Dreamwalker

by Russell James

  “Those are just the first,” Estella said . “All the hunters are adrift without his control. They’ll gravitate back here. They might not all be so easy to kill. We need to leave.”

  The other dreamwalkers nodded in acknowledgement. In unison, they raised their hands and Cauquemere’s prison globe levitated. He pounded the orb wall with his fist.

  “You will all be tortured for eternity!” he bellowed.

  Estella ignored him.

  “Now,” she said.

  The palace flashed out of existence. The dreamwalkers, the orb, and Rayna travelled out along the life force stream and into the city. As they moved, they unpinned the terminus of the energy flow and carried it with them away from the palace.

  Buildings materialized around them and they stood in the center of the intersection of two broad boulevards. One street stretched back several blocks between tall buildings to the palace. At the far end, dazed, stumbling hunters streamed off into the palace gate, their vehicles and weapons abandoned.

  A rumbling noise emanated from the palace. Cauquemere spun to view his former lair.

  A low, coarse grinding of stone on stone reverberated down the brick-walled canyon. The inflowing life force, the source of Cauquemere’s power, ceased to bind the palace walls. The mortar between the stones turned to sand and ran down like waterfalls. The granite blocks shifted and slid. The weight that had given the walls strength became weakness. The roof buckled. The towers collapsed at the base and fell inward. They crashed into each other and the light in the all-seeing eyes at each tower’s peak went dark. They exploded in a shower of massive gray cubes.

  “No!” screamed Cauquemere.

  “At last on a nightmare’s receiving end?” Estella said.

  The palace walls imploded. Hunters at the fence perimeter shuddered and dropped where they stood. A gray mushroom cloud of dust rose into the night sky and when it cleared, the palace was rubble.

  “It’s finished,” Estella said to Cauquemere. “Forever.”

  A light flashed bright white in the center of the barren sky, with four distinct points like a Christmas card star. It turned round and rosy. As it brightened, the black sky around it transformed to shades of pink. The twin moons faded from luminous white to pale, bleached bone. The red disk overhead turned yellow and painted the sky blue in a three-hundred sixty degree sunrise.

  The deepening blue leeched through the moons and they faded away. Night retreated to the horizon and left a cerulean sky and a blazing white sun.

  Around the dreamwalkers, Twin Moon City captives emerged from the buildings like expectant sprouts greeting the sunshine. They stood on the drying streets in stunned silence and stared skyward, daring to accept that redemption was at hand. Their filthy faces basked in the daylight.

  Like the palace before, the edges of the city began to crumble. Brilliant sunlight scorched the evil from each brick and left only dust. Block after block withered like drying fruit. As the buildings melted, the kidnapped souls within them rose. People sailed into the air, arms outstretched like soaring doves. Waves of spirits took wing and ascended in concentric circles behind the vanishing city, drawn effortlessly into the light of the sun. As they passed into the blazing disk, their bodies turned transparent and they became one with the radiant sphere.

  Cauquemere howled inside the orb like a wolf in a leg trap. The creature that only existed to amass power, was now powerless. He threw himself back and forth against the sphere, shouting profane threats as his world, his creation, turned to dust before his eyes.

  The buildings closest to the dreamwalkers began to disintegrate, silently vaporized in orderly rows. En masse, the Twin Moon City victims circling the dreamwalkers raised their arms and levitated. They moved toward the sun and began their final journey.

  With one last spasm of rage, Cauquemere leapt at the top of the sphere, as if trying to catch the departing souls he had once tormented. He fell back to the base of the orb, panting and limp.

  The machine gun in Rayna’s hand disappeared and the last physical remains of Twin Moon City were gone. She and the four dreamwalkers stood around the prison orb on an empty plain under a perfect sky. Cauquemere slumped at the bottom of the sphere.

  “It is your turn,” Estella said to the dreamwalkers. “Safe journey.”

  The three dropped their hands and the prison orb burst. Cauquemere fell several feet to the ground with a thud. He let out a muffled groan, but did not move. His legs and arms splayed out at odd angles, his duster coat opened under him like a pool of black blood. The three dreamwalkers raised their arms and soared up to the sun.

  Rayna ran to Estella and hugged her. Estella stroked her sister’s long, blonde hair.

  “One more trip to go, Little Sis,” she said.

  Estella went to one knee beside Cauquemere. A vague look of horrified comprehension crossed his face. She reached down and grabbed him by the throat. His eyes bulged. She shook him so hard his dreadlocks swayed like kelp in the surf.

  “I’ve got one more task,” she said. “And I need all the energy I can get.” She squeezed his neck tighter, remembering the grip he once held on hers. “You’re the donor.”

  Cauquemere’s mouth dropped open and his lower lip trembled. He stared at Estella with pleading eyes that for the first time truly understood fear.

  Estella squeezed and concentrated. She felt deep within Cauquemere, through the body that stank like a vulture’s rotting corpse. She found his last faint strand of energy, grabbed it and pulled.

  Cauquemere began to shrivel. His chest shrunk and his arms and legs retracted into his narrowing torso. His head grew smaller and smoother. His nose and ears disappeared. Estella soon held a foot-long segmented black worm. It wriggled in her hand. Its shiny skin glistened in the sun.

  “I can’t kill what has no real life,” she said with disgust, “but I can set you back. You’ll be no threat for centuries.”

  She threw the worm to the ground. It wriggled in an aimless circle, its head searching without understanding. Estella turned back to her sister. Satisfaction drained from Rayna’s face.

  “Pete?” Rayna said.

  “He’s fine on the other side.”

  Rayna looked around at the empty plain. “There won’t be anywhere for him to come back to, will there?”

  “No, Sis. This reality vanishes when we leave it.”

  “There was so much to do so fast,” Rayna said. “I didn’t realize… I just assumed we would be…together… somehow.”

  Estella took a loving look at her little sister, the one who came to help her in Philadelphia, the one who followed her into hell, the one who made a rescue possible. She caressed her sister’s cheek with her fingertips.

  “You love him, don’t you?” she said.

  Rayna nodded. “He’s the one, or was the one, I guess.” She looked up at the sun. “He won’t be following us there.”

  “Little Sis,” Estella said. “We aren’t going.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Pete coasted the cigarette boat in with the lights doused and the engine off. It nudged onto the storage yard’s concrete ramp. He flicked the running lights back on, grabbed the steel briefcase full of cash, and jumped ashore off the bow. He tossed the suitcase by the fence and waded out to the side of the boat. The chilly water felt like needles on his skin. He rotated the boat until the stern faced him and pushed. Riding the outbound tide and current, there was a good chance it might make it back out to sea. Even if it lodged itself on the mainland, Pete would be long gone by the time anyone realized that St. Croix had retired from the livery business.

  He waded ashore and shivered in his soaked jeans and running shoes. Lights were on in the Island Cabs warehouse. Next step, he needed to find a way to get Prosperidad out of there. He owed her everything.

  He eased the briefcase into a covered cockpit for safe keeping.
A warm, familiar presence floated up beside him.

  I’m already gone. Prosperidad’s voice echoed in his head.

  He shot a look over his shoulder at the warehouse.

  Pete, I am gone.

  A light in one of the warehouse windows went out. A feeling of loss hit him like a rogue wave.

  No, no, Prosperidad said. It is all for the best. An even trade. Go and care for the living, Dreamwalker.

  Pete slumped stunned against the boat’s hull. He felt her manifestation fade away, as if she’d only remained here long enough to say goodbye.

  There was only one more wrong he needed to help right. He picked up the steel briefcase and left the storage yard. Freezing saltwater squished from his shoes with every step.

  It was well past midnight and the streets were empty when he approached DiStephano’s. The windows were dark. Pete hadn’t expected the restaurant to open after Tommy’s death.

  A hand-lettered notice taped in the front window read:

  TOMMY IS DOING GREAT!

  Underneath was a picture of Tommy giving the “thumbs up” sign from a hospital bed and a smaller paragraph giving details about heroic doctors and a miraculous recovery.

  Pete couldn’t believe it.

  An even trade rang an echo of Prosperidad’s voice.

  A life for a life traded through the loa? For some reason, she felt responsible for Tommy as well.

  He shielded his brow with his hand and peered in through the front window. Dirty plates still sat on tables. On the floor, a server’s tray lay next to shattered plates splattered with pasta and hardened red-black marinara. Not only had the restaurant not reopened, it didn’t look like anyone had even entered it since the shooting.

  Pete worked his way to the alley behind the restaurant. He pulled the pen from the back door delivery board. He knelt by the basement window Tyrone had used to break in days ago. With a push, it swung open.

  Pete popped open the briefcase. He broke the paper wrapper binding a pack of $100 bills. He stuffed one bill in his pocket to get the hell out of New Jersey. He flipped the wrapper over. On the back, he wrote:

  TOMMY’S ATTACKER MET JUSTICE. THIS WAS HIS. NOW IT’S YOURS.

  He closed the note inside the briefcase. He held it at arm’s length through the open window and tossed it. It landed face up on a pallet of sugar.

  Detectives weren’t staking the place out to parse out Disappearing Pete’s role in the murder of the DiStephano’s son. As far as everyone knew, he spent the night in Philly. Could Tommy’s attack really have been chalked up to random Atlantic City violence? If so, then there was one more wrong he might be able to right.

  An hour later, he reached Atlanticare Regional Hospital. Rosy morning daylight lit the hallway. He approached the door to Tommy’s room. Mama D nearly knocked him over on the way out.

  “Pete!”

  Pete held his breath. There was still a chance this sharp women had put more of the story together than he hoped.

  She hugged him. He exhaled a relieved sigh.

  “I’m so sorry we haven’t been back to the restaurant,” she said. “We haven’t even called. A neighbor posted our note about Tommy. I didn’t even ask her to check up on you. We’ve been here night and day.”

  Behind her, Papa D slept upright in a chair, head lolled to one side, snoring. Tommy lay asleep in the bed with an IV drip.

  “I understand completely,” Pete said. “I’m so glad Tommy will be okay.”

  “Even the doctors were astounded at how well he’s doing,” Mama D said. “He’ll be out tomorrow and we’ll reopen for lunch.”

  “About that,” Pete said. “I won’t be there. I’ve got to go.”

  “Because of the shooting? That was just random. Wrong place, wrong time. The police think Tommy stumbled on a drug deal in the alley.”

  “No, no. It’s me. It’s just time for me to go.”

  Mama D’s eyes narrowed. “You look awful. You said you weren’t running from anything when we hired you.”

  “No, I was running to something. And I found it. But I won’t leave you in a lurch.”

  Pete waved at Tyrone who stood halfway down the hallway. The boy advanced with a nervous look on his face.

  “This is Tyrone,” Pete said. “He lives nearby, he’s responsible, and he needs a job.”

  Mama D gave him a brusque visual inspection. Pete remembered when he’d been on its receiving end a few days ago.

  “So you can handle hard work?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tyrone said. “But part-time. I can’t miss no school.”

  “See?” Pete said. “Responsible.”

  “He can handle it?” Mama D asked.

  “Guaranteed.”

  Mama D gave a small nod of approval. “Then tomorrow after school. Don’t be late.” She glanced back at her snoozing husband. “My turn to hire without asking him.”

  Pete managed little better than cryptic goodbyes with Tyrone and Mama D. He couldn’t begin to explain what had happened, the dangerous intrigue they had unknowingly been part of. He left Mama D at her sleeping husband’s side. He sent a jubilant Tyrone back home to get his sister off to school. Then he sat on a low wall outside the hospital in the bitter pseudo-warmth of the morning sun.

  For the first time in weeks, he was free of responsibility. He’d paid the personal debts he’d accrued. Prosperidad was gone. St. Croix was dead and if everything went as planned with the dreamwalkers, Twin Moon City and the nightmare factory had slipped into nothingness. By now Rayna had crossed over with Estella. His calling that drew him here was answered.

  Pete headed east. The flashing names of the casinos towered into a brightening blue sky. When he had arrived in Atlantic City, he walked away from them, drawn to the city’s darker part, into the world of Island Cabs and twin moons. Now it felt right to be leaving, walking east to the light, back to the real world.

  In the casino’s shadows, the bus station backed up to Atlantic Avenue. He’d catch the early run to Philadelphia and a connection from there to home. Entering the station, he decided to wring out his still-damp socks and get warm. He entered the bathroom and checked himself in the mirror.

  He looked like death. His skin was ashen, his eyes so bloodshot that the white was obscured. His hair was near solid gray, the stubble on his chin a matching steel scruff. His cheeks sagged into flaccid jowls. His personal candle had burned down to a puddle of wax.

  He went to a toilet stall and wrung out his socks and jeans. He hung them on the hook behind the door. He sat back on the toilet seat, bent over, and rested his head in his hands. Exhaustion arrived in full force. Every muscle in his body ached.

  He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. He forced himself awake, panicked that he hadn’t strung the wire and knife around him.

  “Not anymore,” he said.

  Pete passed out, head in hands, and finally, blessedly, did not dream.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Standing in the plane of former Twin Moon City, Rayna shook her head in denial.

  “No, Estella,” she pleaded. “You have to come with me. This was all for you. Everything I’ve done, even my…” The word “suicide” stuck in her throat. “…was to get you free.”

  “No, Little Sis,” Estella said. “It’s not like that. I’ll cross over. It’s you who have the choice.”

  “Why would I stay here?”

  “It isn’t the way you think,” Estella said. “You took all those pills to follow me here, to save me. But you didn’t die.”

  “But the pills,” Rayna said. “I took every one I could find, enough to kill a horse.”

  “Luckily, you’re not a horse. The doctors saved you. Your body is in a coma.”

  Rayna imagined herself in a hospital bed, feeding tubes and ventilators violating her body. She shuddered. Dead would be
better.

  “So I can’t follow you?” she asked.

  “You can,” Estella said. “But you don’t have to.” She pointed to the sun. “That’s my next destination, no other options, but not necessarily yours. This place is a crossroads for you, not a way station. You can go home.”

  “How do you know?” Rayna asked. “You were already dead when I took the pills.”

  “Pete told me in the message from the Antelope.”

  Rayna’s heart skipped a beat. Pete knew.

  “My body?” she said. “I can jump back in and go back to normal?”

  “There may be some damage,” Estella said. “You put a wild mix of chemicals into your system. There could be organ issues. And any oxygen loss, even for a short time…there could be brain damage, Sis. I can’t say what’ll happen if you go back.”

  Two awful options. A frustrating lifetime in a body so damaged she couldn’t function on her own, or worse, the living death of waking locked in an unresponsive, breathing corpse. Both were as bad as life in Twin Moon City.

  But then there was Option Three. Recovery. And Pete.

  Her pulse raced at the thought. She’d have real time in the real world with Pete, the world where the colors were bright and the focus sharp, where the smells reached up through your sinus to tickle your brain, far from the washed out world of dreams. She imagined being with Pete, feeling the electricity of his kiss, the tingle of his touch. She’d experience that wonderful completeness of each dream they shared, without the nagging reminder that it was all just temporary.

  She would have to find him, wherever he was. Real Rayna would have to fit into his world the way Phantom Rayna fit into his dreams. All provided of course that she returned whole.

  No obstacle mattered. Every problem paled compared to the potential payoff. She’d bet it all to save Estella and won. She’d double down for Pete.

  “You can send me home?” she asked Estella.

  “I drained the last amp out of Cauquemere to do it.”

  “Afterwards,” Rayna asked, “you will have the energy follow the others into the sun?”