Darklands

I tucked the InDetect inside my sweater. Holding my pistol ready, I ran over and pushed open the door.



On the other side was nothing but blue sky.



I teetered on the threshold, then threw myself back a step. My heart pounded as I realized how close I’d come to running through that doorway into empty air.



In dreams, the dreamer can’t die. But I sure as hell could. When I entered a dreamscape, I was there physically. A demon, a gunshot, an explosion, a zillion-story fall from a crazy building—anything like that could kill me for real.



I panted, hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath and calm my hyperactive pulse.



Then something slammed into me from behind, and I plummeted into the void.



7



SHAPESHIFT! MY TERRIFIED BRAIN SCREAMED.



The gun flew from my hand. My pinwheeling arms began to elongate and sprout feathers. Energy built up around me.



No. The thought pushed its way through my panic. Not in a dream. I forced my arms to keep their shape. Don’t change shape in someone else’s dream—it was the first thing Mab taught me about fighting dream-demons. The consequences could be disastrous. I could end up trapped in here forever, my physical body slowly absorbed into Phyllis’s dreamscape. And that would be worse than dying.



Wind blasted my face as I hurtled through the air. I wiped the water from my eyes and squinted. No ground rushed up to meet me. I was falling, but I fell through endless space.



My stomach was in my throat. My fingers and toes twitched for something to grab hold of. But at least I wasn’t about to slam into some solid surface at a hundred miles an hour.



Think, Vicky. My body still wanted to become a bird and use the air to hold itself up. But that wouldn’t work, I reminded myself; not in a dream. During a shift, the animal brain takes over, and the shift can last for hours. Even if I could find the dream portal and remember what it was, I couldn’t speak the password that would let me through. If Phyllis woke up while I was in bird form, the portal would close and I’d dissolve into her dreams. No, the way to get out of here wasn’t by changing myself. I’d have to manipulate Phyllis’s dreamscape.



Not that I had a lot to work with. To my left, the building I’d been pushed from flashed by. All its doors were closed. There were no knobs, nothing to grab and stop my fall. Reaching forward, I changed my position and dived straight for one. I braced for impact but bounced off it like it was made of rubber. I tried again. This time I shouted, “Open!” right before I hit. No luck. I bounced back into the sky, still falling.



I glanced downward. Still no sign of the ground.



Okay, there were other opening spells and commands. I’d try “open sesame” next.



I angled myself to take another dive when a shadow fell over me. Something grabbed my waist.



Oof! The air whooshed out of my lungs as my fall suddenly stopped.



Inside my sweater, the InDetect clicked to life. The arms that held my waist were scaly and slimy. I cocked my head upward and saw leathery wings and a hideous, fanged face.



I’d come here to catch Phyllis’s demons. Now, one of them had caught me.



The demon clutched me to its chest. When it saw me looking, it snarled and dug in its talons. It flapped its wings, and we moved upward in a wide, slow spiral.



High above us, the black-painted door hung open. We seemed to be heading for it. Probably the Drude wanted solid ground under its feet before it tore off my head and drank my blood.



My pistol was gone, but I still had several knives strapped to my body. I reached toward the sheath I wore on my hip. As soon as this demon landed, I’d bury eight inches of bronze in its gut.



The demon sensed my movement. With a nasty laugh, it pinned my arms against my sides. Holding me with its left arm, it frisked me with its right hand. One by one, it plucked my daggers from their sheaths and threw them into the void.



So much for that idea.



I tried wishing for a weapon—sometimes that works in dreams—but nothing materialized. And we were almost up to the black door.



I had one last, desperate idea. My weapons were gone, but I still had some bronze.



My right hand was pressed against the front pocket of my jeans, the pocket that held my spare clip of bronze bullets. The way my hand covered the magazine, the demon had missed it while frisking me.



Moving as unobtrusively as possible, I worked the magazine from my pocket. My fingers found the groove at its top, and I thumbed out the first bullet of the clip. Clutching it with three fingers, I removed another, then let the magazine drop. I passed a bullet into my left hand and clenched the two bullets tightly, one in each fist.



We’d ascended higher than the open door. I could see it below us, about fifty yards away. The demon dived toward it, folding its wings at the last moment to get through the doorway.



As soon as we touched the floor, I was ready. I wrenched out of the Drude’s grasp, spun around, and shoved both bullets up its nose.



The demon’s yellow eyes squinted in puzzlement, then opened wide. The skin of its face bubbled. It clawed at its nostrils as its nose collapsed and the bullets went deeper into its head. Sulfurous smoke billowed as it staggered backward toward the open door. I slammed both hands into its chest, pushing it through. I managed to shut the door seconds before the demon’s head exploded with a thunderous boom. Chunks of flesh and bone slapped against the door.



My legs were shaky on the solid floor. My knees buckled, and I sat down hard. I stayed that way for a couple of minutes, enjoying the feeling of blessed stillness, as my heartbeat slowed to normal. No falling. No flying. Just sitting.



But I couldn’t sit here forever. My watch told me that more than five hours had passed since I entered Phyllis’s dreamscape. Time passes differently in dreams, so it wasn’t surprising that the first ten minutes had dragged on like centuries, then the next several hours zipped by in mere minutes. I was running short on time. I needed to find my way back to the dream portal and return to the real world.



As soon as I thought about the portal, I saw it in front of me. I love when that happens in dreams. Its beam sparkled like an oasis after a long crawl across the desert. Beside it, the fog that had followed me through the building billowed and swirled.



I stood—my legs felt more steady now—and went over to the portal. I was more than ready to leave this dreamscape. Speaking the password, I stepped into the beam.



Nothing happened.



I tried again, pronouncing each syllable precisely. Colored lights shimmered around me, but I didn’t get that fizzy feeling of dissolving into them.



I stepped back and examined the beam. Something was wrong. The colors were off. This wasn’t the portal I’d used to step into Phyllis’s dreamscape from her bedroom. It was probably a simple dream image created by her subconscious.



I hate when that happens in dreams.



But could it be a real portal? It seemed likely that the guy who’d stuffed that demon into his sack was the same person who was making Boston’s demons disappear. To get into people’s dreams, he must have his own dream portal generator. So who was he? And why on earth was he collecting other people’s personal demons?



Before I could pursue that line of thought, the portal started buzzing. It brightened, its colors vibrated faster. A silhouette appeared in the beam. Someone was entering Phyllis’s dream. Someone tall—and carrying a very big gun.



I was unarmed, and that gun didn’t exactly look friendly. I turned my head, trying to find an exit, but the room had changed. The hallway that had brought me here was gone. Except for the black-painted door that led to the outside, all the walls were blank. There was no place to hide. I was trapped.



The silhouette grew more solid.



I stepped back. Fog swirled up around me. I moved deeper into the fog, until I could no longer see the portal. Whoever was entering, if I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me. Or so I hoped.



The fog was so thick I literally couldn’t see my own hand when I held it an inch in front of my face. It cloyed like cotton in my nose and lungs, making breathing difficult. I couldn’t walk forward to face whoever had come through that portal, but I couldn’t stay here and suffocate, either.



The fog had followed me all through the building. Maybe I could step out of it and be back where I started. I pictured my entry point: the white tile floor, the harsh lighting, the red-brown doors. Most of all, the sparkling beam of the dream portal, its colors keyed to Phyllis’s bedroom. In my mind’s eye, the beam was to my right, as though I’d stepped through it only a moment ago, its colors moving in a kaleidoscope of shifting patterns. I imagined myself in that hallway, making the image real. When I moved out of the fog, I told myself, I’d be there.



I strode forward, my boots clicking on the tile floor, not letting myself think about the second portal and its threatening silhouette. The fog thinned, caressing my hair and skin with wispy fingers as I departed its grasp. I was back where I’d started, in an endless hallway lined with red-brown doors. To my right, the dream portal shimmered and glowed. There was no silhouette, and the colors looked right this time. I allowed myself a moment to sag against the wall. But the fog swirled behind me, and who knew what might emerge from it, as I had a minute ago?



Speaking the password, I stepped through the beam and back into the real world.



PHYLLIS’S KITCHEN WAS THE SORT OF GRANDMOTHERLY place that should always smell like gingerbread. Red-and-white-checked curtains framed the window over the sink. Between the tall wooden cabinets hung plaques with sayings like BLESS THIS KITCHEN and RECIPE FOR FRIENDSHIP. An oval braided rug in shades of blue and brown warmed the yellow linoleum floor. There was even a teddy bear–shaped cookie jar sitting chubbily on the counter.



I sat at the kitchen table, a glass of cool tap water in my hand, my third since I’d exited Phyllis’s dreamscape. My throat was dry, and I was still coughing up cottony puffs of fog. Pookie rubbed against my legs, his purr rumbling like a diesel engine. Phyllis was asleep upstairs. After exiting her dreamscape, I’d checked her vital signs and they were fine—better than mine, probably. Now I was waiting for her to wake up.