The Sandman (4 page)

Jordan breached the tree line, and through the magic of the Rêve, was able to see the band clearly—every “seat” in a dream concert was VIP. She had a smile on her face and her spirits were so high that she was on the verge of laughing out loud or screaming along with the other revelers who’d come. The energy was contagious, and truth be told, the music rocked. She
had
to buy this album. And maybe a T-shirt. And here she’d been wishing she’d gone with Rook to the infamous black market. This was way better.

The landscape sloped downward to form a natural amphitheater, and beyond it was just sky. The setting was a surreal floating island in the atmosphere. A few hundred people were scattered around the grassy incline toward the stage—as if they’d just arrived, as well—but Jordan could sense thousands of revelers. If she squinted, her Darksight let her see the silhouettes of the masses that were really here.

Their excitement was palpable in the waters, a kind of fun she hadn’t felt in a long time. She
really
needed to get out more. Maisie had been nagging her for years about it, and Jordan was ready to concede that her little sis had been right.
Fun is good
.

It didn’t hurt that Noah was the very image of a rock god, bare-chested and rippling with muscles. His head was down over the mic, his long blond hair curtaining his face on both sides. Which was okay because Jordan was plenty happy ogling his abs. Not that Malcolm Rook’s weren’t equally as phenomenal—they were—but there was something magnetic about Noah. And there was no harm in being a fangirl once in a while.

“And a great flood covered the Earth!” Noah’s deep voice rang out, his head still bent. “And all the wicked fell not into death, but into the dark waters of sleep. And there, they
lived
!”

A laugh escaped Jordan’s throat, and it joined the excited screams of the audience.

The guitarist hit a power chord, and the crowd screamed louder.

Jordan bounced on the tips of her toes. This
really
was a good song, even if she didn’t know the words.

Slowly, Noah lifted his head, and the waters churned with the roar from the crowd, rushing around her in torrents. She screamed with them in anticipation.

His face was…
beautiful
. Its sharp, clean lines highlighted the dark-gray eyes that identified him as part nightmare.

Part nightmare. Of course, he was.

The other revelers might think his eyes were part of the show—one of the great things about being lucid while dreaming was that a person could alter their appearance however he or she wanted—but Jordan knew the truth about Noah. He was bravely showing his true self. Nightmare. Like Steve Coll and Mirren Lambert. Seemed like they were popping up everywhere. Maybe they could all be friends!

Her mind rebelled slightly at the thought. Something wrong there. Silly, even.

Whatever.

The point was, now she really had something to report. And with Noah’s fan following, maybe they could get somewhere against the Oneiros. For once, good news.

She should take him to Maze City.

Again, she was irritated with herself. What was she thinking? She couldn’t take him there. Not until she knew him better, at least.

But he could get the word out about the dangers Darkside. People would listen.
Just look at his following.
She glanced away from Noah—or rather, tried to. The effort blurred the Rêve and fuzzed her brain.

Well, she didn’t care about them, anyway.

The drums cascaded into the first verse of the song. Her body swayed along to the beat while her trusty common sense waved a little red flag.

She shouldn’t be this happy.

Who cares?
She wanted to dance.

Anyone who wanted to survive Darkside would care.

She needed a little fun, just a little, so badly. And she deserved it after the past weeks. Past years, in fact. But…

She
really
shouldn’t feel this way. She should be scared. She’d come to investigate the threat of nightmares in the Agora, and yes, she’d spotted one right away: Noah.

Look how all these people worship him.

But—and this was what finally made her thinking level out—she was pretty sure the Rêve was making her happy. Turning her on. And that just pissed her off. Or it should’ve.

She was being manipulated. In fact, she still had a stupid smile on her face.

There was no way she was going to buy this album. Making anyone do anything or feel anything they didn’t want to in a dream was
illegal
. It was also
impossible
, according to all the Rêve research: no lucid dream could take away the ability to choose, or affect judgment, or influence emotion. That was the point of being
lucid
and in
control
, the two key words that made reveling acceptable to the masses.

That same research didn’t acknowledge that some people had talents Darkside, and she was willing to bet that Noah, part nightmare, had the heretofore-unknown talent of making people feel what he wanted them to feel. What an asshole.

Yet here she was, bopping along. She was actually bopping.

Hell no.

She forced herself to stop moving to the beat. The effort made her queasy.

Noah’s voice rose into the chorus, a wail to the world that he was merely a prophet with a bell. He lifted his hand toward the audience and stepped out from the circle of the band. The sky overhead showered the island with streaking stars. Noah’s body fractured into hundreds—thousands—of versions of himself, so that he approached each member of the audience, singing that there was nothing to fear in the dreamwaters.

“The dreamwaters swell…”
his voice lifted.

Noah stood before her, too—damn intense—his fingertips just shy of her chin, those eyes so deep it felt as though he were looking into her soul. The vibration of his voice was almost tangible.

“The potion of the ocean, the commotion of emotion…”

Again, she fought to think. The lyrics weren’t all that great because,
please
. Had he used every word that rhymed with
ocean
? No, there was still
locomotion
and
lotion
, and she bet she could come up with more if he weren’t messing with her head.

“Don’t doubt my devotion.”

Devotion.
She should’ve seen that one coming. Damn him for making her feel like this. It was like…slipping something into someone’s drink.

“I’m just a prophet with a bell.”

A drop of sweat slid down his right pectoral muscle into the channel at his sternum and, from there, along the center cleft of his abs. She didn’t want to notice him like this.

While he sang, a low male voice in her head said,
You shouldn’t be here.

Jordan’s breath hitched. Some revelers could speak mind to mind. Steve and Maisie could.
So who…?
But now she couldn’t even turn her head to look.

Noah pulled a half smile as he sang. It was
him
, talking to her at the same time.

Which should make her frantic if she weren’t so into it. Her heartbeat didn’t even accelerate.

This was like dreaming before she’d learned control. He’d taken her control.

At least she knew she
should be
frantic, and that’s what she’d go on. No matter how good she felt, this was bad. But she was still in the Agora, which meant she was safe. And she was here to get information. So…she should get some. She could hate him later.

She knew to tell the truth as much as possible. Lies felt acidic in the waters. “I couldn’t miss this concert.”

But it’s not for you
, he said.
I’m not for you.

“Why not? I like music.” Just not sleazeballs. Which is why she wasn’t answering him back in her head. She didn’t like that he was in hers.

Because you don’t fear the dreamwaters.
His fingertips touched her chin, turning her head to the side, and suddenly, she could feel an echo of the deep scratches near her scalp where, weeks ago, the nightmare of Rook’s dead younger brother had raked his nails as he’d grabbed her hair.

You don’t fear the dreamwaters
, Noah repeated
, but you should. You know what’s in them.

“Nightmares,” she said.

Yes.

“You’re a nightmare, too.” And not just because of his hybrid nature, but the way he manipulated people.

Maybe I am.
His hand slid farther along her jawline to the back of her neck, and he gripped her.

Jordan was frozen in place, caught in the euphoria of the song and the grasp of his too-strong hand. He had her, and she wanted him to have her.

No.
No!
Malcolm had taught her better than this. These false emotions were a kind of illusion, just an illusion, and she was talented enough to perceive beyond it. In one swift movement, she wrenched herself out of his grasp and stepped backward.

Very good
, he said, reaching toward her again.
Jordan, is it? Stay with me.

How did he know her name? She had to get away before he pried more than her name from her mind.

Panicked, she looked for an Agora column to remind herself that she was safe. That help was near. But she found only the masses of people singing along to “Prophet with a Bell
.
” Lots of billowing dresses, but now they looked like shimmering, flowing water. Like these girls and women had dressed in dreamwater. Oh dear God.

No columns. No safety. Was that an illusion, too? She didn’t know. Had to be, right?

It’s not safe anywhere
, he said.

“I’ll take my chances.” The bright feeling in her chest shredded, and her heartbeat tripped to match the crashing panic underneath. She propelled herself upward, a symbolic gesture toward wakefulness, like a swimmer bouncing off the floor of a swimming pool. The cool waters rushed around her.

But a hand grabbed her, arresting her rise with a grip on her ankle.

She gagged and sputtered, bucked like a dolphin.

She kicked to break free and broke the surface of sleep.

***

Steve Coll drifted alone in the vast stretches of Maisie’s dreamscape.

Wait for Sera
, echoed in his mind.
Wait for Sera.

He had to hold out just a little longer. He’d found Maze City, after all, hadn’t he? He could wait a little longer.

The stars lost their nebulae of color and went as gold and grainy as Scrape sand for a moment. Every dream was made of the stuff. With the sparkle of gold came the memory that the Sandman was rising. Steve shuddered. The Sandman. But not a man at all. So frigid that He burned like the sun.

Steve had followed Him. Why had he followed? He hadn’t done it for the nightmare-plagued waking world. Not really. He’d followed for an answer to his own question.
Why, God?
Because if Steve had a god, it had to be the Sandman.

The wind raged. Steve was sand-blinded to the point of being insensible.

The nightmares disregarded him. He was just one more, a creature made of fear. He was lost in the drifts, yet had traveled no distance. Time was measured only by the wear on his mind and body.

The rabble of nightmares gathered around their god like shadows around a flame. The gusts pummeled them, but they didn’t bend. The storm originated from
Him
.

The Sandman’s regard fell upon Steve—no, not Steve here. Here, he was Coll. Caul. Demon. Freak.

The Sandman’s eyes were alive with feeling.

Even hidden in Maisie’s city, Steve shuddered and stifled a wail.

An abject and utter loneliness roared through every sandy speck of Coll’s pitiful body. Beautiful and aching was the Sandman in His longing. The storm was made of His longing. The Scrape had been carved by it.

Even the memory was too much.

Loneliness.
Once upon a time, Steve had been lonely, too. He’d thought it would eat him alive. But then he’d met Maisie. She was so noisy with life and color that she’d filled him up.

Her nebula dream was losing its composition around him, gold filling his vision. He was already so worn, he couldn’t afford to lose any more of himself or he’d never be able to wake. And he really needed to be strong for what was to come. The Sandman was rising—though how or when Steve had no idea. He just knew that they had to be ready.

He reached for the waking world. He’d wait for Sera there.

As he surged upward, the waters rushed by him, chafing at him still more until he broke the surface of sleep and took a breath of waking world air. He was a piece of pitted driftwood that, having crossed an ocean, bore little resemblance to the man he’d once been.

Due to a lifetime of practice, he did not open his eyes immediately. Didn’t even try. He floated between the full awareness of being awake and the paralysis that immobilizes the body when sleeping. A chill lingered over his skin, though he seemed to be covered with something light and slightly scratchy—a cheap sheet—and he listened.

Something whirred softly in the room. Beyond that, a distant shuffle.

“I’m not going in that room,” a female voice said, muted by a closed door. “He’s not
human
. He’s one of those
…those alien creatures
.”

Nightmares. And yes, he was, as least in part. And he was certainly more at home in another world. He must be very bad off to have lost the now-instinctive illusion he’d cultivated to make him look normal, even while sleeping.

Caul
, his mother had spat at him when he was a child, even if he’d made himself look normal.
Caul
or
demon or freak
.

Wicked
, he heard in the back of his mind.

He warmed in spite of the cold room. That was a Maisie echo, usually spoken when she was climbing on top of him to be wicked with him. Her pink hair made her look like her head was a chemical fire, and she had an attitude that could infuriate anyone—she practiced it constantly. She made herself visible just as he’d tried to do the opposite, and now he would never be truly invisible again. Small price to pay to live with such color.