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

by S. M. Blooding

  I studied him out of the corner of my eye.

  Asher straightened a bit on his bench. “If we’re lookin’ for clothes for the littles, then I’ll come.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. That won’t be a problem.”

  “One more thin’,” he said with a slight English accent, closing his eyes.

  “What’s that?”

  He met my gaze with a levelness I’d expect from an adult. “No more questions.”

  “Okay. Right, well, on one condition.”

  “What?” he asked, his tone wary.

  “Take a bath because you stink.”

  Olivia released a breath of a chuckle and shook her head. “Subtle, Rivah. Real subtle.”

  I WOKE UP to the soft sounds of kids moving around camp. No drifting dreamplanes to reflect light from. No distant sun or moon. Just stars and the pale embers of dying campfires.

  The trees had moved us closer to where we’d left the ship—or wagon, I guess because that’s what it was now. I pulled myself off my bed of bright yellow moss, and went in search of Bo.

  I found him three trees over talking to Zoe.

  “Zo, I want you to stay here this time.”

  Her face folded in a thick frown, her little hands balled up into fists. “No.”

  “The dreamplane is safe. You have everything you need.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “You have food here. Friends.”

  Her big, brown eyes flushed with tears. “You don’t want me?”

  Bo’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Zo, please, don’t do that.”

  “I’m too much trouble? You want me out of the way?”

  “I want you safe, Zo! I want you safe!”

  Her wet cheeks glistened. “I’m safest with you.”

  “Have you noticed something, Zo? Being with me and Riv is not the safest place.”

  She lowered her chin and stared at him, her cheeks wet.

  Bo flicked his gaze at me as I stopped behind him. “Back me up, Riv.”

  I raised my eyebrows. I knew the safest place for her was not by my side, but I couldn’t tell her to stay.

  “I’m safer with you,” she said, staring at me with her accusing eyes.

  I clamped my lips shut and tipped my head to the side. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes,” she whispered fervently.

  I shrugged at Bo and shoved my hands in my pockets.

  He stood up, his palms wide. “Fine. Fine. But when we nearly get ourselves killed, and you know we will, let it be on your heads.”

  Zoe beamed a grin up at me, her tears forgotten. She leapt into the air, her wings buzzing, and zipped off, probably to gather her things.

  Bo glared at me on his way by. “Let it be on your head.”

  I winced as I followed. “What’s the plan? I don’t like just sitting around and waiting. So many things could go wrong while we do that.”

  “Like what?” Bo grabbed a vine from the tree, then tugged.

  I frowned at him. “Did you lose something in your brain? You just said you didn’t want Zoe to join us because things were likely to go wrong.”

  The tree groaned, leaning towards him.

  “Sir,” Bo said to the tree, “if you please. Going down.”

  The tree groaned again, swinging away, and the vine released itself from the trunk.

  “Trouble follows you, Riv,” Bo said as he ambled down the rope. “I don’t want that little girl to get caught in the crossfire, but at the same time—” He grunted as his booted feet hit the ground, then craned his neck to narrow his eyes at me. “—you worry about everything. Do you have something specific to worry about, or are you building an ulcer for the fun of it?”

  The vine swung wildly when Bo released it. I grabbed it and braced my feet against the trunk. “I guess it’s just a general worry. Doesn’t it feel weird? This—” My right arm cramped and I’d only made it halfway down the tree. I lowered my legs and dropped the remaining few feet, shaking my rubbery arms. “It’s like the calm before the storm.”

  “You know why they call it that, Riv?”

  I sent him a dry look.

  “Because it’s a cliché that works. Yes. Things might be preparing to get worse. Or things could be getting better and this is the precursor to that. But either way—” He pointed his finger at me as I rolled my eyes. “Either way, we enjoy these slow moments while we can.”

  “It’s weird.”

  “And this is why I’m glad of the reprieve. You need training.” He clapped my shoulder and gave it a good shake. “How in the world have you survived this long without skills?”

  I rubbed the back of my neck before following. “You don’t really have to take this big brother thing seriously. No one asked—”

  He whipped around to face me. Anger flashed from his eyes, his nostrils flaring. “Don’t ever say that again.”

  A frown flickered between by brows as I stumbled a step back. “I didn’t mean anything. I just don’t want to be a burden.”

  The fire in his eyes softened, his crows feet deepening. “River, you’re dumb. You know that? When you become family by choice, you’re not a burden.”

  I screwed my lips the side, my shoulders slumped.

  “Your presence here—” He tapped his chest with one finger. “—makes everything easier.”

  “Bo—”

  He cut me off with a sharp shake of his head, his jaw twitching. “Just shut up and try being a part of something, a part of someone. Stop pushing people away and start accepting you belong.”

  I blinked as he disappeared through the maze of vine people.

  Olivia stepped up next to me. “Tha’ was almost a tear jerkah moment, righ’ there.”

  I rubbed my lips along my teeth. Emotionally connecting with people felt so alien, so unnatural. But I was done seeing others bond, letting each other in, sharing camaraderie.

  She smacked my arm, her pale eyes dancing playfully. “But, hey, you’re no’ the only one with them kind o’ issues, so be al’ight. Thin’s are changin’. Could be, we all figure out how to le’ others in again.” She shrugged and headed toward the ship.

  I clenched my hand in a fist and walked even with her.

  She glanced at me. “Yeah. It’s like somethin’s broke in you. Like your heart’s arms are broke or somethin’, right?”

  Embarrassment rode me like a course-hair blanket. “Hearts don’t have arms.”

  “Well, you know wha’ I mean. You reach out to people and don’ feel anythin’ in return.”

  Oddly. “Yeah.”

  “You’re in the middle of a desert, back in the nevah-nevah, where you’re isolated no mattah where you go or who you get close to.”

  How did she reach inside my soul and say exactly what I felt?

  She laid her fingertips on my arm. “Look, it’s wha’ all o’ us feel like. We’ve been abandoned. We’re unwanted. It does somethin’ to ya. You put up all these boundaries and walls and ya don’t let anyone in.”

  “But you—you’ve got the kids.”

  She glanced back the way we came, one eye narrowing. “Take anothah look, Rivah. The ones what had homes before Dreamland tried to kill us are the ones what gathered togethah. They made new fam’lies. The rest o’ us? Yeah. We’re the ones what go off and gathah wha’ we can. We go on missions. We set off on our own. We protect.”

  I leaned back and studied her face, so strong, so capable.

  She ducked her head, licking her full lips. “It’s because we don’t mattah. We don’t mattah to ourselves. The whole world—now two of ‘em—have thrown us away. If all those people would want to get rid o’ us, toss us out like we were nothin’, how could anyone find worth in us?”

  “But you’re amazing.”

  “Says you.” A whisper of a chuckle exploded from her chest. “And your Bo. You two are throw-aways. You see what others can’t.”

  I’d never—

  “When you’re someone,” she said, dipping down to
grab my gaze, “those thoughts there, like the ones you’re havin’, they come out in words.”

  Her half-grin warmed something in my heart I’d never realized was cold to begin with.

  “People actually listen to them, you know. It’s the weirdest thing. What’s weirdah though, is people actually want to hear them.” She shook her head. “Crazy, righ’?”

  I rubbed my tongue along my molars. “I’d never thought of it that way.”

  “Eh, me neither.” She headed back to the wagon again. “But then one o’ the kids I collected asked to be tucked in. Didn’t think anythin’ of it, but then she started askin’ me what was wrong with me. Well, nothin’ was. Everythin’ was rosy. I’d just saved her and her brother. We were safe for the moment, but then she showed me what I looked like to her, from her eyes. An’ it wasn’t nothin’ like wha’ I see m’self as. Got me to thinkin’. That’s when I figured it ou’, but I ain’t alone, and neithah are you.”

  “That was a lot of talking for someone who doesn’t share.”

  Her cheek rose in a smile I couldn’t quite see. “I’m tryin’ out new things. Seein’ what it’s like.”

  The pouch on my belt twitched.

  I shifted it around with my hand, skirting around vines, rolling rocks and roaring flowers. It twitched again, this time a bit more forcefully.

  River, let me out, Bess’ voice said.

  I stopped and slid the mouth of the bag open.

  A wisp of a form emptied from it, then appeared beside me as a see-through version of Bess.

  Olivia froze, her face stuck in a frown. “Rivah, what’s this?”

  “Uh, Olivia, this is Bess. Bess, Olivia. Bess, what are you doing outside the net?”

  Bess turned her face away, surveying at the world. “I don’t know. Since that day I possessed you—and saved you, by the way—things have been different.”

  “River!” Bo bellowed not far away. “We don’t have all day!”

  I motioned for Bess and Olivia to follow me. “That’s great and all, but what are you doing here now? You’ve been gone for weeks.”

  “It’s like I keep repeating myself over and over.”

  I glared at the ghostly dreamer. “You’re being over dramatic, don’t you think.”

  “You’re not the one repeating yourself.” Her translucent shoulders rose and fell. “Melatonin. I was taking melatonin to get to sleep. Only they weren’t really working and were making me more tired, so I opted to drug myself with wine.”

  “You’re drugging yourself to sleep?”

  “Not everyone has it so easy.” She glanced at Olivia. A smile lit her face as her opacity increased. “So, who’s Olivia?”

  My ears burned red. “She’s a lost dreamer.”

  “Ah.” She chuckled, then waved, visibly shaking herself. “River, there are more and more kids falling into coma’s. It’s happening all over the world. Someone’s trying to keep a lid on it, but it’s all over Facebook. Do you think it has something to do with what’s going on here?”

  “What’s a—” The answer hit me before I’d fully asked the question.

  Bess raised her eyebrows and mashed her lips together.

  “Right. Okay. What makes you think it has something to do with what’s going on here?”

  She let out a long breath. “Since that day I possessed you, things have been different on Earth.”

  Olivia crept up to Bess and peered through her. “Why do ya have a ghost dreamah? Do we come here when we die now?”

  I flicked my fingers at her. “She’s trapped in the dream net. Bess, what kinds of things?”

  We broke through the press of vines and roots, and stepped onto a black sand beach.

  Bess quickened her steps. “Is that the ship? She’s gorgeous, River. Just gorgeous.”

  Olivia stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Wha’s a dream net?”

  I wrinkled my nose staring after Bess. “A net that collects dreams. We snagged Bess and now we can’t release her without killing her dreams.”

  “Says who?”

  “The guardians of the Sea of Dreams.” I sighed. “That’s one of the many things I need to do. Find a way to get her out.”

  “Huh.”

  Bess stumbled as though she hit a wall. “River, move forward two steps.”

  I quirked my lips, but followed her order.

  She took two steps and stumbled into an invisible force.

  I strode toward her. “What’s wrong?”

  She made a sour face. “I think the net is trapping me. I’ve finally figured out how to come back to Dreamland and how to get out of that damn net, only to find I’m on a leash.” She tipped her head to the side. “Thanks, River.”

  “Hey! Not my fault.”

  She rolled her eyes and pointed at the ship. “Can we go now?”

  BO STOOD RIGHT where I thought he’d be, at the helm. Zoe fidgeted beside him, fluttering up into the air before touching her feet to the deck, only to buzz back up again. Her lips moved in a constant stream. Bo’s eyes folded in a pained expression.

  Olivia poked at Bess, her hand going straight through. “Can ya feel tha’?”

  Bess glowered at the young woman. “If I had a body, I would thump you.”

  Olivia straightened. “I’m just tryin’ to figure out what’s goin’ on. I’m terribly sorry I’ve disturbed you.”

  “Disturbed me? You’re jabbing your finger into me.”

  I hopped up the stairs to the quarterdeck, my ghost and my friend in tow.

  “You fascinate me, is all. You’ve no form. You’re a dreamah. Where’d your body go?”

  Bess didn’t answer.

  Bo glanced at me, shouting orders.

  Zoe mimicked him wordlessly.

  I let out a breath of a chuckle and shook my head.

  With a gentle tug on the sails, which fluttered once, twice, then billowed, we were off. The dreamplane of vine people shrank in the distance on our stern side—I patted myself on the back for at least thinking the term even though I was fairly certain I’d gotten it wrong—and the night sky filled our immediate field of view. Towers of sparkling dreamplanes spread out like a huge ecumenopolis.

  I lowered my voice as my gut lifted with our descent. “Tell me how your world is different.”

  Bess’ opaque eyes flitted about. “I didn’t realize you had a city in Dreamland.”

  “They’re the dreamplanes.”

  “There are so many.”

  “Yeah. We have a lot of dustmen, apparently.”

  “There are that many children?”

  I winced. “We might also serve other dimensions.”

  Bess’ mouth fell open. “Other dimensions?”

  I shrugged. “I think so.”

  “Oh my god, things really do make sense now. Holy crap.” Her face split into a grin. “We’re in an episode of Fringe. That weird season where the two realities slipped together. I love it! I wonder if I’ll meet the other Bess Briggs.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You’ve never seen Fringe? Well, of course you haven’t. I sometimes forget you’re not from Earth. Spaceman.” She giggled.

  “I’ve watched television.” I wracked my brain to see if I recalled anything about the one she referenced, but came up blank.

  “You can watch television.” Bess crossed her arms over her chest. “From here.”

  I spread my hands wide. “Through the dreams, yes, I can, actually. Now, get back to what’s going on.”

  “Okay, well, there was one day on my Facebook feed where people were talking about how magnificent the sting rays were in Chicago. They went on to mention how cool they looked flying past their office windows and stuff.”

  “What?”

  “I know. Most of us thought it was a hoax, or people having fun, but then there were pictures shared on—well, crap. That site where people share pictures because writing a hundred and forty characters is too hard.”

  “You’re
losing me with the details.”

  Olivia met my gaze with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah. Me, too.”

  “Sorry. I’ll stay away from my Candy Crush references then.” Bess laughed at our blank expressions. “Anyway, we saw the pictures. Sting rays. Flying. In the air.”

  “On Earth.” Because that could happen in Dreamland. “Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?”

  “I don’t have Internet in my dreams. Anyway, the next day? They were gone. All references to the sting rays in Chicago? Deleted, and the people who had friends in Chicago couldn’t get in touch with the people who lived there.”

  My mind hurt trying to keep up. “I have no idea where you’re going with this.”

  She ran her fingers through her hair, flipping it to the other side. “It gets better. Since the sting rays incident, there have been others, always reported on Facebook or Twitter, with pictures of strange creatures roaming the streets of small towns.”

  My gut tugged on me again, as we dropped altitude faster. A smooth sail so far. “Okay. Like what kind of creatures?”

  Bess lifted a shoulder. “Gargoyles were my favorite, though there were reports of lizard people, real-life vampires, shape shifters. The norm.”

  “How is that normal?”

  Olivia ran the tip of her tongue along her smiling lips. “Tell me you’ve nevah read a paranormal book, or an urban fantasy.”

  “Nope.”

  Olivia and Bess shared a wide-eyed look.

  Oh, these two. “Cute. Real cute, but go on.”

  The air popped so hard, pain exploded in my ears. I crouched, clamping my hands over them.

  When I recovered, the two girls regarded me like I was a baby.

  The rest of the crew seemed equally unaffected.

  Bo raised an eyebrow, bringing his head forward in question.

  I waved him off, massaging my ears.

  The sky around us was blue. Clouds scurried about as three suns fought for dominance.

  Bess’ jaw dropped. “River, you have three suns.”

  Olivia focused her attention on the sky as well, her pale eyes flat, her mouth hanging open.

  “Yeah. That’s kind a side effect here. Bess.” I snapped my fingers. “Bess.”