Borderlands (The Dreams of Reality Book 5)

by Gareth Otton

  However, her brother wouldn’t see reason when she was with him, and she could only imagine how much that had grown since his defeat at Tad’s hands.

  “We should get you back,” Tad said. “Kuruk could be here any minute and it’s best if—”

  Tad’s words were interrupted by a deafening bang that was so loud it shook the walls of the house. A flash of orange light accompanied the bang, washing in from outside and making Mitena turn sharply towards the window. She was just in time to see the plume of fire in the distance, one that was all too familiar. In her time hunting dreamwalkers with her brother, they had burned down more than enough houses for her to recognise the source of that inferno.

  “Ryan, what’s happening,” Tad shouted.

  Mitena jumped again, spinning back toward the man to see that there was no one else in the room and he must have been talking into his radio.

  “I’ll get Tony and his ghosts on it,” Tad said a second later, before shouting Tony’s name. The teenage ghost appeared in the doorway, his customary playful expression absent for once.

  “Take your ghosts and find out what the hell that was.”

  Tony didn’t hesitate before rushing off to do as asked, leaving Tad and Mitena alone again.

  “We need to get you—” Tad started to say, but there was another loud explosion, this one coming from another direction. Again Mitena flinched and glanced at the window, but she saw nothing as this explosion was on the other side of town.

  “No,” Tad gasped before racing out of the room, leaving Mitena rushing to catch up. By the time she left the kitchen, she saw Tad disappearing into a living room down the hall. He stood beside Rodney and Thomas, looking out at another column of smoke in the distance.

  “They know it’s a trap,” Rodney said in answer to a question Mitena didn’t hear. “That’s the only explanation. They’re trying to lure you out.”

  “Shit,” Tad swore, running his hands through his hair as he stared out the window in dismay. “We never cleared houses that far out.”

  Suddenly the horrified shock on his face vanished and his body tensed up, eyes turning hard as his fingers balled into fists. One moment he looked like a frightened man, and the next he was wearing an expression that made Mitena want to step away from something dangerous.

  “He’s killing innocent people.”

  “We should wait to hear what Tony and Ryan’s people have to say,” Thomas told Tad, the old ghost looking every bit as nervous as Mitena felt.

  “I need to get out there,” Tad said, like Thomas hadn’t even spoken. “We need to stop those fires and—”

  “That’s what they want,” Ryan disagreed, placing a hand on Tad’s arm to stop him from rushing away. “Thomas is right, we should wait for more intel before rushing off and—”

  “It’s Kuruk’s people,” a new voice blurted, making Mitena yelp in fright yet again and spin toward the source of the sound. Tony strode through the doorway, a furious expression on his face. “They’ve got dreamcatchers to deal with ghosts so we couldn’t get close to them, but they’re all over the place. I think they knew this was a trap.”

  “How could they have known that?” Thomas asked. “They leaked the information in such a way that—”

  “It doesn’t matter how they knew, what matters is that innocent people are paying the price,” Tad said. It took him only a moment longer to decide. “I’m going out there.”

  “We should stick to the plan,” Thomas disagreed. “Letting them lure you out is stupid.”

  “I’m not letting innocent people die for me, Thomas. I’m going out there and that’s final. The question is, are you coming with me or not?”

  The old ghost didn’t look like he wanted any part of whatever Tad was about to do. But after taking a deep, calming breath, he collapsed into a cloud of vapour that Tad breathed in.

  The sight shocked Mitena, as she had never seen it up close before. A moment later she saw it a second time as Rodney did the same, somehow transforming Tad in the process. The difference was not easily identifiable, but there was something about him that just seemed... dangerous.

  “You want me as well?” Tony asked.

  “Eventually,” Tad agreed. “But first I want you to mobilise your ghosts. Tell them to stay away from anyone who looks like they have dreamcatchers, as I don’t want them getting hurt. However, I need them to help with the burning homes and get people to safety. Save as many as you can, Tony.”

  Tony nodded and rushed off, leaving Tad alone with Mitena.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked, feeling like she had nothing to offer. “Maybe I could help the ghosts.”

  “No, stay here and wait this out,” Tad said. “I don’t know what Kuruk would do if he saw you, but we can’t take the risk of them capturing you. You’re too valuable.” As if realising how cold that made him sound, Tad cringed and added, “And I don’t want to see you hurt. I’m sorry, I wish I had time to take you somewhere safer but...”

  His words trailed off as he looked back out the window. Then without a warning there was a pop and Mitena was alone in the house she had just spent the last few hours warding up. Looking back out the window at the rising column of smoke in the distance, she couldn’t keep from quivering at how vulnerable she felt. For the first time since they were taken from her, she missed her dreamcatcher tattoos.

  Movement out of the window distracted her from her thoughts and she rushed closer to the glass to better see what was happening. The safe house was a comfortably sized home built in the Edwardian style, with red brick walls and white trimmed windows. It stood on a well maintained plot of land sheltered by tall hedges and trees in a wealthy neighbourhood filled with similarly styled houses. Alone, Mitena might have felt isolated in such a place, but there were men in military garb rushing through the gates at the end of the drive and headed towards the house, Ryan at the lead.

  They stopped only when Tad appeared in front of them and he had a quick, heated conversation with Ryan. Mitena couldn’t hear what they said, but it was clear they weren’t in agreement. A moment later the argument ended as a third explosion lit up the night, making everyone flinch and look towards the ball of orange fire.

  Suddenly Tad blinked out of existence, and Mitena didn’t doubt for a second where he was headed.

  By this time there were twenty soldiers in the garden, all of them looking at Ryan for instruction, but the man didn’t seem to know what to do. His plan to trap Kuruk had turned into a disaster. His hesitation didn’t last long. Soon he was issuing orders, sending his men off in different directions and even sending some toward the house. None got far before someone tall stepped out of nothing, only not the same tall person who had left a moment before.

  Where Tad was tall at six foot six, this man was enormous, at over seven feet. His name was derived from a Native American word for bear, and his impossible bulk that was all muscle on top of muscle made that name more than appropriate. Mitena’s memories of this man were gentle ones from a better time, memories of when he had a smile for everyone and wouldn’t hurt a soul, especially her. This was no longer the man she saw before her.

  This man had a mean edge. Dressed only in a pair of jeans, leaving his torso bare to the frigid night air, Mitena could see the extent to which he had covered himself with dreamcatchers. There wasn’t a square inch on his torso, his arms, his neck, nor even the sides of his head that weren’t covered in inky black lines. Despite the beauty of those designs, it only made the man look more menacing.

  When three of those designs burst to life with brilliant white light, casting angular shadows over Kuruk’s face and making him look like a demon incarnate, Mitena could only watch in horror as the monster she created got to work.

  Ryan’s people were like flies to an angry bull. Kuruk moved amongst them with incredible speed and strength that Mitena couldn’t follow with her merely human eyes. One moment he was standing at the centre of the group, the next he had decapitated one man, b
roke the neck of another, and was in the process of beating a third man to death with his own gun before Mitena had chance to cover her mouth with her hand and for someone to fire off a shot.

  The bullet struck her brother in the back, but made no difference. Another dreamcatcher flared to life on his body and the bullet bounced away. Yet another dreamcatcher lit up and Kuruk vanished, appearing on the other side of the garden to take out one of Ryan’s soldiers.

  He was using his dreamcatchers in ways Mitena had never imagined, activating multiple dreamcatchers at once, and cycling through them so none of them had chance to get overloaded.

  Having worked with the Dream Team since she turned herself in, she knew this was far beyond the skill set of anyone in the UK. If he trained all of his men like this, his army would be a force of nature and she couldn’t imagine how anything could stop them. They would be like a swarm of locusts, devouring anything in their path.

  Less than two minutes after Kuruk made his dramatic appearance, every soldier who accompanied Ryan was dead save for Ryan himself. The man’s face had gone cold, and he didn’t waste a second before firing on Kuruk, never letting his finger off the trigger. The bullets were harmless, but they were coming fast and that dreamcatcher couldn’t last forever. However, it didn’t need to as once again Kuruk dreamwalked, and this time he appeared right in front of Ryan, snatching the gun from the man before Ryan could stop him.

  Ryan activated dreamcatchers of his own, moving at lightning speed to attack Kuruk with a knife he had pulled from his belt. Mitena saw a line of crimson and a flash of light as Ryan scored a cut through a dreamcatcher on Kuruk’s chest, breaking that dreamcatcher and burning it out. However, it was only one dreamcatcher, and the man was covered with them. Other dreamcatchers activated, these of a familiar design as Mitena had designed them herself. They were healing ones, working together to make the wound heal almost instantly and without a scar. The dreamcatcher was still ruined, but the skin was so well healed that Mitena suspected he’d be able to get another tattoo put in its place.

  Still covering her mouth with her hand, unable to absorb what her monster had evolved into, Mitena’s mind broke as she witnessed the lengths to which Kuruk had changed. She had never believed her dreamcatchers could be used in such a way and was both horrified and amazed at how well they worked.

  Once more Kuruk went on the offensive, attacking the man who had just destroyed one of his dreamcatchers.

  Ryan didn’t have as many dreamcatchers as Kuruk, but those he did have he used almost as well as her brother. She had heard something about Ryan having learned from Kuruk himself, and that showed.

  However, no matter how good he had gotten, Kuruk was the master. He had ten times the number of dreamcatchers, he’d had them a lot longer, and he cycled through them all with such fluidity that he had become a force of nature. About the only thing that Ryan could do was make the fight last a little longer than his men had, but it was seconds, not minutes.

  That knife of his never touched Kuruk’s skin again, and soon joined his gun on the floor. The punches he landed were ineffective and though he was quick and skilled in hand to hand combat, it was only a matter of time before Kuruk grabbed Ryan, and then it was over.

  He caught Ryan’s arm and Mitena heard the snap of bone even through the closed window. Ryan didn’t cry out. He only grunted and pulled on his broken arm to get leverage on Kuruk before thundering his forehead into Kuruk’s face.

  Kuruk staggered back in surprise, letting Ryan go and blinking rapidly. His nose was broken and there was blood over his mouth and chin, but again it wasn’t to last. Those dreamcatchers activated once more, resetting the nose in an instant and soon only blood was left of the injury.

  Ryan tried to press his advantage, ignoring his own broken arm, but it was no good. It was less than ten seconds this time before Kuruk caught him again, his foot smashing through Ryan’s right knee and bending the leg at such an impossible angle that Mitena had to look away and try not to be sick.

  However, she couldn’t keep herself from turning back to the grizzly scene, her mind numb from the horror of what she was witnessing and also the guilt for the role she played in making this happen.

  It took her a few seconds to realise that Kuruk was speaking to the man who was crippled on the floor, out of this fight, but still trying to get to Kuruk like maybe there was something he could do even in defeat. Kuruk kept his distance so that he could say his piece, and despite her fear and dark thoughts, Mitena’s curiosity got the better of her. Before she could think better, she reached for the window to crack it open.

  “...took you in and showed you a better way. And you were playing us all along. I’ll admit, you had me fooled, Ryan... If that even is your real name.”

  Kuruk’s booming voice was tight with tension that put the lie to his smile and only made Mitena lean in closer so she could hear better, knowing all the while that this wouldn’t end well.

  “You were easy to fool,” Ryan said through gritted teeth. “A lot of power, but not many brain cells. It didn’t take much effort on my part. Quite a disappointment, actually. In fact—”

  He never got to finish his sentence as he gasped in pain as his other knee shattered under Kuruk’s boot. Bile rose in Mitena’s stomach and she was almost sick, but still she couldn’t bring herself to look away.

  To this point Ryan had been quiet for a man in his position, but finally his wounds were too much for him and he let out an explosive yell of agony that turned into a manic laugh.

  “You really are a blind idiot,” Ryan teased after he got control of himself again, still laughing, but in a way that showed he was covering for something else. “You stand there all outraged because I betrayed you, and the funniest thing is that you believe I have wronged you because you can’t see that you’re the bad guy in all this. You still think you’re fighting the good fight and that—”

  His words abruptly ended in another scream as there was another snap. This time as Kuruk kicked Ryan’s left arm aside and stepped on it with supernatural strength, breaking Ryan’s last remaining limb.

  This was too much for Mitena, and once again she acted on instinct. She didn’t just turn from the window, she ran from it. However, she wasn’t running to hide from the grizzly scene, but for the door that led outside. It took her a minute to unlock it, but soon she was buffeted by the icy cold of the winter night, and she was breathing in the crisp freshness of cool air.

  “...me a monster when you work with animals like Tad Holcroft. You’re the blind one here.”

  Caught up in what he was saying, Kuruk hadn’t heard the door open and didn’t turn toward Mitena as she stepped out of the house.

  “Whatever, just kill me already and get it over with,” Ryan groaned. “I’ve had enough of your prattling.”

  Kuruk chuckled to himself and walked away, picking up the knife that Ryan had cut him with earlier.

  “Oh, you don’t get to die quick after what you’ve done. Your end is going to be much slower than that.”

  He turned back to Ryan and was about to cut him when Mitena had enough.

  “Ruk, no!”

  For a second she was reminded of what it was like to have the speed dreamcatcher and for time to stop. Kuruk froze in place at the sound of her voice, all his muscles locking up so that he was unnaturally still. Only the way that his hair moved in the breeze convinced her that time was still moving.

  “Please, Ruk. Stop this.”

  Slowly, Kuruk turned away from Ryan and for a second Mitena saw the brother she knew and loved, her twin that she had been closer to her whole life than to any other person. There was a softness to his expression, a glimmer of hope in his eyes, and there was the loving brother she remembered.

  Then the monster was back, and all of that vanished from his face.

  “So it’s true,” he whispered. “I knew when I saw the dreamcatchers on the Dream Team that you were working with them, but I thought they were making you do it.
I hoped you hadn’t completely betrayed our cause.”

  “I betrayed nothing,” Mitena snapped. “It was you who went off the deep end, Ruk. We were only supposed to punish those few dreamwalkers who thought that they were above the law, not wage a war on anyone who has ever had anything to do with Dream. This is wrong. Even you must see that.”

  “How can you stand there and speak to me about wrong when you have betrayed Lucy’s memory?”

  “That wasn’t what you think it was. There was no dreamwalker involved in Lucy’s death. It was a normal person whose dream came true. He was as much a victim as—”

  “Shut up!” Kuruk screamed, angry beyond words and advancing on Mitena like she would be the next person he killed. Dreamcatchers lit up over his body, augmenting his words so that they sounded like they had come from a megaphone. Mitena took a step back, crossing the threshold back into the house. She was stunned at this new feeling. Before, no matter how far Kuruk had gone, she had never feared for her safety. Other people, yes of course, but never for her own. He was her brother, her twin. They had looked out for each other their entire lives. He would never hurt her, right?

  Seeing his expression now, she wasn’t so sure. But she couldn’t worry about that. She had to get through to him.

  “It’s true, Ruk. I’ve seen the evidence. There’s video footage from the night in the bar. It was a horrible side effect of a dream come true that—”

  Her words cut off as Kuruk roared in rage, new dreamcatchers lighting up on his shoulders, ones that Mitena had never seen before. Fire exploded from his hands and roared towards Mitena in a rush of heat and light that made her flinch away and cover her face. However, she knew that when that fireball reached her, nothing she could do would stop it. It was so hot and so intense it would burn the flesh from her bones and leave nothing but ash in its wake.

  Light bloomed around her as the dreamcatchers she had painted on the house flared to life and smothered the magic of Dream, putting out the fire.