The people in the beds thrashed in their sleep, all of them opening their mouths to let out soundless screams. As if the silence carried their life, like a cat stealing a baby’s breath, they weakened as they cried out.
Harried, faceless medical workers kept crashing by me until I realized I was shouting, too, my hands trembling as I stretched them out toward the agitated sleepers. My protests went unheard, caught in my mind:
Bradley Holliday appeared in the middle of the hall in front of me, holding a patient chart on a clipboard and a distasteful expression on his mouth. “You don’t belong here. Leave now.” He looked and spoke directly to me, so unexpectedly I nearly glanced around to see who was behind me. “I’m talking to you,” he snapped. “Joanne Walker, police officer. This is a hospital. You don’t belong here.”
It was like his words were an eraser, sweeping at me with wide strokes that wiped me away. I leaned forward against the urge to disappear, shaking my head. “But I can help.”
“How?” he demanded, encompassing a thousand hospital beds in one wave of his clipboard. “What do you think you can do that all these doctors can’t?”
Uncertainty washed through me, since I hadn’t been that much use so far. “I—”
“You see?” He put on a very good sneer, the sort my younger self would have tried to emulate, and flapped a hand at me. “You don’t belong. Leave now.”
“But I’ve done okay,” I whispered. “I got Mel to not drain herself fighting this thing. Begochidi. I kept Gary awake. I got Begochidi off Mark’s back.” Even as I made the argument it felt hollow to me. Too many people had fallen asleep, their strength drained to bring a god back to waking. I hadn’t done enough to keep Morrison awake.
The flickering white light closed down to a pinpoint and left me in darkness for just long enough to realize it was happening, then came up again inside a hospital room whose four walls were as solid as reality. Morrison lay resting on the bed there, vague figures holding shape in the background. Billy and Melinda, sharing a room with the captain. But they weren’t what had called me to this space of the dreamworld.
A shield, glittering blue and silver, spun over Morrison’s skin. When I reached out to touch his shoulder, that shield danced up my fingers, becoming one again with its originator. “I can’t fight, boss,” I heard myself say. “Not with you in here like this. I’ve got you all mixed up with me. Even Begochidi’s nice side went after you when I opened up.” I sat down on the edge of his bed, folding his hand in both of mine. What the hell. It was a dream, right? With him so still and asleep, I didn’t expect his fingers to be warm, but mine felt icy, wrapped around his. “I wish you’d kept the topaz. I wish you hadn’t given it to Barbara.” That seemed the greater insult, all things considered. Not just because I defined her as some kind of rival in my little world, but because I was half afraid gifting her with it would ruin any protection all of it offered. It didn’t seem to work that way, but the fear was there regardless.
The fact that boys weren’t supposed to go around giving girls gifts other girls had given them was, if not beside the point, at least a heartache I didn’t want to dwell on. Morrison hadn’t considered the topaz a gift, anyway. More like a burden.
Darkness fluttered through the room, a whisper of silence like feathers on the air. I closed my eyes, lowering my head toward my hands tangled with Morrison’s. Guess I shouldn’t have said Begochidi’s name out loud, though now that I thought about it, that was pretty obvious. Nothing like sending up a beacon to the bad guys saying
I could feel, though, the protective amulets I carried. I could feel the connection of three points to protect my body and spirit, and the fourth, the weapon at my hip. I didn’t need to look to see it there, though I hadn’t noticed its weight here in the Land of Nod. I was armored, ready for battle. My weakness lay in Morrison, sleeping beneath the shield of my making.
The funny thing was, I thought maybe my strength lay there, too. “C’mon, Cap. You’ve got to wake up. I need you to be safe so I can do what it takes to stop this sickness.” I poured a little more into the shielding, looking for the weak point that allowed Begochidi to keep my boss asleep, trying not to invade his psyche while I did it. Power sparked against my skin, running under it like silver-shot blood, until I found the one narrow fissure I hadn’t closed off.
The Dead Zone lay on one side of that fissure, black starry eternity less a threat than a fact. I could clip the thread Begochidi held into Morrison’s heart, but it would change sleep into death.
On the other side lay me. My power. My magic and my healing skill. Life, which struck me as not a little ironic. And suddenly it was very clear what I needed to do, and I felt foolish for not having seen it before.
All I needed to do, as it were, was change drivers. It was one of those film stunts nobody ever needs to do in real life, clambering awkwardly from the passenger seat into the driver’s seat without ever letting the vehicle lose power. Usually it meant dodging bullets and firing guns at the same time, and if you were lucky, you got to jump a sixty-foot gap in the bridge ten seconds after you made the switch.
That, right down to the bridge jump, struck me as an alarmingly good analogy for the situation. I gave myself a heartbeat to wonder if Petite could make that kind of jump, then put my faith in her solid steel soul and let my dreaming consciousness slide under Morrison’s skin.
I had never tried to be aware of a body without being aware of the person residing within it before. Snooping was bad enough. Snooping on Morrison was beyond the pale. I thought maybe I could slither along the surface and cut into that drainage point without going deeper.
I should have known better. It was his life force—his soul—that was at risk here, and that sort of brought me to his garden whether I wanted it to or not. It wasn’t like trying to work with Billy, who had shields as solid as the day was long. The only reason Morrison wasn’t already hung out to dry was my shielding, and I could get through my own creation easily enough.
His inner world was nothing like I would have imagined. I’d have guessed his garden might be like mine, clean lines and short-cropped grass, with everything in its place. Hedges trimmed, pathways paved, all ordered and restrained.
The place I stepped into was breathtakingly tumultuous. I stood on a craggy ledge above evergreen wilderness, wind strong enough to push me off balance. The sky above whipped with clouds that did little to dim the brightness of the day, a hard white sun blazing heat down on me. The horizons were faint with blue mountains, snowcapped peaks catching the sun and setting it free again. The air buffeting me scented of the outdoors, earth and rain and green things.
A whitewater river crashed far below me, enough that its rush only came up on blasts of wind instead of being a constant. It bent into the woods, glimpses of it visible in low points where valleys spread with low-brush meadows instead of trees. Irritable squirrels chittered at me, a bird of prey circling overhead as I gaped. It wasn’t the lush jungle that Gary carried in him and it was further from my own small, ordered garden than I could have dreamed. It was a place of confidence and raw beauty and stark challenges.
And there was a darkness in it, behind me where bare, broken stone became pristine forest again. The sleeping god drew strength through that point of darkness, and that was where I had to go and cut him off. I took a deep breath of the clean air, feeling regret prick at my eyes, and turned away from the vista to face the woods.
Morrison was waiting there, behind me. He leaned against a spruce tree, its rough grey bark between his shoulderblades, with one foot kicked out and crossed over the other, hands in his pockets. Even in his own mind, he wore a button-down shirt, solid slate blue and soft-looking, like brushed flannel. He wore jeans, not slacks, and boots sturdy enough for hiking or working. I looked at my feet, wondering which of us would have the height advantage. He would: I wore tennies.
I looked up again to catch an indecipherable half smile on his mouth. His hair was as silvered in his self- perception as it was in reality. Either there was no vanity about graying, or he knew the look was attractive on him. He didn’t say anything, so I said the first thing that came to mind: “What’s the
Morrison actually laughed, glancing away as he let go a burst of chuckle, then pushed off the tree and walked up to me. He had the height advantage by at least an inch. I restrained the impulse to stand on my toes, or
