by Dave Ferraro
Chapter Twenty-Three
“What is this place?” Shanna asked, her fingers flowing through cloud-like material. “Is this Heaven?”
“Something like that,” Rachel agreed, smiling over at her. “It’s always changing.”
“Hunt, you need to get out of here.”
Shanna blinked as she saw the outline of a woman with spiky hair through a nearby cloud. “Who are you?”
“You must-”
She was cut off as the cloud suddenly morphed into a dark room, a bar. Shanna sat beside Rachel at a high dark counter. Glasses were clinking all around them, jazz music resounding behind them. She started as the man before her began to wipe at the counter with a white cloth. His face was flushed, and she inched back on her stool as he smiled at her. Grant. The vampire bartender whom she battled at Styx on the night when her best friend Kelly had died. “What’ll it be, Ladies?” he asked.
Shanna and Rachel exchanged a look. “Neither of us drink,” Rachel told him with a smile.
“She drinks the blood of the innocent,” Grant pointed at Shanna. Then he squinted. “Oh, no. I mean her.” He gestured behind them, and they turned to see a girl who looked exactly like Shanna, sitting at a table nearby, her head high, her eyes predatory. She noticed Shanna and her smile stretched, revealing pointed incisors.
“Diana,” Shanna nodded. “I’ve seen her before.”
Rachel frowned. “She does look just like you. It’s uncanny.” She looked beyond Diana then, at the demon with the large pointed teeth and the cloak, who stood at the edge of the room. Its cloak was open now, and Shanna glimpsed an entire body made of sand. “He’s always here, no matter where I go.”
“He likes pretty girls,” Grant offered, wiping the same spot on the counter that he’d been wiping since he’d begun. “If you’d been boys, he would have made your bodies sand almost immediately. But a girl…yeah, he can’t resist spending time with a pretty young thing. Sometimes he draws it on for years.”
“He must be lonely, invading people’s dreams like this,” Rachel noted, watching him. “And he always stays at a distance.”
“Unless he’s cutting our strings,” Shanna added.
“He likes you two,” Grant told them. “You’ve got spunk. And he has lots of places he wants to explore with you.” He turned to Rachel. “He’s anxious to see Black Forest Island, but he’s worried about frightening you so soon.”
Rachel looked hesitant. “Nothing can hurt me here.”
“Quite right,” Damien said, suddenly at Shanna’s arm. “If anything, you’ll have everything you’ve ever wanted here.” He smiled and leaned in to kiss her. She met his lips with surprise at first, and then kissed him fervently, savoring the taste of his lips, exactly how she remembered them. She couldn’t get enough.
Rachel watched her, amused for a moment, then a little uneasy. She looked up at the demon, looking at Shanna and Damien with interest. Then she touched her lips, recalling the kiss from Morpheus in her previous dream. And then his words: It is time for you to awaken. Your pursuer grows near. Remember my words. They are all I may offer you.
“Wake up, wake up,” she told herself, closing her eyes. But when she opened them, she was still in the bar. “This isn’t real.” She turned to Shanna. “We have to get out of here.”
Shanna didn’t respond, but kept kissing Damien, forcing Rachel to intervene. She yanked Shanna from his hold.
“What are you…?” Shanna looked bewildered as Rachel dragged her to the entrance of the bar. The demon was really interested now, standing up straight in his corner as he watched them.
Rachel pulled open the door to the bar and stared into the nothingness outside. Or not nothing…she saw stone outside the door. She stuck her head out of the door and looked down, into the dark that went on forever. It was a shaft. A circular shaft. She looked up and saw darkness there as well.
“What’s going on?” Shanna asked, looking out herself. Then she looked back at Damien, who waited for her at the bar.
“I can’t step out myself,” Rachel told her, trying to take a step out of the door. “But I have a feeling I could force you to.”
Shanna frowned and blinked. “Why would I want to leave? Damien’s here. And Diana.”
“That’s exactly why you should leave,” Rachel murmured. She shoved Shanna out of the door with all of her strength behind the push. Shanna looked back at her with terror before she disappeared into the dark.
With a satisfied smile, Rachel turned to meet the red eyes of the dream demon. He grabbed her roughly and threw sand into her eyes. “Forget,” it whispered in a rasping voice. “Forget. And when your friend falls asleep again, do not interfere.”
Rachel nodded, then shook her head and looked up at the bar, where Amelia was bartending.
“What are you doing over there?” Amelia asked with a wry smile. “Get over here and have a drink.”
Rachel grinned and walked over to her, wondering why she was over by the door at all.