Bring Me A Dream: Reveler Series 5 (14 page)

The sane thing to do would be to throw something at it, to run, or at the very least, to fight. But Vincent didn’t flinch as the nightmare suddenly leaned in to him. Didn’t cringe backward, either, as its clay face came within a millimeter of his.

The thing was definitely independent now.

A snarl curled Vincent’s mouth as he waited for it to act. So brave. Mirren drew a deep breath to prepare to go Darkside, too. Allies. Lovers. Friends. She had too much to lose if the nightmare succeeded.

It bent its bald head—she shuddered to watch—then reached out and clawed into Vincent’s chest. Seemed to be grabbing hold of something... Tearing it away…

Vincent convulsed, his eyes rolling back as he shook, and as the nightmare faded out of sight—taking Vincent with him?—he collapsed into unconsciousness.

***

Vince wasn’t scared, but for some reason, screams kept ripping out of his throat. What had made him think
this
was a viable plan? Oh, right. He was fucking crazy. He and Mirren should’ve gone back to the Oneiros. They should’ve bought a house in Somnambulant. Given them all his money. Anything but this.

The nightmare had an icy hand in his gut, wrapped around some vital organ, so that resisting the creature’s relentless pull was tantamount to disemboweling himself. The pain was a lion’s roar from his groin to his sternum, rough and mean, and it wouldn’t stop.

Was Mirren following them? He didn’t want her to see this, but if she could please end the pain, he’d be grateful.

The Scrape wind, full of airborne sand, scoured Vince’s eyes. He couldn’t protect them with his hands while clutching at his belly, so he blinked blindly and trusted the nightmare’s gruesome leash to lead him trudging into nothingness.

There was no sense of direction in the Scrape. The wind blew fiercely on all sides. And time meant nothing, so his pain had an eternal quality. His first scream was just as shrill as the one now sobbing out of his mouth. He couldn’t stop the heaving quakes set by the nightmare’s space-cold touch.

No, he wasn’t afraid. Afraid was too stupid a word for the horror that quite literally had a hold on him.

Where were they going again? Oh yeah. Nowhere. The journey headed in no direction—could be in circles, could be on some fucking forever treadmill.

She wouldn’t be able to find him in this.

Frigid wafts of wind alerted him that other nightmares were near. They were gathering all around him, the cutting sand turning frosty.

This is what his father had faced. Eaten by fear.
I’m so sorry, Dad. I failed you.

Then came a cold so glacial that the keening sound of Vince’s pain froze on his tongue. The wind grew so shrill, only lost dogs could hear it. He felt his soul age, his balls shrivel, and his dick grow useless.

Why
was he here again? Hell was supposed to be hot.

His heart petered to weak, single beats.

The wind stilled a bit and he blinked the sand out of his eyes. Before him stood nothing less than the god of the Scrape. It had to be a god. He was huge, muscled, hung like an elephant, and sandy gold, just like his domain.

Not Lambert then. Lambert was puny compared to this. And so was Vince.

This was the Sandman.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Scrape wind was still as a whisper when Mirren joined her fellow nightmares. They neither turned their heads to acknowledge her, nor stepped aside as she wove through them to see the offering brought to the feet the Sandman.

Vincent.

Everything her father had taught her had been true. The Sandman was their god, and she’d been born of Him. He was beautiful, and yes, made of pure creation. The sand that blew in the Scrape was essentially Him, both in His person and like a vast, rippling cloak covering all Darkside.

She sidestepped, and finally, she could see the man before the god.

But it wasn’t Vincent. It was her father, and he appeared to be chanting something in French—she listened harder—a bunch of Oh-Wise-One flattery.

Awe and sadness filled her. Any god would make her quake. But one who would make war on the waking world? She pressed her lips together hard to keep from sobbing her disappointment. No place safe then, for David, or for her. Always on the run. It was join her father, hide in Maze City, or live in fear with everyone else.

Her sense of loss was so bitter as she thought of Vincent. She
needed
him to make this better somehow. He was here somewhere. She’d followed his howls. Had almost intervened.

She searched the gathering of nightmares again. Their bodies were packed in so close, she startled when she discovered Steve-caul among them. The Chimera marshal was here, except this time he bore no illusion. His nightmare eyes were just as dark and malevolent as her own. He spotted her, too, lifted a finger to his mouth to tell her to keep quiet, then jerked his chin in the direction of her father.

He must’ve tracked him here. The Sandman was bringing all his children home.

Vincent
? she mouthed at him.

Steve looked irritated, but he shook his head. No, he hadn’t seen him. Didn’t seem to care, either.

Movement up near the Sandman attracted Mirren’s attention. She stood up on tiptoe, then shouldered through the congregated shadows to see better. Her father was still up there doing his thing. But—

Vincent!

He was being dragged—oh, damn, she was going to throw up—by his stomach. No, from
inside
his stomach. No wonder he’d been screaming. She should’ve saved him. He didn’t look anything like the man she’d come to know, come to care about, anymore. Her fault. She was supposed to have protected him.

Thinner, gaunter, gray—almost as if he were a nightmare himself. He seemed wizened, like freeze-dried meat. A world of agony lived in his eyes. His screams had been pain.

She moved in closer, near the front of the crowd of nightmares, not caring if the Sandman noticed her. He wouldn’t hurt one of his children, anyway. She, unlike most, was safe Darkside. She should be safe with the Sandman, too. Right?

The nightmare released Vincent, and he collapsed onto the Scrape sand. He managed to shift to his side and lift his head so that he could look up at the Sandman. “Well, shit,” he said.

Vincent’s voice charged her. She stepped out from the shelter of the gathering.

“Mirren!” someone whispered behind her. Steve, she guessed. He would let Vincent rot, but she’d made a promise. No, it was more than a promise now. More than just allies. How much more, she didn’t know, but it was worth finding out.

As she cleared the nightmares, her father turned. He stared for a moment, whatever he’d been saying broken off. Instead, he spoke to her out of the side of his mouth, “What are you doing here?”

She shuffled up to Vincent. Felt the weight of the Sandman’s interest.

“Wake up right now,” her father said to her.

He sounded so much like Senator Fleight—who’d actually loved her daughter—that it hurt.

Mirren ignored him. His crimes against her, against the waking world, were simply too great.

Her gaze trained on the golden visage that was the Sandman’s face—
oh, sweet sleep
—she bent to help Vincent up. “There’s been a mistake,” she said. Smiled at the god of nightmares. Friendly, see? “This one’s with me.”

***

Mirren was here. He knew she’d come. Never doubted her.

She wrapped her arms around his chest to hoist him up, but his legs wouldn’t work anymore. He had nothing left in him. “Don’t suppose you could drag me?” he mumbled. Or else it was too late.

“Mirren, it’s not safe for you,” her father said.

Vince snorted. So far Didier Lambert had been right about everything—well, maybe his methods were suspect—but if he said it wasn’t safe, then it wasn’t.

“Wake up,” her father said to her again.

The Sandman was moving, lifting an arm, starting to point a finger. He moved slowly, but he was a force of nature, so the nascent gesture was tectonic. The Scrape sand seemed to resonate, each grain in unison. The wind died so completely, it seemed as if it had never existed. Vince couldn’t even remember it as the air in his lungs went stale.

“If you can wake up,” Vince breathed to Mirren, “do it.”

“I’m trying,” she said, “but you’re heavy as lead.”

“Okay, then, leave me.” His offer wasn’t brave. It was pragmatic. He was ruined anyway. This went beyond reveler exhaustion to total reveler collapse. “You have David to think of.”

The dreamwater gaze of the Sandman was heavy. Crushing. Vince felt as if the disks between each of his vertebra were bursting, one by one. There were some things that cells, bones, and the gristle in between just knew: Nothing could survive the touch of the Sandman, and he was reaching toward them. He wanted his offering.

“He won’t hurt me,” Mirren said.

“You don’t know that,” Vince answered.

Lambert stepped in front Mirren, between her and the hand of a god. “She’s my daughter,” he said to the Sandman. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

Vince agreed. She was utterly lovely, especially now. Here.

The Sandman’s gaze drifted over to Lambert, then returned to Mirren.

“She’s going to wake now,” Lambert said to the Sandman. Almost begged.

Didier Lambert was evil and a murderer, so it was strange for Vince to want the same thing as he did.

The Sandman’s hand ventured closer. Mirren stopped tugging Vince upward and cringed into his chest. He put his arms around her. This wasn’t how this was supposed to be. They were supposed to have found her father pretending to be a king. And Vince would’ve taken his royal scepter and bashed the man’s head in with it.

Instead he watched Didier Lambert deny his god his daughter.

“Father…?” Mirren said.

The Sandman reached. Lambert moved to receive his touch, and in so doing, dissolved silently into sand. As if he never existed.

In the instant, perhaps a slip of the god’s interest, Vince felt the rush of oxygen and the typical disorientation that accompanied rising out of the dreamwaters and into the waking world. Mirren was with him, dismayed and drowning in a whirlpool of her emotion, and then they split apart. Him to wake alone in his company’s conference room. And leaning forward to stand, falling off his chair.

***

Steve Coll remained within the gathering of nightmares, hopefully overlooked. Just one more demon amid the throng. Mirren had needed a little help waking Vince. For all her specialized upbringing, she’d had little practice in the Scrape or assisting revelers.

Lambert was dead.
Good.
Mission accomplished. And the existence of the Sandman was confirmed. But that was no longer enough.

Understanding the Sandman’s nature was now critical for survival. Was the god man-made? A product of the collective psyche? Or was he a monster of myth, long forgotten or never understood by people dreaming snuggly in their own scapes?

Maisie would worry, and rant, and raise hell, but Steve couldn’t risk losing Him to go back and tell her that he had to follow a god.

Just for a little while.

And maybe in the process he’d learn something about himself, too.

EPILOGUE

Mirren’s gaze searched the children on the playground greedily. Some big kids were digging a huge hole and flinging sand behind them, oblivious to the commotion of tears they were causing among the younger children caught in the stinging grains. Mothers who were wiping noses blocked her view, but after a few scans of dirty faces, she concluded that David wasn’t there.

“We’re early,” Vincent said, pulling her down onto a park bench.

She wasn’t good at waiting, and she’d been on edge since seeing that the Sandman was real. They’d both been on edge about that. “What if they don’t come?”

“They’ll come,” he said, lightly. “They have a flight to catch.”

With her father gone—Mirren’s heart ached strangely every time she thought of him—Jordan and Rook were heading back to San Diego to attempt to reclaim their lives—yay for them—and start to figure out what to do about the Sandman.

Mirren didn’t have Vincent’s certainty that David was okay, not now that she had seen what ruled the Scrape. Living without David had been like living without a piece of herself. She wouldn’t feel complete until he was safe back with her. And then she would have that too-full feeling, as if she could barely hold all of him. Luckily, for the foreseeable future, she would have two extra arms.

Vincent rummaged in her bag and pulled out a box of apple juice. She watched in exasperation as he stabbed the straw in the little hole and took a deep, box-compressing drag.

“Those are for
David
.”

“Have to keep my strength up,” Vincent said. “You used me ruthlessly this morning. Over and over. Need my vitamin C. Do you have any more of those cookie wafer things?”