Dreamfire

by Kit Alloway

  The junta knows all of this, but so far nothing has been done. The three dream walkers who are confronting Kajażkołski are only teenagers, and if no one steps up to help them, they could easily wind up in trench coats themselves.

  Please, call your local representative or a member of the junta (phone numbers below) and demand that action be taken to save our young people! Time is short! Spread the word!

  Thirty-six

  They stepped out of Feodor’s universe and into a quiet hallway in the Dream. The change disoriented Josh. No more soot in the air, no more bombs lighting the sky, no more rumbling streets. Just silence and pile carpeting. The hallway looked familiar to Josh, but maybe everything would look familiar after the foreignness of Feodor’s Warsaw.

  Josh turned to Will and said, “Let me see how bad it is.” All three of them were banged up. Josh wasn’t sure why, but bruises rose all over her arms and her entire body hurt terribly. Blood dripped from a cut on the side of Haley’s neck, but Will was the one she was worried about.

  He stood hunched over, leaning on his left shoulder against the wall, but he twisted a bit to show her his back. His white-and-blue flannel shirt bore a red wash of blood down the back. Josh used her fingertips to carefully pull the torn fabric away.

  She cursed again. No wonder he couldn’t stand up straight—his whole back was turning purple. A ragged wound ran between his shoulder blades; not an incision but a wound the size of two palms where so much flesh had been rubbed away that she could see muscle and bone.

  From the time since she’d woken up in the white room until she saw the boulder land on Will, she hadn’t felt afraid. She’d known Warsaw was collapsing, but she’d known it through a numb haze. She hadn’t needed to feel afraid to know that she had to run.

  But seeing that chunk of concrete fall out of the sky and slam Will to the ground, and now—seeing him hurt so badly—scared her. There was a real chance that Will wouldn’t be all right.

  “Josh,” Haley said.

  This was her fault. She should never have let them follow her. She should never have gone herself—Will and Whim had been right.

  “Josh,” Haley repeated.

  “What?” she snapped, and Haley shrank back. “Sorry.”

  “We’re at the cabin,” he said.

  Before she could ask what he meant, she understood. That flowery wallpaper—she did recognize it.

  Thanks to Feodor’s experiments, Gloves had the power to alter the Dream at will, and for reasons Josh couldn’t fathom, he’d chosen to re-create her mother’s cabin. The last time she’d seen this wallpaper and this hallway had been the night Ian died and the cabin burned.

  “Why are we here?” Haley whispered, as if afraid the walls would overhear.

  Cautiously, Josh broke Stellanor’s First Rule and felt … nothing. “There’s no dreamer here.”

  “I thought that wasn’t possible,” Will said.

  “It shouldn’t be possible. Gloves must be manipulating the Dream somehow.” Josh shook herself. “It doesn’t matter. We have to get you out of here.” She dug in her pockets before remembering that Feodor had taken her compact and lighter. “Who else has keys?”

  Haley produced his compact but had lost his lighter. Will’s pocket produced nothing but greasy shards of mirror and plastic. “I must have fallen on it.”

  “So we have no lighter,” Josh said. Now a new, different sort of fear filled her.

  She cursed again. She had no idea how many times she had cursed that day. It was beginning to feel like a normal addendum to any sentence.

  “Gloves might have a lighter,” Will said. “He and Snitch opened an exit. One of them must have been carrying.”

  Josh’s hope flared and then died out completely as she realized that there was no way to get Will on his way to a hospital before she faced Gloves. And she knew she wouldn’t be fighting her best if she was worrying about Will at the same time.

  They had only one option. So she took it.

  “Here’s the plan,” she said. “We go after Gloves. We get his keys. Will, you hang on to Haley’s compact in case you get a lighter first. Haley, help Will open an exit and get him out. It doesn’t matter if the archway opens to China, just get him out. Toss me the keys before you go. I’m going to stay and…”

  She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Was there still any hope of reuniting Ian’s soul with his body, or had that possibility died with Feodor?

  “Maybe I can knock him out…” she began, and then that statement, too, fizzled. Whatever Feodor had done to Ian’s body, Gloves had a fierce survival instinct.

  “I’ll help,” Haley offered. He took her hand the way he had in Feodor’s laboratory. “I’m with you,” he said, and she realized he was looking at her with an expression of purest trust. “We can bring him home.”

  “I hope so,” she said.

  “Gloves is afraid of you. He knows who you are.”

  Why did Haley feel the need to bring up this delusion about her being the True Dream Walker again? “Haley, no—”

  “You know who you are.”

  She remembered the hours and hours of training she had gone through, days filled with combat lessons and mud runs, nights filled with every terror imaginable. She thought of the sore muscles and the broken bones and the chipped teeth. She had sweated and burned and cried and bled through the last seventeen years. She was no magical creature—just a girl who had made a thousand mistakes and kept going.

  “I’m not,” she told Haley. “The True Dream Walker wouldn’t have screwed things up the way I have.”

  Haley gave her a kind half smile and stepped closer to her. “It’s okay if you can’t believe it yet. But you know I’m not crazy. I’m not mean. I wouldn’t lie to you about this. So, if you can’t believe it yet, believe me, okay? Believe me when I say that you are the True Dream Walker.”

  Josh didn’t even recognize him in that moment. He wasn’t a bizarre impersonation of Ian and he wasn’t the shy, trembling boy she had grown up with. The fragility in him had hardened.

  “I failed Feodor’s test,” she said, making one more weak protest.

  “Maybe not,” Will said.

  His face was pale and wet, and he was leaning wearily against the wall again. If Josh had never seen Haley so confident, she had never seen Will so defeated.

  Seeing him in so much pain, she wished she could just take him and go. She wanted to peel that shredded shirt away and bandage his wounds, do something to help repair the damage she’d caused. She wanted to kiss his hands and beg his forgiveness.

  “It wasn’t a true Tempering,” Will went on, his voice somehow both weak and gruff. “It was just an excuse for Feodor to torture you. You might succeed in a real Tempering.”

  She remembered having similar thoughts during the woman’s nightmare just a few hours before. “No, I’d fail that, too. I know I would.”

  Why did Will believe in her? Hadn’t he watched her fail, not just in the white room but again and again over the last six weeks? She had been cold and careless and rash. Why did Will have this irrational faith in her? It was the only irrational thing about him.

  “We need to move,” she said, tired of fighting. “Remember, our first priority is to get Will out of the Dream.”

  The hallway extended in two directions. One led to the living room, the other to the basement stairwell. Josh didn’t question where Gloves had intended for them to go.

  Everything in the basement was just as she remembered it from eight months before. At one end of the unfinished room stood the stairs, and at the other were the furnace and fuse box. Between them, a bucket of hardened cement rested next to a pile of smooth stones for outlining the Veil and holding it open. Mirrors sent arcs of light shooting all over the room like colorless rainbows.

  Gloves stood at the far end of the basement with his eyes closed. He had taken off his trench coat and gloves, and underneath he wore the same outfit he’d had on the last time Josh had seen him:
black jeans and a forest-green polo shirt. He didn’t look the least bit bedraggled. His clothing was tidy. His hair was dry and combed off his face.

  Perhaps he had altered his appearance to confuse her, or maybe it was another facet of this bizarre reenactment. Josh stopped at the bottom of the steps and waited for Haley and Will to fall into place behind her.

  Ian opened his eyes.

  They were hazel and arranged into white, iris, and pupil.

  Josh gasped.

  Ian said, “Evening, J.D.”

  His voice had inflection. It was casual and fond and a little bit nervous but determined not to let it show. His face was animated, his mouth curved in a knowing smile.

  He was Ian again.

  “Haley?” Josh said uncertainly.

  “I don’t know,” Haley whispered, a frantic edge to his voice. “I can’t feel anything.”

  “It could be a trick,” Will put in. Josh had the same fear—that Gloves still possessed Ian’s memories and was putting on a grand performance.

  Ian lifted his eyebrows. “I’m not trying to trick anybody,” he announced. “I…” He shook his head as if overwhelmed. “This is as much a surprise to me as it is to you.”

  He shrugged, and the force of déjà vu caused the ache in Josh’s chest—that wound she had carried for eight months—to open up again. He was Ian, and she needed him tonight. She had never stopped needing him.

  “What happened?” she asked, already walking toward him.

  “I don’t know.” He took a step in her direction. “Somehow Feodor kept me—my spirit or whatever—from being able to get back into my body. But when he died, it was like my body opened up again, only I … I couldn’t find my way back for a couple of minutes.” He shrugged. “I don’t know how to say it.”

  She almost smiled. How many times had he told her that he didn’t know how to say it?

  “I knew you’d find me,” he said. “I always knew.” He grinned and turned to Haley. “Hey, little brother.”

  Josh realized that Haley was standing next to her. She looked over her shoulder and saw Will leaning against the wall, one arm wrapped tightly around his torso. Blood dripped from the hem of his shirt.

  Ian and Haley stared at each other. “Little brother” had been a joke between them, because despite having been born first, Haley had always seemed younger.

  Josh touched Haley’s hand, and he dragged his gaze back to her. “What do you think?” she asked.

  He shrugged nervously. “I … just don’t know.”

  “Look,” Ian said. “I don’t know what’s going on here any more than you do. All of my memories are mixed up with these dreams I had, that I was back in the World.…”

  “You were,” Haley told him. His voice grew halting again, as if whatever confidence he had gained was lost in his twin’s presence, and he reverted to being the Haley he had been when Ian was alive. “You stayed with me there, sometimes you…”

  “Used you,” Ian finished, and he ground his teeth. “God, I did, didn’t I?”

  He sounded so disgusted with himself, so honestly affected that Josh marveled. Every tiny detail, imperfection, trademark, was right there. And yet she was afraid to believe.

  “Josh,” Will said from behind her. “Sorry to interrupt, but I really do need a doctor.”

  He sounded irritated, and Josh felt bad for forgetting him, even for a moment. His face was so pale she could see freckles she hadn’t known he had, and blood dripped steadily from his shirt hem.

  “Yeah,” Ian agreed, walking toward him. “You definitely do.” He paused a few feet from Will. “I know you. You’re Will—you’re Josh’s apprentice.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at Josh. His eyes were slightly tilted, questioning and accusing at the same time.

  And Josh knew he was back.

  Only Ian could produce that particular jealous and yet conspiratorial look. Only Ian would think he had the right. Josh felt as if a light had come on inside her; something warm and bright was filling her up with joy.

  She smiled at him, and he lifted his eyebrows again.

  “I never let go of your hand,” she said.

  He took her hand then and held it tightly. “I know. Now, let’s get out of here. I have…” He dug in his pockets. “I have Josh’s lighter. Why do I have your lighter?”

  He held out the rose-gold lighter he had given her years before. Josh hadn’t seen it since she dropped it in the Dream.

  “I’ll explain later,” she said. “Will has a compact.”

  Will didn’t move. He was studying Ian with the same intensity he had often turned on Josh.

  “Will?” she asked.

  Slowly, he shook his head. “No.” He took a step back, straightening up with a wince. Keeping his eyes squarely on Ian, he said, “This is why he didn’t kill us flat-out, Josh. He has a lighter but no mirror, so he can’t leave the Dream without our compact.”

  Josh felt her heartbeat quicken like a car engine revving up. Will was right—Ian couldn’t use the mirrors in the basement because they were all part of the Dream. He needed a World mirror.

  Ian swore and then said, “This is ridiculous.”

  So quick to anger, so Ian-like.

  “You don’t trust me?” he asked. “Fine. You open the archway—I won’t even touch anything. I’ll just follow you through. Here.” He handed Josh the lighter.

  “No,” Will said again. “I’m not letting you out.”

  Ian’s lips parted in outrage. “Josh?”

  She put the lighter in her pocket, as if having it out of sight would calm the argument it had started. “Will’s just being careful.”

  “He’s being paranoid.”

  Ian walked back to where she stood and took both of her hands. Josh jumped when she felt his fingers against her palms and his thumbs on her knuckles. She had forgotten how firm his touch was.

  “J.D.,” he said, lowering his voice, “look, this is nuts. I know you’re probably pissed off about the whole thing with Winsor, but now is a lousy time to get into it. Somebody beat you to a pulp, and Haley looks like he’s going to pass out, and this guy”—he pointed to Will—“is standing there bleeding to death.”

  Over his shoulder, she could see Haley and Will. They were both moving slowly toward the stairs and exchanging silent glances.

  What do you see that I don’t? she wondered. What’s got you so scared? It’s just Ian being Ian.

  She didn’t understand why there were tears in her eyes. Ian was still speaking, still trying to convince her that he was who she wanted so badly for him to be, and she barely heard him until he said, “Josh, look at me.”

  She did. His hazel-green eyes were filled with concern.

  “I just don’t want us all to die in here. I don’t want to die in here. I want to go home, and take a hot shower, and get my life back. And I want to be with you, Josh, okay? All this time floating around without a body, I got a lot of thinking done, and the thing I thought most was, Wow, I can’t believe I blew it with Josh. But this is our second chance, J.D., I see it so clearly now.”

  She nodded, even though a numbness had begun creeping over her. She really hadn’t thought the night could get any worse.

  “Let’s go home,” he said, and hugged her.

  His arms lifted her right off the floor. She let her chin fall onto his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Will, watching them, shook his head.

  Ian’s hand touched her hip. His fingers moved gently, searching.

  “Haley?” she asked, still holding on.

  She wasn’t the only one crying. Haley, already near the top of the stairs, sniffled helplessly.

  “He just doesn’t feel right,” Haley said.

  Ian’s fingers found Josh’s lighter and began drawing it out of her pocket.

  She closed her eyes long enough to clear them of tears, letting go of one more beautiful, brief-lived dream. Then she steeled herself.

  One hand grabbed his, the othe
r grabbed his hair and jerked his head back.

  No tense shock ran through his body. No surprise registered on his face.

  He took a quick step forward and threw her up against the cement wall.

  His eyes were a glossy black wasteland, his face vacant.

  The charade was over.

  Thirty-seven

  “Run!” Josh shouted. Gloves smacked her against the wall again, but she kept hold of his hair as she fell, ripping out a fistful on her way down.

  He lost his balance and crashed backward into the arrangement of mirrors and candles in the center of the room. Glass shattered into long, triangular slivers that spun across the floor as if across ice. Blood streamed from a patch of his scalp.

  Josh scrambled to her feet just in time to block a punch aimed at her face, but he countered it with a kick to her stomach. The impact knocked her into the wall again. While she was gasping from the pain in her gut, Gloves turned to look at the stairs where Will and Haley still stood.

  “Go … go!” Josh told them, unable to say it louder than a hiss. But she was too late.

  Gloves inclined his head and narrowed his eyes. The stairs and door vanished, replaced by another cement wall. There was no way to escape from the Dream version of the basement now.

  Will jumped off the stairs before they vanished, but Haley was standing on the top step when it dissolved. The sudden, ten-foot fall caught him off guard, and he cracked the back of his head on the wall, then fell in a heap on the floor, unconscious.

  At least, Josh hoped he was just unconscious.

  But before she could even fear for him, Will hit Gloves from behind—an unschooled, openhanded, girly slap that did as much as blowing on him would have. Will knew Gloves was out of his league and jumped away as soon as the slap was delivered.

  “He has to concentrate to change anything,” Will told her, ducking to avoid being crushed by Gloves’s fist. “Keep him distracted.”

  Josh struggled to get back on her feet. The pain in her stomach was retreating to a dull ache, but she felt how weak Feodor’s torture had left her. Her remaining strength wouldn’t last long.