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

by S. M. Blooding

  “Kelsi,” I demanded, “what are you doing?”

  My sister requested safe passage. I provided it.

  I shoved my wet hair off my face. The rain sliced through the darkening air in shifting angles. “The guardians are after those nets.”

  My sister asked for my help. I gave it.

  “Your sister doesn’t understand what’s she’s asking for. She’s going to be killed. Do you remember the other sister that died because the guardians found her? We don’t even know if they had a dream net on board.”

  Then you cannot say the net is what will bring the guardians to us.

  Bo stopped beside me. The rain fell off him as if he were a duck. “Why aren’t the sails full, Kelsi?”

  I wiped the water out of my face. “She’s protecting her sister.”

  Bo narrowed his eyes under the force of the storm.

  Lightning flashed not far away.

  My eyes widened in surprise. Dreamland didn’t have lightning. I jerked as the rolling rumble of thunder rattled my chest.

  “River,” Bo called.

  I shook myself. The lightning wasn’t important. “He has Bess.”

  “You’re the only one who really knew her, and I don’t think even you did. She’s just someone who had a run of bad luck, Riv.”

  “And we’re okay with allowing Cable to murder her?”

  “He won’t.”

  I let out a startled breath. “What? Are you as insane as Kelsi?”

  “He’ll kill her dreams.” His gaze was steady on me as he raised his chin, then lowered it. “It’ll be up to her to end her own life.”

  They end their lives?

  “You haven’t seen what else she’s faced, Bo. She can’t lose her dreams, too. Not on top of everything else. She won’t make it.”

  “I doubt you’ve seen much either, or even if you have relived a few of her memories, you probably have no idea what it really means to live through them. She’s either strong or she’s not.”

  “That’s cold.”

  “That’s life. River.”

  Have they started killing each other?

  Bo flicked a frown at his ship. “Humans did that long before Dreamland. River?”

  I took in a deep breath. I had to find a way to get those nets back—

  Place.

  Bo clamped his hand on my arm and shook his head once.

  I opened my mouth to tell him he couldn’t stop me.

  Have the dead begun to rise as living?

  I closed my mouth, blinking the buckets of water out of my eyes.

  Olivia reached out to touch Kelsi. “Is tha’ your ship?”

  “Yes,” I said, meeting Kelsi’s gaze. It felt heavy.

  The outer corners of her eyes drooped. She stepped out of the mast. We must hurry. I need to find the elders. They have to know.

  “I don’t know how that’s going to help.”

  She swirled, water shooting off her silver hair.

  Olivia stumbled back. “Whoa.”

  They are the ones who have protected the humans and all those before you. They protect the Dreamlanders who reside within the confines—

  “Of this prison?” I finished for her. “You’re forgetting one thing, Kels. You didn’t have crews before this. This is the only version of Dreamland where you brought on people.”

  She flinched.

  It had only been a guess, but that confirmed it for me. “And the dream nets? How did you discover them?”

  Her chest rose and fell as she maintained her silence.

  “Let me guess. They just appeared, either in the sea or onboard?”

  Her gaze lit with a dark light at the word “onboard.”

  “And it was sometime after that you decided to take on a crew. How did you choose them?”

  They came from the water and I was drawn to them.

  “Don’t you see, Kelsi? Dreamland played you. You helped the virus. You’re allowing dreamers to have their hope stripped from them. You built an entire army of dream killers who were born to feed this virus. And now, you’re willing to feed a dreamer who I know to the virus.”

  She will be helping one of my sisters.

  “How did your sisters survive before the dream nets? I doubt you had to eat a dream in order to live. Why and when did that change?”

  She stared at the floor.

  “That’s what I thought. Dreamland, the virus, knew exactly how to play you. She knew all the right strings to pull. I bet she’s feeding off you as well.”

  Fandora is my sister.

  “And she knows how to survive without the dream net.”

  She’s changed now, with her captain. Her motor needs recharged.

  “Why don’t you need to recharge?”

  Bo raised an eyebrow. “Look around you, Riv,” he shouted over a rising gust of wind as more lightning laced the sky. “What would need it?”

  “That’s my point. Why did Fandora change herself?”

  Because of her captain.

  “And how many other captains have changed their ships to require dream energy?”

  Her wooden lips parted.

  “Kelsi,” I leveled. “We need to catch that boat before Dreamland uses you and your sisters to do . . . whatever else she has planned.”

  “SHE SEEMS A BI’ cheezed off,” Olivia said as we headed for the bow of the ship.

  The canvases snapped. Night’s Cruelty lurched as the wind filled the sails.

  “Don’ we have to worry abou’ the masts snappin’ in this wind?” Olivia staggered, catching herself against a barrel.

  I fell against something wooden I couldn’t put a name to, and pushed myself back to my feet. “I don’t know. I’d leave that to Bo and Kelsi. If they’re worried about it then, sure.”

  Olivia scrambled over a pile of nets, falling to the side before getting back up again. “I suppose you’re righ’.” Rain coursed down her slim features and rolled off her unicorn hide tunic.

  Something stirred inside me, but I forced it down. We didn’t have time for that. We leaned against the rails of the bow. “What is cheezed off?”

  She grinned, and kept her answer to herself.

  A huge wave rose in front of us.

  “How’re we to survive this?” Olivia gripped my arm tightly.

  How could a riverboat?

  What was I thinking? Place worked better than ever. All I had to do was . . .

  I reached inside my mind, and recalled the engine room of the little river boat. A coppery tang settled on my tongue. The thumping drone of the engines repelled the sounds of the rushing wind and seas. I stretched through space and yanked.

  Olivia’s nails dug into my arm. Her eyes widened as she surveyed the area. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear anything she said.

  I gestured to the stairwell we could barely see. A single lamp shone on the far side of the maze-like room. It created more shadows than it provided light.

  She nodded, and jerked her head for me to lead the way.

  With my hand on my dagger, I crept away from the motor, listening for any sounds that would tell me what was going on. The smooth sailing belied the raging seas I knew to be outside. Fandora had to be doing something.

  I leaned against the wall of the stairwell, and peered up. Pitch black. I couldn’t even discern the outline of the door I’d entered only a few short weeks before.

  “Wha’ are we doin’?” Olivia whispered in my ear.

  Did it look like I had a plan? “Get the nets. Get out.”

  “Righ’.” She gestured to the stairwell. “Well, then. Lead on.”

  As soon as my foot touched the bottom step, the door at the top flung open. Rain shot down the well, covering Olivia and I in a fine mist.

  The man at the top wore a duster and a black cowboy hat. In a huge flash of lightning, the shadows dissipated enough for me to make out a gun hanging off his hip.

  A gun? Seriously?

  He braced both hands on either side of the doorway as a w
ave rose into my line of sight, blocking out the angry clouds.

  I ran up the stairs, drawing my dagger. The world shifted to the right, wrenching my feet out from under me. I fell hard on the stairs. With a grunt, I got back up.

  The man palmed his gun. “Boy! Don’ make me use this, now ya hear.”

  I clenched my knife tighter, and charged back up the stairwell.

  A shot burst out so loud in that metal can. It knocked out all other sound. A spark hit the wall opposite me, followed by another at the header below.

  The man grunted, falling backward.

  I glanced at Olivia.

  She crouched on the stair and shrugged.

  I crawled up the remaining four steps, my ears ringing painfully. The downpour drenched me as soon as I stepped out.

  Waves rose around us like mountains. Wind blasted the air with mist from the water wheel. The sea at the back was calm, like black glass.

  The man who’d shot at us lay on the metal deck amongst some other debris. His hat lay on its side beside his hand, and blood pooled on his chest.

  “Wha’ happened?” Olivia lip-synched.

  I crouched to inspect his wound. “Gunshot.”

  “We don’t have a gun,” her lips said. I could barely hear her, or at least I thought I could.

  I tugged on my ear. “Things are different in Dreamland.”

  She squinted one eye.

  “Though why he’s bleeding is beside me.”

  “Wha’ d’ya mean?”

  I could finally hear her. My hearing wasn’t back a hundred percent, but close enough for now. “That’s his soul, not his body. Souls don’t bleed.”

  “Oh, they do. Just no’ like ya think.”

  I raised my eyebrows and crept closer to the main part of the boat.

  “Up there.” Olivia tugged on my elbow, pointing with her other hand.

  I saw him. Cable stood on the top level of his boat, watching the ocean churn in the wheel.

  My heart raced as I dropped next to a metal support column that rose at an angle. “We have to somehow get up there. I’d bet he’s keeping the nets with him.”

  “All righ’.” She gestured with her chin to a wide doorway.

  I leapt for it, a diagonal beam blocking my view of Cable.

  For all that I continually called the boat small, it was actually a lot bigger. We crept along the wall, peering inside a dozen windowed doors. Men and women sat at green tables playing cards and throwing dice as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

  One woman with a long feather in her hair, her breasts pushed high in a black corset, looked up as I checked to see if we could pass.

  I ducked back behind the narrow framing, gave it a few seconds and checked again.

  She served a table of men dressed in dark western suits, then sauntered away, her green bustles swaying with each careful step of her red high heels.

  “The Wild West? Seriously.”

  I winced at Olivia. “This is Dreamland.”

  A gust of wind tore along the breezeway, forcing us off the wall.

  We fought to remain where we stood so we wouldn’t be seen. The glassy waters seemed so calm just on the other side of the low, white-painted chain rail.

  A door opened about midway down.

  Olivia and I froze. We had nowhere to hide.

  The woman with the feather in her hair popped her head around the door and looked right at us.

  Every muscle in my body froze, an ache building below my right ear.

  She glanced over her shoulder, then beckoned to us. “Come on. I don’t have all day.”

  I swallowed hard.

  Olivia’s eyes narrowed, her full lips pursed, her cheekbones growing more defined.

  I checked to see if anyone could see us, then sprinted for the door, Olivia following.

  The woman ushered us into a small room that had a single counter and a cabinet. “What’re ya doin’ on this boat?” she asked in a rich, southern drawl.

  I stood there, water dripping off my clothes and pooling on the floor, my mind flummoxed.

  A hot blast of air shot from the ceiling, evaporating the water in our clothes, skin, and hair.

  The woman rolled her eyes, her red curls flattened to her head as she waited for the roar to end. When it stopped, she put her hands on her emerald-green satin clad hips. “You’ve come to steal back them nets, haven’t you?”

  “They’re not what you think.”

  “What I think is those there nets’re what keep this here boat afloat, and you’re trying to steal what ain’t yours to take.”

  “You stole them from us.”

  “And who’d you steal ‘em from before that?”

  I needed a new approach. “They aren’t safe.”

  “I don’t rightly care about safe. Now, I see you’re more’n a boy like the captain said ya were, but you ain’t nearly made a man yet. You don’t understand what it takes to make the tough decisions.”

  “Tough decisions?” I wanted to laugh and strangle her at the same time. “Those nets destroy dreams.”

  “What dreams? The ones people done threw out? I don’t think I much care about them.”

  I shook my head. “Those dreams are alive. He has the dreams of someone in one of the nets right now.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing, too, ‘cause we ain’t gonna last much longer in this storm.”

  Why was I even wasting my time with this woman? She’d caught us. I could knock her out, sneak around. “When the dreams die, the dreamer dies with them.”

  The woman stilled. “We ain’t so delicate.”

  “Some are. I felt a man kill himself when his dreams were used to power your motor the first time.”

  She lifted her chin. The light from the gas lamps above us shone bright on her auburn hair. “Say I don’t care.”

  “Then, the sea guardians will find you, destroy this boat, and kill everyone here. Do you care about that?”

  “Sea guardians?”

  “Did you ever hear of the kraken?” It was the closest thing I could come up with.

  She glanced at Olivia with an expression that asked if I was serious.

  Olivia nodded, gesturing to me with her hand.

  I had to get her to understand. “Think of that, only there are dozens of them. Hundreds, even. They’re after the dream killers.”

  The pale tip of the woman’s tongue peeked out.

  “That would be you and your entire crew. We’ve seen it happen once before. Trust me. That’s not how you want to go out.”

  “We ain’t killers. We’re just tryin’ to scratch out a life for ourselves in this backwards world.”

  “A world built on dreams. What’s your name?”

  “Polly. Polly Taylor.”

  “Hello, Polly. I’m River. This is Olivia. We’re trying to save you and the dreamers.”

  “We take care o’ ourselves.”

  The boat shifted again.

  “You ever take your riverboat out to sea?”

  Her silence answered my question.

  “How long have you been out here? A few minutes?”

  “Days.”

  “Well, it’s only been minutes for us. The Sea of Dreams is a tricky place. Time is wonky out here. Location’s even worse. Have you ever seen waves like those?”

  She glanced out the small window of the door she’d led us through.

  Someone tried the door she leaned against. “Hey,” a male voice said. “I need in.”

  “Use the other,” Polly called, her hands splayed against the door behind her.

  We stayed as quiet as we could while we waited to hear what the man on the other side would do. “Fine,” he finally said. “I’ll use the other one. Don’t let me find out you’re in there cryin’. Ya hear me?”

  Polly drew the corners of her lips in, her breathing making her chest rise alarmingly. I wasn’t positive her bodice was going to keep her and all her feminine parts contained. I didn’t think I was ready for that j
ust yet.

  “You help me get the nets back,” I said softly, “and I can get you out of this—this storm, this sea, this trouble. All of it.”

  “How?” She leaned in, her dark green eyes intent. “You’re a boy.”

  “Trust me, mate,” Olivia said. “He ain’ no boy.”

  “He’s not a man either,” Polly said, her tone firm. “Have you ever killed a man before?”

  “I haven’t had a reason to.”

  “Yeah, well, you try and take those nets away from Cable?” She nodded, opening the door a crack to see into the room. “And you’ll have to. You’ll have to.”

  POLLY OPENED THE door to the gambling room a crack.

  I put my hand on her bare arm. “Why are you helping us?”

  She looked down at my arm and back up at me. “I’m not the type of person to ignore someone tryin’ to do the right thing. I may not agree with you, but as long as we don’t get dead . . . ”

  I pulled my lips up and flat.

  She closed the door again, then nodded once. “All right. Let me tell you somethin’. Ever since you ran away with that damn net the first time, Cable’s been different. Just ain’t been right. The ship’s different, too. There’s a new sound, a moanin’, maybe. And we’ve been haunted. Doors openin’ and shuttin’ all by themselves. People, all of us pretty much, seein’ people what aren’t there. Well, shouldn’t be. We see the ghosts of our own pasts. People we know what died.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Since you left,” she said, pulling her head forward, her expression frank. “Can’t you hear?”

  I breathed for patience. “How long ago?”

  “A year.”

  I glanced at Olivia and cleared my throat. “So you’ve been living on a haunted boat for a year.”

  “Yeah. But last month, I saw my boy. Now, he ain’t dead. Shouldn’t be, anyway, but there he was. Bold as brass. Look. I don’t know what happened down in that engine room the day you ran off, but whatever you did, you woke somethin’ up I want put back. And if it’s them nets, then you take them, but do something more’n you did the last time. You took ‘em, sure, but the ghosts stayed behind.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to do.”

  “If the ghosts are attached to your nets, then you destroy them, dumbass.”