Dreamonologist

by Gregory Pettit

  ◆◆◆

  Vir ran up, waving his arms, sneakers clopping against the sidewalk. This wasn’t his first time out in the field, but you wouldn’t have known it from the nervous energy that he gave off as he rocked from foot to foot. “Hey, buddy, I got some updates from HQ just now, and we’ve got ten minutes to get in position before the assault force breaches the apartment. Do you remember the plan?” he said, clapping me on the back and leading me toward our preassigned point. Every triad of attuned had to have a lead; I wasn’t it thanks to my little screw-up with the Choker, and Bensen still wouldn’t be medically signed off to return for at least a week.

  “Yeah, I think I’ve got it. Our investigators have tracked the Protean down, and they believe he’s hiding out in apartment 427. The strike teams, armed with Tasers and heat-sensitive goggles, are going to enter from both ends of the structure, working their way up through the common areas, hopefully ensuring that the Protean isn’t able to slip past them,” I said.

  Vir nodded and leaned forward, his eyes wider than usual from fear. “And what’s our part in this little exercise, as we’re a good hundred yards from the nearest entrance?”

  “We’re to wait here and, when requested, attempt to employ extradimensional abilities in support of the team within the tower,” I confirmed.

  “Stupendous, my main man.” Vir slapped me on the back again and flashed a forced, toothpaste commercial grin. “Last question, then: What do we do if the Protean breaks containment?”

  The answer to this question galled me, but Mia had been crystal clear that it was more important to stop the Protean than to protect civilians, so I rolled my eyes and responded while clicking my heels and giving Vir a crisp salute: “Sir, this asset’s orders in that eventuality are to employ any means necessary to terminate the Protean with extreme prejudice. Collateral damage is not a concern. This asset is under no circumstance to allow the enemy to exfiltrate the cordon. Sir.”

  Vir rolled his eyes right back at me and gave a little hop, his natural, manic energy unable to be contained. “Okay, first of all, I don’t know what exfiltrate means, and you forgot the bit where Mia also forbade your from chopping any holes in reality, but I think you got the gist of it, partner,” Vir said. The imposition by Mia had been made in jest, though—I’d been too scared to open any portals since the last one whispered at me. I now knew that there were things on the other side, awake and waiting, that didn’t like me.

  Not wanting to look too conspicuous, we strolled toward the center of the cluster of buildings. Alexandra Road Estate was packed full of the people and cooking smells from a double dozen different cultures, and no one cast a second glance at us as the sun shone almost straight down into the concrete boulevard, turning the space between buildings into a sweltering oven.

  “Holy hell, this place could use some air conditioning,” I panted after five minutes of wandering past barbecues and people lounging on their terraces, taking shade under, of all things, palm trees. Damned global warming.

  “Shhh!” Vir snapped, putting a hand to his ear and pausing. I stopped next to him, keeping a lookout as thirty seconds ticked by—then people started dying. I heard the screams coming from Vir’s earpiece, and he ripped it out, uttering a string of expletives.

  “It was the coat rack,” he explained. “Used the coats as thermal insulation. Waited until the agents were in the room, then it stabbed the last one in line and bolted.”

  “Wait—it could pull off ‘coat rack’? Our briefing didn’t say anything about that,” I said.

  “Umm…yeah,” Vir muttered, dancing from foot to foot. He seemed to come to some decision. “Don’t worry, Jules. I’ve got this shit. Just let me sit down, and I’ll head out and do some scoutin’ for the boys. It might be able to change the shape of its body, but it can’t change the shape of its soul,” Vir said, tossing his head like a boxer getting ready for a match and hustling toward some benches.

  Vir sat cross-legged and fell into the trance that allowed his astral form to slip free and traverse the astral plane, one of the nearer dimensions to ours. I wondered if the Sons of Perseus had known that this mission was more dangerous than they’d deigned to tell us and had purposely sent the team off underprepared. I mentally cursed again at the fate that had forced me into working for that bunch of lying arseholes. If this was America, then I’d have been able to take the opportunity at this point to check my weapons. Maybe I’d be carrying some huge abomination of a shotgun, or perhaps a machine gun of some sort. Hell, I’d even settle for a brace of cheap Saturday night specials. But this was Britain, where it was damned near impossible to get a gun privately, and we attuned weren’t entrusted with anything that the Sons had in their armory, so I just waited on the walkway next to Vir, feeling naked.

  My little pity party was interrupted when Vir’s eyes suddenly snapped open and he sprang to his feet like a jack-in-the-box. “Uh…uh, so it looks like there was a v-very g-good reason that the Sons of Perseus kept that thing l-locked up for f-fifteen years,” he said, before looking around wildly and whispering a string of epithets.

  That’s when I understood why I was really along on this mission. “Vir, look at me,” I snapped, and he quit gibbering. “What did you see?”

  Vir’s hands locked on my arm, and his lips moved wordlessly for a few moments before he forced out some sounds. “Blood. So much blood. I didn’t realize. I know we trained, but—” I cut off Vir with a shake of my head. It was hard for me to remember sometimes that not everyone spent each night wading through visions of violence and death.

  I gave my arm a shake that whipped Vir about like a terrier worrying a rat. “Where did it go? What was it doing? We need to get actionable information to the rest of the team,” I ordered. Vir took a deep breath and visibly battled to get his nerves under control. Only three seconds passed, but when he met my eyes again, I knew that he’d mastered his fear—for now.

  Vir dug out a walkie-talkie, pressed a button, and spoke. “Senior Penitent Sharma here. I’ve observed the target taking up position as a chest of drawers. It’s lurking by the door. I think it might intend to exit the stairwell by rushing whoever opens it next. You’ll need to—” My partner was cut off for the second time in a minute, this time by a female voice, choked with emotion.

  “You’re too late. The creature, it ambushed the rest of the squad. They’re all gone. Our weapons couldn’t take it down. Please, hurry…” she sobbed.

  Vir’s hands started shaking again, “We’ve gotta wait for backup—for Christian’s team to come in from the other side,” he said to my back, my legs having decided, like a private ambulance, to charge to the rescue.

  “Vir, we are the backup. Now move your ass,” I said, not looking back as I pushed my lanky legs into a loping run, glad for the cardio that the Sons had forced on me.

  I’d almost reached the entrance to the staircase that led to the Protean when a squawk came from the radio, simultaneously confirming that Vir had followed and stopping me in my tracks. “I can hear him coming up the stairs. I went back to the top of the stairs, but he’s coming. I need to be quiet now…” Vir and I shared a glance, and then I turned into a red-headed blur as I pounded down the pavement, covering the rest of the distance to the entrance to the stairwell in less than forty seconds.

  “We are two minutes out,” Christian’s voice said over the radio, only the slightest hitch in his voice indicating that he was running at a dead sprint. Hmm…maybe a bad choice of words there. Let’s say a flat-out sprint.

  I skidded to a halt outside the door that led to the staircase that gave access to the apartments above. There was no sign from here of the carnage that was contained within the tower, but as I reached out and jiggled the locked doorknob, Vir caught up, still clutching the radio.

  “The emergency response team is on its way too, but they’re at least five minutes out,” he said, puffing. That meant that it was us for the next two minutes, then Christian’s team, and maybe Mia and anoth
er squad a few minutes after that.

  My partner looked at me, eyes fixed on my face, and his breath coming rapidly. I returned his gaze and lowered my head in a slow nod. More information passed between us in that moment than could have been conveyed in a twenty-minute conversation: Vir’s crippling fear coupled with his desire to do the right thing; my experience in overcoming terrifying situations; the implication that we could just wait here; the knowledge that if we did, then we’d be forever diminished. Vir nodded back.

  My six-foot-two, 185-pound frame gave me at least forty pounds of muscle on Vir, so I stepped up to the door, planted my feet, and gave it an almighty kick.

  “Son of a bitch!” I yelled, hopping on one foot as the door refused to give. A scream came over the radio, breaking into my string of imprecations. We didn’t have much time, and there was an old man staring at us, digging out his phone, which might lead the police here at any moment.

  “I’ll get us in,” Vir said, reaching out to the door. I didn’t understand what he meant for a moment, but then I got it—he was going to possess the door and open the lock that way.

  “Are you sure, man?” I asked.

  “Yeah—I got this. The scouting took a lot out of me, but I’ll get the door open,” he replied, and sat on the sidewalk, putting his back to a section of metal railing. I placed my hand on the handle and waited to hear the mechanism open. Something like making the stapler move and talk for a moment didn’t take much out of Vir, but a complex task like opening a lock, especially after the scouting he’d done, was sure to bring his reserves of extradimensional energy down to almost nothing. The effect of running low on extradimensional energy varied from attuned to attuned, but none of them were good.

  There was a click, so I jammed down the handle and put my shoulder to the door—but it was stuck. My kick must have warped it. A scream issued from the radio again, and I flung myself at the door. I struck with my shoulder, a jolt of pain traveled up my side, and I swore. However, the door had come open just a crack. I hurled myself at the door again, grunted as I struck, and stumbled as the barrier finally gave way.

  I was immediately assaulted by the stench of bodily waste and the iron-and-salt reek of freshly spilled blood. Darting forward, I pounded up the stairs, grabbing a Taser that I noticed on the second landing. I kept jogging up the stairs, my legs starting to burn with the effort, until I picked up the sound of sobbing. I was relieved to know that my colleague was still alive but nervous about the potential for collateral damage.

  With the way that the stairs echoed, it was difficult to tell how far away the woman was; I was tempted for a moment to reach out with my powers to search for her, but even if I found her that way, I’d probably pass out before I could get her to safety. Taking a shallow breath, I wrapped my fingers around the Taser and stepped softly, heel-toe, up the stairs.

  One step became two, and two became ten before I reached the corner that would reveal the next landing. I paused to catch my breath, sweat running in rivulets down my face, my calves burning. Slowly, carefully, I stuck my head around the corner—and my world exploded with pain, my muscles locked up, and I tumbled down a dozen stairs, yelling a long, oft-interrupted, “Shiiiiit!” When I hit the bottom, I popped back up to my knees almost instantly, months of training in the real world helping to bridge the connection to my experiences in the Dreamscape.

  “What the hell! Monsters don’t use Tasers!” I screamed indignantly as the stair reverberated with the pounding of feet on stone. I grabbed the railing and clambered to my feet, shaking my head. The good news for me was that the head-shake cleared up my double vision. The bad news was that I really was looking at a maroon, two-headed monster the size of a gorilla, and it had a hostage.

  There was a bit more good news in that I had apparently recovered faster than the creature had expected; with an expression like a politician asked to do an honest day’s work, the Protean skidded to a halt only five steps away from me. Oh, and one hairy, muscular arm was clutched around a trembling, hyperventilating Senior Agent Paula Smith. The monster was using her as a shield.

  I raised the Taser, and in response the Protean extruded a dagger-like protrusion, poking it into the woman’s side, drawing a gasp of pain. There’d already been so much death today, and I’d inadvertently been involved in so much death over the last few years that a fierce desperation to help this woman welled up in my chest. My unexpected resilience had surprised the creature, so I decided to pull out the acting skills that had made me a skilled negotiator. I pushed out my chest, threw back my shoulders, and stared directly into the Protean’s crimson eyes.

  “You pathetic freak. I am Senior Auditor Julian Adler. I will give you one chance to drop the girl, or I will rip your bones from your body and confine your soul to an eternity of torment beyond the outer gates,” I said, voice ringing with authority. The Protean didn’t move, but a thrumming noise filled the small corridor, and the Protean increased the pressure on the hostage’s throat, making her choke and squirm. Time to double down.

  I reached into memory, recalling the fluorescent-green glow of a chemical light stick that I’d given to Olivia at a Fourth of July party. I focused on overlaying the glow onto my hand, concentrated on the familiar feeling of manipulating the Dreamscape, and pushed. My right hand burst into a coruscation of emerald light, accompanied by an extremely copyrighted whoosh from Star Wars. I raised my glowing hand, took one step toward the Protean, and shook my head sadly.

  “Drop. The. Girl,” I said, smiling, while inwardly hoping that the harmless green glow would be a sufficiently small expenditure of extradimensional energy that I would be able to get clear before passing out.

  Apparently, I rolled a natural twenty on my bluff check, because the instant I flashed my pearly whites, the Protean’s nerve broke and he jumped back, flinging his hostage at me. Her head struck the stair rail, making the metal ring like a bell, and she lost consciousness, instantly becoming dead weight for me to catch so that she wouldn’t tumble down a dozen stairs.

  I wasn’t sure how long the Protean would be gone, so I dropped the glow around my hand and headed down the stairs as fast as I could while a 150-pound brunette dangled over my shoulder. It was smooth sailing for the first half of the journey, but then I started to hear the clomp of booted feet trying, and failing, to match my pace. Still, I think that I would have made it to the relative safety of the ground level exit if my passenger hadn’t chosen that moment to wake up.

  “Junior Penitent Adler, what in the world do you think you’re doing? You will put me down immediately, or I will—”

  I’ll never know what she was going to do to me, a terrible loss, because the Protean let out a shriek like a chainsaw cutting rusty Cadillacs and gave up all attempts at stealth, thundering down the stairs. The jig was up.

  Pulling Agent Foot-In-The-Mouth further up my shoulder, I plunged from one landing to another. There was no time to look back, but the agent swore and started writhing in my grasp, telling me that the creature must be right behind me. With one final, mighty effort, I hurled Paula through the doorway to street level. Presumably she’d be bruised, but I didn’t have time to be gentler. Some combat instinct made me duck, and a serrated blade of bone and sinew whistled above me, close enough to shear off a few tufts of ginger hair before impacting the wall, where it was momentarily stuck. I used the moment to duck out the door and pull it shut, sliding down against it with exhaustion, chest heaving from the mystical and physical exertions of the past few minutes.

  Holding an arm against her side, Senior Agent Paula looked up at me from where she sat on the sidewalk, and her eyes went wide. “Adler—you idiot. The door opens inward!”

  Aww…shit.

  I heard the handle turn behind me, and my leaning weight caused it to start swinging open, but then it stopped, stuck a few inches ajar. I didn’t understand what had happened, but I took the opportunity to climb to my feet and get away from the door with the homicidal monster on the other side,
which shuddered with a heavy blow just as I got clear.

  “I’ve got this, Julian…” Vir’s voice was shaky, and for the first time since I’d met him, deadly serious. I glanced over my shoulder; Vir’s legs trembled, and his eyes glowed blue as he looked at things on a plane of existence that I couldn’t even begin to perceive. I also saw that a dozen bystanders had stopped to gawk at the scene.

  “Get back, get out of here!” I yelled, relieved to hear Vir’s walkie-talkie crackle with the chatter of the approaching emergency response squad. I took a threatening step toward the crowd, and Senior Agent Paula who at least looked official in her dark suit and Kevlar vest, assisted by shooing people along.

  There was another crash from the stairs, and Vir cried out, putting his hand against the door and sinking to his knees. We probably only had to hold out another minute before Christian’s backup arrived, but I didn’t think we had that much time. The crowd dissipated swiftly, leaving only the same old man who I’d previously noticed dialing the police on his phone. Speaking of which, I detected sirens in the distance at the same moment that a snapping noise split the air. I looked back at the door, and saw a corner of it ripped away by a crab-like claw.

  “Hold the door!” I yelled at Vir. My thoughts were starting to get fuzzy around the edges, the universe trying to extract my consciousness in payment for the twisting of reality that I’d performed on the stairs. If I could just get a few moments, though, I might be able to pull my emotions into a blast of energy to meet the Protean when it came through the door. It would almost certainly cause me to pass out immediately, but the rest of the team might survive. I closed my eyes to concentrate—and I felt something sharp poke into the back of my neck.

  “Mr. Adler. Get out of the way, and leave this to a professional, ja?” The oddly Germanic-accented voice was the same as that in my dream of the night before, and a sudden cold shiver went down my spine as he continued speaking. “Eyes forward and head toward the exit. You have been ordered back to base.”