CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE DREAM CHANGES

The dream again.

The fire.

The beasts of air and land, in their panic, are a tangle of torsos and teeth. They’re all around me, slithering, swooping, skittering. They fear the inevitable.

The end of all that’s known.

A voice calls, as it always does in the scene: Run! RUN!

But this time I see a new person. Silent. Still. Someone I believe I know.

WHO ARE YOU?

I move closer but the face is shrouded, the features blurred as if seen through a dirty lens.

I’m tempted to run away, but I don’t. I know where running leads. To the hole. To death.

I know I can no longer fear.

So I turn to the center of the destruction, where smoke billows blackly. Its tendrils shoot toward me, twining around my neck like curled fingers. It is at one moment sweet smelling, the next sharp and acrid. But I keep walking until I see the shaft rising from the center of the circle. It glows brightly, beckoning somehow.

Around the shaft is a circle of light. Spinning. There are objects embedded in the circle, and I must take them.

The smoke is clearing and I know I must work fast. I kneel to the circle, fighting indecision. Driving out the demons inside. What I will do—must do—defies all that I have ever stood for.

The fire rages, coming closer, licking the edges of the valley. I reach through the smoke to grab what I need.

But what I see instead is a head.

Marco’s head.

It’s laughing.