Storm Dreams (The Cycle of Somnium Book 1)

by Jeb R. Sherrill

  Voices sounded down the hall. “Best not let them see you,” Banner said.

  Cassidy willed himself invisible. It was so easy. Just a thought. Several men rushed around the corner and sped past him. They bent over the woman, checking her pulse. “She’s dead,” one of the men said. “Thought she must have fainted, but she’s dead.” The other men looked ashen.

  “Can’t they see the blood?” Cassidy whispered, uncertain whether or not they could be heard.

  “What blood?” Banner asked.

  “It was there. I swear,” Cassidy said.

  Banner shook his head and answered at full volume. “That creature was something dark from the Underworlds. The vicious things they do here translate as other things. They’ll probably find she died of a heart attack or something.”

  Cassidy’s stomach sickened. “It was a cherry pit. She must have choked on a cherry pit.” His eyes watered as he looked down at her collapsed body. “I could have saved her. She was only choking.”

  Banner nudged him to go. “Not likely,” he said, as he pushed Cassidy around the corner towards the lounge. “The creature wouldn’t have let you.” Men brushed past on their way to the growing crowd. They didn’t appear to actually see Cassidy or Banner, but avoided them unconsciously as if they were furniture. “Creatures like that,” Banner continued, “can do unspeakable things to us. But at least we can see them.”

  Cassidy nodded. He still felt sick. Couldn’t forget the woman’s eyes, the way they’d bulged when the umbrella pushed through. The way she’d pleaded with him silently before she died, probably believing he was in on the murder. “It’s like I’m seeing behind the world,” Cassidy said. He faltered and leaned against the wall. “My God, I’m seeing the secret way men die, and there’s nothing I…”

  Banner stopped and grabbed Cassidy by the lapels. He drew his eyes in tight on Cassidy’s face. “Don’t think about it, man. You’re only seeing part of it. There’s a lot more you’ll see, and there’s nothing we can do.” He released Cassidy and pulled away. “Like it or not, it’s not our fight. It’s not our world at all. We’re just shadows here.” His features softened. “I wish the real world was all daisies for you, but in the end we’re not really welcome.”

  Cassidy nodded, but couldn’t stop thinking about the woman in green even as they made their way back to the Nubigena. It was as if, for a moment, life had made sense. As if he’d recognized something in her. Recognized something about himself that he couldn’t touch except through her. Something he would never be able to touch now that she was dead. Or was he thinking of April? He’d met them so close together and the experiences were already melding in his head.

  He pulled the coin from his pocket and gripped it hard, trying to find April’s pain deep in the niches. Drops of sorrow leaked into his skin. He would always have this. This was more real than anything else he possessed.

  ***

  “Women’ll do that,” Brewster said, as they sat in the galley, back on the ship after dinner. The Englishman sipped tea and smoked a new blend of pipe tobacco from the supplies Franz had picked up. “You fall in love with a single look, a wink, a touch of their hand and bam, the world makes sense. Then it’s gone. You get over it.” He leaned back and blew a cloud of warm smoke into the air. “And you’ll meet many more.”

  Cassidy stared out the window at the torrential rain and bursts of electric fire that blinked in and out of existence across the rolling clouds. “I don’t know that I was in love with them. Either of them. I just felt…” Cassidy wasn’t sure what he felt. But they’d been so real. And that had made him feel real. Like he could touch her and not feel like a ghost. He pulled out the coin and showed it to Brewster.

  “That’s called a Walking Liberty,” Brewster said. “Minted recently. Worth half a dollar. Nice piece.”

  Cassidy slid the coin into a deep inside pocket of his jacket. Didn’t want to use it up. April’s pain was a currency more dear to him than blood.

  “The storms are thinning,” Brewster said. He stood and stretched. “That means we’ll head back to the Twilight soon.”

  “I was enjoying the real world,” Cassidy said, without looking up, his eyes still fixed on the dark clouds beyond the window.

  “We always come back,” Brewster said. “We just can’t ever stay. I’m turning in, though. Gun watch tomorrow, you know.”

  Cassidy listened to the Englishman’s footsteps fade. Wondered if the dream actually needed sleep, or if it wasn’t just habit.

  The ship felt asleep now. Empty. He smoked a cigarette and listened to the thunder. It thrummed in his chest as if it were the long-delayed heartbeat of the storm itself. Had he ever smoked before coming to this ship? The movements felt natural, but he couldn’t picture another time he’d ever done this.

  Something red flashed in the corner of his eye. One of the starboard engines shed a large sheet of its outer covering and flames exploded out the side. It was one of the main engines, the ones attached to the Zeppelin’s rear hull. Cassidy bolted from the galley and made for the back stairwell.

  Karl slept near the engine room and Cassidy found the door to his quarters without trouble. After several loud raps he pushed it open. Karl’s cot lay empty.

  Cassidy made for the engine. The flames had already burned a hole in the canvas shell. They threw fiery shadows across the mammoth interior of the ship’s main cell forcing freakish shadows to lurch across the looming ribs. The gas bladders still swelled with helium. The fire couldn’t ignite it, but could burn through.

  A shadow flickered across the curved wall and a scream rang out. “Karl?” Cassidy shouted as he approached the licking flames.

  A creature stepped out from behind a girder that ran down to the engine. The thing looked very loosely like a man, and stood taller than Cassidy, but pencil thin. Instead of skin or clothing it wore a glistening shell like a black insect. Its head was elongated and its feet looked more like claws. The creature opened its mouth and let out a high pitched squeal that reminded Cassidy of the sound a stuck pig would make.

  Cassidy reached for his Mauser. Again, he didn’t have it. An image of the pistol in its case flashed through his mind, lying on his bed.

  Loaded.

  Ready.

  Useless.

  A coarse German accent rasped from behind the creature. “Cassidy. Get help.” Karl’s jagged features poked out around the creature’s left foot. Blood ran down his cheek. His right arm extended out at a wrong angle.

  The creature squealed again and charged. Cassidy moved. His mind went blank and focused. Instinct took over. The spindly black arm swung in a cutting arc, but Cassidy had already leapt back and was around the side of Karl’s tool shed before the creature could pounce again.

  Cassidy grabbed a four-foot crowbar leaning against the wall and wielded it like a two-handed sword. The creature appeared from around the corner in a springing leap and landed on all fours, crouched like an attacking spider. Cassidy swung the crowbar but met empty air. The insect-like creature leapt over his head and landed behind him with the sound of chittering claws.

  Jumping aside as the razor-like shin of the creature passed beneath Cassidy in an agile kick, he landed, swinging the crowbar downward at the chitinous head. The hardened steel made contact. There was a sound like a cracking egg.

  The creature stumbled. Cassidy drew back for another blow. It spidered sideways on all fours and sprang again. The crowbar clattered to the deck as Cassidy lay pinned beneath the black body.

  He scrambled to slide out from beneath the creature’s wiry frame, but it held his arms and legs to the deck. The claw-like hands felt like steel around his wrists. The crack in its cone-shaped head oozed a thick yellow liquid. It squealed again, high and victorious. Its beak mouth opened and descended towards Cassidy’s face.

  The sound of metal thunder cracked and resounded through the cavernous insides of the Nubigena as two gunshots rang out. The cracked head exploded sending a shower of yellow goo across
the floor and girders. The creature convulsed several times and collapsed with a sound like falling paper clips.

  “Cassidy? Are you good?” Karl wheezed hard.

  Cassidy struggled from beneath the corpse. He nodded as he tried to catch his breath.

  The old engineer leaned against a support girder, bleeding onto the dull metal. His right arm hung twisted by his side. A .45 revolver dropped from his left fingers. It landed on the deck with a heavy clunk. “Is gremlin,” he rasped, and slunk down to the ground. “We pick them up in the air.”

  Cassidy pulled himself up to his elbow and examined the thing from a distance. That’s a gremlin, he thought. He’d heard of them. They’d plagued large aerocraft since the beginning of aviation, but he’d always imagined them as small goblin-like creatures.

  Boots thundered up the stairs. Banner, Brewster, Ned and Franz levelled their weapons.

  “Dammit, Banner,” Karl spat from his slouched position at the girder. “You are too late. Drop the engine or it will take us down.”

  The hole in the canvas was widening, and through it, flames licked up into the Zeppelin’s belly. Banner and Ned rushed to the support jacks.

  “Jammed,” Ned yelled.

  Banner levelled his Luger and emptied six shells into the supports. “Careful,” Karl yelled. Ned joined in, dispensing his revolver’s payload until the metal snapped and the fiery engine plummeted away.

  “Blasted vermin,” Banner said, as he helped Cassidy up. “I hate gremlins. Damnable aerial spirits get pissed off just because they get caught in the metal.”

  Cassidy rubbed the back of his head. Ned and Franz attended Karl, who groaned with every move. His arm had been broken in two places and a gout of blood stood out against the side of his head. While the two of them held him down, Banner set his arm. Only Franz and Cassidy understood half the words Karl used, but Cassidy doubted anyone missed the meaning.

  ***

  Cassidy returned to Karl’s quarters after the excitement died down. He paused at the door and grimaced. He’s a German, Cassidy kept thinking to himself, but knocked.

  “What?” Karl’s voice rang from inside, harsh and impatient.

  Cassidy opened the door. The old engineer lay on his bed, a bandage around his head and a mass of gauze around his right arm. He smoked a cigarette with his good hand.

  “Just wanted to check on you,” Cassidy said. “That thing tore you up pretty bad.”

  The old man stared. His blue eyes bored into Cassidy’s. “You,” he said, pointing at Cassidy with the glowing ember of his cigarette. “The magnetos on that Fokker will always work. Always. I promise.” He blew a cloud of smoke. “You are new.” He paused. “You are young, to us.”

  Cassidy nodded, assuming the German meant that he was the most recent member of the crew. Karl’s German sounded much thicker and more broken than Fritz, who seemed almost fluent.

  “Come,” Karl said standing. “I want opinion.” He led Cassidy to a section of the vast inner cell he’d never seen. Behind a hanging tarp stood an array of various machines. Two stood taller than him by several feet. “This,” Karl said, pointing to a semi-circular unit with thousands of yards of thin wire wrapped around the central stem, “is dynamo. Light materials. Very expensive. Generate a lot of electricity. This,” he said pointing to a large ten by ten foot box covered in glass tubes and wires, “I don’t know. Look.”

  Cassidy stepped forwards and peered into the box through a wide gap in the front. Inside thousands of tiny gears and wheels sat motionless. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Karl sighed. “Of course not. But I hoped.”

  “Do you know if it works?” Cassidy asked.

  “Cannot even turn it on.”

  ***

  Banner’s ability to jump from storm to storm with very little time in between astonished Cassidy. The captain seemed able to predict everything about the weather just by gazing over the horizon and tasting the breeze.

  As Brewster predicted though, the storms thinned, and talk continued about returning to the Twilight. The loss of a single engine didn’t slow them much since the Nubigena had six, but they’d have to get a new one eventually. For now, Karl rigged an old plane engine in its place.

  “This might sound like a crazy question,” Cassidy said to Brewster, as they gazed out one of the aft windows of the gondola, “but what all do we do? I mean, do we have some kind of mission or purpose?”

  Brewster looked thoughtful as he watched the grey clouds vanish behind the ship and form a purple line. “Survive,” he said, at last. “The Armada will hunt us until we’re dead, or whatever it is they do with captured dreams.”

  Cassidy nursed a whisky. “Why are we so much of a threat?”

  Brewster shrugged. “Hell, I don’t even know who they are. Police of the Everdream, yes, but beyond that...” He trailed off. “I just know they’ve been chasing Banner long before I hooked up with this outfit, and he’s the only one who’s held out this long. I’ve talked with a lot of people in the Twilight.”

  Cassidy took another sip. Energy cracked in the distance. Reflections of the strange light bounced off the rolling clouds. The Nubigena trembled.

  Brewster gave a sardonic grin. “Say goodbye to reality.”

  Chapter 9

  Cassidy’s chest tightened as the ship broke through to the Twilight. The drabness hit him with full force now as the real world showed him the muted colours of this in-between one. The clouds were green this time, but a sickly shade like overcooked peas. The sky looked as if someone had come along with a straw and sucked just enough vibrancy out to leave a hazy memory of what real colour had been.

  He thought of the woman in the green dress. The fabric had reminded him of what a forest canopy would look like if it were gathered up, squeezed into one long bolt of fabric and sewn into a single evening gown. And her eyes. If Cassidy never remembered another thing about her, it was the green of her eyes. He’d just let her die. He’d almost let Karl die. Cassidy slammed a fist against the metal frame around the circular window in his quarters. Pain forked through to his bones. The Mauser would never be off his side again.

  He lay on his cot and stared at the ceiling, feeling the Twilight air creep into the ship. In a few minutes he would be breathing it again instead of the ozone-thick smell of the storms. The richness of the air in the lounge. April’s scent as she’d handed him the coin, what Brewster had called a Walking Liberty. Have I ever loved anyone, he wondered again, as he drifted off to sleep.

  Cassidy stood in a sepia briefing room, receiving orders from a commander too blurry to recognize. Several airmen stood next to him, snapped salutes and then made for their fighters. The Sopwith he always flew stood on the runway, looking as if it had come right out of the shop.

  The interior of the plane looked like a Fokker though, with controls similar to the one he flew now. He turned dials and flipped switches without thinking. He pumped up the gas tank as the flight crew armstronged the prop. The fighter thrummed as if it couldn’t wait to take to the sky. Everything happened on automatic. No thoughts. No options, just pre-recorded action.

  He taxied the Sopwith to line up with the others and, in moments, he was in the air. Time jumped ahead in spurts. They were engaging the Germans now. He didn’t know where, but a castle loomed below, surrounded by acres of brown and red fields. A dot appeared in the distance and he was drawn to it as if nothing else existed in the world, his hatred raging out of control. A single fighter—

  Cassidy’s eyes flew open as red light exploded through the glass portal of his quarters, igniting the walls with a shifting watery effect. He leapt to his feet and glanced out at the sky beyond the starboard hull. A shimmering galleon rode the air beside them, matching their speed. Its fluttering sails shone with their own light, along with the vessel itself. Pirates? Cassidy thought. In the air? He grabbed his Mauser and headed for the bridge.

  Cassidy burst through the door. “There’s a ship out there.” Half the
crew already stood at the helm.

  Banner glanced over, then turned back to the red ship, still flying starboard. The captain’s glance had been grim, but he muttered just loud enough for everyone to hear, “It’s all right, boys. She’s just saying hello.”

  Brewster nodded to Cassidy from across the bridge. He wasn’t smiling either. Franz adjusted his gun belt.

  “Get up to the crow’s nest,” Banner said to the young German, using the term Brewster had recently given to the gun platform up top. “Make sure Ned doesn’t do anything stupid.” Franz snapped a quick salute and was gone.

  “Who are they?” Cassidy asked, trying to sound nonchalant, but the red glow sent tremors into his voice. Brewster and Banner exchanged furtive glances. “Are they ambushing us?”

  Brewster shook his head. “Twilight’s a big place. We’re bound to see them from time to time. They spend most of it in the real world.”

  The red ship glided closer, to within feet of the Nubigena’s hull and a light coloured flag stood out on the main mast. The pirate crew began throwing lines. The black grappling hooks stuck straight to the main hull and gondola as if magnetized, instead of hooking on. The lines became rigid making the Zeppelin and the glowing vessel one.

  “Shouldn’t we do something?” asked Cassidy.

  “We’re going to do something,” Banner said, setting the controls to remain on course and speed. “We’re going to go say hello.”

  Everyone except Karl stood by the main door as Banner looked out the hatch window. “Okay,” he said, twisting the handle and swinging the hatch open. A gangplank extended from the galleon. Men stood in two rows facing each other at the other end. “They’ve signalled a greeting first, so we’re going over there. Be civil and courteous, and watch yourselves,” Banner said as he started across.

  “They look like pirates,” Cassidy said.