Dreamonologist Read online

  I shook my head. If Olivia wasn’t here, then I was in some random dreamer’s mind. I’d tried in the past to ignore their needs, but if I did so, I’d pay the price—waking up with a headache or worse. Damn you, Mom.

  I looked around. I was on an unfamiliar, seemingly deserted residential street lined with rows of semidetached Edwardian houses. I couldn’t spot any threat, but I instinctively slipped into the shadows and called forth a memory of being ignored at school, feeling the darkness enfolding my form until I knew that it would take a dedicated expenditure of will for someone to detect me. Finally, I drew my gladius, the rasp of its eighteen inches of polished steel against the leather of the scabbard so familiar that it was like a neuromuscular memory trigger, making the taut muscles in my thighs twitch. I ran.

  I used my dream senses to orient myself, supplementing them with a well-worn memory of watching Usain Bolt at the 2012 Olympics. The wind roared in my ears as my legs propelled me in huge bounds like a frog on hot tarmac. I covered the best part of two kilometers in less than forty-five seconds, but when I approached a larger road at the end of the unnaturally long residential street, I slowed down to listen. The dreamer wasn’t more than three hundred meters away, and I mentally groaned—it was another goddamned vampire dream. Maybe the hundredth in a row.

  “Come here, little girl. We’ll make you one of us!” a male voice yelled.

  “Yeah, then you won’t be a freak anymore!” cried a shrill female voice.

  I stuck my head around the corner. There were at least two dozen pale, menacing figures surrounding a small, lone woman with gaunt, sharp cheekbones, who was draped in baggy, ill-fitting clothes. I felt a wave of frustration roll over me, followed almost immediately by a wash of guilt. I’d been pulled into vampire dreams of one sort or another every night for the last month, and my search for my daughter had ground to a halt. I didn’t understand what was causing this, but whatever the cause, it didn’t change the fact that these people needed my help to banish their nightmares. I wouldn’t be changing a life, but I’d be making a difference.

  I’d dealt with enough similar dreams, full of hatred of one kind or another, to be pretty jaded about the human condition, but I’d never seen the monsters try to persuade someone to join them. During the three or four heartbeats that it took me to consider the situation, the ring closed in around the young woman. I shook my head. She was a person. She was having a nightmare. I was Julian Adler, Dreamwalker, and I’d show her that her tormentors weren’t unbeatable.

  “Hey, assholes!” I yelled, deploying the eloquence, diplomacy, and tact that had once made me a rising star in the business world. Seven or eight members of the mob turned toward me and took a few steps in my direction—oh, and they began to change. The men’s bodies rippled, gaining at least a foot of height as their torsos bulged with muscle like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, while the women’s hands morphed into cruel, razor-sharp claws. Both groups grew wicked fangs that protruded below their bottom lips. Long, pink tongues lashed the night air.

  “You’ll change your mind about joining us after you see what we do to him,” growled a girl who couldn’t have been more than sixteen.

  “Shit.” Maybe I could have tried a more subtle opening line. Seriously, what had people done to this poor woman that had created a nightmare where her psyche considered violence a reasonable form of persuasion? The thought made me pissed. (That’s “hacked off” in Brit speak, not drunk.) I probably should have defused the situation with a moral message or something, but tonight felt like a gladius kind of night.

  I bounded forward and to my left, approaching the antagonists from one end of their line so that I could minimize the number of creatures I had to deal with at the same time. Creatures. That seemed so impersonal. Maybe I’d name them. A gargantuan specimen of vampire was the first customer at my surgery tonight; I’d call him Fred. I ducked a looping right hook from Fred that went over my head. If the blow had connected, then I’d probably have been shortened by said head by Fred; instead, I lashed out with my gladius, amputating his arm at the shoulder with a single precise slash. The vampire roared in pain as black blood fountained, and his severed limb squirmed on the ground like a maggot on a skillet. I added a jumping kick that made him stumble into one of the lady vampires, and I landed in a lunge position that I translated into the first step of a flat-out sprint, leaving the majority of the monsters eating my dust.

  As I swept toward the dreamer, I fought against temptation; I could have reached out with my will, honed by a lifetime of battling other people’s nightmares, and exploded the heads of the bloodsuckers like we were in a bad sci-fi movie, but if I did, then I’d be breaking rule number one of Dreamwalking: Don’t do anything freaky enough that you’ll wake the dreamer. Waking the dreamer doesn’t just scare the person in question absolutely shitless; it also gives me a horrible headache, or worse, in the real world when I wake up.

  My mental digression was interrupted when a vampiress sprang at me, blond hair trailing wildly behind her as she covered twenty feet in a single leap; I’d call her Barbie. Fingers tipped by black, two-inch-long claws raked down my right side, but my Burberry had years of mental conditioning reinforcing the gabardine fabric, and I knew that I’d be uninjured. As I flinched away from the pressure of the attack and converted the momentum into a spin, my left fist caught Barbie in the face, and she howled and staggered back. I shook my hand and looked back toward the dreamer, who was staring right back at me. I couldn’t have her doing that for what would come next, because it was going to be way freaky. In the instant that I’d bought with my punch, I concentrated on the nearest couple of streetlights and pulled up the memory of dropping a glass in the sink, concentrated on the sound of shattering, and gave a tiny push of willpower. The area around me dropped into shadow as the bulbs blew, and I figured that I’d have twenty or thirty seconds before the dreamer’s eyes adjusted—I was fine because I knew that I had on a pair of night-vision goggles, which obligingly appeared on my face.

  Barbie recovered her balance and came back at me, fingers hooked, pointed teeth bared, and eyes glowing like the pits of hell in my night vision. She certainly wasn’t inconvenienced by the lack of light. Behind Barbie I could see the rest of her posse, who were fanning out to encircle me, so I knew that I had to finish this fast. I closed my eyes. I had maybe three seconds. I emptied my mind. Two seconds. I focused on a nimbus of glowing blue energy surrounding me, pulsing and dancing in the air, teasing my skin with minuscule electrical crackles. One second. I imagined that corona of power slamming into me, supercharging my muscles, hardening my skin, and hot-wiring my reflexes. I was awesome. At least for the next thirty seconds or so.

  I opened my eyes. Taloned hands were closing in on my throat, but they were almost glacially slow, so I made a windmilling motion with my arms to knock them away. My hands slammed into the vampiress’ wrists at nearly supersonic speeds. I heard a noise like sticks snapping; Barbie’s fang-filled mouth started to open in surprise, and the monster stumbled back, staring at the jagged stumps where her hands used to be. I didn’t leave her confused for long—my gladius flicked out, snicker-snack, and she fell.

  I looked up and grinned. My arms were a blur of motion as I danced through a forest of huge, grasping arms and tearing talons. I was a limberjack, chopping off arms and legs with the mechanical, efficient motions of a professional. Before I had to take a handful of breaths, nine corpses were piled up in front of me. I looked into the blood-red eyes of the last alabaster-skinned, musclebound vampire and grinned. The vampire blinked. I thought that I detected a flicker of doubt, or maybe that was just its face twitching with rage.

  “Dave—is it all right if I call you Dave? Anyway, Dave, I’m going to do you a favor. Right now, you think that you’re going to charge at me and rip me limb from limb. If you try that, then I’ll do a flip over you, rip your head off in the process, and punt it over the next row of buildings. It is going to look so ridiculous that the next time o
ne of your nightmare buddies slips on a banana peel and breaks his ass, everyone will point, laugh, and say, ‘What a Dave.’ But if you would just have the good grace to vanish like the figment of this woman’s imagination that you are, then you’ll be spared that indignity.” I paused for a moment and pointed my gladius at the monster. “Your call, Dave.”

  Dave surged toward me, grotesquely muscled, chest heaving with rage. I curled my legs beneath me, ready to launch myself like a javelin at the rapidly closing behemoth. I pushed off and…fell flat on my face, grunting with pain and grabbing a smashed nose. The vampire was so surprised that his meaty grab passed over me, and only flopping to the side like a landed fish kept me from being stepped on. The awesome was gone. My impromptu monologue had broken my concentration and allowed the dreamer’s expectations of reality to cancel out my self-gifted superpowers. When I was a kid, it had been easy to keep myself powered up for minutes at a time, but growing up had made it harder and harder to pull that off. Ignorance has a power all its own. Just ask any politician.

  I staggered back up to my feet, chest heaving and blood streaming down my chin. I was tempted to summon an AK-47 and blast the bloodsucker to pieces, but I’d already used a pretty fair amount of mental energy to supercharge myself. Willing the gun into existence would violate my second rule of Dreamwalking: Use minimum necessary force. This wasn’t because I liked a challenge; rather, I stuck to this rule because the more willpower, emotion, or other energy source that I employ to resolve a dream, the tireder I am when I wake up in the morning. For example, if I summoned a dragon, I’d be f-ing exhausted in the morning. Also, the last time I did, it tried to eat me—but that’s another story. Therefore, I crouched into a fighting stance, balanced on the balls of my feet, and waited for the slavering monster’s charge.

  I didn’t have to wait long. Dave bellowed and stalked toward me, his heavy footsteps making the ground tremble. I watched the creature of the night(mare)’s hips; years of freestyle wrestling in the real world, myriad nights of battling in the Dreamscape, and the toe-tapping Latin rhythms of Shakira had taught me that hips don’t lie. Hairy arms as big around as my thighs reached out for me, but I held my ground until…there! The creature’s hips shifted, and I could see that he was committed to a lunge, so I dropped my center of gravity, pushed off with my plant leg, and shot low, lashing out with my sword.

  The blade bit deep into Dave’s leg, severing the big tendon behind his knee. The vampire roared in pain, losing his balance and crashing to the ground so hard that the asphalt cracked. The big brute tried to lever himself up, but I was there, stabbing out once, twice, three times until the blood sucker’s head fell free of its body.

  I raised my sword above my head and spun around. “The winner, and still the undefeated heavyweight champion of the—” I spotted the dreamer in a circle of light, hemmed in by a dozen tormentors who had ignored me. “Stupid Julian. Still work to do,” I mumbled to myself and willed the street lights back on.

  Ignoring the crude threats and cajoling issuing from the mob, I picked a spot where a small, male Asian vampire and a middle-aged, white, female bloodsucker stood side by side, and I put my shoulder down, pushing through a gap in the rapidly closing ring of assailants. The dreamer turned to me, face unreadable, but I flashed her my best reassuring smile and looked her in the eyes. “See, do you really want to be like them? They want to make you into something that you aren’t, but that won’t make your problems go away. It won’t protect you from everything,” I said, gesturing toward the vampire corpses spread around the street.

  “Go away. I’m filth. They should hurt me, I should be one of them, and then I wouldn’t ever have any filthy food again,” the woman whispered, and I felt the pressure of her mind squeezing in on me as her eyes took on a hollow, skeletal appearance. Here in her dream, she was the master. If she pushed hard enough, even I wouldn’t be able to resist, so I had to bring her onside—but things had just gotten much, much worse. I’d spent the last few minutes, and a lot of mental energy, on the mistaken assumption that the woman had been the target of external violence. Maybe she had, but it seemed that the dream-violence was being fueled by good-old-fashioned self-hatred. This was going to get ugly.

  I racked my brains. More slaughter would probably just jolt her awake, so that was out. I could try to reason with the crowd of cajoling vampires; they were part of her subconscious, so if I could get through, then they might disappear. But that would only be treating the symptom. I had to get to the core of the issue, but I was no psychiatrist. Maybe if I could cheer her up?

  “Two men walk into a bar…” The woman turned in my direction, and I saw her frown. Oh yeah—anorexic, no eating or drinking. Umm…

  The crowd closed in; they were only a few steps away. “Did you hear the one about the racist who gave up yogurt? He heard it contained foreign cultures.”

  The dreamer looked at me, a puzzled look on her face. “I don’t get it?” she said, and the ring of hatred took a step in. “But that’s probably because I’m so stupid,” the woman continued, putting her hands on her head.

  “Just embrace us, become one of us, and you’ll never be alone again,” a short, Afro-Caribbean vampire said, beckoning with open arms.

  Oh shit. I forced a wink and continued, “How many racists does it take to change a light bulb? None—they hate being enlightened.” The dreamer shook her head and took a step back. The growling, snarling crowd closed in again as the woman’s confusion fed her fear.

  “Brainwashed idiot. You’re a disgrace,” said a well-coiffured woman with pale skin, dark hair, and three-inch-long nails that were rapidly lengthening into talons. This close to the dreamer, I couldn’t do anything too overt, but this was spinning out of control. I fell back on the lesson that I’d learned last fall when fighting Senior Auditor Brown: I’m no Superman.

  “Hey!” I shouted, causing the woman next to me to jump and her attackers to pause. “Do you hear a siren?” I finished, pushing with my will to create the sound of a wailing siren. “The police will be here soon,” I said to the dreamer. She stopped shaking, but her self-persecutors were only a few steps away. “They can help,” I said in my most reassuring tone. The attackers paused.

  “Who would want to help me?” she wailed, and the sirens cut off. The attackers surged forward, raining blows down on me and the dreamer. The Dreamscape started to ripple, and I threw myself onto the woman, shielding her with my body as feet lashed into my ribs.

  “I want to help you! You’re a person. Every person is valuable.”

  My trench coat protected me from the worst of the external buffeting, but I caught a sharp elbow in the ribs as my charge yelled: “Get off of me. I’m gross. Stop dirtying yourself by touching me.” The kicks and punches pressed in harder, some of the energy getting past my coat.

  I was getting mad. “You’re not gross. Let me help you!” I was Julian Lucas Adler, and I wasn’t going to let this woman suffer. She hadn’t accepted that the authorities would fight for her; maybe she’d allow other people to get some help. I concentrated and shoved with my will. Nothing. Another shove. I had the mental equivalent of a failed sneeze. One. More. Shove.

  Different sirens this time. An ambulance was just around the corner, followed by half-a-dozen squad cars. The woman underneath me was huddled in a ball. I’d have just a few seconds to make this work.

  I bounded to my feet, crashing into a number of the attackers and knocking them to the ground. I felt someone bite my arm, and I lashed out with a head-butt that broke a nose. A fat, old man grabbed my shoulder, and I used my free hand to crack him in the balls. He fell to the ground in a heap, but didn’t yell properly—female dreamers never got that part right. My momentary distraction earned me a swift kick in the ass. Literally. I used the momentum to roll forward, and I launched myself into the remaining five or six vampires that were still tormenting the young woman.

  The crowd was fueled by her self-loathing. Apparently, she knew a lot about self-loa
thing. Luckily for me, she didn’t know much about fighting. Nearly thirty years had taught me a lot, and when a skinny, meth-head-looking vamp came at me with her fingers hooked into claws, I ducked, grabbed an outstretched arm, and swiveled my hips. The vampiress’s feet left the ground, and I whipped her in an arc around me, her high-heeled feet lashing out and cracking into her fellows. One shoe hooked on a black guy’s shoulder, and I let her go, taking down two or three more people. I looked around, breathing hard. Everyone was down. But none of them were down for the count. Shit. I took a step back toward the young woman, dropped into a fighting stance, and prepared to buy some more time.

  “We’re going to gut that fat little slut, and then you’re next, weirdo,” said the meth-head as her sticklike arms levered her up.

  The sirens still hadn’t reached us. “If only that ambulance was almost here. It could treat the people I hurt…” I mumbled, throwing out a Hail Mary pass that she’d allow others to be helped, at least long enough for me to put the emergency services to use.

  Headlights appeared around the corner. A big chartreuse ambulance escorted by a fleet of Metropolitan Police Ford Focuses roared up in a cloud of litter and squeal of tires. How screwed up was this poor woman? Uniformed constables piled out, and I bundled the woman forward while holding up a badge that I knew had been in my pocket all along.

  “Detective Inspector Ackles. This woman has been subject to multiple crimes. You and you”—I pointed to the ambulance personnel—“get her sedated. The rest of you, please place these suspects under arrest,” I said, and moved out of the way. The men and women who had been menacing vampires a few moments ago had shrunk back down to normal size, the police presence pushing the ugliness into hiding. I was pretty sure that there was a metaphor there somewhere, but I was too busy to put my finger on exactly what it was.