Dreamlands (31 page)

“Stick close to me or Caitlynn,” Wolf said. “Don’t trust anyone.”

“I want to get Murphy and anyone else who we can find in the atrium,” McGann said. “You probably are safer with us.”

“I know that,” I whispered. I didn’t want to be with anyone, really, but maybe Mason or Wolf. “Where is Fuse-hime?”

“Mason was taking her down to D with a couple of scientists to run some tests. Samuels and St. John,” McGann said.

Samuels had a tendency to look at me like I was snack, but St.

John was mostly on my side. He wouldn’t start anything, but he also FELICITAS IVEY

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didn’t stop someone from doing anything to me. He didn’t care enough.

But Mason was protecting Fuse, so I knew she was going to be all right.

The emergency lights outside the room were out, and the alarm sounded too loud.

“I don’t know where the breach is,” Wolf had to yell.

“That doesn’t matter,” McGann said. “We just have to get it under control so they don’t flood the place with cyanide. Collins down here actually is to our advantage because he’s a Trustee.” What started was the longest, scariest walk of my life. When Heiseg took me from my room didn’t count, because I didn’t remember any of that night. Now I wasn’t in shock, and Wolf and McGann were doing this weird military search of the level we were on. They found five other people alive and three dead, attacked by something with a sword. Stupid as that sounds, it made me feel better. I didn’t know what was here, but it wasn’t a monster.

I realized that it was the middle of the night, which was why there weren’t that many people here. They all looked at me weirdly, but McGann and Wolf kept them moving and not talking as Wolf led us down to C level. The stairway was pitch black, and we slowed down to a crawl as we felt our way down the stairs. One of the techs sprained her ankle when she tumbled down them. From the way she carried on, you’d have thought she had been seriously injured. I thought that McGann was going to slap her just to calm her down.

We got down to the bottom of the stairs, and Wolf started checking out that level. The only sound that I heard was the harsh breathing of the people with me and the whimpers of the woman who had sprained her ankle. I couldn’t see anything, and I doubted that anyone else could.

Wolf opened the door a crack. “I’ll be back,” he whispered.

We waited in the dark. The door opened again after an endless time, and I heard a scream above and behind me, and a body fell on me.

I stumbled forward under the weight and felt something hot soaking 229

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into my clothing. I felt other people trying to catch me and the body, and I struggled to get to my feet.

“He’s dead!” Someone started yelling, which set off the rest of them. There was a stampede to the door and more screaming. I was tossed to one side and felt someone falling on me again, and I passed out.

I WOKE up when Wolf started shaking me. “Keno…
Junge
―”

“I hurt,” I muttered.

I was in the atrium, laid out on one of the couches there. The atrium on C level had been an old subway station that had been isolated from the main branch during reconstruction to the line in the ’20s.

When the Trust built this base in the ’40s, they turned part of it into a lounge area. When I was first here, I hung out here a lot. When things started to get a bit scary, I started to avoid this place. The rest of the station had been turned into various labs, but they had kept the ceramic walls of the original station out here, and the name of the station, Boylston. It was big and echoing, and I wondered why McGann and Wolf chose this place to stay. I heard the muttering of a bunch of people who I knew were scared out of their minds. Things might have been better if there hadn’t been a breach before this or if there wasn’t the threat of shutting this place down permanently with them in it.

“I thought that you were dead,” Wolf said, hugging me. “We lost three people in that mess and have a couple more badly injured.”

“Someone seems to be phasing in and out, attacking us,” McGann said softly. “We can’t tell what’s going on; it’s too dark. Half the emergency lights aren’t working.”

“Shadows,” I murmured. I knew that Samojirou was able to use the shadows to move around in, but he was trapped in the Dreamlands.

“Keno, you all right?” Wolf asked.

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My clothing was sticking to me, and all I could smell was blood. I was covered in it, I figured out. That had been the hot liquid spraying on me. “How many?”

McGann looked startled, but said, “We have about fifteen people here, but I haven’t been able to contact anyone else. I found Fairinox and Collins, but not Murphy. We’ve lost about five or six because of the attacks.”

“Someone’s blocking us,” Fairinox announced. I shrank back from him because I didn’t want him to touch me. “There is a powerful magician here.” He stared at me like he had never seen me before.

“Boy, I can use you.”

“You’re not touching me,” I snarled. I knew what he wanted. My magic.

McGann looked between Fairinox and me, and it was like she knew what he wanted me for. “You’re not to go near him.”

“You’ve got no right―” Fairinox whined.

“My office, my rules,” she snarled. “And you aren’t pulling that shit here.”

“And I outrank you,” Collins said firmly.

“My people are the only thing keeping you alive from whatever just breached us,” she said. “I don’t think that you understand that.”

“Caitlynn, dear, I don’t think that you understand,” Collins said smoothly.

“We’re out of contact with our people, unarmed, and being picked off one by one, and I doubt that it’s going to stop soon.” McGann said.

“What don’t I understand?”

Wolf snorted. There was another scream, and I knew that some else had been hurt or killed.

Collins got panicky. “Do something about this!” he demanded.

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McGann looked at him for a long moment before turning to Wolf.

“See if you can get down to D level and find any survivors down there.

Bring them up here. I’m going lead the rest of them to the conference room just inside the lab areas and hope that a smaller area will stop us from being picked off.”

“You up to a run?” Wolf asked me.

I hurt, I felt like the Tokyo subway had run me over, and I was covered in other people’s blood. I didn’t want to move, and I felt sick to my stomach. But I knew that being with Wolf was safer than anyplace else with Collins and Fairinox running loose. “That sounds like a great idea,” I said.

SAMOJIROU

I MELTED into the shadows, wanting to kill everyone in this place.

This had been my Keno’s prison for too long. I faded in and out, killing everyone I saw. I pulled back after my third kill and began to search for Keno. That wasn’t to say I stopped killing the humans here, it was just something that happened in the search for my love. The humans were confused, frightened by the dark and being trapped. I simply took advantage of that. They tried to organize and protect themselves, but they had no protection from someone who struck from the shadows and faded back into them. I found Murphy in a room and struck out, not to kill, but to incapacitate. I wanted to savor my time with him. I bound him and carried him back to where my lady Tamazusa was with Inumura Daikaku. I dumped Murphy’s body at the feet of one of the Reavers. “Watch him,” I said.

Tamazusa smiled coolly. “You give the nicest gifts. His head will look good decorating my garden.”

I smiled and bowed. “You have such excellent taste, my lady.” FELICITAS IVEY

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Murphy glared at the two of us. His eyes were wild; I thought traveling through the shadows may have disturbed him. It had never bothered Keno. “Fucking gooks! What did that bastard tell you?” I struck him across the face. “Be quiet!” He spit at me, and I ignored him. “I go to retrieve my consort, my lady.”

Tamazusa looked at me, her eyes dark and worried. “Take care, Aboshi.”

I bowed to her with a smile and faded back into the shadows again.

MASON

I DIDN’T say anything, but I let the two bruisers take me down to E

level with Fuse. I didn’t want to fight Samojirou, and it wasn’t like they were hurting me. I hoped the lab boys would be able to take care of themselves after Samojirou melted back into someplace else after I couldn’t tell him where Keno was. If they didn’t panic, they would be fine. I just hoped these guys didn’t go nuts and decide that killing everyone was a good idea because we insulted them in some way. Most of the lab guys had worse manners than I did. I did remember to bow to Tamazusa when I was pulled before her. I was sort of surprised to see that Murphy was down here with them too, along with some guy who was kneeling on the floor and chanting.

“Mason-san protected me in this place,” Fuse said. “And he is under my protection.”

Tamazusa smiled. “Because he is an avatar of one of your sons.” Fuse nodded. “Daikaku’s.”

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I guessed that was the guy on the floor, because he looked up at us for a moment before continuing to chant. The other two bruisers looked at me with interest, Sousuke shaking his head while Genpechi just laughed.

“Hey, not like I asked for the fuckin’ job,” I objected.

“Where is Keno-chan?” Tamazusa asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. I paused, figuring that this was as good a time as ever to tell her this. “Thanks for Heiseg. The man was a dick.” Tamazusa shook her head. “And how do you know that I had something to do with that?”

I shrugged, not wanting to tell her the truth. “It don’t matter.” She shrugged, graceful and cold. I smiled, trying to butter her up.

It sometimes worked with McGann. I didn’t think that it was working with her. “Can you get Samojirou off my ass? Not that he’s after me, but I bet that he’s making a mess around here that I’m going to have to clean up.”

“He is very upset about what happened,” Tamazusa said, “as am I.

If you had had anything to do with the insult that was given us, he would have killed you.”

“What are you going to do with Murphy?” I demanded.

Tamazusa’s eyes narrowed, and I was very aware that I was probably a word away from turning into JELL-O. “He was very rude to me, and he has insulted my honor with what he did under my roof! If Fuse-hime’s consort and her sons had chosen to go to war with me, it would have gone badly for all of us. The balance of power is a delicate one in the Dreamlands. His head will decorate my private garden.”

“Shit,” was the first thing that I could think of saying.

Tamazusa just shook her head. “So crude.”

“He’s an asshole, but he’s my asshole. He’s got wife, kids, grandkids,” I said.

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She shrugged and smiled.

I hoped that Kate Murphy had gotten offsite before the shit got loose. I didn’t like the woman, but the grandkids shouldn’t lose both grandparents at once. I didn’t think that I could talk Tamazusa out of playing Martha Stewart with Murphy’s skull, but I had to try, even if I ended up a bowl of JELL-O. “He was just following orders. You want one of the big boys. Like the asshole that sent him there.”

“I don’t need you to defend me from these gooks,” Murphy said.

“I’m doin’ it because of other reasons, asshole,” I said. “And did you take stupid pills recently? Wolf don’t need to bury you too. Your wife’s a pain the ass, but she doesn’t need to be a widow. Fuck, I’d rather see Fairinox or Collins dead rather than you.”

“How nice,” Murphy sneered.

I rolled my eyes. “Listen, I don’t know what shit you went through in ’Nam, but these people had nothin’ to with it. Shit, Keno was just a kid who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you’ve made his life miserable.”

“That fuckin’ gook got everything that he deserved,” Murphy taunted.

I reached down and hauled him off the floor, so angry I was shaking. “You want Sean or Jim treated liked that? Raped and beaten?

Scared and lost because they did something stupid? Losing everything because of one innocent mistake?”

“They wouldn’t be stupid enough to get caught,” Murphy spit.

“Or too stupid like their grandfather to know when to keep their mouth shut?” I asked before dropping him. If I hadn’t, I would have killed him. I took a couple of steps back and punched the wall. If I hadn’t, I would have punched something else. Tamazusa and Fuse watched me, looking alike as twins with the expression―or lack of one―on their faces.

“Who is Fairinox?” Tamazusa asked me finally.

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“He’s Collins’s pet hoodoo man,” I said.

“Hoodoo?” Fuse asked.

“Hoodoo. Voodoo. Magic,” I said tiredly.

“You shut your fucking mouth,” Murphy snarled. “Don’t tell these fucking gooks anything!”

I ignored him. “Fairinox, on orders of the Trustees, of which Collins is one, sent us to your lands, Tamazusa-sama. There were supposed to about two dozen of us; that was supposed to be the plan, instead of the five and a half who made it. I don’t know what happened to the rest; I haven’t seen them since I got back.”

“Interesting,” Tamazusa said softly. She stepped closer to me, and I looked down into her eyes, smelling her light perfume. She was hot, and I was tempted to kiss her. But I really knew I’d become JELL-O if I did that, so I didn’t. “And you are telling me this why?” I shrugged. “Murphy. He’s my asshole, and I don’t want you to do somethin’ to him.”

“You bargain for his life?” Tamazusa asked.

“I do,” I said softly.

Murphy was screaming threats and curses incoherently in the background. I knew I wasn’t his favorite person right now. But I was doing this for Wolf, so he didn’t lose someone else. I knew that as soon as Samojirou found Keno he was taking him out of here. I didn’t like it, but I knew it was better for him. I found myself getting lost in Tamazusa’s stare and didn’t think that it was a bad thing. I could do with some not-thinking right now.

“Find me the one called Fairinox, and I might allow him to go,” Tamazusa offered.

I nodded, my mouth dry. I was choosing who lived and who died, something I never wanted to do, not after Keno’s last disastrous op. I had almost put a bullet in Wolf’s brain, thinking it would be easier and kinder than trying to hump his ass out of there. “I’ll be back.” FELICITAS IVEY