

“If you’ll just cooperate,” he said, “this will go easier for you.”

Doubtful. But at least she’d been forewarned. This Peter seemed to have some weird talent that debilitated an opponent. She’d ask Harlen later if he’d heard of it before. But for now, she lifted a hand and beckoned him forward. “Let’s go.”

A little bravado to get her back up.

He adjusted his clothes, small movements that included a couple of steps toward her. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

She stood her ground. “You can blame yourself.”

He took another step and half, and she felt that greed again.

“Just show me where he is.”

“Not going to happen.”

He rushed her, chin down, wide shoulders flexing to bulldoze her. He lifted her off her feet, his arms tight around her waist. Again, lightning struck her system. Her vision flashed white, bones rattled, muscles quivered involuntarily.

She dropped her weight—not her waking world 130, either—she dropped the weight of her natural determination and her absolute certainty that under no conditions could Maze City be breached—certainly not by this guy with this weird power.

They fell together, his face at her ribs. The pavement cracked as they hit the street. She condensed all her fury into a single surge of movement and sent him overhead again. If he landed, she didn’t hear it. She was caught in a relentless, teeth-clattering spasm that left her limp in a sprawl, utterly vulnerable to attack from above.

Remembering Harlen finally gave her the impetus to turn over and blink past the residual haze in her eyes to look for her assailant again.

At first, she saw only shadows dancing, but then she realized that Peter was in Eleanor’s clutches. No, not Eleanor’s. The nightmare’s. Black claw marks were slashed deep across his neck as the creature grappled with him, and wind blew gold sparks in his eyes.

Sera pushed up to her hands and knees. She’d thrown him that far? To the edge of the dream?

A small impulse to help him twitched inside her, but then a second nightmare came, and Peter went down. In the gust and swirl of sand, she couldn’t see exactly what was happening, but she’d heard that nightmares ate revelers so she would keep her distance. Peter thrashed, but the Scrape wind lifted his cries away. And then he was still. She watched until the electric tremor in her body subsided.

Then she followed the directions she knew, not even counting the blocks or registering the turns, until she reached the meeting room. Still dingy, still needed a coat of paint. She sat on the velvet sofa, cold as stone. And then she waited until someone shook her.

It was the madman himself, Vincent Blackman. “You okay?”

She was a long way from okay. She’d just essentially killed someone. “I have to get back to the restaurant,” she told him instead. It was impossible to wake from someone else’s dreamscape or the Scrape, so she had to go back across the Scrape to what was left of her kitchen dream. “Harlen needs you to wait here—you or Rook.”

“Oh? Why?”

“I don’t know. Sounded important, though.” She didn’t want to talk to Vince. His hands were stained with nightmare blood. All this violence was
not
her thing, but she had to somehow make herself okay with it because Harlen lived it every day. She wasn’t losing him again.

Vince crouched and stopped her at her shoulders. “What happened to you, Sera?”

She shrugged him off, hard. “I just gave a trespasser to a couple of nightmares. He’s dead now.”

“A trespasser?”

“Yeah. He was looking for you, actually. Didn’t say why.”

“For
me
?”

Vince was really slow tonight. “He attacked me,” Sera said. “Was trying to subdue me, I think, so I would tell him how to navigate the city.”

It wasn’t her fault he got eaten by nightmares…except it kind of was.

She shook her head. She’d work it out with Harlen later. Standing, she said, “I’ve really got to get back to Marina. Stay here, will you? Tell Harlen.”

Vince stood, too. “You can’t go out into the Scrape alone. I won’t allow it.”

She finally met Vince’s gaze. “Last guy who tried to tell me what to do is dead.”

“Sera. You can’t stop me from following you.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve crossed the Scrape before. I did it to get here tonight. Killed a trespasser looking for you. And there’s something bad going on.” Not to mention she didn’t want company right now.

“Harlen would never let you—”

“Harlen knows I can take care of myself,” she shot back. “You need to stay. Something’s gone wrong.” In case he thought to follow anyway, she repeated,
“You need to stay.”

CHAPTER THREE

“And you just let her go?” Harlen couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Sera had been to Maze City. That part he didn’t doubt. He knew she’d wanted to help—not for any love of the world Darkside as she was anti-Rêve—but because she knew that the risks were multiplying and if something wasn’t done immediately, then not even the waking world would be safe.

“She said you needed me. That it was urgent.” Vince relaxed in an oversized chair with a high back, a leg crossed ankle to knee.

So—Harlen was still trying to figure this out—when she hadn’t gotten through to anyone on the phone, she’d come
personally
to Maze City. And then had bumped into the urgent business herself—Senator Fleight’s mercenary. Apparently, he’d shown up early.

“There are
nightmares
out there,” Harlen ground out between clenched teeth. Of all people, Vince should know. He’d been lost in the Scrape once, hunted, and attacked by those monsters.

“What if she were Rook?” Vince said. “Would you be this upset if
he’d
gone out into the Scrape?”

Harlen snarled at him. “I’m not angry because Sera’s a woman.” He was angry because he loved her. If not for her, he didn’t know if he could do this thing that Director Bright had asked him. If not for Sera acting as his anchor, he didn’t think he’d survive. If not for Sera, he wouldn’t care.

“Look, man, I’m sorry,” Vince said, sitting up and raising his bloodstained hands to concede all points. “If the trespasser was the merc you say Senator Fleight sent after me and Mirren, then your Sera is a born Darksider. She said she could take care of herself, and she did. Hell if I was going up against her.”

Sera had killed the mercenary.
Killed.
She had to be upset. Traumatized. She shouldn’t be alone with it, let alone cross the Scrape right after.

“Frankly, I can’t get over the fact that she wanted to go back to work,” Vince said. “Now that’s some crazy shit.”

“Of course she went back to work.” Harlen knew her restaurant was where she felt strongest. If she had made it back across the Scrape, then she’d have gone to Marina de Sel because it was her place. She built it. She’d be there with a knife in hand.

Instead of punching Vince in the face like he wanted to, Harlen took a deep breath. Vince didn’t know the whole story was all. “She had another near miss recently. Here, in fact…in Maze City,” Harlen told him. “Some Chimera asshole had been stalking her in her dreamscape for a while. She took too long to ask for help. Tried to handle it herself. And now your mercenary today… She had no help whatsoever again, and after she takes care of him, she goes and trudges back across the Scrape. She doesn’t recognize
limits
, and one day it’s going to kill her.”

The last part echoed from some hollow place in his gut. He knew Sera would’ve never let Vince escort her back. A crazy man at her back would’ve compounded her anxiety.

“You’re still in DC, right?” Vince asked.

“Yes.” Harlen would try to find her in her dreamscape tonight, though he had a feeling that she might not go back to sleep. Then he’d catch a flight first thing in the morning. Get to her as fast as he could. Director Bright would just have to handle the rest of the meetings.

“I can get you on a plane back to the West Coast tonight,” Vince said, as if reading his mind. Some revelers could do that—read minds—but Harlen hadn’t thought Vince had the ability. Would be scary if he did.

Harlen shook his head
no
, but said, “How?”

Vince opened a bloody hand. “I have a few friends left. Some favors I can call in. You go straight to Dulles. A plane will be waiting.”

Harlen inhaled deeply at the possibility. Before Vince had become a criminal, he’d been a rich guy, owner of the SpiderSly Company. He sounded like that rich guy now, not the nightmare-infected man he’d become.

“My name can’t be connected to yours in any way,” Harlen said. Not now that he was the new Darkside Division head.

Vince gave him a bored stare. “I’ll make sure it’s not.”

Still Harlen hesitated.

“Least I can do,” Vince said. “She killed the hired man coming after me and Mirren. I owe her. I owe all of you. A flight doesn’t even start to cover it. You just be there.”

She killed
reverberated in Harlen’s mind. Screw it. He was going.

“You know Fleight won’t give up,” Harlen said. A last warning. He was sure the senator would demand explanations and then redouble her efforts. “She’ll send someone else after you and Mirren.”

“Yeah, I figured out that much myself. Now we’re warned. You and I had better wake up. I have some arrangements to make.”

***

“This is the
black market
, Mrs. Wallace,” Viv said softly to the young woman nervously wringing her hands. “Malcolm is not here to witness your Echo, but to make certain that it runs smoothly. He will not interfere unless he feels there’s danger.”

Rook stood next to Viv, his expression guarded. His first clients’ emotions were a cocktail of anticipation and anxiety. At the moment, the latter was more powerful in the dreamwaters, creating eddies of panic that everyone could sense.

“You told us this was safe,” Mr. Wallace said to Viv. He was older than his wife by at least ten years. With a quick glance at Rook, he added, “I’m not willing to have my mind fucked over by either of you.”

Rook said nothing to put them at ease. Not his job.

“But
Emma
,” Mrs. Wallace said to her husband. “I want Emma. Just one last time. I’ll do it alone if you don’t want to, but I’m going to hold her again. You promised.”

Emma—their deceased daughter.

Echo Rêves drew from memories, in this case of a lost loved one, but the Rêves didn’t have the ability to help someone deal with their grief. Mr. Wallace was right: this was a mindfuck. Even if they got everything they wanted out of it—and Viv would make sure they did—they’d still leave in pain.

“I run a safe Rêve,” Viv said, “which is why Malcolm is here. You are
paying
for him to be here.”

Mr. Wallace’s gaze darted from Viv to Rook and then to his wife. “This is the only time, Gwen. The
only
time. You got that?”

Turned out Viv didn’t have to do much to sell the Rêve. Echo Rêves, by their nature, sold themselves. She just had to sell the guard.

“She’s your daughter, too!” the wife said.

“Was.
Was
my daughter. She’s gone now. When are you going to get it through your head that’s she’s gone?”

Sometimes people conflated the dreamwaters with the Hereafter, as if in the realm of dreams someone could live forever. Not true. No ghosts lingered here, just memories twisted by grief and time until the recollection became more about the reveler than the person they wanted to keep close. Mrs. Wallace would not hold her lost daughter today.

Viv had retreated, and now so did Rook. He would be near invisible as the Rêve initiated.

The Wallaces stood apprehensively—Gwen’s arms now folded, her husband behind her, his hands at her hips, as if scared of what might appear and ready to use her as a shield. The null space shifted fluidly, inky waters drifting, to become a little girl’s bedroom. The bed was small, built for a child and low to the floor. A blond little girl was waiting with a book in her lap. The scent in the room went from static cold to strawberry sweet.