I nodded. “What’s so dangerous, Mab?” As a demon fighter, I was familiar with the dream world. I’d been in other people’s dreamscapes hundreds of times.
“The danger is in traveling from your dreamscape to mine. You must pass through the collective unconscious.”
Shit. Now we were talking dangerous with a capital D. An individual’s dreamscape is generated from the dreamer’s subconscious, the mind’s basement that stores all the emotions, symbols, themes, and archetypes that emerge in dreams. That subconscious can be a terrifying place. I’d once fallen into a client’s subconscious during a Drude extermination—and it was an experience I never wanted to repeat. But if the subconscious is bad, the collective unconscious is a hundred billion times worse. It’s the storehouse for all the fears, nightmares, fantasies, and terrors of everyone who’s ever lived. Worse, it’s populated by forms. A form is an amalgam of essences—basically, it’s a big blob that absorbs everything it touches, then burps out those essences in new configurations.
If I had to cross the collective unconscious, the forms would be the real danger.
Mab must have seen the change in my expression. “Listen to me, Victory. It’s good that you understand the danger. But you must set aside fear. In the collective unconscious, fear will rip you apart.” She gentled her voice. “Don’t think about it now. You don’t have to cross that territory yet. First, we must test whether I can pass the bloodstone to you. So take a moment to relax. Use the meditation technique I taught you.”
Relaxation isn’t easy when you’re trying to decide which would be the worst fate: having your life force transferred to your enemy, being ripped to shreds by the worst nightmares humanity has ever imagined, or being sucked into a gross blob of nothingness. But even if the collective unconscious killed me, I’d die knowing Myrddin had failed. That alone was worth the risk.
I focused on the center of my being, going inward, counting my breaths. Slowly, my mind relaxed. My breaths became longer and deeper. When the last dollop of fear melted away, I nodded to Mab.
“Good,” she said. “Now, look at the lake. Watch the water.”
I did. All was still, except for the sparkles of sunlight playing across the surface. Then, several yards from the shore, ripples stirred the water. A hand emerged, curled into a fist. Its arm wore a tight-fitting sleeve of a white, silky material. I realized I no longer sat on the shore, but in a small boat. The arm glided toward me, and I marveled at its beauty and grace. The white fabric, shot through with gold and silver threads, caught the sunlight and made the arm glow.
The arm stopped beside my boat. I tried to peer into the water to see the rest of the person, but all I could make out was a hazy white shape. The fist shook itself—once, twice, three times—as though impatient. I held out my open palm. A stone dropped into my hand. Immediately, the arm disappeared beneath the water.
The boat rocked gently under me as I examined the stone. It was gray with green and red spots, set in silver. Mab’s pendant. I curled my fingers around it.
“Now, child, I need you to do something that’s a bit difficult, so you must do it very carefully.” Mab’s voice blew across the lake like a summer breeze. I couldn’t see her anymore, but I knew she was close by. “Stay in the boat—that will keep you in the dream. You must stay in the dream, but I need you to check your physical body. I’ll hold you here, but take a moment to peek back into your waking world. See whether you have the stone there. Do it now.” Her soft voice went on, murmuring a word-painting of my dreamscape, describing the lake, the sky, the woods on the shore.
Holding on to Mab’s words like Ariadne’s thread, I let a corner of my consciousness travel back to that dark, silent room. I still lay on my back on a hard table, unable to move. My right fingers were curled into a fist. I squeezed them gently. Yes. I could feel the pendant in my hand.
I shut my mind to grim reality and let Mab’s voice reel me back into my dreamscape. I lay in the bottom of the boat, my heart hammering. My body felt rubbery, like I’d run hard for miles. But my journey hadn’t begun yet.
“I’ve got it,” I panted. “Out there, I mean. It’s in my hand.”
“Good.” Mab’s face hovered over me, huge, like a painting on the sky. Her lips curved as though she were trying to smile encouragement—an odd expression I’d never seen on my aunt’s face—but worry lines creased her forehead and the corners of her eyes. “I’m going to steer this boat toward the far shore, out of your personal dreamscape. Relax as best you can.”
Mab’s face faded, and I felt the boat move. I lay back and watched the sky. It was blue and dotted with clouds—white, puffy, picturesque clouds, not the heavy kind that threaten rain or snow. The boat glided through the water with a gentle rocking motion. I smelled pine woods, and the scent reminded me of Kane.
A small bump, and the boat stopped. I sat up. Mab stood in water up to her ankles, holding a rope tied to the bow. The shore behind her looked nothing like the woods I’d conjured around my lake. Billows of dark smoke churned, lit by flashes of lightning. The smoke roiled, thick and opaque; my vision couldn’t penetrate it at all.
I looked over my shoulder. Behind me, the placid lake reflected the blue sky. Tree branches swayed in the breeze. I wanted to stay there, but I couldn’t. My dreamscape was an illusion, one from which I’d awaken into the reality of pain and death.
I had to go forward.
I stepped out of the boat into the water, warm around my calves. The boat disappeared. Right. No going back. I waded to the water’s edge and stepped onto the shore. Mere yards away, the smoke obscured whatever was beyond.
“Okay, Mab, I’m ready. Lead the way.”
Mab didn’t budge. “I can’t, child. You must go alone.” Water rippled around her ankles. “This isn’t me; it’s a dream avatar.”
A dream avatar is an image that can be projected into a person’s dreamscape. But the avatar is part of the dream. And that meant Mab couldn’t leave my dreamscape.
“Hold tight to the stone, child. It’s our connection. It will lead you through the wilderness to my dreamscape. When you arrive there, you’ll be safe.” She reached for me, but her hand passed through mine like a ghost’s.
Grasping the bloodstone, I plunged into the dense, swirling smoke.
BLIND AND COUGHING, I GROPED MY WAY FORWARD. SOMETHING brushed my right cheek. I jerked to the left. Footsteps pounded close by. Deep, evil-sounding laughter echoed. I spun around so much, trying to locate strange sounds, I had no clue which direction I was facing. Not that it mattered. Once I’d stepped outside my own dreamscape, I couldn’t return. It was gone.
The bloodstone was my only chance for finding my way through this morass. I held it near my face and squinted at it through the dark, hoping it would glow to light my way to Mab. No such luck. The bloodstone, though polished, was dark, its colors dull. Mab had said it would guide me to her dreamscape, and I believed her. I just wished it had come with an instruction manual.
Out of the dark, something slimy wrapped around my ankle. I kicked it off and ran forward. Immediately, the stone began to vibrate. Galloping hooves pounded straight for me, and I swerved to the right. The stone’s vibration ceased.
Something huge galloped past. Although the smoke didn’t part, air rushed past my cheek. When the echo of hooves faded, I stepped forward. The stone vibrated. I turned ninety degrees to the left and took another step. The vibration stopped. When I turned back the way I’d been facing, the vibration began again.
I let the bloodstone lead me. At first, I proceeded with my left arm stretched out ahead, feeling for boulders or trees—or other, more sinister obstacles—that loomed suddenly from the darkness. But the stone guided me around those. I wished for a weapon, and a sword materialized in my left hand. It was a comfort to curl my fingers around its grip; the next time something tried to grab me, I’d slice the attacker in two.
There was no way to gauge my progress. I kept moving forward, following the vibrations of the bloodstone. The ground felt soft and springy under my feet, like a stretched-out trampoline. Each step sunk and rose, and I had to concentrate to keep my balance. Through the darkness came every sound and scent that feed people’s imaginations: Howls of rage or pain. Deepthroated cacklings. A distant siren song. A baby wailing. A woman sobbing. One moment the smoke blowing across my face smelled of rotting flesh; the next it smelled of roses or camphor. I kept going.
I took a step, and the bloodstone’s vibration changed to an electric pulse. The shock nearly made me drop the pendant, but I clenched it tighter. Pulse, pulse, PULSE. It felt like a warning. I turned my head wildly, my sword ready, but I couldn’t see anything through the smoke.
Until what I did see made me wish the smoke would close back in.
A black blob emerged. A form, sucking up everything in its path, even the dense smoke. The form was right in front of me. I stabbed it with my sword, and the blade disintegrated. The form simply absorbed it and kept coming. I turned to run, but the form was there, too. And there. And there, wherever I turned. I felt like I was at the bottom of a deep well, and the walls were closing in on me. The bloodstone’s frantic pulses cut through my hand.
The form touched my left arm. A sickening, liquid sensation shot through me, like I was melting, as my flesh began to merge with the form. The bloodstone flashed, delivering a teeth-clenching shock.
And I woke up.
13
USUALLY IT’S A RELIEF TO WAKE UP FROM A BAD DREAM. Your racing heartbeat gradually slows to normal as the familiar surroundings of your warm, safe bedroom come into focus. But for me, waking up meant returning to a reality worse than any nightmare.
I shivered; the room where I lay a prisoner had grown icy cold. My left arm felt bruised where the form had touched it. I wished I could move to rub some life back into the spot. I clenched my fingers and felt something. In my right hand, I still held Mab’s bloodstone.
Maybe I could try again.