Dreamwalker

by Russell James

  “Peter, the damage to her prefrontal cortex is extensive. The body can’t repair that kind of injury. She’ll never wake up.”

  Nurse Davies gestured to an open door.

  “Room 18 is right here.” She let Pete pass through the doorway first.

  Rayna’s room was more hotel suite than hospital. Sunlight cascaded in through a frosted window. Panoramic vistas of mountain ranges hung on the walls. Any medical equipment was absent, probably tucked in the tasteful wood cabinets against the walls. An overstuffed couch faced the bed with a matching chair to the bed’s right. If the bed had anything in common with the hospital version, the designer had disguised it completely. Other than having the top half elevated about a foot, the twin bed mimicked one in a fine bed and breakfast, down to the carved wooden head and footboards. A bright yellow bedspread defied anyone tempted by depression. The room’s central light focused on the bed, and on Rayna.

  She lay in bed, crisp covers turned down to her waist. She wore a white hospital gown. Her blonde hair was down around her shoulders, radiant as fine silk. Rosy cheeks highlighted her pink, full lips, a real life Sleeping Beauty

  Nurse Davies took one step back and retreated through the threshold, leaving Pete alone in the room.

  “You stay as long as you like,” she whispered. “I’ll be at the desk if you need me.” She moved down the hall without a sound.

  Pete sat lightly in the chair next to Rayna, as if too much motion would shatter this fragile moment. The girl he thought was a figment of his imagination was alive. But the nurse’s prognosis tempered his joy.

  The real Rayna wasn’t here. The bright light that warmed his soul when they shared his dreams was nowhere near. Her true essence of life had passed over from the tactile world. Lovely as it looked, this body here was just Rayna’s vapor trail, left behind to slowly dissipate.

  Pete reached out to hold Rayna’s hand, but froze. The body before him was corporeal, completely real, in every sense he’d learned to accept. However, inside, he knew that it was less real, less Rayna, than the girl on the beach, the girl in Twin Moon City. If he touched her, looking for that flash of passion she gave him, he’d find only disappointment.

  Pete left the room.

  Nurse Davies looked up in surprise from her desk.

  “Such a short visit?” she asked.

  “This time,” Pete said. “Do her parents come and visit her?”

  “Oh, yes. They come into the city every week and spend most of Saturday and Sunday here.”

  Rayna might not appreciate the cheery surroundings, but it was surely a comfort to her parents.

  “How long can she survive like this?”

  “It all depends on the individual,” the nurse said. “Most get weaker over time. Organs fail, and the person passes on. But Rayna seems to have great reserves of strength. She’s been surprisingly stable. She could easily be with us for years.”

  Pete wondered if that was good news or bad.

  “Thank you so much,” he said. “It was good to see her.”

  “Come back again,” Nurse Davies said. “I know she‘s happy for your company.”

  Just not in this world, he thought. Only in the land where the sun never rises.

  Pete stepped back out into the streets of Philadelphia. He didn’t want to look up Rayna’s parents. What he’d tell them would give them no comfort. The pretty room and the breathing body of their daughter did that. Who wants to know their children are in some living hell?

  He backtracked his way to the bus station by reversing his outbound instructions. The return trip seemed twice as long. The anticipation of the outbound trek had been replaced with a Gordian knot of unknowns about the other world he visited.

  After the tortured souls in Twin Moon City progressed from captive to zombie to dust, what happened to them? Did the soul continue its interrupted trip? Pete assumed not. Cauquemere had drained the soul of its energy by then and it probably blew away like dried leaves on the wind. A true, permanent end to existence.

  The palace felt like the center of the gravitational pull that bound the souls in Twin Moon City. Would a disruption of that flow of energy rushing into the palace give the souls in the city the chance to escape, and finally rest in peace?

  And then what of Rayna? Could she pass over out of Twin Moon City if her body was still alive? Would she be stuck there, or in some other netherworld existence bouncing between other people’s dreams, caught for years in some confused limbo?

  Instead of providing answers, this trip just raised more questions.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Johnny positioned himself across the street from the bus station. From there, he could see both sides of the street for several blocks. There was no way Dr. Pete was going to slip by him.

  Johnny wore a, greasy coat that may once have been camel’s hair. He couldn’t remember that far back. His scraggy hair stuck out at all angles and his matted beard was now solid gray. Duct tape kept his shoes in one piece. He sat on his square of cardboard on the sidewalk and no one made eye contact with him. That was good, because he was here to see, not be seen.

  The Dark One had awakened him an hour ago, warned him of danger on the way. A doctor was coming to the bus station. A doctor like the evil ones who had tortured him in the hospitals, made him take drugs that slowed down his brain, implanted the trackers under his skin. But Johnny would get the jump on this one.

  “Tan jacket, blue shirt, tan jacket, blue shirt,” Johnny muttered under his breath. The chant wasn’t to remind him what Dr. Pete was wearing. The voices were doing that. He was just joining the chorus. They sounded like the Dark One, just so many more of them. More and more, every month.

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets against the cold. He fingered the wooden handle of his carving knife. For once a doctor would feel the edge of his blade.

  He inspected each passerby against his two point checklist. Tan jacket! No blue shirt. Tan jacket! A woman? No, Dr. Pete was a man. Then…

  Tan jacket! Blue shirt! A man! The only one all morning. It had to be him.

  Johnny rose and walked down the sidewalk to intercept. Pedestrians with horrified looks gave Johnny a wide birth. He didn’t notice, his eyes locked on Dr. Pete. Even the doctor didn’t see him, preoccupied with something far from Filbert Street.

  The voices began a new, darker chant.

  Kill him, kill him, kill him.

  The Dark One had said as much, and killing was wrong, but so was what the doctors had done to him. So was what Dr. Pete wanted to do to him. Killing Dr. Pete was self-defense. For once he and the voices were in harmony. He felt more complete that way.

  Dr. Pete was just feet away. No doubt about it now. This was the face the Dark One showed him in his dream.

  The voices’ new chant drowned out his second thoughts.

  Cut him deep, slit him good. Cut him deep, slit him good.

  Johnny hopped in front of Pete and grabbed him by the collar. He poked the knife at Pete’s belly. Pete looked startled. And scared. Good.

  “In the alley,” he whispered. It wouldn’t do to kill him here with witnesses. “And stay quiet.”

  Pete held his hands to his side and shuffled into the alley. Johnny tossed him down behind an air conditioning unit.

  “Hey, dude, whatever you want is yours,” Pete said. “My wallet’s in my pocket. Take it.”

  Cut him, cut him! cried the voices.

  “You can’t buy me off,” Johnny said. “He warned me about you. You’re going to put more demons in my head. Like the other doctors.”

  “Doctors? I’m no doctor.”

  GUT HIM LIKE A FISH! screamed the voices.

  “He showed me your face,” Johnny said. “The Dark One warned me not to listen to you.”

  He lunged at Pete. But years of street living had slowed him down. His t
hrust went wide. Pete rolled and Johnny’s blade struck pavement. Pete gave Johnny a kick in the chest that sent his emaciated body flying. The knife flew from his hand. Johnny hit the wall and saw stars. He slid to the ground.

  Next thing he knew, Pete was on top of him. Pete’s knees pinned Johnny’s arms. He held Johnny’s knife. The tip was broken.

  “No, no! No experiments!” Johnny flailed uselessly. “No more experiments!”

  “Calm down, calm down. I’m no doctor. Look at me. I’m eighteen. How could I be a doctor?”

  “You must be,” Johnny said. He gave another weak thrash. “The Dark One told me.”

  “The one who comes in your nightmares?” Pete said.

  Johnny went still. “Yes.”

  “Black peaked cap, dreadlocks, snake medallion?”

  Johnny’s mouth hung open. This boy was no doctor. Doctors never believed him.

  He’s going to trick you! the voices shouted.

  Johnny pressed them far back in his mind. “You know him?”

  “He haunts us both,” Pete said. “He comes in my dreams at night. He finds all my darkest fears and tries to turn them against me. You aren’t the only one.”

  No one ever told Johnny that. For years he thought he suffered alone. If others saw the Dark One, maybe Johnny was…normal.

  “How long’s he been haunting you?” Pete said.

  “How long is forever?”

  A look of sad recognition crossed Pete’s face. He stood and helped Johnny up. He kicked the knife back over to Johnny’s feet.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Johnny.”

  “I’m going to help you, Johnny. Show me where you sleep.”

  No one had offered Johnny help, honest understanding help, in forever. Pete’s eyes looked kind. They weren’t doctor’s eyes.

  A few streets over, Johnny showed Pete a grate near a parking garage. Pete told him to wait there and returned a few minutes later with a spool of speaker wire in a sack from a corner store. Pete took Johnny’s knife and slit the casing off about twenty feet of wire. He wove it around the edge of the grate until it made a copper circle. He tied a loop at the end and stuck the knife in it, point down.

  “Now you need to sleep inside the circle,” Pete said. “If you’re in there, the Dark One can’t come in your dreams. I know it sounds crazy.”

  “I’m not a good judge of crazy anymore,” Johnny said.

  “Well, the wire works for me,” Pete said.

  Johnny sat down in the circle. Pete put the rest of the wire in his pocket. He touched Johnny’s shoulder.

  “Sleep, you’ll feel better. But never sleep outside the wire again. Promise?”

  Johnny nodded. It did sound crazy, but he believed that Pete believed, and that was good enough. He stayed in the circle as Pete walked away. In the circle, the voices were quiet.

  Pete stopped at the end of the alley, looked lost, and turned around.

  “Uh, could you walk me back to the bus station?”

  Later, standing in the Philly bus station, Pete accepted there was no escape from the tempests Cauquemere could stir. If Pete slept outside the wire loop, he was a target. If he entered Twin Moon City, same thing. His encounter with Johnny proved that even in the tactile world, he wasn’t safe. Cauquemere could twist the living into doing his bidding. Pete could trust no one, especially if Cauquemere could spread his influence as far away as Philadelphia.

  How did Cauquemere know he was in Philadelphia anyway?

  He hit himself in the head.

  Because in his nightmare he told the lady on the bus. Even in his dreams, he’d have to be more careful. His chances of helping free Estella must be pretty good if Cauquemere was trying so hard to stop him.

  At the station, Pete scanned the schedule to Atlantic City. There was a departure in about an hour. The excursion here had taken less time than expected. He might be able to put in some hours tonight. Tommy was filling in, but surely he’d welcome the help.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  As jobs went, this one was a breeze. She’d completed assignments with more targets, tighter security, a higher profile. This was as routine as an oil change. The whole job was kind of a joke. A hit in Jersey. What a cliché.

  However, like a desperate actor, she learned long ago to never turn down work. If you got out of practice, or your name stopped being current, assignments soon passed you by, picked up by younger, cheaper talent. So, Varushka Zenig took every job offered.

  She did have an edge over some of the other hitters. She was knockout gorgeous, even by American standards. She had shoulder-length black hair; high, haughty Eastern European cheekbones; and the perfect figure for a woman five-foot-seven. She could she pass unobserved into venues most hitters couldn’t, often with an invitation. There were times when that kind of access sealed the deal.

  This time, appearance didn’t matter. The current criteria seemed to be availability and an out of town address. No matter. The pay was half again the rate for a no-name hit. It wouldn’t polish her reputation, but a fat wad of cash for an evening’s work was reason enough.

  From the front seat of a worn out Ford, she watched the rear of the restaurant at the alley’s far end. Her target had been in and out the back door a few times, hauling trash to the dumpster, big white apron glowing in the shadows.

  He made another trip with an armload of cardboard boxes. She unfolded the paper with the target’s picture on it, St. Croix’s drawing of Peter Holm. She watched the busboy’s face as he passed under the restaurant’s rear light. That was her man.

  The busboy made a run about every hour to the dumpster. The last two trips had been at forty-minute intervals as business picked up. In the hours Varushka had observed the alley, only a stray dog passed behind the restaurant. A nice isolated location. She could be back in her car with a quick sprint, then over the causeway and Baltimore-bound by the time someone realized the kid was missing.

  She pinned her hair up on the back of her head and put on a black knit cap, topping off a non-descript ensemble of jeans and a, black wool seaman’s coat. Any unlikely witness would assume she was male.

  With a gloved hand, she took a black .45 automatic from her right pocket. This was the kind of big showy weapon that street losers liked to flash as a substitute for courage. She wouldn’t be caught dead on a job with something so clumsy. But assassinating a busboy with a high-powered rifle from a rooftop would raise some suspicions. The bulky .45 would be a natural in this neighborhood, another clue she’d planted to point to locals.

  From her left pocket, she pulled a silencer and spun it into the barrel with a sharp twist. No knives this time. Too much gurgling. Too much screaming. Too messy. She had no intention of stopping at the Maryland Welcome Center to rinse her bloodstained clothes. A buried muzzle in the dishwasher’s body would leave all exit wound.

  She slid a clip from her left pocket and double-checked the full clip. It clicked into place in the handgrip. She chambered a round and checked her watch. The busboy had been gone thirty minutes.

  Showtime.

  She folded up the target’s picture and put it in her left pocket. She checked her right pocket and felt the two small baggies inside. Ready to go. She put the .45 back in her coat, took a deep breath, and left the car.

  With each step she watched and listened for the slightest movement. Her footsteps echoed in the empty alley.

  She stopped in the darkness behind the dumpster and leaned her back against the cold metal. She smelled rotting food and cat piss.

  No more hits in Jersey, she thought.

  This was the tough part of the job. Not the planning, not the killing, but the waiting. The last few moments before the target slipped into your sights or the seconds he dallied before entering the booby-trapped car, they all passed like hours. Her breathing seemed as loud as a surfacing
whale and her pulse beat like jungle drums.

  She slid the .45 from her pocket and silently flipped off the safety. She took deep, slow, measured breaths to slow her heart rate. She wondered if the next job would be in Europe. She liked being closer to home.

  The kitchen door creaked open and bounced off the back wall with a bang. The sound of clinking glasses and plates on metal cascaded into the alley. The door swung shut with a thump. Plastic scraped concrete as a garbage can dragged across concrete. She raised the .45 so the silencer pointed skyward. Her thumb confirmed the safety was off. The sound of the scraping trash barrel drew closer and stopped. With a soft groan and a thump, the barrel upended into the dumpster.

  Varushka struck.

  With feline stealth, she rounded the corner in a crouch and moved unnoticed behind the busboy. She wrapped her left hand over his mouth. She buried the silencer under his left shoulder blade. The .45 recoiled twice.

  The twin bullets tore through the dishwasher’s chest and made two light pings as they hit the dumpster’s heavy metal sides. The dishwasher slumped, limp.

  She dropped the body to the ground. He landed on his side. A rich red stain spread on the shredded front of his white apron.

  She pulled the two baggies from her pocket. The rocks of meth sparkled in the light from the restaurant. She dropped them next to the body. An assassination was now a back alley drug deal gone bad. Any investigation would go nowhere.

  Varushka saw the dishwasher’s face. Something did not click. She slid the .45 back into her pocket and pulled out the ID drawing. She unfolded it and compared it to the body.

  It didn’t match.

  The hair was right. So was the height and weight. But the nose was wrong. The target had a prominent Roman special, unlike the guy in the sketch. She was told that her target was under twenty. The target was at least five years past that.

  She’d screwed up.

  “Goddamn it,” she seethed. “How many black-haired dishwashers does this place have?”

  Her safety clock ticked. Every extra second she spent standing here was a second closer to being caught. She balled up the drawing and shoved it in her pocket. She started for the car at a brisk walk.