DAVID bolted up in bed, sheets soaked, heart hammering, confused and disoriented. Confused because he’d just dreamed—only it wasn’t a dream. Or was it?
Disoriented because he’d just been in a room with a man named Vlad and three other people after riding across a desert as a prisoner. He’d awakened here when they knocked him out there.
So was this place the dream? No. No, that couldn’t be.
He flipped on the light, flung his legs from the bed and sat still, listening. Staring at the white wall. The details of his dream spun through his mind in perfect clarity. Rachelle was there, they said, a prisoner in their dungeons. She was called the 49th Mystic. Vlad wanted her dead.
Steve had asked him if he wanted to dream. But it felt so real . . . Was this how he’d dreamed in Eden?
The question tripped through his mind. What if Rachelle really was in some kind of danger? And what about him?
He shoved himself from the bed and crossed to the door. Twisted the knob. Locked from the outside. Of course, it was after hours. He could press the button beside his bed, but that would bring Mary. Mary couldn’t know about the dream—he’d given his word to Steve.
Regardless, it was just a dream, had to be. A nightmare.
He turned and glanced around the small room. No windows. One bed with a reddish, pinkish cover, one white dresser, one bedside table with a green lamp.
Slowly, his heart returned to an even pace. The clock on his nightstand read 2:12 a.m. He’d slept only a few hours. What if he forgot the dream in the morning?
Returning to his bed, David opened the drawer on his bedside table, pulled out his notepad and pen. There, on the first page, he scribbled himself a note.
Dream: Another world. Desert. Vlad. Mystic. Captive.
He stared at his writing. Enough to jog his memory. He returned the notebook to the drawer, slid back under the covers, and turned off the light.
Strange how he’d awakened here when he got knocked out there, in the nightmare. But that’s how dreams worked. Even more strange—how he was so worked up about something his mind had only imagined. Unlike him, Rachelle still had some memory of Eden, even though it was mostly suppressed. Maybe this was why she didn’t want to dream.
Maybe she knew it would be a nightmare.
David let his mind drift. Tomorrow was what? Saturday, so pancakes for breakfast. He wasn’t sure how the MEP had altered his mind, because he couldn’t remember anything before the treatment, nothing at all. They’d given him subconscious memories, which affected his preferences, like his craving for pancakes, which Rachelle claimed he used to hate.
A part of him wondered if having his memories wiped should upset him, but he didn’t have any reason to be upset about something he couldn’t remember, like how he’d once been. He was just . . . this.
After the first couple of weeks, Rachelle had stopped telling him how things used to be. The MEP didn’t work with her for some unknown reason, but she was on her own path of healing. Memories that were fake to begin with were slowly being washed from her so she could focus on that healing.
Sleep pulled at him, and his mind returned to the other world again. What if believing in another world was like believing in religion? The thought got him thinking about Rachelle’s Sunday excursions to the church. He’d never gone, but maybe he should. She always returned with a smile. It was the music, she said. That and seeing other people looking beyond themselves to something greater. God. She said she’d always had a deep faith in God, and she was working through that somehow.
Good for her. She was so beautiful. Such a gentle and bright spirit. So loving and smart. Maybe he should go with her. Maybe it would do him some good too . . .
Those were the last thoughts that crossed David’s mind before he fell asleep and opened his eyes in another world.
He was on the ground. Someone had just kicked him. He grunted and tried to get up, but his hands were chained behind his back.
A familiar panic coursed through his veins. He’d been here, crossing the desert with the one called Marsuuv, who was Vlad Smith. They had Rachelle. Dear God . . .
“Cover his head.”
Someone shoved a hood over his head and hauled him to his feet.
“Bring him.”
VLAD SMITH peered through the open cell door, studying the small form sleeping dreamlessly in the stone hole. The guard stood behind him, holding a torch in one hand and the father’s restraints in the other. He’d taken the liberty of placing a hood over David’s head. No need for a commotion before its appointed time.
Looking at her frail form, he knew that commotion would be significant. Wonder filled him to think that this woman curled up in a filthy, tattered tunic—black hair disheveled, skin bruised—presented the greatest risk to the shadow, excepting Justin himself.
He stepped up to the cell. Wrapped his fingers around one of the iron bars. Was it wonder or fear he felt? He could hardly tell the difference anymore. Because there was no difference to him. He could only feel fear, regardless of what he called it or how he pretended to be.
Her chest slowly rose and fell with shallow breathing. Her eyes were no longer blind, he knew that. She’d brought the sky down in Eden and gained the Third Seal. All three were there, on her bare shoulder.
White. Green. Black.
Seeing them now, he took a calming breath. He couldn’t fathom how the world would be if they all discovered who they were. But it wasn’t going to happen.
Here lay the 49th Mystic in all her puny glory. That a single human could cause such a disturbance in the valley of shadow made him ill. He’d given so many years of his life in the other world, preparing. All was in order there, waiting for his return to end what he’d started.
And yet . . . three seals. If she found a way to recover her strength there, in the other world, despite all of his preparations . . .
A chill washed down his back.
“Set the torch.”
He heard the guard maneuver the torch into its bracket on the wall.
“Leave us.”
“Sire . . .”
“Now!”
A beat.
“As you wish.”
He didn’t bother turning as the guard’s footfalls retreated down the stone passage. Behind him, David’s breathing was labored under his hood. Before him, the girl’s breath came easy in deep sleep. That would now change.
“Stay where you are, David.”
He stepped into the chamber, withdrew the twine and muzzle from his jacket pocket, and lowered himself to one knee beside her head. Here she lay cradled in peace, totally ignorant of the violence coming to both worlds because of her.
Vlad slipped one end of the twine around her neck, then slowly eased the mouthpiece over her lips. With sudden force he pulled the muzzle tight, swept her arms down behind her back, and cinched the noose at the other end of the twine tight around her wrists.
She jerked, eyes wide in the torchlight, struggling. He would have relished the opportunity to have a conversation with her, but he couldn’t risk her talking, plying her father with reason.
The 49th had evidently recognized him and was jerking around in panic, screaming through her muzzle.
“Now, now, Rachelle. It’s pointless.”
The father, recognizing his daughter’s cry, began to holler as best he could through his gag. It was all a bit pathetic sounding, daughter and father screaming. She didn’t even know who the hooded man outside her cell was yet.
Vlad slammed her up against the side wall, fed the rope through the bars behind her, and cinched the bonds tight. Then a second rope, this one binding her neck to the bars.
He stepped back, satisfied. She calmed, knowing well that there was no escape, but staring at him in raw terror.
“There we go.” David was still trying to scream. “Shut up, David!” He did not.
To the 49th: “Did you miss me? You didn’t think this was over, did you? No, no, my little peach cobbler. I promised to blind you again and again, and I’m going to blind you permanently, right here, unless Daddy saves you.”
Her eyes shifted to her hooded father.
“Do you like my gift? I’ll give you a better view, yes?”
Vlad retreated from the cell, hauled the father over to the cell door, and chained him to the bars. “So you don’t do anything stupid.” He jerked off the man’s hood.
The moment the father laid eyes on the daughter, both disintegrated into a pitiful display of tears and desperate, muted cries.
“Okay, I think that should do it.”
Vlad crossed to the 49th and shoved the hood over her head. Nonverbal communication between the pair no longer served him. He pulled the twine around her neck tighter, so she could barely breathe.
“See how your daughter struggles, David?” He stepped in front of the father and lowered his voice for him alone. “Thing of it is, this is all just a dream. A test of sorts to see how much you love her. That’s why you’ve joined her nightmares. You remember all those nightmares, don’t you, David? This world isn’t even real.”
The man’s bloodshot eyes strained to see the 49th over Vlad’s shoulder.
He grabbed the man by his neck, lifted him clear off his feet so that the chain was stretched tight, and shoved him against the wall. “Eyes on me, David. I need your full attention.”
A quick, desperate nod.
He set the man back down.
Leaning in: “Now, there’s only one way she lives more than a few minutes. And if she dies, I’m going to keep you alive with her dead body for a long time, so you can remember what you failed to do.”
He withdrew the same Book of History David had previously used to return him to this plane. Also, a pen. Only humans could write their history, or Vlad would have used the book himself. And only the 49th or a human who’d traveled through the books before could activate them.
The 49th would never write Vlad back to Earth.
But after five days of considerable stress, the father was hanging on to his sanity by a thread.
“These are the words you will write into this book to save your daughter. I’ve written them on a piece of paper here.” He showed him the slip of paper tucked into the cover. “‘Marsuuv to Earth with his legion in one minute.’ Only that, exactly that, yes? Simple. Write it and I’ll be gone to leave you with your daughter. At least you’ll both be alive and together. And I’ll be forever gone, because there’s no book there to send me back.”
The 49th was standing on her toes so she could breathe. Sobbing quietly.
He shoved the man down to his knees, spread the book open on the ground, and pressed the pen into his trembling fingers.
“I’m going to count to three, one for each seal on her arm. Nod so I know you’ve understood my instruction.”
He nodded, frantic.
“Good.” Vlad palmed his knife, crossed to the 49th, and pressed the blade against her neck. “One . . .”
The man bowed over the book, writing so furiously that Vlad wondered if he might write the wrong thing.
“Two . . .”
But it was the intention behind the writing, not the actual words, that mattered.
David dropped the pen and shoved the book toward Vlad. The torchlight showed the writing on the page—messy but readable.
Vlad stepped away from the 49th, surprised by the simplicity of it all. Damage done. Game over. At least for the next minute.
David knelt, sobbing as his emotions overwhelmed his body.
“There, there, it’s okay.” He walked to the man. “Simple, right? It’s all over now.”
David remained on his knees, bowed over, rocking.
Vlad’s legion was six. And those six could do more than a thousand lesser beings. He withdrew a vial of Shataiki blood from his inner pocket and looked at its contents.
“Again and again, 49th,” he muttered to himself. “Again and again.”
He opened the vial, jerked the man’s head back, and shoved the bottle between his lips. Half the contents . . . Enough to kill his body within ten seconds.
David gasped; his body began to shake.
Deed done, Vlad straightened and tossed the vial to one side, where it landed and shattered. It would have been easier to just slit the man’s throat, but Vlad needed his death to remain a mystery in that other world. If he cut his throat here, his throat would be cut there.
David quieted and slumped over like a toy doll switched off. Dead here, dead there.
The 49th must have figured out what was happening, because she uttered a deep, gut-wrenching sob under her hood. Unfortunately, she wasn’t dreaming in the other world, so she wouldn’t recall any of these details when she awoke there. Pity.
The book and all those like it in his possession would be left behind when he vanished from this world. Unlike humans, he couldn’t coexist in both places, and the book only traveled with their kind.
He straightened his coat, took a deep breath, and nodded at the 49th strapped to the cell bars. “See you on the other side, 49th.”
The world began to fade.