Dream Killers - Complete Season 1 (The Dream Killers Book 3)

by S. M. Blooding

  The tops of my hands tingled while my palms went clammy. Sweat pricked between my shoulder blades.

  “An apprenticeship cannot be extended. They are either tested at the end of their indentured term, or they are taken to the Clink. The only way to remain out of the Clink is if you retire your gifts and marry.”

  I jerked back. That was barbaric.

  “You will not hide from us. We see all.” Her embroidered diamond eyes pointed in my direction. “We see you all.”

  THE LEAD RUNNER walked toward us. She flicked her black-gloved hand to her men. “You know where to take the boy.”

  Two of the runners dissipated, taking the glowing-eyed basher with them.

  That left two others. The one on the right stepped forward. “What do you see, Fartlek Shakarr?”

  Shakarr tipped her head to the side, her cotton-candy hair flopping, a few free strands billowing on a breeze. She took another step in our direction. “I see you, strange man with a strange Who, and the odd one beside you with no Who. Why don’t you come out so we can all see you?”

  Not likely.

  I grabbed Bo and reached for the first Place that came to mind.

  My feet sank in sand. A glistening white beach curved around us. Tall, black granite cliffs towered behind us. Wind kicked spray into my face. I had no idea how we would get to Night’s Cruelty, but at least we were safe. For now.

  Bo stumbled a few steps toward the sea, moving away from me. “Where are we?”

  I listened. Somewhere in those cliffs was an entrance to Grandmother Willow’s roots. The landscape had shifted a little. The beach was narrower. The last time I’d been there, the entire caravan had been able to fit at the base of the cliffs without having to worry about being touched by the water. Now, though, I could barely lay longwise—

  A ripping sound permeated the air.

  I spun, my eyes searching, my hand going to my blade.

  “What is—” Bo crouched. He drew his sword.

  Shakarr stood between us. She templed her fingers in front of her slight chest and surveyed the area. “I must admit. I’ve never been here before.”

  I glanced at Bo. I needed to get to him, grab him and go to the next Place.

  Before that thought even fully flushed in my brain, Shakarr evaporated in a cloud of black and white, and rematerialized between me and Bo.

  I fell back a step.

  Shakarr tipped her head in my direction. “What do we have a here? An imposter. Yes. But what do you hide?”

  I took another step back.

  She advanced, reaching out with her white-gloved hand. “What lies beneath your lying Who?”

  I wasn’t about to let her find out. I reached for the Place in front of Bo. If she could do it, certainly I could as well. The sand disappeared from beneath my feet. My feet sank again. I grabbed him and reached.

  Something else latched onto me as well.

  I twisted around. Shakarr held my arm.

  But we were already on our way to the next Place.

  I reached harder, focused with more effort. I couldn’t allow her to catch us. I had to ditch her somehow.

  Where could I lose her? What Place did I have she couldn’t follow?

  The Center opened before me.

  Mechanics in their brown coveralls walked with a purpose. Stout brick buildings were lit with large, brass light fixtures. The cobblestone street veered off in two directions. Bicycles rode the air over us. Someone blew a steam-powered horn.

  I punched at Shakarr, breaking her hold.

  Bo sliced the air next to the runner’s arm with his sword.

  The commotion of the Center faded into black.

  I searched our tele-trailing cloud of blue and black.

  No sign of Shakarr.

  I focused on the next Place.

  White trees covered in colorful fuzz twisted toward us. They let out a cry of surprise, their voices vibrating the air in my chest. I winced and dragged Bo off Dreamer’s Hill. If Shakarr followed us, I could ditch her here. On a dreamplane, there was only one way on and off, Dreamer’s Hill.

  Not for me. I hoped.

  The shorelines of the Dreamlander Places were still too low. All I needed was to see the graveyard. If I could just get to the shore of a dreamplane, I could bring the night and see the graveyard. Then maybe I could teleport to one of the drifting planes. Just because I hadn’t succeeded in doing so before didn’t mean I couldn’t now. I needed to get away from Shakarr before she took me away to the Clink.

  A tearing sound ripped through the air.

  Bo and I were already on our way through the trees. I called on the sea, bringing her to me.

  A thwipping sound, like a zipper, reached my ears, followed by another and another.

  I didn’t dare turn around. I knew. Shakarr was getting closer.

  The trees reached for us, calling our names.

  To help? To hinder? I didn’t have time to question them.

  Finally, I could feel her, the Sea of Dreams and just beyond her, the graveyard with its strange, twisted pull of broken Space. I reached with my free arm. Both feet found freedom. Freezing cold replaced the warm air of Dustman Eshe’s dreamplane. Space shifted, softened and solidified. Place settled like a root inside my gut.

  I jerked, my arms flying out with the force of whatever pulled me back. The cold fled. Warmth cocooned around me. My legs flew in front of me as I was dragged backward, Bo slipping from my grasp.

  Hard dirt dug into my tailbone as I was pulled across the land. A tree who couldn’t get her root out of the way fast enough was trampled by my flailing body. A tree limb crashed into my skull. Red bits of fuzz cascaded around me as the tree cried in pain, her voice deep and guttural.

  I stopped. My arms fell to the ground, my legs sprawled. My head fell onto a root. The tree crooned, her root softening. She lowered a purple-fuzzed limb.

  Shakarr appeared out of thin air. She pushed the tree out of the way, kicking at her root.

  The tree fell back, her dark voice rising in fury and rage. The trees around us shifted toward her, clouds of fuzz filtering down around me.

  The runner ignored them all. She put her foot on my chest.

  It felt as though her foot was in my chest. I gasped for breath.

  Bo murmured not far from me.

  Shakarr yanked on a silver rope. “Enough, you.”

  Bo grunted and fell quiet.

  “Where did you hope to go that I could not follow? Did you seriously think you could escape me? That there was any Place in this universe I could not follow?”

  I had hoped. I just hadn’t been fast enough.

  “Let’s see if you can do what I do, little Dreamlander. Then we’ll see who and what you are.”

  The air completely escaped my lungs. The comforting blanket of Dustman Eshe’s dreamplane was ripped away. Cold, dark emptiness took its place.

  But with it came other things.

  Like a better understanding of how Place worked. How it tore through the fabric of space-time. How it spliced two points together. How it left a door, a window, a rip that could be walked through in that small amount of time it remained ajar.

  How it could be made to remain open permanently.

  How to seal a Place scar in a singular moment in time. How it could remain, unchanging. How it could become fixed.

  And how to move through Space faster, quicker, more efficiently.

  I learned how to escape Shakarr.

  But not while she held me with her iron grip.

  And not while she had a lasso around Bo. His arms were folded to his body as he struggled.

  Fartlek Shakarr was a much bigger fish than I’d ever encountered.

  I couldn’t allow that to intimidate me, though. What would the elders do with someone like me? Born of the Sea of Dreams? No gifts. Just a bigger understanding of how Dreamland worked.

  Dreamland.

  What if I could somehow use her to orchestrate our escape?

  The
cold shattered outward.

  A large, silver room materialized. The walls were covered in black-outlined hexagons. A metal table morphed from the floor. Three metal and leather chairs followed.

  Shakarr gestured for us to sit.

  Bo scrambled to the far end of the room, unraveling himself from the silver rope. He rose to his feet, leaning against the wall, and brushed himself off, dancing in place.

  I pulled myself to a sitting position, sucking in deep lung-fulls of air, and propped an elbow on the seat of a chair.

  Shakarr placed her spread fingertips on the table, her masked faced turned toward Bo. “What are you?”

  Bo grimaced, swiping at his arms as if trying to remove a sticky spider’s web. “What the hell are you?”

  Shakarr swiveled her attention to me. “A dreamer? How is this possible?”

  I wasn’t telling her anything.

  She pushed off the table and sauntered toward Bo. Her white hand wrapped around the pirate’s throat, lifting him off the floor against the wall.

  Bo stood on tip toes, flailing at Shakarr’s arm.

  The runner released her fingers, her body completely still.

  Bo side stepped away. Once out of the runner’s range, he hurried to my chair and knelt. “What’s the plan?” he whispered.

  Like Shakarr couldn’t hear us, being in the same room.

  Shakarr spun, folding her hands over her chest, her feet tight together. “You, sir, are an anomaly.” She pointed to Bo. “I demand you provide me with your Who.”

  I grabbed Bo’s gaze, and shook my head.

  He flattened his lips, his nostrils flaring.

  The runner pointed her masked face at me. “Are you the leader, then? I had thought it was him since he seems older, but appearances can be deceiving. Are you a traveler?”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  She took two steps forward and clicked her heels together, her fingers still intertwined. “We have an agreement with the travelers. They’re allowed free reign—within reason, of course—of all Dreamlander Places.”

  Oh, if only I could pull off the travelers’ dialect.

  “But then again, they do not have leave to visit dreamplanes. Do you know Dustman Eshe? Has she allowed you free passage on her plane before? I will speak to her if she has. Dustmen are not untouchable.”

  I cleared my throat. “No. She has never welcomed us onto her plane.”

  “And yet you’d collected her Place.”

  I raised my chin.

  She tapped her forefinger against her opposite hand.

  How would we get out of there? I could grab Bo. We could leave—

  “Yes,” Shakarr agreed. “You could, if this were any other containment room. This is where we keep our brightest mechanics. Did you know a mechanic has a gift of Place that can at times rival our own? Or that of the most gifted hunter? They are the only people who can truly travel anywhere at any time in any of the known universes.”

  I didn’t miss the fact she hadn’t limited that to Dreamland. Mechanics could leave?

  She nodded once. “So you see, if they cannot figure out how to leave this room when they can escape this universe, then there is no hope for you. You will stay here until I decide you need to leave.”

  I swallowed.

  “Now, who and what are you?”

  A BELL TINKED near my ear.

  I turned to Bo, an unspoken question on my face.

  His eyes widened and his face lost color.

  Shakarr tipped her ear to her shoulder. “What was that?”

  “I have go,” Bo said quietly.

  “Of course you do. But before you can, you will give me your Who, or you’re not leaving.”

  Bo opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

  I pulled myself into the chair, then twisted around to look at Shakarr.

  She straightened, her hands falling to her sides, and walked around the table to take the other chair. “It appears we’re at a bit of an impasse.”

  I ran my finger in a circle along the table’s surface. “We need to leave.”

  “And I need your Who.”

  I quirked my lips and hooked my thumb at Bo. “He doesn’t know how to give it.”

  “What Dreamlander doesn’t know how to do that?”

  “You’ve already determined he’s not a Dreamlander.”

  “Indeed. Then what are you?”

  If only I could read her face.

  “Ah, I see.”

  Bo sat in the third chair, and leaned his elbows on the table, his fingertips turning white against the metal surface. “I’m certainly glad someone does.”

  Shakarr raised her head. “You both speak like dreamers.”

  I leaned back. “We do.”

  “And you said he doesn’t know how to provide his Who. You didn’t say anything about you.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “What do the elders want? What’s their play?”

  “What would you care, and what would you know? This universe is far more than you could imagine.”

  “Dreamlanders don’t imagine.”

  “Ah, so, you’re not a Dreamlander. Are you telling me you could fathom?”

  I didn’t know how to play her, how to twist her to give me the information I needed. She reminded me a bit of the Mad Hatter, the Johnny Depp version. He’d been insane, but loyal. Loyal to who? To what?

  There was nothing for it. “If Dreamland slips her containment, where do the elders fear she’ll go?”

  Shakarr rested her elbows on the table. “What did you say you were?”

  I uncrossed my arms and braced my forearms on the edge. “I didn’t.”

  She snatched a quick hold of my wrist. “You will.”

  I smiled. She was a runner, not a hunter. She might collect Who’s, but she couldn’t track them. She had to give them to someone else. That also meant she couldn’t take it by force. “No.”

  She brought her white gloved hand to her sewn lips. They parted, just barely, tugging at the constraints of the stitches. She bit down on one fingertip. With a single tug, her hand came free.

  I could see every muscle, every tendon. Did it hurt? Shouldn’t I smell her . . . skinlessness?

  Bo made a mewling sound of exclamation as his chair screeched across the floor.

  Shakarr clamped her bared hand to my raw wrist.

  My Who pulled away from me. I clenched my teeth and reached for the other Who’s I’d inadvertently collected. I concentrated on their strings still embedded in my flesh, fighting to keep them.

  Something inside me lashed out, gripped Shakarr with a will of its own, and yanked.

  Shakarr as a small girl, playing ball with a bunch of other runner kids. Zipping between one reality to the next, all the while chasing the ball. Dreamplane, Creator’s Cove, a meadow of singing trees, Basher’s Park. Place wasn’t about merely a location. It required a tie to a person, a location and a time. Each of those elements flowed like water around her as the dimensions parted, time was sliced so she and her friends could walk through.

  A Who slammed into her. Her head jerked up, startled. The realities slid into one as she tracked it, traced it to its source.

  A cold cell. Afraid. Alone. An elder’s form, extending a hand, kindness on her wrinkled face as she offered to help, a chance to fight, to assist all of Dreamland.

  She pulled away, her naked hand raised.

  My breathing quickened as I attempted to figure out what she was about.

  She grasped her jaw, and pulled her mask off, her billowing hair going with it.

  Bo jerked and hissed.

  She had blue eyes. No nose. Just muscle and tendons and blue eyes.

  I took in a deep breath. “Hello, Shakarr.”

  She blinked.

  “My name’s River.”

  She licked her skinless lips. “Where do you come from, River?”

  “The Sea of Dreams.”

  Her gaze roamed my face, then drifted to Bo. “Him as well?”
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  I kept my breathing normal as my heart raced.

  She raised her chin. “Do you know the dragon?”

  “I know several dragons.”

  “Do you know the dragon?”

  I ran the tip of my tongue along my bottom lip.

  The dominate muscle over her eye rose. She grabbed her mask with the cotton-candy hair, and walked toward the wall on the right. A door slid out of the wall similar to how the furniture had appeared.

  I scooted my chair back. “You’re a hunter born in a runner’s body, Shakarr.”

  “Not all of us are collected for the Clink, River.” She stopped. “Some of us serve a higher purpose.”

  “To keep her contained?”

  She closed her eyes and nodded. “Precisely.” She ducked out of the room, the door whuffing softly. It didn’t click shut.

  I frowned. Had she left it ajar for a reason?

  Bo got up. “Trap?”

  “Probably. Do we tempt it?” I stood beside the sliver in the wall, stuck a single finger in the slot, and pulled.

  It moved a centimeter, if that.

  “Only if we can get out,” Bo said. “Like, by actually opening it.”

  “You could give it a try.” I tapped the black, hexagon-covered surface thoughtfully. If this location worked for the runners, then it had to use the one thing they excelled at.

  Place.

  I’d never used it to do anything more than teleport. However, I knew a lot more about it now than I’d ever thought possible thanks to Shakarr’s Who. I called up the feel of the spot just behind the door and pushed.

  It glided open.

  Bo scratched his jaw. “I’m not even going to ask.”

  “Good.” I peered through the breach.

  Hundreds of decrepit, old people shuffled down a series of catwalks. So the elders were hiding here. I couldn’t see anyone other than elders. I scratched the side of my nose, trying to see if there was anything I’d missed.

  There.

  Shakarr walked beside an elder two catwalks down, her mask still in hand.

  She glanced up.

  I ducked back into the room and flattened myself against the wall.

  “Is she coming?” Bo asked.

  The woman could teleport faster than anyone I’d ever seen. How was I supposed to know?