The Nightmare Maker

by Gregory Pettit

  Science has spent years searching for the perfect pain reliever: one that takes away aches and pains without making you drowsy or creating a habit. If they’d have just asked me, I would have told them that the answer to their questing came out of the end of a barrel. The shots that spanged off the stonework around me obliterated the agony in my abused body and cleared the fog out of my battered brain. I shrugged off Jack’s help and put on a burst of speed. The exit was only thirty feet away, and I put my head down in anticipation of emerging into the pounding rain of a rapidly graying and chilly fall afternoon. That’s when the bullet hit.

  Chapter 22 1421–2100, Saturday, October 3, 2015

  There was a bellow of pain from behind me, and I glanced back as Jack went down hard, skidding into a stone pillar and then careening off—his hand was still in his jacket, preventing him from slowing his fall. His head made an audible crack as it broke the leg off of a chair that had been bolted to the floor, and I winced.

  I ducked around the doorway and peered back. Mia rushed forward, yelling for the thugs to stop shooting, her normally pleasant voice screeching in fury. Incredibly, Jack tried to get back to his feet, but the blond lackey reached him and extended his pistol.

  “Go!” Jack yelled to me as Mia’s words seemed to finally penetrate the thick skull of her colleague. I turned to run just as the big Sons of Perseus agent dropped the model 1911 pistol to his side and booted Jack right in the face. The private investigator’s head whipsawed backward, and he went limp, flecks of blood spattering like gory islands in the blue of his tuxedo.

  My long legs covered the piazza in front of the cathedral in a time that the Road Runner would have been jealous of, but then a tidal wave of weariness hit me, and I slowed to a fast shamble as I crossed Victoria Street. I didn’t have long to find a hiding place before I crashed and made Jack’s sacrifice in vain. As I racked my rapidly fogging brain for a solution, memories from watching countless newscasts percolated into my consciousness. I knew where to go. I turned right and started jogging.

  The crowd was sparse, but it looked like dealing with Jack had slowed down my trio of pursuers. Given the lack of panic on the street, I guessed that between the rain and the thick walls of the cathedral, the sound of the gunshots hadn’t traveled far. A few seconds later, a pair of Ford Focuses tore past, proving that the mobile signals of people in the building dialing 999 hadn’t had any such trouble escaping the building.

  With all the budget cuts, you wouldn’t see that response time anywhere else in the city, I thought as I stumbled the last blocks. I caught sight of a couple of policemen with MP5 submachine guns loitering in my path; in my exhausted state, I thought for a moment that they were coming for me, but then I realized that they were part of the police detail that you could always see standing underneath the big spinning sign—the one that reads “New Scotland Yard.”

  New Scotland Yard had been the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police force since 1967, occupying a modest sixteen- or seventeen-story office block on Victoria Broadway. Contrary to popular belief, this wasn’t even the first “New Scotland Yard,” with the original being the Norman Shaw buildings overlooking the Thames at Victoria Embankment, built in the late 1800s. However, lovers of policing history had recently been rejoicing at the news that cost cutting had serendipitously led the Met to plan a move to the Curtis Green building, which would put the headquarters closer to its original 1829 location and lead to the removal of the offending “New” from the name plaque.

  All of that would have meant diddly-squat to me at the current time, except for the fact that a few just-arriving removal company vans, combined with nearby gunfire, had created enough of a disturbance for a man, wearing a trench coat, weaving like he was drunk, and with blood running down his forehead, to make it into the lobby of one of the more secure buildings in Central London. To their credit, I only managed to stumble a few dozen feet inside the building, leaving a trail of mud and gore, before the police grabbed me. As a slight debit against their account, that was also approximately the same time that I collapsed.

  I stumbled to my knees, not noticing the pain of hitting the concrete through the fugue state that washed over me. I’d managed to make reality my bitch for a moment, but now it was getting its payback. I looked up into the face of a young black policeman as I fell to the floor. I was pretty sure it was a bad thing that I was going to pass out, though I couldn’t remember why, and I managed to croak out two words before darkness overcame me. “Badger.” And then, much more quietly, “Olivia…”

  **********

  I opened my eyes. It was dark, and I was sprawled on the floor of a cell. The throbbing cut that burned across my scalp told me that I wasn’t in a dream. I couldn’t see outside, and there were no windows to tell me the time. I thought for a moment that I might be back in the Sons’ prison, but then I reached into my pocket, sighing with relief as I felt the package that Father O. had given me. I remembered what I had to do. I tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea forced me back down. I swallowed bile and tried again; this time, a leg that felt like lead swung over the end of the bed, and I managed to shift the ten tons of my protesting body.

  I lurched at the bars and grabbed on to them for support, leaning my face against the cool metal as another bout of dizziness hit me. I sucked in a shuddering breath.

  “Badger…” The noise I made was barely above a whisper. I spit on the floor and tried again. “Badger! BADGER!” My yells quickly roused my neighbors, who made it very clear, in language that shouldn’t be repeated, that I needed to shut up.

  “BADGER! I have to get out of here, or someone is going to die!” My yells echoed off the concrete walls as I repeated things of that nature at the top of my lungs for the next couple of minutes until a light came on, illuminating a hallway with a wooden door that had a small reinforced-glass window. A few moments later, an overweight, aging, ex-military man in Coke-bottle glasses showed up, flanked by a couple of bobbies

  “Please calm down, Mr. Adler. We’ll have you out in no time. I had you put in here for your own protection while you recovered. I also sent a car around to your new address, and I’ve just had a report in that everything there is fine,” Jimmy Badger said to me as one of the uniformed constables opened the cell door.

  A few minutes later, I was in the back of an unmarked squad car driven by Badger, who didn’t question my request to get me home as quickly as possible so that I could get to sleep. Usually my visits to the Dreamscape happened a few hours into the night, but I worried that with last night’s target needing to stay awake for a full day already, it was important to get to bed as soon as possible, and the clock already read 20:30.

  Worried, I tried to reach Jack, but the call went straight to voice mail. I then put in a call to Becky, who answered but said almost nothing as I assured her that I’d be back home soon. The man at the wheel waited courteously until I’d had a chance to finish my personal calls before speaking.

  “The little disturbance at the cathedral somehow seems to have avoided the headlines tonight. There was also an intention to have you charged with trespassing for your little stunt earlier tonight. It was going to be an excuse to hold you until there was something more solid. However, a call came down from Superintendent Singh an hour ago to say that you were absolutely not to be charged and that we were to offer every courtesy and assistance,” he said warily.

  “I’ve been asked to perform a time-critical task by some very powerful men. I guess they’d like to see it done,” I replied, thinking that it was nice to have the establishment pulling along with me for a change.

  “Does this task have anything to do with our mutual friend from the other night?” he probed.

  “It does,” I admitted.

  Badger nodded. “I told you that I owed you for that,” he said, an edge of wounded pride creeping into his voice. The car went silent, and I realized that in all the rush I hadn’t checked to see if Dennis had come through on his promise to unblock my
home insurance claim. If it had been anyone else, I would have dismissed the offer as an empty boast, but a man sitting on several hundred billion in gold bullion has a bit more gravitas in that kind of situation. I opened up my mobile phone and punched in my passcode with trembling fingers. I managed to get it wrong twice, then took a couple of deep breaths and keyed it in again. The login screen animation spun around a couple of times, and then my balance popped up.

  “Jesus tap-dancing Christ!” I shouted, much more loudly than I had intended. My balance read £212,532.27. Badger slammed on the brakes and swerved to the side of the road.

  “Is everything all right?” the detective asked.

  “Umm…yeah, I just got some…er…surprising news,” was all I could come up with in reply. This meant that I could get on a plane back to the US right now if I wanted, and Olivia would be safe.

  But Dana would be lost, and the Anarchist would get away with whatever he was planning.

  “What kind of news? Can I help?” Badger said, managing to come across as suspicious and helpful at the same time.

  I was on the verge of petulantly telling him to mind his own business when I realized exactly the kind of help that he could provide.

  “You said that you had someone watching the house,” I stated, waiting for his nod of confirmation before continuing. “If you could keep someone there for the next few days, that would help me immensely. My daughter seems to be too interesting to some people, and you know what happened to my last house. I want to get her out of here, but I can’t leave just yet,” I said as a memory of the building going up in an arsonist’s flames as my family fled flashed across my mind’s eye. A shiver went down my spine at the thought of just how long I’d been away from Olivia, and I motioned for Badger to pull back into traffic.

  “That is well within my power, especially considering the superintendent’s request,” he said, signaling a left turn off of the A40 to dive into the residential neighborhoods of Perivale and Hanwell. A couple more minutes of driving in awkward silence brought us to my flat, and Badger pulled up next to a marked squad car that was parked across the road. He leaned out and signaled for the uniformed officer to roll down the window. A quick exchange confirmed that there hadn’t been any trouble, and the detective inspector assured the young men in the car that he’d have relief out to them within a couple of hours. Suddenly, there was a screech from the police radio, and a voice came over the airwaves, full of codes and jargon.

  “Detective,” said the driver, “there’s been an assault down near Richmond at Ham House, and they’re asking for you to attend.” Badger straightened, shook my hand, and waddled off. I nodded to the officers in the car and went inside.

  Given that it was well past Olivia’s bedtime, the first thing I did was tiptoe to my room, crack the door, and check on her. She was sprawled bonelessly on the bed, one arm hanging off the edge and the other holding a small stuffed bear that I didn’t recognize. She had on a pair of princess pajamas, and her long blond hair covered half her face. I quietly snuck in and gently put her arm back onto the bed, bent down, and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. I caught a whiff of shampoo and lavender as I tucked her hair behind her ears.

  “Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” I whispered as I turned and left the room. Olivia rolled over and smacked her lips once before lapsing back into stillness and what I could only hope were pleasant dreams.

  “I need more money.”

  Dana had been a saint of a woman and had made it a point to never ambush me with demands the moment that I walked in the door. As she’d been the late one just as often as not, I’d tried my best to return the favor. Becky clearly had no such qualms.

  “I dropped seventy dollars—er, pounds on clothes and that stupid bear for Ollie. I’m broke. I couldn’t even afford nail polish,” she continued delicately, like a baseball bat to the face. I grinned. This was a problem that I could make go away. I got out my phone and started tapping, chuckling to myself as I dragged and dropped five-figure sums.

  “What’s so damned funny? Stop laughing at me, you lowlife. You abandoned your daughter all day, and all you can do is laugh at the person who spent her time—” She paused her tirade to put her hands on her hips and narrow her eyes into a venomous glare. “I expect you to pay attention to me when I’m—” This time, she was interrupted by a beep from her left pocket. She shimmied in skin-tight jeans to dig a phone out of her pocket, scowling at me the whole time with a face that could curdle milk.

  “Oh,” she said in a small voice. “I guess that works.” She turned on her heel and stomped back down the hall to her room. It had cost me £12,000 and change to shut her up. It was money well spent.

  Dennis and his bankers had come through with the insurance money just as promised, and that meant I didn’t have to worry about how I’d be able to pay Becky or cover any other minor expenses in the short term. I couldn’t even begin to contemplate any long-term plans, and long term was really anything outside of the next day or so. Of course, regardless of what he’d said at our meeting, the money also meant that I was in Dennis’s debt.

  That pleasant little bit of theater done, I got ready for bed. As I was taking care of those particular chores, my mind drifted inexorably back to the decision I had to make. On the one hand, I could use the lock of hair from the female banker, Miranda Jenkins, to attempt to reach her dream and protect her from the Anarchist. This would have the advantage of helping me carry out my promise to Dennis, and it would put me closer to earning his help. It also neatly coincided with the deal that I’d made with the Sons of Perseus, and it was the right thing to do—the Anarchist was abusing his ability to Dreamwatch and needed to be stopped. On the extremely negative side, so far I hadn’t managed to do more than inconvenience the Anarchist, trying to fight him had gotten more innocent people killed, and I’d be putting Toscan’s life in danger. I hadn’t heard anything more from my friend, so I had to assume that he was still in the Anarchist’s clutches. I wondered momentarily why only villains and fashion models had clutches…then I shook my head and splashed water on my face. I needed some sleep.

  All right, option two. I could use Father O.’s gift to track down Senior Auditor John Brown, the man who’d overseen the operation that had caused all of my headaches with the puca, the man who had threatened my family and tried to take my daughter. The old priest had been adamant that he was my best chance for finding Dana immediately. It would also mean that someone I’d promised to protect would likely die, and the Anarchist would be free to continue murdering his way to whatever his goal was at the Bank of England.

  Come find me.

  I’d made a promise to protect two different women, but when push came to shove, my wife was going to win. Every time.

  I walked into my room, drew a circle around the bed in salt, and generally prepared in the same way that I had a few nights before. I’d only made this work once before, so it was possible that my hand-wringing had been in vain, and I’d end up dealing with some little old lady’s nightmare about her cats eating her when she died. Again.

  “I love you, Olivia, and I promise that I’m going to get your mommy back,” I said, leaning over and kissing her again. She rolled over and made a little whining noise before quieting down.

  I stuck the lock of the banker’s hair on my night stand and put the envelope from Father O. under my pillow. I closed my eyes. Fuck the Anarchist. I was going to get revenge and get my wife back on my own. Sorry, Miranda.

  Chapter 23 2100, Saturday, October 3–0711, Sunday, October 4, 2015

  I opened my eyes.

  “No. No. No. No! NO! NO!” I screamed. I was in the dark dormitory room again. I sprinted toward the door, where I knew the sad little girl would be sitting, writing out her lessons, and crying. Not tonight, sweetheart, I thought as I wound my arm back as far as I could.

  My fist pounded into the wooden door with every ounce of will I could muster behind it. I felt my knuckles crunch as they impacted, but I co
uldn’t hear them over the hollow, thunderous reverberations that shook through the entire Dreamscape. The lock of hair tied around my index finger flared white. Somewhere behind the door, a little girl screamed. She was scared, but she wasn’t in immediate danger.

  “Let me out!” I focused on a mental picture of the Senior Auditor as I’d seen him in the borrowed memory that I’d received from the poor dead Irish girls. Then I switched to the time that I’d seen him in the flesh a few days ago. The lock of hair brightened to a brilliant blue, casting light into every shadowed corner of the room and highlighting the spot on the door where my knuckles had dented the oak panel. The screaming rose to an ear-splitting pitch. I cocked my bleeding, broken fist back one more time and swung it at the door.

  Pain made my vision go dark, I felt the door give, and I tumbled into the room along with a pile of broken planks, feeling wrenching vertigo pulling at every sense and driving me to my hands and knees. Purple-and-black negative afterimages bloomed in front of my eyes, and I fought to keep from slumping to the floor. After what felt like an eternity but couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds of objective time, my hand came into focus; where the lock of hair had been there was a livid red band of blistered flesh and a dusting of ash.

  I looked up. I was still indoors, but the plush carpet and long, well-lit hallway indicated that I was no longer in the girl’s dream. I couldn’t be sure, but this seemed like the kind of place where the Senior Auditor for a shady secret society might live—at least until I hunted him down.

  I struggled to my feet, doing my best to imagine myself whole and well rested—