by Dima Zales
But that’s enough worrying.
It’s dreamwalking time.
There are many ways to get into dreams. The classic method is to fall asleep myself, which could be tough thanks to the vampire blood I’ve ingested and all this existential dread. The strategy I’ve used more often lately is to touch a dreamer—like my legit therapy clients, illegal job targets à la Bernard, and most often, Pom, the looft on my wrist.
I stealthily slide one hand toward Pom. The last thing I want is to draw attention to his existence. As a looft, Pom spends ninety-nine percent of his life in REM sleep, providing me with a gateway into the dream world that’s always at my fingertips. Well, almost always—he is, on a super-rare occasion, awake. Though you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at him in the waking world. Here, he’s a fur bracelet regardless.
Stroking him to soothe myself, I concentrate on my intent to go into his dream.
Just like when I touch any other sleeper, my muscles tense and relax, I smell ozone, and I experience the sensation of falling as the limo around me darkens and the world of wakefulness goes bye-bye.
Chapter Six
I find myself in my dream palace once more. Awesome. The vamps will be none the wiser—there’s a reason I put up with what’s essentially a parasite living on my wrist.
“What?” Pom appears in front of me in the angriest shade of red I’ve seen. “I can’t believe you used the P-word.”
I make my hair and eyes extra fiery. “How many times do I have to ask you not to snoop on my thoughts? You’re only allowed to be upset when I say something mean with my mouth.”
“But a parasite?” The tips of his ears go from red to blue. “I’m a symbiont.”
“Sure.” I fly up and head for the tower of sleepers. “Whatever you say.”
“You have to mean that.” He zooms in front of me, his ears going back to red.
“If you insist on having this discussion, let me ask you something: Am I or am I not your food source?”
“In a manner of speaking. I get my nutrients from your bloodstream.”
“And where do your metabolic byproducts go?” Even as I ask the question, I shudder at the images it generates.
Pom turns a shade paler. “You mean like farts and poop? I don’t think I do those things, but if I did, I guess it would go into your bloodstream. But your liver—”
“Is not there to save me from looft poo, I’m sure. In any case, what do you call a creature that lives off someone like this?”
He zips around me. “If it was useless, like a tick, you’d rightfully call it a parasite. But if the noble being provides the host with benefits, it’s a symbiont.”
“Benefits?” I fly over the staircase. “What are they? Besides blasting my eyeballs with extreme cuteness and helping me get into the dream world—both things I could hypothetically use a koala bear for. Did you know koalas sleep up to twenty-two hours a day? That’s only an hour and fifty-five minutes less than you.”
He huffs. “You can’t bring a koala from world to world. And I do more for you than you think. I help you stay thin when you consume too many calories and—”
“Wait.” I slow down to look into his big, guileless eyes. “Are you saying I pig out?”
“Well… I also help you regulate your appetite.”
Huh. That may explain why I haven’t been as hungry lately. “I didn’t know that.”
He puffs up. “There’s a lot you don’t know about loofts.”
“You win,” I say, mostly because we’ve reached the tower and I need to focus on Bernard. “You’re a symbiont.” Under my breath, I add, “Like gut bacteria.”
“I heard that,” Pom grumbles as I float over to Bernard’s nook. “But guess what? All you Cognizant are parasites when it comes to humans. You wouldn’t have powers if it weren’t for their belief in you. You wouldn’t—” He stops, seeing my crestfallen expression. “I’m sorry. That was mean.”
I wave dismissively. “No, you can call me a parasite if you want. I was just hoping to finish the job.” I eye Bernard’s empty bed in disappointment.
“Oh, yeah, he’s no longer sleeping,” Pom says. “Check back in a few hours. I’m sure he’ll be back later.”
I do my best to suppress a thought along the lines of assuming I have a later. No need to worry the little guy.
Pom cocks his head at me. Did he catch that worry, after all?
Before he can question me and because I need to soothe myself, I take to the air, heading to an adjacent part of the palace.
Pom’s fur brightens to golden as he realizes where I’m going. “Which memory will you relive this time?” he eagerly asks, flitting around me.
“Not sure yet.”
My memory gallery serves a purpose similar to photo albums on Earth and VR videos on Gomorrah, making it easier to put myself into a dream that’s based on a treasured recollection. Each plasma-framed painting hanging in the cavernous, museum-like space depicts an important snapshot of my life.
I float along the walls, scanning the various images until I settle on one.
“This?” Pom asks when I stop next to my choice.
“It’s my earliest memory.”
The tips of his ears turn light orange. “How old were you when that happened?”
“Seven, I think.”
“And that’s your earliest memory?” His ears are now a hodgepodge of colors. “Don’t most people recall events before that age?”
I try not to show how much his innocent question bothers me. “I think it varies for everyone. I’ve always felt like there were parts of my childhood I couldn’t recall—and Mom wasn’t helpful when I asked her to fill in the blanks.”
An understatement. Most fights between us over the years boiled down to her snapping at me for asking something about the past, like “who was my father?” or “where is he?”
Pom clasps his little paws together. “Well, then, do what you came here to do.”
“Be back soon,” I say and jump into the painting.
Chapter Seven
I’m shorter than usual. My body is that of my seven-year-old self, as are my emotions—unless I stop the replay and reflect as my adult self, which I rarely do.
Mommy’s in the bathroom, and I’m bored. Spying an interesting object on Mommy’s dresser, I climb onto a chair and rise on tiptoes to reach it.
It’s coarse to the touch, unlike any other material I’ve ever handled. Is it clay? I don’t know where I know that word from, but I’m pretty sure the object—a vase—is made of that.
Even more interesting are the handprints on it. There are four of them, and they belong to two smaller children. Or one child who put their prints onto the vase twice.
I strain my memory to figure out if they’re mine.
Nothing.
“What are you doing?”
Mommy’s voice startles me, and I drop the vase.
It hits the floor and shatters, clay bits flying everywhere as her eyes widen in horror.
I climb off the chair, head hanging low.
Mommy drops to her knees, pawing through the pieces as her face turns red and blotchy and her eyes fill with moisture.
I don’t want her to cry. “Mommy, I’m so sorry. It was an accident.”
Blinking rapidly, she envelops me in a hug. “It’s okay, darling—it was just a material object. We can get another.” But her voice is strained, and a wet drop falls on my forehead.
I begin to sob.
“No, no, darling, hush.” She rocks me back and forth. “We can always make another vase.”
I pull back, my mood lifting. “Can I put my handprints on it?”
She smiles, though her eyes continue to glisten wetly. “Of course.”
The memory-dream ends, and I’m back outside the painting, my emotions in turmoil.
Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen that specific memory. When I relived it before, prior to Mom’s accident, it’d made me feel comforted, soothed, like Mom’s ar
ms were still around me. But today, it only intensified the hollow ache in my chest. I miss Mom so much it hurts. For all our fights, she’s my only family, the only person in the world who loves me unconditionally. I’d give anything to turn back the clock and—
“Did you end up making another vase?” Pom bops around me, the happy purple of his fur proving that he’s staying out of my head, as promised.
I shove away the gloomy thoughts, just in case, and paste on a smile. Now’s not the time to dwell on my family or lack thereof. “Sort of,” I reply as I take flight, heading back to the tower of sleepers. “The next day, Mom got me a VR headset so I could make hundreds of vases—and those never broke.”
Pom speeds up to hover in front of me. “Whose handprints were those on the vase?”
I raise my hands and picture them tiny. “Mine, maybe. Could also be Mom’s when she was small. She said she didn’t remember.” That was her response to most of my questions, in fact—a response I hated because it made no sense.
Why get so upset over a broken vase if you don’t remember anything about it?
Pom must’ve gleaned that last thought. “She didn’t yell at you for breaking it,” he points out helpfully.
“No, she didn’t.” I sigh as the hollow ache returns. “She never yelled at me—unless I asked about the past.”
Thinking about all this generates an overwhelming desire to check on Mom at the hospital. If I get lucky, there might be a way—but I need to deal with Bernard first.
Only Bernard is still not in his bed when Pom and I reach the tower.
Sounds like I have time to check on Mom, after all.
I fly over to another nook. Score. The dreamer I need is there. I’m lucky today—being taken to my possible death aside.
“Who’s that?” Pom lands on the bed and examines the gargoyle female from wingtip to pointy tail.
“She’s a nurse I found sleeping on the job when Mom was first admitted to the hospital. I made a sneaky connection to her, in case I wanted to check on Mom via dreams.”
“Ah.” Pom leaps onto my shoulder. “I want to go with you.”
I scratch behind his ear, make both of us invisible, and enter the nurse’s dreams.
The gargoyle is dreaming of the hospital—another bit of luck. She’s doing data entry at the nursing station, her head down.
Catching a moment when her attention is on the screen, I change the surroundings to match Mom’s room.
It’s a room I’ve grown to loathe. There, machines do everything Mom’s brain refuses to, from breathing to nourishment.
Pom’s feet reassuringly squeeze my shoulder.
When the nurse looks up from the screen, her subconscious mind fills in the details of the dream—using her memories, which is a boon for me.
“Hi, Lidia,” the nurse says, approaching Mom’s bed.
Mom doesn’t reply. With her lack of brain activity, it’s a philosophical question whether she actually heard what the nurse said.
The nurse lifts Mom’s leg. “How about we do a little exercise?” She proceeds to move Mom like a doll.
Of course. Being in bed for so long, Mom’s muscles are atrophying, or would if it weren’t for what the nurse is doing. My chest squeezes tight. This is why I need the money, why I need to survive.
This is also why I should, at the very least, finish Valerian’s job.
Exiting the nurse’s dream, I check on Bernard.
He’s still not back.
I return to the gallery and play a memory to banish the hospital room from my mind’s eye. It’s a memory of me blowing out the candles on a cake for my ninth birthday, and unlike the vase incident, it doesn’t make me feel worse when it’s done.
When I return to check on Bernard, he’s still missing.
Pom’s visibility returns in that Cheshire cat manner. “Isn’t that Felix?”
I glance at a nearby nook. So it is. My friend fell asleep, after all.
Though I told Felix to do this very thing, a part of me thought he’d have trouble snoozing while I was in danger. Then again, it must be four in the morning, and unlike me, he hasn’t imbibed vampire blood.
I float over to the nook where he’s audibly snoring, his dark hair in even greater disarray than usual. Like me, Felix must stump anyone on Earth who tries to pinpoint his ethnicity—though unlike me, he comes from a long line of Earth Cognizant and does, in fact, resemble the humans from his home country of Uzbekistan. If I had to describe him to a fellow Gomorran, I’d say he looks like a tanned, skinny elf, only extra hairy and without the pointy ears.
“You might want to sit this one out,” I tell Pom. “He’s been through some ordeals.”
Pom promptly goes away to do whatever he does when he’s not pestering me. Good. I actually want him out of the picture so Felix and I can talk freely about the danger I’m about to face.
Making sure I’m still invisible, I reach out with one finger to touch Felix right above his unibrow. Connection established, I leap into his dream.
Chapter Eight
I’m in an abandoned warehouse with windows facing the Empire State Building. Huh. Do they even have warehouses in this part of NYC? Somewhere off to my right, a girl is screaming so loudly I’m glad my eardrums aren’t real.
I turn to see what’s going on. A foaming-at-the-mouth puck is clutching Felix’s petite girlfriend in his furry paws as a dozen or so other pucks try to rip her out of his clutches. Poor girl. With hairy bodies, horns, and hoofed feet, pucks look a lot like the depictions of satyrs and demons on this world—only with shark-like teeth. On Gomorrah, pucks have the worst reputation of any creature, in part due to negative portrayal in the media, but mostly because they like to rape, kill, and eat their victims—and not always in that order.
Put another way, Felix’s girlfriend is pucked.
“Help me, Neo Golem!” she cries out in a voice that’s surprisingly intact, given all that screaming. “You’re my only hope.”
Seriously?
As if in reply to her plea, the warehouse door bursts into tiny pieces and a huge figure lumbers in.
Ah, right. When Felix got embroiled in saving the world, he and our gnome friend created a robotic power suit for him. Having obviously read too many Earth comic books, particularly Iron Man, Felix made this design—and even chose a superhero name for himself: Neo Golem.
The robot lunges at the nearest puck with a speed something this big shouldn’t be capable of. Grabbing the puck by the left horn, he tosses him out the window, where the creature smashes into the Empire State Building.
The pucks let the girl go and circle Felix.
He slams a robotic arm into the stomach of the puck who’d held his girlfriend, causing the creature to fly at the wall and slide down in a broken heap.
A bigger puck gores Felix’s shoulder with a diamond-hard horn, shredding metal like tinfoil. But when he rips the horn out, there’s no blood. He must’ve missed Felix’s flesh. That’s good. From what I recall, my friend faints at the sight of blood, especially his own.
As I watch, Felix retaliates with a kick, hurling the attacking puck at his brethren. They tumble like bowling pins.
“Yeah!” Felix shouts. “You don’t mess with Neo Golem.”
The robot’s chest opens up. In the place where Felix’s nipples would be, two giant guns show up—and fire at the remaining pucks.
One spectacular explosion later, Felix is left alone with his sobbing girlfriend.
Wow. I can tell that the last part of the attack was based on a real memory of some fight Felix was in. I’m tempted to check it out, but I’m here for a different reason.
Felix sheds his robot suit and strides over to the girl.
Now this part is clearly pure fiction; his naked body looks way more muscular than his figure would imply in the waking world.
They kiss. Oh, boy. If I don’t interfere now, I’m pretty sure I’ll find out the X-rated way this damsel intends to reward her knight in shining armor
.
Making myself visible, I clear my throat.
Felix’s head snaps toward me. As he takes in my face and fiery hair, his eyes grow to the size of saucers, literally so—which is only possible in a dream.
I hastily return my hair to normal and clothe Felix in jeans and a T-shirt with a wave of my hand. “It’s me, Bailey. I asked you to take a nap so we can speak, remember?”
Felix looks between me and his girlfriend. To make sure she doesn’t distract him, I make her disappear.
Felix rubs his eyes. “What the hell is going on?”
“This is a dream,” I say patiently.
He doesn’t look like he believes me, so I change our environment to the place where I usually perform talking therapy—a pillowy cloud floating above a soothing ocean.
“A dream?” Felix plops onto the plush white couch my patients like to sit on.
“An unrealistic one, at that.” I perch on a cushy, fleece-covered chair that appears conveniently under my butt. “Think about it. The warehouse was in Manhattan, as in Earth, but there are no pucks on Earth. Also, the pucks could’ve—and would’ve—killed the girl first, then attacked you. And that You’re my only hope bit… Would anyone really say that, outside of Star Wars?”
I can see the dawning comprehension in his eyes.
“Don’t feel bad. Dreams are my thing, after all.”
He swivels his head from side to side, taking in our surroundings. “Unreal. I was totally clueless.”
“It’s hard to question dream reality.” I let my hair go fiery again.
He looks awed. “It’s like being in The Matrix.”
Oh, crap, his favorite. If I don’t change the subject, I’ll get an earful. “I wanted to ask you about this Council that kidnapped me. I have a vague idea of how they work, but I could use more details.”
“Hold on.” He sits straighter. “How’d you get into my dreams? You’re in that limo with the vampires.”
I’d hoped he wouldn’t question this part. “I had a connection with you already.”