Hellforged

The shape came into focus. A huge, slimy blue face peered in through the windows, eyes flickering with fire. It was Difethwr, fifty times its normal size—like the Hellion had been working out with Godzilla’s personal trainer.

I aimed my pistol at the expanse between its eyes, but the weapon slid from my hand and thunked on the floor. The demon mark on my right forearm flared with burning pain, and I doubled over, clutching the arm to my chest. The mark made that arm—my fighting arm—powerless against the Hellion.

But I’d claimed the bond, damn it. I was supposed to be in control.

Nobody told my arm that. It ached and burned and was as useless as a slab of meat.

The laughter tapered to a chuckle.

I looked up. “You have no business here, Hellion.” The words came out in gasps.

“Thou art bound to us, daughter of Ceridwen.” The thing’s voice sounded like many distinct voices, from low rumbles to high-pitched screeches, speaking not quite in unison. “Wherever thou art, there may we also be.”

“I sent you to Hell. I expect you to stay there.”

Another laugh shook the room. “Where we are, there Hell is also. This is Hell, shapeshifter.”

I tried to conjure the Sword of Saint Michael, the only weapon that could kill a Hellion. If I could pull the sword into Tyler’s dream, I could end this. I closed my eyes and concentrated, curling the fingers of my left hand around the sword’s imagined grip, hefting it, feeling its weight. I pictured the blade bursting into flame at the Hellion’s presence. At the thought of flames, my demon mark’s scorching agony yanked me back to the here and now. My nostrils filled with the stench of my own flesh burning.

The sword would not come to me. I could not fight the Destroyer here.

Hunched over, I craned my neck to look up at the massive demon. “What do you want?”

Difethwr smiled, showing swordlike teeth. Flames jetted from its eyes and licked at the windows.

“Only to show how thy power grows thin. Foolish, thou hast believed thou couldst command us. Us, when we are legion!”

The pain in my arm blazed like smoldering coals stuffed under my skin. Gasping, dizzy with the effort, I forced myself to stand up straight. Thin or otherwise, I had power over this Hellion. My right arm hanging limp at my side, I pointed at the demon with my left.

“Out of my sight, Difethwr. Leave Tyler’s dreamscape and never return.”

The Hellion winced and shrank by a tenth of its inflated size. Its eye-flames fell back and died to a glow, but its expression remained amused. “We go. We have no interest in the dreams of this puny human. But know this, daughter of Ceridwen, the time of thy race is passing.” Difethwr was leaving now, its voice growing faint, its image wavering. “A new order rises. The Morfran emerges, and Uffern overspills its boundaries. The Brenin steps forward. Already it has begun, as thou hast witnessed.”

As I’d witnessed? “Wait! What are you talking about?”

The Hellion gave no answer. Its face wavered like a reflection on water, then rippled away to nothingness.

I SAT BY TYLER’S BED, WAITING FOR HIM TO WAKE UP. HE LAY on his stomach, head turned toward me. He breathed through his mouth, his face relaxed. I could almost picture Tyler as his mother must have seen him, thirty-some-odd years before, a baby sleeping peacefully in his crib. Before she dropped him on his head.

I was imagining the infant Tyler because I was trying not to think about what Difethwr had said. Not until I could talk it over with Aunt Mab—as I should have done months ago. I needed Mab’s perspective; it was fruitless to try to figure things out on my own.

But I couldn’t help it. For the hundredth time since I’d come back through the dream portal, I replayed what Difethwr had said. That it remained in Hell, even as it ran rampant through other people’s dreamscapes. That some kind of new order was taking over. Those Welsh-sounding words I didn’t understand. Morfran. Uffern. Brenin meant “king,” I thought, but I wasn’t sure. Despite all those summers in Wales, my Welsh didn’t go much beyond “Hello, where is the train station, please?” But Mab would know what it all meant.

Tyler murmured and turned over; the sleeping pill was wearing off. I put my boot against the bed and gave it a nudge, then another. Normally I let clients wake up on their own, but Tyler was close enough, and I needed to contact Mab. I kept nudging, until I was shaking the bed hard enough to register on the Richter scale.

“Whaaa—?” Tyler snorted and sat up, wide-eyed. The eyes narrowed as they focused on me. “What’d you do that for? That was the first good sleep I’ve had in weeks.”

“You, um, seemed restless.” Yeah, that’s how I’d play it. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t having another nightmare.”

“Well, I wasn’t. So go away.” He tried to flop over on his side.

“Since you’re awake,” I said brightly, as I jumped out of the chair and snapped on the overhead light, “I’ve got a few papers for you to sign. Strictly routine stuff. Then I’ll get out of here and you can sleep until noon.”

He groaned and pulled the pillow over his head. But he struggled back to a sitting position and heaved a put- upon sigh. “Okay. It’s weird having you sit in my bedroom while I sleep.”

It couldn’t be as weird as having me run around in his dreams, but I let it go. Tyler signed my standard forms: an acknowledgment I’d performed the agreed-upon service and another that he’d received post- extermination instructions. Then he wrote out my check. I filed everything away in my bag.

“Are we done?” His voice was sharp with irritation. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

“In a minute. What do you remember about your dreams tonight?”

He smiled. “I had a good dream. The board of directors voted to give me a promotion.”

“Anything else?”

He scrunched up his face in an effort to remember. “It started off like one of those nightmares I told you about. When I have to give a presentation and I show up nake—um, I mean unprepared. But it changed. Things got kind of fuzzy. Before I knew it, the presentation was over and everyone was congratulating me.”

“Then what?”

He considered, then shook his head. “That’s all. I don’t remember any other dreams. Just wonderful, peaceful blankness.”

Good. “Which you’d like to get back to now, I know. Fair enough. Pay attention to those instructions I gave you. Avoid spicy foods and sugar and take it easy for a few days.”

He nodded and lay down again, pulling the covers up to his chin as I turned off the bedroom light.

I closed the door to his condo and gave it a tug to make sure it was locked. Then I headed down the stairs. From Tyler’s perspective, tonight had been nothing more than a routine Drude extermination. Tyler hadn’t seen the Hellion that invaded his dreamscape. That was something. But Difethwr shouldn’t have been there at all. I still didn’t understand how it was getting into dreams.

But I would, I thought, leaving the stairwell and crossing the lobby. I pulled open the front door and stepped out into the cold, crystalline night. I hurried down the street toward where I’d parked the Jag. Finally, I was going to talk to Mab.

10

THE NEW NIGHT DOORMAN, A ZOMBIE, WAS ON DUTY. HE was average height and something more than average weight. The brass buttons on his uniform looked ready to pop at the next deep breath. As I walked through the doorway, he stashed a bag of potato chips in his desk.

I crossed the lobby, my boots clicking on the marble floor. “Hi,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m Vicky. I live on the fifth floor.”

Fingerprints smudged his horn-rimmed glasses. He wiped his hand on his jacket before he shook mine. “Victory Vaughn. Five-G, right? You room with Juliet Capulet?”

“That’s me.”