David stood in the shadows, silent as death. His dreamself was so far back in a corner it was partway into the wall, but his head was still in the room. He could see what was happening. He could hear what was being said.

The King of the Haunting looked even older than he had expected, his body frail and ruined. Only his bald head and right arm moved as he manipulated a joystick on the armrest of his gleaming electric wheelchair. With a whirr, he rolled across the tiled floor toward a nervous young man with a goatee who sat at a bank of portable computer equipment in the center of the vast space. Far above, the roof was glass and steel, letting in the last of a winter sun. But the structure of the building was much older than the modern fixtures it now contained. This was a twenty-first-century office in the shell of a Victorian theater.

On a gurney in the center of the room lay the body of an eighteen-year-old boy. There were electrodes attached to his temples. David couldn’t stop staring at him. He had short black hair and a handsome profile, but he was still — stiller even than David.

Adam Lang.

Beside him wheezed the artificial lung of a life-support machine.

The old man stopped his chair.

“Any improvement?”

Goatee Man tugged at his beard as he shook his head.

“Nope, nothing but flat lines on the EEG — no higher brain function at all. It could be years before he recovers. If ever.”

“He’ll be no good to me by then,” said the old man, looking at a watch on his good arm. “Just like he’s no good to me now.”

“Sir …” Goatee Man fidgeted in his seat. “… I still don’t get it. Why have we brought him here? It’s not safe for you. And here, of all places!”

“I told you, I have an appointment. Any moment now, if I’m not mistaken. Until then, we wait.”

“It’s just that … sir, I’m picking something up.”

“So? That’s what you’re paid to do.”

“Yes, but it’s centering on this very spot, getting clearer by the second.” Goatee Man’s eyes were darting over the screens in front of him. “A knot in the Psychic Field. Sir, I think there could be someone dreamwalking in the area.”

“Oh, there’s someone dreamwalking in the area all right,” said the old man. “There has been for about three minutes. I’m just waiting for him to stop messing about and show himself, that’s all.”

Then, before David could react, he whirred his chair around.

“Isn’t that right, David Utherwise?”

David waited for a long time while the old man’s eyes played over him in the gloom. He wasn’t sure why he’d come, or exactly what he’d wanted to say — he probably shouldn’t have come at all — but now that he’d been seen, it would be cowardly to just turn and flee. He stepped out of the dark.

Goatee Man jumped when he saw him, his hand darting to a telephone handset, but the old man stopped him.

“Relax. He’s not here … officially. Are you, David?”

David said nothing.

“Well now, how are you feeling?” The old man’s face broke into a leering smile that was probably supposed to be friendly. “You’re certainly in better shape than poor Adam here. Hospital food not too bad, I hope? I’m sure they’ll let you go soon.”

“I know who you are.” David tried to keep his voice steady and strong.

“ ’Course you do. You wouldn’t be here otherwise, would you … Utherwise?” And the old man chuckled at his own joke, croaking like a kettle full of frogs.

“I came here …” David said, “… I came here to tell you to keep away from us, from my family —”

“Nah, you didn’t,” the old man interrupted. “You came here because you couldn’t keep away from me, because you’re curious. Like all my best boys and girls. And that’s why I waited so patiently to see you.”

“You knew I’d come?”

“ ’Course! Smart kid like you. Take after your grandpa, don’t yer?”

“Leave Eddie alone! I came here to tell you to keep away from my family. They call you the King of the Haunting, but I know who you really are. I worked it out.”

“Yeah, you said. But let’s skip to the end, eh? You’re here ’cause you got questions. So ask away.”

David moved from one foot to another, keeping his dreamself in clear view but out of the light. It was already a habit.

“Why?” he said eventually. He couldn’t believe he was getting into a conversation, but the old man was quite right — he did have questions. “Why go for Eddie at all? What did he do to make you hate him so much?”

“Philippa,” replied the old man immediately. He stared at David with a look of cold, lizardlike intensity before continuing. “Your little sis. Oh, yeah, I know all about Philippa. And your mum, and even your school friends, such as they are. But it’s little Philippa I want you to think about now. Got a clear image of ‘Phizzy’ in your mind? Good. Now imagine me strangling the life out of her!”

The old man raised his livid right hand and made a crushing motion in the air. David’s fists bunched instinctively, and he stepped forward, but the old man’s ugly croak stopped him.

“There! Answered your own question, din’t yer. You’d kill me if I hurt your sister, wouldn’t you? Or you’d try. Well, your Eddie as good as killed mine. It’s as simple as that.”

“He didn’t! It wasn’t his fault! She wasn’t going to survive the war anyway — the professor said so. You can’t blame Eddie, Tomkin.”

“Don’t call me that!” the old man spat back. “Little Tom! I haven’t been Tomkin for years. It’s Thomas King now, as it always was. Kat’s the only one who can use my nickname. Only she can’t, can she? My little Katkin! She died fetching help for your precious Eddie. And so precious Eddie has to pay.”

“It was an accident! Just let it go. Eddie’s dead now anyway. Leave his life in peace.”

Thomas King rolled toward David, stopping just a few paces away. He looked David square in the eye.

“Yeah. Yeah, he is dead, isn’t he? But you’re still here.”

“What do you mean?”

“When that bomb landed, it did more than take away my sister and my legs, it nearly took my mind as well. After, I could still remember Kat, but it took me years to get the details back. I couldn’t even remember having lived in this theater till Adam found Eddie in it. All I could recall was one thing: the bespectacled face of your granddad leering at my Kat. Disgusting!”

“He liked her, that’s all. And maybe Kat liked him back. Did you ever think of that?”

“Shut up! She didn’t like him, she just felt sorry for the little runt. She was so kind …” King’s voice caught in his throat. “… too kind. And look where it left her! See what kindness does? I hate your Eddie more than you could ever understand. He might as well have killed me along with Kat!”

King’s clawlike hand was raised again, twisted into a fist. Then it dropped.

“But I’m tired, David. So tired of it all.”

In the old man’s face David could see the proof of this clearly enough. Years of anger, bitterness, and the restless thirst for revenge had left Thomas King with the pinched face of a gargoyle. And a heart of stone to match.

“And you’re right.” King narrowed his eyes with a crafty grin. “I am still here, aren’t I? While Eddie’s all dead and rotted to worm food, I outlived him. Stole his discoveries and survived him. So maybe, I’m saying to myself, maybe this last failure is what you might call a sign. If even turning the great Adam Lang against Eddie can’t get rid of the little bleeder, maybe it’s time for me to think again. Look at things another way, p’raps. What do you think, David?”

“I think you’re mad.”

“You might be right.” King chuckled. “Yeah, I think you might be. But the thing is, David, old son, tired though I am, mad though I may be, blocked though I always find myself when I go after your lousy, stinkin’ ancestor, one fact remains: Your Eddie owes me. No matter how you cut it, he owes me a sister, and he owes me for a lifetime of misery. That’s a lot to owe a chap, I hope you’ll agree, David.”

“I’ve said all I’ve got to say to you.” David began to edge away. It was time to leave. Why had he even stayed this long? But as he turned, he saw that somehow, while the old man had kept him talking, figures had slipped into the room. In the shadows around the wide space one, two, three … no … six haunters had entered, silent as the ghosts they were. Six! David knew then that he’d walked into a trap. He was surrounded.

“Ah, you’ve seen my boys and girls at last.” Thomas King wheezed with glee. “Good. Now maybe you’ll listen. Your granddaddy owes me, David Utherwise, but I meant what I said — I’m ready to move on. Your granddaddy owes me, but I’m going to give you the chance to pay.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.” Thomas King settled back a little into his chair, his body sounding like gristle. He grinned at David. Then, with a new burst of whirring, he directed his chair back to Adam’s mindless body.

“As you know, David, I run a special little organization, an organization that does wonderful things and that pays spectacularly well. An organization that employs people like you. And as you also know, I have a vacancy.”

King’s right arm reached out to the machine beside Adam’s bed, his claw closing on a large red switch. He looked back at David, as if making sure he had his full attention. Before David could react, King flipped the switch. Immediately the wheezing and beeping stopped as the lights on Adam’s life-support machine went dead. The artificial lung settled to the bottom of its glass tube with a final sigh.

“What are you doing?” David started forward. “He’s finished as a dreamwalker — you don’t have to kill him. Send him back to his family!”

“What, so they can sit by his bedside and watch his empty body shrivel up? Why, David, you have a cruel streak too.”

“Turn it back on! He might recover.”

As David watched, aghast, Adam’s body began twitching, his head lolling to one side. It gave one great, final heave, then fell still again. Still as bone.

“As I was saying …” King rolled back to David and squinted up at him with yellow eyes. “… I have a vacancy.”

“No way.” David shook his head, staring at Adam’s corpse. “No. Way.”

“Hold your horses, I’m not done yet,” said King. “Now, listen up. We’ve mentioned Eddie here today, and we’ve even mentioned your sister. But let’s not mention them again, eh? Let’s talk, you and me, about greater things. Let’s see what I can do for you and what you can do in return.”

“No.”

David knew that he had to get out of there, but as he moved, the six haunters around him moved too, closing into the pool of light that poured down from above. They grew spectral, boiling with a ghastly blueness that by now David should have been used to, but that still filled him with an instinctive dread. The haunters grinned. One of them was the girl with the white-blonde hair. She had a tigerish motion that suggested she could be on him in a second.

“You’ve met Harriet, I believe.” King was clearly enjoying himself. “She won’t let you go again, you can be sure of that. She’s one of my best. But have you stopped to think why she works for me, David, and not those wimps at Unsleep House?”

The haunter named Harriet took a curling step, leaving the ground as she did so. She drifted toward David. She was beautiful, David had to admit, despite the fury in her eyes and the pallor of her spectral skin. And she was giving him a very calculated look.

“We got off to a bad start, David,” she said. “Perhaps we could begin again?”

David clamped his mouth shut.

“Oh, think, David!” King burst out. “You’re a ghost! A time-traveling, dreamwalking ghost, able to turn the whole course of human history on its head! What part of that doesn’t excite you, for heaven’s sake? We’ve already seen how capable you are. Imagine what you could do with our help. Imagine the power you could command over the poor schmucks of the past! Imagine — oh, I don’t know — Napoleon! Imagine Napoleon, conqueror of Europe, crouching at your feet in terror, agreeing to bury gold, jewels, priceless works of art … anything, if only you’d just leave him alone. We could do that tonight, David, now if you like. Then tomorrow we’d dig it up and it’d be yours, all yours.”

King began to cough. In his excitement a gobbet of phlegm burst from his mouth. He wiped it away with his sleeve.

“And if that don’t float yer boat, Davy boy, just think of the alternative. Are you really prepared to turn your back on all the fun, on what you really are, just because some chinless professor wants you to follow the ‘Dreamwalker’s Code’? Do you want your wings clipped? Do you want to do history assignments for the sake of a bunch of stuck-up do-gooders? No, you don’t want that. You are a dreamwalker, David, a ghost! Not a historian!”

King’s voice gave out as he spat this final word, and he slouched back in his chair, wheezing. In time his breath settled down, but no one spoke. As the moments passed the silence in the room seemed to solidify into something menacing in its own right. All around, eyes that were filled with hate, fear, or greed — and in King’s case, all three — drilled into David as they waited for some sign from him. After an achingly long pause, David gave it to them.

He slowly shook his head. The silence screamed in his ears as he did so.

When Thomas King spoke again, his face was a mask of utter contempt.

“Did you miss the part where I mentioned money?”

At a sign from King, the haunters began to circle David, rising and weaving, making it hard for him to keep track of them, completely cutting off any upward escape.

“Join us …” King’s voice was flint hard. “… and I’ll consider Eddie’s debt to me settled. Turn your back on me, and I’ll settle it by destroying you and everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Your answer is required immediately.”

“You’re a monster, Tomkin!” David cried out. “Nothing but a murdering, dribbling, shriveled-up old monkey-man! And I will never join you!”

King let out a choked roar of animal rage. “Kill him! Kill him now!”

The six haunters turned on David in a flash, streaking into the space where he stood, their arms coiled back to strike. But David wasn’t there.

Beneath where he had been, in the very floor, King caught a glimpse of a dreamwalker’s door as it slammed shut. David had let himself fall down through it so fast that even the haunters looked dumbfounded as they arced away, crying out in frustration. Harriet shrieked like a banshee, throwing herself at the door, but it was already fading to nothing.

Thomas King’s head bobbed crazily as he craned to see the spot where David had been standing, his mouth open in astonished rage.

David Utherwise was gone.

In the moments that followed, the haunters drifted away from the center of the room, leaving the old man alone in his metal chair. Even ghosts are afraid of the King of the Haunting.

“Pack up,” Thomas King said eventually to the man with the goatee, who was crouching wide-eyed behind his computer.

“We are leaving now. We have much work to do.”