by Gareth Otton
“What, you don’t recognise them?” Tad asked, his tone light. “Freckles wasn’t there that night, but surely you recognise Growler. And that is my ghost, Tony.”
“Where the fuck is my sister?”
Tad ignored his question and instead asked another.
“Don’t you want to know what those are?” He pointed into the back of his van, past Growler and Freckles who were staring down the newly conjured monster, and past Tony who waved at everyone with a massive grin. He was pointing at the four cameras that had been set up to face four directions, one forward, one back, and the other two pointing out the tinted glass panels on the side of the van.
“You think catching my face on film will save you or your girlfriend if you don’t bring me my sister right now?”
“Of course not. We can use them at your trial, of course. All of your trials,” Tad shouted, raising his voice to talk to everyone present. “They cover a full three-sixty-degrees so you’re all on camera. Smile. But no, though that’s a benefit, it’s not their primary purpose. They’re here because these particular cameras have been fitted with both SIM cards and GPS units. It means that right now its transmitting a live stream of what’s happening along with our co-ordinates. It’s exactly the information I need to get to know a place.
“But look who I’m talking to, you probably know all this now you have that Dreamcatcher on your arm. You need to know a place before you can dreamwalk there. Once you’ve got a good sense of its location and you can get a good idea of what that place looks like, it's usually enough. It takes a few minutes to really feel it out though, so if you’re ever laying a trap for someone, you need to keep that person talking for a few minutes while you give your backup time to arrive.”
Stella knew her cue when she heard it, and she chose that moment to act.
She had been struggling with the man holding her, but it had been nothing more than a token effort. He was huge and made of muscle, but Stella had recently been given information about herself that she was trusting more every day. It turned out, muscle and physical size didn’t mean much when you have other advantages. For Tad, that was the power of Dream. For Stella, it was the accumulated belief of billions of people that she was a detective who could handle herself when the situation was called for. People might only have a small amount of belief, but multiplied billions of times, a small amount of anything adds up.
Therefore, when Stella threw herself backward, the man behind her was knocked back hard enough that both his feet came off the floor. He would have pulled her after him had she not turned to break his grip, then set her feet so she could fight his momentum. It turned out the ugly brute was a man in mechanic's overalls and covered in grease. He was three times her size, yet he collided with the road with the same force that Harry had collided with a kitchen cabinet a week earlier. Tarmac was a little harder than chip board though, and this time it was the man in the mechanic overalls that broke, not the surface he crashed into.
The men standing around Stella took an immediate step back, their expressions saying they’d just discovered something considerably more dangerous than it looked. Stella took a moment to enjoy that, just as she enjoyed the look on Kuruk’s face when he finally put the clues together and realised what was happening.
Stella freeing herself was the last distraction, and finally she heard that oh so satisfying pop, followed by another, and another. This time they weren’t children of ADaM. This time help had arrived.
One by one, dreamwalkers blinked into existence. Some on their own and others with members of the Dream Team’s tactical units. Stella didn’t recognise most of them, but she did recognise her people, most of whom came armed, and finally she recognised Tad’s friend Jacob who appeared next to Tad himself.
“Hey there brother, hope we’re not too late.”
Tad grinned and shook his head. Though his next words were in answer to Jacob’s statement, he was looking directly at Kuruk as he said them.
“No my friend, you’re right on time.”
Kuruk was shaking, his whole body turning red as his muscles bulged and his veins stood out sharply against his skin. Finally he let out his anger in the form of an ear-splitting roar, and all hell broke loose.
29
Monday, 18th July 2016
20:31
Tad stepped away from the giant man with the glowing tattoos and straight into the arms of one of the Children of ADaM standing behind him. The man grabbed him with supernatural strength thanks to a replica of one of Kuruk’s dreamcatchers. However, when a teenage ghost jumped on his back, he yelped and let Tad go so he could free himself.
The minute Tad was free, he spun. Seeing Tony’s phantom weight had thrown the man off balance, Tad had a moment of inspiration and focused on where the man’s shoe touched the ground, calling just a trickle of Dream to reduce the friction between the soul of his shoe and the tarmac.
His foot shot out like he’d slipped on ice covered in oil with a banana skin on top for good measure. He went down hard, head bouncing off the ground in a way that said he wasn’t getting back up.
“Thanks,” Tad said to the ghost even as he looked around at a world gone crazy. Children of ADaM were fighting with dreamwalkers, and Trevors men were struggling to find good positions to use their weapons, having to resort to strikes and physical blows as everyone was too close.
“Where do you want me?” Tony asked. “This isn’t like old days where I can be invisible and watch your back. I’m not sure what I can do here, mate.”
“You can give me strength,” Tad suggested and Tony nodded in agreement. Once again the act of absorbing his ghost was a quick process and soon Tad felt twice as strong and filled with energy. Despite that, he flinched when there was another roar behind him.
He was surprised to find Kuruk hadn’t moved. He stood still, shaking with rage and looking around with wide eyes as his night fell to pieces. On that, Tad could sympathise. His night wasn’t going perfectly either.
When he’d been backed into a corner at the dreamwalker meeting he’d kept himself from choosing one side over the other by trying to combine both sides. He gave the dreamwalkers chance to be part of this one thing, no strings attached and no names needing to be handed over. In return they would let him continue doing his job and wouldn’t take matters into their own hands.
However, when he’d sold the idea to them, he expected they’d drastically out number Kuruk and whoever he might have with him. He wasn’t expecting them to be fighting against a near equal force of men armed with dreamcatchers.
Another way tonight was taking a turn for the worse was that the roar hadn’t come from Kuruk, but from the giant beast at his side who stared at Tad in the same way a tiger stares at its lunch. Tad gulped and the creature lunged, its massive arms covering the distance between them in a fraction of a second. Tad’s brain barely had time to form a plan let alone enact it, and he would have been in trouble had fate not intervened to save him yet again.
This time it wasn’t a ghost to the rescue, but two giant masses of fur, teeth and claws that zipped by his head. Freckles and Growler collided with the creature in midair, and somehow both of the puppies were ten times the size Tad was used to. He had no idea how they managed the trick, but they were enormous and more than heavy enough to stop the giant creature in its tracks.
Heavy or not though, they were still puppies. They hadn’t grown into adult dogs, they had just scaled up dramatically. Their movements looked almost playful more than deadly and even as they bore the creature to the floor, it looked like they were bouncing and frolicking rather than taking out a foe. They had brought it to the ground, but they didn’t know what to do next.
Freckles yelped as the back of a clawed hand knocked him through the air. He instantly lost his supernatural mass and fell to the ground as a puppy, yelping again as he rolled. Furious at his brother’s treatment, Growler bit down into the creature’s arm, but its other hand was free to claw at Growlers side.
Growler took the blow like a champ, never letting go. However, drips of red blood went flying and splashed against Tad’s face. The moment he felt that warm liquid collide with his skin, something inside him snapped.
There was no thought, just action.
Tad raised his hand toward the beast and suddenly there was an explosion of light as a beam of pure white fire burst from his hand to laser into the beast’s head. For a second only the street was lit up like it was daylight and more than one scuffle stopped in surprise as what looked like a mini nuclear bomb had gone off. When their eyes cleared, they found themselves looking at a tiny puppy with three nasty, red lines on his flank, standing over a smoking, headless body of what once had been a living nightmare. Despite his injuries, Growler’s tail was wagging and he almost looked proud, as though he’d been the one to finish the creature off.
The sight of him safe again made Tad unclench and he blinked away the pain of using Dream for such an unnatural purpose. He wasn’t sure how he managed it. The only other time he had so successfully used Dream in such a way was when Kuruk attacked him in Jacob’s garden and…
Tad’s thoughts trailed off as he realised what was similar about that night; Tony. Apparently it wasn’t just physical boosts he got from the ghost’s presence, but a Dream boost as well. He’d need to look into that further.
For now he had to bring this fight to an end, and the best way he could see of doing that was to cut off the head of this particular snake. He looked for Kuruk, and the giant wasn’t hard to find.
He stood in the same spot, staring at the destroyed nightmare with wide eyes and maybe even a little fear. It didn’t last, though. He turned to Tad and his eyes narrowed as he roared one last time in defiance. It was posturing, pure and simple, and proof maybe that Kuruk didn’t have much experience with fights, especially one like this. Every second wasted taunting and yelling was a second he was vulnerable to attack. He learnt that lesson the hard way when Stella’s fist collided with his jaw.
Knowing full well how strong Stella had become, it was all the more impressive that Kuruk didn’t drop to the ground with a broken jaw. Instead, the tattoo on his stomach flared even brighter as Dream helped him absorb the blow. Suddenly another tattoo flared to life, one on his left shoulder, and he moved in a blur.
Stella was quicker than a normal person, but against such speed she had no chance.
Kuruk’s first blow caught her in the stomach, doubling her over. His second struck the back of her head and probably would have popped it off had Tad not acted. Using Dream to increase the density of the air about her head, he slowed the strike and cushioned the blow. However, Kuruk was supernaturally strong and fast, so the force was enough to knock Stella face first into the floor.
She bounced once, then didn’t move.
The same thing that snapped in Tad when he felt Growler’s blood went absolutely wild and he raised his hand to blow another hole in something, but Kuruk was too fast. Recognising the danger he zipped away and the next bolt of blinding light shot through the air where he’d been standing, straight through one of the Children of ADaM behind him and on through the hedgerow behind that. Again came a spasm of pain that Tad had to blink away as he looked for his target, and such a disadvantage was not a good thing when dealing with someone like Kuruk.
Tony’s reaction speed saved him, spotting Kuruk’s fist just in time to once again cushion the air. He did a better job this time as he had a fraction of a second longer to work with. He almost stopped Kuruk’s fist dead, but he still felt it and his head rocked back, taking his body with it. Ironically, the strength of that blow saved him from the next more brutal attack, putting Tad just out of reach of a gleaming silver blade that Kuruk had swung at his gut.
Twice more Kuruk struck as Tad stumbled backward, and while Tony’s boost in speed helped him stave off disaster, it never gave him the upper hand. There was no way he could keep this up and he needed a way to level out the playing field.
Once more he reached for the door in his mind, pulling over Dream and channelling the energy created by Kuruk’s incredible speed into boosting the air resistance acting upon him. The beauty of it was that the faster Kuruk moved, the harder he’d have to work to maintain his momentum. It didn’t take much Dream energy and the result was instantly noticeable. Kuruk continued to come on strong, giant arms throwing punches. However, he was down to heavyweight boxer pace rather than super hero speed, and with Tony’s help, Tad could work with that.
He dodged the first blow, then the second and a third before finally he got chance to throw a punch of his own. No one had ever really taught him how to punch, so it was sloppy at best and his technique was awful. However, when you have Dream enhanced strength on your side, your technique doesn’t need to be perfect. After all, a gorilla has no concept of martial arts, but in a fight between a gorilla and a cage-fighter, Tad didn’t think it would even be close.
Kuruk’s head rocked back, a spray of blood flying from a broken nose.
Tad punched him again, in the gut this time, knocking the air out of the giant’s lungs. After that he went for the knife. He grabbed Kuruk’s hand and twisted as hard as he could, turning it far enough that Kuruk yelped in pain and his fingers opened instinctively, the knife clattering uselessly to the floor.
Remembering the image of Stella being thrown face first into the ground, Tad felt the very real urge to keep twisting that arm until it snapped. The choice was taken from him as a heavy figure collided with Tad, carrying him off his feet and into the side of the van. Tad grunted as he hit, his bones crunching against the hard surface, but he stayed upright.
He pushed the dead weight of the figure that had collided with him aside and was preparing to attack the man before he recognised him.
“Jacob?” he asked.
“Sorry brother, I never saw that coming.” He raised a hand weakly and pointed back the way he had come to where a large fat man in jeans, t-shirt and a leather jacket was swinging a heavy chain. A blue glow emanated from beneath his t-shirt, telling Tad the man was tapping a dreamcatcher of his own.
That chain collided with the back of one of Trevor’s men, knocking him to the ground, before colliding with another dreamwalker in the stomach, sending him flying. The man was a wrecking ball to Tad’s people and causing untold damage.
“I don’t know what to do with him,” Jacob admitted, once again lacking the imagination needed to use their power properly. Luckily, imagination was something Tad had never struggled with.
The idea came when the chain lashed out and missed one opponent, scraping across the ground and creating sparks. Using that idea and running with it, Tad reached down to grab a stone from beneath his feet and struck it against the side of the van as hard as he could. The spark created from the impact was barely visible, but it didn’t need to be. Tad just needed something to work with.
Calling over Dream, he seriously boosted the strength of that spark and channelled it in much the same way as he had with the fire in Swansea. A bolt of lightning as thick as Tad’s wrist snaked across the space between them and the chain fighter, looking for something large and metallic to make friends with. In the blink of an eye it travelled up the length of the chain and there was a sharp crack and the leather-clad fighter dropped to the ground, twitching and foaming at the mouth.
“Jesus Christ,” Jacob whispered, eyes wide with wonder.
“Fight smart,” Tad said. “We’re dreamwalkers, use that.”
Before Jacob could reply, Tad looked for Kuruk and Stella. He needed to bring that man down once and for all, but he was also desperate to make sure Stella was okay. He’d softened the blow as much as he could, but she still went down hard.
Unfortunately, of Stella there was no sign. Kuruk, on the other hand...
Tad was moving before his brain registered that he’d even seen the man. Kuruk was pushing his way through the fighting crowd, knocking everyone aside even if they were fighting for him. Tad rushed to cat
ch up, but could only go so far before people got in his way.
One of the Children of ADaM stepped into his path as he chased one of Trevor’s people with a cricket bat. He’d managed to get the upper hand and was swinging the bat to kill. Using Tony’s speed Tad caught the bat, utilising dream to help soften the blow as it landed in his palm. The wood was surprisingly warm as it had pushed its way through Tad’s air resistance trick, generating a lot of heat from friction in the process and giving Tad another idea. When he let go, the bat burst into flames so bright it turned the bat into ashes almost instantly, burning the wielder’s hand in the process.
Taking advantage of the man’s surprise, the Dream Team member who’d been beaten back brought his gun up as though to shoot the man. This close to other people and surrounded by so many of their own, Tad thought he was crazy. However, the gun was quickly reversed and it hammered against the man’s temple. There was a crunching sound and the man dropped like a stone. Tad wasn’t sure he’d get up again, and he cared even less. He was already moving after Kuruk.
But Kuruk was in full escape mode now, rushing away to fight another day. He threw his own people into Tad’s path and try as he might, Tad just couldn’t help but get caught up in struggle after struggle.
However, for as much as they were slowing him down, nothing was coming close to stopping him. He’d honed his skills with months of fighting nightmares. A few idiots with stolen dreams weren’t up to the challenge of a ghost fuelled dreamwalker. They weren’t even a match for the less practiced dreamwalkers from what Tad could see. It had taken his people a little while to find their feet, but they were getting the upper hand.
However, it was growing bothersome having to find a creative way to deal with each attack. In many ways, figuring out the way their powers worked and coming up with creative solutions gave him access to something much greater than he ever dreamed of. Right now where time was a serious factor though, he wished he could just forget trying to find something to augment and just create something from nothing.