Dreamonologist

by Gregory Pettit

  My heart leapt into my throat—how could this man possibly be here in the real world? My mind was buzzing with the implications, and I wanted to spin around and pepper him with questions, but just then a spike of flesh and bone speared through the door with a scream of tearing wood and metal, missing Vir by a fraction of an inch and making him flinch back in surprise. That sudden, unexpected loss of contact with the door broke Vir’s concentration, and I saw the glow around his eyes dim as he snapped back into his body, releasing the door to the tyranny of Newtonian physics.

  The Protean burst through the battered remains of the portal, trapping Vir’s already-unconscious body beneath the door as it ripped free of the hinges. The creature’s red eyes locked on me, and it snarled something in an unfamiliar language and flexed backward-jointed legs that propelled it ten feet in a single bound. The metallic prongs of a Taser lanced out from Agent Paula, burying themselves in the Protean’s now-pebbly-gray flesh, but the monster ignored the attack and attacker, stomping toward me with murder in its eyes and a pair of serrated hooks in place of hands. My head was starting to spin with exhaustion from using my powers, but I reached down for them again, thinking of everything I’d lose if the Protean gutted me as it so clearly intended.

  “Drak, nur g’lak, p’tah,” sounded in my right ear, ruining my focus again as the old man stepped out from behind me. The Protean stopped a dozen feet away, cocked its head to the side, and hissed. The old man demonstrated his disappointment in the response a moment later, thundering, “Drak, nur g’lak, p’tah koor!”

  By this point, sirens were blaring only a couple hundred yards away, and I was pleased to see that at least the general public had all fled this section of the estate, their shouts at the sight of the horrific Protean nevertheless carrying over the general din. That was, they carried over the din until the Protean screamed like a cat in a violin string factory and exploded toward me.

  I bravely threw myself to the ground, emitting a manly shriek in full expectation that this was my last moment on earth, but from the corner of my eye, I saw the man from my dream blur into motion, and suddenly both of his hands were filled with small crossbows. Small, empty crossbows. The Protean’s foot clipped me as it sailed over my head, still screeching, making me topple onto my side but leaving me intact.

  Shaking my head, I tried to roll to my feet, fight overtaking flight for the moment, but before I could catch my balance, a size-twelve loafer landed on my ribs, pressing me into the concrete, knocking my breath out in a whoosh of air. I felt a tingle, like champagne bubbles fizzing on every nerve ending, and I almost passed out. In front of me, I could see the Protean lying on the pavement not more than five feet away, its face locked in a rictus of hatred, showing a mouth full of two-inch-long daggers—and as dead as a Big Mac thanks to the crossbow bolts protruding three inches out of both eyes.

  “Put your hands behind your back, monster,” the accented voice said.

  Half-delirious, I laughed and tried to push myself up as I said, “Nice shot, but I don’t think he’ll be getting up any time soon.”

  The foot on my back pushed down harder. “I was talking to you, fool. I’ve read the Chapter Master’s reports of what you’ve done. I’ve spoken to your victims’ families. You are a menace. A reckless, thoughtless, arrogant killer of men. A monster. And today, on my word as a gentleman, I’m going to make sure that you don’t hurt anyone else,” the old man said, his voice starting out as a growl but growing to a ringing clarion by the end of his declaration.

  The words stung. I’d thought them about myself many times in the last few months, and for a moment I almost accepted the accusation, but I had Olivia to get back and, if the strange newspaper from my dream was correct, a bloodbath to stop. I had to get some answers. “I was in your dream last night. You used me to help kill the vampire. We need to talk,” I said.

  The man’s foot pressed down on me harder. “What did you say? A vampire? Inconceivable. Where?” he demanded, leaning down and putting his face next to mine, revealing features that I hadn’t been able to divine in the darkness of the previous night’s dream. He had wide-set, dark-blue eyes, a broad forehead topped with shoulder-length, graying red hair, and a strong, clean-shaven jaw interrupted by a large, mobile mouth. It was the face of a man dedicated to his pursuits.

  “Last night. I was in your dream. You were hunting a vampire; it was hiding in a tree, but then you used me as bait to draw it out and ambush it,” I said.

  The man squinted at me, no flicker of recognition on his face. “That sounds plausible,” he pronounced. “The vampire, describe it.” Apparently the man hadn’t remembered the dream, but I understood that was how things worked for a lot of normal people. I opened my mouth to recount the features of the pale-skinned, golden-haired night stalker, but before I could say a word, Christian’s growl cut through the air.

  “Drop your weapons, Sloane. He’s ours.” The other man, Sloane presumably, muttered an imprecation under his breath and then, before anyone could react, holstered his weapons, turned to stomp away, and flung an actual, honest-to-God scroll at Christian. Christian had the reflexes of a gamer on a Red Bull binge, but he wasn’t fast enough to catch the paper before it hit him in the forehead.

  I stumbled after the man, Sloane. On a sudden impulse, I shouted, “You said you found it! I know where it is!” Sloane glanced back over his shoulder, a look of shock on his face—and then darkness closed in on me, and I collapsed to the ground.

  Chapter 8

  1900–2345, Wednesday, June 15, 2016

  Dana set down a glass of hot chocolate on the nightstand next to the bed, where I was resting. “So what does this mean? Some old man uses you as bait in a dream, and then the next day he saves you in the real world?”

  “I…I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. It was a damned good question, and I was worried. It was incredibly rare that I’d see anyone from a random dream in the real world—of course, after getting my mother’s letter, it probably wasn’t entirely “random.” I’d like to have said that it was incredibly rare that someone attacked me in the real world, but that would have just been a lie. I also thought of the newspaper at the end of my dream and shivered—if the man from my dream had been real, could the outbreak that the paper mentioned be real too?

  “And you’re sure that what’s-his-name, Sloane, reacted to your bluff?” Dana asked, jerking me back into the moment, one hand across her swollen belly. Having passed out only a couple of seconds after seeing Sloane’s reaction and woken up just minutes ago, I found it my most vivid recent recollection.

  “Yes, I’m sure of it. Whatever the man might be, he isn’t a poker player,” I said. My years in the corporate world had taught me how to read people, and that skill hadn’t deserted me just because I’d started working for a shady secret society. What had deserted me was my sense of self-preservation, and I closed my eyes, feeling sick at the thought of the risks I’d taken.

  Dana furrowed her brow and ticked off points on her fingers. “So let’s think about this logically: your mom tells you that you have to find some magical doodad; she gave you something to make you dream of a guy who starts yelling about an ‘it’ in your dream; you see the same guy in the real world the next day; and he freaks out when you mention ‘it.’” She pointed at me. “So you need to find this Sloane guy and get him to help you find whatever this thing is—maybe he knows what it’s good for.”

  Dana’s logic was sound, but her plan was too dangerous. “And maybe he isn’t in any mood to share. You didn’t see this guy in action…” I thought of how he’d called me a monster. “I want Olivia back just as much as you do, but if I get killed, getting her back will be a lot more difficult. And, sweetheart, you…” I trailed off, looking pointedly at her round stomach while trying not to think of the number of my colleagues who hadn’t made it home to lie in bed next to their loved ones tonight.

  “Don’t sweetheart me, Julian Lucas Adler. You’re the one who lost our daughter.
If you want any to be any part of my life, or this one”—she nodded downward—“then you’ll damned well get her back,” she demanded, her Southern accent becoming more pronounced as she gave me a tongue-lashing.

  I closed my eyes, the wind taken out of my sails, but I had to try to explain my concerns to her. “Swee—”

  She glared at me.

  “Dana, I made a mistake not sharing my secret with my family, trying to do everything on my own, but the ordeal with the puca taught me that I couldn’t. Then I made another mistake, thinking that the ends justified the means, that whatever I had to do, whatever suffering I saw, could be treated as a sacrifice on the altar of rescuing you. That very nearly blinded me to the path that led back to you. I want…I need Olivia back, but let’s do it on our terms. You’re brilliant, and I’m learning more from the Sons every day. We’ll figure something else out. We don’t have to go on whatever wild goose chase Mom’s cooked up. Why would we trust her?” My mother had abandoned her family—I wasn’t going to forgive or forget that.

  I was worried that Dana would turn icy cold, like she had when she’d fled back to Florida in the immediate aftermath of Olivia’s kidnapping, or start screaming, demanding that I do more to get Olivia back, like she’d done a few times since she’d moved back to London. Instead, she did something that destroyed my logical concerns—she cried. My tough, smart, beautiful, rocket scientist of a wife’s face crumpled like a paper bag in a thunderstorm, great salty tears pouring down her cheeks. “Please, Julian. I’m so worried. Please do everything that you can to get her back. I don’t care what you have to do. I don’t care what I have to do. I’ve stuck by you through so much. We won’t get another chance like this. I’m sure of it. Just get our little girl back. I can’t take being apart from her. I can’t take all…all…this.” She gestured at her belly, lay down on the bed next to me, buried her smooth, oval face in my chest, and wept great, racking sobs. I stroked her hair, feeling the soft strands slip through my fingers like chocolate-colored silk, and I whispered that I would do everything I could.

  After a time, her sobs turned into heavy breathing as she fell asleep, but I sat up for quite some time, thinking that this was the one person for whom I’d soak the whole universe in gasoline and throw in a lit match—life lessons be damned. I was going to get Sloane, get the artifact, and get my daughter back. Even if it proved I was a monster.

  ◆◆◆

  I opened my eyes. Obviously, I’d fallen asleep at some point, and that had sent me Dreamwalking. A glance downward displayed my gladius strapped to my side and my trench coat hanging to midthigh. While my eyes took in my accouterments and the unremarkable suburban street, my Dreamwalker’s senses quested out for the dreamer’s mind, finding its shining pressure almost instantly, no more than thirty yards away.

  The weather was gray, drizzly, and about fifty degrees Fahrenheit—a typical London summer day. Crossing the street to reach the dreamer, I read the sign over the door of the building that they were inside, squinting as the letters writhed and warped but finally making out the word Dentist.

  I’d dealt with plenty of dentistry-related dreams over the years, and as I watched from the concealing shadows that I’d summoned, I was pretty sure that this was the one that I’d classified as “The Tooth Fairy’s Wet Dream.” Peering through a window, I spied a husky, gray-haired woman in the dentist’s chair. She was wide eyed, staring imploringly at the white-coated dentist, her jaws moving up and down behind concealing hands. However, no words issued forth; instead, a cascade of molars, incisors, and bicuspids slipped between bloody fingers, clattering to the floor like the dice of hell. The dentist shook his head sadly, and the woman cried as she scrambled onto the floor to find her fallen teeth. The woman shoved them into her mouth, and the dentist wandered back in her direction, the scene resetting itself to play again for the third time since I’d entered. This was one problem that I knew how to handle, and I did a fist pump and broke out my happy dance as I strolled through the door. This. Wasn’t. A. Vampire. Dream!

  “Good afternoon!” I said, putting on my friendliest, Americanest accent as I strutted into the room. My trench coat had lengthened and faded until it was the same white as the dentist’s coat, and my gladius had morphed into a dental drill. I gave the other man in the room a sharp glare and shook my head. “Robert, I’m sure you know that this woman’s condition can be easily fixed using our patented…” I drew a blank for a second before the bullshit started to flow. “Our patented Dento-Fix gel!” The woman’s head swung from the dentist to me and then back again. “Most dentists hide this from their patients—it’s a bit of a conspiracy—but I’ll make an exception for you.” I gave her a wink and strode confidently in her direction. It was the confidence that was important—convince the dreamer that everything would be okay, and the patient would heal herself.

  Five minutes later, I was strolling out of the dentist’s office, waiting for the nightmare to break down. I’d applied the gel and then held up a mirror into which I’d projected a memory of watching teeth emerge from a kid’s gums. I’ll admit that it was a weird memory to have, but I’d had to deal with dreams of this sort often enough that I’d sought out that particular clip years ago. Between the confidence I’d exuded, the “miracle” drug, and the mirror, the woman turned to me with a perfect smile almost instantly. Damn, I’m good, I thought while the lights faded and the dream got fuzzy at the edges as the dreamer started to wake. That was just before the sky started raining blood, the scene flashed red, and I was transported somewhere else…

  Salty, warm droplets of liquid hit my face, bringing to mind a trip to Jamaica with Dana years earlier, but that pleasant memory was wiped away as the tang of iron assaulted my sense of smell. I reached inside of myself for the minuscule amount of willpower required to summon my gladius and trench coat, but when I tried to glance down to confirm their appearance, I couldn’t even move my neck. In the next instant, I realized that the reason I couldn’t move my neck was because I didn’t have a body; instead, I was taking in my surroundings from a fixed viewpoint at roughly head height.

  Somewhere above me, above sanguine clouds, a full moon must have been shining because although I was in the cemetery from last night’s dream, the tombstones and trees stood out clearly against a gray sky. This would have been a good thing, except that the light also allowed me to see the orgy of violence going on around me. At least ten people were bleeding out on the ground, and another few were already well beyond the point of bleeding—shriveled husks, drained dry by rampaging predators.

  There were at least two dozen pale, fanged, crimson-eyed monsters toying with twice their number of screaming victims. Covered in dirt and dressed in moldering clothes, the vampires ranged in age from twenty to fifty, and all ethnicities and genders were represented in their equal-opportunity slaughter. These vampires were not of the sexy variety. They were hungry predators, eyes feral and devoid of reason.

  A half-dozen monsters loped after a group of tourists, whose status was evident from T-shirts emblazoned with “London” and a preponderance of fanny packs, who had been unfortunate enough to be nearby when the creatures had emerged from their tombs.

  A desperate cry jerked my consciousness back toward the main pack. Fifteen or so vampires were toying with the terrified humans, circling them, cutting off their escape. A heart-rending cry and a scuffle drew my attention—one of the vampires, a gaunt, middle-aged white woman, wearing what looked like the remains of an old police uniform, had picked up a small child, a little boy not more than six years old, and was dragging him back to a convenient feeding spot on top of a slab-like tombstone. The child was petrified, whether by fear or through some unknown power of the attacker was unclear, but the mother—the strength of her reaction left no doubt of her relationship to the child—flung herself at the ring of slavering, jeering bloodsuckers. I burned to do something, but I was just an observer.

  For the young mother, bravery, ferocity, and dedication meant not
hing in comparison to the hideous supernatural strength of the vampires, who flung her back into the mass of screaming, pleading humanity that they’d hemmed in. At least she wasn’t able to see as the twin ivory daggers closed on her son’s throat, opening an artery that was greedily sucked. I was able to see, unfortunately, and if I’d had a body, I’d have shuddered as the vampire swelled like an engorged tick while the little boy withered.

  While I watched that horrible scene, the rest of the monsters had pressed the tourists into a tight knot of terrified flesh whose calls for help rose to a crescendo—and were answered.

  A voice, slightly familiar, rose above the shouting, the eating, the dying, and bellowed a Germanic-accented challenge to the night: “I am Edward Sloane, and I have the mastery of you. Go, now, be gone from this place!” Having charged in to save the day numerous times, I felt this was a bit over the top, but it had the intended effect: the vampires stopped what they were doing, ignored the cowering mass of humans, and fled, shrieking, away from the older man.

  The creatures moved superhumanly quickly, but the air blurred, a series of shrieks filled the night, and three vampires hit the ground, dead. I tried to spot Sloane, but without warning, the scene shifted.

  I was looking at a vampire again, but he wasn’t like the bedraggled, mindless killers that I’d just seen. He prowled forward, his motions unnaturally smooth, with curly blond locks going down to his shoulders and aviator sunglasses. “You will kill no more of my kind, Sloane. Your day is past,” he said, crossing a darkened inner London street, every move radiating barely restrained power.

  “I will kill you all, Cooper. You hid from me, but no longer. You are right about one thing, though. My days of hunting your kind are almost past.” There was a pause as the voice of Edward Sloane carried out of the shadows. “Now that I know where the true seal is, I will have the power to wipe your kind from this island.” The hiss of a crossbow bolt cut the cool night air, but the vampire, Cooper, contemptuously batted it to the ground.