by Gareth Otton
Mitena blinked, surprised to find herself alive. However, any relief she felt was washed away by a simple truth; her brother meant to kill her.
She stared back out the open door in amazement and saw that Kuruk was every bit as surprised as she was. He was staring at his hands that had launched the fireball with an expression of bewildered horror, almost like he couldn’t believe what he had done.
“Ten... I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. You just got me so angry and—”
Mitena couldn’t believe it. This was her brother speaking, not the monster. He had crossed a line that gave him pause and brought him back to reality. This was Mitena’s chance. She needed to seize this moment, use her advantage to fight off the monster for good, and bring her brother back.
Pop.
The sound was familiar and it sent horror through Mitena as she realised it meant she had lost her one opportunity to end this. Before she had chance to speak, Tad Holcroft stepped out of nothingness on the other side of the garden, followed by his enormous dog, who locked eyes on Kuruk and started growling.
Kuruk’s head snapped toward the newcomer, the monster taking control again as a sneer of hatred covered his face.
“You,” Kuruk snarled, fresh lights brightening up the yard as five dreamcatchers lit up at once. “It’s about time you showed your face.”
Tad didn’t answer with words. He raised a hand in Kuruk’s direction and a bolt of brilliant white light shot from his palm, covering the distance between himself and Kuruk in a flash. Kuruk activated his speed dreamcatcher and was moving before Tad completed his aim. The bright light passed through the air where he had been standing, then continued on through the hedge behind him, through the car on the other side of that, and then was lost from sight with nothing but destruction in its wake.
Mitena took one look at the wreckage and knew that if that had hit her brother he would not have survived it, no matter what dreamcatchers he had. But it had not hit him and the man was quickly moving towards Tad now, almost as quick as that light had been.
However, this was no soldier with dreamcatcher tattoos to overcome, this was the Dreamwalker himself and he was not so easily defeated. Even though his attack hadn’t worked, he had a back-up plan in place.
Kuruk was mere inches from the man before the was a concussive blast that rippled the air and sent out a shock wave in all directions. There was no fire accompanying this explosion, just a concussive force caused by a giant with a dreamcatcher running headlong into an invisible barrier at an impossible speed.
Tad grunted and fell back, the effort of keeping the giant away dazing him, but where he was merely staggered, Kuruk collapsed to the ground. Even his dreamcatcher powered durability couldn’t shrug off an impact like that.
Bones had broken in his arm, his right shoulder was misshapen, and as he climbed to his feet, there was an obvious grimace of pain on his face. Even his healing dreamcatchers weren’t enough for him now, and he didn’t have time for them to help anyway. While Tad was dazed by his injury, Growler was not.
Only Kuruk’s still active speed dreamcatcher saved his life. He rose to his feet and darted back just as the dog launched for where he had been. Dirt exploded into the air as he landed, showing just how much force was behind the giant beast. Not happy at missing his chance, the dog turned toward Kuruk and barked the mother of all barks.
Mitena had seen him do this when he was just a puppy, but this was no puppy any longer and this bark had an actual concussive force to it. It picked Kuruk up off his feet and hurled him across the garden, making him bounce and roll across the floor until he ended up in a crumpled heap near the hedgerow.
Despite everything, Mitena couldn’t fight her horror at seeing him so defeated, and again she was gasping into her hand as tears ran down her face.
Tad had recovered by this point and was advancing on Kuruk, murder in his eyes as he was ready to finish the giant man. But just as a pop had ruined Mitena’s chances to defeat the monster, another pop saved that monster’s life.
This pop was followed by another, and then another, and another, and soon the garden was surrounded by men and women who all wore dreamcatchers proudly. Kuruk’s army had arrived.
“Growler, come here,” Tad barked as he looked around himself with narrowed eyes. Strangely he didn’t look fearful like Mitena would if she were standing in his shoes. In fact, he wore a strange expression that she couldn’t read. He shook his head like he was frustrated with himself, but other than that, he did nothing but keep an eye on those around him to watch for an attack.
Why doesn’t he do something? Mitena thought to herself, and she wasn’t alone.
“Kill them, Tad. What are you waiting for?” Ryan yelled at him, and this time Tad did flinch. Strange that he should flinch at those words when the arrival of thirty people armed with dreamcatchers didn’t phase him in the slightest.
However, despite Ryan’s plea, Tad didn’t act and that gave Kuruk time to recover. Injured as he was, he was still fast, and he was still strong. Before anyone had chance to react, he blurred from the spot where he had fallen and soon stood over Ryan’s body, the knife once more in his hands.
“This is familiar, isn’t it?” he said, a cruel smile on his face. “We’ve been in this situation before, haven’t we Holcroft? Only last time it was my sister who offered you the ultimatum. This time it’s going to be me. You can either hunt me down, bearing in mind you will have to kill all of my men to get at me, or you can save your friend. Last time you chose your friend, and how did that work out? Jacob showed his true colours and tried to take over your country.” Turning to Mitena he said, “That’s why you can’t trust any of them. They’ll all turn bad eventually.”
“Just kill him, Tad. Kill them all,” Ryan shouted, trying to break through whatever was holding Tad back.
Frowning, Mitena looked at Tad and saw that he seemed further away from action than he was before. He still wasn’t scared, but his unreadable expression was starting to make sense to Mitena. She had seen that expression in the mirror every time she went on a hunt with her brother.
He doesn’t want to kill these people, she realised.
He was putting the lie to Kuruk’s words, showing that despite what all these people had done, he didn’t want to slaughter them. She knew he could kill. He hadn’t hesitated when going after Kuruk. She also didn’t doubt that he could kill everyone here despite their dreamcatchers, as she had seen plenty of footage of his accomplishments.
Yet, despite all that power, he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger.
Where Mitena saw this as proof against Kuruk’s belief that all dreamwalkers were inherently evil, Kuruk saw only an opportunity. Taking advantage of Tad’s lack of action, he reached down and cut open Ryan’s stomach from one side to the other, disembowelling him and making the man cry out in agony.
“Kill me, or save your friend,” Kuruk said with a grin, before there was another pop and he vanished.
Growler took a step forward like he would follow, but Tad grabbed the dog by the collar and told him to stay even as he vanished himself. He was not going after Kuruk though, as he appeared a moment later at his friend’s side. There were laughs and taunts from the men and women surrounding the garden, but none of them dared to take it further than that. Instead, they started disappearing one at a time until they were all gone.
“Go after them. Kill Kuruk at least. Otherwise tonight was for nothing,” Ryan grunted through his obvious pain, but Tad ignored him. He touched Ryan’s shoulder and whispered two words before they both vanished.
“I’m sorry.”
Mitena stared at the spot where the two men had been a moment earlier, unable to believe what just happened. The garden was littered with dead bodies, there were fires still raging in the distance, and all of it had been for nothing. No, it was worse than nothing. Her monster of a brother would never have come here if they hadn’t lured him out and these people would still be alive.
&nbs
p; However, even as she thought that, she couldn’t bring herself to blame Tad for this. She had stood where he stood and faced that same decision. Back at the start of her journey, even when she thought the people she was killing deserved death, she had struggled with that choice to take a life. In the heat of a moment where she was defending herself against an attack, it was much easier, but to plan the death of other people was something else.
“But I went through with it,” she whispered into the stillness of the night, wondering if that made her stronger or weaker than Tad. Eventually she decided it had nothing to do with strength. It simply proved that Tad was a better person than her. But how many people would die now because he failed to act?
Shaking her head to clear it of such thoughts, she realised she was not one to judge, considering she created the monster that caused all this. Therefore, she pushed thoughts of Tad aside and focused on making up for her own actions. Her brother was a monster. He was out of control, and truthfully, it wasn’t Tad’s job to put him down. She should be the one to do it.
Thinking of ways she might achieve that goal, she was unprepared for the sudden nudge against her leg that made her jump. However, when she recovered, she realised it was only Growler. She noted before how intelligent these dogs were, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why he was still here. He wanted to take her away.
“Thank you,” she whispered, before she rested a hand atop his head and jumped, leaving the garden and the dead behind, reappearing a moment later in the room they used for dreamwalking at the prison that had become her new home. She never thought she would be glad to be back in this place, but after the night she just had, it was a welcome sight.
25
Thursday, 29th December 2016
19:40
“What’s happening?”
Seated behind his desk, Miles shot Jen a dirty glare that she felt was undeserved. Yes, Miles had asked her to be quiet so he could concentrate, but she had been quiet for ages… at least five minutes… and the wait for information was killing her.
“Why don’t we go sit over here out of the way,” Amber suggested, laying a hand on Jen’s shoulder and gently pulling to guide Jen’s decision. It was tempting to fight back and force Miles to answer, but she thought better of it and reached for Dream so she could stand and follow her friend.
Jen had been here for the last five hours, ever since Amber came to visit and told her what was happening today. Jen had been keeping her distance from Tad and Stella to avoid their inevitable disappointment at her failure to save Freckles, but as soon as she realised this trap was happening, she had to come here in case something happened to her dad.
Then the waiting began.
Hours passed where nothing happened and everything was boring until Kuruk and his dreamcatchers arrived and she heard things weren’t going to plan. After that bombshell, there was radio silence.
“This is stupid,” Jen complained to her friend. “We’re waiting like idiots when we should go to the safe house. I know where it is and they need my help.”
“They need you here,” Amber replied, her disapproving tone telling Jen what she thought of that idea. Despite her frustration, Jen blushed.
Amber had been her ghost for nearly a month and it was the healthiest Proxy relationship she ever had. It didn’t come with the psychological damage that her parents inflicted, and neither was it toxic, like her bond with Maggie. But Jen had forgotten how invasive it could be and how there was nothing she could hide from her ghost. Amber knew all too well the consequences of Jen’s impatience in the past and that disappointed tone just reminded Jen of past failures.
“It’s taking so long,” Jen complained. “I hate all this waiting when something bad could be happening.”
“I know, but sometimes no news is good news and we have to think positive or we’ll go crazy. I’m sure they’ll be back any moment and—”
As if her words were prophecy, there was an all too familiar pop and Jen spun towards it. For all her words of wisdom about staying calm, Amber spun as well, looking just as eager for news as Jen.
However, instead of Tad like Jen hoped for, or maybe Ryan who might have answers, she instead found Growler standing in the middle of the room. He was swinging his massive head from side to side, looking around frantically until his eyes found Jen. Suddenly he was rushing over, and Jen started panicking. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw Growler without her dad and it was impossible not to fear the worst.
Growler rushed right up to Jen and took the hem of her tee-shirt in his mouth, tugging on it like he wanted her to follow him.
“Hawk, grab Dr B,” she commanded before she laid her hand on Growler’s shoulder. As a dreamwalker, Jen didn’t need to jump in order to dreamwalk, so Growler didn’t hesitate for a second before whisking her away.
She expected to be taken to the safe house to deal with something there, however, she found herself in the familiar settings of the hospital waiting room. People yelped in surprise at her arrival and hurried to make a path for her and the giant dog by her side. Jen hurried after the dog, taking advantage of the open space until she saw what everyone had been crowded around and skidded to a stop.
For a second she stood there, her brain not computing what she was seeing. She hastily covered her mouth with her hand, worried she might be sick as a wave of nausea washed over her. She had seen a lot of wounds over the last few days, but this was something else.
Ryan lay on his back on the waiting room floor, his face ashen and covered in sweat, one of his arms twisted at an awkward angle and the other swollen up to twice its size around a discoloured bruise. His legs were broken at the knees and bent in ways that shouldn’t be possible. However, as awful as these injuries were, they weren’t the worst.
After reading as many books as the doctor could give her on human anatomy over the last few months, Jen was familiar with intestines, but she never expected to see them outside the body. They were spread around the man in a bloody pool that looked like the world longest link of raw sausages. The image was so awful that she had no choice but to look away to break her shock and force her mind into action. Even then, she couldn’t shake the horror of how far beyond her this injury was. Just what the hell was she supposed to do about this? Where did she even start?
Without realising it, her eyes rested on the man kneeling over Ryan, and it took a second to recognise her dad. He hadn’t noticed her arrival and there was something wrong with him. He looked uninjured, but his expression was one she had never seen. His skin had lost all colour, his eyes were unfocused, and he was muttering to himself.
With two such bizarre sights fighting each other, she didn’t know where to even begin, so she was glad when there was a pop a moment later, signalling the arrival of Hawk and Dr Burman.
“Dear God,” Dr Burman whispered as he stepped up beside Jen. She glanced up in surprise to find that the unflappable doctor had finally found something that shocked him, but it wasn’t to last. Soon his face cleared, and he looked around until he saw a nurse rushing in their direction with a gurney.
Like that will help, Jen thought, wondering just who was going to scoop up Ryan’s guts and lift them onto the gurney with him.
“Tell me where to take him and I’ll dreamwalk him there,” Jen suggested and Dr Burman agreed that this would be the best option. He told the nurse he needed an operating room ready and then asked for another doctor that Jen hadn’t heard of before.
“He’s not working tonight,” the nurse answered, flustered as this was a long way past even the things she was used to seeing in this hospital.
“Shit,” Dr Burman swore, something that surprised Jen as much as anything else tonight.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I…” The doctor hesitated like he didn’t want to admit this before trying again. “This isn’t my area of expertise. I am not sure what to do here. I know the theory, but we could do with a specialist to help with this.”
“Tell me where he is and I’ll go get him,” Jen said.
“I’m not sure we have time,” the doctor answered. “He’s lost a lot of blood and this needs to be dealt with now. We’ll have to do what we can.”
We, Jen thought, horrified by the idea. This was one time she would be happy to hand this off to someone else. This looked so much beyond her that she was sure she couldn’t deal with it.
An image of Freckles flashed through her mind, tugging at her heart and creating a painful lump in her throat. It was a reminder of the consequences of failing, and she had to blink away the tears that were filling her eyes.
This was why dad didn’t want you doing this, she thought. He knew it would be too much and you would mess up again, just like you always do.
For the first time she wondered if this was the right path for her. Maybe she should have listened. Maybe she should—
“Jen, I need you with me on this or we’re going to lose him.”
Jen blinked in surprise when Dr Burman’s hand fell on her shoulder. Suddenly conscious that she was crying, she wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and admitted, “I don’t know if I can. This is so bad. Maybe you should just do this one alone.”
“I can’t do that, Jen. I hate to put this on you, but you’re this man’s best bet for surviving this. If I could do what you can, then I would take this burden, but for now we have no other choice. But don’t worry, this won’t be any different from normal. I will be right by your side all the way.”
“No different?” Jen asked, refusing to believe it. “Even if I help, what are the odds that we can save him?”
The doctor tried to remain stoic, but she could see the truth behind his eyes. They were fighting a losing battle and it was likely that even with her help he would die.
“Jen, we need to try,” the doctor pleaded.
Jen didn’t respond straight away, crushed under the weight of this responsibility. For the first time she wished she could give her power to someone else, someone more knowledgeable and deserving of this. But that was impossible. The only way the doctor could do what she did would be…