Dream Stalkers

by Tim Waggoner

  “You and Jinx need to get used to being near each other without Blending. Your somnacological systems have to find a balance between disconnection and over-connection while you work. Remaining near each other should help facilitate that process while still allowing you to perform your duties. If you do this, there’s a chance that the connection between the two of you will rebalance itself, and you’ll have no more problems with Blending.”

  “And if that doesn’t help?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear his answer.

  “If the Blending continues to worsen, you’ll both start losing your individual sense of self. You won’t know where one of you begins and the other ends. You’ll be in danger of losing your minds in an almost literal sense. At that point, the only hope for recovery is permanent separation.”

  “Permanent?” I echoed.

  He nodded.

  I turned to Jinx. He was holding up his hand and examining his perfectly healthy nails. He sighed.

  “No matter what I do, the damn things keep growing back.”

  Three

  Menendez gave us his card in case we might need to consult him later. I figured he knew we weren’t going to talk to the Watch Somnacologists, and he wanted to make sure we’d at least have some kind of access to help if we needed it. I thanked him and tucked the card into my pocket. He also reached into his lab coat and withdrew a bottle of pills.

  “Each of you should take one of these pills two times a day. You can increase the dosage to three or even four pills if your Blending starts to worsen.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I took the pills and put them into my pocket with his card.

  “For what?” he asked. “I can’t do anything for you both without a full diagnostic workup. Officially.” He smiled, shook both our hands, and promised to keep us updated on how Melody was doing.

  Jinx and I stopped by Melody’s room one more time before we left the Sick House. Everything looked the same as before – Melody still suspended in her silken cocoon, giant spider on the ceiling, creepy robed crone sitting next to her, only now Trauma Doll was present as well. A chair had been brought in for her and she sat next to Melody, on the side opposite from where Miseria sat. One of Trauma Doll’s glossy porcelain hands rested on Melody’s abdomen, and Trauma Doll’s eyes were closed, as if she was in deep concentration. She’d removed her barbed wire, but, while she was technically naked, she looked more like a statue than a living woman, and the effect wasn’t particularly erotic.

  Jinx started to raise a hand to wave to her, but he stopped. She wouldn’t see him, so what was the point? I could feel Jinx’s disappointment as if it were my own, and I wondered if that was just a normal function of our link or a sign of Blending. Since neither of us became dizzy and started flailing around, unable to control our bodies, I decided not to worry about it.

  I was glad to leave the Sick House and get outside into Nod’s perpetually cool air. The star-filled canopy was spread over us, and, even though it was an illusion generated by the Unwakened to protect against the turbulent energies of the Maelstrom surrounding Nod, it was a beautiful illusion. Espial hung in the sky above us as well. It’s real – or at least I think it is. No one’s ever told me different. Espial functions as Nod’s moon, but, since this is a city created by and for living nightmares, an ordinary moon wouldn’t do. Espial is a gigantic glowing eye, and it slowly opens and closes its lid over the course of a month, mimicking the moon’s cycle in Earth’s dimension. Right now it was almost all the way closed, leaving only a mere sliver of light. I liked Espial best when most – or better yet, all – of its mammoth eyeball is concealed. No matter where I am in the city, if Espial’s lid is raised far enough, I always have the eerie feeling that it’s watching me.

  The Sick House, like many structures in Nod, looks like something manifested from a nightmare. Who knows? It might be. There are numerous Incubi who are living buildings. Where do you think stories of haunted houses originally came from? It’s a large domed structure formed from a combination of human and animal bones, some bleached white as if they’d been exposed to the sun for months, others gray, cracked, and decaying, while still others have bits of skin, muscle, and tendon attached to them. On Earth, you wouldn’t get an ill or injured person within a hundred miles of this place. In Nod, no one so much as blinks an eye at it. There are worse places in town. Much worse.

  The Sick House is located on the edge of Newtown, on the Oldtown side. Nightmarish constructions aside, the buildings here tend to look like those from early twentieth century Earth – stately brick buildings, no more than four or five stories. The roads are narrow, traffic minimal, the pedestrians sparse. Most of the Incubi tend to hang out in the Arcade or – if they like their fun sleazy and hazardous – the Cesspit. The vehicles going by in both directions ranged from modern to old-time Earth cars, horse-drawn carriages, and riders on horseback, with the occasional giant anaconda or ball of super-heated gas tossed in for variety. People dream all kinds of bizarre things, so you never know what you’ll find confronting you on the streets of Nod.

  Once Jinx and I were on the street, I took out the bottle Menendez had given us, popped off the top, and shook out four pills. I gave two to Jinx, and we dry swallowed them. I replaced the cap and tucked the bottle back into my pocket. The pills had a mild medicine aftertaste, but otherwise I felt no effects from them. I know Menendez had said to take one pill twice a day, but I figured it was a good idea to be proactive in treating our condition.

  We started walking centerwise, toward the Rookery. We walked in silence for a few moments before I spoke.

  “So…” I said, not sure how to approach what I wanted to discuss. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m getting a boil on my butt. I’m thinking of naming it Albertus Magnus the Third. Or Steve.”

  “Thanks for sharing, but I mean how are you handling what happened at the beach?”

  Jinx glanced at me sideways. He may act like he’s crazy – okay, it isn’t an act – but that doesn’t mean he’s a complete idiot.

  “You’re really asking me how I feel about Trauma Doll ditching us to stay with Melody.”

  “Maybe.”

  He remained silent for a few moments as we continued walking. When he spoke again, there was no hint of lunatic clown in his voice. He sounded like a regular guy. A regular sad guy.

  “I’m going to miss her, but I understand her decision. I’d do the same thing for you.” A hint of dark mischief returned to his gaze. “No way would I want to miss your suffering.”

  “You’re all heart. Wait, I said the wrong body part. You’re all asshole.”

  He let out one of his high-pitched, shudder-inducing hyena giggles.

  “So were you two…” I trailed off, hoping Jinx would pick up on the hint.

  “Screwing like rabid weasels? In case you didn’t notice, she’s not exactly anatomically correct. If we tried to do it, she’d end up with a shattered pelvis – literally.”

  “Stop bragging,” I joked. “Besides, she’s not an Incubus all the time.”

  Trauma Doll looked much the same in her Day Aspect, even down to a skin complexion so light it resembled porcelain. But during the day she was a flesh-and-blood woman with all the requisite parts in the right places.

  Jinx had become a fully Idealized being when I was in my late teens, although he’d manifested a number of times before that, whenever I had a nightmare about him. He’d started life in an adult body, but technically he was only a decade old. In all that time he hadn’t shown any romantic interest in anyone, male or female, and I’d come to think of him as asexual. Maybe they hadn’t had sex or even held hands, but I knew Jinx had feelings for Trauma Doll. I decided not to press the issue, though.

  We were still wearing civvies, but, even if folks didn’t recognize me out of uniform, they had no such problem with Jinx. He has, as you might’ve guessed, quite a reputation in town. Because of this, people tend to make room for us as we walk and avert their gazes as we pass. But Ji
nx’s reputation cuts both ways, so, while it can be a decided advantage when we want people to get out of our way, there are those who consider themselves to be the baddest of badasses, and they are determined to prove it by taking down the toughest clown in town.

  So when another clown came walking toward us from the opposite direction, I instantly went on alert. The fact that she was female didn’t make me feel any better. One way or another, regardless of gender or appearance, all Incubi are dangerous. She was petite, with candy-red hair, and, while her skin was the traditional clown white, her features were those of someone of African descent. She had dark patches surrounding her eyes and teeth patterns on her lips to make her face resemble a skull. She wore a black-and-white striped sleeveless top, a short frilly black skirt, torn fishnet stockings, and thick-soled leather boots which came up to her knees and were laced in front. She swung her hips from side to side as she walked to keep a hula hoop in motion around her waist. It was made of chrome and razor blades jutted outward from it. Pedestrians gave her an even wider berth than they did Jinx, and, from the look on his face, I knew he didn’t like it.

  She was chewing pink bubble gum, and she blew and popped a good-sized bubble before reaching us. She stopped in front of us, but continued swinging her hips to keep the hula hoop going. I noticed that the inside of the hoop, which was free of razor blades, didn’t actually touch her body.

  I glanced at Jinx and raised my eyebrows. He gave a slight headshake to tell me he didn’t know the woman. I didn’t say anything. This was clown business.

  Jinx sighed.

  “Normally I’d love to stomp you into paste,” he said, “but right now I’m not in the mood. How about a rain check?”

  The woman didn’t respond right away. Her eyes shone from within their twin black hollows, and she blew another bubble, this one bigger than the last. It kept going until it was almost as big as her head. It popped with a sound like gunfire, and I reached for my trancer out of reflex. I stopped myself before drawing it, though.

  When the clown woman spoke, I expected her voice to be high-pitched and squeaky. Instead it was low and husky, as if she was a three-pack-a-day smoker.

  “You need to ask yourself one question, Jinx. Are you clown enough?”

  She blew another large bubble, popped it, and then, without so much as a glance in my direction, she walked around us, razor-studded hula hoop still spinning.

  Jinx and I both turned to watch her depart.

  “What the hell was that all about?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Beats me. You know clowns.”

  He turned and started walking centerwise again. After a moment, I hurried to catch up with him. Yeah, I know clowns. But knowing them and understanding them are two different things.

  * * * * *

  “So you were unable to take Montrose into custody.”

  Commander Sanderson stood in front of a framed painting of an hourglass, a new addition to his office wall. Sand flowed downward in a continuous stream, but the top chamber never emptied. I have no idea what his first name is, or if he even has one. For all I know Commander is his first name.

  “No, sir,” I said. “At that point, I was too concerned with getting Melody to the Sick House.”

  Sanderson turned away from the painting to regard us, his hands clasped behind his back. He looked slightly displeased, but that’s his default expression. I can never tell how mad he is until he starts yelling at us. Sanderson – who some people say is the Sandman – is a black man in his early sixties, slender, with a neatly trimmed mustache and short hair. He wears the gray suit of the Shadow Watch, but his tie displays the turbulent multicolored energies of the Maelstrom, and, like the hourglass painting, the colors are always in motion.

  Jinx and I sat in what I’d come to think of as the “time out” section of the Rookery – the two chairs in front of Sanderson’s large wooden desk. I sat with my wounded fingers tucked beneath my legs in the hope he wouldn’t notice them. My fingers stung like hell, but I’d treat them later, after Jinx and I got our verbal spanking.

  “At least we now know that Montrose exists,” Sanderson said. “It’s amazing that an Incubus that large and powerful has managed to stay off our radar for so long.”

  “Maybe he’s a relative of yours,” Jinx said. “You know, the whole sand thing?” Jinx frowned. “You’re not pretending you’ve never heard of him just because he’s family, are you? This cover-up could result in the biggest scandal in Shadow Watch history! It could bring down the entire organization!”

  “Or not,” I said.

  Jinx pursed his red lips. “Good point. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Sanderson continued as if Jinx hadn’t spoken. He has to do that a lot.

  “We’ll keep an eye on him and see if we can learn who his shuteye supplier is.”

  “That might not be so easy,” I said. “He can disguise himself as part of any beach in the Chicago area, so he can change locations at random. It’s possible that he can hide underwater, too, at least close to shore.”

  Sanderson nodded. “I’ll make sure the officers I assign to the surveillance are made aware of those possibilities.”

  He was taking us off the case? I couldn’t believe this was happening again.

  “Sir, I know tonight didn’t go as planned–”

  Jinx gusted out a laugh that sounded like a donkey’s bray.

  “Understatement, thy name is Audra.”

  If my fingers hadn’t hurt so much, I’d have punched him on the shoulder then. As it was, it still took a supreme effort of will for me to restrain myself.

  “In this case, I find myself agreeing with Jinx,” Sanderson said.

  I was so shocked by Sanderson’s words that for an instant a wave of vertigo washed over me, and I found myself looking out through Jinx’s eyes. I took the opportunity to slap his face as hard as I could as payback for his snide remark. Sanderson raised an eyebrow, but he was so used to Jinx’s odd behavior that he didn’t say anything. Another bout of dizziness later, and I was back in my own skull, and Jinx was rubbing his cheek. I smiled. This Blending thing was turning out to have advantages after all.

  Sanderson went on. “As I was saying, tonight’s operation did not go well, to say the least – and for that, I’d like to apologize.”

  I blinked several times as I struggled to process what he’d just said. Sanderson turned away, walked behind his desk, and sat down.

  “After the two of you stopped the Fata Morgana from merging the dimensions – and saving my life in the process, I might add – I’ve become somewhat obsessed with strengthening the Shadow Watch so we’d be ready if the Lords of Misrule, or some other power, ever attempted something on that scale again. I decided to step up recruitment of new officers and ‘streamlined’ their training. I think what happened to Officers Gail and Trauma Doll tonight is proof that I acted rashly in that regard. They simply weren’t ready for the level of danger you encountered tonight.”

  While I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t relieved that Sanderson wasn’t blaming Jinx and me for what had happened, I felt a need to defend our trainees.

  “To be fair, not many officers could’ve handled an Incubus as powerful as Montrose,” I said.

  “You two did. And that brings me to my next point. Since Damien and Eklips died, there’s been a void in the Shadow Watch personnel assigned to New York City. I’d like the two of you to fill that void.”

  If I had been shocked by what Sanderson said earlier, I was absolutely flabbergasted now. Vertigo hit, Jinx and I switched bodies again, and I heard my voice say, “I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming!” And then Jinx showed me, as he so often does, why paybacks are hell. He reached up, took a hold of my cheek with thumb and forefinger, and squeezed hard, giving the flesh a sharp twist for good measure. More vertigo, another switch, and suddenly my cheek stung like hell.

  Sanderson frowned to the point of scowling, and he looked at me, then at Jinx, then b
ack to me.

  Jinx and I needed to cool it. The last thing I wanted was for Sanderson to start suspecting something was wrong with us. More than usual, that is.

  “So what do you think of my offer?” Sanderson asked. “We could really use you two in New York.”

  While Shadow Watch officers move back and forth between Earth’s dimension and Nod as necessary, we tend to be assigned a home base on Earth. In cities, for the most part. The larger the concentration of humans, the more combined psychic power there is, and, when they sleep, they subconsciously create pathways to Nod that allow Incubi to cross over and cause trouble. In the hierarchy of Shadow Watch posts, New York was the very top, and to be offered a posting there was a great honor. I should’ve been jumping up and down with excitement, but I wasn’t. I loved Chicago, and I knew it like I knew the sound of my heartbeat. Sure, it’s not perfect. There’s a significant racial divide and income inequality, but, despite that, it was my town. My home. And you don’t leave your home just because it needs fixing. The work Jinx and I did may not have helped directly with Chicago’s biggest problems, but we did our best to make sure living nightmares didn’t add to the city’s woes.

  “A bigger city means more stuff to break,” Jinx said. “Sounds good.”

  Sanderson frowned.

  “Thank you so much for the offer, sir,” I said. “Can we think it over while we keep working on the case?”

  “You mean the shuteye situation?” Sanderson asked.

  “Yes. It’s the least we can do for Melody and Trauma Doll. When Melody gets out of the Sick House, I want to be able to tell her we found the bastards manufacturing shuteye and we burned their fucking operation to the ground.” Then, realizing that sounded more than a little crazy – and too much like Jinx – I said, “Sorry. Guess I’m still upset over what happened at the beach.”

  “Your… enthusiasm is commendable,” Sanderson said.