Bring Me A Dream: Reveler Series 5 (3 page)

“I will,” Vince promised her.

“You
won’t
,” she said. “We may need him, but first we need information on what his plans are. What his organization looks like, what he is working toward. Because he
is
working toward something and committing horrendous crimes in the process.”

“What does it matter? It all ends when he dies.”

Director Bright brought her brows together, a thinking expression. “Does it? I’m not sure. It would be convenient for us if it did, but I’m concerned that were we to lose him, we’d also lose a means to discover what is really going on. We need to find the source of the violence, the mind behind the plan. Lambert is the only connection we have right now to someone called the Sandman.”

Vince blinked at her. “You’re not serious.”

Everyone knew the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale about the Sandman and how he brought sweet dreams to sleepers. An early, now-defunct Rêve company had even used him as their mascot. But that’s all the Sandman had been—a mascot. A little grinning elf holding an hourglass.

“I’m very serious,” she said. “We don’t know who he is, but we’re concerned enough to find out. It’s possible that Lambert is the waking world face of a terrible Darkside threat.”

Vince shook his head. “Lambert wouldn’t work for anyone but himself. He’s probably using the character from the story like the boogeyman, to scare people. And clearly it’s effective.”

Even Chimera believed it.

“We’ve considered that the Sandman is an alias for Lambert. Again, so convenient. But if the Sandman
is
a separate entity pulling Lambert’s strings, then we have another problem, and only Lambert—and perhaps his daughter, Mirren—know of him.”

Oh.
Vince understood now. “You want me to get Mirren to talk.” They’d had a connection in the nursery Rêve, and even before.

“Mirren Lambert is sufficiently motivated already. But she, like you, cannot be trusted. I doubt she has any information her father doesn’t want her to have, but she may have a fresh approach that will make the difference. I want you and Mirren to find the Sandman and determine if we have anything to fear.”

“What’s to stop Lambert from going after us in the waking world?” He had even more influence there.

“That would be difficult, as I’m holding him here Darkside.”

What?
Aside from the legalities, “How is that possible?”

“How is not your concern. The duration is. I hope to hold him long enough for you and Mirren to discover what you can. I imagine you’ll have only a few days at best.”

Caught right now. And close.

“Listen to me. That man murdered my father. He had him thrown into the Scrape for
nightmares
to feed upon. Put me in a room alone with him, and
then
I’ll look into this Sandman.” There were stuffed versions in every Rêve gift shop. He’d buy one for her.

Her gaze dulled. “That won’t work for me.”

“So what if it doesn’t? I don’t belong to you. I’m no Chimera.”

“Correct.” Bright smiled. “You are far from being a Chimera, even one of the corrupt. And we don’t really need you. Marshal Fawkes has yet to report back on Mirren, but I believe she’ll cooperate with us.”

“You have her kid!”

“Her child is safe from her father and is in the care of people Mirren herself begged to take him. She will help us, or she’ll simply get her child back and can protect the boy herself. We all know how that turned out last time. She will cooperate. If you, however, don’t choose to do so, then you may go.”

“Fine.” He would. This Sandman thing was a joke. He’d get at Lambert a different way.

“One more thing…I’ve been apprised of the fact that you not only have the ability to track revelers, but have used that ability recently to locate Jordan Lane.” Yes, he’d found Jordan and together they’d worked to find Rook in that nursery Rêve.

Vince waited for Bright to make her point.

“Our task is too important to let you and your need for revenge screw it up. Malcolm Rook already thinks you’re insane. If he sees you anywhere near Jordan, if you so much as try to contact her, he’ll kill you.”

Heh.
“Have you
met
Jordan Lane?”

“Not yet,” Bright said. “But I like what I’ve heard.”

“Then
you
should know that Rook won’t have to kill me if I get too close,” Vince said. “Jordan will do it herself.”

Bright’s smile grew. “Even better.”

“And I suppose if I approach Mirren, she’ll kill me, too?”

“I don’t know Mirren Lambert yet,” Bright said, “but she has a child involved. I imagine she’d be ruthless to any troublemakers.”

Vince thought of how Mirren had brought Rook to his knees, had almost handed him over to her father to feed to the nightmares in the Scrape. “Yeah, she’d kill me, too.”

“Right, then.” Bright lifted her brows to signal it was time for his final answer.

“So either I help you or I’m on my own?” With no way to get to Lambert. No way to stop the rage inside. No way to feel remotely normal again.

“That’s the choice,” she said. “And good for you. No one insane is that astute.”

Bright hadn’t the foggiest idea what was happening inside him. “Sure they are.”

***

“I’ve come to see if there’s anything you need?” Allison Bright asked the great Didier Lambert. Her blood pressure medication was working overtime just being alone in a Rêve with the nightmare. Still, someone had to do it, and there was only Harlen and herself to choose from at the moment. And Harlen’s skills were too rare to be risked by a face-to-face with Didier Lambert.

Besides, Lambert had tried to break
her
mind, and she needed to show him that he hadn’t succeeded. Although, sometimes she wondered if he had.

Every day she worried if she was awake or dreaming, lucid or lost.

He growled and fought the thick dreamwaters into which he’d been submerged. Most dreamwater was as thin as the air, almost unnoticeable unless a reveler was talented or in the throes of intense emotion.
Density
was the key—compressing dreamwater into a smaller space, almost like Rêve within a Rêve. She could see him, see what he was—those creepy, alien eyes!—and he could see her, but there was an elemental barrier between them. And the funny thing was he’d designed it himself. Published the theory, anyway. Chimera had put it into practice.

Could he also find a way out? Probably. Eventually.

“No? Nothing?” she asked.

His nightmare eyes narrowed in fury.

“Okay, then.” She started to turn away. Once he got free, he’d have her thrown out into the Scrape, just like he had to Raymond Blackman. But she’d fight just like his son Vince, who she had to admit she liked. The man was angry and exhausted, but he was intelligent. And they needed people committed to the cause. Didn’t hurt that he was nice to look at, even splattered in blood and growling.

Lambert could not have her, either. She
was
lucid.
Was
in control. She couldn’t afford to doubt herself. So she turned back. “You know, this reminds me of something. My mother used to make a Sunday dessert with fruit suspended in cherry-flavored gelatin. If this dense dreamwater is analogous to the gelatin—” she smiled “—right now you’re basically bananas.”

And then she laughed, open and free. Laughed while Lambert struggled against his own trap.

Finally she sighed and waved good-bye. “Lord, I’m losing time. I have to get back to work or someone will start looking for me. I’ll check back a little later.”

CHAPTER TWO

Mirren lay on a soft pallet that bumped and trembled beneath her, and her body shifted slightly with the inertia of a vehicle turning. The ambulance. Right. Marshal Harlen Fawkes had said she was being transported to a private care facility for revelers stuck Darkside and unable to wake.

Well, she was awake now, and without the kiss.

Long practice had her immediately creating a waking dream, the
illusion
that she remained asleep. She’d done this every morning for the past few years anyway. Running with David meant she had to be constantly looking for danger. Faking sleep was easy.

Two technicians rode in the back with her—a woman and a man, both in uniforms with patches bearing Chimera’s logo—a gestural composition of lines comprising the lion, goat, and serpent aspects of the mythical creature. It meant that Chimera could be anything.

Mirren sat up, back cramping and head spinning since she’d been asleep for such a long time. But she couldn’t wait until she felt better to escape. Her clothing had been replaced with a hospital gown. She pulled the IV out of her arm and used basic adrenaline to move her stiff, protesting legs. Creeping toward the rear doors of the ambulance, she waited for it to come to a red light. Her gaze flicked from her fake sleeping form to the two EMTs.

Harlen’s instructions had been simplistic and vague, trusting her in incremental stages, which she guessed she deserved.

The ambulance slowed to a stop and she opened the back door. Immediately, an alarm went off inside. She jumped out onto the pavement—her legs almost buckled and her feet went icy on the frigid pavement. A cold gust of wind went up her hospital gown. One frantic glance behind her and she noted the confusion on the EMT’s faces.

The world spun, but she put one foot in front of the other to get to the careening sidewalk. She fell climbing the curb and mooned the world, but it righted as she stood again. This time her stumbles were more secure, her balance a little more vertical. She moved as quickly as she could, gown flapping, down a gray, exhaust-stained block to Tenth Avenue.

First thing: she needed clothes to cover her ass.

She snuck into a Dollar Deals on the next block. The floors were dingy and the aisles were full of random shit from paper cups to toys that would fall apart once out of the box. But there was a section with cheap T-shirts. She selected a blue fitted tee with a winking cartoon character that looked vaguely familiar and leggings with some sad kind of blue-jean, acid-washed print on them. She completed the ensemble with yellow flip-flops, a Yankees baseball cap, and plastic aviators.

She found a phone in a small office at the back of the store and used it to place a call, per Harlen’s instructions.

A woman answered with, “Is this Mirren?”

Mirren checked the door. “Yes. Who’s this?” In the background she could hear someone yell something about a barramundi. Wasn’t that a kind of fish? It made no sense.

“My name isn’t important.”

The knots in Mirren’s belly twisted. “Okay. Where do I go?” She hoped to God they had some sort of a plan in place by now. Her father might have designed whatever Darkside technology held him in the dreamwaters—a pair of concrete shoes, maybe—but he could also figure out how to break free.

“You’re to be at Grand Central Station by five o’clock. Wait in the main terminal, bottom level. If you try anything, if
anything
is off, we are done with you, and your son will be left at a police station for you to collect.”

Desperation overwhelmed Mirren. “Don’t do that.
Please.
”

The woman on the other line sighed impatiently. “We’re just trying to keep everyone safe. Don’t bring anyone else with you and everything will be fine.”

Mirren hadn’t been planning on it. “I won’t bring anyone.”

“Good. We’ll just take this slow and easy.”

“What time is it now?” Mirren asked. The overcast sky disguised the sun, and she was dream-lagged from her long sleep Darkside.

“You have two hours to get there,” the woman said.

And Mirren had no idea where she was. “I’d better go then.”

“Wait. I have a question for you.”

“Okay.” Mirren braced herself for a test of some kind.

“What is a buzzy and where do you get one?”

A sob squeezed her throat so tight that she thought she might cry.
Buzzy.
If ever there was proof that David was alive and well…. “Buzzy is David’s elephant. A stuffed animal.”

“I’m guessing not just any elephant will do?”

“Just the one.” David would be inconsolable, but of course they couldn’t risk going back to retrieve it. Too dangerous. “Can you tell them to have patience with him? None of this is his fault.”

“Don’t worry. He’s in good hands. Got Rook wrapped around his little finger from what I’ve heard.”

Rook. Harlen had said something similar. Mirren swallowed thickly. “Tell them thank you from me. I better get going if I’m going to make— Wait. Will Vincent be there, too? Did he get out?”

Everything about Vincent was dangerous, even cracked, but she’d
liked
him for it. No man she’d ever known had stood up to her father.

“Still waiting for his call. He was less inclined to cooperate.”

Mirren knew she could work with him. It was
good
people like Rook and Jordan who were tedious, not the man who’d laid hands on her father.

“He’ll call,” Mirren said. “I know he will.”