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

by S. M. Blooding

  She jerked, but kept gawking at the suns. “Where’d they all come from?”

  I scratched my head, my fingers getting tangled in a massive knot. I needed to either cut it or comb it. “We’re a fold in the universe.”

  “A fold—oh. Well, I think you surpassed my knowledge on astrophysics. Excellent.”

  “Back to what’s happening. Bess, please. If there’s something wrong, I need to know.”

  She turned toward me with a sigh. “Yesterday, there was a report of unicorns running around the streets of Denver.”

  “That’s where you live.”

  She nodded, then squinted at the sky, slapping her hands against her thighs soundlessly. “Wow. You really have three suns.”

  “Today we do. Tomorrow will be different. Bess.”

  “Ser—real—wow. Okay. Well, uh. Huh. Wow.”

  “Unicorns in Denver,” I said firmly.

  “Right. Right. Well, I went out to see if there was anything where we were. I doubted it. Nothing happens where I work, but—” She shook her head and finally met my gaze. “River. A unicorn stood by my car. By my car.”

  My mind scrambled, searching the memories of the dreams I’d perused. “And it was real?”

  “Yeah. He let me get close enough to touch. He got startled by something—I don’t know what—and kicked a dent in my car. I know it happened.”

  “A unicorn.”

  “Yes, but, now, my mind is trying to tell me I just missed the dent. I swear, I remember seeing it when I bought the car, but I still remember the unicorn. It’s very confusing.”

  Olivia blinked, a frown furrowing between her brows. “The mind’s tryin’ to make sense of wha’ she saw, tryin’ to make it real.”

  “I touched it. He was so soft, softer than anything I’ve touched, and trust me when I say know soft stuff. I crochet like nobody’s business.” She raised her hand. “He was amazing.”

  “Wha’ happened aftah?”

  “They all just disappeared. My Facebook post was erased as were all the pictures I uploaded.”

  “Wha’ abou’ the pictures on your camera?”

  “Brace yourselves!” Bo shouted.

  I glared at the oh-shit pole sticking out of the deck, but motioned for Olivia to join me.

  Bess bit her bottom lip as we grabbed hold. “Still on my camera. The unicorns are gone, though. They’re just pictures of parked cars.”

  I bent my knees, bracing for impact. “But someone’s trying to cover it up.”

  Night’s Cruelty rocked as her hull met the water, though it was nothing as brutal as I’d experienced before.

  The ship settled, rocking from side to side. Stern to . . . did he ever tell me what the other side was? No, wait. Stern was the back. What was side to side?

  “Probably the government.” Bess shrugged. “We always blame them for major cover ups, anyway, and it would make sense. They’re the only ones with the resources.”

  “You Americans.” Olivia shook her head and released the pole. “How could they have erased the unicorn from your camera, though?”

  Bess waved her off. “Our own minds are working the same way as the camera. I saw Dave delete his images, and then completely forget he’d done it. He thought one of us had, and then a couple hours later? He didn’t remember the unicorn incident at all.”

  “I’m sure all that should mean something to me,” I said, “but it doesn’t.”

  “It would if you watched Fringe, or read a book on theoretical physics.”

  “Yes, because everyone does that.”

  Bo strode toward us, Zoe fluttering near his shoulder.

  Bess regarded the captain as he approach, one eyebrow raised with a slight smile, her voice even. “The two worlds are colliding.”

  “Harley did that on purpose.” My heart rate sped up as I recalled my part in her actions. “She did it to find new locations to trap Dreamland.”

  “Yeah, well, it could get bad.”

  “How? It was bad before. Look around you, Bess. Everything’s better. The dreamers are doing better. The dreamplanes aren’t trying to kill anyone. The seas are calm.”

  “Two objects cannot occupy the same space.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s a matter of physics.”

  “I didn’t realize being an executive assistant meant you understood physics.”

  “A simpleton can understand the basics, asshole. Two worlds, maybe more if what I see is true—” She gestured to the suns ruling the sky. “—are trying to occupy the same space. People from two different dimensions will have to find a way to live in the same time. Buildings in the same space on two different dimensions will have to find a way to morph together. The sting rays? The unicorns?”

  I glanced at Olivia. “The dreamers?”

  Bess shrugged. “More and more people are asking for prayers for their children who are falling into comas.”

  Bo scratched his stubbled chin. “I don’t understand.”

  “Facebook.” Bess hooked her thumbs together and gestured with her hands. “It’s a place where people are the news stations. Sometimes, you get stupid stuff, like what people ate for dinner or that someone went poop.”

  Bo jerked his head, the corners of his lips turned down in disgust.

  Bess waved his reaction away. “But sometimes you get the kind of news the papers and stations don’t pick up.”

  I took in a deep breath. “How many kids in comas are we talking about?”

  She raised her hands, palms up. “Just in my feed? About a dozen, but I don’t have many friends. That’s a dozen in a hundred and sixteen friends.”

  Bo snorted. “And that’s not a lot, she says.”

  “Is anyone doing anything about it?” I asked.

  “Oh, you can bet someone’s watchin’. Yeah.” Olivia tipped her head to the side. “Bu’ who and what’s in it for them?”

  Bess nodded in agreement. “Are you sure there aren’t more dreamers being trapped in the graveyard?”

  I shrugged. “Olivia?”

  “I dunno. It’s hard to keep a coun’ on ‘em. ‘Specially now tha’ they’re all different. They’re healin’, Rivah. How can tha’ be if thin’s are gettin’ worse?”

  Bess looked up at the sky. “If things are getting better here and worse on Earth…” She let that thought drop.

  But it lingered in my mind.

  BO TALKED TO Kelsi about trying to find a dustman, and she seemed agreeable. We traveled by a strong wind all day. I asked why we couldn’t travel by Place. She simply looked at me.

  First, the small sun sank in the sky. The large, hot one followed. Finally, the last sun, the white one, fell below the horizon. Stars shone through a sea of darkness. A dim moon sat high in the sky already, though I hadn’t seen it rise.

  Like the first night I’d found them, Bo and Zoe lay on the quarter deck. They looked so perfect cuddled together. My heart warmed watching them, knowing I belonged. Asher sat curled up against the railing not far away.

  Olivia stepped through the door from below decks. Her teeth flashed in the near darkness. “Have ya learned lots?”

  A frown flickered over my smile.

  She gestured with a lithe, dark arm. “Abou’ the ship. Bo’s been so excited abou’ showin’ you abou’.”

  I snorted, raising my gaze to the sails. They fluttered a little as the wind shifted. “Yeah. He told me, I swear, everything.”

  “Bu’ how much o’ tha’ do ya remembah?”

  I ducked my head and chuckled. “None.”

  “Yeah,” she said, drawing the word out as she stepped next to me. “Wha’s that sail there?”

  I tried to figure out which one she pointed to. “That depends. Are you pointing at the top sail or the gallant?”

  She grinned. “See. You were followin’ along just fine.” She hooked her thumbs in her belt and mozied to the quarterdeck. “Is tha’ where ya sleep?”

  “Now that we have a night sky?” I followed, my pace sl
ow as we ambled, walking around the crew members who had decided to sleep on deck as well. I slid Margo a smile as I stepped over her crossed feet.

  She saluted me with two fingers.

  “We ‘ave diff’ent stars in the graveyard.” Olivia narrowed her gaze up at them, maneuvering around the crew with care.

  “I haven’t quite figured out the sky. I barely paid attention to the dreamers who were interested in this stuff. I was more interested in other things, I guess.”

  “Dreamahs?” She shook her head.

  “I, uh, thought I told you.”

  “No. I don’ know abou’ you. No’ really.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Well, I was born of the Sea of Dreams and I watch the dreams, experience them, like they’re my own. Their memories, their playbacks as they rewrite what was said and done.”

  “People do tha’?”

  I grabbed the handrail to the stairs, and propped one foot on the first step. “All the time. There are lots of moments, usually little ones, that people wish they’d done different.”

  “Isn’ tha’ a bi’ like lying?”

  “Yeah, I guess, but it doesn’t feel like it is. It’s more like they’re just correcting what they did wrong.”

  She leaned against the wall, crossing her arms over her slim chest. “Why don’ they jus’ redo thin’s?”

  “You don’t get redo’s. Not in real life.”

  “No. I mean, go back to tha’ person and jus’ say they messed up and wan’ a chance to do i’ righ’.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Hey,” Bo asked, his voice barely carrying over the quiet. “Are you two love birds done whispering at each other? Because some of us are trying to sleep, you know.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  She proceeded me up the stairs. “Rivah.” She halted.

  “Yeah.” I paused on the step below her.

  She opened her mouth, her lips forming the beginning of something. Then, she continued up the steps. “Nevah min’.”

  I frowned at her as she took a spot of the deck close to Asher. I laid down next to Bo, Zoe sprawled over the top of him. “Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

  “To my old back? Yeah. I’ll throw her off in a second.”

  I scrubbed my face with my hands before placing one arm behind my head and closing my eyes.

  “So. Olivia.”

  “So,” I muttered. “Mind your own business.”

  “As if.”

  I ignored him.

  “You’re going to have questions.”

  I pressed my head into the palm of my hand until it hurt, then let up. “Like what?”

  “Oh, just things. Women are weird, and sometimes explode at the strangest things.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I scratched the back of my ear. “I’m not interested in her that way.”

  “Well, she is, and trust me, you are t—”

  I don’t know what else he said because the wonderful bliss that is sleep took over. Dreamless sleep is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced. It’s something I enjoy with every fiber in my being.

  “River.”

  I ignored Bess. She’d had me take her net out of my pouch earlier so she could have free reign of the ship. Something about the bag kept her on a tighter leash. I wanted to remain in that fabulous place of sleep for a bit longer.

  “River.”

  The urgency in her tone pulled me like a fish on a hook. I dragged my eyelids open. “This had better be important.”

  “It is.” In the still of night, her ethereal form glowed softly as she knelt beside me. “There’s a new development. I don’t know what’s going on or how to explain it.”

  I closed my eyes. “More unicorns? I think they’ll figure it out. They’re not that difficult.”

  “No, River. Worse. People are dying, but they remain alive.”

  “What?”

  “Someone posted a video of it. I thought it was a hoax, but then I decided it might not be because of the unicorn thing.”

  Living dead people. Wait a minute. “Zombies?”

  “Kind of, but not really.”

  I sat up, my legs sprawled in front of me, and rubbed my head. “Start from the beginning.”

  She sat back on her heels, and hugged her knees with one arm. “I don’t know. The clip was pretty short. This man had been in a car accident. The other person there declared him dead, couldn’t find a pulse. Then as he was getting ready to leave, the dead man rose.”

  The downside of sleep, apparently, is that when you wake up, you’re not a hundred percent and the mind is pretty slow. “Did he try to eat anyone?”

  She shook her head. “Dead people aren’t dying, River.”

  “I’m trying to see how this is bad.”

  “We’re already overpopulating the earth. What happens if we don’t die? Where are we going to live then, especially if we still produce more young?”

  “I think you’re watching too much Sci-Fi. No, wait. It’s that zombie show everyone’s talking about, isn’t it?”

  She shook her head again, her expression firm. “River. You need to talk to whoever—” She jerked backward, her eyes wide.

  I straightened as much as I could in my position. “Is everything all right?”

  “I don’t—” Her arms shot out as something dragged her backward. Her lips moved. No sound came out.

  I leapt to my feet, and ran after her. “Bess!”

  Her wispy hands went through the railing as she fought to grab hold on her way over the side of the ship.

  I ran to the rail.

  On the waves below sat a boat, much smaller than Night’s Cruelty, the large wheel in the rear working to push the rolling waves. Cable.

  “Bo!” I ran to his cabin where both nets had been stored.

  His booted feet lit lightly on the stairs through the wall to my right. He burst through the door. “What is it?”

  I unlatched the lid of the trunk and flung it open. “Cable has the nets.”

  He stopped next to me, staring blankly into the chest.

  “Bo. He has Bess.”

  BO STORMED OUT of the cabin, shouting orders, pointing to the rigging, as he went to the helm. The helmsman, Hare was his name, scrambled into place, both hands on the wheel. The wind kicked up pushing his curly brown hair around. “Heading, sir!”

  Bo leaned over the rail. “Follow that ship!”

  Hare glanced at me. “I can’t see no ship, sir.”

  “Rivah.” Olivia stopped next to me, tugging on my arm as she leaned in. “Wha’ happened?”

  “Cable snuck on board and stole the dream nets.” I fisted my hands, my shoulders tightening. How could we have been so stupid?

  “You weren’.” She thumped her knuckles against my forehead. “You were ou’ at sea. How were you ta know he’d take his boa’—a rivah boa’, by the way—out to sea? And jus’ so you’re aware, tha’s a rivah boat, not a sea vessel. It shouldn’ survive ou’ here.”

  I knew what Cable would do with Bess. He’d destroy her. “I should have known better. That’s a magickal boat.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Wha’s the deal with the net, anyway? Wha’s so bad abou’ ‘em?”

  “Olivia.” I looked at her squarely, my jaw clenched. “That’s a dream net. Cable’s a dream killer. Once he uses Bess’ dreams, or the dreams of any other dreamer he catches in that net, their hopes, their dreams are gone. Just gone.”

  “You can still live withou’ hope, Rivah. It’s not like breathin’. You need oxygen. You don’ need hope.”

  “Some people do.”

  “Think bettah of your dreamah. She’s a strong woman. She’ll figh’ this. She’s fough’ hardah thin’s.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Some of us wha’ faced our demons and lost can see it in othahs. We can tell those tha’ have just had a run o’ bad luck, or broke their poor little hearts over a stupid little boy, versus those of us tha’ had our souls
ripped from our bodies.”

  I couldn’t relate to any of that. However, she was my dreamer. It was my task to protect her.

  “She’ll be fine, Rivah. Believe in her. Seriously, tha’s wha’ she’ll be needin’.”

  I stepped up to Bo. “What can I do?”

  “Nothing.” He turned the wheel and shouted something about sails that I didn’t quite catch.

  Energy surged through my arms and hands. I couldn’t just stand there. I ran to the bow of the ship to get a better view of Cable’s vessel, climbing onto the head rails.

  Fandora chugged in front of us.

  The wind picked up as a storm surged around us, the clouds growing darker and heavier. The waves picked up.

  There was no way a riverboat could survive this.

  Yet she was. The waves parted before her. Magick. Dang it all. We needed Kelsi.

  I moved to mid decks.

  Kelsi stood, her torso partially submerged in the main mast. She focused her black eyes on me, her expression blank like a plank of wood.

  “Is there any way you can catch up to her?”

  Her gaze didn’t flicker. Why would I?

  “Why would you?” I jerked my head. “Cable stole the nets, Kelsi.”

  I don’t care, River.

  “Fine. Don’t care, but at least help out your captain so he can do something about this. He cares.”

  She answered me with silence.

  “He’s trying to protect his crew, the crews of all the dream killers.”

  She remained still.

  “Dang it, Kelsi! We need to retrieve those nets.”

  You are asking me to go against the wishes of my sister.

  “Oh, holy balls of glitter, Kels. Seriously?” I raked my fingers through my hair, then held them out, clawed in burning frustration. “I’m trying to keep them safe. Those dream nets are the reason your other sister was destroyed.”

  We will be more prepared in the future.

  “Against the creatures of the sea? What are you thinking? I thought your entire purpose, your whole everything was to keep your captains and their crew safe.”

  She blinked.

  Finally, I was getting somewhere.

  “Why aren’t the sails full?” Bo shouted.

  I looked up.

  The clouds opened. Rain fell from the sky in sheets, the wind shifting around us. The sails hung limp.