Bring Me A Dream: Reveler Series 5 (2 page)

“Ma’am, are you all right?” a Chimera asked Mirren.

Vince was once more brought to his knees. This time it wasn’t nearly as arousing.

“Not anymore,” she said.

***

Mirren knew this was her fault. Her fear had ruined everything. Her father had always been so big in her eyes. She couldn’t force herself to get close enough to help, and now the chance was lost. This was because of
her
. If only she’d—

She shook her head. Didn’t matter now. She sat in a Chimera interrogation Rêve—a dream built to prevent law-breaking revelers from waking up while answering questions. It was a box of a white room, utterly lacking imagination, and cold.

It didn’t matter what happened to her, she reminded herself. Not really.
David
had gotten away, at least for the moment, which was a sharp, painful relief. Her heart was still screaming,
Go! Run! Get far away!
Because sooner or later, her father would follow.

“Your name?” A Chimera marshal stood in front of her. Was he secretly on her father’s payroll? Maybe. She couldn’t trust anyone.

“Mirren Isabelle Lambert,” she said.

But inside, she did a fast mental reassessment of Malcolm Rook, the tracker. He was adept Darkside. He had friends everywhere in the black market. He hadn’t lied to her, not like she’d lied to him. And there was his woman, Jordan, who’d first been ready to fight, ready to kill, but then had agreed to protect David instead. Loyal, and mean as hell when crossed.

For a few minutes after they’d taken David, Mirren’s hopes had soared that his safety could be made permanent.
If only—
No. It was just that she hadn’t really believed her father could be killed so easily. But she’d hoped. Vincent had been exquisitely motivated. Mad with it. It’d been worth the chance, however futile.
If only she’d—
But at the last minute, she’d watched instead of helped. She’d
watched
.

“How long have you been asleep?” the Chimera marshal asked.

It was impossible to track time Darkside, so it was best to remember the date in the waking world. “Saturday, the eleventh, I think.”

“The eleventh was a Sunday.”

She shrugged. “Then the tenth.”

“You’ve been under thirty-six hours?”

“If you say so.” She thinned her lips at him in a not-quite smile.

In the end, she’d been caught and Vincent, too. Chimera had them both. And if Rook and Jordan didn’t run fast, run
smart
, then the chance to escape was lost. Her father wouldn’t let David go.

Inside Mirren was horrified. What kind of mother was she? A weak one.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asked.

She looked away. It had begun with her abducting Malcolm Rook, threatening his life to get him to find her son, and had gone downhill from there. If she were a US citizen, which, thank God, she was not, Chimera could and would get a warrant to search both her memory and even access her dreamspace.

They’d get a surprise there. Since she’d been born a freak, she didn’t
have
a dreamspace of her own. No nightmare-born did—not her father, not her, not her son. Actually, her father preferred the term
dieu
, or god, to nightmare. According him,
gods
didn’t require a little pocket of safety within which to dream;
gods
dwelled in infinite creation. Typical Father bullshit. Her natural habitat Darkside was the barren Scrape. She was a god of nothingness, so she was a god of nothing. Which meant she was just Mirren, who couldn’t dream.

“How did Vincent Blackman come to be in your father’s secure Rêve?”

She didn’t answer. If this Chimera agent had been bribed by her father, then he already knew how Vincent had gotten inside: illegally. And if he wasn’t, then answering the question wouldn’t help because nothing she could say would be believable. Her father—visionary, genius, and hero, to some—had kidnapped her son and had held him in that dream nursery for days, which would have crippled a normal child. David wasn’t normal, but that didn’t mean she’d allow anyone to risk his well-being. And especially not his life.

She sensed a ripple on the waters, saw a flicker of color and the curved lines of dimension, and then yet another Chimera marshal emerged in the white box of a room.
This
man she recognized—was Harlen his name?—and he was friends with Malcolm Rook. But she hadn’t realized he was Chimera.

“Her father has arranged for her release,” Harlen said to the other marshal. Mirren sensed the slightly acidic burn of a lie. Her father had done no such thing. “I’m to prepare her and see that she has whatever assistance she requires in the waking world.”

“We need to know how Blackman got inside that Rêve,” the other Chimera said. He hadn’t been astute enough to sense that Harlen wasn’t telling the truth. Pretty pathetic, considering this was an interrogation room.

“And yet, it’s illegal to hold Ms. Lambert,” Harlen told him.
Truth.
“Get your answers from Blackman himself, if you can. The man’s cracked. Insane. Severe reveler exhaustion.”
Truth again.

The first marshal scowled at her.

She smiled.
C’est la vie.

He summarily disappeared from the interrogation Rêve. Little grains of Scrape sand glimmered where he’d stood. Some people thought the Darkside manifestation of a reveler was, in fact, that person’s soul. Mirren knew better. Dreamers were merely sand, just like everything else in the waters. It’s why nothing Darkside lasted and nothing Darkside really mattered. The waking world was where everything important happened.

As soon as the last sparkle dimmed, Harlen turned back to her. “No time for explanations now. Are you willing to work with us against your father?”

Pfft.
“I want him dead.”

“Dead is too easy. We want more than that. We need information. Will you help us get it?”

Dead was better, but it didn’t seem as if she had that choice. “Is my son all right?”

“Yes. The kid’s fine. Rook and Jordan found him in the waking world without any trouble, and they’re moving him to a safe place.”

“Did he have any side effects?”
Four days Darkside.

“I don’t think so,” Harlen said. “I heard he’s a fast little bastard who makes Rook feel old.”

Mirren drew a clean, sweet breath. “When can I get him back?”

Harlen cocked his head. “We were hoping you’d let him torture Rook a little longer, while you help us.”

Her heart began to been harder. Were they going to keep her son from her? “How much longer?”

“You can have David back whenever you want, safe and sound. With a call, it can be arranged. But we have an opportunity now to stop your father. Do I make that call or are you willing to help us?”

He knew she’d help them, so she didn’t have to say yes or no. She needed David to be protected by people who were strong enough Darkside to handle a child of his nature and keep him out of her father’s reach. She’d do anything for David. She
had
done so already.

As she expected, Harlen took her silence for a
yes
and continued, “We’re going to hold your father here in the Agora as long as we can, which will give Rook and Jordan time to get David away.”

She must have misheard. “You’re going to
what
?”

Harlen smiled. “Hold your father here.”

They were
holding
her father? Holding
Didier Lambert
? “You just said that was against the law.”

“So it is,” he said with a wink.

Mirren was so stunned she couldn’t speak for a moment. The risk they were taking!

“Can I see him?” She’d kill him herself this time. She could do it. She had to do it.

“No.”

But what if she broke out of this Rêve? Could she find her father fast enough? No. It was no good. The Agora had too many Rêves to look through, all policed by Chimera. She had no idea how to find the one that held her father. Harlen seemed to be offering her a different plan.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“I can’t say at this time. You’re to meet with one of ours in the waking world and tell him everything you know about your father’s organization. He’ll instruct you how to proceed from there.”

Mirren was still stuck on the fact that they’d dared to detain her father. “
How
are you holding my father here?”

“Using protocols he designed himself. Protocols intended—”

“—for people like Malcolm Rook, who can cross dreams so easily.” Yes, she got it now. “My father will make you pay for it.”

“Maybe. Will it be worth the risk?”

The stakes were high for everyone. She wasn’t naive enough to think that they’d just keep her son, the grandson of Didier Lambert, safe for nothing. “Yes. I’ll help where I can. But I don’t know much about my father’s organization.”

“You can find out.”

“Well, I’ll try.”

“Try very hard, Ms. Lambert. If you betray us—”

She shook her head—David needed protection—and gave Harlen the affirmation he seemed to require. “I won’t betray you.”

They wouldn’t believe her. She’d almost betrayed Rook after making a similar promise. She’d abducted him and then agreed to let him go, and…then had almost given him to her father instead, who would’ve killed him in the worst way.

But Harlen nodded. “Good. At the moment, your sleeping body is in transit by ambulance to a reveler care facility. Rook unofficially called in life support for you. When you wake,” Harlen said, “it’s best you do that waking dream thing and make a quiet escape. Please don’t hurt anyone. Not everyone is the enemy.”

See? They
didn’t
trust her.

Creating a waking dream was like creating a daydream for people. It was an illusion, and only a few people could see through them. And she wasn’t
planning
on hurting anyone. Sometimes those things just happened. “So I escape the ambulance. Where do I go? Who do I meet?”

“Still working on those details.”

Wait. “You’re
holding
my father and you don’t have a plan?”

“We’re seizing an opportunity.”

“We’re all going to die.” David included.

Harlen winked at her. “That will happen anyway. At least now we have a chance.”

***

Vince paced the white interrogation room, ignoring the provided chairs and table. The nightmare’s black blood still stained his hands and arms, but now the skin on his right hand had been broken by Lambert’s teeth. The red wound resembled an open mouth, hollering with pain. But it was the frustration quaking through him that would be his undoing. Chances were someone was watching. He raised his face and snarled at the ceiling.

“They can’t see you. I’ve shielded the Rêve.”

Vince whipped around to find a stocky, middle-aged woman seated at the white table. Her hair was dyed brown, skin loose with wrinkles deepening into worn grooves, but her eyes were sharp, her gaze assessing. “I’m Director Allison Bright. Nice to meet you, Mr. Blackman.”

He wondered if he had it in him to hurt her. If he did, could he get away?

“Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary,” she said.

“You can read my mind?”

She chuckled. “No. Your expression made it obvious, and the dreamwaters went a little hot and rough. Years of experience told me you intended violence. I’ve been in the dreamwaters from the first exploratory dives.”

Impressive.
“Let me go.”

“Okay.” She opened a hand. “You’re free.”

The dreamwaters carried a sense of truth to him. It was impossible to lie Darkside, if you knew what to feel for in the waters. So there had to be a catch—he’d just attempted to murder Didier Lambert, the man who’d started the shared dreaming Rêve-olution. Vince hesitated.

“I see I have your attention. Excellent.” She gestured to the chair opposite her. “Have a seat.”

He was too restless to sit.

“Self-control is going to be very important. Why don’t you start exercising it now and sit down?”

Or maybe he should test this Bright woman and wake himself up.

“Sit, Mr. Blackman. I’d like to be a friend, and soon someone is going to discover that I’ve obscured this Rêve from the Agora’s index, and then that will be the end of
both
of us.”

Truth again. And yet, how could he trust her?

“I would’ve sent Marshal Fawkes to speak with you, but he’s attending to Mirren Lambert.”

Marshal Fawkes.
Him
Vince could trust.

He took hold of the back of the chair, pulled it out from the table, and sat down. It took all his will not to rock back and forth to expend his excess energy, so he put his hands on the table to steady himself. A red smear of blood glared starkly against the white.

“Bad news first,” she said. “You can’t kill Didier Lambert.”

Vince made to stand right back up again.

She widened her eyes. “I want him dead, too, mind you. I’ve been a little…
tortured
myself. But we don’t always get what we want.”