Storm Dreams (The Cycle of Somnium Book 1) (7 page)

She sniffled and levelled her gaze. “You must be shipping out soon.”

“Soon,” Cassidy said, nodding. He hadn’t let go of her hand. Prickles of electric sparks passed into his skin. Her life energy. Her emotions. They flooded over him in waves that felt more
real
than his own.

“I’ve got to get back to work,” she said, slipping her hand out of his. April turned to leave, but stopped and dug a large silver coin out of her vest pocket. “For luck.” It rested on the tips of her fingers, staring up at him. “I don’t know your name, and I’d rather not,” she said, pushing it towards him, “but if you make it back, and you’re ever in Darcy, Virginia...” She brought a hand to her lips to stop their trembling. “Just bring it to me so I know you made it back. I’d like to know someone made it back,” she said, looked embarrassed and hurried off to the bar. “If you don’t, I guess I’ll never know,” she said over her shoulder.

Cassidy stood staring at the coin, trying to recognize it. It looked newly minted with a woman in a flowing gown on its face, gesturing off to her right, the word LIBERTY written above her head. On the other side stood an eagle with unfurled wings. Why did the disk of silver feel so heavy? More
real
than anything else he’d ever touched. His pistol was
real.
The ship was
real
, but something of this strange girl April was still in the metal. Something of her life-force perhaps. The emotions she’d felt when she handed it over. An overwhelming sadness lingered in the milling and etched surface. Did he remind her of her brother? The thought of her brother sent a jolt of pain through him. Images of the young man bloated and dead in the sea. Her imagined memories perhaps. Grief. So much grief.

He stumbled into the lavatory, sick to his stomach. April’s pain still flooded through him as he sat in one of the stalls with his face in his hands. Even her emotions felt more
real
than his own. Bitter loss. Love. Longing he couldn’t put into words. He cried. Wept for a man he’d never met who’d gone down on some ocean somewhere in a world he’d hardly touched.

Cassidy sat up slowly as the young woman’s pain leaked away. He wiped the tears from his face, stood up and pushed the stall door open. The lavatory looked much like the rest of the place, far too ornate for any of its actual functions. The counters were marble and brass. A man in a red and gold uniform stood ready to hand him a towel.

Cassidy examined himself in the mirror. He splashed icy water over his face and watched the drops run off his skin without leaving it wet. It seemed his own body rejected the
real
liquid, or it rejected him.

The man in red and gold offered him the towel. Cassidy pretended to dry his already dry face and handed the man a small coin from his pocket. A nickel, perhaps a dime. He couldn’t remember the difference.

Outside a woman wearing an emerald green gown stared out at the city through an arched window. She glanced over at him and smiled. “Are you in the Army?” she asked, stirring a blue cocktail with a glass swizzle stick. The stick matched the red of the cherry that bobbed in the azure liquor.

“Sort of, ma’am,” he said. “I fly fighter planes.”

She gave a half-smile. Her eyes matched her dress, but the green was more watered down than the waitress’s eyes had been. She was pretty, but not too pretty. Her face looked almost plain with a small chin and a too-large nose, but he decided it was her poise that made her almost beautiful. “Is that what they do in the Army now?” she asked, teasing with her eyes. “Fly?”

“Yes. I mean—” Cassidy stammered. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he managed, “I fly against the Germans.”

“How unfortunate for them,” she said, approaching with an exaggerated sway of her hips. “Kill many?”

“Well, I—” Cassidy wasn’t sure. His memories of killing the two Armada fighters and the Twilight pirates were crystal clear, but past that…had he shot down any in the dream?

“It’s okay.” She ran a finger down the sleeve of his uniform. “I’m not squeamish. Are you one of those aces we hear so much about?”

“Probably,” Cassidy said, nodding. “It only counts if it’s over our own lines and there have to be witnesses. You could shoot several down, but if no one’s around to see it, I mean, there has to be proof that it was you who shot them down, and even then—” Cassidy realized he was babbling.

“My, you servicemen do go on.” She pulled the cherry from her drink by the stem, sucked the liquor off and popped it the rest of the way between her lips.

For a moment, Cassidy thought she’d swallowed the cherry whole. Her eyes widened. Something bone white poked out the middle of her torso, sticking through her dress. Blood blossomed over the emerald green. She crumpled to the floor, revealing the man from outside with the bowler hat standing behind her. His strange umbrella stuck straight out of her back like a flag marking its territory.

Cassidy reached for his gun. Remembered he didn’t have one. Realized he didn’t have anything but his fists. He charged.

The bowler man pulled the umbrella from the woman’s back and planted the tip on the floor beside him as if holding a cane and smiled.

Cassidy aimed his shoulder for the black bow tie. He made contact and the world changed. His blood froze. His body numbed and the world became a mass of swirling colours. He shook the dizziness out of his head and found himself lying on the floor against the far wall. A sheet of maroon wallpaper took up his entire field of vision.

“Whatever were you thinking?” the bowler man said. His accent sounded British, high society. He leaned up against the wall beside Cassidy cleaning his spectacles with a silk handkerchief. “You’re a dream,” the man said, flashing white feral teeth. “Might as well throw air at me.”

Cassidy groaned as he tried to sit up. “Why did you kill that woman?”

The man sighed. “Because I liked her. My wife would never approve.”

“You murdered her. For nothing,” Cassidy seethed through gritted teeth. The woman’s dead eyes stared at him as if pleading for him to act. Avenge her.

“She’s only meat,” the man said, and slipped his spectacles back on.

This couldn’t really be happening. Cassidy shook his head. One moment the blood was all over her gown. The next it was gone as the umbrella soaked it up.

“You,” the bowler man said, shaking his gloved finger, “shouldn’t even be here. I’d eat you, but you’d taste like cardboard.”

Banner lurched out of nowhere and stood between them.

The man’s face darkened. “You’re not a dream. But you look like a dream. How strange,” he said, putting his finger to the edge of his mouth. “Oh, well. Cheerio.” He extended his umbrella upward and opened the canopy. “Enjoy New York.” The umbrella lifted him into the air and he vanished through the ceiling.

Voices sounded down the hall. “Best not let them see you,” Banner said.

Cassidy willed himself invisible. It was so easy. Just a thought. Several men rushed around the corner and sped past him. They bent over the woman, checking her pulse. “She’s dead,” one of the men said. “Thought she must have fainted, but she’s dead.” The other men looked ashen.

“Can’t they see the blood?” Cassidy whispered, uncertain whether or not they could be heard.

“What blood?” Banner asked.

“It was there. I swear,” Cassidy said.

Banner shook his head and answered at full volume. “That creature was something dark from the Underworlds. The vicious things they do here translate as other things. They’ll probably find she died of a heart attack or something.”

Cassidy’s stomach sickened. “It was a cherry pit. She must have choked on a cherry pit.” His eyes watered as he looked down at her collapsed body. “I could have saved her. She was only choking.”

Banner nudged him to go. “Not likely,” he said, as he pushed Cassidy around the corner towards the lounge. “The creature wouldn’t have let you.” Men brushed past on their way to the growing crowd. They didn’t appear to actually
see
Cassidy or Banner, but avoided them unconsciously as if they were furniture. “Creatures like that,” Banner continued, “can do unspeakable things to us. But at least
we
can see them.”

Cassidy nodded. He still felt sick. Couldn’t forget the woman’s eyes, the way they’d bulged when the umbrella pushed through. The way she’d pleaded with him silently before she died, probably believing he was in on the murder. “It’s like I’m seeing behind the world,” Cassidy said. He faltered and leaned against the wall. “My God, I’m seeing the secret way men die, and there’s nothing I…”

Banner stopped and grabbed Cassidy by the lapels. He drew his eyes in tight on Cassidy’s face. “Don’t think about it, man. You’re only seeing part of it. There’s a lot more you’ll see, and there’s nothing we can do.” He released Cassidy and pulled away. “Like it or not, it’s not our fight. It’s not our world at all. We’re just shadows here.” His features softened. “I wish the
real
world was all daisies for you, but in the end we’re not really welcome.”

Cassidy nodded, but couldn’t stop thinking about the woman in green even as they made their way back to the
Nubigena
. It was as if, for a moment, life had made sense. As if he’d recognized something in her. Recognized something about himself that he couldn’t touch except through her. Something he would never be able to touch now that she was dead. Or was he thinking of April? He’d met them so close together and the experiences were already melding in his head.

He pulled the coin from his pocket and gripped it hard, trying to find April’s pain deep in the niches. Drops of sorrow leaked into his skin. He would always have this. This was more
real
than anything else he possessed
.

***

“Women’ll do that,” Brewster said, as they sat in the galley, back on the ship after dinner. The Englishman sipped tea and smoked a new blend of pipe tobacco from the supplies Franz had picked up. “You fall in love with a single look, a wink, a touch of their hand and bam, the world makes sense. Then it’s gone. You get over it.” He leaned back and blew a cloud of warm smoke into the air. “And you’ll meet many more.”

Cassidy stared out the window at the torrential rain and bursts of electric fire that blinked in and out of existence across the rolling clouds. “I don’t know that I was in love with them. Either of them. I just felt…” Cassidy wasn’t sure
what
he felt. But they’d been so
real
. And that had made
him
feel
real
. Like he could touch her and not feel like a ghost. He pulled out the coin and showed it to Brewster.

“That’s called a Walking Liberty,” Brewster said. “Minted recently. Worth half a dollar. Nice piece.”

Cassidy slid the coin into a deep inside pocket of his jacket. Didn’t want to use it up. April’s pain was a currency more dear to him than blood.

“The storms are thinning,” Brewster said. He stood and stretched. “That means we’ll head back to the Twilight soon.”

“I was enjoying the
real
world,” Cassidy said, without looking up, his eyes still fixed on the dark clouds beyond the window.

“We always come back,” Brewster said. “We just can’t ever stay. I’m turning in, though. Gun watch tomorrow, you know.”

Cassidy listened to the Englishman’s footsteps fade. Wondered if the dream actually needed sleep, or if it wasn’t just habit.

The ship felt asleep now. Empty. He smoked a cigarette and listened to the thunder. It thrummed in his chest as if it were the long-delayed heartbeat of the storm itself. Had he ever smoked before coming to this ship? The movements felt natural, but he couldn’t picture another time he’d ever done this.

Something red flashed in the corner of his eye. One of the starboard engines shed a large sheet of its outer covering and flames exploded out the side. It was one of the main engines, the ones attached to the Zeppelin’s rear hull. Cassidy bolted from the galley and made for the back stairwell.

Karl slept near the engine room and Cassidy found the door to his quarters without trouble. After several loud raps he pushed it open. Karl’s cot lay empty.

Cassidy made for the engine. The flames had already burned a hole in the canvas shell. They threw fiery shadows across the mammoth interior of the ship’s main cell forcing freakish shadows to lurch across the looming ribs. The gas bladders still swelled with helium. The fire couldn’t ignite it, but could burn through.

A shadow flickered across the curved wall and a scream rang out. “Karl?” Cassidy shouted as he approached the licking flames.

A creature stepped out from behind a girder that ran down to the engine. The thing looked very loosely like a man, and stood taller than Cassidy, but pencil thin. Instead of skin or clothing it wore a glistening shell like a black insect. Its head was elongated and its feet looked more like claws. The creature opened its mouth and let out a high pitched squeal that reminded Cassidy of the sound a stuck pig would make.

Cassidy reached for his Mauser. Again, he didn’t have it. An image of the pistol in its case flashed through his mind, lying on his bed.

Loaded.

Ready.

Useless.

A coarse German accent rasped from behind the creature. “Cassidy. Get help.” Karl’s jagged features poked out around the creature’s left foot. Blood ran down his cheek. His right arm extended out at a wrong angle.

The creature squealed again and charged. Cassidy moved. His mind went blank and focused. Instinct took over. The spindly black arm swung in a cutting arc, but Cassidy had already leapt back and was around the side of Karl’s tool shed before the creature could pounce again.

Cassidy grabbed a four-foot crowbar leaning against the wall and wielded it like a two-handed sword. The creature appeared from around the corner in a springing leap and landed on all fours, crouched like an attacking spider. Cassidy swung the crowbar but met empty air. The insect-like creature leapt over his head and landed behind him with the sound of chittering claws.

Jumping aside as the razor-like shin of the creature passed beneath Cassidy in an agile kick, he landed, swinging the crowbar downward at the chitinous head. The hardened steel made contact. There was a sound like a cracking egg.

The creature stumbled. Cassidy drew back for another blow. It spidered sideways on all fours and sprang again. The crowbar clattered to the deck as Cassidy lay pinned beneath the black body.

He scrambled to slide out from beneath the creature’s wiry frame, but it held his arms and legs to the deck. The claw-like hands felt like steel around his wrists. The crack in its cone-shaped head oozed a thick yellow liquid. It squealed again, high and victorious. Its beak mouth opened and descended towards Cassidy’s face.

The sound of metal thunder cracked and resounded through the cavernous insides of the
Nubigena
as two gunshots rang out. The cracked head exploded sending a shower of yellow goo across the floor and girders. The creature convulsed several times and collapsed with a sound like falling paper clips.

“Cassidy? Are you good?” Karl wheezed hard.

Cassidy struggled from beneath the corpse. He nodded as he tried to catch his breath.

The old engineer leaned against a support girder, bleeding onto the dull metal. His right arm hung twisted by his side. A .45 revolver dropped from his left fingers. It landed on the deck with a heavy clunk. “Is gremlin,” he rasped, and slunk down to the ground. “We pick them up in the air.”

Cassidy pulled himself up to his elbow and examined the thing from a distance. That’s a gremlin, he thought. He’d heard of them. They’d plagued large aerocraft since the beginning of aviation, but he’d always imagined them as small goblin-like creatures.

Boots thundered up the stairs. Banner, Brewster, Ned and Franz levelled their weapons.

“Dammit, Banner,” Karl spat from his slouched position at the girder. “You are too late. Drop the engine or it will take us down.”

The hole in the canvas was widening, and through it, flames licked up into the Zeppelin’s belly. Banner and Ned rushed to the support jacks.

“Jammed,” Ned yelled.

Banner levelled his Luger and emptied six shells into the supports. “Careful,” Karl yelled. Ned joined in, dispensing his revolver’s payload until the metal snapped and the fiery engine plummeted away.

“Blasted vermin,” Banner said, as he helped Cassidy up. “I hate gremlins. Damnable aerial spirits get pissed off just because they get caught in the metal.”

Cassidy rubbed the back of his head. Ned and Franz attended Karl, who groaned with every move. His arm had been broken in two places and a gout of blood stood out against the side of his head. While the two of them held him down, Banner set his arm. Only Franz and Cassidy understood half the words Karl used, but Cassidy doubted anyone missed the meaning.

***

Cassidy returned to Karl’s quarters after the excitement died down. He paused at the door and grimaced. He’s a German, Cassidy kept thinking to himself, but knocked.

“What?” Karl’s voice rang from inside, harsh and impatient.

Cassidy opened the door. The old engineer lay on his bed, a bandage around his head and a mass of gauze around his right arm. He smoked a cigarette with his good hand.

“Just wanted to check on you,” Cassidy said. “That thing tore you up pretty bad.”

The old man stared. His blue eyes bored into Cassidy’s. “You,” he said, pointing at Cassidy with the glowing ember of his cigarette. “The magnetos on that Fokker will always work. Always. I promise.” He blew a cloud of smoke. “You are new.” He paused. “You are young, to us.”

Cassidy nodded, assuming the German meant that he was the most recent member of the crew. Karl’s German sounded much thicker and more broken than Fritz, who seemed almost fluent.

“Come,” Karl said standing. “I want opinion.” He led Cassidy to a section of the vast inner cell he’d never seen. Behind a hanging tarp stood an array of various machines. Two stood taller than him by several feet. “This,” Karl said, pointing to a semi-circular unit with thousands of yards of thin wire wrapped around the central stem, “is dynamo. Light materials. Very expensive. Generate a lot of electricity. This,” he said pointing to a large ten by ten foot box covered in glass tubes and wires, “I don’t know. Look.”