Nightmare (41 page)

  "The skinny Silent who saw me with my last girlfriend," the man said. "Kendi, is it? You heard her. Leave. You aren’t involved."

  Kendi stepped around Ara to stand beside her. Ara mentally screamed at him to stay put, to do as he was told for once. She almost tried to shove him back, but was afraid a sudden move might send the dark man over the edge.

  "Kendi, I’m ordering you to leave," she said through gritted teeth.
Because I can’t leave until I know you’re safe
.

  "You can’t get us both, Jeren," Kendi said. "Give it up."

  The black man backed up a step. "Who’s Jeren?"

Shut up, Kendi!
Ara thought.
Shut up, shut up, shut up!

  "We know, Jeren." Kendi took a step toward him. "We know about you, we know about Dorna. We know about it all. So why don’t you just give yourself up? We don’t want to—to—" Kendi fell silent. Ara suspected he was going to say
We don’t want to hurt you
, but he couldn’t lie in the Dream.

  "You don’t know anything," the dark man said hoarsely. "You can’t prove it’s—"

  Movement flashed down from the sky. A brown blur whipped past the black man’s head and ripped off the man’s hat, revealing Jeren’s face. The scar around his left eye—

Did his mother do that to him?

  —shone white against his skin.

  Jeren made a choking sound and clapped his hands over his face. For a moment, Ara thought he was going to drop to his knees and start crying. She allowed herself a small sigh of relief. Once unmasked, Jeren’s power was gone. All Ara had to do now was get him to tell her where his body was so she could—

The world exploded. With a cracking
boom
the ground came to life. Giant stone fingers jabbed upward, trying to trap Ara in their grip. Kendi shouted and leaped sideways. Fear stabbed through Ara, but she didn’t even think. A sledgehammer appeared in her hands, and she swept it in an arc around her. Stone shattered in a dozen directions and Ara scrambled free. She glanced at Kendi, dreading what she might see. He was crouching a little ways away.

  "Get out, Kendi!" she yelled at him, but he seemed too dazed to understand her.

  "You bitch!" Jeren screamed. "I watched you in the Dream and fell in love with you. Now I have to kill you."

  Ara didn’t bother responding. She raised her fist and a bolt of lightning flashed down from the clear blue sky. It smashed the ground only a few steps away from Jeren. The thunderclap made Ara’s ears ring and knocked Jeren backward. He somersaulted to his feet in an inhumanly smooth motion.

  "You missed," he snarled. "You wanna fight, huh? Fine by me."

  A howling wind tore across the Outback and slammed into Ara and Kendi, bowling both of them over. The air whooshed out of Ara’s lungs and she felt herself tumbling end over end. Then she slammed into something hard. Pain ran down her back and ribs. Dirt and sand stung her eyes, making it hard to see. For a moment she panicked. Then the hard-won control took over. This was the Dream, where she could dictate reality. Ara concentrated for a split-second, and a stone wall rumbled up out of the ground before her. The wind cut off. Ara cleared the grit from her eyes. Kendi lay next to her looking dazed.

  "Kendi, get out," she hissed. "Kendi!"

  But he didn’t respond. Ara grimaced. She and Jeren both had been tearing at his turf, ripping it apart and reshaping it. This all tore at Kendi’s very mind, and he didn’t have the experience to cope with it. It was the same effect that Jeren’s manipulation had had on his female victims. It didn’t bother Ara because this wasn’t her turf, but she couldn’t leave Kendi behind to face Jeren alone.

  The earth shuddered and boomed. With a thunderous
crack
the stone wall broke and crumbled into rubble. Jeren stood on the other side, less than two meters away. Ara’s hand snapped out and a neuropistol appeared in her grip. She fired. The beam struck Jeren square in the chest.

  He laughed. "You’re a woman," he snickered. "You can’t hurt me."

  Ara swallowed. A battle in the Dream was a struggle between two minds fighting to control reality, and the stronger one would usually win. Jeren was obviously more powerful than Ara had thought—his mental image of an unhurt self was stronger than her image of the blast from a deadly weapon. But there were other ways to fight.

  "A woman like your mother?" she said.

  Jeren actually blanched. Ara gestured and the rubble vanished. Kendi slowly got to his feet. Trying to keep Jeren’s attention on her, she locked eyes with him and stepped forward.

  "Your mother hurt you a lot," she said, and wished desperately she had had time to read some specifics from the file on Riann Keller. Best to stick with the basics. "She beat you and made fun of you, didn’t she? You and Dorna both. You hated her, but you also loved her, didn’t you, Jeren? That’s the way you feel toward all Silent women, isn’t that right?"

  Jeren retreated a step. Ara didn’t even blink.

  "You thought if you could make someone love you, everything would be all right. You wanted to give your mother’s friend Polly Garvin presents, but you were afraid, so you made your sister do it for you. And when Polly spurned you, you killed her. The same went for Minn Araq, didn’t it?"

  "Shut up," Jeren said.

"Dorna wanted a souvenir," Ara continued. "Something to prove she’d been brave enough to do her brother’s bidding. So she took things—a finger, a bit of clothing, a piece of one of your presents. How does that make you feel, Jeren?"

  "I said, shut up!"

  "That was when you tried it on your own mother. She didn’t love you either, even after the presents. So you killed her, too. But then came the cruelest blow of all. Your mother had sold you and Dorna into slavery, and the slaver was already on his way. How did it feel to watch your sister carted away in electric shackles, Jeren?"

  She had been hoping to break him down, but instead Jeren responded with nothing but invisible force. Ara flew backward several meters and plowed into the ground. She felt something snap, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. She tried to roll to her feet, but a wave of pain stopped her. Before she could react further, thick green vines sprouted from the ground and whipped around her body like snakes. A little ways away, Kendi lay similarly entangled. Jeren strode toward her, green eyes blazing.

  "You’re going to die now," he said. "I’m going to crush you and listen while you scream."

  "It won’t help," gasped Kendi, and Jeren spun to look at him. "Ben knows who you are. He’s already called the Guardians. They’re on their way to pick you up right now."

  Jeren stared. Ara tried to summon up the concentration to leave the Dream, Kendi or no Kendi, but the pain that wracked her chest and back was too great. The vines continued to twist and writhe, sliding over her skin and making her cry out despite herself.

  "Then," Jeren said, "I’ll have to kill you both fast so I can get the hell away."

  He snapped his fingers and one of the vines tore Ara’s arm off. Ara screamed, and blood spurted from her shoulder. Another scream, a different one, pierced the air. A brown-and-blue thunderbolt smashed straight into Jeren’s back between his shoulder blades. He dropped flat, and Kendi’s falcon clawed for altitude with yet another cry. Kendi, who was obviously recovering from his daze, let out a whoop of glee—

  —until Jeren leaped back to his feet with inhuman ease. In his hands he held a shotgun.

  "No!" Ara cried.

  The gun went off. The falcon tumbled to the ground in a mass of bloody feathers.

  Ben plowed through the lobby of the dormitory, past the startled night clerk, and up the hallway toward Jeren’s room. It was two doors down from Kendi’s. His chest burned and his legs ached from the exertion of running so far at top speed, but he ignored the feeling. When he reached Jeren’s door, he twisted the knob and wasn’t at all surprised to find it locked. Ben shoved against the door, but it didn’t budge. He backed up and slammed into it as hard as he could. Pain throbbed in Ben’s shoulder. The door, made of thick talltree wood, didn’t budge. Heedless of further pain, Ben smashed into it again. Nothing. Panic sprouted and spread. Jeren was at this moment attacking his mother and Kendi. He had to get inside.

  A door popped open further up the hall, and Willa poked her head into the hallway. She looked sleepy. "What’s going on?" she yawned.

Without stopping to explain, Ben shoved past her and into her room. She squeaked in protest as he bolted past her bed toward the door that lead out onto her balcony. Adrenaline singing in his veins, he yanked it open and shot out onto the shared balcony. He ran down to Jeren’s room. The lights were on, and through the clear panel of the door he could see Jeren lying on his bed. His hands were folded over his stomach and a slight smile twisted his lips. Ben tried the door, but it was also locked. With chilly fingers, he pulled his shirt over his head and wrapped it around one arm. Then he rammed into the door.

  More pain pulsed at his shoulder. The door didn’t break, or even budge. He tried twice more with no effect. Jeren continued to smile.

  Jeren raised the shotgun and pointed it straight at Kendi. Kendi swallowed and strained against the vines, but they were tough as steel. Ara’s face was gray, but she was somehow still conscious. Her torn arm lay a little ways away. Jeren finger tightened on the trigger, and Kendi wondered if it would hurt.

  "Cole!"

  Jeren jerked his head sideways. Kendi followed his gaze. Dorna stood a few meters away. Her face was pale and waxen beneath dark curls. The vines tightened around Kendi’s body and his ribs creaked.

  "You can’t do it, Cole," she said. "It isn’t fair."

  "Shut up," Jeren—Cole—snarled. "You do what I tell you."

  "If you kill Ara now, I won’t be able to get her finger. She isn’t on Bellerophon, remember?" Dorna said. "I have an unbroken line all the way back to Mom and past her to Mrs. Garvin. You can’t kill her." Her voice dropped in pitch, became more intense. Kendi stared. "You can’t kill her, Cole. I won’t let you."

  "I told you to shut the fuck up!" He swung the shotgun around and pointed it at her.

  "If you try to kill her here, we won’t help you anymore," Dorna said flatly. "And we’ll stop you."

  Cole laughed. "Who?"

  The Dream rippled and a wave of nausea washed over Kendi. A moment later, a group of people stood behind Dorna. Kendi recognized the old woman Zelda and Buck in his blue coveralls. A short blond girl with downcast eyes and violets in her hair stood just behind the latter. A dozen others were there as well, both male and female. All of them were staring at Cole.

  "We will," they said in one voice.

  Ben looked frantically around the balcony. Willa stood in the doorway to her room, looking frightened. "Ben," she said. "What’s going on?"

  Ben’s eye fell on one of the rope swings dangling from the branch above. He snatched it up and jumped onto the balcony rail. Clinging to it like a monkey, he kicked backward and sailed out over dark and empty space. A moment later he swung forward, heels pointed straight toward Jeren’s door. He hit the panel hard, but it still didn’t break. Jeren continued to smile.

  Cole laughed. "Look at you," he sneered. "Just can’t keep it together, can you, Sis?" He pointed the shotgun back at Kendi. "He’ll be first. Then I junk Ara."

  With an animal howl that chilled Kendi straight through, the multitude lunged forward. Cole spun, surprised, but only for an instant. The shotgun in his hands changed shape. Cole pointed the machine gun at the advancing horde and fired. The gun made a hoarse coughing sound, and blood poured from a thousand wounds. People fell like mown grass, their bodies vanishing the moment they touched the ground. Zelda dropped and vanished, as did Buck and Violet. In the end, only Dorna was left standing. Her cheek bled scarlet from a near miss and she looked dazed. Cole raised the gun.

  Ben hit the door again. The shock traveled all the way up his body and seemed to fuse his spine. A thin crack appeared. He kicked back, swung over empty space and, ignoring the pain in heels and knees, hit the door yet again and again and again.

  "You won’t," Dorna whispered.

  "I will," Cole said, and fired. Dorna staggered backward, blood gushing from her chest and stomach. She made a low choking noise and dropped to her knees. Then she disappeared.

  "You shit!" Kendi said, struggling against the vines. Ara didn’t move, but she must still be conscious if she was in the Dream. Or had she already died and was Cole keeping her image here?

  "You’re dead, Kendi," Cole said with a too-wide grin. "Sorry. It was nice knowing you." He pointed the machine gun.

  The door shattered. Falling shards made ribbons of Ben’s trousers and sliced his legs, but he scarcely noticed. He landed on his back, slid partway across the floor, and fetched up against Jeren’s bed. Heedless of the sharp polymer pieces all around him, Ben scrambled to his feet. Without thinking, he snatched up a paperweight from the desk and brought it down hard on Jeren Drew’s head.

  Cole stiffened. He made a small sound in the back of his throat. Then he vanished. Kendi’s vines instantly disappeared, as did the ones binding Mother Ara. She lay ashen-faced on the ground, her arm lying a step away like a grotesque stick of firewood. Blood was pouring from her shoulder again. Kendi knelt beside her and patted her face.

  "Mother Ara," he said. "Mother Ara. You have to leave the Dream. Can you do it?"

  She opened her eyes, but they didn’t focus. Her mouth moved, but no sound emerged. She was dying, that was plain. The fact that she was still alive mystified Kendi. She had lost far more blood than any human could survive. Of course, this was the Dream, and if Mother Ara had decided she wasn’t dead yet, she wouldn’t be. But Cole’s attack had hurt her, and she was rapidly losing her hold on life. Instinct told Kendi that she needed something to hold onto, something that would help her heal the damage. Kendi looked at the severed arm for only a split-second before catching it up. It was heavier that he had expected, and bits of flesh hung from the tattered end. Kendi held the arm to its rightful place at Mother Ara’s shoulder.