The Ninth Nightmare

real Gordon Veitch, because Gordon Veitch is probably dead by now, but a nightmare of Gordon Veitch.’

‘A nightmare? That doesn’t make any sense at all. You’re tryin’ to tell me that he was only a dream?’

‘Maybe he was, maybe wasn’t. Another possibility is that he was somebody who was made up to look like Gordon Veitch. A copycat.’

Lincoln said, ‘What happened in that hotel room, believe me, that felt real. I don’t know how it could have been, but I’m lyin’ here right now with my back broke, and nothin’ comes much realer than that, does it?’

‘Whoever that man was, Lincoln, and whether he was real or not, we need your help to track him down and put a stop to what he’s doing.’

‘You’re kiddin’ me, right? Look at me, I can’t even get out of bed.’

Eulalie leaned forward so that her face was very close to his, almost as if she were going to kiss him on the lips. He could even see his own face reflected in her eyes. ‘I’m not Eulalie, Lincoln, even though I look like her. The reason I took on Eulalie’s appearance was because you know her and like her, and I needed to gain your trust as quickly as possible.’

‘You’re not Eulalie? Then who the hell are you?’

‘My name is Springer. I’m kind of a messenger, an envoy.’

‘Who for? DHL?’

Springer shook her dreadlocks. ‘I come from Ashapola, who is the spirit of faultless light and absolute purity.’

There was a very long pause. Lincoln didn’t know if he ought to snort or laugh or burst into tears. ‘You’re talkin’ about, like, God?’

‘Ashapola is known to many different people by many different names. But Ashapola is our guardian and our protector. Ashapola is all that stands between the human race and ultimate chaos.’

‘You’re not some hospital visitor, are you? Where you from, the Baptists or somethin’? You tryin’ to convert me?’

Springer smiled. ‘I don’t need to convert you, Lincoln. You are what you are. You’re descended from a long line of people who have the capability of entering the world of dreams and nightmares and fighting on the side of good. We call them Night Warriors. If you like, you’re one of Ashapola’s army.’

‘Say what? I wasn’t descended from no Night Warriors. My father was a jazz musician and my grandfather was a cook at The Whitney and my great-grandfather before him worked as a sweeper-upper in the Polish match factory.’

‘I know. But apart from being a cook, your grandfather Joseph was Zebenjo the Arrow-Storm. He was a Night Warrior who was capable of firing over two hundred arrows so fast that you couldn’t see them coming.’

‘Oh, right.’

Springer squeezed his left knee through the blankets.

‘Feel anything? Anything at all?’

Lincoln shook his head.

‘That’s because of your spinal injury. But that won’t affect your ability to become Zebenjo’Yyx, the grandson of the great Zebenjo, and fire arrows at the same devastating rate as Zebenjo did.’

‘Of course I will. Forget about the fact that I can’t sit up and I’ve never thrown anythin’ in my life more lethal than a frisbee. Lady — whoever you are — all of this sounds totally insane. It’s obvious that I’ve been hurt real bad. Maybe it happened for real or maybe I was havin’ some kind of trip. Maybe I was havin’ a nightmare. Maybe I’m still havin’ a nightmare, right now, and I’m beginnin’ to think that maybe I am. But, come on, what’s this arrow-shootin’ shit?’

Springer stayed where she was, leaning over him, so that he could feel her steady breathing on his cheek. In spite of himself, his testiness began to subside. There was something so attractive about her that he wished he had the strength to raise up his head just two or three inches more, and kiss her. Yet the attraction wasn’t so much sexual as spiritual. He suddenly felt that here was a woman who really understood him, all of his ambitions, all of his frustrations, all of his impatience, right down to the very core of his soul. She gave him a feeling of deep relief, as if he had been waiting for this moment of revelation all of his life. As if she had said to him, this is you, Lincoln. This is who you really are. No need for posturing. No need for swagger. This is you.

Springer reached across and picked up a hand mirror from the nightstand. She held it up so that Lincoln could see his own face in it.

‘You can’t stand up yet, so I can’t show you the way you’re going to look when you’re a Night Warrior. Not your whole armor, anyhow, head-to-toe, and all of your weapons. But this will be the face that you wear, when you enter other people’s dreams. This is the face that the enemies of Ashapola will see, and learn to fear.’

Lincoln looked up into the mirror, but all he could see was his usual face, with a crimson bruise over his left eyebrow, and a split in his upper lip.

‘So?’ he asked Springer. ‘What am I supposed to be lookin’ at?’

‘Zebenjo’Yyx, grandson of the great Zebenjo, the Arrow-Storm.’

‘Oh, of course. I can distinctly see the resemblance.’

‘Wait,’ Springer chided him. ‘Have patience.’

‘I need to see a doctor, lady. I need to see a doctor right now.’

‘You’re not hurting, are you?’

‘No. I’m not hurtin’ at all. I almost wish that I was. At least that would mean I could feel somethin’.’

He looked up into the hand mirror again, and when he did so, he said, ‘Shit!’ The face looking back at him was no longer his, but a tan leather mask, intricately decorated with scar patterns and diagonal lines of white paint. It was topped with braided knots of dry red hair, and its mouth was fixed in a ferocious scowl, with what looked like a mixed-up collection of human and animal teeth crammed into it.

He could see his eyes staring out of the mask, and he knew they were his, because they blinked whenever he blinked. But the mask itself was terrifying, like a ju-ju mask. His grandfather Joseph used to have one hanging on his front door, with bulging eyes and a red protruding tongue. He had told Lincoln that he had nailed it up there to scare away any bad spirits, but it had scared Lincoln, too, when he was little, and he had always run past it with his hands covering his eyes.

‘This is a trick, right?’ Lincoln asked Springer. ‘Some kind of optical illusion?’

‘No trick,’ Springer assured him. ‘This is the battle mask that Zebenjo’Yyx wears, whenever he goes to war. And you should see his amazing armor, and the weapons he carries. In fact you will.’

She reached down and picked up a small alligator-skin purse. She opened it up and took out a folded sheet of paper. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘This is the invocation that Night Warriors always have to say before they go to sleep at night. Once you have spoken these words, the spirit of Ashapola will visit you in your dreams and invest you with all of the equipment and protection that you require.’

‘Lady—’ said Lincoln. ‘Do you really expect me to believe any of this?’

‘Do you believe what happened to you at the Griffin House Hotel?’

‘I believe I saw it, for sure. But I don’t necessarily believe that it really happened for real. You can go to the desert, can’t you, and see lakes, but there’s no lakes there at all, only sand. You wouldn’t get your feet wet.’

‘So how did you fall out of a ground-level window and break your spine?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe I just fell awkward. I don’t even want to think about it.’

‘But you have to think about it, Lincoln, because we need you, desperately, and we need you now.’

Lincoln turned his head away and stared at the yellow seabirds on the curtains. ‘I’m goin’ crazy,’ he said. ‘I’ve lost it. I’ve gone nuts. Admit it — tell me that this is a nuthouse.’

‘You’re not crazy, Lincoln, and tonight you’ll find that out for yourself. But you have to promise me that you’ll repeat the invocation. Look — I’m tucking it under the pillow, right here.’

‘What does it say?’

Springer unfolded it. ‘“Now, when the face of the world is hidden in darkness, let us be conveyed to the place of our meeting, armed and armored; and let us be nourished by the power that is dedicated to the cleaving of