Dream Eater

by K. Bird Lincoln

  “Don’t cry,” he whispered.

  “Don’t do this,” I said. I pushed at his chest, a lame, half-hearted attempt. “Don’t make me feel this way just to distract. It makes me scared to trust you.”

  Ken sighed, stepping back so that his hand on the small of my back kept me balanced in the swaying of the train, but there was distance between our bodies.

  Uh oh. I’d asked for truth. This felt like the moment of calm before a storm. “Spit it out, fox boy.”

  “You know I came here to bring back your father.”

  “And?”

  “You used the Baku part of yourself to break Hayk’s hold, and now you’ve had a taste of what you can do even to powerful Kind like the hag.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And now I’m blind and burned out.”

  “I don’t know if it’s because of your human blood or because your father has left you untrained, but—”

  “This isn’t about me,” I interrupted. “Tell me what that mark on your chest means you were going to do to Dad.”

  The train rolled to a stop again. Doors opened, I heard the stomping of booted-feet exiting the car, and then the doors closed again. It felt like we were alone. Did Ken cast some illusion forcing everyone off? Or at least making us look less battered?

  Ken switched to Japanese. “The Council sometimes decides one of us is too dangerous, too powerful if unchecked. My sigil marks me as a Bringer. You know what I bring.”

  Murderer, Dzunukwa had said.

  A tiny spark flared to life inside my chest. Anger. Bright, hot, enough to give me the strength to pull completely away from Ken, pressing my back against the train’s metal pole.

  “Not Dad. He isn’t dangerous,” I said in English.

  “An untrained, half-Baku was able to break that hag’s magic, and Ullikemi’s spell. Imagine what havoc Herai-san could wreak if he were not in his right mind,” Ken persisted in Japanese.

  I didn’t care who might be around. I wasn’t going to win an argument in Japanese. Even Dad at his most irate with Mom used English to argue. “Dad isn’t dangerous, he’s not evil. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “The Hag that choked the life out of you, is she evil? Protecting her clan against foreign invaders? Would Herai-san hesitate if Hayk held a knife to your throat?”

  “Hayk is evil. Use your special skills on Hayk.”

  “Hayk is human. Different rules,” Ken blurted in English. Ha. Changing languages meant Ken was upset. Chalk up one point for me.

  “Is he? If he were completely human, would Ullikemi be able to use him?”

  “I am not sure,” said Ken. His hand came to rest on my cheek. I turned away, not wanting my stupid skin flushed red like Marlin’s electric Christmas candles. Not wanting his hand on me.

  Murderer.

  Hayk was evil. I’d taken that evilness into myself. Not to mention the hag Dzunukwa and Ullikemi as well. Pot calling the kettle black, maybe, but I had yet to hurt somebody so bad they bled. No matter what I was, or was becoming, that distinction was very, very important.

  But if Ken tried out his special ‘skills’ on Dad…

  My stomach rebelled, bitter acid biting my throat.

  The doors swooshed open.

  “Skidmore fountain,” said Ken.

  Already?

  He took my elbow and helped me off the MAX. As soon as I felt pavement under my feet, I jerked out of his grasp.

  Shadows had begun to form shapes. Light gray marked the edge of the cover formed by Burnside Bridge above our heads, opening up to a streaked brightness that must be Ankeny Square and the fountain. My sight. This blindness was temporary after all. No need to panic.

  “Koi,” said Ken, a warning tone. A hissing breath drawn quickly between closed teeth. “Is it usual for the fountain to be deserted at this time of the afternoon?”

  “Probably not.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Beethoven’s fifth symphony cut the pregnant silence. I fumbled in my pockets and fished out my phone.

  “It’s me,” said Marlin. “Is Dad okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. Give me another few minutes to cure my blindness, dodge Ullikemi and get Dad back from the pissed off Native American were-blue jay.

  “I’m—I’m scared all by myself here.”

  “Just hold on a bit more,” I said. My tone was harsher than I’d intended.

  Marlin’s voice broke on a sob. “Oh god, Koi, it’s just that, I know you’ve got all that magic stuff, and everything, but, Koi. It’s Dad. I can’t lose him, or you, or anyone else. I just can’t.”

  Marlin had never sounded so close to breaking in her life. Even at Mom’s funeral she’d held it together—held us all together.

  I cleared my throat. Blinking definitely made the shadows resolve into shapes. The fidgeting, fuzzy blob to my left had to be Ken. “Little Sister,” I said in Herai dialect. “You have to stay put and wait. I know it’s hard.”

  “I called the police,” Marlin answered in English.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t say anything about the Baku stuff, or that professor. I just said Dad was an Alzheimer’s sufferer with dementia and we couldn’t find him, and that you thought somebody was keeping him against his will…”

  “Marlin,” I said, weariness seeping through.

  “I know, I know, it’s just that you wouldn’t answer calls or texts. I didn’t know what to do.”

  A difficult confession. She was at wit’s end. I could all but hear the sound of wringing hands over the phone.

  I took a deep breath. None of this was Marlin’s fault.

  “I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to let me take care of this.”

  “The police can help. I gave them your cell’s GPS identifier code. They told me they’d send a patrol car to check out the situation.”

  The police couldn’t do anything against Hayk and Ullikemi, but Kwaskwi might think twice about trying funny stuff if the boys in blue were my backup.

  Ken did the disapproving teeth/air hiss. “It will not be easy for you to explain your involvement in this,” he said quietly. “Police tend to complicate things. Witnessing Kind business usually makes them want to interfere.”

  Great. Terrific. Fabulous. I shot him a ‘this is my phone conversation, butt out look.’

  “I’m getting Dad. I’ll bring him home in about an hour.”

  “You’ll bring Dad?”

  “Yes,” I said. Or explode into bitty bits trying. “But I need you just to sit tight for a while and not call anyone else.”

  “Okay,” she said in a small voice that made me picture her at age six, short hair mussed from tossing and turning on her Holly Hobbie pillow, Mom insisting in that no-argument voice there couldn’t be monsters under the bed. She had been brave for Mom’s sake.

  Bring on that bravery for me now, little sister. We both knew the real monsters weren’t hiding anymore. “And get me a triple latte while you’re waiting,” I said, hoping my grumpy tone would fool her into thinking everything was okay.

  “Hang up,” said Ken.

  I made a shooing motion with my hand. Ken swatted at me. “Kwaskwi is here.”

  Flapping wings like the sound of a hundred flags caught in a hurricane came from the square. Squinting my eyes forced into focus blue-on-dark-gray shapes converging on the fountain’s round basin. They spilled apart to ring the basin’s wall around the sculptured women bearing the square pedestal on their shoulders.

  “Gotta go,” I said, and flipped the phone shut.

  “Stay under the awning out of the rain,” said Ken, striding toward the basin.

  Even without squinting, things were getting clearer. Temporary blindness is a good thing. “No way.” I followed him. He stopped abruptly. I banged into his back, nose first.

  Soft cotton, the warm strength of a body I could too easily let myself lean on.

  I snatched my hands back.

&
nbsp; “You’ll be in the way,” said Ken.

  His back firmly planted in front of me. Not a crutch, an obstacle.

  “Of what?” I said, brave with his face turned away. “Of your ‘skills’ the Council prizes so highly? What are you planning to do? Murder a murder of jays?”

  Ken whirled on me, his eyes bleeding to black. Okay, lame joke. Sending Ken after Kwaskwi just didn’t feel right. This wasn’t a time for fighting or a Kind testosterone-fest. I owed Kwaskwi for giving up his name, and Ken was in attack fox mode, his breathing harsh. If he handled this, things would go down the toilet, fast.

  “Let me talk to him,” I said brushing past him.

  “You can’t see,” he said.

  “It’s getting better.” The jostling and cawing stopped abruptly. Their blue shapes formed a frozen, damp tableau ringing the fountain, going full blast despite the constant drizzle.

  Ken growled and I didn’t need sight to know he was becoming that vulpine, intense version of himself. There was no time for dithering, not with Ken literally on hair-trigger and the police about to show.

  I sniffed. Cardamom all around. Ullikemi was definitely lurking.

  Just under the edge of the cover, still unwilling to expose myself to the rain, I stopped.

  “Kwaskwi,” I said to the waiting birds, “I’m here. Thank you so much for caring for my father. I am ready to relieve you of your burden.”

  The silence was deafening. Damp air thickened, cloyingly sweet with spice, pressing on every inch of skin, but still the jays did not move a feather.

  I cleared my itchy throat. “We had a deal.”

  A warning tickled down the back of my neck and the sensitive outer shell of my ears.

  In the next instant, the jays exploded into a whirlwind of caws. Feathers glowed neon blue in my gray-soaked sight, massing in front of the fountain.

  Ken pulled again on my arm, urging me further under the cover, but I stood firm.

  “Not so easily startled anymore,” said a voice from the center of the roiling mass of jays. “Lost that innocence quick, didn’t you?”

  A crack split the air as jays pinwheeled away from each other in all directions, scattering to the top of the whitewashed, cast iron arches behind the fountain and the colonnades across First Avenue.

  Kwaskwi stepped from behind the fountain, black leather jacket swinging with chains and steel-toed boots clinking on the stones of the plaza. His hair was in tightly braided rows and gone was the good old boy swagger. He was dressed for war, and Ken was a heartbeat away from starting one. This isn’t going to help Dad.

  Blinking ‘til tears ran down my cheek, I pressed fists to my eyes and rubbed, hard. When my hands came away they were damp, but Ankeny Square was in sharp-edged focus.

  Now we were in business.

  “I’m here for my father,” I said as firmly as I could, but my heart flopped frantically like live, sweet shrimp fished from Dad’s restaurant tank. Only resistance to Ken’s tugging kept me upright.

  “Come out, come out,” said Kwaskwi in a sing-song voice. “Oh wait,” he said, “you can’t risk it. You have no more names to give up to your serpent buddy in exchange for your own hide.”

  Ken growled again. Stay behind me, I willed. The male posturing was as stifling as the cardamom.

  I jumped out from under the Mercy Corps Building’s awning into the light sprinkle of rain with a swift tug.

  Kneeling on the rain-soaked paving stones in front of Kwaskwi, I bent my head like a samurai in one of Dad’s TVJapan historical dramas.

  “I am sorry,” I said. Come on Kwaskwi, back down. “I owe you a debt.”

  “Don’t,” said Ken. His legs appeared in my peripheral vision. A disapproving hiss rasped my ears. “You’re being a fool. And now Ullikemi knows exactly where you are.”

  Kwaskwi laughed.

  “This is not binding. She is innocent and doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

  “Nice try, Kitsune,” said Kwaskwi, baring those huge front teeth in a wide grin. “That whole Pioneer Square action where she took down Dzunukwa and the Bear Brothers makes that defense a bit flimsy, yes? She is Kind. Her words are binding.”

  She is Kind.

  No more semantics skirting. I was Baku. I ripped dream fragments from people and ate their power.

  I channeled more samurai drama-speak. As official and Kind-formal as I could be in English. “I humbly request you return my father to me as we agreed.”

  “I do enjoy a skillful grovel,” said Kwaskwi. “Spend a few more minutes on your knees and we’ll see.”

  Rain soaked my hair, drenching me in Ullikemi’s spice. His sickly green energy zinged around the square like the flickering of a lamp about to expire.

  “Her father,” growled Ken. He put a hand on my shoulder, urging me to stand.

  “Keep your pants on,” said Kwaskwi. “Your serpent buddy won’t get here for at least another minute.”

  “I know what I did was wrong, but you know that I did it out of ignorance.”

  Kwaskwi leaned very, very casually against the wet fountain rim, like he was trying very hard not to come over and grip my hoodie around the neck and twist. “Ignorance, bah. Herai kept you in ignorance. If he apologized would it make your suffering any less?” Kwaskwi took three steps forward. Anger came off him in a heat wave. “There is no excuse for betraying Thunderbird.”

  Ken did something like a shrug, his muscles rippling all over his body. His shirt fell open to reveal a hidden sheath at his belt and the black sigil on his upper chest. A complicated, old-style kanji character in cursive style.

  The long, slender dagger gripped in his hand, and the deadly intent in his feral eyes was easier to read.

  “Enough,” said Ken.

  Kwaskwi went utterly still, a statue of anger. “We finish this, now,” he said through gritted teeth.

  A Subaru Outback in Portland olive pulled to the curb. The doors slammed open and the Duck Jersey twins, limbs whole and hale, wrestled a limp form from the passenger side door.

  Dad!

  I ran to the car. The Ducks twins pushed Dad at me. I barely caught the dead weight, staggering under long, floppy limbs. Dad’s hand grazed my cheek.

  Every muscle in my body seized. The world was a slingshot, and I a missile, flung out of Ankeny Square into a brilliant sapphire blue, shot through with gold. Muscles in my back flexed impossibly in ways they never were meant to. Piercing heat to the core of me, and a screech like knives sliced ribbons from my mind, flensing away all that was human.

  I soared, on wings that could carry me forever, over the broad, open expanse of an emerald sea. Harsh smell of ancient rocks covered in the endless weight of ocean. Below me a shadow lurking in the depths, hungering, jealous that I flew free on burning, solar winds lifting my wings, while it drowned endlessly in a watery prison.

  Thunderbird.

  A twin vision to the one Ullikemi had forced on me.

  I gasped for air, and felt Ken’s hands touching my back as if through layers of down comforters. I was locked in Thunderbird’s vision. No, not vision, this was a fragment, and Dad was dreaming it.

  Shock pitched me deeper into the dream. I clawed my way through tattered shreds of will. I never got fragments from Dad, never dreamed his dreams, but here he was, dreaming Thunderbird’s overwhelming vision, and I was locked in this trap with him.

  A shred of myself still hanging on noted the weight of Dad’s body disappeared and a sharp sensation across my cut cheek—Ken slapping me? But the feeling only dragged me from the dream for an instant, and then the brilliant, cloudless sky closed in again.

  The unsettling might of beating wings made the sound of thunder, and that screaming call shaved me down to pure, tattered slivers of thought.

  The sense of Koi the woman balanced on a knife edge. I had to break free of this fragment or drown in a seamless fugue of dream and reality. Like Dad.

  Dad?

  Dad needs me. Marl
in needs me.

  Aching limbs tumbled on cold stone pavement or the breath-stealing glory of the flight?

  Koi. Koi A. Pierce. Concentrate.

  Sink down, down, inside, shut out the endless sky, the seductive caress of air.

  I sucked images from the bare bones of myself: sister, woman, daughter. Mother wrapped in her Hawaiian quilts. The solid brick of PCC buildings in the rain. Blinking lines of code on my laptop screen. Dad at the breakfast table in jinbei pajamas, worry lines creasing his brow as he asked me about what I’d dreamed the night before.

  I am Baku.

  Flaring heat seeped into my bones, forming flesh, the outlined awareness of my own body.

  Eater-of-dreams. And a powerful dream was threatening to engulf me. I didn’t want to fight it—it would be pure bliss to give into that terrible beauty, to encompass it, to fill this nothing of myself with it, to devour it.

  A voice, a faint echo of a memory. Why do you fear the Baku part of yourself?

  Not fear. Overwhelming hunger. For power. For warmth. What if giving into the Baku made it impossible for me to be Koi?

  It didn’t matter. I would fight this. With both parts of myself. Not parts, it was me, I was all of that, there was no Baku here and Koi over there, it was just me.

  I had to eat Thunderbird’s dream as I had Ullikemi’s. Eat the dream of a waking, powerful Kind. But when I’d done that to Dzunukwa, she’d screamed as if I consumed some vital essence along with her fragment.

  I prayed I wouldn’t do any kind of lasting damage to Thunderbird.

  I stopped straining against the dream and the endless expanse of sky rushed in. A surge of wings shot me forward, a luminous arrow aimed at the sun. Sensation avalanched over me, drowning in molten gold and cutting blue. The sun a scorching, pleasurable pain as I rose higher and higher.

  A powerful thrill. Yes! I could encompass this power, I could take it in. The vision slipped; cold paving stones rough beneath my cheek, clothes soaked with Ullikemi’s rain heavy on clammy skin. Ken’s slitted, Kitsune-dark eyes boring into me.

  The next instant I was back, flying in an endless sky burned free of clouds by a brilliant and unrelenting sun.