Dream Killers - Complete Season 1 (The Dream Killers Book 3) Page 5

  Instead of filling with water, my lungs found air.

  I blinked at the squid-girl. What was going on?

  Come, dream killer. She grabbed my wrist, her claws breaking my skin. Someone wants to speak to you.

  “I’m not a dream killer.”

  The warrior woman ignored me, and dragged me deeper into the ocean.

  I fought. Bess refused to let go of my hand, which was fine with me. I needed both my hands to fight back. She walked the net onto my shoulder, freeing my entire arm to beat against the squid woman.

  Her tentacles wrapped around me, pinning my arms to my sides. Needles or claws pierced my skin in a dozen places. I was going to die.

  That didn’t stop me, but the more I struggled, the tighter her tentacles encircled me. Blood stained the water. Mine.

  Darkness surrounded us. No light penetrated these waters. A heaviness settled in my chest, making it hard to breathe. The sea continued to whisper to me, so loud now that I had a hard time hearing my own thoughts over theirs. There were just so many of them. I couldn’t even make out words.

  The dream voices filled my mind with a buzzing that vibrated, pulling me sideways inside my own body. I couldn’t feel my own hands, my feet, my legs. My eyes filled with grit and my head grew heavy.

  The warrior woman glanced at me with her sapphire and copper eyes, and pushed through the water even faster.

  My hair was plastered to my face. The force of the water or the dreams or whatever sucked the air right out of my lungs.

  Light shown in the distance and grew larger as a city loomed closer and closer.

  She slowed when she reached the outskirts. Other squid warriors joined her. Men and women, each with sapphire and copper eyes, each wearing copper flecked leather armor straps. Their tentacles lashed the water, creating currents.

  The new warriors led the way through the city of twisted corals. We dove to the base of the massive reef. Brightly colored fish darted in and out. Flowers disappeared as we approached.

  People unlike any I’d ever even imagined before came out of the crannies to watch us pass. Half human, half puffer fish people with dull red hair and bright red eyes. Half sea horse, half sea lion people. A half walrus, half octopus person. Half human, half manta ray. I still couldn’t think clearly, but this was amazing. I just hoped I would get to meet some of these people before they killed me.

  My captor dragged me to a wide space in the reef. Towers of coral rose all around us as she dumped me on to the sand and floated above me, her tentacles billowing out.

  I tried to move, to push myself up to a standing position, but failed. I had no control over my limbs at all. Blood rose in dozens of floating streams from my arms, legs and torso.

  A glowing, blue sea dragon swam toward me, his toothy mouth open. Long tendrils of white hair flowed with the current of his passing. He stopped with his head hovering over the sand next to me. It was as long as I was tall. His dark eye wasn’t black like I’d initially thought. Inside, a network of blue lightening lit it.

  Chills cascaded through me and my spine tingled. How dead was I? I’d never thought of my mortality before, but here it was, staring me in the face. I couldn’t ignore it.

  He pushed off, his form morphing into the torso of an old man, but those lightning-lit eyes didn’t change. Metallic blue scales lined his cheeks and the gills along his neck and chest. His silver and blue hair danced around him. The body didn’t change. He maintained the four short legs, the claws digging into the sand beside me.

  I sank into the gigantic striations he made. I stopped at his massive leg and looked up his long, long torso. He was a god.

  A woman swam up to me with a fish tail. A mermaid. In this strange, strange sea, I finally saw something I recognized. She glowed—her white eyes, the whiskers with lanterns dangling from the ends. Those whiskers dotted her face, her arms, and her chest. Even her green hair glowed.

  She was so beautiful. I’d never seen anyone so gorgeous.

  The chills disappeared. My spine stopped tingling. I relaxed, staring up at her. She reached out with a white-clawed hand.

  I smiled at them. Glowing claws. Who would have thought of that?

  She raked a path down the side of my face, along my neck.

  Enough, Teadra-nealisith.

  That voice was so deep, so dark, it had to belong to the dragon man. I raised my heavy eyelids.

  He shifted his massive feet away from me, dropping his face down to meet mine.

  The lightning danced like a flame. My mind opened and I sank into the comfort his eyes offered.

  The mermaid, if that’s what I could call her, fluttered her tail, her entire body gyrating with the movement as she got out of the way. Her whiskers moved with the water and settled around her again, like mini lanterns at Christmas.

  Dream killer, the dragon man said. Why have you come? Why are you capturing the dreams that keep this universe alive?

  I wasn’t the dream killer.

  You have the net.

  He could read minds?

  He raised a single silver and blue eyebrow.

  Oh. He could. Interesting.

  The eyebrow lowered and the corners of his lips drew up and in.

  I knew that look. Mam Dika used it all the time when Mech and I got into trouble.

  Who is this Mech?

  My friend. I stopped myself, feeling my mind wander. If he could read minds, then how much would he see? Could he read my memories? Or just hear the words of my thoughts?

  I can read anything you see or hear. Do I need to summon Teadra-nealisith again?

  I grinned at the glowing mermaid.

  She smiled back, revealing a mouthful of long, razor teeth.

  My heart skipped and my hand dug into the sand as I tried to shove myself away from her.

  You cannot leave, the dragon man said. Candilandra’s poison was injected into you as she brought you here.

  I stared at the squid woman with a frown. Poison?

  And the light of the deep sea banshee has you in complete thrall.

  Complete? My heart raced. I swallowed. Sensation crept back into my hands. I had enough control to push myself back. I could mastermind an escape.

  No. I’d finally made it here. The answers I sought could be right in front of my face. I wasn’t going to die now. It wasn’t going to happen. I had to protect them.

  The dragon man moved with the swiftness of an eel, his feet kicking up sand into the water, blending with my blood. His face pressed into mine, his lightning eyes pinning me into place.

  I pushed myself as deep into the sand as I could. My ears rang and my sight flared.

  His eyes widened, and lightning flashed bright blue across the entire expanse.

  I felt an answering flash in my own. It ricocheted through my mind, cascaded down my body, and freed me of the toxin flooding my system.

  His mouth opened, the blue and silver whiskers reaching out to touch my face and body. The streams of blood stopped flowing into the water. It can’t be.

  “What can’t be?” I asked, glad to have my voice back.

  One hand reached up, dusted in blue scales. A silver claw touched my bottom eyelid. Come, child of dreams. I have much to show you.

  THE DRAGON MAN offered me his back, his torso shifting back into a large, blue mythological reptile.

  I glanced at the squid warriors who all stood guard, their expressions fierce as they held their spears. Candi—there was no way I was remembering her full name. There were too many consonants or vowels, or whatever. She stared at me with her intoxicating eyes, and flicked her tendrils, inching toward me.

  The deep sea banshee didn’t look nearly as innocent and nice as I remembered. She was, however, still just as gorgeous. Without the drugs and the enchantment, she was terrifying. Her claws flexed as she bared her teeth.

  Okay. If the dragon man wanted to show me something, I was game. Did he have the answers? Would it be that easy?

  He kicked out with th
e clawed paw nearest me.

  I scrambled on, grabbing handfuls of his long, blue fur. “Where are we going?”

  You will see soon enough. Hold on.

  His neck was wider than my legs. I grabbed hold of the only thing I could—his fur. There wasn’t much of that to be had there, though. Most of his body was covered in shiny scales and some kind of rubbery membrane.

  He kicked off, sand rising in the current around us. His body undulated as he swam like an eel. Beams of light grew closer as he swam toward the surface.

  I scrambled for a better hold. I was barely able to stay on as it was. If we were headed up there—I had no idea what to expect, but I needed something better to hold on to.

  An ocean wave rolled over us, white foam dipping below the surface. He guided us just behind it and then kicked out of the ocean. The rubbery membrane shifted underneath me, pulling me away. His neck thinned. I was able to hold on with my legs.

  Giant wings beat the air on either side of me, eating altitude as if it were nothing. Okay. So sea dragons could fly.

  Awesome.

  I looked down and everything in my gut clenched as the world spun. I tightened my grip and closed my eyes.

  He banked hard to the left, and I clenched even tighter. If I fell, there was no way I was surviving that.

  What were we doing so high in the sky anyway?

  I have something to show you. I need you to follow my heart with yours.

  What was he talking about?

  But as soon as the question was out of my mind, something tapped on my chest like an invisible finger. I reached out with the same part of me that recognized Place and Who. I didn’t know what was I doing, or what I was supposed to see or hear.

  Something shifted in the air.

  I ignored the fact that I was about to die. I turned a blind eye to the shrinking landscape far below me, and the sound of the wind as it roared past my ears, the chill in the air as it passed over me. I concentrated on the feeling of something so comforting and familiar. It was like reuniting with family, only I didn’t have one of those. So where were we?

  I opened my eyes. The sky darkened and then the light blipped out, as if we’d flown through the edge of a soapy bubble. All around us was complete black unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

  And stars. There were stars in the thousands, millions even.

  The dragon man made a sharp right.

  My breath caught in my chest. Tears studded my eyes.

  Dreamland—like I’d seen in my eyes.

  To my right and stretching as far as I could see were towers—like a sprawling metropolis. Don’t think New York City, though. Think more like Coruscant. Technically, it’s an ecumenopolis, which would mean that Dreamland was a planet. So even that’s not a big enough concept.

  Dreamland is a universe. A city that encompasses an entire universe.

  We flew closer, dipping and rising, dipping and rising. Shorter towers filled the space we’d just left. I couldn’t see the sky dome we’d penetrated, or the Sea of Dreams or . . . well, anything else, really. The tallest of the closest towers loomed as we approached and details became more apparent.

  Each level of each tower was a different dreamplane. Each one had their own dustman and, again, the names of those dustmen came to me like a whisper of love and acceptance. Dustman Anabell, Jeoff, Pascal.

  The dragon man dove. I felt something in his heart shift. He called on Place, drawing the existence of the dreamplane through him and through me. I could hear each tree, each creature, each living thing that had been created for this dustman—Eshe. Her name was Dustman Eshe.

  Her Who flowed over and through me. I saw her past, how the hardships had shaped her dreams, how she’d fought to keep them alive instead of allowing them to be squashed like so many others around her. Her love for her dreamers overwhelmed me. She had hundreds, but she knew them all by name—knew their parents, or caretakers, their siblings, their friends, their enemies. She protected them all.

  Blue swam into focus and a shore appeared at the edge.

  I frowned. The Sea of Dreams?

  Yes, young River. Dreamland is a very complex universe. Time and space confine us less than the world of the dreamers.

  “I don’t understand.”

  The Sea of Dreams touches every dreamplane in all of Dreamland.

  I looked around the sprawling, twinkling metropolis—or ecumenopolis, whatever. “I don’t see the sea.”

  Stop trying to use your sight as if you’re a limited dreamer. You are not.

  Then what was I?

  A man of dreams.

  Yeah. Like that helped.

  With a flip of his tail, he flew into Dustman Eshe’s dreamplane. Trees with white bark and downy feathers of every color under the Dreamland rainbow raised their limbs and called out in greeting in varying pitches. The air vibrated with their voices. Creatures stopped, raising their heads to watch our passage.

  The dreamers didn’t seem to notice. The kids in varying ages from toddler to teenager continued to run and yell and have fun.

  A woman appeared on Dreamer’s Hill. I felt the pull of that hill, how it connected all the planes of that tower together like an elevator of Place. The power of it hit my spine, making it rigid. My fingers flexed.

  The dragon man—I really needed his name—

  Wadji. You may call me Wadji.

  Awesome. Mind reader. Wadji banked hard to the left, but by now, I was catching on to this whole flying thing and didn’t fear falling off. We circled around the hill. A creek—the name floated toward me like a lover’s caress. Dreamer’s Creek. Of course. What else would it be called in Dreamland? The creek flowed under the hill and trickled toward the sea.

  On the other side of Dreamer’s Hill, it appeared again and ran to Grandmother Willow.

  All Dreamlanders knew of Grandmother Willow. Her roots kept all of Dreamland together, not just the planes. I’d traveled in her roots before, but I’d never seen her. She stood taller than any other tree I’d ever seen. Her limbs hung low and swayed in the wind. A gust parted her branches and a face appeared on her trunk. She was telling a story to a group of children gathered around her.

  So this was what all the hoopla was about, why Dreamland was so fabulous. The hope and love and all the other good emotions I’d never experienced for myself ran over me like a wind trying to shred my clothes.

  Why weren’t the spaces the Dreamlanders lived like this?

  Wadji banked again, and Dustman Eshe came into view. She watched our progress like a reigning queen. She stood tall, her pale gown fluttering around her ankles in the breeze. Her long, black hair didn’t move. It simply shone.

  Wadji flicked his tail and continued his flight through the plane. More trees, more hills, more creatures, and dreamers, and talking flowers, and rumbling rocks, and a pyramid in the far distance covered in thick, blue vines. Another shore came into view and I heard the familiar call of the Sea of Dreams. With two powerful flaps of his mighty wings, we cleared the plane and that tower shrank in the distance.

  I took in a deep breath and stared in wonder at the universe below and around me. I’d never imagined it could be this huge, this amazing. So many dustmen. So many dreamers.

  Something caught my eye.

  I twisted to my right and narrowed my eyes to get a better glimpse. What was I seeing?

  Wadji chuckled, the rumble of it vibrating my butt. I was wondering when you would see it. He folded his wings and dove like an arrow.

  The whole idea of doing that is pretty fun. The reality of it, not so much. I fought to remain upright, my teeth clenched, my hair yanked off my face, my cheeks flapping. My legs were clenched so hard, my muscles were about to snap. I forced my body to fold, to fall in line with the dragon’s neck.

  Much better.

  His rumbling chuckle vibrated through me again.

  Great. He was laughing at me.

  Towers and towers of dreamplanes rushed past us. I heard shouts of lau
ghter and conversation. Dustmen’s names flew by so fast, I wasn’t able to catch them all. Closer and closer, we shot toward the bottom. What would we discover down there? Did Dreamland have an underground? Was that what we would find?

  We zoomed past the last level of planes with a pop. All around us were bubbles; large, grey, spiky blobs. They bobbed above, below, right, left, in front, behind. They appeared to be connected to nothing and yet . . . the part of me that sensed Place saw something—something iridescent and shining.

  A scream pierced the air.

  I jerked. What was that?

  Wadji opened his wings with a crack and soared. The blobs moved out of his way, giving him freedom of flight in the extraordinary tight space.

  “Where are we?” I pushed myself to a sitting position, twisting to see where the scream had come from.

  Look with your heart.

  Oh, for the love of dreams. My heart, huh? I didn’t know what I was doing. Something reached out from me, though, like a hand of light or something. I couldn’t quite see it. It was like looking at something out of the corner of your eye and the only way you can see it was when you weren’t looking directly at it. The light from my heart touched one of the pods, and the glummy gloom of the blob dissipated.

  Inside, a dreamer ran. His Who shot through me like an arrow. Ben. Age thirty-six. Three failed marriages. Four kids he never saw, but got to pay for. Two mortgages yanked from his pay check. A dog he didn’t like. Two dead plants on his window sill. A refrigerator filled with left over take-out. A boss who called him more than any friend or lover.

  Unwanted. Unneeded. Throwaway. Garbage.

  He ran in a sea of darkness, shadows growing, morphing, changing, chasing. Terror filled him as he ran, passing toilet after toilet, each just as dingy and grungy as the previous one. Brown water spewed from them like fountains.

  My chest tightened as air lodged in my throat. I felt his fear. I felt his misery, his worthlessness.

  A darker shadow caught my attention. A man. Tall. Dark hair that gleamed blue in a light I couldn’t see. His eyes were pits of shadow.

  Nightmare Keme.

  I frowned and pulled back. No one visited the Nightmare Realm and spoke of it.