In Her Dreams

by Bolryder, Terry

  “What?” I ask, dazed, my whip nowhere in sight, my body pinned to Adam’s chest.

  “I guess I’m what you’d call a nightmare,” Adam says. “I didn’t think Mark’s little child bride mattered in the big scheme of things. I used to kick the shit out of Mark as a kid, though. I wonder if that contributed to his anger management issues. Hilarious.”

  “Wait.” I struggle against him, trying to gain my bearings. But there’s something about him that’s just… foggy and confusing.

  No wonder I felt weird after seeing him that last time.

  “I didn’t think anything was amiss until Mark was in the hospital, raving about some guy decimating him with a whip. I thought, ah, dream fae involvement. Mark’s little bride must be more special than I thought.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I realized that you must have dream blood to be that important to some roving dream fae warrior that he’d use his whip to keep you safe. So I knew that your son must be something unbelievably valuable.”

  “What?”

  “A child fairy,” Adam says. “Their blood is so potent their magic could feed a thousand nightmares and still keep them alive. They’re closely protected in the dream realm. Anyway, you’re not trained enough to fight me, so please just cooperate. Other than draining you and your son as needed, I promise to treat you right.” He throws back his head and laughs. “Then again, you might wish you were dead by that point.”

  22

  Jen

  I struggle against Adam as he drags me toward the door, carrying my unconscious son as he kicks the door open with shocking ease.

  “I told you to cooperate. Now I’ll just enjoy draining you even more,” he says flatly. “Maybe play with you a bit first.”

  “Let me go,” I say again, louder, hoping someone on the street will hear. But as he pulls us past two pedestrians who walk by, ignoring us like nothing is happening at all, I get the distinct impression something is going on so we can’t be seen.

  He grins evilly down at me. “Would it shock you to know those people would probably have the same reaction to our little domestic display if they saw what I was doing right now? Humans are sheep.”

  “Where are you taking us?” I’m going to have to call for Reve, but I wish we could have made up first. I don’t know how mad he is. I don’t know what this guy could do to him.

  But I know that for myself and my son, I need to ask for help.

  I just hope he still loves me and comes.

  Reve, help me. I need you right now. I call it out with all of my soul.

  “Just a bit farther. Far enough so I can—”

  There’s a jolt of teal lightning that shakes the earth only feet from us, and I see Reve standing in front of us on the sidewalk. He’s already in bright, glowing armor that radiates multicolored energy, and his expression is furious as he appraises my predicament.

  “Unhand my soul bonds, nightmare!”

  With surprising speed, Adam wraps an arm around me and leaps backward. I feel air, then cement on my feet as he lets go of me roughly and sets Joey down. I rush to Joey’s side, glad to see my son is still breathing as I watch Adam snap his fingers in front of me.

  “Figures these tasty snacks wouldn’t come so easily,” Adam mutters. Around us, a large dome of something that looks like purple crystal expands to surround the city block. I glance around but don’t see any pedestrians, and the deep-blue and purple hue being cast over us gives me an otherworldly feeling as if this isn’t my neighborhood anymore even if it looks like it.

  Reve, teal eyes tense with rage, teeth clenched, yanks something from his back, and I see his whip uncoil in a long line around his feet.

  Only it’s nothing like what I saw when he whipped Mark. This time, it’s glowing teal, bright and pulsing with an unsettling crackle that makes my ears prickle.

  I take Joey in my arms and move away from Adam until my back hits the edge of the dome.

  “You’re going to pay, whoever you are, wherever you’re from,” Reve says.

  Adam laughs. “Oh, going to banish me? I already had the pleasure of that millennia ago.”

  “By the time I’m done with you, there will be nothing left to banish.” With a flick of Reve’s hand, his whip rises into the air with an electric snap that sends teal sparks flying around Adam’s feet.

  Suddenly, I hear something pounding behind me, and my whole body jumps as I turn to see Lorien, Tess, and Jerrek separated from us by the purple dome surrounding us.

  “Jen, Joey! Are you okay?” Tess asks. “I’ll get you out.” I see her draw her long yellow whip, but as she raises her arm to strike, Lorien stops her.

  “Wait, love, we don’t know what sorcery this is. Jerrek, can you get us inside?” He commands quickly, turning to his friend.

  Jerrek, who is also in his armor, his long red hair flowing over his shoulder, nods resolutely. “I will try.” He approaches a section a few feet from me, and when he opens his palm, a glowing red orb of energy appears, which he directs at the wall.

  “Just hold on.” Lorien reassures me, and I turn to look back to see Adam and Reve, who are now facing off in the middle of the empty street.

  Adam, the nightmare, is in armor now too, black and rusted and dripping with oily ooze that dissipates before it hits the ground. He extends his arm, and a long metallic whip unravels like a snake onto the ground, covered from end to end with barbs and thorns and metallic spikes that make goose bumps ripple up my arms just looking at it.

  Instead, I look at Reve, whose expression softens as he sees me. Then, with a nod, I see bright-teal wings explode upward and outward from his back, extending dozens of feet in every direction.

  So magnificent.

  My Reve.

  I’m so glad I decided to be with him.

  After this, I don’t know if I care where we go so long as I can be by his side with Joey.

  Reve snaps his whip forward, and the air cracks again as Adam dodges to the side, narrowly avoiding it. Adam then attacks, his heavy, spiked whip making a horrible crunching sound as it flails in a long arc, but Reve ducks under it, moving forward with utter confidence.

  “How does that guy have a whip? I thought whips were supposed to be a show of our love,” I hear Tess asking behind me.

  “When it’s a love duel, yes,” Lorien replies. “But when nightmares fight, they draw from a different source to defend themselves. Hate, envy, rage, malice, all of the dark things that fuel their innermost desires.”

  I want to listen further, but I can’t take my eyes off Reve as I see him sidestep another swing. Even as he moves, he continues to move his whip from side to side before snapping it forward deftly and catching Adam in the shoulder.

  Dark armor flies off and onto the ground, and Adam cries out in rage as he attacks and nearly catches Reve across the chest. Instead, he hits the armor on Reve’s arm, and to my dismay, the bright plating is wrenched off with the horrible sound of metal on metal before it disappears too.

  In my arms, I feel Joey stir, mumbling something, and I keep him tight against me, hoping that either Reve will win or Jerrek will make a way inside before the worst happens.

  Reve’s wings unfurl farther, and with a soundless beat, they push him off the ground, far above Adam, and he slashes downward, his whip making a sizzling whoosh sound. The nightmare tries to block, but he’s knocked off his feet from the blow and lands on his side, seemingly unconscious. Reve, seeing the opening, charges downward in a slash of light, my eyes barely able to follow the movement.

  To my horror, Adam’s eyes fly open and he swings his whip upward, and I hear the metallic scrape of the jagged whip across Reve’s chest and pray he isn’t hurt. But Reve doesn’t veer off. Instead, he crashes right into the nightmare, and I can hear the sound of a loud punch being thrown and watch as Adam flies backward, slamming into the wall of the dome.

  When I look again, I can see dark purple-black swirling nothingness on Adam’s cheek and neck.
Like his human suit is wearing down to reveal whatever nightmares are really made of beneath.

  Just the sight of it makes my skin crawl. The sheer inhumanness of it.

  Reve, his chest now bare and only a few pieces of armor left on him, snaps his whip again and again, tearing whatever armor is still left on the nightmare. Adam tries to strike back, but for every blow he lands on Reve, Reve lands three more on him.

  “Update?” Lorien calls to Jerrek, sounding more worried than his calm demeanor would imply.

  “Working on it.” Jerrek’s face strains as the red energy in his hand gets brighter and hums louder, and I can see a small hole start to form in the dome.

  “Why doesn’t he just magic armor back on? Reve’s totally exposed to that whip,” Tess says.

  “Our armor is our magical resistance. Our ability to withstand damage and the influence of chaos. Reve’s energy is being sapped by that nightmare’s attack, but instead of protecting himself, Reve’s putting everything into his whip.”

  As if on cue, I watch as Reve looks at the last bits of metal plating on his legs and one arm and shakes his head. With a blink, they disappear, leaving him just in leather pants and heavy boots.

  In the same moment, his whip thrums and goes brighter than ever before, so bright it’s difficult to look at now and even longer than it was at the start.

  Every time he said he’d give his life to defend me, I thought it was just something dream fae said to each other.

  But watching him now, I realize with fear that he meant every word.

  If only I could access my whip and save him too.

  “Very bold of you, dream warrior. You must be confident in your chances of winning.” The voice I hear coming from Adam is no longer fully human. It’s like Adam’s words are superimposed with something deeper, harsher, unearthly, that echoes around me like the rumble of an approaching storm.

  “What are you, foul creature?”

  “Cauchemar. At least that’s what the queen of the fifth kingdom named me before I was banished to this world.” Aside from what little is left of his own armor, I can see through the tatters of his shirt to more dark areas on his back and chest that look like patches of empty space where there are no stars.

  He laughs darkly and narrows his gaze on Reve. “Little did they know they were letting the wolf out to roam among the sheep, and I’ve enjoyed my time here amongst these weak, petty creatures, growing stronger and stronger.”

  “Not anymore, you won’t.” Reve readies his whip, and Adam does the same.

  In the same moment, they both swing, and their whips collide with a bright flash of teal and purple, which explodes out from the center of the street. For a moment, I don’t even know what’s happened until I hear a scream that isn’t Reve’s.

  “Augh!” The nightmare screams as his whip breaks into hundreds of metallic fragments as he’s thrown onto his back by the blast. There’s little left of his human disguise now, and deep purple-red eyes like black holes have replaced what were once human.

  Reve strides forward, and I get up, wanting to run to him, hoping it’s all over when I suddenly feel dark tendrils come up out of the ground that wrap around my legs and arms and around Joey too.

  Joey wakes up just in time to see the dark, see-through tentacles wrapping around him, and I hold on to him with all my might, but it’s no use as he’s ripped away from me, both of us hovering twenty feet above the ground.

  “Mom!”

  “Joey!” I reach for him, but it’s no use. Beneath us, I see the nightmare get back on his feet, cackling as Reve’s gaze moves from me to my son then back to me.

  “I might not have my whip, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to lose to you, dream warrior.”

  Reve raises his whip, but Cauchemar waggles a finger. “Hurt me, and you’ll get to watch me suck the life out of both of your loved ones.

  “You bastard.”

  “I’ve been called much, much worse.” He shrugs. “So save one, sever my hold on the one you want to keep, and I’ll consume the other. Your choice. The love of your life, your dream mate? Or her precious son, the next generation of warriors?”

  As if on cue, the tendrils start brightening around me, and I feel faint as if the very air in me is being sucked out of my lungs. But I watch Reve, hoping against hope he’ll be able to do something.

  Just save Joey, I call to Reve with my heart.

  Instead, I see Reve’s wings retract into his back, leaving him surprisingly human-looking except for the glowing whip still in his hand.

  Then, with a shout, I watch as Reve somehow pulls a second whip from behind him, just as bright and glowing as the first. His chest and arms flex as he raises both in unison, and with two snaps that crack in ear-splitting precision, he slices through the dark energy beneath me and Joey at the same time while the nightmare watches with utter shock.

  The energy around me dissipates, and air rushes into my lungs just as I feel the ground fall out from beneath me. I barely hear the snap of Reve’s fingers as a gigantic pile of pillows materializes beneath me, catching my fall before I hit the ground.

  As soon as I can, I look over to see Joey is safe too, emerging from a loose jumble of pillows as well.

  “No, no, NO!” the nightmare screams just as Reve begins to use both whips on the monster in rapid succession. The air rings with cracks and the zap of electricity as lash after lash strikes Cauchemar, stripping away skin and armor until he’s just a shuddering, nebulous form that’s the color of space but the shape of a man, cringing away from Reve who advances mercilessly.

  Behind me, I feel a whoosh of air, and I hear steps as Jerrek and the others rush in beside me. Thirty feet away, Joey is getting onto his feet, and I’m already trying to get back up on shaky legs to reach him.

  “Good-bye, nightmare.” Reve’s voice is dark, serious.

  “You may think you’ve won, but I am timeless. Immortal. I will not be beaten by the likes of you,” the nightmare says.

  I’m only thinking of wrapping my arms around my son and getting back to Reve when I watch him raise his whip one last time. But then, like a blink of an eye, Cauchemar disappears from beneath Reve.

  And as I watch with terror, he appears behind my son.

  He wraps an arm around Joey, picking him up easily as a swirling black circle appears behind him, whirling with energy and making a horrible tornado-like sound.

  “Until next time, dreamer,” the nightmare says over his shoulder at Reve, then disappears into the blackness.

  My heart falls in my chest as I make for the hole, which is getting smaller and smaller by the second. Ahead of me, Reve is charging forward, and there’s only time for him to look over his shoulder at me and mouth the words I love you before he, too, disappears.

  I keep running, but suddenly I’m held back by two pairs of arms much stronger than me.

  “Let me go! I need to go after them!” I yell at Lorien and Jerrek.

  “You can’t go there. No human or fae has ever gone into that place and come back,” Lorien says firmly.

  “Why can’t I?” I plead desperately.

  “Why can’t she?” Tess argues.

  “It’s the void realm. The nightmare equivalent of a dream palace,” Jerrek says grimly.

  “Only legends and myths speak of such a place. It’s where the dark heart of the nightmare rests, the true seat of their power. Without your whip, without your armor, you won’t survive there.”

  “What about Reve?” Tears bite at the corners of my eyes. I thought it was over. I thought we were safe.

  I thought it was finally the end to this nightmare.

  “Cauchemar is a being unlike any I’ve ever encountered. Its heart is so evil, so corrupted, we don’t even know what you’d encounter.”

  “You’re saying there’s no hope?”

  I watch as the hole in space gets smaller, then disappears. Immediately after, the purple dome surrounding us dissipates, and bright sunlight casts over us as
everything returns to normal.

  Jerrek and Lorien release me, and I fall to my knees. Tess continues to argue with Lorien, and I feel a single hand on my shoulder as Jerrek leans down beside me.

  To my surprise, in spite of the calm in his expression, I see that his eyes are glossy, the creases at the corners of his mouth betraying his soft words.

  “If there’s any chance of hope, I’d put my trust in Reve to make it happen, Jen. Just wait and see.”

  But waiting is the last thing in the world I can stand to do when the two people I love most are in danger of oblivion.

  So instead of giving in to despair, I just focus on the tiny light twinkling deep inside me and reach out to Reve with all of my heart.

  23

  Reve

  Utter darkness surrounds me for a minute as I’m sucked into the void where the nightmare disappeared, and I press forward until I see a dim light ahead of me.

  At least Jen is safe. She’s my everything. My dream mate. I know Lorien and the others will make sure she’s all right.

  Even if I don’t make it back.

  In the meantime, I’ll do whatever it takes to save Joey from this awful monster.

  Suddenly, I drop to my feet on hard, rocky ground, and I see where the heart of darkness now waits for me.

  It’s like a dreamscape but something only a nightmare could conjure. Dark, jagged rocks surround a large, flat area that suddenly drops off the edge in a large circle. Like a floating, empty island surrounded by vacuous space swirling with dark-purple galaxies and pale-blue stars so far away only the faintest light reaches us. It’s freezing here, no warmth at all.

  But even worse, I can feel the very life being sucked out of me, my dream energy fading as the nightmare’s loathing and emptiness pull at the last of my defenses.

  And at the center of the island, I see a thirty-foot creature of swirling purple shadow the shape of a human. But it has no mouth, only dark-red eyes that turn to face me with hatred.