“Only to show how thy power grows thin. Foolish, thou hast believed thou couldst command us. Us, when we are legion!”
The pain in my arm blazed like smoldering coals stuffed under my skin. Gasping, dizzy with the effort, I forced myself to stand up straight. Thin or otherwise, I had power over this Hellion. My right arm hanging limp at my side, I pointed at the demon with my left.
“Out of my sight, Difethwr. Leave Tyler’s dreamscape and never return.”
The Hellion winced and shrank by a tenth of its inflated size. Its eye-flames fell back and died to a glow, but its expression remained amused. “We go. We have no interest in the dreams of this puny human. But know this, daughter of Ceridwen, the time of thy race is passing.” Difethwr was leaving now, its voice growing faint, its image wavering. “A new order rises. The Morfran emerges, and Uffern overspills its boundaries. The Brenin steps forward. Already it has begun, as thou hast witnessed.”
As I’d witnessed? “Wait! What are you talking about?”
The Hellion gave no answer. Its face wavered like a reflection on water, then rippled away to nothingness.
I SAT BY TYLER’S BED, WAITING FOR HIM TO WAKE UP. HE LAY on his stomach, head turned toward me. He breathed through his mouth, his face relaxed. I could almost picture Tyler as his mother must have seen him, thirty-some-odd years before, a baby sleeping peacefully in his crib. Before she dropped him on his head.
I was imagining the infant Tyler because I was trying not to think about what Difethwr had said. Not until I could talk it over with Aunt Mab—as I should have done months ago. I needed Mab’s perspective; it was fruitless to try to figure things out on my own.
But I couldn’t help it. For the hundredth time since I’d come back through the dream portal, I replayed what Difethwr had said. That it remained in Hell, even as it ran rampant through other people’s dreamscapes. That some kind of new order was taking over. Those Welsh-sounding words I didn’t understand. Morfran. Uffern. Brenin meant “king,” I thought, but I wasn’t sure. Despite all those summers in Wales, my Welsh didn’t go much beyond “Hello, where is the train station, please?” But Mab would know what it all meant.
Tyler murmured and turned over; the sleeping pill was wearing off. I put my boot against the bed and gave it a nudge, then another. Normally I let clients wake up on their own, but Tyler was close enough, and I needed to contact Mab. I kept nudging, until I was shaking the bed hard enough to register on the Richter scale.
“Whaaa—?” Tyler snorted and sat up, wide-eyed. The eyes narrowed as they focused on me. “What’d you do that for? That was the first good sleep I’ve had in weeks.”
“You, um, seemed restless.” Yeah, that’s how I’d play it. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t having another nightmare.”
“Well, I wasn’t. So go away.” He tried to flop over on his side.
“Since you’re awake,” I said brightly, as I jumped out of the chair and snapped on the overhead light, “I’ve got a few papers for you to sign. Strictly routine stuff. Then I’ll get out of here and you can sleep until noon.”
He groaned and pulled the pillow over his head. But he struggled back to a sitting position and heaved a put-upon sigh. “Okay. It’s weird having you sit in my bedroom while I sleep.”
It couldn’t be as weird as having me run around in his dreams, but I let it go. Tyler signed my standard forms: an acknowledgment I’d performed the agreed-upon service and another that he’d received post-extermination instructions. Then he wrote out my check. I filed everything away in my bag.
“Are we done?” His voice was sharp with irritation. “Can I go back to sleep now?”
“In a minute. What do you remember about your dreams tonight?”
He smiled. “I had a good dream. The board of directors voted to give me a promotion.”
“Anything else?”
He scrunched up his face in an effort to remember. “It started off like one of those nightmares I told you about. When I have to give a presentation and I show up nake—um, I mean unprepared. But it changed. Things got kind of fuzzy. Before I knew it, the presentation was over and everyone was congratulating me.”
“Then what?”
He considered, then shook his head. “That’s all. I don’t remember any other dreams. Just wonderful, peaceful blankness.”
Good. “Which you’d like to get back to now, I know. Fair enough. Pay attention to those instructions I gave you. Avoid spicy foods and sugar and take it easy for a few days.”
He nodded and lay down again, pulling the covers up to his chin as I turned off the bedroom light.
I closed the door to his condo and gave it a tug to make sure it was locked. Then I headed down the stairs. From Tyler’s perspective, tonight had been nothing more than a routine Drude extermination. Tyler hadn’t seen the Hellion that invaded his dreamscape. That was something. But Difethwr shouldn’t have been there at all. I still didn’t understand how it was getting into dreams.
But I would, I thought, leaving the stairwell and crossing the lobby. I pulled open the front door and stepped out into the cold, crystalline night. I hurried down the street toward where I’d parked the Jag. Finally, I was going to talk to Mab.
10
THE NEW NIGHT DOORMAN, A ZOMBIE, WAS ON DUTY. HE was average height and something more than average weight. The brass buttons on his uniform looked ready to pop at the next deep breath. As I walked through the doorway, he stashed a bag of potato chips in his desk.
I crossed the lobby, my boots clicking on the marble floor. “Hi,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m Vicky. I live on the fifth floor.”
Fingerprints smudged his horn-rimmed glasses. He wiped his hand on his jacket before he shook mine. “Victory Vaughn. Five-G, right? You room with Juliet Capulet?”
“That’s me.”
He beamed. “I’m Gary. It’s my first night. I’ve been studying the tenant list. When someone comes in and asks for you, I don’t want to squint at the list until I find your name. That would look bad, wouldn’t it? Unprofessional.”
“You seem to have it nailed already.”
“Oh, no. Not yet. I remembered you because you have an interesting name. And an interesting roommate. Imagine—the Juliet Capulet. I haven’t seen her yet, but I have a million questions for that young lady. I taught English at Boston College before the plague.”
Oh, boy. “Juliet will enjoy talking Shakespeare with you.” Maybe it would get me off the hook from playing her dumb let’s-quote-Shakespeare game.
“I must admit, however, I’ve always felt Romeo and Juliet to be the most overrated of the Bard’s plays. I hope that won’t offend her.”
“Gary, Juliet is going to love you.”
If a zombie could blush, the new doorman would have. To cover, he aimed for a worldly chuckle that came off more like a coughing fit. “Alas, not as she loved Romeo, I fear.”
“No, not like that.” He blinked at me through his smudged glasses, looking crestfallen. “Believe me, Gary, that’s a good thing.” Vampires didn’t suck zombies dry.
JULIET WAS OUT. NOTHING STRANGE ABOUT THAT; THIS WAS her hunting time. What was odd was the note she’d left me on the kitchen table: Don’t wait up. J. Since when had I ever waited up for my roommate?
Maybe she felt bad because she really did think she woke me up yesterday. Doubtful. Vampires never felt bad about their actions. More likely, she was warning me to stay out of the living room if I heard any weird chants in the middle of the night.
If that had even happened.
I pushed Juliet from my thoughts and got ready for bed. Tonight, I took my warm bath before I climbed into bed. It helped. Relaxing, I let my mind go blank. The room dissolved around me, and I floated in a vast, calm sea of darkness. Everything was quiet, gentle, warm. No bitter cold tonight. For a while, I let myself float. No point in waking myself up trying to place a dream-phone call before I was ready. Besides, it felt so good to rest.
I don’t know how far I dipped into sleep. Time seemed suspended. Eventually, I thought about Mab—lazily at first, then with more focus. All Cerddorion have a pair of colors unique to the individual. To call someone on the dream phone, you think of that person and summon their colors. At the other end, they see your colors, so they know who’s calling. I imagined my aunt, picturing her where I always think of her, seated in her wing chair by the library fireplace. She wore a baggy gray cardigan over a black dress; her short, gray hair was swept back from her face. It felt good to see her there. Comforting. Like home. I tinged the image of my aunt with her colors of blue and silver.
A mist rose. It billowed with Mab’s colors, drawing more blue and more silver from my image of Mab even as it blew across the scene to obscure her. The mist mounted higher, until blue and silver swirls filled my vision. Slowly it began to thin, blowing away a wisp at a time. Mab appeared first as a silhouette, then I could see her more clearly. She wasn’t in the library. She sat at her kitchen table, a mug in her hand and a teapot within reach. We were connected.
Mab looked so normal, sitting in her warm, familiar kitchen and drinking tea. A world away from the craziness of obliterated zombies and demon-haunted dreams.
“What is it, child?” she asked crisply.
That was Mab, getting right down to business. No “How are you?” No chitchat about the weather. Not even a guilt-inducing comment about how long it was since my last call.
“I’ve got a problem.”
She sipped some tea, tilted her head, and waited.
I took a deep breath. “Remember the trouble I had with that Hellion?”
“The Destroyer. Yes, yes. You told me it left the city and the shield was repaired.”
“That’s right. But I didn’t tell you the whole story.” A twinge of guilt reminded me I should have been straight with her from the start. But I hadn’t, so I told her now. I explained what happened in October, how I’d strengthened my bond with the Destroyer to wrest control away from the corrupt sorcerer who’d summoned it. How I’d driven it back to Hell. How I’d thought—hoped—it would stay there.