Bring Me A Dream: Reveler Series 5 (6 page)

This was so crazy Vince had to laugh. “So between
her
father making her pray to some God-wannabe Sandman and
your
mother calling you Caul the Demon Boy, I guess I can’t complain about my criminally inclined father.”

“Did he buy you a new car when you turned sixteen?” Steve asked.

“A BMW 5 Series.”

“Then, no, you can’t complain.” Steve turned to Mirren. “Rook might’ve been surprised by the mention of Sandman, but Chimera
does
have records that cite him. The Sandman has been the focus of a very closed group called the Oneiros.”

“You mean the cult.” Vince had heard of them. Their more socially acceptable name was the One Group, as if they were masquerading as an investment company. They’d wanted information on SpiderSly’s tandem dreaming technology. The whole thing pissed Vince off. “Don’t they have an enclave upstate full of people who hand over everything they own to stay Darkside as long as possible?” Lots of reveler exhaustion there.

“They have a master-planned community, yes,” Demon Steve said. “Called Somnambulant. But new information tells us that Ones are everywhere, most are just quiet about it. Stats put them at as many as two in five revelers. Their unofficial leader is Didier Lambert.”

Mirren had gone quiet—something was bothering her—so Vince kept at Steve. “What do you want us to do? Infiltrate them? Pretend to be believers?” Would he have to write a very big check?

Steve nodded. “Yes. That’s where we’ve decided you’ll be the most useful. Go in and find out everything you can about the Sandman.”

Vince snorted. He had experience with those people. “They’re not just going spill because we say we like going Darkside.”

Steve looked over at Mirren. Vince transferred his attention, too. Ignored Elvis.

“Steve believes they’d accept
me
,” she told him. “He’s suggesting that I trade on my name.”

Vince glanced over to Steve for confirmation.

“That’s part of it, yes.” His gaze was hard and steady on Mirren, as if willing her to say more.

She met his gaze and went a little hard herself. “And I’m guessing he wants me to…show my true nature. For the Oneiros, yes, that would open doors.” Her tone was a tight wire of anxiety.
This
was what had been bothering her. Somehow during the conversation, she’d figured out what Steve had wanted. They were asking her to expose herself in a world already being overrun by nightmares. And when her father found out that she was working against him? It was too much to ask.

Steve’s forehead tensed. “Do you think your father has revealed himself to them?”

She shook her head. “If so, only to a few. I’m his daughter, and I’ve only seen his true eyes twice. Once when I was little and again yesterday, when Vincent was trying to kill him.”

Vince understood why Lambert might hide himself: people got excited about the world Darkside, but confronted by a half-breed, that excitement for many would turn to reservation and fear.

If they did approach the One Group and Mirren revealed her dual nature, they should expect the same mixed reaction—awe and fear.

Steve cocked his head, his expression less severe now. “You’re also the only one who can speak like them, who knows what they’re talking about when they refer to the Sandman. I wasn’t raised that way. You wouldn’t even have to fake it. Meanwhile, your father is conveniently out of contact. You
can
open doors. You could probably open all the doors.”

A buzz signaled the arrival of the food, and Vince went to pay and collect it. The savory-sweet smell of lemongrass and curry wrapped around him as he brought it into the kitchen. Steve’s revelations complicated everything, but the solution was still very simple: kill Lambert.

Soon
, he promised himself. He had to discover where Lambert worked in the waking world so that he could get close enough again.

Mirren approached him and put a hip on a stool, but she made no move toward the food. Elvis eyed it, however.

“You could say no,” Vince told her in a low voice, glad to be momentarily out of earshot of Steve. “Get your son back from these assholes. Disappear.” What Demon Steve suggested was like walking into fire for her. She could be burned so easily. Vince himself had tried to strangle her when he’d first understood what she was.

“Don’t do that,” she said, disgusted.

He lifted his hands away from the food. “Do what?”

“Test me,” she said. “I’ve seen your face when you’re attempting murder. I’ve felt your crazy” —she illustrated
crazy
with jazz hands—“in the waters. And I’m the only way you can reach my father again. You don’t want me to disappear, so why suggest it?”

She was right. “Why? Because why would you agree to this? It can’t end well for you. If the One Group rejects you, you’re dead. If they accept you, at best you’ll never have a normal life. And
neither
scenario would be safe for your son.”

“That’s just it,” she said. “It’s not about me anymore, a truth that became very clear during the pushing-out part of childbirth. It’s about David, not any unpleasantness
I
experience. I have to find out what the Oneiros is doing and why. Find out what my father has planned. And how can I know what’s best or what to do without going into the Oneiros as I really am?”

“And if you don’t come back out again?”

She lifted her sharp chin bravely. “Then Jordan and Rook will know to keep David far away from them.”

Vince looked over at Steve to make sure he wasn’t listening. “And if you like the One Group?”

“Then I get my son back and we live happily ever after.”

“What if you like them, but they’re bad for everyone else in the world?”

She shrugged again. “What do you care as long as you find a way to get close to my father again?”

Vince blinked at her for a moment, thinking about it. Nope, he didn’t believe in the Sandman, so there was no reason to fear. The nightmares would stop being a threat when Lambert died because he would no longer be feeding them revelers. Therefore, if Mirren wanted to be Lady High Priestess of a bunch of Santa Claus fanatics, it was fine by him. In fact, it’d probably look good on her. Reaching for the box of food, he said, “Good point.”

***

“So do we drive upstate to Somnambulant?” Mirren asked Steve between bites of sweet-and-spicy prawns. She couldn’t stop looking at him, or rather, trying to look through him. He must be very strong for her not to be able to see through his waking dream. She didn’t like it. Made her feel weak. “Sleepwalk our way inside?”

“I still have the name of the contact who wanted a look at the tandem dreaming technology,” Vincent said, handing her a napkin. “I could make a call. Set up a meeting. Work our way up to the top from there.”

Steve shook his head. “We don’t have the time to work up through the hierarchy of the Oneiros. Besides, Mirren should go straight to someone in her father’s inner circle.”

“But I don’t know anyone in his organization, not really,” she told them. “He kept most of his work separate from me. You’ll just have to hold my father in the Agora until I get through to the right people.” Hold him there and see if
he
liked being trapped Darkside. He’d done it to his own grandson.

Steve put a tablet on the table. It displayed a woman’s photograph. “Does she look familiar?”

Apparently, Chimera already had someone in mind.

Sighing, Mirren looked at the image—pale-blue eyes, light-brown hair in a long, layered cut; no makeup, but the complexion was perfect; eyebrows groomed. She was attractive in her own way, had character in the steep dart of her nose and strong jaw. “No. She’s Oneiros?”

“We think so,” Steve told her. “We know for certain that she’s talented Darkside. A couple of years ago she was cited for crossing between Rêves in the Agora the way a teen might jump from theatre to theatre at the movies. She was temporarily suspended from reveling and fined. No trouble since. But in the past year, she’s hosted several private Rêves for a select group of people, including those in Lambert’s circle, and has arranged many secure ones within which we have no idea what activities are taking place. Her name is Agatha Fleight.”

Vincent was frowning. “I know the name Fleight.”

Steve shifted his gaze over. “Her mother is Eleanor Fleight, the senator. Chaired the Council on Shared Dreaming about ten years ago and worked directly with Lambert but has since publicly distanced herself from shared dreaming issues. Up until this past year, Agatha has been more of a disappointment to the Fleight family than an asset. We think her talent Darkside caught someone’s attention, and she finally found her place, a way to contribute. Now she’s at many of her mother’s functions.”

“Why not go directly to Senator Fleight?” Vincent asked.

Mirren knew why: because sometimes parents cast long shadows. “The senator would be very careful about speaking openly with me without an introduction from my father. If Agatha is just finding her footing, she might relish the attention. If any Scrape nightmare came to her, it would be an honor. If Didier Lambert’s nightmare daughter asked for help?”

“Yes, exactly,” Steve said. “And they are both attending a literacy event tonight at the Continental Hotel, which is another reason Agatha is ideal. We know where she’s going to be, and there’s a good chance you can speak without too much trouble.”

Vincent pushed the tablet back. “So the plan is to flatter this woman’s ego? People are smarter than that, women especially.”

Mirren felt a little twist in her gut. “I’m a smart woman, and I fell for it once. I got David out of the deal, so I won in the end, but ego, flattery, it is powerful.”

“But chancy,” Vincent said. “Let’s take the night and find a better solution. Let me do some homework on my One Group contacts.” He sounded like the businessman now, full of his own ego.

Mirren looked out the window at the silver city gleaming against the deep-blue sky. Nightfall. This was all happening so fast. She wanted time to think the plan through as well, but she also wanted it over already. She’d do this favor for Chimera and win them as allies to help her hide and keep David safe.

“Who knows how long we’ll be able to hold her father?” Steve argued back at Vincent. “A couple hours? A day? This is the best plan we’ve got
right now
.”

“If you’d just let me at him,” Vincent said, “we could have all the time we want.”

“Not possible either, I’m afraid,” Steve returned. “You’re not the first to try to kill Didier Lambert, by the way. I was. Then another person almost had him. She managed to stab him in the waking world. You’re actually third in line.”

Vincent now remembered Jordan saying that her sister Maisie had stabbed Lambert. “Is he fucking immortal?”

“He’s lucky,” Steve said. “But we have been, too. Let’s do this.”

“We shouldn’t waste any time,” Mirren agreed. “If they are Oneiros, then the day has just begun. It’s when the sun is up that He sleeps.”

The deep blue of the night was her color. The tension inside her eased, and energy thrummed under her skin. Her senses no longer felt assaulted by stimuli, the day a bright jangling in her head. Night was her time. She even occasionally felt a faint brush of the dreamwaters in the night air of the waking world.

The decision made, the impenetrable Steve-caul rose to leave.

“Do you feel it, too, then?” he asked her.

“Yes, I feel it.” Dreamtime coming. So why again was she agreeing to fight it?

***

Maisie Lane stood on a rooftop overlooking Maze City, a place more like home to her than any place in the waking world. An Escher-like trick of line and symmetry made the building beneath her appear shorter than the others surrounding it, but from here she could see everything.

Her next project was to populate the city, but she hadn’t figured out how to have her dream people roam independent of her concentration.

“Now, dear, practice makes perfect,” said a middle-aged woman.

Maisie didn’t look over at her latest attempt. Hat Lady wore a straw hat with a single daisy growing off the top, a fifties-style housedress in blue, and sensible black sandals with dark nylon socks that went halfway up her calves. Sun spots dotted the skin on her arms and face.

“I’ve been trying,” Maisie told her. “I need the distraction.”

The loneliness and worry were going to kill her. She wasn’t used to staying in one place, waiting for word, for some indication that the people she loved were safe. Jordan wasn’t coming because she and Rook would have to bring Mirren Lambert’s spawn with them, and they didn’t want the nightmare kid to be able to find his way back to Maze City later, once he was back in his awful mother’s custody. The bitch had abducted Rook, and what had she gotten? Free babysitters.

Without looking, Maisie gave Hat Lady a mustache.

“Now, that’s not kind, dear.”

She made Hat Lady disappear altogether.

Waiting.
Worrying.
This vigil thing was total crap, and she was going to tell everyone she quit the next time they were together.

Was Steve okay? Had the Mirren bitch tricked him? Was Lambert still trapped in dreamwater Jell-O?