The Nightmare Maker

by Gregory Pettit

  The building responded with a 120-decibel trilling noise—and, as you would expect of a building with billions of pounds’ worth of bank notes, sheets of water. They impacted on the old wyrm with a hiss, and his head whipped up, spraying fire across the ceiling. The heat was enough to flash boil the air, searing my skin, so I ducked down inside my trench coat and held my breath, trying to ignore the pain. The water and alarm were having the intended effect: the Dreamscape began to blur as Alfred Hightower finally was jolted enough to start waking up.

  “No! T’KLAK HYPERBORIA LEMURIA AI PHTAGN!” The Anarchist shouted the throat-tearing words, making the Dreamscape stabilize, its colors faded and shapes blurred but still recognizable. I lost sight of the others then as the room filled with steam, but I stumbled in their general direction. The dragon roared in fury and sent another blast of fire randomly into the room but didn’t come close to anyone, instead incinerating a chunk of the stone wall, leaving a smeared gray splotch when the dream didn’t renew itself.

  I had to find Hightower and shock him enough to break him out of this nightmare without killing him, and I had to do so without being incinerated or hacked to pieces. Piece of cake. Death cake. Made of arsenic with strychnine frosting. I reached out with my dream senses to search for the dreamer. Instead of getting a bearing on the man, I stumbled and almost lost my feet as my mind’s eye was simultaneously seared by the pop culture manifestation that was even now threatening to bring the whole building down on top of us and sickened by the wrongness of the Anarchist’s presence.

  The floor shook, and I did end up on hands and knees as the wyrm heaved its bulk further into the room. I scrambled forward through the steam, which was thinning out as the water reservoirs ran dry. I cursed my newb mistake—the damned water had probably only run dry because I had assumed that it would. I spotted motion ahead and, reaching down, I grabbed the lasso that I was sure I’d clipped onto my trench coat. I stumbled to my feet, envisioned a perfect throw that I’d seen at a rodeo as a kid, and let loose, doing a quick fist pump as I landed the coil of rope around Hightower.

  I was starting to feel a bit unsteady from the amount of effort I was expending, but the thirty-ton lizard filling up the room behind me provided some extra impetus, and I reached for a technique that I’d used all the time as a kid but that had been less and less effective as I grew up and understood how the world worked. I blanked my mind of anything but the belief that I was awesome. A blue glow rose up around me, and I felt superhuman speed and strength infuse me. I hauled on the end of the rope still in my hands. The solid banker probably weighed 250 pounds, but he sailed through the air like a balloon on a string and landed at my feet like a sack of urine-reeking potatoes. Well, like what I guessed a sack of urine-reeking potatoes would be like.

  “London’s burning, London’s burning, fire, fire, fire, fire!” The Anarchist’s sing-song voice cut through the fog, and I saw him looming toward me, a gleaming sickle in hand. I couldn’t make out his face behind the mask, but the leprous tentacle seemed to be wreathed in flame where it hung down from a torn sleeve. The end of that disgusting appendage whipped toward me without warning. With my normal reflexes, even in the Dreamscape, it would have taken my head off, but in my enhanced state, I dodged it with a quick hop to the side as easily and instinctively as a politician evades the truth. I guess that’s why he flung the sickle at me.

  The gleaming, hooked length of steel tumbled end over end. Moving faster than seemed feasible, it crossed the twenty feet between us in heartbeat. He’d aimed at my chest, but I cheated, using superhuman speed to blur a couple feet to the right. The wickedly sharp blade tagged my shoulder, and I cried out in pain, but it couldn’t penetrate my trench coat and caromed off, slicing through the air…and striking the dragon. The blade clattered to what was left of the floor with a metallic clang. Everyone froze for a moment.

  “FOOL!” the big fire drake roared, before mentioning something about armor and his bad breath. If I had been in other circumstances, I probably would have thought that it was pretty cool to hear that line “live,” as it were. As things stood, I realized I was pretty much fucked.

  The Anarchist turned around and scrambled for the exit, and I felt my jacket flap out behind me as the enormous creature inhaled. My muscles were still singing with the energy that I’d imbued them with, but the first hints of a headache were starting to nibble at the edges of my thoughts, telling me that I probably couldn’t hold my enhancement for more than another thirty seconds. I’d be lucky to survive that long anyhow. I sprinted toward Hightower. As I wrapped my arms around the banker and scrambled to pull together my memories of the frozen depths of a Wisconsin winter, my luck ran out.

  Chapter 18 0200–0400, Friday, October 2, 2015

  I’m a connoisseur of pain. I’ve had bones smashed, an alien vine grow out of my shoulder, giant evil spider eggs implanted in my head, and had my heart broken. But, for my money, if you asked me what was the most painful, then I’d go with dragon fire every time. The napalm-like substance hit the bubble of cold surrounding my body and roasted its way inward. A normal man in the real world would have mercifully passed out and died in a heartbeat, but my willpower, honed by a lifetime of practice, sustained me for what felt like an eternity as my skin bubbled and charred. It was probably more like ten seconds.

  During that time, I put a shield of arctic memories around us, protecting Alfred Hightower from the worst of the flames while I screamed in his face to wake him up, or maybe that was just the agony. He was my only way out of the dream, my only chance to survive, and I could feel his sleeping mind on the verge of breaking apart as the Anarchist’s exertions somehow pinned us in this nightmare.

  Through the boiling steam, I could see the skin on Hightower’s face starting to redden and blister as the heat radiating off of me and from our surroundings pressed in and the final drops of water from the fire suppression system trailed off. The Dreamscape blurred, and for a moment I thought that I had succeeded in waking Hightower. But when the pain didn’t abate, I realized that it was because my eyes were starting to desiccate in the maelstrom of fire. That realization broke my concentration, and the fire washed over me. I lost my hold on the banker and crashed to the ground, the flames now consuming the flesh that it hadn’t been able to reach previously.

  Somewhere, the creature that I’d unleashed chuckled darkly. Somewhere else, my dying mind brought me a sweet hallucination in what I assumed were my final moments as I caught the ghost of my daughter’s voice calling out.

  “Daddy!”

  I thought that it was a better final word than I probably deserved as everything went black and I collapsed to the floor.

  “Daddy!”

  The pain was ending now.

  “DADDY!”

  I reached for that voice…and pulled…

  I awoke. The first thing I realized was that the pain was gone. The second thing was that I smelled smoke. When I tried to open my eyes they stung and watered so badly that I squeezed them closed again, choking. Olivia squealed in terror, making my adrenaline- and sweat-soaked body twitch, and I rolled to the floor. I’d put my little girl to sleep on the other side of the room, afraid to let her out of my sight, and panic set in as I thought that somehow I might have put her in danger—again.

  Once I was at floor level, I was able to get my eyes open. There were a couple of inches of clear air below the thick smoke, and I did a double take as I spotted bright lights, a woman’s ankles, and Ollie’s little legs through that gap. I crawled forward and cursed loudly as my arm landed on something ridiculously hot. I looked down and realized that it was the line of salt I had put down around the bed. I took a deep breath and flung myself across it.

  As soon as I broke the line there was a flare of light, and heat and smoke billowed throughout the room. However, after a few more confused moments in which I heard both Olivia and Becky coughing, the black cloud dissipated and was gone. From the towering vantage of my hands and knees, I surveyed
the scene: where I had put down the circle of salt, there was a ring scorched half an inch deep into the hardwood floor, but otherwise there was no sign of anything having been amiss, not a burn mark or a soot stain to be seen. Still—there went my deposit.

  “Daddy! Did you see scary monster?” Olivia’s chubby little face screwed up in concentration as she asked me the question with all of the gravity she could muster.

  “What the hell was that, Julian?” Becky screeched. I was pretty sure that the three-year-old was handling this particular surprise more maturely. Still, the question was a good one. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an answer.

  “Umm…I certainly wasn’t smoking in bed?” I replied with a grin, giddy at being alive. The look of exasperated disgust that earned me was probably fair enough. “Seriously though, Becky, I have no idea what that was about. Maybe someone threw a smoke bomb in here like they heaved in the brick a couple night ago,” I lied as I climbed to my feet, noticing that except for a circle of reddened flesh under my wedding ring, I was unharmed. Come find me.

  “Uh-uh.” She gave me the same skeptical look that I’d seen from Dana a hundred times, and then she continued, “There was a perfectly round cylinder of smoke surrounding your bed when Ollie’s screaming woke me and I came in to investigate. This was no smoke bomb. I need the truth, Julian. What the hell is going on here?” she demanded, stomping one foot. I couldn’t help noticing how tightly she held on to Olivia.

  My mind raced. Or, through the headache that was quickly coming on, it may have waddled, but in any event I was coming up blank. Olivia kept crying, and I took a step toward her. Becky took a step back. I didn’t like where this was going.

  “Becky, I already explained to you that there are supernatural elements involved in my life and your sister’s disappearance. Dana believed in my Dreamwatching. That’s why she came back to London. I don’t know how to prove it to you, but—” That was when the phone rang. I picked it up, glad for the distraction. My sister-in-law squinted her eyes, pursed her quivering lips, and shot me the venomous glare that was common to all the women in her family.

  “Jules—why is my client sitting in Charing Cross Hospital with second- and third-degree burns when the paramedics reported no damage to any of the furniture or clothes?” Jack Redderton sounded more annoyed and disappointed than angry.

  “I had to use fire and brimstone to fight off the damned Anarchist. You’ll be holding up your end of the bargain,” I replied. There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. I got the distinct impression that if Jack broke the silence too soon, I might find his response less than cordial.

  “I have no idea if he is going to survive the night or not, and I’m not about to trade the golden calf for a handful of magic beans.”

  I almost corrected his mixed metaphor before I remembered just how popular that had made me in school, and in the office, and with my wife.

  “Well—if you aren’t convinced by this one, then do you have any other super-rich clients that you’d like me to keep alive?” I asked. I was a bit surprised when there was a pause, and suddenly a 90s boy band jingle started playing in my ear as I was put on hold. What could have caused Jack to cut me off like that? I’d made an implacable enemy of the Anarchist tonight; if I saw him again, he’d kill me. That wasn’t going to come free for Jack.

  Becky was still standing in the doorway to the room, and it looked like what she was overhearing wasn’t decreasing her skepticism, but I certainly had her full attention. It was probably the mention of someone super-rich.

  “Jules—my clients have told me that they are…pleased with the outcome of tonight’s events. They want me to take over the protection of the rest of their organization from the Anarchist. They want to meet me tonight. They also want you to be there. Meet me at Bank station at 1800. We’ve already started looking into Dana’s disappearance; I’ll have the files sent to your house.” His tone held a note of suspicion, and I wondered what his employers had said that made him change his tune so completely. I was pretty sure that I knew where the actual meeting would be held.

  “Understood,” I replied, not wanting to ask any further questions in front of an audience. The Redderton private investigator mumbled his agreement and hung up the phone. I turned back to Becky, and she arched a shapely blond eyebrow expectantly.

  “As I said—I can give you the same explanation that I gave you already. But I can’t give it right now. I have to get into the office, and then I have a meeting downtown, as you’ve just heard. When I get back tonight I’ll give you a proper explanation again, and after you’ve heard it you can decide whether or not you believe me this time,” I said while grabbing a pair of blue jeans out of the closet—it was casual Friday.

  “You’re a piece of s-h-i-t,” she replied with a look of disgust, wrinkling her pert nose before she turned on her heel and went back to bed, taking Ollie with her. I felt a momentary panic at that, but I had already intended to leave my girl with her aunt. I’d had my first real win tonight, but I still needed help, so I picked up my phone and called Toscan, but the phone didn’t even ring, and I felt butterflies stir in my stomach. If Toscan had joined the rapidly lengthening MIA list along with Dana, my dad, and my sister, then my list of allies was growing short. I thought that maybe Richard and the UnAdled could provide it. Time to get to work. Literally.

  Chapter 19 0900–2230, Friday, October 2, 2015

  I’d made it into the office in just under half an hour. Anne from Accounting had greeted me warmly, but neither Richard nor Janice were around when I arrived. A few other colleagues had given me friendly nods as I came in, but what struck me the most was the normality of everything.

  Out of hope more than expectation of a reply, I dropped a quick note to Toscan and then just sat at a hot desk, thinking about the events of the previous night. Succeeding in my attempt to reach Alfred Hightower’s dream was a major breakthrough, and calling myself just a Dreamwatcher was feeling less and less apt as I grew in my abilities. I also had saved a man’s life. I felt a warm glow spread through me, forcing my face to crack into a smile. Even better, I’d earned some much-needed information from the Reddertons, which I’d receive this evening.

  As much success as I’d had supernaturally, my home life was teetering on the brink. Becky didn’t trust me, and I couldn’t blame her. What was worse, I couldn’t keep my daughter safe and look for Dana at the same time, especially not when I’d pissed the Anarchist off so badly last night. I’d made my decision the second that I’d broken the magical circle—I had to send Olivia back to the US. I didn’t know if the Sons of Perseus could follow her, but I was sure that Dana’s family would do everything in their power to keep her safe. The DuCaines looked after their own. To accomplish that, I would need help, legal and financial, and I figured that I could get that from Richard, Janice, and the rest of the UnAdled.

  Unfortunately, neither Richard nor my former boss, Janice, had shown up by midmorning, so I left to grab a Coke, already missing Ollie and feeling diminished by the loss. Have you ever noticed that women often talk about what kind of a woman they want to be: trying to balance being a mother, a career woman, a feminist, a free spirit? There’s no doubt that there are forces that hold them back, but at least they have a choice. Guys—hetero guys at least—just get told to “be a man,” and that only means one thing: get a good job, find a good mate, start a family, and then provide for and protect them. My failure to protect my family made me less of a man, and as I strode out of the elevator, my face was grim. I swore once again that I’d redeem myself. I wasn’t going to let Olivia grow up motherless.

  When I rounded the corner to our shared office, things started to get interesting. I hate interesting. “Richie—I just can’t stand to be around him.” Janice’s flat alto voice carried through the closed doors, so I caught it before I entered the otherwise-deserted office. I paused just outside the threshold to listen.

  “I know what you and the others said, and I understand why y
ou’re upset. None of us want to ever feel like that again—but you know that it isn’t his fault, and there isn’t anything that he can do about it. You know what we owe him,” Richard replied in his rich baritone.

  “I know what we owe him, but the point of living isn’t just to pay off debts,” Janice replied firmly.

  “I understand, but I don’t see how we can ask him to stay away either. His house burned down, and his wife is gone, so he needs help. Hell, he must feel like the loneliest man in the world.” Richard’s reply brought an unexpected lump to my throat. I’d spent almost every moment since waking up from my coma trying to get my wife back. Some of that had been a desperate need for absolution, some of it had been forced on me, but some of it had been my way of hiding. Janice was correct, though—I had no right to inflict any more damage on them just for my own surcease, so I’d keep this short.

  “Richard, Janice! So good to see you,” I said, striding through the office doors as though I had been walking down the hallway at a normal pace and not eavesdropping. I positioned myself on the opposite side of the room and put on a hangdog expression before I spoke again. “I’m glad that it’s just you two in here. Look—I know that it’s asking a lot, but I’m really nervous about being away from my daughter; her emotional state just isn’t very good at the moment. Is there any chance that I could…” I paused for dramatic effect.

  “Yes, Julian?” they prompted simultaneously. I didn’t want to consider how creepy that was and resolved to keep this quick before things got any weirder.

  “Well, I was wondering if I could arrange to be home based? Maybe for six months or so?” I finished, making the request sound suitably abashed.

  The others exchanged relieved glances for only a couple of seconds before Richard spoke. “Well, that’s quite an unusual request and we’ll need to go through HR for approval. I think that they’ll consider it—and we’ll take care of the paperwork on this end.” He nodded toward Janice.