Dream Job (The Dreamwalker Chronicles Book 1)

by Pettit, Gregory

  Tara’s speech had clearly touched Kelly, making the flush drain from her skin and leaving her pale on the other side of the table. Tara thought that both redheads looked equally upset, with Kelly’s hands visibly trembling at some internal consideration.

  Tara continued, “Kelly, I’m sorry for snapping at you. I just lost my temper, and you know how I’ve been lately. I’m guessing you were just trying to distract him so that it would be easier for Ena?” Tara felt the same urge to reach a deal that usually crept up on her during good negotiating sessions, and in this case she knew that the other woman needed reassurance. “I suggest that we get the presentation on the screen before they get back into the room. I’ll go tell them that we’re ready for them to come back in. I’ll get Richard to open the door for me, and Ena can reach over and mark his hand while I bump into him coming through the door. We can get Julian when we hand our visitors’ badges back.” Looking from face to face, once more Tara could see that neither woman was disagreeing with her plan. Snatching the Jaffa cakes off the desk and throwing them in the trash, she went into the hallway.

  “Richard, I think we’ve taken care of the problem. It’s been years since we all were in the same pitch together, and I think that we may have developed slightly different styles. I hope that you’ll be able to overlook this rocky start and see it instead as a sign of the team's passion?” Flashing a large smile, she was very proud of coming up with that line, and seeing the worry lines smooth on Richard’s brow, she mentally patted herself on the back for a job well done. Suddenly, she noticed that Julian wasn’t around.

  “Will Mr. Adler be back?” she asked, letting her eyebrows knit in feigned concern.

  “He said that he needed to take a comfort break but that he’d be back shortly,” Richard replied, and he returned her smile. Giving the now-very-tired-looking Janice a gentle nudge toward the door, he strode forward, opened the door, and, ever the gentleman, held it for the two women in the hallway. Tara suppressed a sigh of relief as she bumped into the slight accountant and saw Ena stealthily mark their latest target. Richard didn’t notice a thing.

  ***Julian***

  I, Julian Adler, slayer of nightmares and vanquisher of monsters, unlocked the toilet stall door and came out of hiding. I’d been completely unable to come up with any sort of rational response to Richard’s request for my insights into the behavior that I’d just witnessed, and since the truth wouldn’t do, I’d bravely claimed an urgent call of nature, executing a precise reverse charge into the bathroom.

  Unfortunately, although I knew that I couldn’t let these women get away with…whatever it was they were doing that was leaving all of their clients dead, I was pretty sure that our corporate responsibility forms lacked a “witchcraft” check box that I could use to anonymously flag my concerns. Hoping that the meeting had resumed and I wouldn’t need to answer Richard’s question, I headed back toward the meeting room.

  As I reached the empty hallway, a sigh of relief abruptly died in my throat. Ahead of me, I saw Richard holding the door open, but behind his back, Ena was reaching toward him. She brushed his hand casually with a fancy-looking pen, and my stomach dropped into my feet as I recalled the glowing mark that I’d seen on the back of Don’s hand as he tried to kill me, less than twenty-four hours previously. Somehow, this had to be the link between these three ambitious women and the evil that had swept over their clients.

  I wanted to get a look at that pen, so I took two long-legged steps toward the busty redhead as she finished carrying out her…attack. As usual, during my waking hours, I was just a man and didn’t come even close to reaching her in time. Instead, I banged into the glass door awkwardly, drawing everyone’s attention.

  “Shit!” Okay. Now I had everyone’s attention. Wondering what consequences my failure would have, I slunk back into my seat next to Kelly, hoping that she would keep her hands to herself. I looked at the projector and saw that a presentation was ready. Glancing around the table, I saw three talented, intelligent, and fine-looking women across from me. I couldn’t help but wonder at their motivations; could it really be simple greed that had caused them to…do whatever it was they were doing? I realized that while I now knew something about the firm, I didn’t really know anything about the women themselves and resolved to find some way to look into that this evening.

  Considering this evening, I really hoped that Dana would have calmed down by the time I arrived home. I understood why she was mad, but I thought that if she knew the entire situation, she’d understand. It was at this point that I realized everyone was staring at me. Apparently I’d drifted off during a slide show; let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

  “I agree,” I said, relieved to see that this had been a sensible answer as everyone nodded. It looked like we were on the fourth slide now, and it was something about a risk-reward mechanism for guaranteeing our organizational goals. It actually looked like a good deal on the surface. A little green-eyed monster in the back of my mind whispered that I should just take the deal and move on, grab the credit, and forget about the madness that had recently come to fill my waking hours (and not just the dreaming ones). That little green-eyed monster was a bit of a bitch, so I kicked it to the curb as I watched the rest of the presentation.

  I was relieved when the presentation finished with neither Kelly’s hand straying again nor anyone trying to kill me. I’d scribbled down a few obligatory notes but wasn’t planning on asking any questions. My real reason for being at this meeting had been fulfilled—I now had more solid information about how the three women were carrying out their trade. What I really wanted to do was to get out of the office and head to the library to do some more anonymous research.

  I was disappointed and frankly almost shocked when Janice’s hand shot up as Kelly asked if there were any questions. The woman still had a fairly vacant look on her face and had been making what I could only describe as worshipful glances toward Richard all meeting long, so I had no idea what was going to come out of her mouth as she opened it to speak: “That’s a lovely building, dearies, and I’m sure that we’ll really enjoy it. But could somebody ask the shadow man in the corner to go away? I’m finding him very distracting.”

  Then everything went to hell in a hand basket.

  CHAPTER 24 1525–1535, Monday, August 3, 2015

  ***Julian***

  As Janice finished speaking, she raised her hand languorously and pointed toward the corner of the room farthest from the door. If someone had yelled, “Fire!” I don’t think it would have produced the effect that unfolded in the blink of an eye. Each of the women from OMG instantly jumped to her feet. I noticed that while Kelly and Ena pushed themselves toward the glass door, their athletically built lawyer dropped into a boxing stance and took a step forward.

  Perhaps it was years of fighting the creatures of the night in other people’s dreams, but my first reaction had also been to drop into a fighting crouch. However, now that I’d moved on to surveying the other’s reactions, I saw that the faces of each of the women wore a look that hovered somewhere between disgust and terror. And surprise. I wondered what that meant.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Richard’s voice cut through the sound of rasping chairs, echoing my thoughts, although likely not for the same reasons. From the corner of my eye, I saw Ena’s hand snake down into her designer handbag.

  “Shut up!” Tara snapped without taking her eyes off of the spot, currently in the far corner, indicated by Janice’s outstretched arm. My manager’s face had begun to cloud up and take on a slightly worried cast as her extended hand tracked along the room, indicating that whatever she’d seen was closing in on her. While that meant that whatever phantom she was seeing was moving away from me, it seemed like a good idea to get on my feet anyway.

  “This is ridiculous. I’m calling Security. I’d like you to pack your things up and be ready to go when I get back,” Richard announced, stabbing one finger in the direction of the OMG women and, before
anyone could stop him, he walked out of the room in the direction of the elevator. I felt Kelly’s hands on my shoulders as she moved to put me between herself and whatever Janice was pointing at. Janice’s expression collapsed as Richard left the room, her lower lip quivering and her eyes welling up with tears.

  “Make it go away,” Janice whined in a simple, trembling voice. For all of the times that Janice had made my life harder, for all of the times that she’d taken a petty bribe, and for all of the times that I’d wanted to see her gone, I couldn’t sit by and see someone, anyone in that kind of terror. I planted my hands on top of the table and swung my legs over to slide across. My feet were just about to hit the floor when something struck me, and I reeled.

  Tara’s punch had been a bit off, but thrown with much more strength than I would have expected. Her small fist rebounded off of a spot just above the left eye, and blood flew from a suddenly reopened wound, but I managed to stay on my feet. Luckily for me, my skull wasn’t just metaphorically thick. I shook my head to clear it but realized after a second that the noise I was hearing wasn’t just little circling birdies; it was actually Janice emitting a high-pitched, pathetic keening noise.

  I put my back to the glass wall of the meeting room and dropped into a defensive crouch. I might not have had the muscle memory from my dreams, but I wasn’t a complete novice when it came to fighting, so I figured that if I had to, I should be able to defend myself from a single woman. Unfortunately, that was when I realized that Janice wasn’t the only one who could see the threat moving toward her.

  My heart dropped as I discerned a dark shimmering in the air just a few feet away from my boss. I edged toward Janice, and Tara used the opportunity to close with me. The darkness seemed to solidify. It was roughly man shaped, but ebony tendrils flailed out toward the occupants of the room, and pinpricks of red stabbed out from where eyes might have been on a man. The afternoon seemed suddenly darker, and the hallway outside the room emptied of people. In the corner, Ena moaned and held her stomach as though she was in pain.

  If the thing appearing in front of me had even half the strength that it had displayed the night before when possessing Don, then there was no way that I could fight it and deal with someone else at the same time. I turned my back on Tara and faced the creature.

  I suspected that I’d pay a price for it, but I reached inside of myself, searching for the power that I’d called upon twice before to bring the stuff of my dreams into the waking world. I thought I’d keep it simple and try for my gladius again. That’s when Tara growled and grabbed my head with both hands. I threw my weight backward, but the lawyer’s momentum carried me forward, and with a sickening thump, my head connected with the wall of the meeting room, starring the glass as I slumped to the floor.

  Tara loomed over me, raising a wickedly high-heeled foot above my chest. I was dazed and unable to do much more than moan softly, but I could see that the squamous darkness had almost enveloped Janice’s cringing form.

  “No, T. It’s over! I’m not letting anyone else get hurt.” Kelly’s high-pitched voice cut across Tara’s heavy breathing, my low moaning, and Janice’s whine of fear. “The book’ll be gone in a just a few moments. You should be getting a call right about…now!” With almost preternatural timing, all three of the women’s phones began to buzz. The threatening foot was lowered, and its owner spun toward Kelly.

  “What have you done, you dumb slut!” Tara’s face was contorted with rage as she picked up her phone. Ena had already been gripping hers when it rang, and she announced to the room the contents of the recently arrived text message.

  “It’s an automated alert from our alarm system. There’s been a fire…the system says that it started in the ritual room.” The other two partners stalked toward Kelly, whose back was already up against the wall, seemingly oblivious of the amorphous, roiling horror that was on the verge of enveloping Janice. My head was still ringing, and I couldn’t think straight, but I still knew, through the fog in my brain, that it wouldn’t be a good idea to let her get snatched. A maniacally strong Janice would probably be the least-bad outcome.

  I heaved myself to my feet as I heard the elevator ding in the hallway. I blearily realized that once again I was hoping someone else would show up to save me. Things never went like this in my dreams. Pushing that thought aside, I staggered a few steps toward Janice and stumbled heavily into her.

  “Geddup…” I slurred as I wrapped my arms around her neck and shoulders. I felt a paralyzing cold emanating from the blackness that loomed over me, and a confused part of my mind registered that, from this angle, the creature looked like the love child of an octopus and a thoroughbred. That part of my mind was even more confused when, instead of being attacked from the front, I felt a pair of strong arms grasp underneath my armpits, dragging me backward. I didn’t lose my grip on Janice, and the two of us and my attacker all tumbled backward in a pile.

  “The book is gone, you greedy little shits! I torched it. How could you have kept summoning it for all these years if you knew what the book was doing? It’s one thing for us to sacrifice a bit of ourselves to get a leg up, but to hurt all of those people just for money? Yer both eeevil,” Kelly screeched out the last words with a thicker-than-usual Irish accent as she broke into a sob. I half registered the sound of a scuffle, and then the unmistakable thwack of a fist connecting with meat was followed by a short cry and a sharp exhalation of air.

  “Hey, Security, let go of the lady!” The voice shouting in my ear was almost loud enough to set off another explosion of stars in my head. Ignoring his command, I held on to Janice as we were dragged out of the room. As we scraped through the door, a second set of hands locked around mine. I could see the dark shape approaching us, now on all fours. There was no way it could get through the doorway, but my eyes watered as it somehow squeezed through the narrow opening, warping space momentarily so that it could fit through.

  “Julian, what are you doing? Let go!” It was Richard’s voice, calm and commanding in a way that cut through the haze. There were at least a half dozen security guards now in the hallway, and the moment I released my grip, they helped a sobbing Janice to her feet. Apparently they didn’t see the beast in their midst, but simply a grown man that had been holding a crying woman in a headlock.

  I turned to face the creature, which had halted, roiling madly, just a few feet away from me. It wavered, seemingly uncertain about whether to attack me or Janice. Unsteady on my feet, I sidled to the left, hoping that the motion would convince the spot of darkness to follow me. I put my hand on the elevator to steady myself, and simultaneously I heard a ding and was falling.

  I landed with a painful thump inside the elevator, and I gasped at the pulse of pain from my abused ribs. My multitudinous injuries were temporarily forgotten; the elevator hadn’t been empty, and I recognized the occupant. It was the same guy who’d shown up at Burger King, but today he wasn’t wearing a Man U jersey; instead, he had on a button-down shirt and khaki-colored linen suit like some anachronistic refugee from the Raj. He barely spared a downward glance as he vaulted over me without any sign of recognition (maybe the blood running down my face made a good mask?) and bolted into the conference room, passing directly through the monster without so much as slowing in acknowledgment of its otherworldly presence.

  The sudden motion triggered some kind of primitive attack instinct in the being, and it charged. I scrambled backward, dragging myself across the cheap carpet and fully into the elevator. I caught a glimpse of the conference room beyond, where I could see the new arrival dragging a furiously screaming Tara off of Kelly’s balled-up form. Tara was still throwing punches even as the man hoisted her into the air, and Ena simply sobbed in a corner of the room.

  Then, I found myself fighting for my life. Again. The creature swept into me, pinning my arms to the floor as the elevator door dinged again and closed. The thing’s touch was like freezing cold oil swirling over my skin, and I recoiled as the smell of carrion and r
otting vegetation rolled off it. I twisted hard to my left, and jagged teeth, formed of shadow stuff, missed my throat by a few inches while powerful tentacles punched holes in the floor all around me.

  I pulled my legs up and kicked hard, feeling a moment of exultation as I sent the creature rolling off of me; it wasn’t as heavy as I’d expected. Tumbling backward, I assumed a defensive stance and stared directly into what passed for its face. It was blank and featureless except for two pinpricks of light, cold like chips of winter stars, looking out of inky blackness that swirled and refused to quit moving. It snapped at the empty air, and I held my ground, balanced on the balls of my feet. I didn’t think it could actually see me, but it flailed wildly in my general direction with one arm, smashing a mirror into a thousand tinkling shards as I covered my eyes with one arm and ducked.

  Before I could open my eyes, snarling noises like aluminum fingernails on a mic’d-up chalkboard slammed into my ears, and I swayed but kept my feet with ease. The elevator continued dinging past the floors. As we descended past the third floor, I had a hunch. If I was right, then I only had to hold out for a few more seconds.

  The creature seemed slightly confused when I didn’t collapse to the floor in agony from its sonic assault, so it advanced cautiously, swinging its head back and forth like it was having trouble tracking me. I backed up into the far corner, suddenly very happy at the absurdly large elevators that the architect had designed into the building. I wasn’t sure, but I thought the creature wavered at the edges as a pair of tentacles flailed at me, and I squeezed, quaking, into the corner. I tried to stall a few seconds longer, so I quoted one of the greatest movies of all time (queue bad Austrian accent): “What the hell are you?” I waited a second and was vaguely disappointed that there was no corresponding answer. Even more disappointingly, the noise seemed to help the creature home in on me. Stupid, Julian.