Dream Stalkers

by Tim Waggoner

  I would’ve loved to stand by and watch as Jinx’s confetti stripped the flesh from her bones, but I am supposed to be one of the good guys. I moved into position so that I was standing behind Demonique and then I raised my trancer. At that exact instant, she transformed into Trauma Doll. Her porcelain skin was unmarked and free of blood, although there was still plenty of it pooled around her feet. The razor confetti continued swirling around her, its edges striking her skin with tiny pinging sounds without doing any harm. From where I stood, I couldn’t see her grin, but I could hear it in her voice when she spoke to Jinx.

  “What are you going to do now, Lover Boy?”

  While the confetti had been slicing into Demonique’s skin, Jinx had used another huge water balloon to put out his latest fire. His clothes were scorched and half burned away, and his chalk-white skin was covered with blackened patches, making him look like a human-shaped burned marshmallow. Half of his face was a ruin, and, when he spoke, his words came out slurred.

  “I’m going to stand here and watch while Audra drops you like a deadbeat boyfriend.”

  I fired.

  The trancer was set to low, and the M-energy beam that lanced from its muzzle struck Trauma Doll at the base of the skull without damaging her. The impact knocked her out of the confetti tornado and toward Jinx. I thought that he might hit her with his shoe spring, but he stepped aside and watched as she fell face-first to the floor. There was the sound of porcelain cracking, but her body remained intact. Until, that is, Jinx stepped forward, raised his foot, and brought it down hard on Trauma Doll’s head. There was a loud crack-pop! and shards of porcelain skittered across the floor. Trauma Doll’s body spasmed a couple times, and then fell still. When Jinx raised his foot, all that was left of Trauma Doll’s head was bits and pieces. One eye had remained mostly intact, though, and Jinx bent down and picked it up.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to break up with you. Or maybe that should be break you up.”

  He let out one of his hyena cackles and tucked the eye into his jacket pocket.

  In general, I’ve made my peace with having a psychotic clown for a partner, but sometimes he still makes me want to pee my pants.

  While Jinx and I had been dealing with Trauma Doll, Gingerdread Man had managed to pull himself together. His two halves hadn’t fused yet, but just their touching each other must’ve been enough to allow him to switch forms. He blurred and became the bat creature called Badfang.

  Badfang jumped to her feet, opened her mouth wide – displaying the sharp incisors that had undoubtedly inspired her name – and released an ear-splitting screech. It felt like someone had rammed white-hot daggers into my ears, and I dropped the trancer and pressed my hands over them in a vain attempt to shut the sound out. Badfang’s sonic attack had to be occurring on multiple levels, ultrasonic and subsonic included. I could feel sound vibrations pounding into my body, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if I was being shaken apart at the molecular level.

  Jinx wasn’t faring any better. Incubi tend to have sharper senses than humans, and I know the sound assault was affecting him worse than it was me. He fell to one knee and jammed his fists against his ears, pushing so hard I feared he’d grind the cartilage to a pulp. Agony twisted his features, at least those that hadn’t been burned to a crisp.

  Badfang’s screeching rose in pitch, and the pain – which was already worse than any I’d ever experienced – doubled. But then the air behind Badfang shimmered and Bloodshedder quite literally leaped out of nowhere. Her front paws slammed into Badfang’s back and her claws sank deep into flesh. Badfang’s sonic attack ceased as Bloodshedder’s weight and momentum drove the batwoman to the floor. The impact broke loose a number of her teeth, incisors included, and blood gushed from her mouth. Bloodshedder didn’t stop there, though. The demon dog fastened her jaws onto Badfang’s neck, bit down, and gave a single, savage shake. There was a sickening crack, and Badfang’s body went limp.

  Bloodshedder let go of the batwoman, stepped back, and sat on her haunches, happily wagging her spiked tail. A little thing like a broken neck wouldn’t keep an Incubus down for long, but it would take her some time to recover.

  I was about to ask Bloodshedder where Russell was – afraid that maybe he wasn’t anymore – when he stepped out of the shimmering portal. It vanished the instant he set foot on the Sick House’s tiled floor. He was dressed in his full Nocturne costume, with a brand-new cape, but with two important differences. One was that he wasn’t wearing his M-rapier. It had been left at Deadlock, and evidently the Thresholders hadn’t retrieved it for him. The second change was far more striking. His left arm – the one that had been almost torn off at the prison – was bare, and, instead of flesh and bone, it was made of multicolored solidified Maelstrom energy, just as his rapier had been.

  “Sorry it took me a minute to come through,” he said. “The amount of M-energy my new arm gives off destabilizes the Thresholders’ portals a little. Makes going through one kind of like walking through a wall of cold molasses.”

  My ears rang like hell, and I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. I didn’t care, though. I was just glad to see him alive. I wanted to run to him and hug him, but my entire body hurt like a motherfucker, and I feared that, if I tried to take even a single step, I’d scream.

  Jinx, of course, was recovering more quickly. He didn’t appear to be in pain anymore, and his burns, while still damn nasty, were in the process of healing. Half of his jacket had been burned away, but he still had a couple pockets left. He reached into one, brought out a rev inhaler, and tossed it to me.

  I caught it, my body shrieking in protest for making it move.

  “I know you don’t want to rely on that stuff,” Jinx said, “but we’ve got work to do. Now’s not the time to be a martyr.”

  I caught enough of what Jinx said to get the gist of it. With a trembling hand, I put the inhaler into my mouth and started to activate it. But I didn’t. I’d worked too long and too hard to get clean, and I wasn’t going to give that up.

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll play through the pain.”

  I dropped the inhaler on the ground and stomped on it. The casing cracked, rendering the device useless.

  The smile on Jinx’s face would’ve been right at home on his Day Aspect.

  I walked – or more accurately hobbled – over to Russell. I started to reach out to touch his new arm, but I hesitated.

  He smiled, a little shakily I thought. He was trying to act like what had happened to him was no big deal, but I could tell it bothered him. Who could blame him? It’s not every day a guy loses his arm and gets a shiny new one.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “The energy’s not volatile in solidified form.”

  I touched it and found it cold, smooth, and hard as marble. I withdrew my hand, and he flexed his new arm and wiggled the fingers. They moved a little stiffly, but, overall, the arm seemed to work just fine. It was unbelievable. Even the Shadow Watch’s most talented M-gineers could only create small objects from solid M-energy. But the Thresholders had been able to craft a working prosthetic arm from the stuff.

  “Can you feel anything with it?” I asked. “You know, like a–” I broke off, suddenly embarrassed.

  “Real arm?” He smiled to show he wasn’t bothered by what I’d almost said. “Not exactly. I can feel pressure, but that’s about it. Maybe it’ll get more sensitive in time. It’s still pretty new.”

  He flexed his arm again, this time making a fist.

  “The Thresholders can do some amazing things, but they’re not great with repairing flesh and blood, considering that they don’t have any of their own. But they’re geniuses when it comes to shaping energy.”

  There was so much I wanted to say to him. But, before I could speak, I heard the sepulchral sound of the Deathmobile’s horn honking, one blast after another, as if she – or Connie – was trying to get our attention. Or worse, sound an alarm.

  I picked up the trancer while Jin
x ran to the wall and pulled Cuthbert Junior free. Then the four of us started running down the corridor to the hospital’s main entrance.

  * * * * *

  When we stepped out of the Sick House, the scene that awaited us was so disorienting that for a moment I thought Jinx and I were on the verge of switching bodies again.

  The rest of the Canopy had disappeared. The black sky was replaced by the turbulent ever-roiling energies of the Maelstrom, swirling colors that combined, broke apart, and recombined in endless combinations, none of which there were names for. The Maelstrom gives off a dim, multicolored light, not very intense, something like dusk on Earth, so we could still see, but not very well.

  The Fata Morgana still sat in the front seat of the Deathmobile next to Connie. Connie looked uneasy, but the Fata Morgana looked downright terrified. I knew exactly how she felt.

  Jinx, Russell, Bloodshedder and I climbed into the Deathmobile. The others got in the back while I slid onto the seat next to the Fata Morgana.

  “It happened when you were inside,” she said. “The Canopy just… vanished.”

  “Can you take us to the Idyllon?” I asked Connie. I didn’t know if there was anything we could do to stop what was happening, but we had to try.

  She nodded, put the Deathmobile in gear, and pulled away from the Sick House. The streets of Newtown were almost completely deserted now, and I wondered if the situation was as bad on Earth. I decided it probably was even worse. Earth was much bigger than Nod, and, because of this, there was so much more to lose.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening,” Russell said. “How is this all possible?”

  I gave him the Cliff Notes version of everything that had happened since he’d been wounded in Deadlock.

  “So the First Dreamer is real?” he said, when I was finished. “The Thresholders never told me that.” He sounded more irritated at his employers than amazed to discover that God was real and slept at the top of Idyllon.

  “Or maybe whoever is trying to wake the First Dreamer is able to pick and choose who and what gets excised,” Jinx said.

  Now there was a disturbing thought.

  “But if that’s true,” Russell said, “why are you two still here? Or Bloodshedder and me? As far as we know, we’re the only ones who know someone is trying to wake the Dreamer. Wouldn’t it make more sense for whoever is pulling the strings to have the Dreamer get rid of us?”

  “Maybe whoever it is doesn’t have that kind of fine control,” I said. “Getting rid of the Canopy, no problem. Focusing on and eliminating individuals might not be so easy.”

  “And maybe the Dreamer doesn’t want us gone,” Jinx said.

  “So the Dreamer’s trying to help us?” I asked.

  Jinx shrugged. “How the hell should I know? I’m just a lunatic clown who’s evidently not lunatic enough.” He crossed his arms and made a pouty face.

  Russell gave me a questioning look, and I said, “Long story.”

  He let it go at that.

  Jinx looked through one of the rear passenger windows, casting his gaze upward.

  “Huh. There’s something you don’t see every day,” he said.

  I hate it when Jinx says things like that.

  I really didn’t want to look out the window, but, of course, I had to. When I did, I didn’t understand at first what I was seeing. But after a second, I understood what he was talking about. Tendrils of Maelstrom energy stretched down from the sky – hundreds, thousands of them. They touched the tops of the highest buildings in Newtown, and, wherever they touched, matter dissolved, turning back into the Maelstrom energy it had been created from. Without the Unwakened – who I assumed had been excised now – and without the Canopy, there was nothing to hold the Maelstrom back. It was only a matter of time before Nod, and everyone in it, was destroyed. I’d experienced a lot of emotional blows over the last twenty-four hours or so. The deaths of Nathaniel and Mordacity. The excision of Commander Sanderson and the rest of the Shadow Watch. The discovery of Melody and Trauma Doll’s betrayal. The realization that someone was attempting to wake the First Dreamer. And now this: the imminent destruction of the city which, insane as it was at times, had become a second home to me. Not to mention that this destruction would also result in the deaths of Jinx, Russell, Bloodshedder, Connie, the Deathmobile, the Fata Morgana, and myself.

  I had been through, as they say, an emotional wringer, and I was wrung the hell out. I had nothing left, so, when I saw the M-energy tendrils reaching downward and beginning to unmake the buildings, I felt no fear, no sorrow, no This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. The only thing I felt was pissed off. Reality had been chugging away for who knew how many billions of years, and now some douche nozzles were going to delete it and overwrite it with their version?

  Fuck that.

  “We need to get to the Idyllon before the Maelstrom swallows us up,” I told Connie. “How fast can the Deathmobile go?”

  She looked scared as hell, but she managed a grin. “Pretty goddamned fast.”

  She tromped down on the gas pedal, and the Deathmobile’s engine roared in response. But, just as the hearse leaped forward, an M-energy tendril stretched down in front of us and touched the street. Instantly, asphalt disappeared, along with a huge section of the ground beneath. The tendril slid sideways, continuing to unmake a swath of buildings in its path, but, although it moved out of our way, the damage was done. Connie slammed on the brake, and the Deathmobile skidded sideways as it desperately fought to avoid sliding into the gaping hole that now lay before us. The hearse managed to come to a stop less than a foot from the edge, and Connie let out a shaky breath and patted the dash.

  “Good job, girl,” she said.

  “We’re going to have to find another route,” Russell said.

  “Easier said than done,” the Fata Morgana said. She pointed the way we had come, and we all turned to look.

  Another tendril – larger and wider than the last – had touched down behind us, unmaking the street as well as the buildings on either side as it came sweeping toward the Deathmobile.

  “It was nice knowing you all,” Jinx said. He looked at the Fata Morgana. “Except you, of course.”

  A look of determination came over Connie’s face. She leaned toward the Deathmobile’s dash, and in a soft voice said, “Get them where they need to go.”

  The doors to the hearse sprang open. The wraiths exited their coffin, flew around to the sides of the vehicle, and spectral hands reached inside. They grabbed hold of us with their – you guessed it – icy grips, pulled us out of the Deathmobile, and lifted us into the air.

  “Wait!” I shouted. “Connie, no!”

  But the wraiths carried us away from the Deathmobile with increasing speed. I looked back over my shoulder and saw the other wraiths carrying Jinx, Russell, and Bloodshedder. Not the Fata Morgana, though, and not Connie. I understood what was happening. Connie knew there was an excellent chance the Deathmobile would reach the Idyllon, and she wanted to make sure we did. Several wraiths remained behind, and they wrapped themselves around the Deathmobile, and, just as the M-energy tendril reached the vehicle, there was a green flash of light, and it was gone.

  “What happened?” Russell shouted. “Were they destroyed?”

  “I don’t know.” It was clear the wraiths had tried to do something to protect the Deathmobile, Connie, and the Fata Morgana, but I had no idea if they’d succeeded. I hoped they had.

  I mentally thanked Connie, and then I faced forward, ready for whatever came next.

  Fourteen

  An increasing number of Maelstrom-energy tendrils reached down from the sky and continued to unmake Nod, and the wraiths had to swerve wildly to avoid them. While the wraiths appeared to be separate ghostly beings with existences of their own, I knew they were in truth only projections of the Deathmobile, but I didn’t know how long they could continue to exist apart from her. If they ceased to exist while we were in the air… well,
let’s just say it wouldn’t be happy landings for us.

  As we flew, we saw the Loco-Motive sitting immobile on its tracks. Half of its engine was gone, and large sections of the tracks had been unmade. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw an empty conductor’s uniform lying on the ground nearby. We also passed over Misery Loves Company. A group of clowns was battling M-energy tendrils in the street outside the coffee shop – Lowbrow and Hula Hoop Girl among them – using every bizarre weapon they could get their chalk-white hands on, but their efforts were futile, and I knew how their fight would end.

  Soon the Idyllon’s white tower came into view, and the first thing I noticed was that no Maelstrom tendrils were reaching for it. The sky above the tower was a seething storm of multicolored energy, but it kept its distance.

  “Set us down at the edge of the courtyard!” I called out.

  I wanted to get our feet back on the ground before the wraiths vanished.

  They swooped downward, and for an instant I thought we were going to make it, but then – with less than fifteen feet to go – the wraiths vanished. There was nothing flashy or remarkable about it. No burst of light, no pop! as air rushed in to fill the space they’d inhabited. They were here one instant and then they weren’t.

  And we fell.

  Jinx and Bloodshedder landed easily enough, and Russell managed to get his new arm underneath him, land palm-first, spring himself upward, and then come down on his feet like an Olympic gymnast. Show-off. Me? I did my best to tuck and roll, but I hit awkwardly and felt a couple ribs snap. White fire lanced through the left side of my chest, and, when I got to my feet, I couldn’t stand straight and I pressed my hand to my side. Bad idea. The pressure only intensified the pain, and I yelped.

  “Are you all right?” Russell asked. He started toward me to help, but I waved him off.