At last he turned to Ben, his eyes pleading for an explanation. Ben looked back at him with a panicky gaze.
"Peter," he said numbly. "Oh, Peter. We're in deep shit."
By the time Rick parked near Cat's house he was feeling good again. Okay, so maybe he'd panicked back there. But it had all happened so fast. The guy had been big, and hadn't let Rick get a bead on him with the old magic-eyes routine. And that fucking cat… He'd forgotten all about the power, about what he could do. But, hell, he was new to this game. He'd get back to that dude— him and the other one Lucius wanted. Right now he had other business.
He regarded the dark bulk of Cat's house, the stolen strength of Mick's psychic essence still rushing through him euphorically. That last moment, just when he cut the punk's throat and the soul's final essence had fired through him… Rick shivered, reliving it. Never thought a dude could make me feel so good, he thought with a grin.
He got out of his car and moved toward the house. He could tell the building was empty, but he had already decided to wait for the woman to return. She was the one Lucius wanted the most. When he brought her in, maybe Lucius wouldn't make too big a production of the way he'd fucked up earlier. Wouldn't be smart to get in that sucker's bad books.
He heard the sound of a car then, and stepped into the shadows of the cedar hedge. Wouldn't do for a cop to spot him right now, not with all this blood on his suit. Some of it was his own— that damned cat!— but most of it came from the punk when he'd cut his throat. Christ, he sure had a lot of blood in him. Rick glanced up the street and relaxed. Cops didn't drive VW's. Fact was, nobody drove bugs much these days.
When the car kept coming closer, a tingle of anticipation started up in him. Maybe he'd made a mistake in not going after the other two first. Just thinking of the driver of this car started the juices running in him again. Guess you could never get too much of a good thing. Then the car pulled into his victim's laneway and forced the lust from him. It was her— and she belonged to Lucius. He flexed his fingers at his sides, waiting for the engine to die, for the car door to open.
Hey, Lucius. Look what I got for you.
When the car engine shut off, he reached into the vehicle with his new abilities to see what made this woman so special. Tasting her, he almost lunged out of the hedge, lust overriding responsibility. There was so much inside her, and it was so fucking pure.
Saliva built up in his mouth and he trembled. His hand went down between his legs to touch the hardness swelling in his pants. No wonder Lucius wanted her for himself. She—
He shook his head, forcing reason to assert itself. Anyone that could give him this kind of power wasn't someone you fucked around with. This one belonged to Lucius. But there'd be others like her. Others that he would find and keep for himself.
When the car door opened, he moved forward from the shadows of the hedge.
Peter couldn't take his eyes from the little man. Ben's jumbled account of the night's events barely penetrated his consciousness. He stepped from the porch and moved close to Tiddy Mun, one trembling hand reaching out to touch the gnome. The little man stood still, saucer eyes wide as he watched Peter approach. Physical contact broke Peter's spell.
Real. The little man was real!
He snatched his hand away. His gaze shifted from the gnome to Ben, his mind awhirl. If the gnome existed, then so did Cat's Otherworld. And if it existed, then there really was a thief of dreams, and that meant— Cat! She was out there in the night, alone. And the vampire was out there hunting her.
Suddenly what Ben was saying broke through the rush of his own thoughts. He realized there was a woman in the cab, took in Ben's state of shock and what he was saying.
"Dead?" Peter demanded. "Who's dead?"
"Jesus, Peter. Were… weren't you listening? One of those vampires killed Mick. Cut his… throat… cut it with a knife…."
"What do you mean one of the vampires?"
"The guy that… that killed Mick wasn't the Dude. I never saw him before. And that means there's more than one of them! We've got to warn Cat."
More than one. The words went through Peter like a fire. He stepped closer to Ben, saw that his friend was on the edge of a complete breakdown. After what he'd been through…
"Who's she?" Peter asked, pointing to the cab.
"Becki. She's… was… oh, shit. She was Mick's girlfriend. Peter. There was so fucking much blood, and he was just lying there…."
The woman was in worse shape than Ben by the looks of her. Reddish-blue bruises discolored her face. She sat in the passenger's seat, staring blankly out the windshield. He had to get both Ben and her to a hospital. But first he had to warn Cat. He turned to Ben, gripping him by the arm.
"Get in the cab, Ben," he said softly.
Ben just stared at him. "His… his throat was cut," Ben said wonderingly. "From ear to ear— you know how they say that in the detective books? Jesus! I just can't… believe… The blood…"
Tiddy Mun came to Peter's aid. Between the two of them they got Ben into the backseat.
"They're going to kill us," Ben said. "They're going to kill all of us, Peter, one by one…."
Peter shook his head. "It's okay, Ben. No one's going to get us. Not you, not me— not any more of us."
"You don't understand," Ben said. "You didn't see him. I… I don't know why he took off. He could have had me right then. If Tiddy Mun had… hadn't jumped him…"
"Look, Ben. I—"
Ben gripped Peter's arm fiercely. "Don't look in their eyes, Peter. That's how they get you!"
His grip faltered and his gaze turned inward, replaying the horror of what he'd found in Mick's bedroom. Peter closed the door and moved to the driver's seat. Bending down to get in, his gaze went from Becki to Ben. He was forgetting something. He was… Turning, his gaze settled on Tiddy Mun, who was standing mournfully on the pavement.
"You," Peter said softly. "What are you? And what're you doing here?"
He shook his head as the incongruity of what he was doing hit home. The little man shouldn't even exist. But he did. And he was standing there. And he was talking to him….
"I'm Cat's friend," Tiddy Mun replied. "That's all."
Cat. He had to get moving.
"I… still can't believe you're for real," Peter said.
"I want to help," the little man said, not understanding Peter's talk of realities. To Tiddy Mun things simply were. Some were nice and some terrified him. But he never questioned their existence. "Cat's my friend," he repeated. "The evil seeks her. I'm very afraid, but I want to help."
Peter nodded. Whatever it was that was out there hunting, it was evil. And it wanted Cat. It was his fault that Cat was out there. She'd come to him, looking for help, and he'd driven her away. He slipped behind the wheel of the cab, then leaned across the seat to speak to Ben. Ben's eyes had a lost look to them.
"I couldn't help him," Ben said. "I just… just didn't get there in time. And Cat…"
"We'll get there in time," Peter promised, but Ben wasn't listening anymore. His eyes had gone unfocused again. Peter glanced at Tiddy Mun, who stood just behind the door of the cab.
"Are you still coming?" he asked.
The little man nodded, hands clasped in front of him to keep them from trembling. "The metal…" he said. "The cold iron…"
Peter rubbed at his temples. Then, reaching down, he helped the little man up. Tiddy Mun scrambled across his lap to sit between Becki and Peter, his limbs shivering.
Oh, Cat, Peter thought as he shut the door and turned the engine over. I'm so sorry. If we get out of this, I'll believe anything you tell me. Any damn thing.
All the way home Cat thought about what Peter had said. Couldn't he see what all this was doing to her? Maybe he couldn't have understood, but couldn't he at least have tried a little harder to see things from her point of view? It wasn't just the suspicion that there might be something, wrong with her— not anymore. Her whole life had been lived as a lie. A delusion.
>
She'd been something of an elitist, believing she could see more than the plebian hordes with whom she shared the planet. She was special. She dreamed true. But the truth of the matter was, she wasn't so special at all. The psychotic wards of hospitals were filled with people just like her.
Her tears dried up, but not her grief.
Now she didn't have only Kothlen to mourn, she had all of them. Kothlen's kin. Tiddy Mun. Mynfel, whose name she shared. The Otherworld itself. They weren't dead. They weren't gone. They'd never existed anywhere but in her own imagination in the first place.
How did you mourn what never was?
She'd never felt so lost or so alone as she did on that drive home. The route from Peter's store to her own house stretched to impossible proportions— a night journey that promised no cleansing at its completion, no catharsis. She was used to being alone and not feeling alone. But now, inside her, desolation lay bleak for wasted miles.
There were no landmarks, nothing familiar to reach out for in that wasteland. No hope. Just the barren expanses. Dreamless. Self-pitying. The late-night streets echoing the emptiness inside her. No escape possible. Not to an Otherworld ruled by antlered Mynfel, because it didn't exist. And in this world? Did she dare take a chance with someone as kind as Ben? Did she want to mess him around? He deserved more than someone like her. And Peter, just trying to be a friend…
Crossing Lansdowne Bridge, she considered pushing the gas pedal to the floor and sending the car through the railings to the canal below. But that wouldn't solve anything. Then she was over the bridge, nearing Sunnyside, and the moment was gone.
She turned right on Willard. Home was just a couple of blocks away. A big empty house, filled with books and records. Two cats. It wasn't what she needed right now, but it was all she had. Pulling into her driveway, she sat still for a few moments, hands gripping the steering wheel.
Home is where the heart is, she thought. Was that what was wrong with this house? That it wasn't where her heart was? Her heart lay in the woodlands and rounded hills of the Otherworld. The remote home of her dreams. Of emotion. More recently home might have worked out to be where Ben was. But not in this empty house.
Tomorrow, she thought as she killed the car's engine, I'll apologize to Peter and talk to Ben. He's coming over for dinner, anyway, so I'll just talk to him. I'll try to be real in this world. Maybe he can help me do it.
A hesitant whisper of hope stirred in her. She stepped out of the car feeling less lost for the first time since she'd woken earlier and realized her dreamworld was a sham. It was time to make a turn around. It was time to stop pretending and be real. If it wasn't too late already, she had to—
Something slammed her hard against the side of the car, spinning her shoulder bag and car keys from her hands. A big hand gripped her jaw, forcing her to look up. Eyes like ice stared into her own. Cold fear shoved panic through her like a knife. The eyes glittered with their own inner light, drawing her into them. A jackhammer pounding started up behind her temples. She could feel herself falling into those eyes, as though they were sucking her in.
She struggled in her assailant's grip. He slammed her hard against the car again. Spots danced in front of her eyes, a whole kaleidoscope of tiny sparks that pulsed and spun in an incoherent rhythm. And beyond them, feral as a nightmare, the eyes bore into her— demanding, taking, ripping her consciousness from her.
This wasn't happening to her, her reason told her. There was no one out to get her. No dreams for a dream thief to steal.
She wished someone would tell her attacker that. Then a black wave came washing over her and she went limp in his grip.
Rick shifted Cat's weight and slung her over his shoulder. Success danced inside him like the shifting reflections from a mirrored disco ball. It was so fucking easy. With this kind of power what could stop you?
Nothing, he thought as he wrestled his burden to where his car was parked.
When he gave Rick the power, Lucius had shown him the way things went. You had to lull your prey. You had to deceive them with shifting lies so that they never had a chance to believe that the threat to them was real. That was how Lucius and his kind survived.
Lucius played it slow and easy, but Rick was beginning to realize that you didn't have to sneak around in the shadows. You could just step out, bold and easy, and if anyone got in your way, just squash them. Otherwise what was the point of having this power? You didn't hide, you got right out there. On a talk show maybe, or set yourself up like one of those TV evangelists and get yourself a few million followers with just a snap of your fingers.
He dumped Cat unceremoniously into the passenger's seat and closed the door on her. Rounding the car to the driver's side, he realized that Lucius simply didn't understand the potential of what the power had to offer. His values were centuries out of date. You didn't have to go out looking for prey. These days people were so stupid, they'd line up to have their souls sucked out of them. It all depended on your PR. Hell, look at the Moonies. Or L. Ron Hubbard's people. They knew where it was at.
Starting the car, Rick was already planning his campaign. If he could sell computers to people who neither wanted them nor could afford them, this'd be a piece of cake. He'd set it up as a self-awareness gig and just watch the suckers and their money come pouring in.
"It's a whole new ball game," he said, patting Cat's limp form. "A whole new ball game. And I'm going to make the rules. Too bad you're going to miss out on it, babe, 'cause it's sure gonna be some show."
Peter pulled into Cat's driveway behind her VW and was out of the cab almost before it had stopped. The bug's door stood ajar. Cat's shoulder bag lay on the gravel. A half dozen feet away her car keys lay glinting in the glow thrown by the car's interior light.
"Oh, Jesus…"
Peter picked up the shoulder bag and turned it over in his hands while his gaze went from the car to the darkened house. They were too late.
"It has her," Tiddy Mun whispered, edging from the car. Tears glistened in the little man's eyes.
Numbly, Peter turned to face his companion. "How could we be too late?" he demanded. "The cavalry's never too late. We're the bloody cavalry, aren't we?"
Tiddy Mun shook his head, understanding only the words "too late."
"It can't end like this," Peter said. He dropped the bag, then hit the roof of the VW with his fist. "How can it end like this?"
The vampire— the enemy, whatever the hell he was— had stymied them at every turn. He was always one step ahead of them. Mick was dead now. Ben and Becki were sitting in the car like a couple of zombies. And now he had Cat.
"If we could only find him," he muttered.
If the vampire meant to kill Cat, he'd, have done it here. The way he finished off Mick. But he wanted Cat for something else. For what? To feed on her some more? To steal her dreams? What would happen when he stole all her dreams? Would there be anything left that was still Cat? Or would there be just a husk with her face, her body, but no one home inside?
Can Cat come out to play?
Sure, Peter. At least what's left of her….
Christ, he wasn't going to make it through the night. Not in one piece. Not with any level of sanity left.
Think, he told himself. Where would he have taken her?
Just look for the castle on top of the hill….
A small hand plucked at his sleeve, and he looked down into Tiddy Mun's features.
"You'd know!" he said before the gnome had a chance to speak. "You knew he was going for Mick. You can take me to where he's got Cat!"
Tiddy Mun nodded. "But he's too strong for us. We need—"
"The hell he's too strong for us." Peter pushed the little man toward the cab. "You just show me where he is."
"We need more help," Tiddy Mun said.
"Where do we get it?"
The little man trembled. "This is your world," he began.
"There's just you and me," Peter said. "She hasn't got anybody else right no
w. In the time we'd spend trying to convince somebody we're on the level, Christ knows what he'll have done to her."
Peter backed the cab out of the driveway. "Which way?"
Tiddy Mun pointed north.
Measure by measure the blackness cleared.
Cat sat up, putting a hand to her head. A headache drummed steadily between her temples and her head still rang from where it had struck the car. But as awareness returned to her and she saw where she was, she shook her head slowly, setting up a wave of nausea.
"Please, God," she murmured. "Just go away."
But her surroundings remained, firm and real.
She lay in the middle of the circle edged by the three standing stones on Redcap Hill. In the Otherworld. The place of her dreaming that didn't exist. But she could see the topmost branches of the fairy thorn from where she lay. There was Mynfel's wood. The sky above was studded with the constellations of the Otherworld. The familiar wind of Kothlen's moors lifted and tugged at her hair.
"You're not real," she told her surroundings. "Not anymore. Just go away. Please!"
She willed the illusion to leave her. She might be crazy, but at least let her be crazy in a place that was real, where a doctor might help her or… or something. Then she remembered her attacker, and suddenly she wasn't so sure that going back was such a good idea. He was so much stronger than her, handling her like she was a toddler. Maybe the delusion was better. Because his eyes… in his eyes…
Nothing made sense anymore.
"Mistress Cat?"
No, she told herself when she heard that voice. I'm drawing the line. I saw right through him like he was made of… of glass. He's an illusion, just like everything else around me. If I lie very still and ignore him— ignore everything— it'll all go away. I'll wake up in my own bed and find that I was never attacked in my driveway, there was never a prowler or… or a dream thief, or whatever he was.
Toby Weye squatted in front of her. She looked away from him, staring down at the grass, and refused to speak.
"Mistress Cat…?" he tried again.
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