I watched the window. The faint glow of the candle was winking down, and I turned my head slightly when the flame flickered and hissed.

Green Etheric mist poured out of the candle. For a moment, I stared, dumbfounded, then the room tilted and immense pressure rocked inside my skull. I didn’t need to put my goggles on; the suck of the demi monde dragged me under. A narcoleptic sway took my body.

I opened my eyes in the Dreamscape to the rumbled bellow of the dragon.

The room rocked with a hazy dark glow, a construct of my mind. Like a moving ship, I struggled to my strangely uncertain feet and concentrated until I had a long silver blade in one hand.

Green fog swirled around my feet and the door flew open before I even touched the knob.

A woman screamed.

My mind struggled to stay focused in the Dreamscape; the hotel swayed and shook under my feet. Too much sensory input. I smelled copper; my head must have hit the floor. Sudden jolts to the brain can pull an Oneironaut out of the Dreamscape easily enough.

The dragon dominated the tiny hall, the wood warping and the ceiling vanishing in the slide of claws and the glare of those awful green eyes.

A claw ripped through the Dreamscape and sliced down upon me.

I caught the blow with the sword, using the blade as a shield from the weight of the onslaught. I ended up on my backside against a wall. My physical strength was nothing before the force of the beast.

Teeth came next and the room filled with a black shadow beast and flashes of green. I got to my feet ungracefully.

I danced around the room. In the Dreamscape I could be an elegant, pirouetting swordswoman. Ether made that possible, just as it made a dragon able to fit into a room such as this.

She’d worked out the trick. I didn’t know what had given me away but coming here had been her mistake. Attacking me directly was smart enough, but I was confident in my ability to defeat her.

I took a claw across the cheek and blood welled on my face.

A shade chose that moment to stumble into the Dreamscape with us. Pulled into the nightmare, perhaps by the force of the dragon’s power.

“Get out!” I screamed.

The shade looked around, dumb, not fully manifested, but unable to hide. I almost caught a glimpse of a woman’s face before the dragon tore her apart. Blood fell across the walls and floor. The wet sound of rending flesh accompanied by my own scream.

The dragon lashed at me again, driving me back with ease.

We fell from the window, glass slicing my jacket, the shadowed outline of the monster following me down. The beast stretched out its wings, becoming a behemoth in the open area.

I landed on the ground, willing myself steady when the wild Dreamscape shifted and rumbled around me. The dragon could influence the Ether better than I; it responded weakly to me.

She reared back her head, fire brewing in her belly, and I shaped Ether into a stone shield over my head. Heat and smoke flooded over me in waves.

The quickly-constructed shield cracked and crumbled a few seconds later and I jumped, closing the distance between us. I thrust my sword forward and sliced at her outstretched forelimb.

The dragon howled. The world shook.

Ether trembled in the air, a physical weight; the dragon pulled on it so thickly.

The beast melted into green fog and mist.

I gasped, clutching my side, catching my breath. I ought not to be winded in the Dreamscape, but my body felt almost fully interred in the demi monde and cold sweat clung to me.

I woke up.

The room swam into view in a haze of red.

I was lying on my side; the candle blown out.

The door was open.

Elizabeth Winchester was dead on the ground in front of me.

Someone was screaming downstairs.

I hoisted myself up slowly and shakily, breathing heavily, sweating as surely as I had just battled off the dragon. Blood fell down my neck from the mark across my face, painting my side red.

The balding hotel manager poked his head into the room and screeched, turning about as quickly as he had come.

There was something awfully wrong about Elizabeth Winchester being dead in this room.

She had a knife in one hand—the sort you get from any kitchen for cutting meat. Bloody, but not good for hurting someone. I pried the blade from her still warm fingers. I checked her neck for a pulse, but you don’t survive the kind of gutting she had endured. Her lower half was shredded from the stomach down. Animal talons.

Five talons.

An alarm bell rang in the town and men in their pyjamas came bursting into the room.

“Step away from the body.”

I was covered in blood. Some of it was Elizabeth’s, some of it was mine.

“My God, you’ve killed her.”

One of the men grabbed me by the shoulder and the knife Elizabeth had been carrying clattered to the floor. I hadn’t noticed it tangling with my dress.

“Call the police!”

“I am the police.”

It was clear from their hard looks they did not believe a word.