Dreamonologist

by Gregory Pettit

  I wasn’t sure what to do. I needed to get in, but I wasn’t going to push over this old man. I might have gotten people killed, but I wasn’t about to start assaulting the elderly. That way lay the madness and evil of Senior Auditor Brown, one step at a time. Then I had it!

  “Yes, please call the police. Tell them to come here right now,” I said. There might be someone bugging my phone, but surely no one was monitoring a random groundskeeper, and the police would back me as soon as they contacted Badger.

  “Umm…I just mean, er—” the man said, not sure what to make of my request. I responded by trying the door again. This time, when my fingers closed around the doorknob, I felt a tingle run up my arm, and I knew for sure that the artifact was behind the threshold. I ignored the continued protests of the groundskeeper and tried the door—locked. I gave it a hard turn and shove, and the volume of protestation behind me grew. I didn’t like the idea of being in the open and causing a scene.

  I turned to the old man. “Sorry,” I said, and lashed out with a front kick aimed at the verdigris-covered brass doorknob. I connected solidly with my sandaled foot and felt a jolt of pain in my leg, but the door flew open. I don’t know what I expected in the chapel—piles of coffins, vampires hanging from the rafters, stairs leading down to a crypt? There was only a slightly musty, dust-covered church hall. The groundskeeper followed me in.

  “I did it. I called the Met. They’ll be here soon. You’ll be done for Trespassing and Criminal Damage,” the old man said, staying just a couple of steps behind me. I marched up to the front of the church. My exposed skin tingled like I was near a large source of static electricity, and I used the feeling to orient myself. I passed the pulpit but didn’t spot the Sigilum, so I spent the next five minutes wandering around, with the groundskeeper getting increasingly upset and stomping around in his heavy work boots. There was an echoing thump, the older man looked at his feet, surprised, and I realized where the Sigilum was hidden.

  I bent down to the floor and ran my hands along the smooth, waxed boards.

  “What in the hell do you think you’re doing!” the groundskeeper said, leaning I, but not trying to stop me.

  “Shhh…” I shhhed as I rapped on the floor, looking for just the right spot. When the hollow sound came again, I dug my fingernails into the crack between the boards. One of them wiggled, and I tried to lever it up but failed. I looked at the groundskeeper. “Give me your trowel,” I demanded.

  “Are you insane?”

  “I am in Hanwell,” I said with a smirk and held out my hand. A moment later, the rubber handle pressed into my palm. I wedged the sharp end of the trowel into the gap, gave a shove on the handle, and smiled as the board popped up with a crack. I peered into the hole and saw a round parcel, wrapped in plain, brown paper. The package wasn’t glowing, but extradimensional energy radiated off of it like the heat of a noonday sun. I reached down; as I wrapped my hands around the circular object, they felt like they were burning, and my eyes stung and watered. Pushing through the painful sensations, I lifted it out and peeled away a corner of the paper, revealing the edge of an intricate pattern. I had found the Sigilum Dei Aemath.

  “Whooo yeah. Who’s the man!” I said, thumping myself on the chest in triumph.

  “Wha…what is that thing? How did you know that that would be there?” the groundskeeper said, taking a step back, worry lines etched even deeper into his face.

  “Magic,” I stated, dropping the Sigilum into my canvas bag, being careful not to touch the exposed corner. My mouth was twisted into a fierce grin—this moment confirmed not only that everything I’d been seeing was real but that I could change things. I hadn’t needed to wait for dusk or Sloane. No Fate.

  I hustled to the back of the chapel and, looking left and right, spotted no one waiting for me. I stepped out—BANG! There was a brain-rattlingly massive explosion of sound; I felt like I’d been kicked by a mule, and I flew down the steps. My head cracked against the tarmac pathway and stars bloomed in my head. I was on my feet and stumbling forward again on instinct within seconds, but after fifty yards I had to take a break, leaning against a tombstone.

  Looking back, I saw that the chapel was unharmed, as was the groundskeeper, who tottered in my direction, gesticulating wildly. No one else in the graveyard seemed to have heard the painfully loud explosion either, so I surmised that it had only occurred on some extradimensional level. I didn’t know if Sloane would have been able to perceive it, but if he could, then the sound would have been “audible” anywhere in West London.

  In spite of the protestations of the shrieking groundskeeper, no police had shown up, which I found worrying. Someone had stopped Badger, but I didn’t know how they would have stopped whatever random bobbies had been dispatched to deal with the old man’s request. I reached Uxbridge Road before the attack came.

  “Hand over the Sigilum, Julian,” said a deep, South African–accented voice behind me.

  “I can’t do that, Christian. Why are you here? How did you find me?” I replied, feeling my back tense up but not breaking stride.

  “Mia still doesn’t trust Sloane. She’ll keep the Sigilum from him. We followed you when you left your house. Mia is very upset with you for working with Sloane. But I like you. I had to beg her to let me come for you. Please. You have a wife and kid. Sort of. Don’t make me do this,” Christian said.

  I looked the squat, wide-shouldered man in his blue eyes. Christian was a good man; he’d helped me get Dana back from the clutches of a demon, and I suspected that he’d done a lot to keep the anti-attuned members of the Sons off of my back. I considered whether or not he was a friend. If a friend is someone that you’ve shared experiences with and trust, then yes, he was. I didn’t have many friends; certainly not so many that I could just throw one away. But I only had one wife and one unborn child that needed my help.

  “I’m sorry, Christian,” I replied, ducking around the corner and breaking into a run. The other man was bulkier than me, but he also worked out fanatically. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see that I’d taken him flat footed, but he was gaining fast. With no other choice, I reached out to the Dreamscape and drew on magic and memory to give myself a burst of speed. I heard cursing in Afrikaans and yelled a quick thanks over my shoulder.

  “More teams coming. Paula!” Christian yelled a warning at my back. I covered three hundred yards at the speed of an Olympic sprinter but then slowed down and ducked into an alley. It was one of those alleys that you only find in London, with shops that can’t quite afford to be on the high street, appear to have occupied the premises since at least 1975, and have names like Bashaaro’s Ethiopian Curtains. Suspicious eyes stared out at me from each person I passed, but no one tried to stop me as I wended my way through the narrow passage. I tucked the bag containing the artifact under my arm and turned on to Endsleigh Road, aiming for West Ealing station. From West Ealing, I could be at the rendezvous point with Dana within minutes—which were all I had before I passed out. I never made it.

  “Freak, get down on the ground now, or I’m going to shoot you where you stand,” Agent Paula Smith growled as she stepped out from a doorway and delivered a vicious front kick to my gut, 9mm model 1911 pistol drawn.

  I doubled over and skidded to a halt, my sandals throwing up dust in the June heat. “The police will be here any second. What will happen if they catch you with that gun?” I groaned, trying to bluff and buy a few seconds to recover.

  “We both know that there are no police coming. The Sons may not be able to sway prime ministers at the moment, but we can still stop a few patrol cars from being dispatched. I told Mia that you should be put down after that debacle on the estate, but she said that you would do the right thing. That you could be trusted,” Paula said, sneering and gesturing with the pistol. “Last chance. On the ground, freak.”

  Six months ago, I would have been screwed. I’d never have been able to defend myself, using my power twice in a short period, but I’d been training
and studying. I got down on the ground, placing my hand where I could reach a small patch of sand. Jabbering out excuses as cover, I sketched a very basic extradimensional sigil in the dirt; it made my hand feel dirty and my teeth hurt, but it also slightly weakened the fabric of reality. Pushing past the pain, I reached for my power, almost instantly finding the roiling pressure inside myself that represented my link to the Dreamscape. I imagined a brick wall and heaved my will outward. I really wish that I could have seen Paula’s face, but thankfully I couldn’t, because my efforts were successful, creating a six-foot-tall masonry barrier—or at least the illusion of one—between us. I mean, what are dreams if not visions in your head? And that required a lot less extradimensional energy than the real thing. I heard the agent swear like a pirate who’d used the wrong hand to scratch an itch.

  Before Paula could figure out that she’d been tricked, I staggered up, turned tail, and sprinted down Talbot Road, running pell-mell through a housing estate. I spotted children in a small playground and veered away, clambering through a construction site. Five minutes of running took me all the way, huffing and puffing, to the Drayton Court Hotel. I stumbled as I got through the door, and the barman gave me a dirty look until he recognized me.

  “Hey, Pawel, get me a pint of Pride? I’ll be right back,” I said as I headed for the stairs that led to the toilet. They also led to a pint-sized (get it?) theater in the cavernous old pub, and I knew of a small bar with a hatch to the beer cellars in the corner, where I hoped Paula wouldn’t find me while I was passed out. My eyes fluttered shut, and I tripped on the final stair and smacked my injured shoulder into the wall, leaving a smear of blood. When had I been injured? But I didn’t have time to worry about that. I didn’t have time to get the trapdoor open either, managing to stagger through the theater and flop over the bar before darkness claimed me…

  ◆◆◆

  “Oy, mate,” said a high-pitched man’s voice. I looked up with an awful crick in my neck and my eyes burning from my contact lenses, but I was still behind the bar.

  “Uh, sorry. I might have had one too many,” I said, clambering to my feet.

  “Yeah, we’re starting a comedy show in twenty minutes. You’ve got to get out of here,” said the bar worker, a short, skinny, British guy in his early twenties.

  “Oh shit,” I said. If they were putting on a show, then it had to be going on nine at night—I’d been passed out for at least ten hours. Dana had to be going mad with worry. I hurried outside and flipped on my phone. I had missed calls from Badger, Dana, and three blocked numbers. I also had a WhatsApp from Dana.

  I’ve gone where you should take the thing. I’ll wait there as long as I need to.

  The trains weren’t running frequently so late, so to get where I needed to go, I’d catch a cab from Ealing Broadway—I couldn’t risk an Uber. I shut my phone down again to avoid anyone tracking me. I was tired and hungry, so the best I could muster was a trot as I headed toward the cab rank, about five hundred yards to the east (or was it north?). I was about halfway there when I saw flashlight beams ahead of me, so I turned down a side street, cutting through another alley.

  I was so worried about Christian or one of the other members of the Sons coming up behind me that I didn’t recognize the location until I rounded the corner. “Ah, you have the Sigilum, Mr. Adler. Nicely done,” Sloane said. Cooper was on the ground, a length of oak jutting out of his back. Sloane swung the crossbow in my direction.

  “Shit!” I yelled, and spun on my heel.

  “Run, Julian!” Cooper shouted, and there was a twang. I ducked and scrambled back around the corner. I was between the devil and the deep blue sea, with a betrayed Mia on one side and the monster hunter on the other.

  I pounded one hundred yards down the road before I glanced back. There was no one behind me. I felt a momentary pang of guilt about leaving Cooper injured after he’d tried to help me, but vampire. Then I heard a lot of voices shouting in the direction of the tussle I’d just fled, and I smiled. Perhaps my problems would take care of each other.

  I shivered as adrenaline continued to pump through my system, and it required years of mental discipline to nonchalantly stroll in the direction of the station, three hundred yards away, Sigilum swinging freely in the shopping bag at my side.

  “Kill the vampire!” I heard Christian yell in the distance. Almost immediately, there came a woman’s scream. I kept walking. Gunshots barked, and I pressed myself against the wall. There was another scream, and I looked back. I thought about the Sons of Perseus members that had been following me. Paula Smith represented everything that I hated about the organization, but Christian was a friend, and if Cooper had attacked them…well, my whole life had been about standing up to the things that go bump in the night. I turned around and wobbled, tired and battered, toward the danger.

  Moments later, I approached a pool of light cast by a halogen streetlamp. Two figures were kneeling nearby. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The words were frantic and high pitched, and I was shocked to see that they were coming from Mia. The object of her abject apologies was sprawled bonelessly on the ground in the center of a crimson puddle—it was Christian. There’s a way that a body lies when the spirit has fled that is unmistakable. It’s more than the stillness, more than the falling body temperature, and more than the pallid skin. It’s something more than all of those things, and yet something less. Some vital spark that transcends the purely physical, something so ephemeral that you don’t even notice it, that thing that lets you know that you aren’t alone in a quiet house, is gone. Never to return. And a person that had been a vital individual with hope, faith, and love has passed beyond us, their body nothing more than a discarded suit. I knew without a doubt that my friend had given his last full measure of devotion.

  I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut again. I pushed the feelings down—people could still be in danger, and Christian’s death shouldn’t have been in vain. “What the hell happened here?” I said, years of experience in the Dreamscape lending authority to my words.

  “I—I didn’t think about what would happen—my powers. Bullets weren’t having any effect, so I thought that maybe I could suck him through a gate, but as soon as I started to open a portal, the vampire lost control. He tried to attack me, but Christian got in the way. The vampire mauled him and bolted away. Agent Smith and Edward Sloane chased the damned bloodsucker,” Mia said, almost sobbing as she pointed into the darkness.

  “Mia, Sloane is the bad guy here! This was all a setup. We have to stop him!” I yelled. Mia’s heart-shaped face twisted in confusion, her gray eyes squeezing tightly shut. I gave her a thirty-second précis of what had happened.

  “How? How do you keep going? Christian is dead, Julian.” She opened her eyes and looked at me in despair, more despondent than after she’d helped kill her father. I looked at her, and I just couldn’t understand why she was still on the ground after I’d told her what was going on. Maybe I’d been desensitized by seeing so many horrible things for so long. Maybe I just had too many of my own problems. Right now, it didn’t really matter.

  “Mia, I’m going. Are you coming or not?” I asked. I’d already burned off a lot of extradimensional energy today, and Mia’s ability to weaken the walls of reality would be a lot of help if I needed to pull a rabbit out of my hat or a rocket out of my pocket. Still, I couldn’t afford to waste any time. “Mia! Now!” I yelled, and finally she shook her head to clear it and, with a bit of help, got back to her feet. We sprinted off helter-skelter in the direction that she had indicated.

  We crossed Uxbridge Road at a loping run, attracting the attention of a fair number of late-night partiers, but it didn’t take us long to catch up to the leading group. We spotted Agent Paula Smith and Edward Sloane, weapons raised, in front of an angle in the wall around Walpole Park.

  “Paula, arrest Sloane! He’s gone rogue, just like my father warned he would!” Mia yelled, and suddenly a small pistol was in the auditor’s
hand. Paula glanced at Sloane, but didn’t make a move. Unfortunately for the agent, Sloane had started moving the instant that Mia spoke, and he rammed his crossbow into Paula’s side.

  She tried to twitch away, but Sloane pulled her tight and she kicked wildly, screaming into his ear: “What the hell! Get that thing out of my ribs. I’m on your side. I want to get rid of all of these freaks too!”

  Sloane completely ignored Paula’s diatribe and focused on Mia. “You’ve already lost one agent tonight, Ms. Noel. How do you think the Chapter Master will look at your actions if you lose two?” Sloane asked.

  Before Mia could answer, I replied: “I know about your plan to use the vampires. I’ve seen what you intend to do with the Sigilum, and I’m not going to let that happen.”

  Mia was bristling, and I could feel the fabric of reality rippling in the wind between the worlds. If I needed to throw my one supernatural punch, it would be Mike Tyson level.

  “I’m sure that there’s been a mistake here somewhere, Mr. Adler. As the dear Ms. Smith here says, we’re on the same side. We just want the nightmares dead. We’re civilized men; we can reach some form of accommodation. Tell me where you’ve hidden the Sigilum, and I’ll kill the things that need killing so that you don’t have to. I’ll leave everyone here alone, and you won’t see me again unless you come looking,” Sloane pronounced, throwing back his leonine head to indicate the concealing darkness.

  “A friend once told me that civilization is the art of lying, and I have no reason to trust you,” I said, reaching for my connection to the Dreamscape and trying to think of a way to take the monster hunter out without hurting his human shield. Before I had any kind of a plan, there was a sound like a bundle of twigs breaking, and Paula gasped in pain and almost fell to her knees.

  “I just broke her wrist. The Sigilum, or I shoot. What I do, I do for the greater good. Decide,” Sloane said with clinical detachment.