Dream Stalkers

by Tim Waggoner

Menendez stopped when he reached the edge of the curb. Less than five feet separated us.

  “But this is as far as it goes,” he said. “The Dreamer is on the verge of waking, and, once that happens, his control over the Maelstrom will end, allowing me to assume control.”

  “And then you’ll create Paradise.” I couldn’t help sneering as I said this.

  “Or the next best thing to it,” he said. “And, if I don’t get it right the first time, I’ll just start over and try again. And again and again until I’m satisfied. After all, it’s not so much the destination as it is the journey, right?”

  The thought of Menendez creating, destroying, and re-creating reality after reality filled with living, breathing beings that he would destroy on a whim when it suited him sickened me.

  “What about taking responsibility for that which you create?” I asked. “Once something becomes real–”

  “Something is real only when I say it is,” he interrupted. “That’s what it means to be God.”

  “Sounds more like what it means to be an asshole,” I said.

  “We don’t have to be enemies, Audra. We could work together to create a new reality. Perhaps you’re right about caring for that which we create. You could be my conscience. You could provide the empathy that I lack.”

  I turned to Jinx. “Is he hitting on me?”

  “Maybe, but, if I had to guess, I’d say he’s still having trouble waking the Dreamer on his own, and he’s trying to manipulate you into helping him.”

  “Pretty sleazy,” I said.

  “Extremely.”

  Menendez’s façade of reasonable calm gave way and his face became a mask of fury.

  “I don’t need your help,” he said. “And as for your obnoxious sidekick…”

  Menendez pointed a finger and Jinx was engulfed in a bright flash of white light, which was immediately followed by a deafening crack of thunder. I was knocked on my ass, and for several seconds I couldn’t see or hear anything. I thought I was dead, but, since I could think anything at all, I realized I probably wasn’t.

  When my vision cleared, I saw Jinx lying on the sidewalk, the pavement around him scorched black. Steam rose from his body, and he was shaking all over, as if in the throes of an epileptic fit.

  Menendez gazed upon Jinx with a smug smile.

  “Smiting one’s enemies with a bolt of lightning might be cliché, but I had no idea it would be so satisfying.”

  Jinx wasn’t dead, not yet, but I didn’t think he was going to last much longer. I had to do something, so I did the first thing that popped into my head.

  Night, I thought, and I thought hard.

  Darkness descended on Manhattan and stars – bright, crisp, and glittering – appeared in the sky above us. The city’s streetlights came on, and the electronic billboards added to the glow with their blazing sales messages.

  Night Jinx sat up, steam still rising from his body. He let out a loud whoop.

  “Day-um, son! That was a real kick in the pants! Do it again!”

  I reached out and helped Jinx to his feet. His flesh was almost burning hot.

  “Maybe later,” I said.

  “Spoilsport.”

  Menendez looked even angrier than he had before. He raised a hand, but, before he could deliver another smiting, I flicked a finger toward him, and he flew into the street and slammed into an abandoned taxi. He bounced off and fell onto the street, and the asphalt flowed over his hands and feet and solidified, trapping him. Whatever protection Menendez had gotten from the First Dreamer in Nod didn’t work here, not when I had access to the same power he did.

  “Nice,” Jinx said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Can you make him explode just by thinking it? That would be so cool!”

  “We’ll see.”

  We walked over to where Menendez lay, and he raised his head to look at us.

  “A little telekinetic force, some minor matter manipulation… Child’s tricks,” he said.

  “Hey, give me some credit,” I said. “I did turn day into night.”

  Jinx pulled Cuthbert Junior out of his jacket pocket, and a slow devastating grin spread across his face.

  “You know something, Menendez? Lying there with your head raised like that, you remind me of a golf ball sitting on a tee.”

  Before I could stop him, Jinx switched his grip on Cuthbert Junior and held the sledge like a golf club. He then took a step toward Menendez, pulled the hammer back, yelled “Fore!” and swung. I had to admit, his form was perfect.

  Menendez’s head tore free from his body in a spray of blood and went flying through the air. It arced toward One Times Square and smashed into one of the electronic billboards. The screen exploded in a shower of sparks, and Jinx yelled, “Home run!”

  “That’s baseball,” I said.

  Jinx shrugged. “Whatever.”

  I looked down at Menendez’s headless body, blood pooling outward from the ragged stump of his neck.

  I holstered my trancer. “You know that empathy of mine he talked about?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m not really feeling it so much right now.”

  Jinx grinned and rested Cuthbert Junior on his shoulder.

  “So, what do we do now?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe if we leave here, the Dreamer will fall back into a deep sleep, and his dream will start up where it left off. And with any luck, everything that was excised from reality will be restored.”

  “What if he starts a new dream?”

  “I guess we’ll be gone,” I said. “Unless we’re part of the new dream somehow.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that. You have a much more immediate problem. Namely, me.”

  Menendez’s voice echoed all around us. It came from the air, vibrated forth from the buildings, and from the asphalt beneath our feet.

  “I’m a Somnacologist, most likely the strongest that’s ever lived. There’s no way you can defeat me by manipulating the Maelstrom. I was born to understand it, interact with it, control it. You’re an Ideator, Audra. All you’ve done is bring one nightmare to life. You’re a one-trick pony, and it’s a pretty pathetic trick at that.”

  “Hey,” Jinx said. “I resemble that remark!”

  Menendez, head restored, broke free from his asphalt shackles and stood.

  “The Maelstrom is Chaos,” he said, his voice normal once more. “It’s wild, raw potential. Anything can be done with it. Anything at all. It’s madness on a cosmic scale. How could someone like you ever hope to wield it, let alone control it?”

  Menendez’s hand shot out and fastened around my throat. Jinx swung Cuthbert Junior off his shoulder and into striking position, but, before he could attack, Menendez gestured with his other hand. Cuthbert Junior transformed into a huge serpent that swiftly encircled Jinx in its coils. The snake was white, its only markings – blue half-moons over the eyes, red lining its mouth – mirroring Jinx’s coloring. Jinx struggled to break free, but his movements only allowed the snake to constrict tighter and soon Jinx couldn’t move at all.

  “Do you like the way the snake looks?” Menendez said. “I thought it was a nice touch.”

  I struggled to speak, but I couldn’t get anything out. I drew my trancer, jammed it into Menendez’s stomach, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

  “I’m blocking your access to the Maelstrom,” he said. “Your weapon won’t work on me now, not unless I wish it.”

  I dropped the trancer and pounded on Menendez with my fists, kicked him as hard as I could, but his body was like a rock, and my exertions didn’t do anything except use up what little air remained in my lungs.

  “I get stronger with each passing moment, Audra,” he said. “Right now I exist on multiple levels. While I’ve been tussling with you here, I’ve also been continuing to work on rousing the First Dreamer. The closer to full consciousness he comes, the less of the Maelstrom he commands and the more I do. Soon, I’ll control it all, and I�
��ll be God. Then nothing can stop me.” He smiled. “Ever.”

  I opened and closed my mouth, desperately trying to speak.

  “I suppose you have some last defiant words to spit in my face. Well, why not? Perhaps I’ll find them amusing.”

  He loosened his grip on my throat, just enough for me to be able to draw in some air, but not enough for me to break free.

  “No… defiance,” I rasped. “Just a… question.”

  “Get on with it.”

  I couldn’t turn my head to look at Jinx, so I shifted my eyes toward him.

  “Are you… clown enough?”

  Jinx frowned.

  “Are you clown enough?” I repeated.

  Understanding dawned in his eyes, and a huge grin split his face.

  “Yes,” he said, in a soft voice. Then stronger, “Yes, I am.”

  He closed his eyes and the clown serpent transformed back into Cuthbert Junior. He snatched the hammer out of the air before it struck the ground, and then he tucked it away in his jacket pocket.

  Menendez stared at him in confusion. The man’s grasp slackened enough that I was able to pull free, but he barely noticed.

  “How did you do that?” he demanded.

  “It’s simple,” Jinx said. “You said it yourself. The Maelstrom is Chaos. And who understands chaos better than a clown?”

  “Not just any clown,” I said. “The clown.”

  Jinx smiled and bowed to acknowledge my words.

  “I’ve had quite enough of you two,” Menendez said. “Time to finish this.”

  “I agree wholeheartedly,” Jinx said.

  He started walking toward Menendez. As he did, the night sky gave way to the swirling multicolored vortex of the Maelstrom. The ground trembled beneath our feet, and the buildings of the not-quite-real Manhattan collapsed into gray and black dust. Clouds of it rose into the air, piles of it slid into the street. The abandoned and wrecked vehicles became dust as well, and the streets broke apart in fragments and fell away, tumbling downward into the turbulent energies of the Maelstrom below. Everything – the vast mounds of disintegrated buildings and thousands of vehicles – all fell into the Maelstrom where they were re-absorbed. The only thing that remained was a small section of asphalt, barely large enough for the three of us to stand on.

  “Don’t feel too bad,” Jinx said. “There’s no way you could compete with me in the crazy department. It is my thing, after all.” Jinx’s eyes widened as if a thought occurred to him. “But I might be able to help you with that!”

  He reached up and touched his index finger to his forehead. He pushed and his finger passed through flesh and bone as if they were no more substantial than pudding. Once his finger was all the way inside, he wiggled it around a couple times, and then withdrew it. The finger was covered with bloody gobbets of brain.

  As the crimson-rimmed hole in his head began to close, Jinx grinned at Menendez.

  “Let me give you a piece of my mind.”

  He jammed his finger into Menendez’s head, and the man’s eyes went wide with shock. When Jinx withdrew his finger, it was clean. He then licked the tip of his finger and rubbed Menendez’s forehead wound, as if he were a mother giving her child a quick spit-clean. When he was finished, the skin on Menendez’s forehead was smooth and unmarked.

  Menendez didn’t do anything for several seconds. Then he chuckled. His chuckle turned into a laugh. His laugh became a loud donkey’s bray. And then he was roaring with deep, loud belly laughs. But there was no merriment in his eyes. There was only terror and desperation. The belly laughs gave way to high-pitched shrieks that sounded as much like screams as they did laughter. Tears streamed from his eyes, and his laughter dribbled away into deep, body-wracking sobs.

  I’d like to tell you that I felt sorry for him, but I’d be lying.

  I thought he might fall to his knees, but instead he turned and ran off the edge of our tiny asphalt island. He continued sobbing as he plummeted toward the Maelstrom, and then the energies swallowed him and he was gone.

  Jinx stepped to the edge of the asphalt and looked down.

  “Some people just can’t take a joke.”

  I walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Good work,” I said. “Disturbing as all hell, but good.”

  Jinx grinned at me. “All part of the service.”

  We stood in silence for several moments, looking at the Maelstrom roiling all around us.

  “So what now?” Jinx asked. “Do we join hands and say ‘Let there be light’?”

  “I don’t know. I guess we–”

  We were back in the Sacrarium. The cage was gone. I sat cross-legged on the floor next to Jinx. Russell lay unconscious close by, and Bloodshedder lay with her head on his chest, looking at us. Menendez lay in a fetal position on the other side of the First Dreamer, shivering and drooling.

  The Dreamer was sitting up and looking at me sleepily.

  “Would you mind keeping it down, please? I’m trying to sleep.”

  He yawned, closed his eyes, and settled back onto his palm-frond bed.

  Sixteen

  Several days later, Jinx and I were walking along the shore on Montrose Beach. It was early morning, the sky overcast, the waters of Lake Michigan gun-metal gray. Snow flurries drifted down, only to be tossed and scattered by the wind coming off the lake. The wind was cold, and I wished I had some lip balm. I could feel my lips chapping with each passing second.

  I was bundled up in a warm jacket, ski cap, scarf, and gloves. Jinx, in his Day Aspect, walked alongside me. He wore a winter coat, although his wasn’t as heavy as mine, and he wore a stylish flat cap to cover his bald head.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  My right arm was in a sling, and I wore a compression wrap around my chest. Thank the First Dreamer for heavy-duty pain meds.

  “My ribs still hurt, and the cold is making my shoulder ache, but I’ll survive.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.”

  I would love to tell you that, when the Dreamer went back to sleep, reality was restored. And it was – mostly. Earth’s dimension had returned to its previous state, as had Nod. And every person or object that had ceased to exist while Menendez had tried to wake the Dreamer had come back. But those things that had happened as a result of the excisions hadn’t been undone. Nathaniel and Mordacity were still dead, and Connie, the Deathmobile, and the Fata Morgana were missing. I assumed that meant something had happened to the Deathmobile before the M-energy tendril could unmake her. But what that was exactly, I had no idea. All I knew was that, so far, there had been no sign of the hearse, Connie, or the Fata Morgana. I tried not to assume the worst, but, truthfully, I didn’t hold out much hope for their return.

  The Shadow Watch had started investigating the Discarnate, searching for anyone who’d been possessed by the spirits against their will. The Watch M-gineers had rigged a device to detect the Discarnate, but finding them would be far from simple. They knew how to hide too well.

  Menendez was still alive, but his mind had been completely shattered by Jinx’s contribution to his brain. He’d been taken to Deadlock, and Warden Bruzer – who had survived the riot and Darkun attack on his prison and once more had three heads – had locked him away in a maximum security cell, where he would remain for the rest of his life. It didn’t seem like a severe enough punishment for a man who’d almost destroyed reality itself, but I supposed it would have to do.

  Jinx didn’t ask me again how I was feeling, but I could feel him waiting for me to address the question. Since the moment the Dreamer returned to sleep, we’d had no more trouble Blending, but I’d been able to read his moods even better than before, and the reverse was true. He knew I would talk when I was ready. I wasn’t quite ready, though. Not to talk about what was really bothering me, so I decided to stall.

  “Are you disappointed we’re not going to New York?” I asked.

  I’d decided t
o turn down Sanderson’s offer, and Jinx had gone along with my decision without saying a word.

  He considered a moment before answering.

  “Yes and no. On the one hand, it is New York. On the other, I’m not sure it would feel like home. Not the way Chicago does.”

  I smiled. “You keep talking like that, and, next thing you know, you’ll end up a Bears fan.”

  Jinx sniffed. “I highly doubt that.”

  We continued walking in silence for several moments. And then I was ready.

  “Don’t you find it hard to believe in anything anymore?” I asked. “I mean everything – the sky, the lake, this sand” – I kicked up a bit to underscore my point – “is all part of some kid’s dream. It’s not real.”

  “It’s as real as it ever was,” Jinx said.

  “Somehow, I don’t find that comforting.”

  “Incubi have to deal with some of the same feelings,” he said. “After all, we’re created when an Ideator unconsciously shapes the raw material of the Maelstrom and brings it to life. I am, in a very real sense, your dream come true.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” I muttered.

  He smiled. “A poor choice of words, perhaps, but you know what I mean. You created me, the Dreamer created you… Who knows where the Dreamer came from? Life is filled with questions, Audra. If we’re lucky, we might discover some of the answers before it’s over for us.”

  “And if we’re unlucky, we might discover answers we’d rather not know.”

  “True.”

  Ecclesiastor Withrow reappeared soon after the Dreamer went back to sleep. Jinx and I took her into custody, and I called Sanderson – who had also popped back into existence – and gave him a quick rundown of the situation. Withrow was now safely ensconced in a cell in Deadlock, as were her Wakenist and Discarnate accomplices. For the time being, the Idyllon was under the protection of the Shadow Watch, and it would remain that way until such time as the Nightclad Council could determine what should be done.

  “But that’s not what’s really bothering you, is it?” Jinx asked.

  “It’s childish, but I’d hoped that when the Dreamer went back to sleep, everything would be fixed.”