Dream Killers - Complete Season 1 (The Dream Killers Book 3)

by S. M. Blooding

  “No, Riv-boo. No.”

  Certainty surged through me. This was right. This was right.

  “Is there any who aren’t infected?” Rulak asked.

  Every person, from the tiniest of babes on the branch above my head, to the old gaffer standing next to the tree off to my right, was losing their connection to Dreamland. “No.”

  “Then alls is lost.”

  I’d had enough standing around. I grabbed the closest person, throwing her frozen form at one of Bo’s men.

  “River, no!” Rulak cried.

  Zoe let out a wail that seemed to drag on for . . .

  A stream of dreamers flowed through me. Their lives. Their hopes. Their dreams. Their fears and aspirations. Too many names. Too many details. Too many—

  The Delta faded away.

  People. Stories. Lives. Took its Place.

  Place. And Time.

  A cool hand took mine. River.

  The blue woman—Dreamland—held me in her arms. My head rested on her bosom.

  I pushed away from her. No. I tried. I couldn’t make my limbs do what I needed them to. They refused to obey me.

  You must seek out the mechanic. Harley. Her name is Harley. She is the only person who can keep you safe. Keep you alive.

  “Dreamland—” Honestly, I didn’t know what else I was going to say to her. What could I? What was left to say? She was destroying the human race. Banishing all hope so she could feed.

  No, my Riv-boo. No. She shoved me away.

  The Delta opened before me like a big, glittering wound from where I lay on the ground.

  Bo stared down at me, but his hands were busy cramming as many of the dream spinners into the arms of his men at the door. They’d formed an assembly line. Still more of his men pried themselves out the door and flung themselves into the tree city.

  Rulak worked on the other side of the line as Bo. He didn’t look at me, but I felt his attention.

  A familiar ripping sound reached my ear.

  Shakarr. We were out of time.

  We had so many more to save. I could trap her as I had before.

  My eyes closed in a blink.

  That wasn’t a blink.

  I struggled to keep my mind focused. I had to stay focused on the time stream. Had to keep it frozen. Had to extend it to the runners. Had to—

  I didn’t have what it took to keep a hold on it.

  The woman beside me slipped from her enforced slumber and turned her black gaze toward me.

  We had to get out of there.

  I rolled myself to my hands and knees. My hearing was impaired or the Delta was impossibly quiet. Had I imagined the ripping sound?

  Movement caught my attention just to my left.

  Shakarr stopped, her unmoving mask hiding her expression.

  I grabbed Bo’s arm.

  He nodded and shouted orders that vibrated soundlessly in my deaf ears.

  I fell to the ground, my muscles refusing to hold me up any more. We were in trouble.

  BO’S MEN SKIRTED around Shakarr like she was an unpredictable shark.

  Her masked face settled in my direction. She walked toward me, stepping around the spinners I still had a hold of.

  I needed to get up. I would not just lay there as she did whatever she wanted to me. Whatever this sickness was, the elders were behind it. They had to be, at least partially. I vaguely recalled Jeomy saying the mechanics had released the virus, but my mind rejected the idea the elders were innocent in all this.

  One white and one black boot stopped next to my face before I’d had a chance to do more than push myself into a half sprawl.

  She knelt beside me and tipped her cloud-covered head. “Are you doing this?” She flicked two black-clad fingers to the Delta.

  I could hear her, but I wasn’t sure what she was referring to.

  “Freezing time.” She dropped her chin, her diamond eye-holes almost level with my eyes.

  I nodded once. “What do you want, Shakarr? As you can see, we’re a bit busy.”

  She hmm’d and pointed her face away. “I can do this for you, much easier, actually. It’s a part of the runner’s gift. As you learned. Nicely done, by the way, using the information from my Who to hide from me.”

  “Not really looking for your help, Shakarr.”

  She made a smacking noise with her tongue. “Too bad, really. I was willing to give it.”

  Bo caught my gaze over her shoulder. He raised his eyebrows.

  I shook my head.

  She took in a deep breath. “Using the travelers. Smart move. We’ve been trying to enlist them for years now.”

  “We’re not here to help you, runner. What the elders do to Dreamland is their own business. I’m here to—”

  “Die?” She turned her masked face toward me. “Because you’re doing a smashing job of that.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You have the sickness, River. Whatever you’re trying to do here, stop. You have to find someone who can heal you.”

  I frowned at her.

  “You’re having a hard time concentrating, sifting through the dreams. To be perfectly blunt, the only reason you’ve lasted this long is because of what you are. Born from the Sea of Dreams, you know how to sort through them, but now you’re being attacked by them. They’re separating you from your Dreamland.”

  I pushed away from her.

  She leaned forward. “I noticed you were sick when I captured you. She’s using those who are different, those born with rogue gifts, those she can touch, to slip the net.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Her breath whistled through the small holes around the sewn lips of her mask. “We need you, man of dreams. We need you and your dream killers.”

  I glanced at Bo and back at Shakarr.

  She nodded once. “It took us a while, but we finally figured out what he was. She brought him here, you know, him and his kind.”

  I swallowed.

  “She’s using you, River. Using you to destroy everything.”

  “And why do you care? Why would the elders care?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?” She brought her mask close enough for me to feel the coolness of it. “This is their home. These people, these Dreamlanders, are their people. Perhaps, the elders have grown to care for them.”

  “When they haven’t previously? Why haven’t they fought back before this?”

  “Do you think they haven’t?”

  I’d seen how many times Dreamland had changed her face, all the different peoples, universes she’d taken over.

  “They just haven’t succeeded yet,” she said.

  “And you think they will now?”

  A glimmer of blue light permeated the mesh of her diamond eye-coverings. “I have hope.”

  “Why?”

  She straightened to a standing position in one smooth motion. “I won’t say just yet. Will you allow me to help you?”

  I shook my head.

  She offered her white-covered hand.

  I didn’t take it. “This is a trap. You want me to take you where the travelers are keeping the refugees.”

  She was still a long moment. “You’re right. That is where I want you to take me, but not as a trap.” She bent her knees and grabbed my forearm, yanking me to my feet. “I want to help.”

  “Why? This sickness was unleashed—”

  “Not by the elders and not by Dreamland.”

  I staggered, voices and visions thrashing around in my skull. “Then by who and why?”

  She pulled me closer, pulling on my arm. “That is what I’m trying to figure out. I know why the elders are protecting the rogue gifts. I want to know who else is after them and what they want with them.”

  This was much deeper than I had the brain power for.

  “What’s the plan? What are you doing with these people?”

  “Why am I trusting you?”

  “Trust has to be earned, River.” She faced me squarely. “I’d give yo
u my full Who, but you couldn’t handle that right now. We need to find you a mechanic.”

  “Harley.” I bit down on my tongue and winced. I hadn’t meant to tell her.

  She stiffened, pulling her shoulders back. “How did you learn that name?”

  Something slammed into me. A red tricycle and a little girl with long, black pigtails—Peggy. I laughed as I reached down to grab hold of the handle—

  I tripped when my hands clamped onto thin air.

  Shakarr held me up by my armpit. “We might be too late anyway. Do you know where she is?”

  “No. I need to find—” Peggy.

  No. Paul. I had to find Paul. My son. We were going to bake cookies for Granna. I was so excited. I hadn’t seen her in years. I felt bad about it, but the economy had hit us hard. It had taken everything Michael and I had not to lose the car after we lost the house. It was going to be—

  A small hand filled mine. Warmth wrapped itself around my heart, pulling me back.

  The Delta was nearly empty. Bo’s crew hustled through it, searching or guiding the semi-frozen.

  I was losing my grip on the time stream.

  Shakarr reached out with one hand. It trembled slightly. “A dreamer? River, what have you done?”

  Zoe’s empathic energies flowed through me, keeping me up.

  I took in a deep breath and hugged her close. “Nothing. Whoever’s destroying the dreamplanes did this. She’s been abandoned.”

  Shakarr’s head wrenched in my direction. “How did she survive?”

  “If we live through this, and if I trust you afterwards, maybe I’ll show you.”

  “You don’t understand, River. If the elders find her—”

  “ You work for the elders.”

  She paused, her hands balled into fists. Her masked face dropped toward Zoe. “Take her back to wherever you found her.”

  “I can’t.”

  The runner raised her face and moved away. “She poses a threat. She’s a carrier of this sickness. She and the other dreamers like her. The reason you were infected was because you touched the dreamweb, the place all dreamers come though. She can’t stay here. The damage she could do—River. We need to find a dustman.”

  I wouldn’t abandon Zoe.

  “Send her away.”

  “No.”

  “You’re sick because of her.”

  No. The woman who couldn’t wake up. Lillian. When I’d met her for the first time, that had been the first time the dreamers’ lives had bombarded me. “No. I met Zoe before I got sick.”

  Shakarr raised her face to the treetops. “If I’m to take you to Harley—”

  “I didn’t ask for your help.”

  “And if I’m to keep the spinners locked in a time space so they can be helped—”

  “I’ve got that.”

  “Of course you do!” She advanced on me faster than I could blink. “That’s the reason they’re moving! The time space is slipping. You’re losing your—”

  Dad. I had to fix the toilet before Dad got home. I didn’t want him to have to do it. I wanted to show him I had things under control, that I could take care—

  Oh, God. I loved those shoes. They were most awesomest things I’d ever seen in my entire life! Those shoes would complete me. Complete me! I’d eat generic mac and cheese for a week. I didn’t ca—

  The recital was less than a week away. I wasn’t ready. I needed to practice. Just the thought of more practice drove my heart to a deep, dark pit in the ground. This wasn’t my dream. It was my father’s. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. If I had to—

  Mother Mary, forgive me. I wanted to strangle that woman. I tried to be a nice, Christian woman, to love my neighbor and everything, but that woman. Oh, dear God. That woman. She drove me to—

  If only I could just be better, faster, more capable.

  If only I could just work harder.

  Be luckier.

  Smarter.

  Prettier.

  Sexier.

  Blonder.

  Whiter.

  If only I could be better.

  Then my life would be wonderful.

  Would be everything I could dream.

  Could I dream that big? Could I aim that high?

  Why did everyone tell me I couldn’t love a fish? I wasn’t a bird. I was a human being and I could love whomever I wished.

  An iron vice gripped my arm. “River.” I knew that voice. Shakarr. Runner. Worked for the elders who plotted against the Dreamlanders, trying to bully them into sub-servitude. Enemy.

  Yes. Dreamland’s soft voice echoed through my mind. She is your enemy. River, you must abandon those people. They are lost to you. You cannot help them if you’re dead.

  I wasn’t abandoning them. They deserved a chance to live.

  You can’t fight for them if you’re dead. Find Harley.

  Right. How?

  Find Finn.

  I had the dustman’s Who. A dustman. He could be the answer to the dreamers of the graveyard, too. I just to find where I put . . . it was somewhere. I just had to get the kids to safety, and the spinners to a place they could be saved, and then I could find Finn . . .

  I loved my fin. I used it for swimming. I felt like a mermaid with it. It was a little awkward at first, but it really helped under the water. I almost drowned a couple of times, but I wasn’t giving up on it for anything. I’d find my prince and my fins were the way to—

  Something hard hit my head.

  My body folded on itself. Cold arms surrounded me from one side, warm, thin arms from the other.

  Then the world disappeared.

  OH-HO-HO! NO HE didn’t! He thought he could come over to my apartment, use my TV and my gaming system, then tell me to make him a sandwich? I’d known him all of what? A week? My dad didn’t get that kind of privileges, and at least he’d seen me naked.

  I jerked. My entire body trembled. I wasn’t Jennifer. My name was River and I could—

  Kill you with my brain. Oh, how I wanted to say that to my boss sometimes. Especially when he got that look on his face. Who did he think he was to tell me I was too stupid to size a wire that didn’t even require a calculation? According to him, all I was capable of doing was answering the phone and . . . wrap it around his body, pinning his hands to his sides, and his body to the chair, and his chair to the desk, and his desk to the—

  Oy! What was going on? I had to get control. People were counting on me. I had to keep the spinners—

  Spinning! How I loved to spin. It made my sister want to throw up, which was probably the reason I liked it so much. Ha! It made it so much easier when she could throw up on command. Well, okay, not really, but so close. Mom doted on her. Mommie’s little girl and all that. Oh well. What’d I get? My own room. I smelled like “boy,” whatever that meant. At least I didn’t smell like—

  This had to stop. I lay on my stomach on a warm, plush rug and dragged my eyes open. Feet pounded in front of my face They were mostly bare, Bo’s crew. Which reminded me. Did they have names?

  I couldn’t imagine not knowing the names of everyone around me. I could tell you the name of perfect strangers I’d just met on the street. I could tell a Mary from a Karen or a Steve from a Bob. I loved names. Each one had a different meaning, its own imprint on the soul. I should take up psychology. Yeah.

  I needed to pull myself out of this, whatever this was. I kept slipping into other dreamer’s memories as if they were my own. That couldn’t be good. What had I learned about the sickness? The attachments to Dreamland were being broken?

  What would happen when my ties to Dreamland vanished? If I could break free? Would I be free to be whoever I chose to be? Help the people I wanted to?

  “You can’t keep them all frozen.” Bo.

  “Watch me.” Shakarr. “Unless you know of a better way to help them, to help your friend.”

  Warmth settled along my shoulder. Bo’s hand. “Is he safe like this?”

  Pause.

 
“As safe as I can make it.” Shakarr. “We need to find Harley and quickly.”

  “Do you have any idea where she is or how to find her?”

  “No. We’ve been searching for her.”

  “To throw her in jail?”

  Shakarr sighed. “At some point you’re going to have to trust me.”

  “Somehow, I don’t see that happening any time soon. What do you want with her?”

  “Why are you protecting her, dream walker? You don’t even know her.”

  “She obviously opposes you, which makes me like her.”

  “And yet you’re accepting my help.”

  Bo didn’t answer.

  “We need to see what kind of solution she’s come up with to see if it’s something that can help.” Something cracked, wood against wood. “The elders are trying to assist.”

  “From what I’ve seen, I seriously doubt anyone out there’s actually trying to help.”

  Rulak cleared his throat.

  “You really think Riv’s protected like this,” Bo said.

  “I don’t know.” Shakarr’s voice was soft. “But it makes sense. If he’s trapped in time, the sickness should be contained.”

  I tried to move, to twitch a finger so they’d know I wasn’t stuck in time. I experienced it. However, my eyelids felt carved of stone, my fingers lead, and my tongue was a thick piece of rope.

  I needed to find Harley.

  Yes! Harley.

  Harlot! Harlot!

  With her gifts, I could unmake so many things, so many fabulous things. I could make Mother stop laughing, the women from sneering. I could put my life together as it always should have been, but only with Harley.

  Harlot! Harlot!

  No! I wanted to clamp my hands over my ear, squeeze my eyes shut. I wanted to block that sick and deranged man out.

  Hush, now, a woman sang. Don’t you cry. I will sing you a lullaby.

  A drum beat in my ear like an erratic heartbeat. Shwak-a-wak. Boom-boom-boom.

  Somehow, I had to find my talker. It seemed so strange for me to say I needed to find a “talker” of all things since I couldn’t speak. I’d never been able to. I’d been trapped in this body for thirty-two years, bound to a wheelchair, unable to walk or talk or feed myself. But I was after a talker, and her name was Chiku. A giggle bubbled up, but remained unvoiced. I wanted to call out her name, to hear what my voice sounded like. I needed the talker. She would help me. They’d promised. They’d promised.