There are two classic fear responses—fight or flight—and I admitted to myself that I was pretty afraid. Again and again, this was what my life kept coming down to. It always looked so easy to walk away. Sloane would guess that I was taking the Sigilum back to Hanwell, so if I went anywhere else, then I’d be safe. At least for tonight. But that wasn’t me. If I were the kind of man that gave in to my fear, a lifetime of nightmares would have sent me over the edge years ago. I could do a few pretty impressive things with my connection to the Dreamscape, but the most impressive thing that connection had brought me was the ability to look at my fear, sneer, and ignore the grasping fingers of dread that tried to hold me back. So screw flight. It was time to fight.
But I wouldn’t do any good rushing blindly into the darkness against a vampire. Sloane could essentially turn the tables on what I’d done in Highgate, setting up along my route. But I knew that he knew, and there was backup at Kensington and Chelsea Cemetery in the form of Badger and his Antiquities division. If I could get into position quickly enough, then I’d use the police as a distraction and hit Sloane with the biggest, baddest sucker punch that I could. So the where was obvious—but the how was a bit more difficult.
My options were bus, cab, or foot. If I went by bus, I’d have the benefit of being able to blend into a crowd, but if I were attacked, that would put innocent bystanders in jeopardy. If I took a cab, I’d get there as quickly as possible, but I could easily be pulled over by the police, and the cabbie might announce where he was going. That could get picked up and lead my enemies to me. Finally, I could go by foot. It was a long way, and I’d burn at least half an hour, but it would be anonymous, and I’d be able to take alleys and backstreets to dodge any pursuers. After spending half a decade living in Ealing, it was home turf. I was gonna walk.
“Hello, Julian.” Or run. I spun on my heel. Edward Sloane, wearing torn jeans, a red T-shirt, and a pair of three-inch-long fangs, smiled at me from two feet away. He was in the next carriage, and if he’d wanted to reach out and snap my neck, I’d already be cooling in a puddle of my own fluids.
“Good to see you again, Edward,” I said, refusing to look away from the predator—and there wasn’t any mistaking that Sloane was a predator now. He couldn’t pass for a harmless old man anymore: his bearing was straight, his shoulders seemed a few inches broader, and, most importantly, his eyes were narrowed in a disdain for everything around him as he looked down from his perch at the top of the food chain.
“It’s good to see that you don’t fear me. Fear held me back, ja. For four centuries it held me back. I thought that because I preyed on the creatures of the night that I was better than them, more than they were. But I was wrong, Julian. Now that I am one of those creatures, I’m complete. I can feel the rest of them out there. They are killing, and feeding, and turning. By morning, there will be hundreds of them—and I’ll be their king. I killed Gerald, so it seems that I’m the master now, and I have all of their powers. No more skulking, no more magic to control them, no more trickery. And it is all thanks to you. Without you, Gerald never would have gotten close enough to complete me. That’s why I’m going to offer you a choice: You can destroy the Sigilum, and you and your family can leave. Get on a plane, go back to the US, and never return. Or you can try to keep the Sigilum, and I’ll rip the doors off of these carriages, step in, and tear you into so many pieces that the finest seamstress in Berlin wouldn’t be able to stitch you back together.”
I glanced out the window. We were only a few hundred yards outside of Ealing Broadway station. If I could keep him talking for another thirty seconds, then at least I’d be able to get into the open where I might have a chance, however slim, of dodging him. I shifted my feet to put just a bit more space between us and slowly started shucking off my backpack. “You could have destroyed this earlier. Why didn’t you take care of it then? I don’t think that you really believe your act yourself, Edward,” I said, still holding eye contact. Trickles of sweat ran down my back, and I had to fight a mad impulse to scratch.
Sloane’s eye twitched, and I heard metal groan as his fingers sank into the steel of the door, but he mastered himself after a second and replied, “You’re trying your best to bluff me, but I can hear your heart beating from over here. I know that you’re nervous. But you don’t have to be; you have my word as a gentleman. Destroy the Sigilum, and you’ll live. That simple.”
If there was one thing I had learned from Edward Sloane, it was that his word as a gentleman was worth about as much as my word as an expert in suntanning—and my summer nickname was lobster boy. I thought for a moment about his statement and realized that it was Sloane who was nervous. Okay, to be fair, I realized that he was nervous too. If I got any more nervous, Dana was going to make me wash my own underwear. Still, I had to fight back a smile. This centuries-old killer, this monster hunter, this master vampire was afraid of me. Well, maybe not afraid, but definitely at least mildly apprehensive. That was progress. Of course, my gloating turned out just fine.
“You’re thinking that if we get into this station, you’ll be able to make a run for it, aren’t you?” Sloane asked. “For that, you get a time limit. Destroy the Sigilum, or die. Three.”
Oh crap, I was going to die twenty-seven seconds from possible salvation. I looked around—carriage empty. Emergency alarm? Maybe.
“Two.”
I could still feel the energy from the Dreamscape dancing through my body, sending tingles up and down my spine. Maybe I had enough in me for one massive wallop, but that would leave me at Sloane’s nonexistent mercy if I screwed up, and the Sigilum definitely wouldn’t get to Dana.
“One.”
Oh shit. I’d do both. I reached for the emergency call button and began to form a vision of fire and righteous anger, anger for the lost, anger for those who would—
“Hey, Julian my man, hang on tight!” said the emergency button in the voice of my hospital-bound partner, Vir. I was so surprised that I completely lost my hold on the Dreamscape, but I listened to what the emergency button said and latched on to a red pole with both hands. There was a screech of tortured brakes, and sparks flew from the tracks as the train decelerated violently, making me grit my teeth and knocking me down to one knee.
Sloane hadn’t had any warning, but he was a vampire, so he had no problem with his reflexes being fast enough to grab on to the door. Unfortunately for him, he’d only been a vampire only for about an hour, so he seriously underestimated his strength and, in what was turning out to be a very bad day for this train, tore the door off its hinges. The momentum of his yank flung him backward, and he tumbled down the length of the train, coming to rest with a sickening crunch. Adrenaline flooded my bloodstream, and I popped to my feet as the train ground to a complete stop.
“Vir, how are you here? Are you safe?” I asked, remembering that I’d last seen my friend hospitalized—in a Sons of Perseus facility.
“Don’t worry about me. Get out of here, buddy!” the train door shouted as it slid open. My train car was about fifty yards from its destination, but I had a straight run to the end of the platform, and if I could get out of the station, I might be okay. I jumped out and sprinted, my twenty pounds of weaponry banging against me. Shouts and screams came from the train. A door irised open to my side.
“I can’t hold him long! Run! Run! Run!” Vir screamed. I ran. A crash that sounded just like a tube train door being kicked out of its frame and launched fifty feet exploded behind me, and I glanced back. Yup. It was a tube train door being kicked out of its frame and launched fifty feet. Why do I never hear a sound like that and discover that it’s a basket of fluffy puppies? Oh—and vampire-Sloane was only seconds behind me. I bounded up onto the platform, thankful that it was so empty at this time of night and thankful that six months of training had gotten rid of the small paunch that I’d been growing before I found out that monsters were real. I was heavily armed with vampire-killing weaponry, but if I pulled it out, I’d be caught on a
dozen CCTV cameras, and that would lead swiftly to a stay at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
Suddenly, one of the camera swiveled to “look” at me. “I got this. Light him up, J!” the camera shouted in Vir’s voice, and all of the electronic eyes pivoted away.
My lips pulled up into a madman’s grin, baring my teeth to shine white in the actinic glare of the overhead LEDs. “Thanks, buddy,” I whispered, pulling my AK-47 up to my shoulder, and resting my cheek on the stock. Sloane was sprinting toward me, the freshly risen vampire moving faster than a speeding car. I breathed out, lined up the front and back sights, and squeezed the trigger. If the monster had been born a hundred years later, he probably would have jinked, but Sloane was a sixteenth-century, charge-the-line type of monster. A line of silver bullets traced a line of scarlet from Sloane’s groin to the top of his chest, and the vampire was blown off his feet, hissing in rage and pain.
I growled in satisfaction and took one step forward, eager to finish the bloodsucking asshole. Hey, that could be the name of a metal band—focus, Julian. Sloane’s head popped up, and he ripped up a railroad tie with one hand and flung it at me. The tie tumbled through the air with a whooping noise like a helicopter rotor. I ducked, and the hundred-pound chunk of wood smashed into a light pole with a ringing gong. I raised the gun again, but in the distance I heard a high-pitched screech. That sounded suspiciously like the vampires from Highgate. The ones I’d seen Sloane ordering to run in my final vision. Shit.
Sloane got to one knee and looked at me, red eyes flashing and mouth twisted in contempt. “Run, Julian. Run for your life, you pathetic ignoramus. I’m the master now. They are coming to my aid, to my call. Run. Because I will inflict such pain upon you as only the damned know.”
“Julian, he’s right. I just checked some cameras up the line; there are half a dozen vamps coming. You’ve gotta get out of here!” Vir implored, possessing my rifle’s action. I wanted so very badly to stand my ground, shout my defiance into the night, and toast the vampires, but this was the real world, and just wanting something wasn’t enough to make it happen. I cursed and turned on my heel. My head on a swivel, I pounded for the exit, stowing my weapons as I raced against Sloane’s healing abilities. If I didn’t clear the door before he was back on his feet, I was a dead man. Somewhere far above me, thunder pealed and fat drops of rain began to plink-plunk down.
Getting to the top of the stairs at the front of Ealing Broadway station, I looked out at the taxi rank. A pair of squad cars with flashing lights flanked either end, and I swore. I’d expected the Chapter Master to do something like this, but it didn’t change the fact that I had to think fast and move faster. From what I’d seen, your average vampire could move at least seventy-five miles an hour on foot. I could do ten, maybe. So, assuming that they weren’t coming after me directly, Sloane and his buddies would cover the distance to the cemetery in just over two minutes, and I’d need at least twenty. Badger and my wife would be as screwed as Groot at a lumberjack competition if I couldn’t find a way to close that gap. I’d have to risk using the bus, even if it made me a more obvious target and put a few people in danger. They’d be in a lot more trouble if I didn’t get these vampires put back to sleep.
My anger drained away, replaced by a lump of dread in the pit of my stomach as I thought about what had really just happened. Getting the vampires back to sleep had become much, much more important once I’d seen proof that Sloane had inherited the mantle of master vampire and could call the others to do his bidding. One of the greatest advantages that I held over the monsters that I met in the Dreamscape was experience. I went up against nightmares every night, and I could guess when the baddies would charge me, jump out from a closet, or try to sneak up on me in the dark. Your average person’s mind tended to work along fairly predictable, natural lines. Dark = scary. Sudden shocks = scary. Bikini pillow fights = not scary. And that predictability is what I’d expected from the vampires as well—both those that had awoken and those that they might create tonight. However, Sloane’s four-plus centuries of monster hunting know-how would turn that equation on its head. With Sloane in charge, the vampires had gone from a scary, violent, chaotic force of destruction to a truly terrifying tool that had the capability to be wielded to reshape society. What would happen if Sloane managed to infect the police, the army, the prime minister? I’d wrestled with how to use the Sigilum all day, but didn’t this tip the scales too far to ignore?
Breathing fast, I put away my gun and trotted down to the Uxbridge Road. The rain was picking up, and the lights of the 207 bus threw shafts of light that made the falling rain shimmer like crystal orbs, suspended in the air for a moment and then gone. I hailed it and boarded. As a bonus, unlike last time I’d hopped onto a bus while trying to defeat a monster, the driver was not a zombie. I settled in. “Hey, buddy, you still with me?” I asked the gun that was (poorly) concealed in my trench coat.
“Yeah, but I’m not sure for how much longer,” Vir replied, his voice shaky.
“What’s really going on? Are you safe?” I asked.
“Not so much. I was still in the Sons’ hospital when the Chapter Master started rounding up the attuned. I managed to find a hiding place in one of the storage areas. But they’re closing in.”
I opened my jacket and addressed the gun with a fierce whisper: “What the hell are you doing here, then? Get back to your body and concentrate on getting yourself out.” A man a few seats away gave me a funny look and decided to find a place to sit on the upper deck.
“Nah. You showed me the way. You and Henry. I’ve spent my life screwing around. I could have been using my abilities to help people. Instead, I’ve skated by on the bare minimum, basking in my parents’ pride—they think that I’ve been touched by the gods. But how many burning houses could I have gone into? How many dangerous situations could I have scouted out without risking any injury? Now I’m going to make up for it. I’m sticking with you until I can’t anymore.”
“Vir, most of what I’ve done hasn’t mattered for crap in the real world,” I protested.
“Yeah, but you were doing everything that you thought you could. And when you found you could do more, you did. Immediately. Let me do this, Jules.”
I didn’t agree with Vir. I didn’t choose my nightly forays into the Dreamscape, and I’d only managed through luck and the sacrifices of others to blunder through my interactions with the puca and Senior Auditor Brown. But he was making a choice. A choice that I had to respect. It was an adult choice, maybe the first real one he’d ever made, and I wasn’t going to take that away from him. Instead, I nodded and replied, “Thank you.”
Vir kept a lookout while I let the bus sweep me through Ealing Broadway, past the Lido, and into West Ealing. I thought about what was coming next. This was the calm before the storm. Vir’s words resonated with me. I’d been vacillating for days about how I would use the Sigilum. I’d think of Dana, her soft hair smelling of coconut as her head rested under my chin. She’d wept for the loss of Olivia, for the threat to our unborn child, and I’d held her in my arms and promised that I’d make things right. I owed her my life. How could I not use the artifact to help fix some of what I had broken? But then I’d be reminded of the people who’d been lost: a little boy’s life blood spilling onto graveyard dirt, a mother’s anguished sacrifice, streams of blood in the streets, and a lifetime of defining who I was by the nightmares that I refused to back down from because nobody else even stood a chance. I’d think of that, and I’d feel obliged to use the Sigilum to put the vampires back to sleep. Hell, if this worked like I thought it would, the ritual should take down the freshly vampirized Sloane too, which was a bit of a quicksilver lining to that cloud.
This was the end game, the time to make a decision, and between the escalating threat of the Sloane-led vampires and Vir’s example, I knew what choice I had to make—but I wouldn’t get a chance to make that choice if I couldn’t stop Sloane. “I’m sorry, Dana. I’m sorry, Olivia. And I’m so, so
sorry, little person who I’ll never get to meet,” I whispered.
I leaned back and closed my eyes, regathering my thoughts, refocusing on the task at hand. My goal was still simple: get past Sloane, get the Sigilum to the chapel, and carry out the ritual. But like many things that are simple to describe—grow up, get married, have kids—it was sure to be a lot more complicated in…
We were just passing the gaudy, gold facade of the Holiday Inn Express when one of the vampires struck. Literally. I heard a horn honk, looked up, and saw a Ford Focus Hatchback swerve into our lane, doing at least forty miles per hour, and crash head-on into the front of the bus. The double-decker shuddered, tilted up onto one wheel, veered off the road, clipped a brick wall, and finally settling onto the sidewalk with a massive jolt. The sudden stop sent me tumbling into the aisle, my head glanced off a rail, and I curled up into a ball. I heard screams from elsewhere on the bus; then there was a moment of silence, broken only by the ticking of the slain engine.
I was, amazingly, uninjured, but before I could get to my feet, a man on the lower level of the bus spoke, shattering the frozen moment: “I’m cut real bad. Please, help me. Yes, come here and…wait, what are you doing? Ahh!!!” I pulled myself up, wiped a trickle of blood out of my eyes, and shouldered my rifle. I was too late to help the man. An overweight male vampire with a beer gut looked up at me, his maw dripping crimson gore, and his eyes glowing like twin coals. I glanced to the front of the bus: all of the driver south of his chest would have fit into a suitcase. One that could have qualified as cabin baggage. Damn. This was exactly why I’d planned to go on foot. Damn. Damn. Damn. At least there was only the one vampire.
Dreamonologist Page 30