The Nightmare Maker

by Gregory Pettit

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  I arrived home a couple minutes after hanging up the phone and was relieved to have Olivia rush in to greet me. I grabbed her under the armpits and twirled her around once and then hoisted her, squealing, onto my shoulders. I’d always found it easier to relate to my daughter on a physical level—Dana had always been the one to sit down and play dollies.

  I played with Olivia, wrestling on the floor with the little girl while her aunt took the opportunity to go out. She loved it, and for a few minutes I was able to forget my troubles in the tinkling of her laughter. I’d have to go try to get the money from somewhere tomorrow, and my stomach cramped at the thought of leaving her alone for a full day. That reminded me that I should be speaking to the nursery. I couldn’t afford to pay her fees if she wasn’t attending, and I wondered briefly if there had been any progress on the insurance front.

  My money woes got me thinking about work; I’d attended Richard’s gathering in the hope of building a support network to help me deal with the shadowy groups that I’d been running into. Instead, I’d discovered that my presence was enough to trigger something in the puca’s victims that caused them to start acting the way they had under that alien creature’s influence. I didn’t know what it meant, I didn’t like it, and if I went back to work, I didn’t know how to avoid it.

  Eventually, though, it was time for supper, and while I gave Olivia my phone to play with, I cooked prawn linguine in a white sauce. Becky wasn’t back in time for supper or for me to put Ollie to bed, but as I was laying my work clothes out for the next day, glad to see that the broken window had already been fixed, I heard the door slam and Becky’s laughter, followed by a man’s voice. I closed my door and figured that, given what I’d put her through, I shouldn’t judge. But I wasn’t going to go to sleep with a stranger in my house either. I dragged out one of the books on Wicca that I’d brought back from the library and settled in for a long reading session.

  A few hours later, I wished that I had felt safe enough to wear headphones, but I had managed to check and double-check my preparation for what I was going to do tonight. I’d made a deal with Jack Redderton, and if I wanted the assistance he had on offer, then I needed to find some way to protect Alfred Hightower from the Anarchist. I heard Becky’s guest leave, and I took the opportunity to go take care of my nightly routine. On the way out, I ran into my sister-in-law, but when I opened my mouth to speak, she simply shook her head and walked on. I needed to deal with her suspicion and anger – but not now.

  Back in my bedroom, I executed the first steps of my plan of action: I pulled my bed out into the middle of the room, grabbed a canister of salt, and drew a circle around the bed with it. I felt like an idiot—I didn’t really know what I was doing, but almost every book and every culture had stories about the purity of salt as a magical symbol. Also, both Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer had taught me that having some kind of circle was important to magic. Of course, Willow had never used a dirty snot-rag in her spells.

  When the unbroken line of salt had encircled my bed, I put the tissue under my pillow, turned off the light, and lay down. Normally, I fell asleep almost instantly, eager to get to my night’s work, but instead I lay awake, twisting in sheets that were soon soaked in nervous sweat. If Alfred Hightower died, then my chances of getting Dana back might just perish with him. I had to get this right.

  **********

  I opened my eyes. The Dreamscape that greeted me matched the gloomy thoughts that had filled my mind as I drifted toward sleep. I looked around and recognized the deep, man-made canyon of the city, the last vestiges of twilight fading in the west while most of the street was already plunged into shadow by the buildings on either side. The streets weren’t empty, but there was only a few tardy tourists and some besuited men trundling home hours after most of their colleagues.

  I was pretty sure that I was somewhere east of Paternoster Square—the level of detail sufficient both for me to identify my location and to be sure that the dreamer was someone familiar with the area. If I was hoping to find a banker, it seemed like I was on the right track. A sudden suspicion rose at the back of my mind, so I pushed out with my dream senses, relieved to feel the pressure of a sleeping mind a few hundred yards distant. I sighed with relief because this meant that I really was in the land of nod and not about to re-create the Saint Mary’s Massacre.

  I dug in my mind and plucked out a common memory of anonymously riding on the Tube, huddling behind a newspaper, and doing my best to ignore and be ignored by the other passengers. The shadows seemed to huddle closer into me as I faded slightly—I’d be almost impossible to see in the gloaming. I trotted in the direction of the dreamer, my trench coat flapping behind me. I noticed, with some concern, that the jacket was stained and torn at the hem. I furrowed my brow in confusion and concentrated for a moment; the jacket shimmered, and the dirt and rips were gone.

  I should have been able to guess my final destination, and as I closed in on the dreamer, the Bank of England loomed, faux-classical columns rising up from Threadneedle Street to dominate the entire block. I approached the heavy cast iron doors carefully, sticking to the shadows and watching for the Anarchist as I flitted from one piece of cover to the next. Just when I’d decided that the coast was clear, the now-familiar sense of wrongness washed over me, and a quick mental exertion confirmed that I wasn’t the only Dreamwatcher present anymore. I felt a sense of pride as I realized that this meant that I’d been successful in beating the Anarchist to his quarry. Then I further realized that this meant that I was now trapped in a dream with a murderer possessed of unknown powers and unguessable motivations.

  “Julian, if you just think about it, then you’ll understand that everything I’ve been doing makes perfect sense and is in the best interests of the entire world. Oh, and before you ask—yes, I just read your mind,” the Anarchist’s synthesized voice sounded behind me. I froze. I don’t mean that I froze in fear; I froze because the Anarchist’s will had gripped me so that none of my limbs were taking orders from the home office anymore. I expected to feel an attack at any moment and desperately clamped down with my willpower, begging some part of me to respond. I knew with the logic of nightmares that if I could only twitch a finger, I’d be able to break the spell.

  “There’s an entity in that bank that makes the ones that you’ve battled seem trivial. It controls the minds of men, it enslaves them to its will, and it devours their lives. I can free them. I will free them. But your…‘experiments’ in search of your wife are causing the entire local Dreamscape to resonate with your purpose. You’re like a child banging on pots and pans while I try to play a violin solo and a classical piano concerto at the same time. I can’t have that distraction.” There was a pause, and when he spoke again, he was much nearer. “I know that the others have asked you to intervene, but I can make you a better offer. You know that I can do things that you can’t. I’ll teach you how to use your abilities in ways that you never would have guessed possible. Getting your wife back will be trivial. Once again, all I ask of you is that you stay out of my way for the next week. Surely you’ll agree that that is a reasonable request? Otherwise, I’ll kill everyone you ever loved and make you watch as they beg for death.” His voice was like oil oozing through my mind, and I wanted to run to him and pledge my eternal devotion to his cause.

  Suddenly, my recently-broken ring finger sent a pulse of pain up my arm, and it twitched involuntarily; I felt the compulsion that had held me in place slacken, and I could move my head again. I turned to face him. He was only a couple of feet behind me, his brown cloak covering him and the fuzzing effect obscuring his visage. I had expected to see him missing an arm, but what was actually there was sufficient to jolt me out of whatever domination he’d been attempting.

  “I don’t know who you are, but my mother taught me to never trust someone with tentacles. Mom was a bit strange,” I quipped with a wink and, calling up a memory of bouncing on a pogo stick as a (slightly
odd) child, I sprang away from the Anarchist. He lashed out with the aforementioned appendage: a tube of flesh at least six feet long and twelve inches around that sprouted from the stump of his arm. It was white, like the belly of a fish, and glistened with some kind of slime that left a smoking dent on the metal door as it impacted with a thud where my head had been a moment before.

  I landed on top of a column and raised my eyebrows as I looked down at the Anarchist. He looked back up at me, and I could sense his frown through the obscuring fuzz before he spoke: “I would have thought that someone like you, who has seen all of the nightmares of man’s mind, would react more reasonably. I can’t say that I’m thrilled with this change, but for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and it took a significant part of me to shut that portal last night. Don’t follow me, Julian. Just go play with your little girl. You can’t win.” With that, he gave the still-smoldering door a gentle push—and it crumbled.

  The Anarchist strode through the hole while I gaped. My first reaction was to run after him. This was a man that had taken Dreamwatching, an activity that I’d spent most of my life pursuing, and twisted it, harming sleepers instead of helping them. I bitterly considered my situation: none of my Dreamwatching had ever helped me before, and it wasn’t getting Dana back either. He was asking only that I stay out of the way while some city fat cats were given what most people would consider their just deserts. I paused for long heartbeats, but it was Dana who showed me the way again—as usual. I remembered her crashing through the wall of a restaurant to pull me out of danger after I’d walked out on her amid my protestations of infidelity. If she found out that I’d allowed others to die so that I could get her back, would I still be even be worthy of her love? The love of the only woman who had ever really cared about me?

  The answer, again, was no.

  Nevertheless, with my decision made, I didn’t charge directly in. Years of battling nightmares had taught me that was rarely the right play, and if I defied the Anarchist and failed, I’d end up dead, Dana would be lost forever, and our daughter would be orphaned. I wracked my mind for an advantage, while a part of my consciousness was aware of the small point of wrongness closing in on the bright spark of the dreamer’s self. Then I had it. I put my head back and laughed, the sound echoing through the urban canyon. I took a decisive step forward while softly singing, The Road Goes Ever On…

  Chapter 17 0100–0200, Friday, October 2, 2015

  I watched Alfred Hightower cowering in the O of a doughnut-shaped wooden table that dominated the center of the Court Room, the opulent high-ceilinged room where the directors of the Bank of England held their meetings. The floor was littered with the remains of numerous bodyguards, shredded and maimed to the point that I wasn’t sure how many there had originally been. I was certain that they’d ruined the priceless Persian carpets. I arched an eyebrow as I first recognized Jack Redderton’s dream corpse and felt a lump rise in my throat as I spotted a patch of familiar red hair clinging to a chunk of gore near the central fireplace.

  “Mr. Hightower—you know why I’m here. Your soul-crushing, life-ruining master cannot be allowed to continue his influence on this plane. Just a few more of you priests to shave away and then—snip! No more greed demon!” The Anarchist cackled, sneering and advancing on the banker with a steaming sickle in his hand.

  “Without us, this island would be just another third-rate power.” The sweat ran freely down Hightower’s bald pate, but his deep baritone was firmer than I had expected. “What you’re proposing will bring London to its knees. Only Mammon’s influence allows the city to function; without him, who would believe in collateralized debt, default swaps, or fiat currencies? You’ll destroy incalculable numbers of lives.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” the Anarchist replied.

  “You don’t know ’bout that?” The booming voice filled the room, the volume of it shaking the ceiling until chunks of plaster rained down. I’d been hoping for an opening, but I hadn’t expected anything quite that perfect.

  In the Dreamscape, thoughts have power. The power to change, to create, or to destroy, and normally that power flows from the mind of the dreamer. If there’s a Dreamwatcher like me present, then it’s possible to use memories or (as I’d recently discovered) emotions to affect the environment. However, there are other factors that can influence the stuff of the sleeping world, and one of the most potent is the impact of the collective unconsciousness.

  That meant it was possible, if something was popular enough, to tap into that underlying subconscious group awareness. Luckily for me, there had recently been a set of movies that were perfect for just this situation. About a dragon. Who liked to sit on a hoard of gold. I figured that the $225 billion in gold residing in the vaults below us would do.

  The Anarchist paused in his advance toward the banker, glancing around in a way that betrayed just how little he’d been prepared for my surprise. Alfred Hightower pissed himself. And even though I’d known what was coming, the sheer power of the creature’s bellow made my chest tighten in fear as I pressed myself tight to the marble column in the corner of the room.

  That cozy little tableau lasted about twenty seconds as the echoes rebounded around the room. The Anarchist had just started to relax, perhaps believing that the voice had nothing substantial to back it up. He managed to take a few steps, getting to within ten feet of his target before he was proven wrong.

  The problem with tapping into the collective unconsciousness was this: once you broke the seal, the zeitgeist was going to go where the zeitgeist wanted to go. There was a massive thump that probably measured on the Richter scale, making my knees go weak, and I had to cling to the column for support. I wanted to see how the others were reacting, but I didn’t have any attention to spare as I fought just to keep my balance.

  I lost the fight a moment later as a deafening noise accompanied the floor tilting to one side, and I ended up on my ass. When I got back to my feet, I took in the sight I had expected: the dragon.

  It was too big to fit entirely into the room, but it had managed, nonetheless, to smash its way through several floors of the solidly built bank headquarters and had pushed its front half into the room. Eyes the size of serving platters focused on the two men in the center of the room; one massive claw had crushed the front of the round conference table. I was pretty sure that I understood how a mouse feels when a cat shows up. Using the unassailable logic of dreams, Alfred Hightower managed to soil himself for the second time in the last five minutes as the unfeasibly large monster pinned him with its gaze. It took one step toward Hightower and the Anarchist and flared its nostrils as it took in a large breath.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” The level of exasperation in the Anarchist’s voice overrode any trace of fear that I had. I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. Every eye in the room turned toward me. Shit.

  Lungs the size of firetrucks fueled an enraged bellow of insecure accusation that shook more plaster off the walls, and a chunk of the floor gave way as the creature moved further into the room.

  “I’m no thief, and I’m not mocking you damnit!” I yelled in reply, and a fireball struck the floor a dozen paces away. Ahh…this was why I didn’t routinely turn to this source of puissance. While I thought furiously about how to extricate myself from this particular mess, the dragon turned its attention toward me.

  Eyes with cat-slitted pupils swung in my direction, emitting an orange light like a pair of lanterns as the dragon searched for me. “…step into the light,” the dragon rumbled, its nostrils flaring. I held my breath and closed my eyes, concentrating with all of my might on being unimportant. I felt the fetid wind of the creature swinging its head back and forth, unable to find me—until a rock the size of my fist hit me right in the nose. Lights flashed behind my eyes, and I staggered. “That sonofabitch!” I cursed, my hands flying up to cup my injured proboscis.

  The intensity of the old wyrm’s regard was so potent that it s
truck me like a physical blow, turned my guts to jelly, and pinned me to the spot. I wanted to run and hide, but it was all that I could do to stop myself from falling to my knees and worshiping the monstrous thing. It took a step toward me, muscles rippling and scales the size of shields clanking. Its nostrils flared again and it paused, its huge, square head only a few feet from me.

  While the dragon rumbled something about gold this, and precious that, the heat of the creature causing me to sweat like Foghorn Leghorn in a KFC. I probably should have been giving all of my attention to what the terrible being was saying, but instead a small corner of my mind observed as the murderous Dreamwatcher sidled toward the prostrate banker. Hightower quite sanely had had enough of the madness that had invaded his sleep, and cowered on the floor in a ball, shaking in a puddle of his own making. Why had none of this been enough to wake him up and end this dream? I thought. Just then the dragon finished its tirade with a threatening hiss that caught my attention, and my shirtsleeve on fire. Oh yeah—dragon. I didn’t have a chance to consider my question because the massive creature in front of me inhaled, the force of which was sufficient to make my ears pop from pressure differential. I couldn’t be positive, but it seemed fairly likely that I’d find the exhalation a bit less comfortable and a bit more oh-my-God-I’m-on-fiery. That gave me an idea.

  I did my best to ignore the enormous lizard and focused on the wisps of smoke and plaster dust circling near the ceiling. The wind rushing past me stopped, and I knew that I had only a second before I became a Julian-kebab—I loved a good barbeque, but not when I was the meat—so I called up a memory from when I’d worked at a conference center. Of a fire alarm. And I concentrated, reaching deep inside of myself to envision the memory in every detail, then I pushed.