Dreamwalker (16 page)

Chapter Thirty

On Estella's post-mortem journey, she'd passed exhaustion miles ago. She wished she could go back to exhaustion and spend a week in that comparative vacation spot. Cauquemere's demands sucked the energy from every cell of her being.

Her body bore witness to the strain. Her, luxuriant, blonde hair now lay matted and sparse, streaked gray throughout. Her round cheeks were gone and sallow skin framed her ashen lips. A white tunic hung loose over her shrinking body.

Estella had no idea how long she had been chained in Cauquemere's palace. There was no night and no day. No meals or sleep segmented the time into recognizable periods. There was only the tiring, perverse work. Had she been there a day, a week, a decade? She was exhausted enough for it to have been a century.

Many moments of her life were now faded and fuzzy, but she would never forget her first disorienting arrival in the Hall of Dreamwalkers.

She awoke from Cauquemere's most harrowing vision yet, but nothing looked familiar, not the rough stone walls, not the expansive wooden table, not the glowing orbs that floated overhead. She certainly had never seen any of the three pale, wasted people who shared the table with her. Her fear spooled back up to full speed.

Most terrifying was a disconcerting difference in her consciousness. This place had the slightly surrealistic gauze that her dreams always had. But when she dreamwalked, she felt a duality, where a part of her was still outside the dream, like dashing in for a coffee while your car idled curbside. Now, she sensed no existence beyond this plane. The loss of contact with the corporeal world could only mean she was dead.

Unyielding, heavy, leather restraints bound her waist to the chair. The iron and leather had a faint glow. She tried to pull at them but her fingers were kept from the surface by some spectral reinforcement.

“Welcome, my dear.”

The deep voice from behind her made her jump. She whipped her head around as Cauquemere stalked the four at the table. Dread arrived like a medicine ball to her gut. She recognized his dreadlocks and the leather clothes from his visits to her nightmares. But this was no nightmare she could awaken from.

“You are joining a loving little family,” Cauquemere said, gesturing toward the three burned out shells that shared the table. His voice dripped with sarcasm. “They share your skills, your dreamwalker skills, and have put them to work in my service. In fact, they helped create the nightmares that brought you here.”

Estella scanned the three faces for signs of remorse. There were none. The other captives showed no emotion at all, not even any acknowledgement of Estella's arrival. They just continued adding spheres to the group doing a holding pattern over their heads.

“I know how enthusiastically you'll pitch in to help them,” Cauquemere continued. He slipped beside her and whispered in her ear. “You'll have such an aptitude for it.”

Estella felt her blood start to burn.

“Like hell I will,” she said. She reached up to twist his head off of his neck.

Her arms crashed back to the chair as if yanked by wires. Her head slammed back hard enough for her to see stars.

“So you want to fight about it?” Cauquemere said. He leaned back against the table and folded his arms across his chest. A wry smile appeared on his lips. “It won't be a fair fight.”

A scorpion appeared on the top of Estella's immobile hand. Its sharp feet dug into her skin. Twin pincers sliced into her flesh. They pulled open a slit of skin and exposed the soft pink muscle beneath. The scorpion's tail stabbed Estella. A bolt of searing pain blasted up her arm. The creature burrowed into the slit and under her skin.

Estella felt her skin stretch over the scorpion's body. It crawled up her arm. Pointed legs jabbed into her muscle. The toxic stinger rolled right and left and lanced her with excruciating pinpricks of pain. Estella screamed in agony.

Cauquemere unfolded his arms and the scorpion vanished. Estella's arm returned to normal, unblemished by the assault. Her head sagged forward in relief. A bead of sweat rolled down her nose and off into her lap.

“See,” Cauquemere said. “Hardly fair at all. I broke you to get you here. I'll break you again. It's just a matter of time.”

Estella looked up at him through her damp bangs, enraged by his smug smile and condescending attitude. The son of a bitch wasn't going to make her do anything. He could burn her into the ground and she wouldn't lift a finger to help him condemn another soul to Twin Moon City.

Then the energy stream entering the palace changed. It was almost undetectable, like the addition of another flute to an orchestra in mid-recital. But Estella's ear had been tuned for the notes of that flute for years. She felt Rayna enter the flow.

Death was the only ticket to this world and there was only one way Rayna could follow her so quickly. Suicide. The image of Rayna ending her own sweet life was a nightmare all by itself. Estella forced it from her mind. Cauquemere would use Rayna as leverage if he knew she was here. Estella had to protect her sister.

She leashed her anger and made it heel. She dropped the corners of her mouth and looked away from Cauquemere like a submissive wolf. Cauquemere's smile widened.

“Excellent.”

Estella watched the other dreamwalkers as they added details to the nightmares coalescing on the table. Her arms came free of the chair and she lifted one upwards. Power from the stream of souls swept through her. A globe materialized at her fingertips.

Within it a savage dog tore a man's arm away at the socket. Blood spurted out in a fan. The vision repulsed her. She couldn't have given birth to that. She nearly dropped the orb.

But she kept her grip and gently lowered the orb to the table. It rolled to join the waiting others. She shuddered in the aftermath of the energy's transit to her fingers. A wave of guilty nausea swept through her. A part of her soul had died, and she could smell the decay.

Estella redirected the meager energy she had in reserve. She sent it out in a trickle, weaving a path salmon-like against the inbound torrent. It blunted and reflected Rayna's life force back into the city, then followed it to the source. She made it into a barrier, a shield to hide her sister. She'd have to constantly shift it to keep it between Rayna and the ever-searching eyes of Cauquemere.

She'd serve this horrid master and sow terror through the night, but only to protect Rayna with the bit of herself she held in reserve. Unlike the shattered dreamwalkers across from her, she'd keep her personal consciousness alive, for as long as she could.

Cauquemere had left the palace. Estella could feel that and thought the others could as well. The inflow of life force slowed, and small eddies swirled in the stream. The texture of the walls and fixtures in the palace grew rougher, as if their binding machinery lost steam. Though Cauquemere's presence was the pump that kept the power flowing, the flow continued after he left, like a siphoning action, but the intensity waned. He was never gone long enough for it to wind down completely.

When he was gone, the Nightmare Factory's production line slowed. Animated orbs only intermittently joined the constellation floating above the creators. These moments were as close to rest as any of the captives ever came. Estella used the respite to check on Rayna, feeling out into Twin Moon City to touch her sister's soul.

A portion of her consciousness moved out along her energy tendril that shielded Rayna from Cauquemere's probes. At the tip she found her sister. Rayna felt beautiful and vibrant, shining like a lighthouse over the sea of dimmer souls. Without Estella's deflection, Cauquemere would find her instantly. Estella's mind reached out in Rayna's direction, until she was only inches away.

She dared not contact her, let her know she was trapped in the palace. What foolish things might her sister do if she knew?

Estella warmed as she felt the emotional bond they'd shared since Rayna's birth. Her thoughts gave Rayna a gentle caress and retreated. Rayna's mind felt the soft stroke and reached out, but just a bit too slow to grasp the hand that touched it.

Hold on, Little Sis,
she thought.
Stay low, move fast. I'll get us out of here. Somehow.

The energy flow in the palace shifted, like light bending in the presence of a black hole. The stream twisted in reaction to an approaching presence, the advent of the shadow sun around which the city's dark life orbited. Estella's heart raced at double time with panicked dread. In her paranoia, she interpreted every nuance of Cauquemere's expression, every change in his gait, to herald of the unmasking of her secret.

The other dreamwalkers were not so far gone that they missed the harbinger of Cauquemere's imminent arrival. Flickers of fear lit their otherwise lifeless eyes. The group spun nightmares faster. New tales of terror joined the others in orbit, horrible, gut-wrenching visions of sadism, torture, and death. Estella kept repeating the mantra that helped her maintain her sanity.

Create, then forget. Create, then forget.

There was a palpable sizzle in the air for just a fraction of a second. Then Cauquemere stood feet from the table. His black leather jacket hung open, his peaked cap low over his eyes. The twin snake medallion sent out flashes in the torchlight. Estella felt the energy in the area pull toward Cauquemere and then vanish, entering and recharging his sinister soul. The fiber of the room stabilized, and the flow of life force into it quickened.

Cauquemere ignored the dreamwalkers, more interested in the product than the producers. He looked up past them and into the scattered orbs floating over their heads. He reached up and plucked one, admiring its internal drama with a callous eye. He nodded and turned away.

Estella relaxed. She reached forward and pushed a finished globe into higher orbit.

Cauquemere spun around. His eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Someone,” he said. “Has a…secret?”

Estella held her breath.

His eyes shot quickly from dreamwalker to dreamwalker, like a tiger that just sensed prey.

“Which of you has something they would like to share?”

Cauquemere's fleeting gaze paused to penetrate the man across from Estella. His eyes focused like a laser on him, burrowing deep for a few moments. The dreamwalker shuddered and his eyes bulged.

Disgust crossed Cauquemere's face and he moved to the next. After the second fruitless telepathic interrogation, he fixed on Estella. His eyes burned from the shadow under his hat's brim. Then it hit her.

The force of the psychic grilling blew Estella back in her chair. A fast, blisteringly hot wind enveloped every corner of her mind. The ancient, bone-dry sirocco carried the decay of centuries on its breath, the dusty, dry smell of bodies reduced to dust, the scent of a tomb. The force blew her mind asunder and exposed a field of memories.

The burning wind sucked each thought out at the roots, then scorched it in rage as it failed to satisfy the quest. She tried to hold fast under the assault, to block each probe. It moved so fast it plucked memories before she knew they were there. Her head reeled as it ripped away thought after thought. Rayna's secret could be next.

She thought of a stalk of wheat, firm but flexible, with grains at the top small enough to offer no resistance, to stay attached in the wind. She took every thought and memory of Rayna and placed them together. She thrust them up above the scalding wind and hoped. The rest of her mind surrendered.

The searing heat passed over and around her, faster and exuberant in its apparent victory. More memories incinerated in the whirling tempest. The secrets of Rayna hovered just above the fray.

The hot mass took one last searching swirl through her. Finding nothing, it retreated. Estella quivered in its wake. She reeled in her soft memories of Rayna, unscathed, unmolested.

Cauquemere probed the remaining dreamwalker to no avail. He snarled in frustration.

“I was not wrong,” he said. “One of you has tucked a little something away. When I find it, you will wish you hadn't.”

He reached up and plucked an orb from the air above the dreamwalker's table. He scanned the contents and vanished to make a delivery.

Estella went limp. Drenched in sweat, she let her head loll to one side. She wished there was a way to pass out in this reality.

She wondered if she could survive another near miss like that. She was afraid she knew the answer.

Chapter Thirty-One

“We've got a problem, Boss.”

That was not the way St. Croix wanted Tiny to greet him in the morning.

“What kind of problem?” St. Croix's voice was already tinged with frustration.

“A problem with the hit.”

“I paid a pro to waste a dishwasher. How can that go wrong?”

Tiny averted his gaze. “Boss, she hit the wrong guy.”

St. Croix slammed a fist on his desk. Anger flashed through his eyes like lightning.

“The wrong guy?” he yelled. “I gave her all the information. How could she blow this?”

Tiny shifted his considerable weight from one foot to the other.

“I dunno, Boss,” he said. “Payback's coming. Her screw up'll cost her.”

For St. Croix, revenge was of secondary importance. That the boy still breathed was the primary problem. Plans for both worlds were coming together and the boy could be a serious distraction, or worse, a threat.

“The boy will turn rabbit now,” St. Croix said. “Keep everyone looking.”

“I never called 'em off,” Tiny said. “Not 'til there's body in a coffin. We'll find him today.”

“You'd better,” St. Croix said. “You know how well I tolerate failure.”

“This time I'll take care of it personally,” Tiny said. He left St. Croix's office in a hurry.

Finding the dreamwalker would be more difficult now. In Twin Moon City, the search would be easy. All he had to do was reach into the energy stream flowing into the palace and feel the boy's life force pulsing within it. He'd trace it back to the boy and be done. But the hunt kept moving back to the tactile world with its frustrating limitations. Here he relied on the fallible, restricted eyes and ears of others.

One person had the sensory skills to find the boy in Atlantic City. Prosperidad. Her vision in this reality matched Cauquemere's in his. Earlier she only gave him half the truth, holding back the details of the boy's name and location. St. Croix's tolerance for deceit, when it wasn't his own, was zero.

He'd pay her a visit today.

He opened the drawer of his desk and slid out a shining dagger. Twin snakes wrapped around the black onyx handle. He tucked the dagger into a sleeve sewn into his alligator skin boots. He pulled his pants leg down to the ankle.

Prosperidad had a wealth of information to share, one way or another.

Pete returned with a jolt from the mansion to Tyrone's house. His eyes flew open and he sat straight up, instantly wide awake.

The sun already burned well off the horizon. Pete checked his watch. 9:11 a.m. He'd crashed for well over eight hours yet felt about as refreshed as a used washcloth.

Pete made his way to the bathroom. He recoiled at the sight of himself in the mirror. His eyes felt like they were full of sand and they looked it, bloodshot and rimmed in red. His skin hung washed out and sallow. He looked like crap.

He truly felt like a candle lit at both ends. A fire burning in Twin Moon City, a fire burning in Atlantic City, both eating him alive. It wouldn't be long before there wasn't any Pete left between them.

He cleaned himself up a bit and returned to the living room. Tyrone and Keisha were gone, he assumed off to school. He wound the copper wire from the couch back up on its spool and placed it in his pocket. He slid the borrowed knife into his sock.

Pete parted the faded drapes with his finger. A few people stood at the corner bus stop. A few people too many. St. Croix would have his hounds out in search of Pete's scent. It wasn't paranoia when people really
were
out to kill you. He headed for the back door.

He found a pen and a piece of paper in the kitchen. He scratched a quick note and left it next to the sink:

Tyrone,

Thanks for taking me in. From now on, I'm the one who owes you.

Pete

He opened the back door and peered out. A cold sea breeze ruffled his hair from the deserted alley.

He wouldn't return here and put these kids at risk. He locked the door behind him to cement his commitment.

He followed the alley until it emptied into a main street blocks from Tyrone's house. Pete hiked up the collar of his coat, half to keep out the morning cold and half as a shield from any observant eyes.

His destination was the building in last night's dust cloud vision. He was certain he'd seen it somewhere in Atlantic City. Whoever sent the invitation in his dream had knowledge of both worlds he walked. Only Prosperidad fit the bill.

His VPD rang its warning bell that if he ventured out, he'd be forever lost. He figured when you didn't know where you were going, you really couldn't be lost.

Pete moved quickly through the sparse foot traffic, hugging the often empty storefronts, trying to stay invisible. Every passerby made him nervous. Every taxi that whizzed by made him flinch. Finally, at a few streets later, he saw his vision realized.

Across the street stood the brick building from his dream, a perfect match down to the twin bay windows on the top two floors. The molding around the main window was the same, the lion and olive branches. Without the brown dust filter, he could make out the business name in that glass window. Under a picture of an eye, it said:

PSYCHIC READINGS

The sign in the window said OPEN. He crossed the empty street at a sprint, which brought on an uncomfortable Twin Moon City flashback. He stopped on the building's stoop, gave the street a last clearing glance, and entered the fortune teller's shop.

The living room of the old house had been converted into a waiting area, filled with a few worn seats, a couch, and a low coffee table. Dingy floral wallpaper from the 1950s peeled at every seam and corner. The chairs sat empty.

The doorway off the living room hosted strings of hanging beads in place of a door. Dim light lit the room beyond. He parted the beads and entered.

Two candles cast a weak glow at the center of a circular table. Across from him, Prosperidad lifted her head. The candlelight lit her eyes like beacons in the darkness. In the fluttering light she looked almost unreal.

“Prosperidad,” Pete said.

“You received the Antelope's message,” she said. “Sit down, Pete Holm. You have much to learn in little time.”

Pete pulled out the other chair at the table and sat. “You sent the antelope?”

“I
asked
the Antelope
loa
,” she corrected, “to send you a message. No one commands the
loa
on the other side. You may only ask. The haughty fall prey to them quickly.”

“
Loa
?” Pete asked.

“
Loa
are the spirits that inhabit the other plane.”

“Like Cauquemere.”

Prosperidad's eyebrows arched. “You know of Cauquemere?”

“I've seen him on the other side. And he gave me a hell of a scare in the worst nightmare of my life.”

“But the copper wire…”

“I fell asleep without it, by accident.”

Prosperidad gave her head a frustrated shake. “He is a
petro loa
, one of the evil spirits. The world of dreams is his natural place. Why did you not leave here when I warned you?”

Pete tried to think back to that moment.

“I came a long way to be here,” he said. “Those trapped people on the other side need my help.” He didn't want to get specific about Rayna and her sister.

“But now the dangers I warned you of are apparent. Are you leaving now?”

“Now it's personal,” Pete said. “There are scores to settle in both worlds.”

“You will do whatever it takes?”

There was only one Rayna and only one answer.

“Whatever it takes,” he said.

Prosperidad nodded with just a flash of sadness.

“Have you seen Twin Moon City?” he asked.

“I don't know what you mean,” Prosperidad responded. “My gift is to see things in this world, in the past, present, and future. These things I see with some clarity. The other world I can only see in shadows. Not all of us are dreamwalkers. You alone walk in both worlds. It is why he fears you. You can use that advantage to upset his plan.”

“Cauquemere's?” he said.

“No,” she answered. “St. Croix's. He is smuggling something special soon. It is hard for me to see clearly. But it carries an aura of death, and not the kind drugs do. This one is stronger, darker, and more violent. It is his highest priority, and he keeps it secret, even from his people.”

“Why would he think I care?” Pete said. “Until Tommy's attack, St. Croix didn't matter to me.”

“He is not worried that you would intervene,” she said. “He is worried that you
could.
He will take no chances with whatever this shipment is.”

“How is he connected to Cauquemere?” Pete asked.

“They have some sort of bond or agreement,” she said. “It is a pact across planes of existence. I am not sure how it works or how they communicate, but St. Croix knows all about the other side.”

Pete remembered the twin snake/twin palm similarities between the two realms.

“Could he be a dreamwalker?” Pete asked.

“I don't believe so,” she said. “But do not underestimate him. He may not wield dreamwalker power, but he has access to much of it through Cauquemere.”

“And just what power is that?” Pete said. “I don't feel powerful at all, especially on the other side.”

“You have access to the magic of the realm,” she said. “Transportation, transmutation, transformation. You have the power over all these three on the other side.”

“Transportation, maybe. But I don't seem to have those other skills in Twin Moon City. A few tricks popped into my head, but nothing I can control completely.”

“It comes in time,” Prosperidad said. “You will feel how to tap into the power on the other side. Your psyche must align with the environment.”

More things did seem come to him as he spent more time in Twin Moon City. The problem was that time in Twin Moon City dropped his life expectancy. He wouldn't learn anything if he was dead.

“Can't we speed up this learning process?” Pete said. “You don't know what the other side is like.”

“It must happen in its own time,” she said. “You will learn to ride the waves.”

Pete felt more like the waves were swamping him. He cast his eyes down in defeat.

Prosperidad reached across the table and grasped his hands in hers.

“I have no strength to give you,” she said. “What you carry with you is all you have. Two great evils grow on either side of a border only you can cross.”

“But I'm walking through this blind,” Pete said. “I'm hunted like a rabbit in Twin Moon City, and here I've probably already gotten someone killed.”

“No!” snapped Prosperidad. “The attack on Tommy is not on your head. Those events unfolded in spite of your actions, not because of them. Move against St. Croix out of revenge, but not out of guilt.”

Pete thought about Mama D crying outside the restaurant.

“Revenge will be more than enough,” he said.

The door to Prosperidad's shop opened. “Prosperidad?” an older female voice called from the hallway.

“One moment, Carlotta,” Prosperidad sang back. She dropped to a lower, gruffer whisper for Pete. “You must go, out the back. Stay hidden until you strike. Remember, iron kills, in any reality.”

She rose and moved into the living room. The doorway beads swayed as she passed through.

“Ah, Carlotta,” Pete heard Prosperidad greet her client. “The
loa
have much to tell you today…”

Pete slipped out the back door. Prosperidad told him enough to convince him how little he knew. Every answer gave birth to new questions. He had the power to stop St. Croix's plan in this world and the power to save Estella in the other. He had a plan for the Twin Moon City jailbreak in the works. But stopping St. Croix would be another story.