“Do your powers work here?” Kate asked.
Jane held out her hand palm up. A swirl of flame appeared instantly.
“Looks like mine do,” she said.
“Dude’s talking my ear off,” Billy said. “I’m assuming that’s a good sign.”
Billy started to float into the air slowly. He looked down at his feet, then at Emily.
“Em,” he said. He immediately dropped the six or so inches to the ground, landing on his feet awkwardly.
“My stuff works,” Emily said.
“Okay then,” Jane said. “We’re not helpless here. Where do we go next?”
Titus pointed to the castle with the tip of his spear.
“I’m just taking an educated guess, but…” he said.
“That looks like a clue to me,” Bedlam said.
“Do you want me to scout ahead?” Billy asked.
Jane shook her head.
“I have a feeling we should probably be a little stealthy,” she said. “You and I draw a lot of attention to ourselves when we’re airborne.”
“Have I mentioned how much I hate walking ever since I learned to fly?” Billy said.
“Are you seriously going to whine about walking a few miles?” Bedlam said, punching Billy in the shoulder playfully.
They all began to walk toward the downtown when Titus cocked his head and looked back to the forest.
“Did you guys hear that?” he asked.
“Did Timmy fall down a well?” Emily said.
“That joke never gets less offensive,” Titus said. “I’m serious. I hear someone calling for help.”
He changed direction to walk toward the nearest outcropping of trees. There is definitely someone calling for help, he thought.
“Maybe it’s someone from the town,” Titus said.
“And if so, maybe it’s just someone from the town who’s afraid of the woods,” Billy said. “Let it go, Titus.”
“He’s not wrong,” Kate said. “We put this town back where it came from and we’ll save everyone all at once. It’s more efficient than rescuing each individual person from their personal nightmare.”
“Just give me one minute,” Titus said. “I don’t know why, but something seems really off about this.”
He walked up to the edge of the forest, listening intently. The call for help seemed to be coming from all directions at once, simultaneously distant and close.
“Can any of you tell what direction it’s coming from?” Titus asked, turning around.
And then he discovered he was alone, surrounded by trees, the voice crying for help still ringing out in the distance.
“Great,” he said. “I fell for it.”
Chapter 38: Nightmare
The Vizier was not his true name, but it was convenient, and felt apropos, and so he allowed it to continue. It accurately summarized his role in this new reality, the creature thought.
Creatures born in the Dreamless Lands find names to be fleeting things anyway. Much is fleeting in that strange, colorful realm, where nonsense made as much sense as logic, a place where science had less place than whimsy.
Whimsy, the creature thought. No, the Dreamless Lands are not all whimsy. Some parts of it are inky and cruel, where fear and anxiety are fuel for the machine. It was in once such place he was born, a formless sentient nightmare, a predator hunting thoughts the way wolves stalk deer.
The Dreamless Realms are not a fantasy land. They are as much built on terror as joy, like all dreams are.
Nightmares like him—much of the population of the Dreamless Lands, really—were not particularly powerful. Yes, they could frighten and manipulate, but raw power, true magic, was not theirs to possess. No, much of the strength of the Dreamless Lands lay firmly, selfishly, in the hands of their queen, the Lady Dreamless, and her eternal nemesis, the Nightmare Prince. Some mistake the Lady Dreamless and the Nightmare Prince as polar opposites, light and darkness, day and night, good and evil, but they were neither as pure as that, nor as simple. These rulers of the Dreamless Lands were more mercurial, more akin to the fey of folklore, generous when they chose to be, cruel when they desired, selfish in a way unique to creatures who hold so much power that mere mortals and lesser creatures are unfathomably alien and insignificant.
And while those two demigods held sway over their land from on high, nightmares and dream fairies, will-o-wisps and night terrors, all the beings who made up the general populace of the Dreamless Lands carried on, living lives of eternal powerlessness.
Some of them, like the Vizier, became ambitious.
Ambition was treated strangely in the Dreamless Lands. The Nightmare Prince seemed to foster it, enjoying the games it caused, up until one of his subjects became a threat, at which point he snuffed out their existence like a dream that disappears just as you wake. Lady Dreamless was all but oblivious to ambition in her people. If someone became a nuisance or a danger, she would put a stop to it, but for the most part, they were allowed their machinations and plans unhindered and ignored.
The Vizier, a minor nightmare, decided to ply his ambition in the palace of Lady Dreamless rather than his prince. He felt perhaps he might find an opening there that the more aware, more Machiavellian ruler would notice and put a stop to.
And so, the Vizier spent decades perhaps centuries, skulking about the Dreamless Palace. Time moves strangely in the Dreamless Lands. There was no real way to know for sure how long he lurked and waited.
And then one day, two strangers arrived at the gates, the man in red sunglasses and long black coat, and the woman with the eyes made of fire. The man was known to the realm, an ally of the Lady Dreamless and an antagonist to the Nightmare Prince, and owed a favor, but the woman made a bargain for the help she sought. The Vizier listened in to their conversation, creeping along the ceiling like a shard of shadow. He learned the Lady Dreamless wanted to see another realm, and that this mystery woman would open that gateway, provide her a corporeal form, and enable her to explore this newer world safely.
The Vizier bided his time, watching and waiting, eavesdropping on communications between worlds. And finally, he knew when the portal would be opened. It felt like an eternity before that moment came, but when it did, a white and purple tunnel between the worlds opening in a private corner of the Dreamless Palace, he leapt through the second after his queen entered the mystic portal.
He found himself in a drab, cold world, full of drab, cold people. But it was a new world, and his power over fear enabled him to survive, as the inhabitants of this world were very fearful of so many things.
But here or in the Dreamless Lands, a solitary nightmare only possesses so much magic.
He wandered this world in an inversion of the life of glamor his queen enjoyed. Where she traveled to the most beautiful parts, the Vizier kept to the back roads and back alleys, where nightmares belong. He made his own way, feeding off the anxiety of mortals, using them to get what he needed to survive.
And then one day he felt a presence in the distance. A human humming with incredible magical energy.
The Vizier went to investigate.
He found a mortal child, a crimson thrum of magic thus far untapped humming from within her. She lived an ordinary life, in an ordinary place, but the Vizier could sense her boredom, her loneliness. Her fear.
A nightmare is only as powerful as the minds it controls. And thus, the Vizier searched through the girl’s mind, this Alice Lapine, and found a face she would find familiar and welcome, and presented himself not as a nightmare, but rather as a friend. A someone whom she could trust implicitly.
She needed friends, and he would become her very best friend, one who would lead her out of this boring life and reach her full potential.
And all the while, the tendrils of his control leached off her magic, bleeding off the arcane energy she so naturally drew to her side.
With her raw power and his guidance, they began to build a world. One where the nightmare ruled, behind the figur
ehead of a young girl who happened to be an endless font of magic.
And then the intruders began to arrive. He’d sent Alice’s figments away easy enough, sowing discord and distrust between Alice and her creations. The man with the red sunglasses and long black coat was easy to deal with, all but volunteering to walk into the Vizier’s trap. But then the others arrived, a half-dozen beings intended to disrupt this beautiful crimson world the nightmare was helping to create.
This would not do.
He sent out tendrils of terror into the world, seeking these newcomers out, searching for their fears, for their dreams.
No one would take this world away from him. He was Alice’s best friend, after all.
Chapter 39: We’re us
With his friends gone and no immediately apparent way to get them back, Titus resigned himself to running into the forest to find the source of the voice crying for help. He held the arcane spear—it’s wide, dagger-like blade adorned with ancient runes, the haft preternaturally strong, a gift from the werewolves who trained him—parallel to the ground as he jumped from rock to root to avoid stepping on leaves or brush and alerting anyone to his presence.
The forest quickly swallowed him up. Glancing over his shoulder, Titus saw that the town had disappeared, as if he’d traveled many miles into the wilderness. Okay, he thought. Reality is warped here. That makes a strange amount of sense, all things considered. He slowed his pace, creeping with a level of stealth that would almost make Kate proud. Or if not proud, at least not outright annoyed, which he usually did when they were supposed to be sneaky.
The cries for help went silent with a sickening scream. He couldn’t tell anything about the person calling—male or female, old or young. They’d spoken in a language he could understand, though, so whoever it was, they were human, he assumed. Of course, here in another reality, that was really making a significant assumption.
Then he heard the chewing noises.
Titus stood up straight, no longer hunching to hide himself behind trees and shrubs. Standing his full height—which wasn’t particularly tall, admittedly, but enough to see over some of the lower brush—he saw something that made his stomach twist. A massive, broad, muscular back, covered in silvery fur, cartoonish, broad shoulders leading up to a sloping neck. A short, upturned tail twitched as the creature leaned forward. Titus could easily make out the sound of rending flesh, sharp teeth grinding into muscle and bone.
I know you, he thought to himself. You’re me.
The creature ceased its meal then, breathing heavily as if the effort of devouring its victim left it breathless. The monster turned its thick neck, revealing the long, wolfish snout Titus expected to see. It was covered in bright red blood almost up to the rims of its golden eyes, which flashed at him in wordless rage.
The werewolf stood up on its hind legs and faced Titus, revealing the mutilated corpse of a human behind it. The beast uttered a low, pensive growl.
“Paging Doctor Freud,” Titus said, readying his spear.
The werewolf snarled and began to circle him. Titus moved with it, making sure to keep the distance between them the same. He lowered his enchanted spear at the creature’s heart.
“This isn’t even a little bit subtle,” Titus said. “You’re what I fear becoming. All I have to do is…”
Before he could finish speaking, the werewolf pounced. Dammit, I’m fast, Titus thought, the blur of silver fur almost too much for his eyes to register. He got the spear up in time and felt it bite into muscle, tearing at the werewolf’s gut. A massive paw swiped at him and he felt hot weals crease his face, narrowly missing his eye. He twisted the spear and pushed backward, forcing himself out from under the beast’s weight.
“Okay, that was real,” he said, blood running from his cheek into his mouth, the taste warm and metallic.
The werewolf charged again, but this time Titus was ready, sidestepping and jabbing the spear into the monster’s hamstring. The werewolf fell to the ground, rending the dirt and sending debris into the air as it howled in rage.
“I knew I should have dealt with you already,” Titus said, blinking blood out of his eyes. The werewolf limped as it prepared another attack. “Yeah, you and I haven’t been on speaking terms lately.”
The wolf slashed at him with a paw, missing, but then kicking him with its one good leg. Titus staggered backward, the monster opening fresh cuts across his chest, shredding his sweatshirt. The wolf lost its balance, though, falling over as the leg he’d hamstrung gave out.
“You know why? Because I’m afraid of you,” Titus said. He jabbed at the wolf with his spear, but the creature batted the blade aside easily. “I don’t want you to consume me. I want to be more than just a rage-filled monster.”
The werewolf tried to leap on top of him, but the damage to its leg caused the jump to go off-course. Titus dodged, but the wolf was able to catch his leg with one long arm, claws raking across his thigh. Angrily, Titus lashed out with his spear again, this time digging into the meat of the werewolf’s shoulder. The blade caught on something, bone and gristle, becoming stuck. The wolf swung around wildly trying to free itself from the blade, and Titus held onto the haft for dear life, knowing he needed to use it as leverage to keep the wolf at bay.
“But this is no way to live,” Titus said, his now limping gait mirrored in the hamstrung werewolf. They continued to circle each other like boxers. “I can’t contain you. You can’t control me. We’re stuck with each other, you vicious bastard, whether we like it or not.”
The wolf snapped at him. My teeth are enormous, Titus marveled absently. He’d never truly seen himself in full werewolf form, not like this, and he suddenly felt very bad for anyone who’d faced him directly. I truly am a fairytale monster, he thought.
“Okay, we’re going to work this out if it kills both of us,” Titus said, breathing heavily. “Fine. Fine! We’re going to hash this family drama out now? Right here? Let’s do it. Let’s get it over with, you overbearing fleabag.”
The wolf, realizing Titus was using the spear as leverage to keep him away, began to push itself deeper onto the weapon. There was a horrific popping noise as the spear burst out the other side of the monster’s shoulder, and then a stomach-churning, wet slopping sound as the wooden haft entered its flesh.
“You’re psychotic,” Titus said, watching the wolf snarl and snap in pain, but nonetheless, grow closer and closer, pushing through catastrophic body trauma to get nearer to him.
The things I’ve put that body through to save the world, Titus thought. The werewolf kept him alive in an exploding alien spaceship. It suffered a million cuts at the hands of the Assassin Rose. It went to war at the end of the world. Nothing stops it. Nothing shuts it down. The monster has no desire other than to survive.
I have no desire other than to survive, Titus thought. That thing is me. It’s always been me.
He held onto the spear’s handle with strength he didn’t know he possessed as the werewolf grew so close he could feel the heat of its breath on his face.
“I won’t let you devour me,” Titus said. “You aren’t some thing inside me wrestling for control. We’re the same, you and I. Not two minds in one body. Not a monster and a man sharing the same space. We’re in this together. You don’t get to say no to that.”
The werewolf rammed itself forward, and before Titus could react, it’s jaws clamped down on his shoulder, the mouth so wide, so vast that he felt its canines pierce his stomach below his ribcage. He’s going to kill me, Titus thought. He’s going to eat me alive.
“No,” Titus said. Blood bubbled up from his guts into his mouth. “I’m not me. You’re not you. We’re us.”
He grabbed the wolf by the thick, silvery fur on either side of its face and pulled, commanding. The beast released its jaws. Titus forced it to look him in the eyes. Face to face. Breath to breath.
He put his forehead against the monster’s. It huffed irritably, then bumped it head against his, like a dog showing af
fection.
“We’re in this together. This body, this life. You’re me. I’m you. Okay?”
The wolf uttered a low, deep, rumbling sound, less a growl and more an acknowledgement. Titus felt his whole body go cold, then very hot, as if taken with a raging fever. His eyes rolled back in his head. He fell to the ground, the world growing dark and cloudy around him.
He may have blacked out for a moment. Maybe his heart stopped. He couldn’t tell. Everything hurt, inside and out. He tasted blood in his mouth. His skin was sticky with it.
His spear lay on the ground beside him. The werewolf, and the victim it had been dining on, were both nowhere to be seen. Titus reached down to pick up his weapon. Where he expected a human hand, the wide, furred hand of his werewolf form appeared, picking up the spear from the ground. He used it to push himself to his feet. Glancing down, he watched the brutal wounds on his chest sealing up quickly, knitting closed before his eyes, covered over by whitish fur.
His heart raced, thundering with the power of this immortal beast he’d always been so afraid of. I’m no longer along for the ride, he thought. It’s been me all along.
He smiled, an odd sensation as it split his elongated snout. Tilting his nose toward the sky, he inhaled, sniffing the air for his friends.
“Let’s see what inner demons you’re all facing,” Titus said, surprised at the thick, throaty sound of his own voice in this form. And with the loping gait of a top-tier predator, he sprang into action to rescue his friends from their own nightmares.
Chapter 40: The Myth of Katherine Miller
Click.
Kate found herself alone under a dark sky, a solitary streetlight above splashing a circle of white on the pavement. Her boots crunched as she took a step, grinding glass into the concrete. In the distance, she could hear the sounds of an unseen highway.
She did not have to look at the nearest street sign to know where she was, or why she was here. She turned to her right and saw the body in the street just as she knew she would.
The Indestructibles (Book 5): The Crimson Child Page 18