Dreamcatchers (The Dreams of Reality Book 3)

by Gareth Otton

  There was another pause that Stella let linger yet again, and when Mitena spoke her voice had lost its edge and most of its volume. She was shaking.

  “The next time anyone saw her, she was screaming her lungs out and running through the corridors of the hotel wearing nothing but bedsheets and tears. It was that fucking dreamwalker!” She spat the word like it was a curse. “He was controlling her and had her locked away in her own mind, screaming at what was happening. He was using her like a puppet and she never got away until he finally fell asleep. Of course by then it’s too late.

  “She arrived home a few days later, but refused to speak to Ruk. She couldn’t bear to face him after what she’d done… like that isn’t fucked up. We all knew it wasn’t her fault. You just have to know her to know that nothing about how she was that night was her. It was that dreamwalker controlling her. But in her mind she felt she should have done more to stop it. She actually blamed herself for what happened and felt like she’d cheated on Ruk. She couldn’t bare to see the shame in his eyes.

  “Of course Ruk’s driving himself insane. All he wants to do is see her, but she refuses every time. His dad’s known Ruk since we were kids, and he talked Ruk down from seeing her. He said she needed space and that he would keep working on her to let Ruk come by. She never relented though. She refused to see him right up until the day her dad found her dead. Sleeping pills. A whole fucking bottle.”

  “All because of that dreamwalker,” Stella whispered, sounding horrified. “No wonder you hate them.”

  “Oh, I hate that one for sure,” Mitena snapped. “I never found out who he was though. I’d give anything for that information. Kuruk didn’t hate them at first either.”

  “No?” Stella asked. “I’d hate them. If they did that to someone I loved…” She left the statement hanging and Mitena took the bait.

  “Oh, he eventually hated them all for it. But it took time to build,” Mitena said. “First, he was distraught. Wouldn’t leave his room, wouldn’t go to class, quit football… He was on the verge of losing his scholarship when his roommate called me as a last resort. They just didn’t know how to help him and they asked me to come down.

  “I’ve never seen him like that before. He’d lost so much weight, was drunk most of the time… he stank. It broke my heart. He used to be so driven and…” She wiped her eyes as tears fell and sniffed. “That’s when I came up with my stupid plan,” she said before starting into a legend Tad had never heard before.

  She spoke of the Ojibwe tribe’s legend of Asibikaashi, the spider woman, who used to watch over the members of the tribe and guard their dreams. As the tribe spread out across the nation, it became too hard for her to watch over them any longer so she instructed them on how to weave their own webs to catch nightmares and keep them safe in their dreams.

  “It’s a nice story,” Stella said when Mitena paused yet again.

  “It is, just not quite true. There’s another story, passed down from mother to daughter within the tribe that eventually passed down to my grandma. She spoke of the Spider Woman being an actual person from a time when gods walked the earth and men could walk through dreams.” She paused to let the last statement sink in and Tad could feel the eyes of the other occupants of the monitor room fall on him. He ignored them and focused on Mitena’s story.

  “Dreamwalkers were common then, and they were dangerous even without the powers they have today. Asibikaashi gifted the Ojibwe people the art of making dreamcatchers so they could protect themselves. My grandmother talked of a forgotten history long before Europeans came to America, where there was a war between my grandmother’s people and the dreamwalkers of that time. Using their dreamcatchers, my ancestors won that war, and the dreamwalkers were all but killed off. When they eventually re-emerged, they had forgotten what they were and the dreamcatchers were no longer needed.”

  “They started calling themselves Proxies,” Tad whispered to himself. He didn’t mean to say it, but Mitena’s story made a strange kind of sense.

  “So you thought you would test the legend?” Stella asked.

  “I wanted to bring my brother out of his funk,” Mitena admitted. “I wanted to give him a purpose again. I reminded him of the legends and went through my grandma’s things and found an old journal she kept, one that had been passed down through generations. It was filled with everything our people know of dreamcatching so it would never be forgotten. I used what I learnt there and came up with a plan… a mission to motivate him.

  “We would hunt down those dreamwalkers who acted outside the law and remind them that just because they have power, doesn’t mean they can abuse it. We wanted to show the world that dreamwalkers couldn’t get away with things like what happened to Lucy. They may be all powerful and can escape from any prison, but there was still justice out there.”

  “And you would be the hand of this justice?” Stella asked, her tone neutral.

  “Me and Kuruk,” Mitena agreed. “I supplied the dreamcatcher side, Kuruk brought the muscle.”

  “I see. So how did you find your first criminal? I’ve been heavily involved in this right from the start and nothing came across my radar of dreamwalkers causing trouble anywhere in the world. What did you see that I missed?”

  Again Stella’s tone was neutral with maybe just a touch of curiosity, drawing Mitena in. If Tad didn’t know better, he might almost think Stella admired this young woman after hearing her story.

  “We found someone who works for the FBI,” Mitena admitted.

  “Holmes,” Tad growled, fully expecting her to name the man who’d been so obviously against them since they’d first met.

  “He’s from our neighbourhood,” Mitena continued. “I never had much to do with him, but everyone knew Kuruk. I think they found each other at a bar one night and somehow Kuruk discovered that the FBI were tracking suspected dreamwalkers. They had already come across a few who abused their power but couldn’t get close to them because they would always dreamwalk away.”

  “So he passed the details on to you,” Stella said, sounding impressed. “Work outside the system toward the same goal. If only we all had such luxuries.” Sitting up a little, Stella asked, “Who was this agent, Mitena?”

  Both the Prime Minister and Trevors leaned forward as Mitena was about to offer up the first tidbit of actionable information of the night. It took a while, as though she had to work up to it, but finally she said, “Special Agent Sean Astur.”

  Tad blinked, sure he’d misheard.

  It was supposed to be Holmes. Astur wasn’t exactly their biggest fan, but he had a level head. How could it be him and not his idiot of a partner?

  “So Agent Astur always kept you up to date with suspected dreamwalker names?” Stella asked. “And all of them were criminals?”

  Mitena winced and new tears fell. After a deep breath she shook her head.

  “No. I thought they were, but… no, they weren’t. Astur lied… No, sorry. My brother and Astur lied to me. I thought we were only going after the criminals, the ones who were hurting people. But Astur is secretly a member of the Children of ADaM. He’s been just feeding us the names of any suspected dreamwalker because he hates them all… Just as Kuruk does, I suppose.”

  “And you had no idea the people you were killing were innocents?”

  “Of course not,” Mitena exclaimed. “I only wanted to do what was right.”

  “I see,” Stella said, glancing up to the camera for an instant before asking a vital question. “But you know that what you have been doing was wrong now? That the people you were killing were innocent and didn’t need to die?”

  Mutely, Mitena nodded.

  “Then you also know what Kuruk is doing is wrong and we need to stop him before he hurts anyone else?” Stella asked.

  Again Mitena nodded, but she was slower in agreeing this time.

  “Then tell me where he is so we can get him.”

  “The last time I saw him, he was in an apartment we’d rente
d through an acquaintance. It’s a shitty little place in Miami.” She reeled off the address and Stella wrote down every word quickly. “He won’t be there though. He’ll have moved on by now.”

  “Maybe,” Stella agreed. “But it’s worth looking into.” She stood and walked to the door, opening it a crack so she could hand the paper to someone stood outside. “Get this address to Trevors please.”

  The door closed a moment later and Stella moved back to her chair and sat down.

  “Please don’t hurt him. He’s only doing what he thinks is right,” Mitena said.

  “Killing people is never right,” Stella explained, and suddenly there was a shift in her expression. The curious politeness had vanished, and in its place was something much harder. “Nothing you have done is right.”

  “But… I thought you understood,” Mitena said, blinking away yet more tears.

  “I understand,” Stella said. “And we’ll have plenty of time to go over it in more detail over the next couple of days. However, you murdered people, Mitena. I don’t care what your reasons are, there’s no way to justify it.”

  Mitena opened her mouth to respond, but Stella wasn’t done.

  “It’s my turn to tell you a story,” she said. “After what happened the night of the Merging, I was the closest thing there was to a supernatural expert in the police force. Therefore, anything even remotely strange found its way across my desk and in most cases I investigated personally. I saw some awful stuff in that time. Some amazing stuff, like dreams come true. But awful stuff as well. Strangely though, I never made many arrests. Do you know why?”

  Mitena shook her head.

  “It's because I never came across many cases where there was a victim and a perpetrator. In so many cases I found nothing but victims on both sides of the equation. It’s the problem with dream and nightmares you see, the vast majority of it isn’t happening because of someone, it’s happening to them. Take this one case I attended on New Year’s Day.

  “I was called to a hotel where a girl had allegedly been raped. The trouble is that the people who were witnesses to the girl’s behaviour and the CCTV footage all confirmed that if anything, it was the girl who was the aggressor. She initiated contact with the alleged rapist. She was the one who forced her friends away instead of leaving with them. She was the one who suggested that they go back to the room for—”

  “Lucy wouldn’t have done that to Kuruk,” Mitena snapped, guessing where this was going. “I see what you’re doing. You’re twisting this to look like it was just a drunk girl who made a poor judgement call and didn’t want to face up to what she’d done in the morning.”

  “Am I?” Stella asked. “I only wish it could be that clean. Unfortunately, this was worse. Despite what you want to believe, Lucy really was the person leading everything that night. The alleged rapist was actually the first person to call nine-nine-nine when she freaked out in the morning. He was worried to death about her and wanted to make sure she was okay. It turns out he wasn’t actually a dreamwalker like you thought.”

  “Bullshit,” Mitena snapped, so angry that spittle flew from her mouth.

  “No, completely serious. The young man in question had flown in from Australia looking for his dream come true. As you mentioned, this young man was a dwarf. Unfortunately, he had suffered for this all his life, being mercilessly teased when he was at school and that mockery followed him into adulthood. When he saw that dreams were coming true in the Borderlands, he had the same thought as Lucy’s friends and flew over to experience his own miracle.

  “However, it turned out his dream was never actually to grow taller and be like everyone else. He thought it was, but it turned out that was just a step toward his true desire. All he’d ever wanted was for someone to accept him and love him for who he was. He didn’t actually hate who he was, he just hated how alone it made him. Then, along comes this beautiful American woman who not only stops to talk to him, but is genuinely fascinated with what he has to say and seems to be able to look past his physical stature to the person within. In that bar that night, his dream came true.

  “The tricky things about dreams coming true is that the only ones that last forever are the ones that only need magic to work in a moment and then things naturally stay that way. When the magic of Dream made your friend fall in love with this man that night and invite him back to her room, it was only a temporary thing. By the time morning came the magic had worn out and the true horror of what happened became clear.

  “Like I said, there really are only victims here. On the one had there is your friend who went through such a horrible ordeal she took her own life. On the other hand, there is the young man who thought he’d found happiness only to wake up the next day to find his dream come true had ruined someone’s life. The very thought of forcing your friend against her will sickened him. Piled on top of an already hard life, it was too much and he didn’t survive the night. It wasn’t pills for him. He was found hanging from a shower rail by his own belt. He’d left a two word suicide note. I’m sorry.”

  Mitena stared at Stella in horror. She was shaking her head, but Tad could see the truth sink in. She wanted to deny what Stella was saying, but the words wouldn’t come out.

  Stella leaned across the table, putting her face close to the horrified woman.

  “There’s never a justification for murder,” she said, her voice cold. “And your sob story is nothing more than that. It was never a dreamwalker who hurt your friend. This crusade you and your brother started is all based on a lie. Innocent people have been killed for nothing.”

  “I didn’t know,” Mitena cried, unable to bare Stella’s judgement.

  “I don’t care. That won’t bring those people back. The closest you can come to making things right is telling me everything.”

  “I already have,” Mitena begged.

  “No, you’ve told me the story you’ve been telling yourself to justify your actions. There’s so much more I need to know. I want to know the details of how you killed those people, just who you have killed, and what other names are on your list. I want to know every place you have visited, every place you sheltered, every single move you have made since you started on this mad quest right up until this very moment. Oh, and of course I also want to talk about these.”

  She jabbed a maroon painted nail against the dreamcatcher tattoo on Mitena’s left shoulder.

  “I want to know it all. But for now, that will have to wait. There’s something we have to do first.”

  Again she moved away from the table and opened the door. This time she threw it open wide so she could let someone in.

  A wide-eyed man entered carrying a shoulder bag. He was dressed simply in jeans and a t-shirt, but everywhere that skin showed save for his head, there were insanely bright colours and detailed tattoos.

  “Did you bring your gear with you?” Stella asked.

  He nodded. “I don’t know why this had to be done so urgently though.”

  “It can’t wait,” Stella insisted and motioned to the table behind her. “You can set up right there.”

  “Uh, okay,” the man said as he stepped cautiously into the room, finally looking away from Stella so he could eye up Mitena. “Uh, what am I’m doing exactly?”

  Stella nodded to Mitena, or more accurately, to the tattoo on her shoulder. “You see that tattoo?”

  “Of course, it’s beautiful work.”

  “It is,” Stella agreed. “She has similar designs all over her body.”

  “Okay. You want me to copy them onto you or something?”

  Tad clenched up, wondering if Stella had thought just that. Was she looking to jump onto the same level as the dreamcatchers, to use their power for herself? He soon got his answer as Stella shook her head.

  “Not copy them,” Stella said. “I want you to destroy them. You are going to go through every single one of those tattoos and change them into something unrecognisable.”

  “But… Why? They’re beaut
iful. I couldn’t possibly improve them.”

  “This isn’t about improvement, this is about containment,” Stella said. Then she turned back to Mitena and asked, “You understand why I’m doing this?”

  Mitena looked horrified, but slowly nodded.

  “Don’t even think of escaping. Tad’s in the next room and he will follow you wherever you go,” Stella warned.

  Mitena hesitated again, before finally all the fight left her and she seemed to deflate. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” To the tattoo artist she said, “You might want to keep your distance as you break them. I’ve learnt from experience that breaking a design can have a bit of a backlash.”

  “What do you mean?” the tattoo artist said.

  “Just don’t lean too close and you’ll be fine,” Mitena said. “You’ll understand soon enough.”

  Stella spoke with the tattoo artist as he was setting up his gear and waited long enough to see the destruction of the first tattoo. It didn’t take long. As soon as the tattoo artist had drawn a single line over the tattoo, cutting through the carefully constructed web there was an instant flash of light that nearly killed the camera. When it focused again, everyone in the monitor room were stunned to find Mitena writhing in a chair, squealing in agony as she had a new and massive burn on her shoulder where her tattoo had once been.

  Two tattoos later, Stella left the man to his work and came back into the monitor room to talk things over. She looked exhausted when she appeared, proving that despite her lack of need for sleep, there were still things that wore on a person.

  “That was good work,” Norman begrudgingly admitted. “Trevors is already putting together his team to go to the location she gave us. We might not run this one by the US authorities just yet. Maybe after we’ve got him in custody.”

  Stella nodded, but didn’t reply.

  “So what’s next?” Norman asked.

  “Once those are all gone, I’ll do what I said and start drilling her for more information. Hopefully we’ll get enough from her to catch her brother, discover if Astur is working with anyone else, and find a way to stop the nightmares while we’re at it.”