by Gareth Otton
What if it was damaged in the explosion, she thought, undercutting her confidence. For a second her panic wanted to break through again, but then she smothered it and focused once more. Doubt wasn’t her friend. She and Miles needed to get out of here.
She thought of the Cardiff Hospital emergency room, thinking that was the best location in case either she or Miles were more injured than she realised, and needed immediate medical attention. Then she turned her attention to the tattoo that was about the size of an orange and placed over her spine a few inches north of her shoulder blades.
She felt an instant of heat that told her that the tattoo was still in one piece and working, and a second later there was agony as the weight that was crushing her limbs was not there any more, and blood rushed to once crushed flesh.
Stella might have cried out, but she was buffeted by another sensation, one that felt like she had just run head first into a brick wall. An instant later she popped back into existence and there was blinding white light that only coupled with her ringing ears to make her disorientated. However, she only needed to feel the uneven surface under her feet that shifted when she landed on it to know that she wasn’t in Cardiff hospital.
The dreamcatchers are still active, she realised. Somehow the explosion hadn’t stopped the dreamcatchers from working, and while that meant she could dreamwalk to places within the building, it also trapped her.
Miles cried out as the ground gave way beneath him and he collapsed. Through her disorientation, she didn’t have a good enough hold of him to keep him upright.
She blinked to clear her vision, looking around for him desperately and breathing a sigh of relief when she spotted him a moment later. He was laying atop a pile of rubble, groaning in pain and looking for all the world like he wanted to be sick, but otherwise he was alive and well.
As her vision cleared even further, she revised that thought because he was not well at all. His body was covered in dust, bright red scrapes, dark purple bruises, and in some cases it was slick with crimson blood. He had blood running down the left side of his face and over one eye from a cut on his head, and his hair was plastered to his skull. Even though she could see the odd angle of his left shin, showing just how broken that bone was, it was that cut on his head that worried her most.
Worry about keeping you both alive. The cut can wait.
Reacting to that voice of reason, Stella turned her attention away from Miles and back to herself. There were disturbingly large spots of blood on her clothing as well, her right arm screamed in agony whenever she tried to move it, she could feel the raw scrapes and pains of torn skin over her arms, shoulders, legs... in far too many places over her body.
But despite those injuries, she knew she could move, that she still had her strength, and that she needed to get out of here.
She looked up at what had once been the upstairs hallway. At the far end of the hallway, not much looked different save that she was looking at it through a cloud of dust that turned the sunlight into brilliant white rays that made it difficult to see. The closer she got to herself and Miles, though, the bigger those changes became.
The walls of the offices to her left had been destroyed, raining debris down over the offices and showing that these rooms were beyond saving. About the best Stella could hope for was that she couldn’t see any people amongst the debris. Maybe Miles’ warning had come just in time.
The floor of the corridor itself was a mess of broken stone, jagged timber from the roof supports, and even sharp scraps of steel. It was the vision of a war zone that was only supported by the giant hole in the building's wall that opened up the DTHQ to the outside world.
Stella had a second to realise just how lucky she was to survive this before she remembered she wasn’t out of danger yet. Turning, she reached for Miles.
“Come on,” she said as she grabbed his arm. “We need to get out of here.”
Ignoring his protests, she pulled him to his feet, ignoring how he rested all his weight on one leg. She ducked beneath his left arm to support him and said, “I know it hurts, but we need to get out of here. Do you think you can jump?”
Miles didn’t get chance to answer, as someone else made a jump of their own.
Stella caught the movement out the corner of her eye and spun in surprise to see a man leaping through the hole in the wall. Considering they weren’t on the ground floor, that was quite a leap.
The man was wearing similar gear to her tactical team, but she could see the familiar light of a dreamcatcher shining out from under the collar of his t-shirt. The second he crossed the threshold of the building it winked out of existence and the man completed his descent as more of a fall than a controlled landing. However, he was soon stable again and as his head turned sharply from side to side, he caught sight of her and the light flared again.
Stella suddenly realised how dangerous this situation was as the dreamcatcher barrier was no longer much help to them. This man had increased his strength to jump, let physics carry him across the barrier, and then activated his dreamcatchers when inside the building.
Seeing another dark shape rush through the mist as another man used the same technique, Stella knew she was moments away from the Dream Team being flooded with enemies. She needed to get out of here.
“Jump, Miles,” she screamed.
To his credit, he tried to hop a little. She just hoped it was enough.
The moment his foot left the floor, she triggered her tattoo. This time she didn’t try to leave the building, so the world changed as it was supposed to. The gaping hole in the side of her building vanished, and she was surrounded by four walls, these blissfully intact.
People screamed and jumped as she arrived, and more than a few guns spun in her direction. That could have been dangerous, as these guns weren’t in the hands of her tactical team but in the detectives and support staff who were crammed in the garage with her. Thankfully they had all taken basic weapons training and so these weren’t the sort of people to panic fire.
“What are you doing here? You need to go,” Stella hissed at them.
“We are leaving,” a familiar voice said from behind her, making her turn. “But the tunnel can only take a few at a time and needs to cool down between each turn.”
Stella looked at where Denise was pointing and saw that the giant dreamcatcher, the most complex Stella had ever seen as it was made of dreamcatchers within dreamcatchers, was still glowing on the floor. It had been cast out of metal inlaid into the concrete of the garage and was more than capable of handling the heat.
“It will take a lot more than that to burn out,” Stella pointed out. “Don’t wait for it to cool. Keep using it.”
“Do you want to stand on that?” Denise pointed out, and Stella groaned as she understood the flaw in the design. The dreamcatcher would keep working as long as they needed it to work, but it was too hot for people to stand on.
Hissing in frustration, Stella looked around the room for a way out and spotted what she was looking for in the far corner. “Archer,” she shouted to get the attention of one of her detectives. “Get that hose, quick. Bring it over here as fast as you can and Janette, turn the water up as high as it will go.”
Her two detectives rushed to do as asked and Stella looked back at Denise, who was blushing in embarrassment.
“I should have thought about that,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it. Just get everyone ready to leave. It’s still going to get too hot to use as much as we like, but this will cool it down quicker. George, get over here,” she called out to one of the other people who were just waiting around. “Help Miles,” she said, handing Miles over to the man. “As soon as that Dreamcatcher is ready, I want you to take him to the hospital.”
“You should go too,” Denise said. “You’re not looking great, Stella.”
“I will, as soon as everyone is gone. Who went through already and who are we waiting on?”
Denise looked like she want
ed to argue. However, Stella wasn’t willing to wait and her impatience showed on her face.
“Trevors and the rest of his guys are holding the fort at the second explosion site—”
“Second explosion?” Stella interrupted, then wished that she hadn’t, as it wasn’t important. She could get the story later. She told Denise to ignore that question and to finish answering.
“Sally, Tim and Karren unaccounted for.”
“What about Freckles, have you seen him?”
“He’s helping Trevors.”
The panic that Stella had been fighting for the last five minutes spiked at the thought of her dog without any kind of armour going up against people with guns.
“Give me that,” she said to Jannette, who had finished turning on the water and was now holding a gun and looking awkward. The woman handed over her gun reluctantly, like she didn’t want to lose it, but Stella’s expression told her she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
Turning back to Denise, she said, “Don’t wait for it to be completely cool. If people can stand on it without their shoes melting, then they have long enough to use it to get out of here. I want this place cleared by the time I get back.”
“Back? Stella, you should leave this to Trevors and his—”
Stella tuned out the rest of Denise’s protests. There were still people out there who needed help, people who worked for her and were relying on her to save them. More than that, though, her dog was out there, and she wasn’t leaving here without him.
Thinking of the hallway beyond the door to the garage, she dreamwalked again, cutting Denise off mid sentence.
20
Wednesday, 28th December 2016
10:25
Stella once more entered a world of dust and rubble. The explosion this time was at the other end of the building, letting in streams of light and dust from the far end of the corridor but with this end of the corridor looking much as it always had. There were a few exceptions, though... some major ones.
Lying on the floor were three bodies, all of them familiar and only one wearing tactical gear. None of them would ever move again.
Rather heroically, though, Stella could see their ghosts had joined the fight with Trevors and his men, all of whom were firing off bullets at targets hidden from Stella’s view by the dust and light. All three had guns, and they were a few steps ahead of Trevors and the three men at his side, accepting the gunfire from the opposition in order to keep Trevors and the other living men alive.
Stella was relieved to see the familiar shapes of Trevors and his men, but then her heart skipped a beat when she realised there was one shape she couldn’t see.
She rushed up the corridor at a sprint, not even slowing when her footsteps alerted one of Trevors’ men, and he spun toward her, squeezing the trigger and firing a bullet when he thought the enemy was sneaking up on them.
Stella’s mind was fully engaged and her eidolon talents were in a similar state to when she fought Deo the night he broke into the DTHQ. Her truth sense analysed the position and tension of every muscle in his body and fed her the truth about what he would do as he decided to move. She saw him turn, the wild panic in his eyes, the tension in his finger, and all the other clues that told her there was a bullet coming. The fraction of a second was warning enough, and she stepped out of the bullet’s path.
His eyes widened when he realised who he had shot at, and guilt was quick to follow.
“Don’t worry. I don’t blame you. Just concentrate on them,” Stella ordered, nodding towards the open hole and the enemy beyond.
She slipped a touch of Authority into her voice, not enough to wear her out but enough to make the man do as told. At the sound of her voice, Trevors flinched and looked back, his eyes widening when he saw her running at him.
“Stella... you’re alive. We were sure that blast killed you. What about Miles?”
“Hopefully he’s in a hospital getting a broken leg seen to along with a nasty cut on his head. But I think he’ll survive.” Her words were a rush, as there was something more important on her mind. “Where’s Freckles?”
Trevors nodded in the direction of the hole behind him, but his expression made Stella relax a little.
“He thought you were dead as well,” Trevors said with a malicious grin. “He didn’t take it well. He’s took out his anger on the guy who shot you. It turns out a spent rocket launcher isn’t much use against a pissed off dreamwalking dog the size of a grizzly bear.”
“The size of a... what?” Stella asked.
Trevors nodded back out the hole telling her to see for herself before a flicker of movement made him spin and he fired off a trio of bullets.
This time they weren’t aimed at the hole in the wall, but at the end of the corridor where the door had just been thrown open by one of the men armed with dreamcatchers that entered the building upstairs. Stella barely noticed the man drop as Trevor’s shot struck him in the chest and instead looked for her dog. What she saw made her jaw drop open in surprise.
Though already one of the three largest dogs Stella had ever seen, Growler had grown again to a colossal size. His shoulder was as high off the ground as her shoulders, and the rest of him had swelled up in proportion. Stella had no idea how he had done it, but the sweet little dog that had been a tiny puppy in the summer was now impossibly enormous.
She watched in fascinated horror as he blinked in and out of existence, leaving nothing but wreckage in his wake. He popped out of Dream behind one of the soldiers with dreamcatchers, jumping on his shoulders and using jaws large enough to encompass an entire head to bite down with enough force to crush the skull beneath.
Before anyone could react to his presence, he blinked out of existence again, taking the body with him and appearing on the other side of the carpark, shaking the dead soldier like he might shake a toy. It took a moment, but the body of the dead man came free from the crushed head and hurtled off as if thrown by a giant, colliding with the terrified soldiers nearby who were all knocked down by the flying body before they could focus their guns to on the giant beast.
“Oh my God,” Stella gasped, both amazed and horrified by what she was watching. Her beautiful dog had been transformed into a monster before her eyes.
“He’s done more to keep them from storming this place than the rest of us combined,” Trevors said without looking away from the door at the other end of the corridor. “How many are upstairs?”
Stella turned her attention back to the situation at hand and shook her head.
“I don’t know. By now there could be half of those guys up there.”
“Shit, if they’re inside the building then they can dreamwalk down here.”
“Only if they see inside the hallway,” Stella disagreed. “Otherwise they’ll be dreamwalking blind, and that’s something most sane people avoid at all costs.”
She knew Jen had done it when rescuing the hostages at the Senedd, but those were extenuating circumstances and Tad had not been happy in the least when he found out.
“Who ever said these guys were sane?” Trevors asked between firing shots at the door at the end of the hall to deter anyone from looking inside. “We can’t hold this place, Stella. We need to get out of here.”
“I know. Denise should have everyone else out by now. I just came to pick up the stragglers and to get you guys to fall back with me. It’s time to run.”
It hurt her to admit that. Though she’d had her troubles building this place, the DTHQ was her creation and it killed her to see these people tear it down.
“Who else is left?”
“No one,” Trevors admitted. “The explosion killed everyone else and you can see for yourself what happened to them. “It’s just us now.”
“Then we need to get out of here.”
“How? The second we retreat from this hole they’re going to rush inside and we’ll lose any advantage we have. At the moment it’s darker in here than out there, which is limiting their visibility
and helping ours, and we also have what’s left of the walls to hide behind. They come inside and we’re fucked.”
“We don’t need long. Everyone left has dreamcatchers and they can dreamwalk to Mitena’s escape tunnel.”
“How many can it take at once?” he asked.
“Three,” Stella said.
“Then that means it needs two tries to take us all and it will need to cool down between each go,” Trevors said. “That’s cutting it close, Stella.”
“You have another plan.”
Trevors hesitated a moment, firing off a few more shots as he thought, then his face set in an expression Stella didn’t quite like and the man nodded once.
“You’re right. It’s our only way out of here. We need to fall back to the garage and set up a defensive point that can be held by just two or three people long enough for that dreamcatcher to cool. I need a minute to set up though.”
“What for?”
“I don’t have time to explain. Will you give me that minute or not?”
Stella couldn’t afford to hesitate, she knew she had to trust Trevors in this situation and she nodded that he would have his minute.
“Good. Take my place and keep firing at that doorway. If they get a good enough look into this corridor so they can get behind us, then this is over. Oh, and I know you want to call your dog inside, but hold off for one minute longer. If he stops that devastation that has them all chasing their tails, then they’re going to concentrate all their force on getting inside and we’ll be done.”
This time Stella did hesitate. In the brief glimpse she got outside, she had seen little red trails of blood against the blue-grey fur of Freckles flanks, and she knew that at least some of that was his. What if he got shot somewhere he couldn’t shake off, even as big as he was?
“Promise me, Stella. It’s the only way,” Trevors snapped.
Though she hated to do it, she nodded and said begrudgingly, “One minute, no more. I’m counting.”