by Dima Zales
Casting a glance over my shoulder, I take in the monstrosities. The mounts look like warthogs crossed with spiders, and their riders remind me of naked mole rats—only huge and with tentacles.
I speed up, but one of the pairs gains on us anyway. As it pulls up next to us, the second pair shrieks directly behind me.
A tentacle lassoes my neck. Before it gets the chance to rip me away, my mount veers sideways and spears the rider with his horn.
As the thing dies, the tentacle loosens its grip on my neck.
The riderless beast roars. With an angry flutter of nostrils, my unicorn rears, and I hold on to his furry mane for dear life as he smashes a hoof into its temple, killing it instantly before kicking the head of the warthog behind us. The beast staggers, mortally wounded, but its tentacled naked mole rat rider lands on its hind legs and bares its saber-like tusks at us.
My unicorn charges.
The mole rat dodges the horn and catches my wrist with a tentacle. Like a bungee cord, the tentacle contracts, pulling the vile creature toward me. I jerk my hand, but it’s useless. The thing is already on me, its tusk piercing my neck.
Blood gushes out of the wound, and I start to feel woozy.
Ignoring the pain, I headbutt my opponent in its maw, launching it back. Since it’s still attached to me by its tentacle, it doesn’t fly far—but it’s far enough.
With a twist of his neck, my unicorn shish-kebabs the creature, dealing it a deadly blow.
Panting and bleeding profusely, I look around at the reddish green walls and floating impossible objects.
Of course. This is my palace, and that bloody mess was another subdream.
Yet again, I didn’t have any clue that I was dreaming. Why does this happen? What will it take for me to get a clue—Unicorn Pom farting rainbows?
I zoom out of my body and heal the neck and forehead wounds.
It’s official: This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to dream death and the subsequent insanity.
Speaking of death, I’ve completely forgotten about Gertrude. Since I’ve just put her into REM sleep, she could touch me with her free hand at any moment.
I jump back into my body and wake myself up.
Chapter Twenty-One
My eyes open to the sight of Gertrude’s unbound hand swinging erratically.
Puck, it’s now flying my way.
Before I can even think the word dodge, someone forcefully jerks me back. Gertrude’s hand zooms right by my nose.
I sway slightly in my new location, stunned. Did that touch my nose? If so, I’ll lose it—in the best case.
Kain examines my face like a plastic surgeon prepping for a rhinoplasty. “You’re fine. She didn’t touch you.”
“Fine?” I look at my finger that touched Gertrude’s hair. Though unrotted, it’s still unsanitized.
“Come.” Kain leads me to the kitchen sink, takes the finger I touched her hair with, and pours dish detergent on it.
“Pucker,” I hiss under my breath.
I scrub my hands for several minutes to stop myself from antagonizing a vampire, which is what I really want to do.
Kain hands me a roll of paper towels. I dry my hands and top it off with half a bottle of sanitizer.
“I assume you didn’t get a chance to clear Gertrude,” he says.
I shake my head, still too angry for words.
“Do so now. I don’t want to keep her here any longer than necessary.”
“There’s a problem.” I plop onto a barstool. “To make it fast and easy, I need to know what she did at the time of the murder. Otherwise, this might be a huge project.”
“Oh, she told me that.” He grabs another water bottle from the fridge and hands it to me. “She was watching a movie in her room.”
“Alone?” I grudgingly take a sip of the water—no point in being dehydrated just because I’m mad at the vampire in front of me.
“Right, no witnesses.” He leans against the counter. “Yet another reason I suspect her.”
“Can you describe her room for me? And what movie was she watching?”
He describes her living room, then says, “The movie was Catwoman. I didn’t realize we had that crap in our library.”
“I’ve never seen it. What’s it about?”
He waves a hand impatiently. “I haven’t seen it either. It has a horrible reputation, to the point that I found it suspicious that Gertrude would watch it, of all things.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Well… just knowing that Catwoman’s in it might be enough.”
“Okay, good.”
“Can you go watch Gertrude?” I say. “Let me know if she wakes up.”
If he realizes I don’t want him to see how I do my magic from a distance, he doesn’t show it.
As soon as he’s gone, I stroke Pom’s fur a few times to calm myself and slide into the trance.
Pom is pitch black when I reappear in my dream palace. “That was some subdream, wasn’t it?”
I take flight. “Let’s talk on the way to the tower of sleepers. I assume you also had no idea it was a dream?”
He catches up to me in the air, his fur now a dark beet hue. “Yep, no clue.”
“Even though you were a unicorn?” I make a miniature replica of the unicorn fly next to us.
“You didn’t know it was a dream either.” He zips forward to float in front of my face. “And you’re the one with dream powers.”
“But all you do is sleep and dream. Out of the two of us, you have more chances to realize that a subdream is just a dream—and once you do, you could tell me that.”
“Well, I didn’t know.” The tips of his ears look like carrots. “Maybe next time?”
“I don’t want there to be a next time.” I enter the tower. “That was too close for me.”
We fly in sullen silence as I locate Gertrude. As we approach, I spot the telltale miniature dark clouds flying above her head.
“Not this again,” I mutter. As with Bernard, I’ll have to deal with her trauma loop before I can verify her innocence.
Fine. Given the complication, I’ll do a little more prep.
I locate the sleeping Felix and enter his dreams.
Felix is playing a violent video game with his second roommate, a girl I jokingly call Princess Peach. They each have a pet on their laps—a cat for him and a chinchilla for her.
Felix unleashes a flurry of onscreen kicks and punches, ripping the head off Peach’s character.
Interesting. With so much blood and gore, I’d expect him to faint, but he’s grinning instead. Either game violence doesn’t feel real to him, or it’s because this is a dream. Probably the latter. In the real world, his opponent would anticipate his every move with her seer powers.
I clear my throat.
They both look at me, but only Felix’s eyes have real intelligence in them.
“This is a dream,” I say. “In case that wasn’t obvious.”
Felix jumps to his feet. “I fell asleep?”
I transport the two of us to my cloud environment. “You did.”
He adjusts his “there is no spoon” t-shirt. “I’m sorry. I drank two Red Bulls and—”
“Don’t worry about it.” I sink into my cloud chair. “I need your help. Have you seen the movie Catwoman?”
He plops onto the therapy couch. “It’s crap.”
Pom appears next to me, and I idly fluff his fur. “I don’t need your skills as a movie critic. I’m going into the dream of someone who saw this movie, and I need details.”
“I think it had like a three point three out of ten on IMDb,” he says, looking askance at Pom. “Halle Berry, the star of the film, was dishonored with a Razzie award for her performance.”
“Okay, so it sounds like you at least know the actress who was in it.” I lean forward. “What does she look like?”
He regards me thoughtfully. “A bit like you, actually.”
Pom turns a curious light orange as I place him on my l
ap and tell Felix, “How about you picture her in your mind, so I can see for myself?”
I give him a moment before shooting him with a burst of power.
An attractive woman appears next to Pom. She’s wearing the kind of leather suit that vampire addicts often wear back on Gomorrah. Must be the infamous catsuit.
Pom wrinkles his furry nose. “She doesn’t look at all like Bailey.”
I wistfully file away those perfect cheekbones into memory. “Yeah, she’s way prettier.”
“If you really need the plot, ask Ariel,” Felix says, oblivious. “She loves anything to do with Batman and wouldn’t have missed that movie no matter how bad it was.”
“Good idea,” I say. “Stay here and talk to Pom. I’ll be back.”
Before either of them can say anything, I return to the tower to see if Ariel is sleeping.
I’m in luck—she’s here.
I touch her forehead and enter her dream.
An orc is throwing a giant fist at Ariel’s jaw. She dodges it, pulls a huge knife from somewhere, and spears his fist in a swift motion. The orc roars and tries to kick her—but she dodges that too.
Wow. Ariel is very good at this, even adjusting for the embellishment so common in dreams. I might visit her dreams later to learn some of her fighting tricks. For now, I need to pick her brain, so I gently help her defeat the orc, and when he falls down, I step in front of her.
“Bailey.” Ariel sheathes her knife. “What are you doing here?”
I smile. “And where is here?”
Ariel strains to answer but doesn’t come up with anything.
“It’s common not to question the location of a dream,” I say.
She examines the dead orc. “This is a dream?”
“Orcs don’t come to Earth.” I make the dead body disappear. “Also, why would one attack you?”
“Right, it is a dream.” Her perfectly smooth forehead creases. “Is it time for my therapy?”
“No, I need you for something.” I guide her to my cloud office, where Felix and Pom are floating in the air over a game of checkers.
“Oh, hey, Felix. And Pomsie!” Ariel snatches my furry symbiont from the air, grinning like a five-year-old opening a present. “I missed you.”
Pom turns the deep purple of happiness in her arms.
Whew. At least it’s not coral pink. It would be a bit awkward, though understandable, if he got turned on by Ariel. I guess their love is platonic, at least on Pom’s side. They met after I’d decided Ariel might benefit from something akin to pet therapy, and they got along so well that I eventually had to ask Pom to avoid her sessions, lest she do nothing but pet him nonstop.
“Did Ariel tell you?” Felix’s unibrow dances a jig on his forehead.
“Tell her what?” Ariel clutches Pom tighter.
“Catwoman.” Felix looks from me to her. “Bailey wanted to know the plot of that atrocity.”
“I didn’t get a chance to explain.” I plop into my chair. “Have you seen that movie?”
She squeezes Pom again. If he weren’t a dream creature, her enthusiastic smooshing might’ve broken his back by now. “Felix knows I have.”
“Told you.” Felix grins at me. “Probably liked it, too.”
“I did not.” Done with squeezing, she gently scratches Pom’s belly, which promptly turns blue.
“You liked Batman and Robin.” Felix sprawls on the therapy couch. “That isn’t much better.”
“Liked is a strong word.” She gives Pom the under-the-chin scratch that cats like so much. “In my defense, it had Batman in it. And George Clooney. And—”
“Guys, I need the plot of Catwoman for an important job,” I say. “Please.”
Ariel casts a warning glare at Felix and launches into a summary of the movie.
“Thanks,” I say when she’s done. “Now I can leave you all to hang out here as I take care of my business, or I can let you wake up. Whichever you prefer.”
“I’ll stay,” Felix says.
“Me too.” Ariel rubs her cheek against Pom’s fur.
“And me,” Pom purrs.
Felix motions to the cloud and the ocean below. “How will this work?”.
“When I’m done with my business, I’ll wake myself up,” I say. “And because I pulled you in, you’ll disappear from here at that point, which means waking up.”
Felix nods. “Got it. And we’ll see you in person soon. Remember I told you about Ariel’s cousin’s best friend’s daughter’s Mandate ceremony? I’m definitely joining so I can look at that dreamwalker’s comms for you.”
“Sounds great,” I say. “See you both then.”
I take myself into the tower of sleepers, muttering under my breath, “Assuming I’m not dead.”
Making my way to Gertrude’s bed, I shimmer into invisibility and touch her forehead.
Trauma loop, here I come.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Gertrude in this dream looks younger. She’s sitting on a couch with a handsome blond guy, who’s sipping from a bottle of beer as she gazes longingly at his lips.
He offers her the bottle. “Want some?”
She recoils as if it were poison. “I need to be in absolute control of my faculties to suppress my power.”
His grin is cocky. “All so I can touch you, right?”
She takes the bottle from his hand, puts it on the table, and kisses him. As they proceed to make out, I realize two things: this is a memory, as most trauma loops are, and the guy isn’t rotting despite his contact with her. I guess gangrene-givers can turn off their powers. It makes sense. If they couldn’t, how would they reproduce?
Speaking of reproduction, the guy fishes out a condom from his pocket, and they take things all the way.
I yawn, watching them. They’re not very creative—definitely nothing like some of the dreams I’ve seen. If I ever get around to doing this with Dream Valerian, there will be a lot more acrobatics.
“You have to leave now,” Gertrude says sleepily when they’re done.
He gives her puppy eyes. “Can’t we spoon for a few minutes?”
“Two minutes. Put a blanket between us, just in case.”
He does as she says, and they cuddle through the blanket until her breathing changes. When he notices she’s asleep, he carefully climbs off the couch and starts picking up his clothing. Before he can put on his pants, she sinks into REM sleep. He’s none the wiser.
At this point, the dream isn’t a memory but Gertrude’s extrapolation of what must have happened.
Her arm swings wildly, the way it did when she nearly took out my nose. By pure chance, her hand connects with his ankle and, as if it has a mind of its own, wraps around it.
The rot is instant. In mere moments, his leg looks as if it’s been infected for weeks.
He clutches his leg, screaming.
She stirs as if she’s waking up, but her grip doesn’t release, and the gangrene spreads and spreads until his screaming ceases and he collapses in a rotten heap.
The dream is a memory again.
Gertrude opens her eyes—and jumps off the couch, emitting a scream of such horror and agony that my chest aches with genuine sympathy.
However awful she was to me at the trial, she doesn’t deserve this.
But this is my chance to do what I came here for, so I make the guy’s corpse disappear, put her back on the couch, and make her fall back asleep. I then change the room to look as Kain described, moving the couch, adjusting the clock’s date and time to that of Gemma’s murder, and putting Catwoman on pause on the TV.
Then I use my power to “wake” Gertrude here in the dream world.
Remote control in hand, she rubs her eyes in confusion, her anguish gone for now. As I hoped, she thinks she’s snoozed before starting her movie. Later, when she really wakes up, she’ll process the horrific incident I just witnessed, as much as such a thing can be processed.
To my relief, Gertrude falls into the new dream perfe
ctly. She unpauses the movie and watches it, everything else forgotten. It doesn’t take long before I see that watching this movie is indeed a memory.
Kain was wrong to suspect her. Her alibi checks out.
A part of me is disappointed. Given how much she seems to hate me for little reason, it would’ve made life easier if she were the culprit. Still, after seeing that trauma loop, I understand why she’s so angry with anyone who can’t help her sleep condition.
Oh, well.
Time to wake up.
I open my eyes in Kain’s sleek kitchen and head over to his bedroom, where he’s supposed to be keeping an eye on Gertrude. I find him diligently engaged in that duty, standing over the bed like a sentinel.
“Hey,” Felix says in my earpiece. “I just woke up.”
Ignoring him, I tell Kain, “Gertrude isn’t guilty. She really was watching a movie, like she said.”
Kain curses under his breath. He looks ready to kill someone.
“What now?” I ask cautiously.
“I’ll take you to deal with the next sleeper, then come back to clean up this mess.” He strides out of the room.
I speed after him. “How?”
“I’ll use glamour on Gertrude to make her forget what just happened,” he throws over his shoulder as we exit his quarters.
“Won’t she get suspicious if she’s the only person not to have to undergo a dreamwalk?”
“I’ll tell her she’ll be the last one.” He covers the corridor with long strides. “And we’ll find the real killer before that.”
“Assuming you do,” Felix says as I strive to keep up without breaking into a jog. Thankfully, Kain slows a bit as we make the next turn.
“Where are we going?” I ask breathlessly.
“Colton’s,” he replies and speeds up again. “He’s the only one of your suspects available tonight.”
Puck it. I launch into a full-out run to catch up with him. “What do you mean?”
“Eduardo left on pack business, and Nina said she’s going on some important trip to the Otherlands.”
