Disciple: DreamWalkers, Book 2

by Jody Wallace

  “Nobody is using you. He’s not real. You have a split personality, and you’re killing people because you want to,” Maggie told her.

  Karen turned her attention to Maggie. Her teeth bared as she snarled. “He is real, and this is your fault. You’re the one I’m going to kill because I want to.”

  With Karen focused on Maggie, some of her power over the wraiths seemed to slip. They skulked forward. Hunger blazed in their eyes, or whatever approximated eyes. The banshee’s croon increased in pitch.

  Zeke tensed. If they all came at him at once, he’d have to shove Maggie into the bunk room to defend the doorway. Screw her vow to stand beside him. As much as he loved her, she hadn’t trained long enough to fight with two good arms—and she only had one.

  He needed to stick her and the curator into the damned ladder tube. Provided nothing slithered down from above, maybe, just maybe, he could fend off the climbers and other monsters long enough for the reinforcements to reach them.

  If the reinforcements were alive. The reduced size of Karen’s entourage, the static on the walkie—and the fact he’d spotted no one during his foray through the blast doors—worried Zeke that the wraiths had taken out the humans.

  “How is your situation my fault?” Maggie was asking Karen. To her credit, she didn’t charge forward yelling a battle cry. Some neos did in their first trial by fire. “I didn’t awaken to the sphere until a couple months ago, and you’ve been—”

  Quick as lightning, the spider broke free of the monster brigade and catapulted toward them. Zeke was ready. He pivoted, sword spinning, and sliced off a leg at the first joint. The spider landed hard and bowled across the floor. Legs flailed. It came at him again but flinched away when he defended himself with the blade.

  “Stop it!” Karen demanded. “Not him.”

  The spider crouched near Karen as the werecreature growled and a Nosferatu flapped its cape.

  “Do as I say.” She kicked the spider. Its mandibles snapped as if preparing to bite back. For a moment, Karen appeared frightened, before her eyes narrowed to a glare.

  The spider subsided, but the damage had been done. Karen was having trouble managing her herd.

  “Getting a little much for your messed-up brain, are they?” Zeke taunted.

  “It’s nothing I can’t handle.” Karen smacked the air, as if knocking aside doubt. “That bitch of a vigil shut me out of the sphere.”

  “You need sphere access to control your friends?” Did that make what Karen did like confounding or another alucinator skill? If you could call communing with wraiths a skill. For all he knew, communing with wraiths was why she was so fucking crazy.

  Karen scowled when she realized she’d shared information. This whole time, she’d dangled knowledge in front of everyone like carrots, but she’d given them nothing. She’d played sick and helpless, but she’d never been sick and helpless.

  She’d confounded anyone who’d started to doubt her.

  This was all Karen. It always had been. It was down to Zeke to end it.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Karen said. “Sharma’s dying, and the lock will die with her. Besides, I don’t need to manifest more wraiths to kill your whore and deliver the curator to the Master.”

  Adi was dying? Did that mean the whole team was dead—including Lill?

  Zeke couldn’t afford to let it dismay or distract him. He adjusted his grip on his sword and waited for an opening. It would come. Karen needed to bluster. To seethe at them. She must be unsure of her control over the monsters. Otherwise, she’d have directed them to kill Maggie already.

  “How exactly do you plan to deliver somebody to your nonexistent Master?” he asked, prolonging the conversation. “If only you could have proven he existed. You need to accept he’s a figment of your imagination.”

  “I know he’s real because he possessed me. He made me do things. He hurt me.” Fury vibrated through Karen’s scrawny form. “He was there. He’s always there, watching us. And he has a plan.”

  “Like a cylon,” Maggie muttered. She braced her bad arm under her good one, using her forearm to help support the long sword. The spider chittered, all eight of its glowing eyes focused on Maggie. Pus oozed from its stump.

  Zeke would have to kill that seven-legged menace before he killed Karen. He also needed to convince Maggie it was a good idea to climb the ladder.

  He wanted her to have a chance. A tiny chance. Then he could die less miserably.

  “The Master is going to escape the sphere and take physical form. Then nobody will be able to stop him. That’s why there were corpses. He’s learning.” Karen paced back and forth, weaving through her crew, occasionally glancing toward the intersection. She never swerved close enough for Zeke to reach. But whenever she turned her back on the wraiths, they sidled toward him and Maggie.

  “Let him. Any wraith with a physical form can be dusted.” Zeke inched back as the wraiths advanced. He bumped into Maggie and nudged her toward the bunkroom.

  “The corpses showed up because I’m bellatorix.” Maggie copied Zeke’s delaying tactic, engaging Karen in discussion. “Zeke and I both are. That’s a known phenomenon, not some imaginary boogieman.”

  “Is it a known phenomenon for wraiths to eat corpses?” Karen asked slyly. “The Master did that too. He needs a body to come through the barrier. He’ll get it any way he can.”

  Zeke lowered the tip of his sword as if sidetracked. While he had no explanation for that, it was more important to defeat Karen than debate her. “Wraiths eat all kinds of things. Consider it from our point of view. Since nobody can sense the Master, why should we believe you?”

  Such logic had no place in Karen’s frenzy. “You’re all fools. You’re falling into his trap. He doesn’t want you to know he exists until it’s too late.”

  “I think it’s too late for you. Your honor guard is looking shabby.”

  It was true that a watcher could have been in the sphere, like Karen had been the past year, sneaking around behind a curator’s camouflage. But the curator had taught Zeke, Maggie and Lill to crack that disguise, and they still hadn’t sensed an omnipotent wraith king. Nor had the curator, who’d possessed that skill all along.

  How did Karen expect them to believe that an apparition no one in the history of the Somnium had identified was dictating her actions?

  Then again, Karen was crazy. Bona fide nuts.

  That didn’t make her less of a threat. While they argued, the size of her mob increased. Four zombies shambled from the intersection. Drool trickled from slack jaws.

  Zombies Zeke could handle. Rheumy eyes bulged at him and Maggie over the shoulder of their mistress. Several bore the signs of combat—missing limbs, splatters of gore.

  Was this the entirety of Karen’s army?

  “Where are you?” Karen screamed into the darkness. “I command you to come.”

  No more wraiths appeared.

  “Just can’t get good help anymore?” Zeke mocked. One thing he’d noticed—the angrier Karen got, the angrier the wraiths got. The more he pressed her, the more the wraiths strained to attack.

  The more control over them she lost.

  “Shut up.” Karen resumed pacing. Her hands fisted. She raved and cursed, describing what the monsters were going to do to Maggie. Her imagination repulsed him. Zeke felt his moment grow nearer with every furious stomp of Karen’s feet.

  Behind Zeke, nearly in the doorway, Maggie urged the curator not to leave the dubious safety of the bunkroom. The wraiths became as agitated as an industrial concrete mixer. The banshee rent its gauze clothing and wept tears of blood. The spider climbed partway up the wall, bobbing wildly. Karen didn’t seem to care.

  If she lost control of the wraiths, it would be a free-for-all, but they’d cease to protect her. They’d fight without unity, easier to kill. They might even converge on her. When he ma
de his move, it was going to get deadly, fast.

  Would Maggie take responsibility for the curator and climb the escape tube? He had to trust she would, or his sacrifice would be in vain.

  “I won’t shut up,” Zeke said boldly. “I love Maggie. I’ll die for her if I must.”

  Karen howled with rage.

  This time it was the werebeast that leapt for Zeke.

  Maggie gasped with alarm and bumped his sword arm. His swing went wild. The monster tackled him, and its claws dug into his arms. He lost his grip on the blade.

  Karen screamed in the background as Zeke struggled to keep the grisly jaws from closing on his face. He squeezed its thick throat. The stench of the were’s coarse pelt choked him. Saliva dripped on his cheek, burning like acid. It would do no good to knee the fucker in the crotch. Wraiths were sadly missing several human weak spots.

  The beast growled like a mad dog. Its head tossed from side to side as it tried to loosen Zeke’s grip on its throat, so he squeezed harder.

  Footsteps, scuffles, surrounded him. Zombies moaned. The banshee wept its hair-raising cry. Maggie and Karen argued. The werebeast’s teeth gnashed frantically as it strained toward his face. The vest protected his torso, but it wouldn’t keep the wraith from munching on his head.

  “To your left, Margaret dear,” the curator said.

  What the hell was the old troublemaker doing out of the bunkroom? Damn his stubborn ass. A surge of anger helped Zeke crush the wraith’s windpipe. Bones popped, and the monster started to gag.

  A solid object thunked to the floor beside him. Zeke glanced toward it—a zombie head—at the exact wrong moment. It puffed into dust, blinding him.

  “Get off him, you useless hairball.” Karen’s voice. Nearby. The beast snarled, but it quit chewing toward Zeke’s face. What was going on? He blinked fast, trying to clear his vision of wraith dust.

  At least it wasn’t pepper spray.

  Karen continued to rant and yell. “You—kill the werewolf. Now.”

  Zeke hurled the distracted werebeast aside. He scrambled to his feet, avoiding the spider, who pounced on the other wraith with excited chitters.

  Wraith on wraith? This was different than the involuntary tussle between the T-Rex and the Cthulhu. This was deliberate. He rubbed his eyes, both to clear the last of the dust and to ensure he’d seen what he thought he’d seen.

  The thrashing werebeast collapsed into dust beneath the spider. Its seven legs quivered as if struck by electricity. Holy shit. Just how much control over the wraiths did Karen have?

  Enough to send them after specific people. Enough to force them to attack one another.

  Enough to force them to eat human corpses in hopes of convincing everyone the Master’s bid for corporeality was real?

  Karen, pallor evident even in the sickly green glow of the spider, waved a shaking hand toward Zeke. “I warned you. Don’t touch him. If you do, you die.”

  The spider sprang away quicker than Zeke’s eyes could follow. The green glow vacillated. Zeke whirled, looking for the monster.

  Behind him? No spider. Maggie slashed at two zombies. The banshee and the Nosferatu remained behind Karen, pacing and glaring.

  The curator, braced against the doorjamb, pointed at Zeke’s sword on the floor. “I believe you dropped something.”

  How could the curator be so freaking detached? If Zeke and Maggie failed to protect him, who knew what fate awaited the old man? Karen wouldn’t take him to some Master. Her wraiths would devour him bite by bite like the other bodies, so she could pretend the Master had used him for its evil plans, or whatever the fuck she felt like claiming.

  Zeke feigned a lunge toward Karen. She squawked and ran behind the banshee. He grabbed his sword and decapitated the zombies. He couldn’t concentrate with Maggie struggling to defend herself.

  Maggie cast him a brief, appreciative smile. Flailing around with the blade one-handed had barely kept the zombies off her. She’d never survive a banshee, much less a spider attack.

  It was time to take that freak down. Zeke tracked the source of the green glow.

  It wasn’t where he expected it to be.

  The spider clung to the ceiling, halfway to the intersection. It humped wildly, web spurting from its spinnerets. A thick skein began to fill the corridor on one side, like a sliding door of goo.

  “Trying to trap us in here, Karen? You afraid?” Years of practice had allowed Zeke a great deal of ambidexterity with weapons. He shifted his sword to his left hand and pulled out a knife, ready to end this—even if he ended himself along with it. Spiders were no easy kill.

  “That’s not what I’m doing at all.” Guarded by the remaining wraiths, Karen peeked around the banshee’s floating hair at Zeke. Emotion wrinkled her face into a mask of hatred. “You’re too late.”

  Too late for what?

  An erratic rumble awoke in the distance and grew louder. Louder. A massive roar quaked the corridor. Karen’s wraiths moaned, chittered and wailed in response.

  The T-Rex.

  Bloody hell.

  Karen scampered behind the column of webbing, followed sluggishly by her monsters. She smiled at him. Her teeth seemed too large for her mouth. “Don’t worry, my love. I won’t let it hurt you. You’ll love me again after I save you from the Master. But you can do nothing for the whore and the old man.”

  If he was going to make a move, he had to do it before the dino arrived. Already he could hear the thunder of its feet on the floor, it head on the ceiling. Masonry crashed. Wraiths keened.

  “Force the curator into the tube,” he told Maggie, still panting after her dances with wraiths. “Help him. Brace yourselves in there. I’ll take out the climbers.” One spider, two Nosferatu, one banshee, one Karen—and who knew what might arrive with the T-Rex?

  “And you?” she asked, eyes filling with tears. They couldn’t use the ladder if the climbers weren’t dead. A spider in that tube was more than a match for any human. But they couldn’t face down a T-Rex either. It would destroy this whole place until it razed them out of any hidey hole they found.

  No grenade. No C4. No tank. No chance.

  Zeke forced himself not to look at her face. “Protect him. It’s our duty, Maggie. Leave space at the bottom of the ladder for me. I can carry him up after I deal with the spider. I’m willing to try if you are.”

  He knew she didn’t believe him, but this time she complied. “I understand. Hurry.”

  He raised his sword and knife, rolling his shoulders to loosen his tension. This would be the fight of his life. The last fight of his life. The T-Rex stumbled into view.

  This one was bigger. It ran stooped over, almost doubled. The ceiling shuddered as it slammed into it. Walls cracked. It rebounded and roared. Its tiny front arms practically scrabbled the floor. A few other wraiths, smaller ones, tumbled along at its heels.

  “My goodness,” the curator exclaimed. For the first time, alarm colored the old man’s voice. “He might bring the whole building down on our heads.”

  Indeed. The ground trembled beneath their feet. Tiny rocks bounced off the webbing over Karen’s head. She crowed with glee. The spider continued to spurt out silk, protecting its mistress from a cave in.

  Zeke heard Maggie utter a tiny whimper, but then she was hustling the curator to uncertain safety. “Let’s try the climb, sir. We’re too stubborn to give up easily.”

  Karen, tucked safely under the spider’s webbing, flung an arm toward them and screeched. “No, no, no. She can’t go anywhere. Kill her!”

  The spider skittered along the ceiling. Webbing trailed behind its ass like a kite. The banshee spread its arms and uttered a flinch-worthy wail. Zombies and Nosferatus coasted across the concrete floor. The T-Rex clobbered a wall, shaking its head in a daze.

  The daze wouldn’t last.

  “Don’t just stand th
ere, Zeke,” Karen yelled at him. His ears rang from the stupid banshee, and he had no earplugs to ward off the sonic attacks. “It may crush you accidentally. Come to me. Save yourself!”

  He only cared about saving Maggie. If the curator got saved too, that was fine by Zeke. He pressed himself against the wall beside the door, his sword angled to fend off the spider intent on Maggie.

  And then the Nosferatu and the zombies and the banshee. And then the T-Rex.

  Yeah, he wouldn’t last long against a T-Rex in open combat.

  Climb, Maggie, climb.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The mutant spider couldn’t do shit with only one leg. It chittered at Zeke, incensed but stationary. The single claw Zeke hadn’t chopped off scrabbled at the ground, and all it managed to do was swivel its fat ass like a manic sit and spin. Couldn’t climb after Maggie in that state.

  Zeke readied himself for the banshee, the Nosferatus and the zombies. The Nosferatus glided across the ground like hovercrafts. They’d reach him first. The banshee hung back, wailing and hooting. Banshees preferred to disorient their victims before attacking, and Zeke refused to be disoriented.

  Karen cowered behind the column of thick webbing. Her head swiveled between the T-Rex trying to find Maggie and Zeke.

  She called to him, her voice shrill and desperate. “There’s no way you can save her, but you can save yourself. I can save you.”

  He didn’t want to save himself if Maggie were gone. Zeke growled like a werecreature and whipped his knife through the air.

  At Karen.

  She ducked. The blade chunked to a stop in the spider’s impressive webbing. Maybe he should kill the nasty thing, and Karen’s literal safety net would turn to dust.

  But then, so would the only source of illumination in the corridor. The spider’s glowing legs were strewn about, lighting the place up like swamp gas.

  “She doesn’t deserve you,” Karen fumed, wrenching at the knife. “I had you first. Me. You’re mine. We have a tangible. That has to mean something.”