Dreamfever (7 page)

She couldn't have. But Feodor had spoken Russian almost as well as he had Polish, he'd mastered chemistry before puberty, and his sister's face had haunted him until the day he died.

Josh certainly wouldn't have minded a free education obtained without studying, or even memories of Bryga, who had been a beautiful, brilliant child, if she hadn't felt like a part of Feodor was living on inside her. He had died, but not before he'd downloaded himself into Josh. Almost every night, she found herself in his world, often standing beside him in the lab as he broke new ground in quantum physics and dream theory.

Upon waking, she'd scramble for a pencil and write so quickly that she didn't know what she was recording until she examined it later. Formulas, algorithms, diagrams, explanatory notes in Polish or French that she might or might not remember how to translate the next morning, exquisite three-dimensional sketches—and she wrote everything down while switching the pencil from her right hand to her left and back again, as Feodor would have.

And that was why she hadn't told anyone about the nightmares. Deloise might have understood, and sometimes Haley looked at Josh in a way that made her think he recognized the demon inside her, but Will would have shot her on sight.

One morning in late March, she'd realized that among her growing collection of sketchbooks were the complete plans for a wristwatch that Feodor had built when he was nine. The wristwatch performed one delightful function: it kept accurate time within the Dream.

Such an innocuous invention. Feodor had built it when he was a mere child, before the war, before he went mad. Surely it was harmless.

That was what Josh told herself when she started building the watch—that she wasn't crossing any line, wasn't falling prey to Feodor's strange charisma, that just because she had to hide her actions from everyone she cared about didn't mean she was doing anything wrong.

The wristwatch worked as perfectly as the plans had promised it would. Just told the time, and it was always right. Josh felt reassured after she took it into the Dream for the first time.
See,
she thought.
It's no big deal. Just because Feodor went crazy later doesn't mean that every single thing he invented was dangerous.

The successful completion of the wristwatch had been thrilling. In some ways, it had actually reassured Josh that she was in control, and for a few days, she had contemplated telling Will.
We can turn what he created into something good,
she would have said.
We don't have to be afraid of him anymore.

But the fear that Will would reject her, be horrified and sickened by what she had become, and the unsettling romantic developments in the nightmares held her back. The first time Feodor had kissed her, she'd woken up choking on her own vomit. Her waking self didn't want that, but her sleeping self grew more and more infatuated, and eventually even her conscious mind grew sympathetic. She was reminded of something Winsor had once theorized: that no one could know another person fully and not fall in love with them, at least a little bit.

Maybe so much of Feodor's mind lived on inside her that she couldn't help seeing the best in him.

But she'd be damned before she fell in love with him.

*   *   *

That evening, when Will was out with Whim, Josh put on the wristwatch and went into the Dream alone.

The nightmare she chose belonged to a man in his forties, corporate type: clean-cut, boring hair, the kind of body that came from doing lots of cardio but no weight lifting. She stood on an elevated platform beside him. Before them stretched a mechanical gauntlet. The path over nine more platforms was obstructed by swinging axes, bursts of boiling steam, wooden logs that closed together from either side, and huge metal teeth that shut so hard, sparks flew from the incisors.

No way was Josh going in there. But she could try to help the dreamer.

“I'm going in,” he said. “I'm just going to go as fast as I can.”

“Wait a sec,” Josh told him. “We can figure out a pattern to get you through safely.”

“No, I don't think that will work. I just have to be fast.”

Josh put her hand on his shoulder to keep him from leaping to the next platform, and he was lucky she did, because a flamethrower overhead filled the space between platforms with fire just the instant he would have been jumping through.

He cursed.

“It's all right,” Josh told him. “There's a pattern. We can count it out. The next time the flames appear, we'll start counting.”

They spent the next five minutes working out the pattern. Josh had chosen this nightmare because it presented an opportunity for her to try out the wristwatch, which allowed her to accurately time the sequences. The pattern wasn't nearly as complex as it first appeared, and Josh was almost tempted to try the gauntlet herself. If only the course had been slightly less fatal and any attempt to leave it wouldn't have resulted in an endless plunge into darkness.

“You ready?” she asked the dreamer.

He was jogging in place. “Put me in, coach!”

“We go on four. Wait for the fire burst … One, two, three, four!”

The dreamer jumped to the second platform. Josh kept calling out numbers as the seconds passed. He waited for the ax to pass overhead twice before leaping to the third platform. From there he had less than a second to get to the fourth platform before a burst of hot steam scoured his skin.…

He made it, but just barely. Josh knew his timing was already off, and she shouted the numbers as loudly as she could, but he missed his cue.

The fifth platform broke in half every nine seconds, dumping anyone standing on it into the abyss below. The sequence shouldn't have been a problem, but the dreamer was still standing there, looking confused.

“Above you!” Josh shouted. “Jump!”

The dreamer leapt straight up just as the platform broke apart beneath him. He grabbed the metal bar overhead and hung there, squirming, as the platform came back together.

“Drop!” Josh yelled, but she'd lost the count. Between the fifth and sixth platforms were the chompers—a five-foot-wide metal jaw that snapped shut every two or three seconds. Josh knew the sequence, and she told the dreamer to wait while she sorted out what part of it the chompers were currently in, but he either couldn't hear her or was too panicked to listen. He saw the chompers close, then reopen, and he dove headfirst through them.

The metal jaw closed.

“No!” Josh screamed as the teeth bit into the dreamer's chest. Over the bursts of fire and steam, she heard his ribs crack. The jaw opened, but not far enough for him to escape, and then a tongue appeared, and a hollow metal throat, and the teeth were chewing the dreamer up and swallowing him.

Josh stood alone on the platform, cursing wildly. She knew that she could jump through the chompers and follow the dreamer into whatever horror his subconscious had in store for him next, but instead she furiously thrust her hand out and opened an archway back to her basement.

Back in the archroom, she grabbed a white towel off the table and wiped the Veil dust from her face. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered. If she'd been able to access her power, she could have saved the dreamer. He would be sleeping peacefully right now; instead he was probably being digested.

She pulled off the wristwatch and hurled it across the room. “What use were you?” she yelled at it.

No use,
she thought.
It was no use.
I
was no use.

Her nightmare came back to her—the war, the devices, the comfort of being able to put everything to rights.

She wanted that power.

 

Five

Whim drove a
monstrous 1981 baby-blue Lincoln Town Car with matching leather interior that he called Liberace. It was the only car Will had ever felt embarrassed to be seen in. He didn't care much for Whim's driving, either. Josh drove too fast and with too much confidence; Whim just drove
badly
—he'd once clipped a city bus.

The Grey Circle—or Feodor Fan Club, as Josh called it—met once a month, and members rotated hosting duties. Tonight the front door of the Fosperaida mansion had been propped open with a geode the size of a basketball, so Will and Whim let themselves inside. They crossed the foyer's parquet floor into a living room so large that it contained three different seating areas.

Will was still getting his bearings when a feminine voice as smooth and slick as hot oil said, “Well, if it isn't the Pied Piper of conspiracy rats. Hello, Whimarian.”

The young woman stood taller than Will, almost as tall as Whim, but she walked with the stealthy sway of a panther, gouging the carpet with her stiletto heels. Although Will couldn't say why, he thought her short blue-and-white kimono looked expensive, and she wore a silver bracelet with diamonds running all the way around it, too.

Will noticed her beauty at the same moment he noticed her expression, which was somehow both seductive and mocking. She looked up at Whim from beneath long brown lashes, like she was peeking at him through a hedge, but the corners of her painted lips pulled back in the faintest of smiles, as though someone had gently pricked her there with the end of a dagger. “Here for the free food?” she asked.

Whim's eyes were so large, his eyelids had vanished into his brow. His voice shook as he hissed, “What the
hell
are
you
doing here?”

The girl shrugged, holding her shoulders at the top of their range of motion as if she were posing briefly. “I could ask you the same thing,” she said. She sounded unfazed by Whim's anger. “I've been coming here for two years. Then I go away to college for a couple of months and when I come back they're letting anyone in.”

“I was invited,” Whim said sharply, which wasn't technically true. Will and Josh had been invited, and Will had brought Whim.

The girl released a puff of air with a
pffff
sound. “Whatever you say, Whim.”

Whim gritted his teeth, but when he spoke this time, his voice carried a determined casualness. “Will, this is Ozbeilia Sokkravotaine.”

She held out a cool, fine-boned hand and Will shook it. “Call me Bayla.”

“This is Will Kansas,” Whim said. “Josh's apprentice.”

“Oh,” Bayla said, and she laughed. “You've cleaned up very nicely, I'm sure.”

Will didn't know how to respond to that. “So have you,” was all he could think to say.

Bayla laughed again. She lifted two glasses from a nearby table and held them out. “The wine is superb. Have a glass.”

“No, thank you,” Will said, but Whim accepted one of the glasses she held out.

According to dream-walker tradition, seventeen years of age made one an adult, and it was more or less the dream-walker drinking age as well. But Will had a genetic predisposition for alcoholism that ran back at least three generations.

“Oh, come on,” Bayla said, nudging him with a sharp elbow. “We're all dream walkers here. No one's going to yell at you for having a glass of wine.”

“Seriously, no,” Will said. “Stop asking.” The words came out more firmly than he'd meant them to, and a little too loudly as well.

Bayla laughed and looked to Whim, as if she thought he would join her in her bemusement. Instead, he set his own glass of wine pointedly back down.

Bayla rolled her eyes. “Have a nice evening, children.”

Just as she turned to walk away, a young man joined them. He slipped an arm around Bayla's waist and smiled. Straight-nosed and bespectacled, he carried an air of aristocratic intelligence at odds with his friendly smile and wrinkled clothing.

“Friends of yours?” he asked.

Bayla leaned against him and said dryly, “I suppose. Bash, this is Whim Avishara and Will…”

“Kansas,” Will supplied.

“Kansas,” Bayla repeated, as if the name tasted sour.

Bash enthusiastically shook Whim's hand, but he dropped it when he heard Will's name. “Will Kansas! Well, this is quite a thrill!”

He shook Will's hand like he wanted to take it home as a souvenir. “I'm Bashuriel Mirrettsio. Call me Bash. You're a nominee for the Nicastro Prize this year, aren't you? I won six years ago. My own experiment never went anywhere, I'm afraid.”

“Oh,” Will said, relaxing. “Congratulations. Yeah, Josh and I are nominated.”

“You're a shoo-in,” Bash said. “I read your paper. I read all the Nicastro finalist papers. I'm hoping that one day they'll put me on the selection committee.” He was so excited that he was completely ignoring the glares Whim and Bayla were exchanging. “I think your experiment could have terrific applications for making archway creation safer. I'd love to talk to you about your paper. Both of you, I mean.”

That was the first time a dream walker had ever remembered Will in an invitation while forgetting Josh, instead of the other way around. Will felt vaguely charmed in spite of himself.

“Sure,” he said. “That would be fun.”

“Darling,” Bayla said, “I think we should go find seats before the presentation starts.”

“Oh.” Bash looked at her as if he'd forgotten she was there and wasn't thrilled to have been reminded. “Yes, of course.” He pulled a business card out of his pocket. “Please, feel free to give me a call anytime. And give my compliments to Josh.”

Will accepted the card and said, “I will.”

Bayla was practically dragging Bash away by then. Will glanced at the business card.

Bash Mirrettsio

Associate in Applied Physics

Willis-Audretch

Willis-Audretch,
Will thought, recognizing the name of the shady dream-walker think tank and invention corporation.
I should have known.

“What a loser,” Whim said. “I can't believe she's with such a dork.”