by Dima Zales
He zooms in front of me. “What’s that?”
“It’s like when we’re trying to figure out what type of Cognizant someone is on Gomorrah. Earth humans use those labels in similar ways, with some groups not liking other groups—like necromancers and vampires.”
“Oh, but that’s an easy guessing game.” His ears waggle in excitement. “Orcs are green, elves are thin and willowy, dwarves have beards, giants are—”
“Right.” I speed up as I get to the staircase. Though time moves faster in the dream world, or feels like it does, there’s still good reason to make haste. What the heck—I take flight instead of bothering with each step. “But it’s not always that simple,” I continue as Pom catches up to me. “Werewolves look no different from me, unless they turn.”
His furry face takes on a sage look. “So what do most humans guess for your lace and felicity?”
“It’s race and ethnicity. And their guesses are all over the place: Latin America, Africa, the Middle East… Some think I’m just a tanned person of European descent with a perm—I guess it’s the tiny nose and gray eyes.”
“I like your eyes.” Pom flits in front of me again, his gaze unblinking. This lack of common-sense social skills is why I usually ask him to be invisible when I work with my clients.
He must pick up on my thought because the tips of his ears turn red.
“Thanks for the compliment,” I say to appease him. On a whim, I change my eyes to flame red to match my hair.
Pom’s ears go back to blue. “Humans are stupid. You’re obviously not from any of those places.”
“Right.” I take a shortcut by making a portion of the wall evaporate in front of me. “The good news is that my looks give me an advantage. We Cognizant tend to settle in those parts of human-occupied worlds where we most resemble the native population—which means if I ever decide to permanently move to Earth, I could have my pick of much of the planet.”
Pom’s fur darkens. “Why would we ever want to live in such a backward place?”
He has a point. The sanitation system on Earth is still water-based, the VR technology is in its infancy, and the cars don’t yet drive themselves.
“Gomorrah is better in every way.” He’s clearly picking up on my thoughts again.
“I need to be around humans to keep my powers,” I remind him for the umpteenth time. “Plus, thanks to my amazing reputation among Earth Cognizant, I can get high-paying jobs here.”
“As in illegal, high-risk jobs,” he grumbles.
I suppress a surge of worry about the Enforcers in the waking world. Why stress Pom about something he can’t help with? Instead, I put on a burst of speed and reach the tower of sleepers.
The tower is a cylindrical glass structure made up of several levels of glass-walled nooks, each with a single piece of furniture: a bed. Once I’ve successfully created a dream connection with someone, when they dream, they show up in one of those beds. Thanks to this tower, I only have to go through the unpleasantness of touching people in the real world once.
Bernard, the newest sleeper in my collection, has taken the place that freed up when I cured my most recent legit patient of his bedwetting problem and severed our link.
As we get closer to Bernard’s nook, the rest of Pom turns black, and I curse under my breath.
Miniature dark clouds are flying above Bernard’s head.
“That figures,” I mumble. “Why’d I think I’d finally get a break?”
Those clouds indicate a trauma loop—a type of dream that’s based on traumatic events in Bernard’s life. Trauma loops plague sleepers on a regular basis, and they’re so powerful that I find it easier to just witness them without changing anything. The good news for the sleeper in question is that my mere presence during these special dreams usually breaks their repeat cycle, which helps the sleeper feel better in the waking world.
This might be Bernard’s lucky day. Not so much mine, though. I’m in a rush.
Pom flies up to the clouds and gives them a sniff, which is when a miniature lightning bolt hits his nose. “Ouch! That’s a bad one.”
I erase his pain and encase the clouds in a protective glass bubble. “Probably deep trauma.”
“I won’t join you, then.” Pom’s fur looks like coal. “The last time we worked with someone like this, it disturbed my sleep.”
To highlight his point, he zooms behind me, as if Bernard might reach out and snatch him from the air, forcing him to see the nightmare.
“Something disturbed your sleep?” I turn to grin at him. “Did you sleep twenty-three hours and forty-four minutes, instead of the full twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes?”
He sniffs. “At least I’m not on vampire blood, like some.”
“Well, technically, given our symbiotic relationship, you are on it. It just doesn’t work on you, but—”
“Whatever. I’m not going in, no matter how much you beg.” Pom lifts his chin and disappears like a Cheshire cat. Instead of his smile, it’s his furry chin that hovers in the air until he’s completely gone.
“I don’t need you there, anyway,” I say to the empty air. “I’m in a rush, and this will go faster without your yammering.”
He doesn’t take the bait.
I’m almost to Bernard when I smack myself on the forehead. Almost forgot to make myself invisible again.
Pointedly turning myself undetectable by sight, sound, or smell, I touch Bernard on the forearm the way I did in the waking world—except without any worry of contamination.
And then, unlike in reality, where I’m standing in a sleep-like trance, in the dream world I disappear from the palace and reappear inside Bernard’s trauma loop.
Chapter Four
I find myself on a playground, one of Earth’s most primitive anachronisms where children physically play. On Gomorrah, fully immersive virtual spaces replaced these long ago, which means no dirt, no germs, and a lot more entertainment options for the little ones.
This particular playground is creepy. Spiders and maggots crawl inside the sandbox, and the empty swing sways as though ridden by ghosts. Even the monkey bars look warped, and the trees remind me of an evil forest from a dark fairy tale.
I bet the original playground wasn’t like this. Bernard’s emotions are twisting the surroundings.
The man himself is strolling toward a see-saw, the hands of two cute children in his grip—a little girl who’s a toddler and a slightly older boy.
Hmm. There’d been no sign of a family when I broke into his apartment.
“Daddy, I need to wee-wee.” The girl is dancing from foot to foot.
“Me too,” the boy says. “And I go first.”
“No, me first.” She gives her brother an imperious look. “Princesses first.”
They bicker about it as Bernard herds them toward a park bathroom. A public bathroom. Gross. Private water-based plumbing is horrific enough.
I float a few feet behind them. Though this dream could easily be fiction—driven by, say, Bernard’s subconscious regret over never starting a family—my powers allow me to know the truth without a shadow of a doubt: This dream is based on a memory. All trauma loops I’ve encountered have been memories—though, in theory, one day I might come across a dream that twists the memory too much. Should that happen, I’d use my powers to pull out the truth and, hopefully, break the loop that way.
So it’s a memory—but from when? The scar on Bernard’s forehead is missing, so it’s safe to say this must’ve been a while ago.
“I can’t hold it anymore,” the boy says when they reach the bathroom.
The girl starts crying.
“You’re such a baby,” the boy says.
The girl stomps her foot and cries louder.
“Let’s go.” Bernard drags them into the men’s room.
Oh, the smell… the sights… the germs. Pom was right to disappear; this could traumatize someone for life.
The walls begin to close in.
Puck, I’m changing the dream without meaning to. That’s not good. If Bernard notices my influence, he could wake up.
I close my eyes. This is just a dream, and one colored by Bernard’s emotions at that. No germs can get me here. I should think of this as exposure therapy for myself—a bit like what I do with my clients who have phobias.
Yeah, that’s it.
The bathroom walls get back to normal, but just in case, I disable my sense of smell.
The siblings are still fighting. Visibly frustrated, Bernard helps the boy start his business at a low urinal and then drags the crying toddler into a stall. My nebulous presence follows them in, as this is Bernard’s dream/memory and I can only experience what he does.
Through the crying, I hear someone new enter the bathroom.
The boy yelps.
Bernard freezes for a moment, then kicks open the stall door—just in time to see the back of a man rushing out of the bathroom.
The boy is gone.
This time, the walls are closing in because of Bernard. He grabs the hysterical toddler like a sack and rushes out of the bathroom, looking frantically around the playground. He spots the man at the park entrance.
“Stop,” he yells. “Give him back!”
The kidnapper dives for a car parked by a hydrant, tosses the boy into the back seat, and jumps behind the wheel.
Bernard sprints after him, but the tires are already burning rubber. “What was that license plate?” Bernard shouts at the toddler in his grip.
The girl cries hysterically.
The agony on Bernard’s sheet-white face is painful to look at.
“Bailey,” a familiar voice says in my ear. “They’re there.”
Puck, I’m not done yet. There’s more to this, I can tell. But there’s a pressure on my arm that has nothing to do with the dream, and my cheek stings as if someone has slapped it.
Like a balloon popping, my dreamwalking trance breaks, and I open my eyes in the waking world.
A pale, weaselly man slaps my other cheek so hard that I stagger back, nearly falling on the slumbering Bernard.
Hearing the commotion—or more likely, waking from his nightmare—Bernard opens his eyes and sees the same thing I’m looking at.
A room full of vampires.
Chapter Five
The eyes of the vampire who slapped me turn into mirrors as he catches Bernard’s gaze.
“You will go into the kitchen and sit for ten minutes,” he says in a honey-laced voice with a slight Scottish accent. “Afterward, you’ll forget we were ever here. Understood?”
“Yes,” Bernard says in the robotic tone people tend to take on under glamour. “I’ll go.”
“And forget,” the vamp says.
“And forget.” Shamelessly flashing us his hairy body, Bernard lumbers to his destination.
I do my best to get my racing pulse under control. “What’s this about?” Taking out my hand sanitizer, I apply a generous amount to my slapped cheeks and touched arm. Who knows where that vampire’s hands have been? “I was in the middle of something.”
“We’re here on behalf of the Council,” says the tallest of the bunch, an unusually unattractive specimen of his kind. His hooked nose sits above a thin, downturned mouth, and his brown hair is limp and greasy-looking. However, his pale eyes hold an intense sort of intelligence.
“It’s probably true,” Felix whispers. “That’s Kain, the new leader of the Enforcers. I remember him because of the Legacy of Kain. He even looks a little like the guy in that game series.”
I’d tell Felix to shut it, but I don’t want to give away his presence. No reason for him to go down as my accomplice.
“Why does the Council wish to see me?” I ask in a tone so calm it surprises even me.
“You will only speak when spoken to,” growls the vampire who slapped me earlier.
“No need to be rude, Firth,” Kain says to his lackey. He shifts his pale gaze to me. “I’m afraid you’ll have to appear in front of the Council to learn more.”
I count at least a dozen vampires around me. Not good. “Do I have to?”
“If you want to live,” Kain says without emotion.
“Okay, then. I guess I’m dying to go.”
He tips his head. “Put the contents of your pockets on the bed.”
For a fleeting moment, I consider fighting my way out. Why else did I learn all those martial arts in the dreams of renowned masters? The problem is that vampires are much stronger and faster, not to mention I’m completely outnumbered.
Not looking at Pom, lest they realize he’s contraband from another world, I take out the sleeping grenade, my Earth smartphone, my Gomorran comms, and the vial of diluted vampire blood. I gingerly place it all on the wrinkled sheets, which are still warm from Bernard.
“I should check her,” Firth says—overeagerly, in my opinion.
“Don’t,” Kain says imperiously. He strides over to poke in my stuff. Right away, he homes in on my Gomorran comms. “This is Otherland technology. It’s forbidden to bring it to Earth.”
“Oops.” I grimace. “I didn’t show it to any locals, I swear.”
Kain nods at Firth, and the thin vamp crushes the device in his fist and pockets the broken pieces. What an ass. I’m glad I didn’t bring my pricey hygieia wand from home. Earth hand sanitizers are infinitely worse at germ-killing, but at least they shouldn’t be confiscated.
I’m about to snap at Kain for destroying my property—comms aren’t exactly cheap, either—but Felix whispers into my earpiece, “He just did you a huge favor. If the Council caught you with that, you’d be in major trouble—well, more trouble than whatever you’ve gotten yourself into already.”
Fine. Maybe he’s right. Being an Earth native, Felix knows all the dumb rules here much better than I do.
Kain examines my phone before homing in on the grenade.
“That’s to help with my work,” I say quickly. “It puts people to sleep.”
He puts down the grenade and picks up the vial. Uncorking it, he takes a sniff and looks at me with a raised eyebrow.
I feel my blood rush to my face. “It’s not what you think it’s for.”
His eyebrow lifts higher.
“I only use that to suppress the need to sleep.”
His eyebrow goes back down. “I thought even dreamwalkers needed sleep to survive.”
I shrug, resisting the urge to point out the irony of a vampire lecturing me about blood consumption.
“You can have those back.” Kain gestures at the bed.
I sanitize the phone, the vial, and the grenade before stuffing them back into my pockets. At this rate, I might need another bottle of sanitizer, unless they kill me soon and render that point moot. And since I’m already on this morbid train of thought, I hope they sterilize the sword or ax they plan to behead me with, a bit like humans do with needles for their lethal injections. One thing’s for sure: There’s no way these vampires are going to be willing to stop by a pharmacy for more hand sanitizer, even if it’s on the way.
Firth catches my gaze with his beady eyes and mouths something that looks suspiciously like blood whore—a derogatory term for a vampire addict, which I’m not. Hopefully.
Either way, it’s official: From here on out, Firth is Filth, though perhaps I’ll only call him that behind his back, for safety reasons.
“What was in that vial?” Felix whispers.
Glad the diluted solution looks more like water than blood, I ignore his question. It’s not like I’m in a position to answer him, anyway.
The vampires escort me out to a limo, and we drive down the night streets of Manhattan at race car speeds.
“I hacked into the limo’s GPS,” Felix informs me. “They’re going to the Council castle, just as they claimed.”
Good to know. Now if only I knew whether that’s good news or bad news.
Since Felix doesn’t say more, I stare out the car window to stay sane. We’re passing Times Squar
e, one of the busiest parts of this city. It can’t compare to even the quietest street back on Gomorrah, but the hustle and bustle makes me feel at home. Except there are no humans on Gomorrah—which is what all these people are.
It’s mind-boggling. The Cognizant make up less than one percent of Earth’s population, but from what I know about this world’s homo sapiens, if they learned of beings with powers like ours, they’d see us as a threat and act accordingly. I don’t know if they’d catch us for vivisection or simply wipe us out, but I’m sure the outcome wouldn’t be fun. This is why we keep our existence under strict secrecy, going as far as enforcing the silence with a barbaric practice called the Mandate, which decrees death to anyone dumb enough to blab about the Cognizant on advanced human-dominated worlds like Earth.
Maybe that’s what the vamps want. Have I been on this world long enough to need the stupid Mandate Rite? I thought you were supposed to request it—and plan to settle on Earth, to boot. I doubt you’d get escorted to the ceremony like a VIP.
Felix yawns into my earpiece. I could strangle him right now. The last thing I need is for my sleep deprivation symptoms to resurface.
He yawns again.
That does it. I sneak my hand into my pocket, pull out my phone, and stealthily text, Take a nap.
“What?” Felix says. “I’m not going to—”
Please, I text. I hide my phone before Filth sees me and breaks it like he did with the Gomorran comms.
“You sure?” my friend mumbles.
Turning so the vampires can’t see, I show my lapel camera a thumbs-up and clasp my hands as if in prayer.
“Okay, fine,” he whispers. “If they’re really taking you to see the Council, there’s not much I can do for you, anyway.”
Great. I’m so much calmer now.
When we get outside the city, I decide Bernard has had enough time to go back to bed. That means I can return to his dreams, finish my job, and email Valerian with the account number of Mom’s hospital on Gomorrah. Hopefully he’ll still pay if I’m dead. I’m hoping I’ll live, though. The money from this gig will only cover the outstanding bills, not her future stay.