The Last Dream Keeper

by Amber Benson

  This happened twice more, Lyse ducking out of the way just before the backpack could connect with her face. It was tiring work, but she knew if the woman hit her mark that would be the end.

  Knockout.

  “If you give up, you will not be harmed,” the blonde said as she took another swing at Lyse’s head. “We know who you are and we don’t want to hurt you.”

  The German accent was gone, replaced now by the monotone of Middle America. Lyse didn’t know which accent to believe—probably neither, she decided.

  “Leave my friend alone and I’ll go with you,” Lyse replied.

  “Can’t do that,” the blonde responded with a condescending grin that exposed crisp, white teeth and pink gums.

  “Why not?” Lyse asked, playing along.

  She and the blonde were both getting tired, and Lyse hoped that by talking she’d drag the whole thing out long enough to somehow get the advantage.

  “Orders.”

  The woman slung the backpack at Lyse once more—but this time Lyse was prepared. She held her ground, reaching out and plucking the orange bag out of the air with both hands just as it was about to connect with her face. Without missing a beat, she pulled the bag into her chest, holding on to it for dear life. The blonde tried to yank the weapon out of Lyse’s grasp, but Lyse had a firm grip on the Day-Glo orange material and there was no way she was going to let go of it.

  The blonde was now within easy reach. Lyse used all of her strength and kneed the woman in the stomach. The blonde grunted, falling heavily against the backpack that separated them, but she didn’t go down. So Lyse slammed her knee into the woman’s gut again and again, fear driving her attack. Now the woman teetered and fell to her knees, still clutching at the bag. Lyse ripped it out of her hands and swung it like a bat. It connected with flesh and bone and the blonde fell forward, her face hitting the stone floor.

  Lyse raised the bag and slammed it into the back of the woman’s head, ensuring that her attacker would be out of commission for the duration.

  She heard Weir grunt behind her and turned to find him embattled. He was having trouble fending off the two men who surrounded him, each of them larger and more muscular than he was. She could see that he was already starting to tire, his face a mask of concentration as he dodged blow after blow that rained down on him.

  He was going to need her help, sooner rather than later.

  She picked up the backpack and unzipped it, instantly seeing why it was so heavy: It contained two pistols and a metal billy club. She pulled out one of the guns, then zipped up the pack, sliding it over her shoulder.

  “Stop, or I’ll shoot you,” Lyse said, making sure the safety was off and looping her finger through the trigger.

  The two men halted what they were doing, giving Weir a moment to catch his breath. Then the larger one, whose blond hair resembled the pale fuzz on top of a fleshy peach, made a move toward her. Lyse didn’t hesitate; she pointed the gun at the man’s feet and let off a shot. He jumped back as the slug went into the soft stone floor, shards of rock rocketing into the air.

  She lifted the gun and quickly checked the chamber: four more shots, more than enough to take the two men out.

  “You can see that I know how to shoot and I promise you I will make your life miserable if you mess with me,” Lyse said, keeping the gun trained on the two fake German tourists. “Now back away from my friend . . .”

  Using the barrel to indicate that they should move to their right, she waited for them to do what she asked. Peach Fuzz and his smaller but no less muscular friend looked at each other as if they were trying to decide what to do.

  “C’mere,” Lyse called to Weir, who was staring at her like she’d grown an extra head.

  He stepped over to join her, and she saw that the two Germans had gotten him good. His nose was busted, a thin trickle of blood oozing from one nostril, and his left cheek was split, the gash raw and angry-looking.

  “You look like crap,” Lyse said, grinning at him.

  “You look like you’re about to kill someone,” he replied, eyes still on the pistol in her hand.

  “Eleanora taught me to shoot when I was a teenager. We used to go downtown to the gun club and spend Sunday afternoon there,” Lyse said, keeping the two men within her sights. “I know what I’m doing, don’t worry. Now here, take the bag.”

  He raised an eyebrow but refrained from saying anything she might mistake as disparaging. Instead, he took the proffered backpack and held it in between his hands, not sure what to do with it.

  “Take out the other gun—”

  “I don’t know how to use it,” he said, shaking his head. “And I don’t believe in them.”

  Peach Fuzz snickered, and Lyse sighed, not willing to force the issue.

  “Then just hold on to the bag, so none of them can get their hands on it.”

  He nodded, slipping the Day-Glo pack over his shoulder. When Lyse was sure the backpack was secure, she began questioning the men in front of her:

  “Who are you and what do you want?”

  She got no answer. They both stared back at her, unfazed by having a gun held on them. She wondered if this was an everyday occurrence in their line of work, or if they were just being stoic.

  “Come on, don’t make me shoot you,” she said.

  “You’re not going to shoot me,” the larger man replied, the corners of his mouth stretching into a lazy grin. “You don’t have the—”

  Lyse didn’t hesitate, just took aim and shot the man in the foot before he could get out the rest of his sentence. He screamed as blood blossomed around the hole in his sneaker—and she imagined she’d taken off a toe or two with the shot.

  “You dumb bitch,” he shrieked, falling back against the chamber wall and using it to support his weight now that one of his feet was out of commission.

  “I don’t care what you call me,” Lyse said, glaring back at him. “I will shoot you in the other foot if you don’t answer my question: Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  The temperature in the chamber dropped and Lyse felt a cold chill wrap around her body. Her teeth began to chatter as something wet dripped onto the crown of her head. She looked up, but there was nothing there, zero condensation on the stone ceiling that could’ve fallen on her.

  Yet still the feeling of intense cold wouldn’t go away. In fact, it began to get worse, spilling down the length of her body as if someone had poured a pitcher of ice water over her head.

  She looked over at Weir and then at the two men, but they all seemed immune to whatever was affecting her.

  “Tell me!” Lyse shouted, her blue eyes flashing.

  The surge of anger she felt took her by surprise. Even Weir noticed and shot her a strange look.

  “Sorry,” she murmured to Weir, trying to shake off the impotent rage she was feeling.

  These are not my feelings, Lyse thought, pushing them away. I don’t know what channel I’m tuned into, but it has to stop.

  She gritted her teeth and mentally pushed back at the oppressive feelings that were trying to fill her head—Go away! I don’t want you. She imagined the cold pouring back out of her, returning to wherever it had come from—and she relaxed.

  The wounded man kept his mouth clamped shut, a pissed-off expression on his ruddy face. But his friend, by far the quieter of the two, was watching her intently. The way his intelligent brown eyes stayed locked on her face, she wondered if he sensed what had just happened to her.

  “We’re here to get your little friend,” he volunteered, more forthcoming than his partner.

  Maybe he just doesn’t want his body damaged irreparably, she thought. She supposed it didn’t really matter why he was talking, just that he was.

  “What little friend?” Weir asked.

  “The one who took off into the dark. My two guys will
catch her and then she’s all ours.”

  The man spoke with a quiet authority, his dark eyes earnest. Lyse realized that he was the one in charge of the mission, not Peach Fuzz. Even if Peach Fuzz was the more physically intimidating of the two.

  “You’ll never find her,” Weir said. “She’ll outsmart anyone you send after her.”

  “No, it doesn’t matter what he thinks,” the man said about Weir before returning his attention to Lyse. “But you know that already.”

  “Know what—” Lyse started to say, but then she felt a sense of claustrophobia so strong that it was hard to breathe.

  Whatever had tried to sway her emotions before, it was back and this time, it was playing on her fears. She felt an intense urge to escape the confines of the catacombs. To get outside and inhale fresh air again. She hated being in such an enclosed space. She was certain that the tiny burial chamber was far too small to hold all of these people.

  She was having trouble focusing. She felt clammy all over, slick sweat breaking out on her upper lip and down her back. She closed her eyes, trying not to hyperventilate. She felt Weir’s hand on her arm, his touch tender as his voice sounded in her ear:

  “What does he mean? What do you know?”

  She shook her head, wanting to explain that she had no idea what the man was talking about, but she was unable to speak. She couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t open her mouth . . . couldn’t do anything to defend herself from whatever was trying to take her over.

  Judas.

  It was an old woman’s voice and it was full of rage.

  “What do you mean?” she heard Weir ask the man.

  There was a pause.

  “Ask your girlfriend. She knows . . .”

  Judas, trying to take the place of the rightful Magician. Now you will die.

  In the darkness behind her eyelids, Lyse knew something terrible was about to happen, and that she was helpless to do anything about it. She heard the crack of a pistol firing—one of the Germans was shooting—once, twice, three times, and a spray of blood hit her face. Terror filled the burial chamber as the gunshots deafened her. She held her breath, waiting for the pain to blossom in her chest like a flower . . . but there was nothing, not even a twitch.

  She opened her eyes slowly, the buzzing in her head making it hard to hear. Everything muffled, like she was underwater. She looked down at the gun in her hand and then at her body, realizing that she was covered in blood. She twisted her head to the side, not wanting to look, but knowing that she had to.

  Lyse screamed, the sound of raw grief exploding out of her as she dropped to her knees. The broken keening that next escaped her lips was inhuman.

  And then everything went red.

  * * *

  She didn’t remember lifting the gun in her hand. Didn’t remember shooting Peach Fuzz in the face. Didn’t remember turning and shooting the blond woman in the chest. Didn’t remember shooting the one man she’d totally forgotten about, the one Daniela had kicked in the solar plexus—but she’d caught him crouched near one of the burial slabs in a halo of smoke, a shiny black pistol in his hand.

  The smoking gun.

  The only one standing at the end of it all was the man with the brown eyes—and that was only because Lyse had run out of bullets.

  * * *

  When she came back to reality, she was curled in a fetal position on the floor of the burial chamber. She reached up and touched her face, felt the dried blood caking on her skin, her lips scaly as desiccated bone. She wanted to sit up, but her head was a bowling ball, so heavy she couldn’t lift it. She tried to swallow and had trouble with even this simplest of tasks. Her tongue felt hairy and thick against the roof of her mouth, the foul taste of stagnant saliva turning her stomach as she tried to swallow and finally managed it this time.

  She blinked, her vision fading in and out of focus, could make out a puddle of blood on the floor by her head. She reached out, hand shaking, and touched the gelatinous pool, her fingers coming back black. She closed her eyes, squeezing her eyelids shut tight, pleading with her mind to ignore the memories as they bombarded her—the flash of a gun muzzle, blood blooming like a rose on the front of Weir’s shirt, his hand twitching once and then no more—but still they came, unbidden, and she couldn’t stop them.

  “No,” she mouthed, mentally pushing the pictures away.

  She forced herself to roll over. She took a deep, shuddering breath and opened her eyes again. The images in her mind ceased, replaced now by cold hard reality.

  “No,” she moaned in agony. “No . . .”

  Weir lay sprawled on the ground, his back to her. When he’d fallen, the bottom of his blue T-shirt had ridden up, revealing a slash of smooth golden skin, the bony ridges of his rib cage, and the thick lines that spiderwebbed together to form the outline of the ghostly pirate ship that adorned his torso like a piece of art. The jewel tones—bright aqua and ruby and jade and banana—filled the inky black webbing with vibrant color, giving the ship a surreal Salvador Dali quality that Lyse loved. She reached out and touched Weir’s back, smearing the blood she’d gotten on her finger onto the prow of the listing ship—but she didn’t take her hand away. She continued to trace the ship’s outline, surprised at how cold his body felt.

  She was afraid to poke him, to try to prod him awake, because she didn’t want to know what she already knew. Instead, she lovingly ran her fingers along the curve of his ribs and down the vertebrae of his back, stroking his bones like an instrument. Her flesh crawled as she touched him, her skin so alive it recoiled at the thought of connecting to something dead.

  “Weir?” she whispered, still stroking his back.

  She got an answer she did not expect.

  “Over here.”

  She turned her head and saw Weir—or a ghostly approximation of the man—sitting on the edge of one of the rock outcroppings. He looked the same except for a dark stain on the front of his shirt.

  “Hi,” he said, and smiled sadly.

  “Hi,” Lyse said, swallowing back a sob.

  “Don’t cry over me,” he said. He patted the rock beside him, indicating she should join him. “It’s not like they said it would be, Lyse. Nothing scary about dying. It didn’t even hurt.”

  “Yeah?” Lyse asked.

  He nodded.

  “Come sit by me.”

  She shook her head and looked over at his body.

  “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  He nodded sadly.

  “I loved you, Lyse. I hope you know that.”

  She didn’t trust herself not to cry if she opened her mouth, so she shook her head.

  “No, you don’t know that?” he said, his brow furrowed.

  She shook her head again. No, I didn’t know, she thought. I’d hoped, but I didn’t know.

  “You’re the funniest thing,” he said. “So strong and determined, but so childlike, too.”

  “I love you, too.” She managed to choke out most of the words before the tears came.

  A wave of nausea crashed over her, but she fought it off. The tears were another story. They leaked from her eyes at will, trickling across her upper lip, down the side of her face and onto the ground. She could taste them, hot and salty.

  “Don’t cry,” he said.

  He was kneeling beside her now, his hand stroking her long dark hair. She felt him there, the nearness of his warmth and smell making her cry harder.

  “It’s tough,” she whispered, grief swallowing her words. “So tough.”

  “I know,” he said, touching her cheek. “I know.”

  She never wanted this time with Weir to end, but nothing lasted forever. He leaned down and kissed Lyse’s forehead.

  “Take care of LB,” he whispered into her ear. “She needs you. No matter what happens, love and protect her the way I would.”


  Time came to a standstill as Lyse’s grief ebbed and flowed. How long she lay there on the cold ground, letting the stone leach her body heat away, she didn’t know. Weir was gone now and that was all that mattered.

  Eventually she pulled her hand back, letting it fall to her side, the fingers extended, so that they did not touch the rest of her.

  Dead hands, she thought, rubbing her bloodstained fingers together, mesmerized by the soft swish of skin on skin.

  She wanted to roll Weir over, to see the place where they’d shot him, but she couldn’t bear it. Imagining this simple action caused her tears to flow again.

  A voice spoke out of the darkness:

  “Enough.”

  A pair of rough hands slipped between her arms and her torso, lifting her up in the air. She felt weightless, a feather floating in the air, so light it would fly forever.

  “Stand up.”

  The voice was stern, authoritative, and in her daze, she did what it said. Her feet touched the ground; the stone floor was the only solid thing in the whole world.

  “You did this to yourself,” the voice said.

  Unseen hands turned her, so that she was face to face with the man in charge, the one with the dark brown, earnest eyes. He shook his head, jaw gritted together so tightly Lyse wondered if his teeth would shatter.

  “This was your doing,” he said, driving his words into her like a sword. “Do you understand? You did this.”

  He raised his hand in a sweeping arc, pointing to the carnage surrounding them. Five human bodies in their death rictus, blood spray on the walls and floor, a wanton murderess . . . it was a scene fit for the burial chamber of a Roman-era catacomb.

  “Screw you,” Lyse said, and spat in his face.