Unquiet Dreams

by Mark Del Franco

  He was right. Essence revolved around him like a vortex, feeding into the staff. He held it with his body like a wild animal on a leash.

  She balled her hands into fists. “You are starting a war you can’t win.”

  “You can only fight me with essence, and if you use essence, you will be mine. Your choice is simple: Fade and die or bow to my will.”

  Eorla turned and looked down into the grave pit.

  Gerin leaned forward on the staff. “Stand beside me, Eorla. Together we can remake this world. We can take the Power that the Seelie Court and the Consortium squander. You were born to rule. You know that. Be who you are. Be my queen, Eorla.”

  Eorla dropped her hand and crossed her arms.

  “I don’t believe this. She’s considering it. Can you do anything, Meryl?” I started to move forward, uncertain how I could convince Eorla she had to resist.

  Meryl grabbed my sleeve and held me back. “This is too big for me to handle alone, Grey. Every time I drop my shield to tap more essence, I get nauseated. We need to get help.”

  Eorla turned back to Gerin. “I cannot.”

  He smiled. “You will. I will have you by my side.”

  “I will not do it,” she said. She raised her arms.

  He shook his head. He thrust the staff forward. A shock of light burst out. Eorla threw out her arms, but she was too late. The light spun around her in a web of white-tinged green. I could feel Hala in that light, the direct Power of her essence binding Eorla with its strands. Living light swirled around her, and she became locked in a cage of essence.

  “Watch, Eorla. See my Power. You will change your mind.” Gerin smiled and dropped his head back, and the essence of the spiral pulsed into the staff and from the staff to him. A shimmering barrier of white light began to grow around him.

  A blast of essence exploded in front of me. Instinctively, I held Meryl to the ground behind the monument, as another bolt landed near us. On the other end of the gravesite, two elves aimed bows loaded with elf-shot at us.

  I smiled apologetically down at her. “I’m thinking run.”

  Meryl batted her eyes at me. “My hero.”

  Another shot chipped the stone in front of us. I grabbed Meryl’s hand, and we dodged between stones to the top of the ridge. The elves kept shooting, but the essence spiral that Gerin had created was warping their aim. We dove through a yew hedge and landed in a circle of small mausoleums.

  Meryl pointed vaguely west. “Gate’s that way.”

  We ran among the graves, avoiding the lanes. All around us, we could hear the constant concussion of essence striking and the sounds of screams. Halfway to the gate, Guild security flew overhead. Keeva must have called in more airborne. We stumbled through yet another set of bushes and into the middle of a group of druids and brownies. They spun toward us, eyes glowing with essence, then relaxed when they apparently sensed that we were druid.

  Meryl and I backed slowly in the opposite direction.

  “Where are you going?” someone called. They all stared at us, waiting for an answer. Meryl and I exchanged looks. She shrugged, and we joined them in the lane. A brownie walked with us, her eyes glowing an unnatural yellow.

  “I’m, like, so bad with directions. Is this the way to the gate?” said Meryl in fair imitation of an airhead.

  A brownie looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Don’t you hear it? He’s calling us back.”

  Meryl scrunched up her shoulders and stuck her fingers in her ears. “An elf hit me in the head. I can’t hear a thing.”

  The brownie stared at her, then spoke to a druid next to her. They glanced at us repeatedly as we followed along behind them.

  I poked Meryl in the ribs. “We’re trying to blend here.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “What do you want me to do, a zombie shuffle?”

  Elves swept suddenly down the slope to the left. They moved in a fluid unison, chanting great bursts of essence at us. The druids and brownies ran for cover, returning fire. Meryl and I backpedaled and took the opportunity to make for the gate again. We turned a corner, and another group of elves blocked the path. We backed away as they moved forward.

  “I hate when this happens,” said Meryl.

  “Can you take them out?”

  She nodded. “But then I’ll be worthless until I recover. I only have my own body essence to work with, remember? You’ll have to leave me.”

  I shook my head. “Not an option.”

  The elves began to work a binding spell.

  “I’m going to do it,” Meryl said.

  “No.”

  We backed against an oak. Meryl lifted her arms and began to chant. I felt a surge of essence behind me and something grabbed my head. An arm slithered around and grabbed Meryl’s face. The oak tree became pliant, its bark slipping roughly over us as something yanked us inside it. My vision went gray. I felt dizzy with a strange twisting in my stomach and head. Then I was coughing on the cold ground beside Meryl. Off in the distance, I could hear fighting. We were in another part of the cemetery.

  I got to my feet and helped Meryl up.

  “We’re dying,” a voice said.

  I turned to face the oak tree. Molded into the surface of the bark was a small woman, pale ivory skin, long silvery hair covering most of her nude body. “Hala?”

  She ignored me, looking at Meryl instead. “I do not have much time. The druid is distracted. He strikes at the heart of the oak. He devours my sisters. We have nowhere to hide, little one. You are called.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Meryl asked.

  “You are the only pure vessel left. We call on you for help,” said Hala.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  Meryl waved me off. “Shhh. This is girl talk.” She turned back to the oak. “I’m only one person.”

  “You are strong. Remember your vow,” Hala said in that same matter-of-fact tone she had used with me back at Carnage. It’s hard to resist, even if she isn’t pushing a little essence on you when she does it.

  Meryl stared down at the ground.

  “Meryl? What is she talking about?”

  She looked at me, her face set grimly. “Looks like I’m it.” Her eyes were haunted, resigned as someone on death row. It was a look I’d seen a few times, one I didn’t like seeing on someone who was beginning to mean something to me.

  I grabbed her shoulders, a little afraid of what she was saying. “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged out of my hands and stepped away from me. “Get out, Grey. Find someone who can help.”

  “Dammit, Meryl, you’re freaking me out. What are you going to do?”

  She looked at me, still resolved, but with a touch of fear in her eyes. “I have a duty. I need to save the drys.” She looked off toward the glow of Kruge’s grave, and her voice became low. “Whatever’s left of them.”

  I stepped closer to her again. “How?”

  She held up her hands and backed away shaking her head. “No time, Grey. You can’t do this with me.”

  “Meryl, talk to me! I don’t like the sound of whatever it is you’re about to do,” I said.

  She bowed her head, then looked at me. “Stay safe,” she said. With a blinding flash of essence, she dove at the oak tree.

  “Meryl! No!” I reached after her, but she was too fast. Black spots danced in front of my eyes, and she was gone. Hala had vanished, too. Desperate, I spun in place, but they were nowhere to be seen. Meryl had disappeared into the oak.

  I pounded on the tree. “Meryl!”

  This sound came out of me, a strangled outburst of frustration. She didn’t answer. I had no idea what she had just done, but it scared me somehow.

  The sensation of a new essence nearby brought me back to the immediate situation. My skin prickled as something moved in the darkness around me. “Alone,” it whispered. Dim yellow eyes gleamed around me. Another whisper, sibilant and menacing. “Taste.” I turned again. More eyes. Something darted out of the
shadows, small and dark. It snapped at my hand and fled back. A dark shape dropped out of the tree from above me. It clung to my back and clawed at my head. I threw myself to the ground and rolled. It screeched and jumped away. Taller figures moved forward. Solitaries. Dozens of them gathered around me.

  “Bright, bright.” A raspy chant.

  I crouched, placing my hand on the ground. I could feel a wrongness there, felt the effect Gerin was having on essence. Even if I wanted to fight the pain of drawing it, he would have me. I slipped my dagger out of my boot. It burned in my hand with an almost unbearable heat. I tried to imagine it growing, lengthening into a sword. I had seen it do that once, but I didn’t know how to make it happen. Even as a dagger, though, it was still a blade with a sharp edge. I launched myself off the ground, slashing at the nearest solitary, a tall bark-skinned thing with sharp teeth. It howled in pain, and I knocked it back. I charged forward, small hairy-faced figures scrambling out of my way. I ran.

  A howl went up. The sound of bare feet slapping pavement and tearing at the earth followed me. My heart pounded as I ran. I leaped over tombstones, the wild shouts of the solitaries filling the air.

  “Run! Run!” a high-pitched voice taunted.

  I ran like hell. Some came right beside me, strange brittle fingers pinching and poking, then falling back with laughter. Adrenaline surged through me as I dodged among the sleeping dead. I began to pull ahead of them, but they kept coming, screaming and laughing behind me. I came out of a line of trees to a wide lake. I knew where I was now, the center of the cemetery. As I pounded along the path, more solitaries joined the pursuit, forcing me away from the path to the gate. Herding me back to Gerin.

  A spiraling tower of essence glowed ahead, marking Kruge’s gravesite like a beacon. I topped the hill and kept running down into the bowl. Still trapped in the chrysalis of essence, Eorla stood transfixed before Gerin. In the midst of the white tower of light, Gerin held his staff, its base planted firmly in the spiral of essence, drawing more and more power into himself. A drys revolved around him screaming. She spun faster and faster, funneling in toward Gerin. In a last surge of speed, the staff sucked her in. Another drys came sailing out of the trees, screaming as the essence spiral caught her in its vortex.

  The shouts of the solitaries became louder, and I spun back toward the slope. They had reached the crest of the ridge, poised to descend on me, when the entire horde hesitated. They seemed confused. I could feel something coming with them, something huge. And it felt angry. A blaze of crimson essence seeped into the sky. The solitaries backed away from it, as the essence built behind them. They turned and swept down the slope toward me, madness in their eyes.

  A cold feeling gripped my gut. I couldn’t hold them off, not all of them. I brought the dagger up as the first of them reached me. If I was going to be trampled, I was taking a few of them with me. I slashed at the first of them, just as a chilling scream rent the air. A spiderlike solitary spun limply through the air as a blaze of blood red essence crested the hill. Then another solitary went flying, and another, tossed like leaves in the wind. The horde became a tangled knot of panic as they chittered and screamed, scattering from the gravesite. As the path up the slope cleared, my jaw dropped in disbelief.

  Murdock strode toward me in an enormous cloud of crimson essence, the strength of it blotting everything around him. By some trick of the light, the essence amplified his size, and his skin literally rippled with Power. His eyes glowed with a feral glow as he closed in on me, glaring like he didn’t know me. He stopped abruptly, his breath ragged. Recognition slowly came into his face, and he smiled. “I thought I’d find you in the middle of everything.”

  Amazed, it took a moment for me to speak. “What the hell happened to you, Murdock?”

  He just shook his head. “I brought an old friend of yours.”

  Nigel Martin stepped from behind him, strolling out of Murdock’s essence as if he were just coming back from a walk.

  Relief swept over me. “Nigel! Gerin said you were dead.”

  Nigel tilted his head at me as if I had just explained the obvious. “I think it should come as no surprise to you today that Gerin is wrong about many things.” Typical Nigel. He stepped around me and approached Eorla. I could see the power of a spell wind out of his hands as he held them up to the essence surrounding Eorla. He nodded. Turning to Murdock, he reached out a hand. “You seem to have clean essence in abundance, Detective. May I?”

  Murdock shrugged and held out his hand. Nigel gripped it hard, then plunged his free hand into the cocoon surrounding Eorla. He convulsed with the shock of contact. Murdock gasped as essence flowed down his arm. Nigel pushed the stream of essence into Eorla. The illusion of Murdock’s massive frame slowly shrank until he was the man I knew. The cocoon around Eorla flared brightly and went out.

  Dazed, she swayed on her feet. Nigel held her arm to steady her. She shivered violently and looked up with clear eyes. “You live,” she said, her voice soft but not surprised.

  “As do you, Eorla,” he said.

  She gazed up at the towering cone of light. Still holding her arm, Nigel guided her forward as though leading her onto a dance floor. As they neared the light hiding Gerin, Nigel spoke intently into Eorla’s ear. She shook her head once. He kept speaking. She looked him in the face then, her eyes glittering. At last, she nodded and faced Gerin.

  Nigel looked back at me and smiled. “Learn to heal yourself, Connor. If this doesn’t work, the world will need all the help it can find.”

  He clasped Eorla’s hand. The air shimmered in front of them as they approached. Eorla began to sing as Nigel held out his hand. They glowed with essence and stepped through the shimmering air. For a moment, we could see the three of them. Then a flare pulsed outward, wrapping them in a dome of white light.

  “Connor, I think we have another problem,” Murdock said quietly.

  I looked up. Several hundred fey ranged around the ridge of the bowl. To one side, elves waited in chant phalanxes, wedges focusing power to the point. Their bows were drawn with the green blaze of elf-shot. Druids and brownies spanned the opposite ridge, essence blazing yellow and white in their eyes, Danann fairies in Guild security uniforms hovering above them. In a mixture of confused alliance, solitaries scattered throughout both sides. High overhead, Keeva hovered, her red hair and wings flaming against the night sky.

  I nodded in agreement at Murdock’s mastery of under-statement. “We’re fucked.”

  The green trail of a single elf-bolt streamed overhead. All hell broke loose. I grabbed Murdock’s arm and threw us into Kruge’s grave. We landed hard beside the cart as a storm of essence raged over our heads. Murdock rolled to his feet and drew his gun. I reached into the cart and lifted a longsword from Kruge’s cache.

  “How many bullets do you have?” I asked.

  Murdock glanced down at his gun. “Fifteen.”

  I smiled. “Good. For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.”

  He chuckled under his breath, keeping his eye on the battle. I took up position with my back to him. Murdock’s essence might be spiking like crazy, but he had no true ability. Neither did I. The only defense I could think of was not to get noticed.

  That plan lasted five minutes before an elf jumped down in the pit. I don’t think we were his target. He seemed genuinely surprised to see us. Before he had a chance to move, I hit him hard in the face with the sword pommel, stepping back with the blade pointed at his throat. He fell dazed against the side of the pit.

  “We have no quarrel, but I will kill you before you breathe a word,” I said. It was a gamble. The elf probably could sense I was a druid, but he had no way of knowing I had no ability. I tried to look so confident I could take him with the sword that I didn’t even need to bother with essence. With the back of his hand, he wiped the blood from his nose. Without a word, he flipped himself backward out of the pit.

  “I believed you,” said Murdock.

  “I wasn’t blu
ffing,” I said. I would have killed him. It’s what you do when you have no other option.

  War cries and death screams filled the air. High above, Guild security agents kept firing at the Consortium side of the fight. Gerin must have been working on Keeva a long time for her to go along with this.

  Something dark fluttered overheard, then dove at us screeching. Murdock reacted instantly and fired his gun. The bullet tore through a leathery wing, and the thing pinwheeled away.

  “Nice restraint,” I said.

  “I was trying to kill it,” he said without taking his eyes away from the sky.

  Pink light flashed between us. Murdock aimed his gun at it, and I swung my sword up. A shocked Joe blanched and held up his hands. “Whoa! I brought help!”

  “Sorry, Joe. Things are a little touchy,” I said.

  Murdock turned back to the fight. “It’s your brother,” he said.

  “Are you kidding me?” I peered over the edge of the grave. Trying to cut a path at the top of the bowl, Callin fought like a man possessed. A second after I saw him, I felt a new welling of essence behind him, wild and unrestrained. The Cluries poured out of the trees, manipulating the warped essence around them. The Clure himself stood back-to-back with Cal, a ridiculous smile on his face.

  “Not bad,” said Murdock.

  “They’re in their element in this mess,” I said. As chaos-casters, they knew how to use the unpredictable. It’s why they function so well when they’re drunk.

  Guild agents swept down at them, shooting streaks of essence that bounced wildly in all directions. They didn’t touch the Cluries, but it kept them pinned at the tree line. As Keeva moved into view overhead, the guards increased their attacks.

  “Joe, Keeva’s controlling the guards. Can you take her out?” I asked.

  He looked up at her and sighed. “Oh, great, she already doesn’t like me.”

  I looked at him from under my brow. “Joe, please.”

  He pulled his sword and winked out. A moment later, I saw a flash of pink near Keeva. She shot a bolt of white lightning at him. He vanished and reappeared behind her, hitting her with a blast from his sword. As she turned to face him, he vanished again, repeating his attack strategy over and over. The Guild security guards hovered in confusion as she focused her attention on Joe. He vanished again, longer this time, as Keeva whirled in place looking for him. It would have been amusing under different circumstance. A brilliant flash of pink appeared above Keeva. Joe dove with his sword point down and plunged it into her head. I felt the blow in my stomach.