“I wouldn’t be so presumptuous,” Doc said. “I am simply here to deliver the message. What Queen Alice does with it is her own decision.”
Again, the Vizier studied Doc’s face. He seemed particularly put off by Doc’s red lenses glasses and what they might hide.
“I’m curious,” the Vizier said. “Very well. You’ll have your audience. Follow me.”
The Vizier led Doc, still flanked by the armored guards, up through winding staircases that seemed to make no logical sense. They turned in places they shouldn’t, crossed over small footbridges that should not have been there, and sometimes went back down toward the lower levels before reversing direction again. Doc could not tell if the Vizier was intentionally leading him on a confusing journey to make it harder for Doc to leave, or if the castle simply followed the illogical whims of a child’s mind.
They arrived finally in a large, open chamber. The stone floor remained uncovered, the walls lit by torches. It had a dungeon-like feel to it, but less because of its structure and more because it simply appeared so vacant and unused. Forgotten.
Doc smirked.
“An odd room to meet with the young queen,” Doc said.
“I’m sorry, doctor,” the Vizier said with a broad smile that indicated he was anything but. “I can’t have you tainting her mind with stories of where she’s been. She’s here now, in the place where she belongs. I can’t have you interfering with that.”
“You’re not a figment, are you,” Doc said. The Vizier’s smile faded. “Not a demon, either. I know a demon or devil when I see one. You seem vaguely familiar, though. What are you, really?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Memory vampire? Psychic leech?”
“I just work here,” the Vizier said. “Following the wishes of my queen.”
“Right,” Doc said.
“Anyway, I wish I could say it was a pleasure meeting you, doctor, but instead of lying, I’ll simply say goodbye.”
And then the floor gave out beneath Doc’s feet.
He tumbled into complete darkness, banging into a stony surface that rapidly became smooth, like a slide. His descent curved rapidly, then dropped again, his stomach flip-flopping as he plummeted. His fall came to an abrupt, painful stop as he slammed into an earthen floor.
“Are you dead?” Gloomly said, invisible in the darkness.
“No,” Doc said. He moved his limbs gingerly, making sure nothing was broken. Everything hurt in that unpleasant, bruising way he knew would feel even more later, but not cripple him. “Just old.”
“That went really badly,” Gloomly said.
“It went exactly how I suspected it would,” Doc said. He muttered a few magic words and a small globe of violet-white light appeared in his hand. He released it to float beside him like a lamp. He found himself in an actual dungeon this time, the floor covered in straw, stone walls on three sides, a small, rusted metal gate on the fourth.
“What do you mean, suspected?”
“The way you and your friends talked about the Vizier, I had a feeling he was some kind of malignant creature. I wanted a look at him,” Doc said. “Yes, it would’ve been preferable to get in a room with Alice and try to talk to her, but I knew if he got to us first, he’d block us somehow.”
“By dropping you down a chute,” Gloomly said.
“Okay, that part I wasn’t expecting,” Doc said. “I honestly thought it’d turn into a fight.”
“So, what do we do now?” Gloomly said.
“Can you find your way back to your friends from here?” Doc asked.
There was a pause.
“I can go back up the chute,” Gloomly said. “It might take some time to find my way back out of the castle.”
“Well, you do that.”
“And what about you?” the shadow-man said.
Doc stood up creakily and tested the bars on the cell door. They were mystically warded, which did not surprise him.
“I’ll try to magic my way out of this room,” Doc said.
“I’ll pretend I know exactly what that means,” Gloomly said.
“It’s magically sealed. I can’t just cast a quick spell to bust the lock, or teleport myself out. I need to be more careful than that,” Doc said. “But it’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”
“If you can’t get out, does that mean…” Gloomly said.
Doc could barely make out the shape of the shadow-man, but saw a darker shape float upward toward the chute from which they’d emerged. There was a bizarre, almost wet thump.
“Oh, that makes me angry,” Gloomly said. “Hang on.”
“You’re pure magic,” Doc said. “If I can’t get out…”
“Neither should I,” the shadow said. “But I think…”
“What are you doing?” Doc said.
“Looking for a gap,” Gloomly said. “I can fit through anything. I’m a shadow.”
“Magic doesn’t usually leave—” Doc started, but Gloomly cut him off.
“Found one.”
“Seriously?”
“About the size of the head of a nail,” the shadow creatures said.
“Well, this place is built on imagination,” Doc said. “Not the usual precision magic requires.”
“Lucky us,” Gloomly said. “But what about you? I can’t squish you through a pinhole here.”
“That’s okay. We know you can go for help. But hang here a bit with me just in case,” Doc said, drawing a mirror out of his pocket, relieved to see it hadn’t shattered in the fall. “I’m going to make a phone call.”
Chapter 29: Altering the plan
The Lady Natasha Grey returned to her sanctuary to prepare for the inevitable fallout when King Tears learned he wouldn’t be getting what he wanted from her. She intended to have some time to prepare, of course. But knowing the Indestructibles, and having dealt with them as both enemies and allies over the past few years, if she’d learned anything at all, it’s that they had a tendency to zig when you wanted them to zag. The mystical wards she’d set to watch over Lady Dreamless went off like a smoke alarm, and she knew she’d have a visitor soon.
Fortunately, she was prepared for that.
The doorknob to her Las Vegas suite fell off its moorings and the door creaked open, revealing a battle-battered and weary-looking King Tears. The magician’s suit was ripped in places, and his face showed several healing wounds.
“You could have knocked,” Natasha said, eyeing the now broken doorknob. She folded her arms across her chest and leaned back to half-sit on her desk.
“I went to speak with our mutual friend, the dream queen,” King Tears said. “And a funny thing happened.”
“You look like you’ve had a bit of an adventure.”
“You could say that,” Tears said. His bare feet left bloody footprints behind on her cream-colored carpet. Natasha could see shards of glass mixed in with the blood.
“I take it she didn’t want to talk.”
“Oh, more than that,” Tears said, barely restrained anger in his voice. He walked directly toward Natasha. If I scared easily, she thought, this aggression might be worrisome.
“Tell me what happened,” Natasha said. “Care for a drink?”
King Tears stopped just a few feet in front of her.
“Part of that menagerie of freaks Doc Silence put together got in my way,” King Tears said. “Strange that they were just… there, isn’t it?”
“You said it yourself—they’re Doc Silence’s menagerie,” Lady Grey said. She poured herself a glass of bourbon and took a slow sip. “Silence once saved Lady Dreamless from the Nightmare King. It wouldn’t surprise me if he knew she were here and had his protégés looking out for her.”
“You’d know that, though,” King Tears said, pacing. Natasha poured him a drink and held it out. He stared at it with distrust for a few seconds before accepting, downing the entire glass in one gulp. “You always said Silence was a rival, but everyo
ne knows the two of you are more friends than enemies in the end. You warned him.”
“I don’t even know where he is right now,” Natasha said. “We haven’t spoken in months.”
“I have no patience for liars,” King Tears said.
“And I have no patience for paranoid bullies,” she responded.
With surprising speed, King Tears lunged at her, one long-fingered hand clamping down around her throat. She felt his corpselike skin against hers for only a second before the smell of burning human flesh filled the room.
King Tears yanked his hand away, cursing wildly, grasping his wrist to examine the damage.
“You vile…”
“Did you really think you could walk into my home and threaten me with physical violence?” Natasha said. “I am your equal in this world, King Tears, and I have far more powerful friends than you do. Strike me again and see how much you enjoy being teleported to a random circle of Hell.”
“You wouldn’t,” King Tears snarled.
“I’d rather not,” Natasha said. “Dropping an enemy into the Pit is a bargaining chip I was hoping to save for a real emergency. I’ll waste it on you if you lay another hand on me though. See how long it takes you to climb your way back up from the Abyss.”
“I’ve never liked you,” King Tears muttered.
“Not your biggest fan either,” Natasha said. “So, what are you doing here, other than slinging accusations around without proof?”
King Tears plopped down on one of Natasha’s leather sofas, still nursing his burned hand.
“I discovered something when I found Lady Dreamless,” he said.
“Do tell.”
“She’s not alone,” he said.
“She does have a pair of demon hounds with her,” Natasha said.
“No, not them,” King Tears said. “Something else followed her through. Something from the Dreamless Lands.”
Oh, Natasha thought to herself. That’s not good.
“Do you know what it is that followed her?” she asked.
“I came here assuming you did,” he said. “Whatever it is, it stinks of parasitic energy. I think it would be useful, and I want it.”
Natasha rubbed the bridge of her nose irritably and realized she was mimicking a gesture she’d seen Doc Silence do thousands of times, which made her even more irritable.
“No, I don’t know what followed her through,” she said.
“I don’t believe you,” King Tears said, his voice vaguely threatening, though there was less bark to it since his first threat.
“King Tears, you’ve known me a long time. What do you think is harder to believe: that I enabled some parasite to move across dimensions and I’m hiding it out of the goodness of my kind and generous heart? Or that if I knew a parasitic entity was here with street value among greedy men like you, and I didn’t find a way to sell it?”
Tears pondered her last statement, then laughed.
“That’s the first completely truthful thing I’ve heard you say in decades,” he said. “You must know something.”
“If it’s parasitic, I don’t know, maybe try to figure out what it might want to eat,” Natasha said. “Don’t make me do your homework for you.”
“I’ll remember this,” King Tears said.
“And I’ll remember you laid hands on me,” Natasha said. “We’ll see whose vengeance comes calling first.”
Tears stood up, poured himself another drink, and once again downed it in one go. He stared Natasha down with his eerie, dead eyes, then stormed back out of her suite.
She gestured to the door, and with a small incantation, caused the doorknob and lock to repair itself. Then she sat down, exhaling loudly, and finishing her own glass.
She was not a lesser magician than King Tears, but it had been a long time since she’d engaged in a magical duel. The idea made her sick to her stomach. I’ve worked too hard to not make enemies I can’t deal with easily, she thought, and now this bull of a man is upsetting all the china.
And what did those kids do with Lady Dreamless? She thought.
Chapter 30: What they did with Lady Dreamless
Jane found herself staring at an interdimensional mystical being on a rooftop in Queens, not quite sure what to say. Fortunately, Emily took care of that part first.
“So that was not exactly what we had planned,” Emily said. She was kneeling beside one of the Great Danes, scratching him behind his ear.
“Who are you children?” Lady Dreamless said. She had removed her oversized sunglasses, delicately hanging them from the collar of her dress.
“Natasha Grey sent us to warn you about… well, I’m pretty sure she sent us to warn you about the guy we just ran away from,” Jane said. “I guess we could’ve gotten there sooner.”
“In our defense, we only found out yesterday,” Billy said. He sat on the lip of the rooftop, the other Great Dane resting his head on Billy’s knee.
“I appreciate the consideration, but I think I had that under control,” Dreamless said.
“Doc would’ve wanted us to help you out, anyway,” Jane said.
“Doc… Silence?” Dreamless asked. “Are you his soldiers?”
“More like his rehabilitation projects,” Billy said.
“We’re his team,” Jane said, ignoring Billy.
“Doctor Silence has always been good to me,” Dreamless said. “I didn’t think he knew I was here in your world, or if he did, that he’d approve of it.”
“I’m pretty sure he didn’t know,” Jane said. “And still doesn’t. Lady Grey came to us looking for him, but he’s, um, on a field trip, so we came instead.”
The dream creature nodded pensively.
“Where is he now?” she asked.
“Y’know, funny you should ask that,” Jane said. “Because he went through some sort of rift where a town disappeared. I haven’t heard from him yet about how that’s going.”
“Unfortunate. I would’ve liked to consult with him about this being who attacked me,” Dreamless said.
“So would we,” Billy said.
“Also, clearly Lady Grey didn’t do a very good job running interference,” Emily said. “She told us she was going to try to keep him off your trail for a while.”
“This is my shocked face that the Lady Grey didn’t follow through on a promise,” Billy said, waving a hand in front of a deadpan expression.
“In any event, we can’t just stay here,” Jane said.
“And our base is currently a wreck in the desert on the other side of the world,” Billy said.
“I bet Kate has a hideout back home,” Emily said.
“That,” Jane said, pointing at Emily in agreement, “is a very good point.”
She took out the earbud they each carried for communicating in the field and tucked it into her ear, tapping it once to activate it.
“Kate, you listening?” Jane said.
“We’ve got to talk,” Kate said.
“I assume that means you’re listening.”
“We just saw the sort of thing that’s going to haunt me to the end of my life, Jane,” Kate said. “Save the snark. Why are you calling?”
“We are standing on a rooftop in Queens with the ruler of another dimension and we need a place to hide.”
There was a long, heavy pause on the other end of the line.
“I have a flophouse in our old neighborhood,” Kate said. “I’ll give you the address.”
***
Kate’s hideout was a loft in one of the less reputable neighborhoods in the City, the top floor of an old factory with rooftop access to make her vigilante activities easier. It was also, Titus thought, painfully utilitarian.
Bedlam agreed. And she had no qualms about saying it out loud.
“Your hideout is depressing as hell, Kate,” the cyborg said. She pointed to the mattress resting on the floor. “That’s where you sleep?”
“I don’t sleep much,” Kate said.
“I’m amazed
you’ve got sheets and a blanket on it,” Bedlam said. Tell me you have hot water and that shower and sink in the loo aren’t torture devices.”
“I have hot water,” Kate said. “What do you think I am, a masochist?”
“Don’t answer that,” Titus said.
Kate gave him a long, hard stare.
“What are you doing on your phone right now?” Kate said. “You can’t be checking social media.”
“I’m ordering you a bedframe from IKEA,” Titus said.
“What?” Kate said.
“Kate, you don’t need to live like this. You saved the world. Like three times. You don’t have to live like you’re on the run from the law.”
“If a delivery truck from IKEA shows up outside my hideout, Titus, I will murder you in your sleep.”
“Fine,” Titus said, clicking through to save the order for later rather than canceling it entirely.
The window leading to the roof creaked open, and Titus looked up to see Emily’s neon-blue haired head sticking through.
“Party time!” she said.
“Just… come in,” Kate said. “I’m going to have to get a new hideout. This one’s compromised.”
“You live like this?” Emily said, floating down from the skylight with two enormous Great Danes, both shockingly nonchalant about flying, in tow.
“And now she’s brought dogs into my hideout,” Kate said.
“Your boyfriend is a werewolf,” Emily said.
“Oh, come on, Em,” Titus said, very close to being honestly offended.
Emily was followed quickly by Billy, Jane, and a newcomer, a woman of impossible-to-determine age dressed in elegantly casual black.
“Who is that?” Bedlam asked, her tone teetering on rude.
“This,” Jane said, “Is Lady Dreamless.”
“Ladies everywhere lately,” Bedlam said.
“She’s a… she’s royalty from a mystical dimension. And she’s currently being pursued by a creepy magician who can make zombies.”
The woman nodded curtly.
“I understand you’re all allies of Doc Silence,” she said. “I’m afraid he’s never spoken of you.”
The Indestructibles (Book 5): The Crimson Child Page 14