Bring Me A Dream: Reveler Series 5 (9 page)

Would Vincent dare?

His gaze hardened and his jaw flexed, but he handed the jack back to Agatha. “All right.”

Mirren was suddenly nervous. He’d barely touched her, now this? Maybe it wasn’t a good idea.

Agatha looked back and forth between them. Mirren’s pride kept her from voicing her misgivings.

“Go easy on me, darling,” Vincent said, setting his tux jacket aside and relieving his neck of his tie. “I’ve had some terrible dreams lately. Nightmares following me around. I threw a hen at one.”

She settled into a chair, too, a smile pulling at her mouth. The nightmare following him was a recent thing, so she asked, “When were you on a farm?”

“It was a city hen.”

“They have hens in New York City?” She closed her eyes. She could do this. She just had to embrace a little madness. Vincent. He was making this easier on her.

“Indeed, they do,” he said. “Good for fighting.”

“If you say so.”

“I just did.”

“Shut up and go to sleep.” She really did like him. A lot.

“Anytime you’re ready.”

“I’m ready.”

“Then quit stalling,” he said.

She let Agatha go first, and then fell backward, taking Vincent with her. It was a freefall, as if arching off a high cliff into her native waters.

Breaking the surface of sleep was usually a fast, cool rush that charged her senses, but with him so close the water was hot, scalding her descent, trickling up inside her to fill, heat, and claim that secret spot deep within. Her awareness was bombarded by sensory detail—all masculine. A simmering rage, barely contained, and a desire roiling about her like bubbles on her skin. It was so much at once that she held her breath, and when the pressure that was undeniably Vincent Blackman faded, she found herself still braced against his need and shocked at the intensity of her own.

He
was
clutching her, but not in fear. His mouth was hot against her neck, his arms protectively drawing her into his chest, as if anticipating danger and acting as the shield.

She was a master of illusion, but she didn’t know how to cover
this
reaction. Refuge. He was a refuge. An island in the waters. Ally.
Friend.
And as soon as she could make it happen, much more.

CHAPTER FIVE

Vince released Mirren slowly. If he didn’t, Agatha was going to get a show.

They descended into a work Rêve, the surroundings a soft, misty gray that could be manipulated to create a setting and from there, a narrative for revelers.

Wait a sec. What did he care if Agatha saw anything? He snuggled closer to Mirren, relishing the feel of her body against his, and let his hands roam. He loved the way her waist dipped in, tight and tiny, but nature hadn’t scrimped anywhere else. She had an hourglass figure. And like an hourglass, he had the strange anxiety that their time together was growing short.

Submerged in the dreamwaters once again, his mind went cold, threatening to fragment. It was the black stuff on his hands—still there, still staining—that made him let go of her. The stuff had eroded some essential thread in his nervous system. Functions that had been autonomic now required his concentration. His right hand still bore Lambert’s bite, the open scream of a wound. Maybe it was Lambert’s nightmare nature that had made it last, when most everything else in dreams was so ephemeral.

“How do we get the Sandman here?” Once again, he prayed the legend was indeed Lambert.

“I want to see my city first,” Mirren said.

His grip on his sanity slipped. Something about the name Maze City was familiar, but he’d been so mixed up these past couple of days he couldn’t say why. Maybe Jordan had mentioned Lambert was building a city? Vince agreed the concept was very interesting. A working city. Lambert
was
brilliant, no denying that. “Let’s do the Sandman thing first, though.”
Please, Mirren.
Then he thought of a better motivation. “We have to take care of David.”

“David?” Agatha put in. “Is he in trouble?”

“He’s fine,” Mirren said to her. “And none of your business.”

“Did he like his nursery? I had it designed by the same people who did the Wardrobe Tales.”

Vince could feel the surge in Mirren’s anger at the mere mention of the nursery Rêve.

“What kid wouldn’t like it?” he said to shift attention away from Mirren and give her a moment to collect herself. “The ceiling-sky was the coolest part.”

“You saw it, too?” Agatha asked him.

“Visited it recently, in fact.” Vince tugged a quick smile, but he flicked his gaze to Mirren to see if her fury had passed.

She’d stepped away from him, appearing as if she were listening closely for something, and then he sensed it, too. Though, for him, the dreamwater air had altered its scent, not made a sound.

“That’s enough,” a new voice said. The senator. “Agatha, wake up.”

Senator Fleight appeared in a wavering shimmer that solidified as a living column of will power. She wore her gray glitter dress and an expression of intense hostility. The rage in the water doubled.

“She came to
me
,” Agatha said to her mother. “She’s giving
me
to the Sandman.”

“Wake up right now,” her mother said.

“No. I can’t. It’s happening.” She gestured to Mirren. “Can’t you see it? The nightmares are real. It’s all true. And she came to
me
. Didier Lambert told her to come to me, because he knew I was loyal to him. He should’ve revoked your Rêve privileges.”

The senator wheeled on Mirren, and the water churned, too. “What do you want?”

Mirren didn’t say anything. She let the question hang and looked back at Senator Fleight with her inscrutable eyes.

The tension got on Vince’s threadless nerves, so he leaned in to explain. “We need the Sandman. Then we can go.”

The mention of the Sandman again made the senator’s face whiten around her mouth. Not a good sign.

“I know who you are,” she said. Spat, more like. “Vincent Blackman. Recently treated for reveler exhaustion, right? How can you even
be
here? How can you do his work? Didier Lambert had your father murdered.”

So she did know some things. “He did, indeed,” Vince said. “But that’s between me and Lambert. He’s going to make it up to me.”

“Did he promise you that? Did he promise you the world? Fine. Have it. But you can’t have my daughter.”

“She looks grown up to me.” Probably in her mid-thirties. “She makes her own decisions.”

“Not this one. You will not use her as bait for the Sandman. Go out there yourself.”

“I’ve been out there.” Vince raised his hands to show her the blood. “See?”

Senator Fleight recoiled, then recovered. “He’s going to destroy the world as we know it.”

“He’s going to make it better,” Agatha said. “We’re
evolving
.”

Senator Fleight struggled to smooth her expression. “I love you, Agatha. I know I haven’t made things as easy as I could have for you. And for that, I am sorry. But you are sick. You need help. I’ve tried, but as Mr. Blackman says, you are all grown up. This is not the future I wanted for you. Rêves—they have no substance. They are not real. You are an addict, and Mr. Lambert has used that against you, and he’s used it against me.” She covered her mouth with a trembling hand, then pressed her lips together and dropped her arm. “You need to wake up now. Please. For me.”

After that plea, Vince couldn’t help himself. “Waking up would be smart. Never sleeping again, even smarter.”

“You don’t deserve her,” Agatha said to him as she looked with longing at Mirren. “She’s magic.”

“She’s a nightmare,” Senator Fleight said.

Mirren spoke imperiously. “I need you, Agatha. If you wake, you are dead to me and my father.”

Vince sighed. Agatha was pretty damn dead already. Even her mother knew it.

“I’ll stop you,” the senator said to Mirren. “I swear it. I already have people in motion.”

“You can try,” Mirren told her. “But for now…”

The floor was gray, but golden specks of Scrape sand rose from it and twisted to become ropes. They wound around the senator, a tight bind, and rooted her where she stood.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Agatha said.

“I had to. You’re my daughter. You’re my life.”

Beautiful.
How Agatha could turn her back on that amazed Vince, but he was more emotional these days than he usually was.

He gave the imprisoned senator a hug. Couldn’t help that either. Then turned to Mirren. “We need to find the Sandman first,” he said again. “For David.”

“For David,” she said, “we need to find the city.”

***

Mirren had no tolerance for the wind of the Scrape. She trudged across the desert, and because she belonged out there, the dust storm quieted in her immediate vicinity, a pocket of peace that further awed the pathetic Agatha Fleight. Only a
god
could quiet a wind like that. Poor, brainwashed Agatha.
He chose
me
. Ugh. Did she even see what was flickering within the dust devils just beyond their path? Nightmares. Nightmares who would consume her. Stupid woman. Her mother loved her. That alone was worth fighting for, especially if she was going to lose regardless.

Vincent followed behind. If he feared what lurked out in the Scrape, he didn’t show it. He didn’t cower, didn’t cling. Either he trusted her ability to keep them at bay, or his victory over one nightmare had made him think that he could beat them all.

On the horizon, even while still in the mouth’s howl of the dust storm, a star appeared shining silver and bright.

“Ah. Maze City is active! I was worried it wouldn’t be running,” Agatha said. “Just wait until you see it.”

Mirren guessed the star had to be the city. And gushing Agatha Fleight, so damn loyal to Father, had said he’d intended it for her and David.

Mirren had grown up in luxury, of course. Beautiful boxes within which to trap her. Was this another trap? Or was it an oasis?

From a distance, the center spires of high-rises pierced the upper atmosphere. They didn’t seem commercial or residential, but instead like darkly fanciful blades from which to…rule? Mirren felt a smile warm in her throat. The city was feminine, no doubt about that. Intended for a woman. Designed with her in mind? As she approached, the city grew in brightness and beauty. From its center, buildings and neighborhoods fell into light-dark contrasts of complex organization.

It was like no Rêve or dreamscape that Mirren had ever before seen—and many of those had been impressive. This…this was something new entirely. Her father was a genius. Simple as that. A twisted, evil genius, but one with a lot of imagination.

“Holy shit,” Vincent said in her ear. “How’s that for your own dreamscape?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Agatha put in.

What kind of Darkside technology could handle something of this scope?

“Can you figure out how he pulled it off?” Mirren asked him. Because, yes, she was keeping it. Maze City was the answer to her prayers. If she could steal this place from her father, David could grow up here, be safe here. This was the answer. Her relief was excruciating in its intensity—tears and pain and worry transformed into joy.

For a second, her heart twisted in her chest. Maybe her father loved her after all. Maybe he was just terribly damaged. People like them were called demons and monsters and nightmares. Maybe it had messed up his head and made him incapable of telling her how he felt. Maybe this was his declaration, too long in coming, but loud and clear just the same.

Maybe…? No. That same man shot her lover in cold blood while she was pregnant. That same man took her son from her. That same man fed revelers to nightmares and had a plan in the works to make the Agora and all the Rêves fall. Families were tricky that way.

“Let’s check it out.” Vincent’s wonder suffused the waters, too.

They walked up a street clotted with less and less Scrape sand until there was only bare pavement under their feet. The buildings to the left and right were low and gray, like hollow warehouses, but the farther they ventured, the more detail the edifices assumed. The structures grew in height—one…two…three stories. The outer walls became brick interspersed here and there with buildings of concrete, creature moldings grinning down at passersby. It even smelled urban—not bad, exactly—just chemically and funky enough to suggest the rich bustle of life in a city.

And yet it was utterly silent, deserted. Waiting for someone—her—to claim it.

They came to an intersection and were about to turn right when Mirren paused, holding up a hand, and then laughed out loud. “It looks like we should go this way to get to the city center, right?”

“It’s a
maze
,” Agatha said.

Mirren nodded. She got it now. “But we don’t go that way. To get to the center, I think we go…”

She peered at the structures, the lines of architecture and city planning. She focused so hard that she could make out the sand that comprised everything. And sand was her element.