In the City of the Nightmare King

by V. S. Santoni

  The gunman marched into the bathroom and audibly tore down the shower curtain.

  I wriggled forward, poking out from under the bed. “Psst, Alison!” She didn’t hear me, though. Alison shut the closet door again, and I wormed back under the bed before the goon came back out of the bathroom.

  He circled the room like a shark. Even under this much darkness, my hopes of reaching the closet before getting shot seemed foolish. He idled around the foot of the bed before moving to the door. His boots paused midstep and turned to face me. He rattled something on his gun and a spotlight struck the floor and swept toward me. Shit. I sucked in a deep breath and tucked my arms under my chest, trying to shrink. But I couldn’t get small enough the evade the light. The beam hit my eyes, and I resigned myself to death.

  “Stan!” a voice called from downstairs. The gunman quickly moved the light away, and I let out the breath. Alison popped her head out of the closet again, and although the gunman was only momentarily distracted, I took my chances and crawled out from under the bed and bolted for the closet.

  “There you are!” the shooter said, raising his gun. But I was already gone.

  Inside the closet was another world stretching far back, every foot punctuated with a new row of clothes. Alison pushed past blazers and button-ups and dresses, pulling me in deeper. I kept looking back to make sure nobody followed us. The gunman’s voice echoed: “You can’t hide in there. You can’t hide anywhere. Nightmare King’s going to find you.”

  The Nightmare King. That name jogged my memory. Hanno Scherrer, the wizard who sacrificed his daughter to create a cintamani, had mentioned the Nightmare King in his notes. The powerful Mara that ruled over the Night City. Scherrer never mentioned encountering a magic barrier in the Night City, though, but he did say the Nightmare King urged him to stop coming there. And if you wanted to dissuade a wizard from visiting, hampering their magic in such a dangerous place provided a good start.

  “What the hell’s that guy talking about?” Alison asked.

  I changed the subject to avoid getting sidetracked. “Where’s Blake?”

  She shoved aside a fur coat and a Hawaiian shirt. “I don’t know,” she said curtly.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Alison stopped walking. Hesitated. “Nothing’s wrong,” she said and kept moving.

  Navigating the crowded closet, with its low ceiling and close-together walls, proved uncomfortable, but it took more than some Everywhen strangeness to get Alison acting so temperamental.

  “I’ve known you my whole life,” I said. “I know when you’re being weird.”

  “This is a weird time to get all mushy, J.”

  “Ali—”

  “Fine! How do you think it makes me feel coming to this place after Mom died?”

  Her words cut like a knife. “I told you . . . you didn’t have to come.”

  “That’s reasonable, right?” she said. “You thought I’d let my best friend, and the only person I have left in the world, come here alone?”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  Again, she paused and considered her words. The anger that had swiftly flared in her died down just as fast. “I didn’t want to leave that place, J.”

  “The Dreamhaven?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was a trick, Ali.”

  “I didn’t care.”

  The scene around us changed in a blink. We were standing in a funeral parlor, with eight wreaths gathered around an open coffin sitting at the room’s head. Chairs lined the walls, leaving a wide-open space for mourners to gather and approach the casket. Alison’s uncle Eddy leaned forward until his chair’s legs hovered off the ground. He had been the youngest of her mom’s brothers and sisters, at least six years younger than Cecilia. Alison always said he never did anything for anyone without a price. Her floral print–obsessed, middle-aged aunt Rebecca walked up beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder. Rebecca married a church-going man who constantly extolled the values of a good Christian life. Alison’s mom, her educated sister, hated the ogre and had slowly grown apart from her sister. When Alison came out, Rebecca rejected her and Cecilia cut her off altogether. A few other guests dawdled in the room, but I only recognized Alison’s grandma.

  “It’s all right, sweetie,” Rebecca said to Eddy. “Cecilia can finally rest. The cancer was brutal.”

  Rebecca’s words came as a shock. The Institute had kidnapped us before Alison’s mom died, so Alison never got to attend Cecilia’s funeral. She started toward the coffin. I wanted to stop her, tell her this place played tricks on people, but I didn’t. Her grandmother lingered near the coffin, covering her mouth with a handkerchief while sobbing. When she finally walked away, Alison moved closer. Her mother Cecilia lay inside, her head rested on a cream-colored pillow. She looked peaceful, as though she drifted in a dreamworld as lovely as the lilies and oleanders gathered around her. A few tears dripped on her cheek as Alison cried over her.

  Alison rested a hand on her mother’s chest. The mortician had restored much of Cecilia’s beauty. Her brown, wavy hair—which resembled Alison’s—fell in gentle curls around her face. She was gowned in a luminous blue dress, like the sky after a rain. Alison kissed her own fingers and placed them tenderly on Cecilia’s lips. I rubbed Alison’s back, then dropped my hand next to hers and looped our pinkies.

  “I thought I’d be less angry when I finally saw this,” she said.

  “Well?”

  “I’m not any less angry.” She chuckled bitterly. “In the Dreamhaven, I ran away from all this. I was with you and your dad, and everyone liked me, and I got to pretend I was living the life I wanted. For a minute, I forgot how the Institute took everything from us.”

  “We’re Defectors, Ali. We can finally get revenge—”

  “You don’t want revenge any more than I do. You just want to go back home.” She was right—her words stung like a reopened cut. “We’ve been fighting our whole lives. We didn’t have to fight in the Dreamhaven. You could’ve dated Hunter and lived with your dad and been happy.”

  “I have you . . . and I have Blake, and we’re going to get Hunter. We’ll find a new way to be happy.”

  She went perfectly still, then cried deeply. But her tears didn’t burn with anger; she was letting go—our old lives were gone. Our old families were gone. This was our new life, and we had a new family. Blake. And Hunter. And Ali. And me.

  Chapter 16

  Like the Dreamhaven, the Night City manifested as a dream within a dreamworld, neither subject to Everywhen’s laws nor those of our own world. But where the Dreamhaven sought to mimic our reality, the Night City warped like images in a funhouse mirror. Its physics didn’t follow any preestablished rules, nor did its logic. The City exhibited its own intelligence—and not just that, it freely ransacked our minds and used our thoughts to adjust itself, becoming unpredictable. It dropped us into Cecilia’s funeral to test Alison’s resolve, but she emerged feeling like a chapter in her life had finally closed. Now she moved through the endless closet with eagerness, backfiring the Night City’s ruthless trickery.

  The closet world stretched the length of several houses. I stopped once and studied the sleeve on a silky blue blazer. The fabric turned black and disintegrated in my hand. Everything behind us was slowly withering into dust.

  Alison and I squeezed together around a narrow opening at the closet’s end. A peek through the gap revealed a moldering library with dim, greenish lighting and bookstacks that towered infinitely into the darkness above. We were nestled between two shelves in a winding aisle that curved left and right. The air stunk like parchment and mold. Alison nudged aside the bookcase to our left and widened the opening, then pressed a toe on the wooden floor. It let out an exasperated groan. She pulled her whole body through the crack, and I followed close behind.

  “Where the hell are we?” Alison asked, swiping h
er fingers across the books on a shelf.

  “A library?”

  “No duh, J. Why a library? Why here?”

  “Let’s just keep following Blake’s aura and get out of here.”

  “Is your magic working?”

  “Just my wizard sense.”

  “I wish I knew why our magic didn’t work right in this place.” I kept my theory about the Nightmare King quiet. Going off on a wild goose chase after this Nightmare King wouldn’t help anyone.

  This place was a font of dead secrets, the old books on every shelf brimming with mysteries. Books arranged into columns on the floor cluttered its serpentine aisles. On our way through the skinny, twisting passages, I skirted my fingers along the books’ dusty spines, looking for anything indicating what knowledge they contained, but not a single title graced any of them. Curiously, I snatched a book off the shelf to determine its contents myself, but an indiscernible language appeared in its pages. Linh once showed me how to unscramble foreign languages using my wizard sight. I closed my eyes and prodded the magic barrier with my mind, testing for an opening. It didn’t feel as strong here as it had, and when I looked back down the nonsense briefly blurred then words moved around until they became readable.

  The book detailed a great civilization, Mu, that once floated high above the Earth. Its society lay divided among a small minority privileged to wield magic—the elites—and the masses who lacked access to wizardry. These rulers also tasked the underclass with serving them. Two other phrases stuck out: Lemuria and Magus War, terms I’d encountered when talking to Luther and in Hanno Scherrer’s notes. Supposedly, the civilization was destroyed during the First Magus War. Luther’s account of Scherrer mentioned that he’d belonged to a dynastic order called the Knights of Lemuria, who had used a cintamani stone to end the Third Magus War by defeating a mysterious group called the Malebranche. Scherrer’s notes made little mention about the knights themselves, though, nor did they ever mention a First or Second Magus War.

  I hurried next to Alison with the book still open. “This book has some pretty weird stuff in it.”

  “This whole place has some pretty weird stuff in it.”

  “It talks about an ancient civilization that floated above the Earth, and the First Magus War.”

  “Didn’t you say Luther mentioned something about a Magus War?”

  “Yeah. Supposedly, there were other floating cities too”—I flipped to the next page—“and they were all at war. Lemuria, Buyan, Atlantis . . .”

  A shadow whipped past, drawing our attention to a tall, hooded figure who came to stand before us. The figure’s face stayed hidden under a heavy cowl, like the boatman. It extended one large, pale hand toward me. The gloomy specter terrified us into remaining still. It gradually folded back all its fingers except for the index, which it pointed at me.

  Alison looked down. “J, I think the creepy librarian wants their book back.”

  The robed figure didn’t intend on letting me out with the book in tow. And sitting down for a reading session while Blake and Hunter were lost in the Night City wasn’t an option. I handed the book over, then the specter whooshed away, disappearing completely. That book stayed on my mind, though. Who knew how many wizard secrets hid in a place like this—secrets the Institute sought to suppress or destroy.

  We hurriedly followed Blake’s aura, both eager to quickly escape the archive, until we found a door riddled with splintery cracks.

  “He’s . . . through here?” Alison asked.

  “Feels that way.”

  She reached for the knob and opened the door. The world around us became a disorienting whirl of colors, like lights blurring as you spin on a merry-go-round, and just as quickly everything stopped and we found ourselves on a stage facing a tiny bar. Strange patrons gathered at a dozen round tables close to the stage. A bearded man with a cowboy hat rimmed with crocodile teeth sat at one table, a wall of snowy television sets stacked on top of each other behind him; and a couple wearing gas masks and sharing a nozzle relaxed at another, our reflections hanging in their lenses. Nearby, a jittery old man wearing suspenders and a bowler perched at a stool onstage, screeching out discordant notes on an accordion. He stopped suddenly when we walked in. It looked like we’d stolen his thunder. He lowered the instrument and gave us a dead glare, with lifeless fish-like eyes.

  “I think he wants us to get off the stage,” I whispered.

  Blake talked to a bartender, whose head resembled a smudge in a dirty mirror, at a counter behind the sitting area. Alison and I got off stage and joined Blake. He looked relieved to see us. The old man quickly returned to churning out painfully dissonant tunes.

  “Took you two long enough,” Blake said.

  Alison looked back at the shaky old dinosaur onstage. “Where exactly are we?”

  “Just some bar in the Night City.”

  “Why’re you here?”

  “Looking for information.”

  Alison looked annoyed with Blake’s response. “You didn’t think to come look for us?”

  “I knew you two could handle yourselves.”

  “I guess that’s an upgrade from earlier.”

  “What were you looking for information about?” I asked.

  “I was trying to figure out why our magic wasn’t working. Supposedly, there’s a powerful Mara that rules over the Night City called—”

  “The Nightmare King. I read about him,” I said.

  “Where?” Blake asked.

  “Luther had a book. It belonged to a wizard named Hanno Scherrer. In it, he talked about the ruler of the Night City being a Mara called the Nightmare King.”

  “You keeping anything else from us?” Alison asked. The bartender wiped out the inside of a tumbler and watched us talk.

  “No. I forgot about the Nightmare King until that gun nut said his name.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me back there?”

  “Because I didn’t think—”

  “Anyway,” Blake interrupted, “the bartender said the Nightmare King keeps an anti-magic spell around the whole of Night City.”

  “Why doesn’t it always work?”

  “No clue. Either way, we need our magic at full capacity if we want to find Hunter. Let’s go find this Nightmare King first and see if we can’t get it to drop the spell.”

  “Oh sure,” Alison said, “we’re just going to walk up in his big, nightmare-y castle and ask him to drop the spell, no prob.”

  “That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” I said.

  “How? How are we even supposed to find this Nightmare King?”

  “You need only look for a thing in Everywhen to find it,” the barman said. He set down the tumbler but left the washcloth inside. Then he pointed down a hallway leading to the club’s entrance. “The Nightmare King will know you are looking for him.”

  “Let’s not keep him waiting,” Blake said.

  I felt it as we approached the entrance: dreadful eyes on my nape. The Nightmare King’s ominous aura lurked behind those doors. It felt like horrible sadness. The Night City mourned eternally, and at the heart of all that misery, the Nightmare King ruled on a throne of tears. Merely mentioning the Nightmare King had conjured it, and now it coiled deep around our minds. And without our magic, we were helpless to stop it.

  Blake furrowed his brow. “Do you both feel that?”

  “The Nightmare King knows we’re looking for it,” I said. We pushed open the doors and found a glittering hotel lobby on the other side.

  Alison stepped forward and scanned the space. “A hotel? Is it going to room service us to death?”

  “It could crush us in an elevator?” Blake said, walking up beside her.

  “Guess it didn’t get that nickname for nothing. I bet this thing’s a ball at parties.”

  Fluted ionic columns stood atop sandy marb
le floors. Art Deco sconces fixed near their tops filled the room with a pale yellow-orange light. A chandelier sparkled gently overhead. At the far end, an unattended reception desk. Our feet clacked against the polished floor, echoing throughout the eerily quiet space. Elevators with wrought iron half dials over their doors lined the walls. The Nightmare King didn’t lack a dramatic flair. Unfortunately, its “humble abode” didn’t really give off a warm and comforting vibe. Alison pulled herself halfway onto the reception desk and peered into the office in the back. A stopped clock hung on a wall behind the desk—even its pendulum hung perfectly still in the center. Alison got off the desk and slammed her hand on the service bell, but nothing happened.

  She turned and leaned back, elbows on the countertop. “So, this Nightmare King invites us in here then leaves us downstairs. Rude.”

  A ding from behind—an elevator door opened.

  “Maybe it has some manners after all,” Blake said.

  We walked to the open lift, then gathered around the elevator and peeked inside. Alison gave a grim look. “Didn’t you say something about getting crushed in an elevator?” she said.

  “We don’t have any other options,” I said, and walked into the elevator. They shared a nervous glance then followed me in before the gate closed. After a sudden jolt, the brass dial above the doors started moving to the right. The Nightmare King’s aura grew more oppressive with every floor we climbed. It filled the cab with a sense of impending doom. Alison sighed heavily and played with her hair—she always did that when she got nervous. A loud screech frightened us all, followed by a soft violin coming through a speaker high on a wall. It played a gentle, melancholic song.

  “I feel like we’re on the Titanic while it’s sinking,” Alison said.

  “I love that movie.”

  “Rose could’ve saved Jack.”

  “No, she couldn’t—the door wasn’t buoyant eno—”

  “She could’ve moved.”

  The car churned to a halt and a chittering filled the air, almost loud enough to drown out the music. Blake and Alison gave apprehensive looks that made my skin crawl. The noise grew. It sounded like millions of tiny, skittering feet.