Songs of Dreaming Gods

by Meikle, William

  “You see, don’t you?” the Reaper said. “You’re always defending. That’s why this decision has been hard for you. If you’d been more proactive at the start, more willing to take a risk and ask the right questions, you wouldn’t have had to come all this way, and this game wouldn’t have been necessary.”

  John looked over the Reaper’s shoulder at the bubbling mass of the black eggs.

  “What can I do? I am what I am.”

  The Reaper smiled, and moved another pawn forward. John saw that the black pawns, five of them left on the board, now looked like tiny China dolls, with velvet dresses, rouged cheeks and blue, unblinking jewels for eyes. The pawn the Reaper had just moved did a little dance, tapping porcelain shoes on the board, before settling into place, another attack on John’s Queen.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” the Reaper said. An oily black egg drifted up from the mass and popped no more than a yard beyond the edge of the stone balcony. Just before the vibration kicked in and dampened the effect, John saw a man, sitting in a kitchen chair, naked to the waist while a woman cut a figure into his belly.

  The Reaper spoke again while moving a third pawn into the attack.

  “We have a leak. And it needs to be plugged.”

  21

  Janis was halfway up the dark steps leading out of the cellar when she heard a noise, not from above, but from below, back in the cellar. Papers slid and shifted and a pile fell with a thud before something slid noisily over the fallen magazines. Somehow, she knew exactly what it must be. It was the doll, the one she’d kicked against the wall, broken now, but still coming on, either limping or dragging itself by the arms, still driven by its sole purpose of getting to Janis and scaring the shit out of her.

  Well I’ve got news for you, ladies. I’m all out of scared for today. So, bring it on.

  She counted back on her ammo supply, six bullets left. Six bullets, five dolls.

  I’ll manage.

  She ignored the noises from below, they were getting louder, but not quickly enough to say that the doll had any chance of catching her, and went up as fast as she was able in the dark. Once she got to the top landing, she stood there, watching the light play in the hallway through the gaps in the pine slats. There was no indication of any other movement, no other sound beyond another soft thud from the cellar as more paper towers were toppled.

  Here goes nothing.

  She pushed the door open and stepped through. Janis said a silent prayer that she hadn’t been transported anywhere different this time as she walked into the silence of the main hallway.

  Her ankle hurt where she’d had the close encounter with the doll’s teeth. Apart from that she seemed none the worse for wear but it would be a cold day in hell before she could be persuaded to go back down into that cellar again.

  She’d also come to another decision almost exactly at the same moment as she’d blown the doll’s head to pieces. From now on, this was reality, until something better came along. In this reality, she was done running, done hiding.

  And I really could use a cup of coffee.

  She walked over to Apartment One, turned the handle and pushed. The door opened. It wasn’t the red room, there was no sign of a concierge, or a man getting cut. Instead it was a small, neatly decorated sitting room with a modern galley kitchen unit along the right-hand wall and a long, very comfortable looking sofa in front of a modern wide screen television. Net curtains, too thick to see through, covered the window, but there was enough of a gap to show that fog still swirled outside. But the main thing that caught Janis’ eye was the coffee machine, and the fact that the clock timer on it showed blue, flashing 00:00. The LED’s were on, which meant there was power, which meant there was definitely the chance of a cup of coffee.

  The door shut with a soft click behind her but Janis hardly noticed. She was already on her way over to the kitchen unit in search of her grail.

  Five minutes later she was sitting on the sofa with her hands wrapped around a hot steaming mug of dark roast. Just the smell of it was enough to make her much happier with her current situation, but she knew that it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence that doors had started opening to better places for her as soon as she’d decided to take charge.

  Is that all I need to do? I just have to decide? In that case, I’d like to be home now please.

  The fog kept swirling outside the window, so it didn’t look like it was going to be that simple.

  But I’m getting somewhere.

  At least I think I’m getting somewhere.

  There was another thing too: if someone had asked her to design a perfect room for herself, it would turn out pretty close to what she had here. If the fog ever dissipated there might even be a sea view of sorts from the window.

  It seemed she wasn’t the only one that had started to pay attention.

  She had just allowed herself to relax slightly when her phone beeped to announce she had text messages. She’d resigned herself to the battery being dead, and the surprise almost made her jump far enough to lose the precious coffee. With a bit of juggling she ended up with her pistol on her lap, coffee in her left hand and the phone in her right.

  The first message was from Todd. She was dismayed to see it had been sent eight hours ago, and even more dismayed to note that it was now midnight, although she was struggling to believe that, as there was plenty of diffuse light coming in the window through the fog. She forced herself to concentrate on the text.

  “Where hell r u? Chief having kitties.”

  If he was having kittens eight hours ago, he’ll be on to full-grown cats by now.

  She expected the other two messages in the queue to also be from Todd, or maybe, hopefully, from John Green, but she was to be disappointed on both counts. Disappointed and close to being scared again as the messages rolled onto the screen.

  “Do ye mind? I’m having a shite here.”

  It was followed quickly by the last, sent just thirty seconds before the phone had beeped at her.

  “Ye should nae fuck with anybody else’s stuff. The hoose disnae like it.”

  She threw the phone aside onto the cushion next to her, before picking it back up again almost immediately to check if she had a signal. But it seemed that incoming texts could get in, but nothing else was getting through the fog, or back out again.

  And now she wasn’t scared. But she was guilty; guilty that she’d succumbed to the allure of coffee, guilty to having taken a rest when the boss might still be in trouble, and guilty that she’d run around for eight hours and more before deciding that she was the one in charge here.

  She drained the coffee, put the phone back in the hip case, picked up her gun, and left the apartment with one wistful look back.

  I could be happy here.

  But coffee time is definitely over.

  She closed the door quietly behind her and went back out into the hallway.

  As soon as the door shut she heard the patter of tiny footsteps, running in the rooms immediately overhead.

  22

  Todd was little the wiser about the situation as midnight clicked over into a new day. He’d spent another fruitless couple of hours down in the cells, going over Sam’s statement with her, and then, back at his desk listening to her earlier version on the tape. He was looking, hoping, for an inconsistency that would let him convince himself it was all just drugs and the power of persuasion that was involved. Her story, after her initial lies in the first interview, never wavered. She was starting to trust Todd, seeing in him an ally, and had opened up as much as she was able, but Todd didn’t learn anything new, at least nothing that would help.

  And help was most definitely needed. He had heard the song again, once at his desk, distant, like a choir in a wind, and, more disconcertingly, once when he went to lavatory. He was standing there, zipping up in an empty room, when the bass voice broke into song. It had sounded like someone was bellowing in his ear. He almost knocked the chief over as he hurried, ran, ba
ck out into the corridor, but luckily his superior had bigger worries on his mind than Todd’s state of mind.

  The media had gotten hold of details of the murders, and as Todd could have predicted, were focusing on the drugs, gore, and black magic angle, with some hints of kinky sex being added for good measure. Todd had a quick look at the online news sites; there was little else being talked about, and it had gone global. The chief suspected somebody in the department had tipped the media off, and was on the warpath, so everybody was keeping their heads down, including Todd.

  At least Sam was much calmer now. She had gotten through a prodigious number of cigarettes in the course of the evening but the last time Todd had checked on her, just after eleven, she was lying along the bench in the cell and seemed to be sound asleep.

  She’s better off out of it.

  He was just starting to wonder whether he could get away with snatching a nap for himself when the main fire alarm for the station went off. He stopped one of the admin staff as they passed his desk.

  “Is this for real or a drill?”

  “For real, not fire though. I hear they’ve had a chemical spill down in Forensics.”

  The station house was in uproar as staff trying to leave one area ran into people attempting to organize them to go somewhere else. As Todd went through reception on his way downstairs he saw the chief trying to keep everyone in the entry area. He obviously didn’t want them getting outside and mingling with the media. By rights, Todd should have been lined up there too, answering the roll call. He suspected that if there was an emergency in Forensics, it had little to do with any chemical spill. If that was the case, he had to check on it.

  He went via the cells. The duty sergeant was about to open Sam’s cell to get her out. Todd knew that he too had a procedure to follow when the alarm went off. He caught the sergeant’s arm.

  “Can you hold off, sarge, just five minutes? I’ll be back, I promise.”

  “The chief won’t like it.”

  “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Five minutes. If you get the rest out first, I’ll be back by the time it’s her turn anyway. Deal?”

  The man didn’t look too happy, but he nodded.

  “Five, that’s all you get. After that we’re all out the back and gone.”

  Todd saw Sam’s frightened features at the small window to the door of her cell. He gave her a wave that he hoped would indicate that he was doing something, that there was nothing to worry about, then turned and ran for the Forensics Lab.

  Doug hadn’t gone to attend the roll call. He stood outside the Forensics lab door, looking in. A red light flashed, heartbeat time, above him, and the alarm was so loud in the corridor that they had to shout to make each other heard.

  “What is it?” Todd shouted.

  “I was hoping you would tell me. I went to get rid of some coffee, and came back to this.”

  He pointed at the door. It was a half-and-half, the top being thick reinforced glass, but not so thick that you couldn’t see through.

  Oh my God, it’s full of eggs!

  He felt the vibration again, a beat thrumming through the walls, the floor and into his guts and bones. The room beyond the door swam in swirling colors and the black eggs quivered and vibrated, and calved, their number doubling and swelling, so much so that they started to push up against the glass of the window.

  “What is that shit?” Doug shouted, but Todd could only stand and look as an egg popped and the scene seemed to shift, like a video camera that was moved too fast, one that showed impossible images. He saw the inspector, sitting at a table playing chess with a skeleton; then the sarge, sitting on a bed in an opulent room reading a scrapbook. Another shift, to show a fat man, a huge, fat man, coming out of a lavatory that Todd recognized immediately. Then Sam, sitting, more like hunched, in the corner of her cell, eyes wide as she looked up at something in the doorway, flinching away as the thing came closer.

  As soon as he saw that last one, Todd knew he’d made a tactical error.

  I shouldn’t be here, this isn’t where the real action is.

  He left Doug standing, opened mouthed at the lab door, turned on his heels and ran back toward the cells.

  He feared he was already far, far, too late.

  His fears were confirmed even before he reached the cells. He came up the short flight of stairs and almost tripped over the duty sergeant’s body. It lay slumped just at the entrance to the corridor and Todd’s left foot slid six inches in a growing pool of blood when he bent to check for life signs. He only had to take a quick look down to see that the man was dead and gone. His spinal column had been ripped out and lay, slightly curled, like a bony white snake, alongside the back of his head.

  The dead man’s face was turned away from Todd, which was just as well, for he didn’t think he could look at the pain and fear he knew must be etched in the sarge’s final expression.

  He was about to call for help when a loud scream echoed down the cell block corridor.

  Sam!

  The scream rose and rose until it was little more than a wash of noise, like loudspeaker feedback that rose, higher and higher, squealing and ringing in Todd’s ears as he ran into the cell, and cutting off as he stepped through the open door.

  Sam!

  She lay on the ground in a pool of blood that was still spreading, ripped open from groin to sternum and spread wide, as if the perpetrator had wanted to examine her thoroughly. There was too much red, glistening and moist, so much butchery that Todd struggled to take it in.

  Something moved in the corner of the cell, little more than a dark shadow. He got the impression of huge wings and tensed, expecting an attack that would leave him dead on the floor beside Sam, but it fell apart in a shower of black ash that turned to fine dust and was swept away in a light breeze.

  Todd stood over the woman’s body, tears blinding him.

  The alarm switched off and silence fell. Todd scarcely noticed. He stood there for a long time, and didn’t even move when a bass voice started singing softly in his left ear.

  He sleeps in the deep, with the fish, far below.

  He sleeps in the deep, in the dark,

  He dreams as he sleeps, in the depths, in the deep

  And the Sleeping God is dreaming where he lies.

  23

  The Reaper took one of John’s pawns off the board and put it to the side.

  John saw that both his queen and his queen’s knight were in serious danger, and took a while considering his next move. The Reaper seemed to be placing great import on the outcome of the chess match, and that in itself was enough to get John’s attention. He had to force himself to concentrate. The sea of black eggs was just too much of a distraction for one thing. For another, the Reaper seemed to be flickering in and out, guttering like a candle, sometimes not even looking like the black-robed figure, but instead taking on the appearance of the Rat King, with the blood red scythe now, rather incongruously, turned into an old battered National guitar.

  The Reaper hadn’t spoken again after his mention that there had been a leak, and John was using the time pondering his next move to cover the fact that he was almost afraid to ask the obvious question. He moved his queen’s knight out of danger and over to protect his queen, and at the same time threaten a fork that would both put the black king in check and attack his rook.

  The Reaper smiled.

  “We’re definitely getting somewhere now.”

  It was time to take the initiative.

  “About this leak you mentioned, I presume that’s why I’m here?” John said.

  The Reaper grinned.

  “Partly. The leak happened because those pesky kids tried to use a sigil on paper rather than on flesh and they paid the price. But in doing so they broke the house rules; broke the house itself.”

  John realized he was talking about the murders in the apartment back in his real world.

  “So, I’m here because they screwed up?”

  “No,
you’re here because of your sigil and your pain. It’s just luck, or fate, that it coincided with the leakage. A happy accident.”

  “I don’t think those kids are all that happy.”

  The Reaper didn’t seem concerned.

  “Wherever they are now, what happened in number six is but a distant memory to them. It’s what’s happening now in the house, and beyond, that you need to concern yourself with. Your queen’s in trouble. Check.”

  John thought that the last few sentences weren’t connected, but then he saw that the white queen wore Janis’ face. She was in danger of being taken off the board and he had the Reaper’s attack bearing down on his king.

  “What do I have to do?” John asked.

  “You could try asking your queen,” the Reaper, or rather the Rat King, for he had flickered again, said.

  “That would be a good trick,” John said.

  “It certainly would,” his opponent replied.

  John’s phone rang.

  He recognized the number as he got the phone out from his pocket, almost dropping it in his fumbled haste to answer.

  Janis!

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Hello? Who’s this?”

  “I thought you’d never call, thought I’d never hear you again.”

  “Boss? Is that you? How did you get through, there’s no signal here.”

  “You called me.”

  There was a period of silence on the other end of the line.

  “Boss? Is it really you? Or is it this place messing with me again?”

  This place. John had a pretty good idea what she was referring to, but he had to ask.

  “It’s me. Where are you?”

  “In the house, in Church Street. Looking for you.”

  John laughed bitterly.

  “I doubt that you’d find me. I’m here too, at least, I think I am, long story.”

  The Reaper leaned forward and made a move, another attack on John’s queen.

  “Look, just trust me on this. I think you’re in big trouble.”