by Jody Wallace
“You moved yourself. On your own two feet.” Karen had avoided Somnium forces for hours during the Harrisburg invasion, despite strategic vigil locks and roving teams of field agents.
“No.” Karen took a deep, shuddery breath. “They’ve been planning this. They’ll get me next, then you, then the vigil, wear us down. The world will end.”
“Do you know how ridiculous you sound?” She was a fucking liar. Wraiths weren’t sentient and couldn’t operate a dreamer like a swinging door to the terra firma. Wraiths sure as hell couldn’t plot and plan and relocate dreamer’s bodies for nefarious purposes at the behest of a wraith leader. “If they could manifest through us when they wanted, they’d have been doing it all along.”
“I’ve been holding them off.” Karen fell to her knees at his feet. “I can’t anymore. That’s why there are so many now. When we grow weak…they come. They’re attracted to weakness more than they are to fear, because it’s the weak who become their vehicles.”
Zeke was uncomfortably reminded of Maggie—the wraiths who flocked to her and her slow, slow progress. Karen wouldn’t, couldn’t, know about that.
“I’m begging you, Zeke. I’m out of time. We’re all out of time.”
He didn’t want to believe anything she said, but would it hurt to check? “Adi, Karen says Maggie’s manifesting while the wraiths hide her from us, because there’s so much precedent for that.” Even as he verbally discounted Karen, his unease doubled. “Maybe we should pop out.”
“Don’t leave me,” Karen whined. “Please, I’ll do anything.”
“I heard that,” Adi said, surprise in her voice. “Kingsbury, you’re orating.”
“They’re letting me reach you?” Karen raised a hand to her chest, and her eyes widened. “It must be because he has a replacement now. He doesn’t need me.”
“He being the pretend leader?”
“Leader?” Adi asked, surprised.
“No. No. Don’t speak of him.” She glanced around wildly. Her whole body trembled. “I swear, I’ll do anything. I’ll live in chains. In prison. I’ll undergo a lobotomy. Get me out of here.”
She seemed panicked enough, desperate enough, for it to be true. But was her desperation because of what she claimed or something else? Would her escape from the sphere restore her power?
He couldn’t discuss it in front of Karen, who was wringing her hands in her hospital gown. Perhaps he and Adi should leave and return later. They could touch base with Maggie and regroup. Karen wasn’t going anywhere.
“How is your body healing so quickly?” Adi asked Karen. “If you can tell me that, I will consider attempting to free you.”
“Don’t be a sucker.” Zeke didn’t care if he did get a smack down for insubordination. “You can’t trust anything she says.”
“The healing is a fact,” Adi said, unperturbed by his vehemence. “I cannot assess her or the veracity of her claims as yet, but she has answers.”
Karen scooched as close to the wall of blackness as she could, near Adi’s metaphysical presence on the other side of the wraiths. With such a tentative link to Karen, Adi couldn’t share their shield.
If the monsters were Karen’s friends, they seemed as eager to get their fangs into her as they did any dreamer. When she approached, wraiths morphed between shadows and creatures like bubbling lava. A couple Whedon vamps began clawing the shield, hissing. A demon rhinoceros reared on ungainly hind legs and crashed itself down on top of the shield.
Zeke supported its weight like snow on a roof—nothing he couldn’t handle but dangerous after days of constant accumulation. Good thing he wouldn’t be here for days.
“The dreamsphere affects the body. It sustains. Heals,” Karen whispered to the other woman. Was Zeke supposed to hear? He moved closer. “But you knew that, didn’t you? I can tell you so many things you can’t begin to guess, Adishakti Sharma. If you abandon me here, I promise you, there will be a host on your hands that will put Harrisburg to shame.”
“Threats aren’t gonna get you jack,” Zeke scoffed.
“It won’t be my doing. It will be him. Using her.” Karen hugged herself, her eyes haunted. “They have her, and she’s terrified. Her fear is so loud. She can’t shield. Is she…a phase one L5? From…Virginia. Has a brother, another L5. She’s screaming for him. Hayden. Hayden. She’s given up on you both.”
There was no way Karen was privy to these details about Maggie. Today in the hospital room was the only time Karen and Maggie had been anywhere near each other. “Why can you see this and we can’t?”
“Because he hurt me for so long, and did things to me, that I had to learn…” She shuddered. “It doesn’t matter. She won’t last ten minutes, much less a year. She’s lost—but we can save everyone else if we hurry.”
Did Karen’s knowledge mean Maggie had been at these dreamspace coordinates and Karen had seen what had happened to her? Was it still happening to her? Was Maggie out there right now, trying to find help?
As if on cue, wraiths began filtering away, lured elsewhere. Many remained, but the dreamsphere lightened. Zeke and Adi could see one another. Their gazes locked.
“Go,” she mouthed. “I can handle Karen.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. He released his barriers and pushed himself into the terra firma.
As soon as Zeke woke, he groped for Maggie’s body. She’d been beside him on the sofa, holding his hand. There should have been no way to keep them apart in the sphere with their tangible.
She wasn’t on the sofa. Zeke lurched with fear.
Wailing sirens penetrated his freak out. He leaped to his feet and inspected the room. One other occupant—a guard, sword up and ready. The man was as tense as anyone in a combat situation.
“What happened?” Zeke asked.
“Multiple manifestations. Your girl or one of the vegetables.”
He didn’t correct the soldier’s terminology. “We on lockdown?”
“Damn straight.” The guard indicated a pile of weaponry on the floor next to Zeke—a whole kit. “Suit up.”
He strapped on the vest, the gorget—nice—the sword, the bandolier, the guns, the bracers, the daggers. The first time Maggie had been accused of random manifestations, the responsible party had been her damn brother. The coma station employees had better not have used the ECT on her. “Where is my student?”
“They’re stitching her up in trauma one.”
“What the hell—trauma?” They wouldn’t stitch a corpse, but they would stitch an alucinator trapped in a coma. That was when Zeke noticed dark red stains on the loveseat and his jeans. Fuck. “Did she wake before me? When?”
“She came out bleeding half an hour ago. Wraiths slashed her up pretty good in there and followed her out.”
Not unheard of. A traumatized alucinator escaping the trance sphere as quickly as possible couldn’t always be careful with conduits. “How many?”
“Five live ones in here and…well, you’ll be briefed later. The sergeant and I dispatched them.”
Zeke smacked another Velcro strap into place. As soon as he exacted some vengeance, he’d find Maggie and apologize. For everything, including the things he hadn’t done yet. She could have been killed. But the fact she was awake confirmed what he’d known—Karen was a liar.
Maggie wasn’t stuck in the dreamsphere, giving up on him, subjected to wraith torture and some apocalyptic plot. Ridiculous. Maggie had gotten her scrappy ass out of the sphere all by herself.
That being said, he’d wait and be relieved after he checked her wounds.
“Thanks for not letting them eat us,” he said to the soldier as he finished donning his battle gear.
“It’s my job.” The soldier sounded like he’d rather have a different job than babysit a trancer.
“Where are Adishakti and Kingsbury?”
“Next d
oor. Ms. Sharma’s awake.” It surprised Zeke that Adi was up before him—how had that happened? He’d ducked out first. “She’s working on Kingsbury.”
“Working on how?” If Adi wouldn’t euthanize Karen, he would. That deceitful bitch was responsible for these manifestations. He knew it. Didn’t matter what tales she’d spun, whose fault she said it was, or what information she’d offered to share.
“That’s need to know, and I don’t need to know,” the guy said.
Whatever. He’d find out himself in two minutes. “What kinds of critters we got?”
The soldier’s square features hardened. “All one type. Whedons. Lost count at forty reports. I don’t think we’re approaching Harrisburg status, but you’d know more about that than I would.”
“Ayuh.” No use getting belligerent. “How much of the facility has been affected?”
Harrisburg had taught modern-day alucinators a lot about bulk manifestations—a lot they hadn’t wanted to know. They’d already known clusters could happen. They’d already known malingering conduits could happen, plus multiples. But they hadn’t known a psycho like Karen could drag it out for hours. Days.
This had her name written all over it. But this time, they had her body. He knew exactly how he was going to stop her.
The soldier glanced at the ceiling as if counting. “Lower three levels.”
“Is trauma one included?”
“No, it’s above the blast doors, along with storage and the cold box. The morgue.” Since all deceased Somnium employees were sent to the coma station for processing and confirmation of cause of death, the morgues were sizeable.
“Good. Three levels isn’t too extensive.” And most of them filled with body bags to boot.
Zeke approached the door, checking the small window. As far as he could tell, the doctor who’d been at the station outside Karen’s room was no longer present. Blood spattered the counter. Purple flashing lights accompanied the siren. The brains at the manifestation tank had determined purple illumination—black lights—decreased wraith motility by about one seventh. It was something.
“It’s not nothing. We’ve had four fatalities.”
“Shit.” Forty Whedons to four fatalities…that this soldier knew of. Who were the casualties? Anyone he knew? It would be easiest for vamps to take out patients. Physicians in scrubs instead of Kevlar. Trained fighters wouldn’t go down that easy to any fucking vamps.
As he watched, heavily armed soldiers jogged down the corridor, guns and swords at hand. Their black Kevlar was coated with wraith dust.
“Now that I’m fortified, soldier, let’s move.” His rank as sentry placed him over this soldier, whatever his name was. His hiking boots scuffed in wraith dust when he pivoted.
The soldier keyed in the combination, and the door hissed open. It closed behind them. If a vamp manifested in there, it would be stuck until they felt like dealing with it.
Zeke sniffed deep. No fresh wraith odor. The vamps wouldn’t be able to jettison out of doorways, fly out of rafters. The coma station was all long, straight corridors, sealed vaults, and monitored gates. And then, on level six, the blast doors. Wherever the bastards manifested in this facility, they wouldn’t have much room to run.
Zeke and the soldier secured the corridor. Three vamps skidded around a corner. He and soldier boy made short work of the bodies with their swords. The soldier was quick, Zeke noted, and scored two to Zeke’s one.
Wraiths dispatched, Zeke halted at Karen’s room on the next round. “Get me in there.”
The soldier shook his head. “No can do.”
“Get me the fuck in there. That’s an order.” In his area, he didn’t have to pull rank like some braggoty schmuck. Didn’t have to tell his staff twice what to do during a combat situation. Maybe the informality of the North American division had some downsides.
The soldier grinned. “Don’t have the code. Sir.”
Zeke slammed the butt of a gun against the tiny square of glass until a startled, but human, face appeared in it. Blond soldier. Scar. That Blake guy. Zeke pointed the gun’s muzzle toward the touchpad.
Blake disappeared and the door swung slowly open. Zeke stepped back. Two soldiers slid into the corridor from the room, triple checking for unwelcome intruders. Zeke entered. When everyone settled, the door locked them in except for Zeke’s original guard.
Adi, beside Karen’s bed, smiled when she saw him. A bulky ECT unit stood unpacked and ready on one of the folding chairs, and the air smelled faintly of ozone. “When I beat you out of the sphere, Zeke, I worried about you, but I gave you a few minutes to recover.”
“I’m recovered,” he said. Since the shit had hit the fan, surely whatever Adi had been hiding from the rest of the Somnium couldn’t be concealed. Zeke, however, declined to offer particulars until he and Adi could privately discuss their encounter. Adi’s concern that someone at the facility might be sneaking around—someone besides Adi—swayed him.
“Maggie’s all right,” Adi told him, answering his next question. She returned her attention to Karen’s medical display. It had blips. Blips a comatose patient shouldn’t have. “She got out of the trance sphere on her own. We aren’t sure how many vamps were hers, but—”
“Five followed her out. The rest are someone else’s.” When Zeke had entered this room a couple of hours ago, he hadn’t wanted to step any closer to the bed. This time, he marched right up to it—to Karen’s prone body, still covered in tubes and surrounded by machines. “Clearly Karen isn’t as trapped as you assumed. She has to be put down.”
“No.” Adi hustled around the foot of the bed. “I employed the ECT. I believe she’s about to—”
Karen inhaled, a raspy, deep wheeze. Her body arched like a plastic ruler. Seizures wracked her and she started gagging.
Adi shoved Zeke out of the way. He was so shocked that he let her. Adi’s hands flew to Karen’s face, removing the tubes in her throat. She adjusted a drip and grabbed Karen’s shoulders. Karen convulsed several more times.
Zeke motioned sharply. The soldiers in the room drew their guns and pointed them at the struggling body in the bed.
He did too.
“Roberts, fetch Dr. Leifer,” Adi barked. “Blake, ready the defib paddles. She may crash. The rest of you, stand down.”
The soldiers obeyed. Zeke didn’t. This was Karen Kingsbury coming awake during a code one. Karen the murderer. Karen who had knowledge about healing that Adi wanted.
The fact that the fallout wouldn’t be all his fault this time didn’t make him feel any better.
Karen fell limply against the pillows. Her eyelids fluttered open. Bright blue eyes were the only color in her pallid face.
“Can you speak?” Adi asked.
“Thank you, Adishakti Sharma.” Karen’s hoarse voice was nothing recognizable. Her vocal chords had been damaged by her year in a coma, supported by tubes and medical science. “I’m never entering the dreamsphere again. You have my word.”
“You can sense the barricade I placed for you?” Such a wall was fleeting, and the dreamer had to comply with it. “Our link was enough to allow me to do that before I left the sphere.”
“Oh, yes. It feels like safety.” Karen’s fingers twitched as if she wanted to take something into her hand. “You won’t regret this. You have saved so many lives.”
A sleep barricade wasn’t a permanent solution. High-level alucinators deteriorated if separated from the sphere. Much longer than a couple days’ absence, and the bedridden Karen wouldn’t survive it.
Zeke found himself hoping that would be the case.
“We’ll see about that,” Adi murmured to Karen, cocking an eyebrow. Zeke appreciated that she seemed dubious about the psycho. “We seem to have an active manifestation.”
“I warned you they’d taken the girl.” Karen coughed and sighed. “Tell Zeke I’m sor
ry for his loss.”
He cocked his gun. “I haven’t lost anything but my patience.”
Karen spotted him—with his weapon aimed at her head—and recoiled into the pillows.
“Your poor student.” Her voice was so croaky, he could barely tell what she was saying. “Trapped. Coma. Don’t make her suffer like I did. She’ll have to be neutralized if you don’t want—”
Adi adjusted another drip. “Maggie’s conscious, Karen. And cooperative. Yet we’re to believe she’s the one manifesting?”
“Oh God, she’s awake and there are manifestations?” Karen couldn’t grow any paler. She matched the white pillows already. And yet, she did. She went from emaciated coma patient to bleached-out skeleton as fear gripped her expression. “That’s worse. What if he turned her into a waking portal? He kept threatening to do that to me.”
“Bullshit. There’s no such thing as a waking portal.” In the corner of Zeke’s vision, a few soldiers shifted their weight to their other feet—unprofessionally, if you asked him. His hand and body were steady.
“Who is this he—the leader you mentioned?” Adi tapped the IV tube leading to Karen’s elbow. The vigil, Zeke noticed, stayed out of Karen’s reach now that the patient was awake—not that Karen seemed able to jump out of bed and attack anyone.
“He…” Before Karen could answer, her lids fluttered shut. Her head rolled to the side and she lay silent. The only movement was a single tear tracking down her hollow cheek like a raindrop.
Adi calmly checked Karen’s pulse. The door hissed open, and a man in scrubs hastened through, escorted by several soldiers.
“We have a recovery? How remarkable.” The doctor joined Adi at Karen’s bedside and checked all Karen’s vitals. The patient didn’t stir. “She doesn’t seem conscious.”
“She’s in a natural sleep, barricaded out of the sphere,” Adi said. “Per standard protocol.”
Zeke felt a little foolish extending his gun when Adi and the doctor blocked him from his target. He lowered it but didn’t reholster.
“You shouldn’t have zapped her out,” he said to Adi.
