I peeked through the hole again. Shakarr and the elder continued to walk away.
“Can you use Place to get us out? She said the room was shielded. I would assume we could leave freely out there.”
I studied their patterns, trying to figure out how we could walk out undiscovered. See-through metal grate catwalks with elders everywhere. And runners. Could it be more impossible? “They can follow through the tears we leave behind when we teleport.”
Bo winced. “How many times can they follow?”
“How many times? I don’t think there’s a limit.”
“It’s like running. What’s your stamina compared to theirs?”
“When they were born for this?”
He held up a finger. “They were born to run through dimensions.”
I raised my eyebrows and put my fist to my forehead. “Right. I wasn’t. I’m guessing their stamina’s greater.”
“They weren’t made to teleport, Riv. Just run.”
“You don’t get it. Running is teleporting, but Shakarr’s a hunter and a runner.”
Bo shrugged.
“She could follow us all day.”
“Without a Who? Unless you gave her yours?”
I shook my head.
“Think, Riv. Where could we go she wouldn’t think to go? Where were you taking us before she caught us?”
“To the graveyard.”
“Do you think you can get us there?”
“I don’t know. I can teleport within Dreamland, but the graveyard is outside of it. It’s not connected.”
“What about the web?”
“You mean the one we nearly died in?”
He shrugged, his eyes pinched close and his lips turned up. “We just have to be careful not to touch any of the strings.”
I ground my jaw. “That’s a bad idea.”
“Okay, then, what were your thoughts before? What made you think you could do it the last time?”
“I thought if I could just see it.”
He shrugged. “What do we have to lose?”
Right. I closed my eyes.
Bo grabbed my arm.
I breathed in through my nose and let it out through my mouth. All I had to do was go through enough Places, freeze a few of them if I could, and travel across the Sea of Dreams. Could they cross that?
What if I was wrong? What if they could follow us there, as well? Could I risk the lives of the kids? If the runners and their elders were interested in Bo and me, what would they do with the dreamers who were trapped here?
I reached for a sense of Place, one I hadn’t been to in a long time.
High-pitched keening sounds rode the air. I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t need to see. I just had to move through enough locations to buy me a little time to see if I could freeze a portal to keep Shakarr from following us.
The keening faded into a babbling brook. Cold seeped through my clothes and skin. From where we stood, it was hard to make out what the brook babbled about.
It changed in pitch. Wind whistled, tearing at my clothes.
My shirt settled. My hair stopped beating against my face. A bird sang in clicks and whistles.
The whistles shifted into the scream of a steam engine as it roared past. Someone yelled. Someone else yelled back.
People pressed against me, jostling me around.
Bo stumbled into me, throwing me further off balance. “Excuse me, sir!”
The next Place tugged at my heart.
Silence.
A field of purple plants rolled before me as I opened my eyes. On the horizon, a grove of trees walked sedately away. The sky was an ominous presence, pressing down from above.
Twisting, I could see the rip we’d left. Bits of color remained, as if our image had been smeared through the air.
I shook out my arms. “Be ready to latch on if we fail.”
Bo tugged on the shirt sleeve he had yet to let go of.
Straightening my shoulders, I concentrated.
If the moment of the tear became a frozen point of time, runners couldn’t follow through them.
I built a shield around it, stopping time. It wasn’t as easy as taking a battery out of a watch. I had to take the relationship to space and time and tear it apa—
It wouldn’t work.
Someone might be able to do that, but it wasn’t me.
Then how would I ensure Shakarr couldn’t follow?
I had to break the connection between two Places.
I frowned as the answer clicked. I closed my eyes, reached for the time just outside the space we’d vacated. “Just like tying off a knot.” I stabbed my hand through the tear, and closed my fist around what felt like the moment before we’d stepped through. A red line of glittering light slid through my fingers as I brought my hand back.
The colors of Bo’s blue coat and my white shirt folded in on itself. They swirled, following the path of my fist.
I pulled tighter and tighter, making the knot smaller and smaller.
With a crack, it disappeared.
I let out a breath and turned to Bo.
“What did you just do?”
A wave of dizziness washed over me. “I’m pretty sure they can’t follow us now.”
Bo grasped my shoulder. “You’re kind of amazing, you know that?”
I gave him a tired smile. “You’re just saying that because you want a ride home.”
He grinned back at me. “Let’s get back to our girls.”
I couldn’t see the graveyard, but my heart could feel it just on the other side of the sky. I reached for the location of the Tea Party plane. It latched onto me like a child starving for attention. The icy ground hit our feet, and my knees jarred a bit. I lifted my eyelids. I saw a lot of tea pots.
But no kids.
Where had all the children gone?
I looked over at Bo.
His mouth hung open, the corners of his lips drawn down as he spun around in a slow circle. “Where did they go, River?”
I STAGGERED WHERE I stood.
Bo held me by my arm, keeping me upright. “Are you okay?”
“Remember what you said about stamina?”
His eyebrows jumped as he scoped the area. “We’ll find you a place to sleep while I search. Maybe they’re just in a different part of the plane.”
“Or maybe we’ve been away for months or years, and they couldn’t wait forever.”
“Just because we found danger doesn’t mean they did.”
“They live with danger every day they’re here, Bo.”
He winced, raising his face to the night sky. It was void of any floating planes. At least for now.
“We should hold off on teleporting anywhere else, anyway, until we know they can’t follow—” My knees failed. I held onto his shoulder, my eyes rolling back painfully in my head.
He caught me. “Just hold on—”
I didn’t hear what else he had to say.
Sleep is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced. Sure. I’ve seen a lot. I live in a land of dreams, so you might think there were other things so much more amazing.
You’d be wrong.
In sleep, there are no worries, no cares. You drift. Everything is okay, is safe. Even if the world is crap outside your eyelids, inside your mind, nothing’s wrong. Well, maybe it is, but you can push it away and retreat for a spell.
Dreaming is even neater. Inside the confines of your brain, synapses are snapping, creating links between events that have happened and things that might. Images are drawn. Scenes emerge. Sometimes, they feel real, the amazing human brain tricking you into feeling things that aren’t there. Other times, they don’t.
People in Dreamland don’t dream. That’s for you, not us.
So why was I dreaming? Again?
The black drifted away into bubbling blue.
Oy, boy!
I didn’t know that female voice. I searched for her, but found nothing but more blue.
A field
of green appeared beneath my feet, and a big, yellow dog ran up to me. The golden retriever from before. I grinned and reached down.
It dropped the ball at my feet.
I stopped in the act of throwing it. Just on the outskirts of the park and to my right stood a woman.
She blipped closer to me, shimmering in place before blipping closer again. Her eyes were slanted and black, her skin the color of warm wood that included the grain.
The dog looked up and growled low.
I scratched his ear.
The woman shimmy-shimmered another few feet closer. Her china doll lips pursed. Why haven’t you come back?
“Back? From where?”
Her tiny nostrils flared as she wrung her lithe fingers. That strange blue man sent me away. Why haven’t you come back for me?
“Who are you?”
I am your night. Her canted black eyes widened.
I gave the dog a good scratch, enjoying the feel of him pushing himself into my leg. “What are you talking about?”
Your ship. She blip-stepped another couple feet closer. I still couldn’t tell if she was wearing anything or if she were simply made out of wood. You belong to my Bo, and you took him away. That horrible dragon man took me away from you, and now you are lost.
“Then maybe you just explained why we didn’t come back. I don’t know how to get to you.”
She settled her hand on my arm. You can come for me.
“I don’t know how. I don’t have a Who to follow.”
You may follow mine.
I snorted a chuckle. “You have a—You’re a ship.”
She took a step back and blinked. Is that supposed to mean something?
Of course not. This was Dreamland, after all. Right. Well.
I thought you would have guessed when your dreamer tried to heal Fandora.
I pressed my thumb into my temple. “Who?”
The riverboat. Her lips tightened as she tipped her head to the side.
“She has a name and it’s Fandora?”
You’re not very smart, River. I had so much more faith in you when I first discovered you.
“ You discovered me?”
I followed your call. She raised a dark eyebrow. You whispered to me, begged me to find you.
“I don’t remember begging.
Fine. She let out a breath, and crossed her arms over her wood-grained chest. You were whining about how difficult it was for you to not know what or who you were, and that you needed to be out at sea to find your answers.
Things were going downhill. “I didn’t mean to—”
I’m aware. She reached out with a jittery hand, her black eyes penetrating mine. I am Kelsi, she said, then her Who washed over me.
She stared over a large, gray planet. Blue and white fires erupted in spurts in thousands of locations. Sparkling cities lay in ruins.
Kelsi knew how many had died within the protection of her hull. She knew each person’s name, their favorite color, the people they loved and cherished. She and all those like her were tasked with taking the survivors away from the planets the virus had ravaged. It infected people with hope and then dashed it, feeding on the loss and rage left in the aftermath.
She was also a part of the containment. Within her hull rested the people who carried the virus, but hadn’t succumbed. Men, women, children, old and young. Each of them held a certain part of the virus within them. She worked with her brothers and sisters to splice it together using all the information they had gathered to date.
The virus morphed with each victim, changing, staying one step ahead of them.
There was no cure. Their armada could find no safe haven.
So they folded time and space, and tucked the virus inside.
Kelsi, like all her sisters, were no longer needed, were put aside and forgotten. Her brothers were taken away to create what the elders called the Stronghold and the Center. No one remembered the powerful role the ships in the armada had fulfilled.
She did. She and her sisters needed a crew, needed the camaraderie. Speaking with one another wasn’t enough. When Dreamland had found the humans, all of their hopes had been answered. Humans were the cure. With their help, she could—
My name is Kelsi, and you took my captain. I demand you bring him back to me.
I woke with a start, sitting straight up. Fatigue pushed me back onto the rags. I lay there for a long moment, feeling the stretch in all my muscles as I sprawled. Releasing a breath, I rubbed my eyes.
With the humans’ help, she could what? I groaned and massaged my scalp. I hated it when people were interrupted.
I listened to the world around me. Silence. No kids.
Awesome.
I pulled myself to my feet and walked out of the tea pot, my shoulders slumped. This pot was yellow with blue and purple flowers.
Why were there purple things, and not orange? Nothing rhymed with purple except made-up words that technically didn’t mean anything. Why couldn’t anyone make up words that rhymed with orange? I tried a few. Scorange. Plorange. Gorange. Yeah. It really wasn’t working. Fine. Purple Urples could slurple all they liked.
I scratched my head and stretched my chest, pulling my shoulder blades together. “Bo?”
Something clanked not far away.
I moved toward a silver tea kettle, tall and narrow.
Bo stepped around it, and smiled, his forehead furrowed in a thick frown. “You’re awake.”
“Did you get any sleep?”
Worry laced his eyes in the form of deep crow’s feet. “You were out for three days.”
A breath escaped me. Three days. Wow. I rolled my head on my neck, attempting to release my tight and knotted muscles. “Could be a few hours for the kids. You just never know.”
He let out a breath and turned toward the rolling pasture of kettles. “Any idea how to get out of here?”
I grimaced from a kink in my shoulder blade as I worked my arm to release it. “You aren’t going to believe what I’m about to tell you.”
He gave me a frank look.
“Your ship has a Who.”
His face froze, his mouth skewed to the side, his eyelids half-way down, one eyebrow raised. His expression lifted. “Does that mean you can take us to her?”
“Yeah. Is there anything to eat?”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “You get us to Night, and there’ll be plenty of food to eat.”
Teleporting, or at least, that much teleporting, had really taken it out of me. I reached for Kelsi’s Who and tugged. “She’s pissed, by the way. I’m just letting you know.”
Bo drew the corners of his lips in, but didn’t say anything as the tea pots disappeared.
Wind ruffled through my hair. The world rocked, but in a way I’d become familiar with. The crew’s voices met my ears, their feet pounding the floorboards as they moved about the deck.
“Cap’n!” Mr. Levee rushed to us. He pulled his red cap off and clutched it to his chest. “We wondered where you’d gone to.”
Bo surveyed his ship. “What’s the status? How long have we been gone? Are we all right?”
“Rested but worried, Cap’n, and you were only gone a few hours. Where’d you disappear to? Are you all right?”
Bo clapped the older man on the back. “Nothing to worry about, Mr. Levee.”
I puffed out my cheeks. “Any idea how we’re going to find Zoe and the kids?”
He nodded on his way up to the quarter deck. “You’re following her Who, and we’re going with you.”
“Zoe didn’t actually give me a Who, just an empathic signature.” I followed, side-stepping Mr. Levee who gawked after Bo like he’d lost his mind. “I don’t know if I can take the entire ship anyway. I’m bushed as it is.”
“I’m getting a feel of how your Who and Place things work.” He tripped up the last step, but maintained a cool composure as he replaced the helmsman. “You just give me a course. I’ll get us there.”
I cleared my throat.
“Graceful.”
He flattened his lips. “Do you have a Who or not?”
I hoped the ride wouldn’t be as bumpy as some of the previous ones had been. Just once, I’d like to sail and not have to hold onto the oh-shit post. I tapped into the memories of Zoe—the feel of her small hand in mine, the sound of her laugh, how she spoke with her face—
The ship took off.
The sails swelled as the waves grew in strength, pushing us higher. We raced down the other side of a gigantic wave. I staggered and grabbed the post.
Bo twisted toward me, his body loose as if this was any old day on the Sea of Dreams. “This you?” he shouted over the roaring ocean.
I shook my head. I highly doubted it.
A female wail rose above the rage of the seas.
I groaned. Kelsi. I widened my eyes and shrugged.
He turned away and shouted orders I couldn’t quite make out. I’m not sure the crew even needed to hear him say anything. They moved with a well-practiced finesse.
The waters calmed. The winds ceased. A long, golden shore sprawled before us.
In front of it lay a broken heap of wood and floating debris. Part of a hull rose from the sea like a tombstone. It had to be impaled on a rock or something. It didn’t move with the waves, and it wasn’t sinking.
Bo scanned the scene, taking in the full scope. He tied off the helm and walked to the rail, one hand out.
The rest of the crew hurried to the rail as well.
“What happened here?” Bo asked.
The sails snapped, and a mast splintered overhead.
I spun toward the mast in the middle of Night’s Cruelty.
So did the rest of the crew.
Kelsi morphed out of the wood and sails like a woman pulling herself from a painting. She floated to the deck, her black, slanted orbs locked onto Bo. Her bronzed skin glowed in the pale light shooting through the thunderous clouds. She reached out a lithe, sail-covered arm.
Bo stumbled down the stairs. “Who are you?”
I followed. “This is your ship. Her name is Kelsi.” Why had she waited until now to show herself?
Her petite lips parted. I am your night.
Bo stopped several feet away from her.
Kelsi closed the gap, her long, muscled legs blending in with the deck, almost as if she wore a chameleon’s skin. She cupped Bo’s face. When I call, you come.
Dream Killers - Complete Season 1 (The Dream Killers Book 3) Page 18
