Jonathan: Prince of Dreams

by A Corrin

  Peter scowled and scolded, “Everyone else is needed! Just sneak in. If you are threatened, it’s more than likely that your necklace will release your power!”

  He practically chased me down the stairs, and I slipped down, muttering darkly, “‘More than likely.’ What a bunch of…”

  I pulled the key out of my jeans pocket and ran my fingers around it, realizing with some disgust at myself that they were shaking with fear.

  In all of my time here, I had not seen any other inhabitants of the inn. I knew there were some, for, at night, I heard them stumbling up to their rooms to get lost in drunken slumber. The Ranker could be behind any one of those doors, listening for my footsteps. The thought made a shiver zip up from my feet to my head, raising the hair on the back of my neck.

  In an effort to look behind me, I tripped over a patchy section of the hall rug and stumbled forward loudly. After a few stomps, I righted myself, eyes squeezed shut, biting my lip…waiting…

  When no heads peeked from around the hall doors, I rushed the rest of the way down into the common area. It was strange to see it pitch dark and deserted with the chairs all up on the tables and the mugs stacked up behind the bar.

  The bartender’s room was around the bar opposite from me. I approached the door cautiously. It was painted a thick layer of black. The coat gleamed brightly from the blue-tinted moonlight beaming in through the stained-glass windows. The golden knob had become tarnished from the numerous times it had been turned by a dirty hand.

  I skirted a table and pressed my ear to the cold wood, my fingertips grazing the frame. No sound.

  I wrapped my hand around the knob, turned it squeakily, and pushed. It slid open against the floor along a well-worn trail of dust.

  I was surprised to see that the walls within were painted—a deeper shade of beige. The ceiling, slanting together to form a triangular point, was steepled five feet above me. It was different from the main room behind me that had a flat ceiling and was more like the upper story I dwelled on. I held my coral necklace clamped in one hand—it made me feel comforted.

  I came into a short hallway. As I traveled slowly down its length, I squinted hard at some pictures hanging up on the walls. They were tucked behind ornate frames and painted with dark, blotched colors. I saw a stern gray-haired man with long sideburns forming a bushy mustache beneath his nose. He could have been the bartender’s grandfather. A plump, ruddy, smiley woman could have been his mother.

  Glass crunched under my shoe. I stepped back and looked down. There was another picture, broken and dirty. Claw marks ravaged the wall right beneath the spot it had been hung, as if some beast had found it excessively intriguing. But carefully fingering away the sprinkled bits of destroyed framing, I came to a different conclusion.

  This painting was of a stunningly pretty girl. Her eyes were warm and expressive, her lips turned up in a smile. Her sharp and elegant face, framed by strands of brown hair escaping her bun, hinted at European blood if there was such a thing here. It had to be the bartender’s deceased wife.

  Saddened, I crept on.

  The sitting room was floored by a tapestry-like tasseled rug sewn with twisting patterns that had become faded. Bookshelves stood around the walls, their tomes dusty and unread. An oil lantern was positioned by a large red-velvet chair that faced a fireplace. Only one window illuminated the setting.

  Standing just inside the room brought to my mind many bemusing and haunting thoughts. Maybe the bartender, on the lonesome nights when he took on the form of a wolf, would curl up in that high-backed chair and stare into the fire, or open the window and climb out to roam his lost beloved’s garden, or trot over to her broken picture to ponder on all that could, and would, have been.

  Sighing, I found another smaller door just beyond a bookcase and pushed it open, instinctively drawing to one side in case something should leap out. It didn’t even cross my mind to wonder why no one appeared to be home. When nothing jumped out of the room, I rounded the wall into it, my sword bumping against my thigh as if to remind me it was there. I had my forefinger flittering around the hand guard, just waiting to spring the switchblade.

  I was in the bedroom. The bed itself was surrounded by four violet curtains, tattered and dirty. The pillows had been gutted and their goose-down feathers were strewn all over the unkempt comforter. The window on the wall opposite me, on the other side of the bed, was open to the black night. A cold breeze made the curtains around the bed dance.

  I was about to let myself feel the first stabs of frustration when the moon burst from the cloud cover and shone through the window. It flashed on something I could only see a sliver of from where I stood. It looked like wood.

  I moved toward it and saw the chest. Inflating with success, I fell to my knees and brought out the key.

  This chest was about the same size as the one I’d seen in the carpentry, but it was engraved and touched up with chipping paint. I ran my fingers over the peeling pictures of a dove, a rose, ringing bells, and two hands (one dainty and thin, the other large and strong) striving to touch.

  The lock was small and bending in some places, so it took some effort to fit in the key. I hoped none of my friends snuck up behind me. I was wound up enough to give myself heart failure.

  I forced the key to turn, worried it would snap, but instead I heard the satisfying clunk of the lock turning. I lifted the chest’s lid, the moon shining its light on the contents.

  Jewelry, and lots of it, reflected the moon in thousands of different-colored facets and planes. There were necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. I saw one hair tie made of pure pearls and diamonds. These couldn’t be clues. Carefully, I removed the jewelry and set it aside in a weighty pile. A quilt, green and white with a flower pattern, was next. I took it out, spread it across my legs, and gave it a hasty pat-down, in case an object had been sewn into the lining. No luck. I fished out a few lacy baby outfits and an unopened bottle of wine before I came to an interesting box.

  The box was hand-carved oak and studded with rubies so that none of the wood showed through. When the box was opened, I was struck by a sweet perfume that reminded me of the air after a fresh rain, recently cut fruit, and spices all at the same time. The smells wafted up from a coil of midnight-colored flowers resting in the box’s silk interior. Lifting out the chain, I found out the blooms formed a necklace—like a Hawaiian lei. Attached to the lei by a thin strip of interlocking metal links was something like a silver ninja star, its ragged disk of teeth waiting for blood.

  I tucked the lei into my sweater pocket, arranging the star so that it wouldn’t cut into me, and tipped the box upside down in case I’d missed anything. Something clinked to the floor, bounced once, and flickered gold.

  It was a wedding ring.

  “Mmm,” I murmured sadly, and nudged it with my toe into the rest of the abandoned jewelry.

  The moon was covered by a sudden swath of clouds, and I was shrouded in menacingly quiet darkness that pressed against me like an evil force whispering threats in my ear. Not moving an inch, I waited for the lights to come back on, so to say.

  When they did, and the moon obediently poked into the room, I turned. Face-to-face with the bartender.

  “Prince, eh?” He gave me a wicked, lopsided grin, fangs dripping.

  I was hit over the head from behind with what felt like a rock.

  A bruising ache washed through my body from my skull, closely followed by a wave of numbness. My muscles slackened, my legs gave, and I entered a deep slumber where I knew absolutely nothing and had no dreams.

  Chapter Twenty-Two:

  Meanwhile, Back in Reality

  On Tyson’s Front Porch

  Getting Tyson home had been quite the ordeal. The hospital had been thrown into chaos by the attack and the staff had had a time of it relocating patients, making sure the power still worked, and assisting emergency personnel in t
ending to those who’d been injured or killed in the explosion.

  Tyson had opted to go home early—his discharge had been coming up soon anyway—and his parents had helped him to get settled in his room. They were inside now, giving him his medication. He was putting on a brave face, but Nikki had been watching him closely on the ride home. His skin had become ashen, his jaw muscles tensed as if he were gritting his teeth against a whimper of pain, and his eyes were weary and hollow.

  Nikki sat in the rocking chair on the porch, watching the horrible events from the hospital on repeat in her mind’s eye. She dissected the weightlessness she’d felt as she’d been thrown toward her death, picking at the shock that’d rang through her upon realizing that she was about to die, as if fascinated by the sensations.

  Her hero, Donovan, sat silently on the porch swing adjacent to her, watching her muse. She looked up at him, and he gave her a supportive little smile, one that she tried to return. He’d latched himself to her and her friends as if he wanted to keep an eye on her, and she found the sentiment admirable. It was exactly the kind of thing Jonathan would do. In the rare times they’d had a chance to talk, Donovan had told her that he was from England and that his grandmother, whom he’d been visiting in the hospital, had died in the attack. He seemed to find comfort in being close to others his own age, and Nikki wasn’t going to turn him away. He was charming and helpful, and though she couldn’t really say why, he seemed to fill a gap in her heart, in their circle of friends, like he was a plug that had shown up just in time to try and dam up their misery in the face of losing Jonathan.

  Tyson’s front door opened and Vince and Lia came out, speaking mutedly. Lia plopped into a chair beside Nikki and after a moment of hesitation, Vince took the only other remaining seat beside Donovan on the swing, giving him an awkward but courteous nod of the head.

  “How’s he doing?” Nikki asked Lia.

  Lia appeared completely drained. Her hair was knotted and frizzy and dark circles shrouded her eyes. She shook her head, eyes wincing.

  “He’s in a lot of pain, but he’s getting better.” She leaned forward over her knees, resting her head in her hands and gazing forlornly down at a stain on the porch. “What is happening? Why is everything so...insane all of a sudden?”

  “Whatever ‘it’ is, it is happening all over the world,” Donovan said gently. He looked from Vince to Nikki, as if seeking their support or confirmation. “People have always been insane. Violent. But this is something else entirely.”

  “Mm,” Vince grunted, nodding, “Like someone turned the crazy up and then broke the dial. But it all seems so organized; like it’s happening methodically, step by step. There are plenty of terrorist groups claiming responsibility for everything, but no one’s been caught and arrested. I think it’s all talk.”

  Lia suddenly looked up at Nikki. “What did you call them, Nikki?”

  Nikki looked at her blankly.

  Lia combed some blonde strands out of her eyes and said, “At the hospital you said something about, um...Rankers, right?”

  Nikki thought back. Everything leading up to the explosion was shrouded in a fog of fear and misery. She wrenched at her thoughts, trying to focus and penetrate that fog to remember what it was she had known, if anything. Hadn’t it been something Jonathan had said? But it felt like months now since she’d seen Jonathan.

  Her eyes stung with tears. What with all of the chaos now taking hold of their world, the police would have to prioritize their cases and she doubted that finding a missing teenager would be high on their list next to preventing further terrorist attacks or aiding victims of the violence. Something in her heart told her that it would be a long while before she saw Jonathan again, if she saw him at all.

  Donovan stood up and moved to put a hand on her back. “It is okay,” he said soothingly.

  “I don’t remember,” Nikki croaked. She looked up and saw that Vince and Lia were looking at each other oddly, as if Donovan’s presence bothered them. She felt a spurt of frustration with them—Donovan had saved her life, couldn’t they at least give him a chance? But then Lia’s phone buzzed and she pulled it from her pocket and read the screen.

  “Kitty and Ben are coming over,” she said. “They want to see Ty.”

  Donovan looked nervous, as if meeting more new people made him shy. He glanced at his car in the driveway and seemed about to suggest that he should leave, but before he could Nikki smiled wanly at him and said, “I’ll introduce you when they get here.”

  Donovan’s curving lips lifted in a meek smile and he bobbed his head and said, “I will not argue.”

  “Good,” Nikki said.

  She wasn’t sure what Ben and Kitty would make of Donovan, but she told herself that she didn’t care. Donovan made her feel safe, important, and cared for, just as Jonathan once had. And she was not about to let that go without a fight.

  Chapter Twenty-Three:

  I’m an Unlucky Boi

  I was drifting peaceably, dreaming about Nikki, when something shook me so violently, I awoke.

  My good ol’ Ranker buddy had a hold of my hair and was jiggling my head around to wake me up. I had a splintering headache. It didn’t help that I could barely breathe. The bartender had just tied the knot on the ropes that bound me to a chair.

  The gargoyle’s hood was down, revealing his stony snout and shark-like teeth. He held a sort of five-pronged trident that was made so that when it was plunged into a victim, it would have to be twisted to be pulled back out. The raven was balancing on its master’s shoulder, occasionally flapping its wings.

  I was in the main room of the bar, right in the center spot. All of the tables and chairs had been pushed to the sides to allow my captors room to pace.

  The lei I had so rightfully obtained was now around the Ranker’s neck, and the sight of the flowers resting against his chest would have made me laugh if I had thought it would’ve gotten me somewhere. But no, here I was. Tied to a chair. La-de-da.

  “Intercepting our clues,” he said slowly, scornfully. “That’s your plan?”

  The familiarity of his voice stung me. Seeing the monster that had haunted my nightmares so frequently of late brought a quiver of fear to my stomach.

  The Ranker was enjoying what looked like a Bowl of Bemusement. I wondered if it affected him the same way it did normal people, or if it made him more powerful. I was leaning toward the latter. The monster set his half-full bowl down on the ground next to me and ran a snakelike tongue around his jowls. His small eyes were scarlet, his lipless mouth arranged into an ecstatic smirk. It felt wrong to see a human expression being used by a monster.

  I nodded at the bowl. My voice was still a little slurry, and I tried to get my aching brain to stop ringing, but I asked, “What do the clues mean? If you’re guiding people toward a rendezvous point or something, then what’s with the soup? Is it in case they need a pick-me-up?”

  The werewolf’s glowing eyes narrowed. He glanced at the Ranker, then away. I took note of his reaction, then frowned up at the gargoyle when he said, “A means to an end. It would have given our troops additional strength—”

  “—And it was corrupting dreamers for you, too,” I added, “People having nightmares who were trying to escape their pain. Or dream creations. You were creating more bodies to throw into the war.”

  “The more, the merrier,” the Ranker said brightly.

  “Where are my friends?” I asked, my voice quivering.

  The Ranker, and the bartender hunched behind me, shared a laugh. Swishing his robe, the gargoyle cried, “They are gone, Jonathan. They’ve left you.”

  My heart sank. I tried to counter his retort with reasoning. “No, they…they wouldn’t leave me because—”

  “What?” The Ranker simpered, putting on a voice as if he were talking to a baby. “Because you’re their prince?”

  “No!” I snapp
ed, face burning.

  The gargoyle grabbed my chin in one cold claw and looked observantly down into my face. “You haven’t learned courage yet,” he said. “Fear, yes. Anger is there as well. But I don’t see bravery.” He released me with a flick of his wrist, jerking my head.

  “Oh, yeah?” I retorted. My conscience was warning me to keep my cool, but I had hardly gotten any restful sleep and was a tad grumpy. “How’s Garrett doing? I think I remember kickin’ his ass!”

  The bartender sucked in a breath. The raven cawed. The Ranker halted in his tracks.

  Having seen that I’d hit a sore spot, I rushed mindlessly on. “The chicken-shit had to go and stick a knife in my back. So don’t stand there and tell me I have no courage!”

  “Shut up!” The Ranker whirled and struck me in the cheek with the back of his claw. It felt like someone had thrown a rock at my temple. My vision blurred, my head wailed in protest, and I threatened to pass out again. The Ranker had his fists balled in rage. His tail danced like a lashing serpent.

  “You know nothing,” he snarled. “There are different kinds of courage. The sort you lack requires relying on faith alone. You’re still afraid to die.”

  I didn’t deny his statement but moved my tongue around the inside of my mouth, searching for loose teeth, and said quizzically, “Faith? You mean, like, praying?” I thought back to the powerful effect that had had on the gargoyle in my nightmare and added, “’Cause I could do that if you want me too.”

  The stone beast chuckled scathingly. “To whom? You don’t even know your God. Go on and try. Your words would be empty. Where will you go when you die? How will you face your end?”

  “I haven’t ever had time to think about it,” I lied, trying to keep him talking so that he wouldn’t move on to the inevitable: using that nasty-looking weapon of his.

  The gargoyle tightened his grip on his trident with a satanic grin and said, “Nor will you ever have any.”

  “You must have been a great kid to have in class,” I jabbed sarcastically, hiding my terror, as usual, behind a sassy facade. I began to pull at my bindings more frantically.