“Do you see how it is, human?” a raucous voice asked. “Do you see how you are being used?”
Weakly, Leah pried her eyes open. The demon’s features slowly came out of the darkness enveloping her. The solid, flat surface behind her told her that she was once more inside the chamber.
“You never left,” the demon barked. “Not physically. Only your thoughts. Only your fear. And you have spread it to all those people you know.”
The creature was unlike anything Leah had ever seen before. A segmented, dark green carapace covered the demon, and it gleamed wetly, as if it had just been polished with oil. The face was a narrow blade with bulging, bulbous eyes that gleamed orange. A cluster of antennae, at least a dozen stalks nearly two feet in length, sprouted from the top of its head and brushed its narrow shoulders.
The thing radiated fear. A massive cloud of the emotion slammed into Leah. Her gut reaction forced her to squirm back from it. The wall kept her from going anywhere. Unable to sit still, she kicked at the demon’s face.
It moved with incredible swiftness, shifting even as she started the kick. She kicked again and again, but only met defeat.
“You can’t touch me,” the demon taunted in that hoarse voice. “But I can touch you.” A six-fingered hand flicked out. Light flashed on the gleaming black talons.
Before Leah could move, one or more of the talons scored her face right above the eye the Templar surgeons had replaced. Blood wept into her eye and blinded her. Panic screamed through her when she thought it had taken her eye. She pressed back against the wall, dug her heels in as hard as she could, and created as much distance between the demon and herself as she could.
“We know you,” the demon said. “We know what you’re afraid of. We use your fear to awaken the fear inside your fellow humans. When you sleep, you work for us. So sleep. Sleep and dream the most horrible things so that you can take them into the minds of those who are with you.”
Despite her fear and the proximity of the demon, Leah’s eyes closed. She slept. And then she dreamed.
Timothy Robinson slept, and Leah slid into the twisted nightmares that had haunted the young man for the past three weeks. That night, he’d nearly died at the talons of a demon patrol. His team had been scouting, marking enemy targets, lurking in the shadows and trying to decide which of those targets were more important, more vulnerable.
They’d been found out by a Templar under the spell of a cursed weapon. Their intel had found out about such things, and even people among their organization sometimes fell prey to them.
Timothy was in his early twenties. When the invasion had come, he’d still been wet behind the ears, just recruited out of Sandhurst Academy. None of his training had prepared him to fight monsters, or the undead.
The Stalkers had erupted out of the darkness and dropped on him and his team. In seconds, the low rooftop where they’d set up their surveillance had turned into a bloody battlefield.
“Run!” Parker, the team leader, had cried.
Timothy had pulled up and run immediately. He laid down covering fire out of habit. In three seconds, five of his scout team were down. In real life, he’d been the only one to escape that rooftop that night, and that hadn’t been without cost.
In his nightmare, he didn’t get away.
As Leah watched, helpless to do anything, Timothy was brought down by the pack of Stalkers. One of the demons caught him by the ankle. He tripped and fell, managing to catch himself on one hand. He twisted and brought up the machine pistol. When the event had really happened, he’d filled the demon’s face with exploding bullets. Tonight, though, the pistol misfired.
Before he cleared the action, another Stalker leaped forward and seized his throat. Fangs passed through the protective armor with effort. It was even money whether the pressure would collapse his throat or the fangs would rip it out.
Timothy gagged and tried to draw a breath. Leah felt his fear and pain. She ran to his side and reached for the Stalker before she thought about what she was doing. Her hands passed through the demon.
“No!” Leah said, certain she was going to be forced to watch the young man die.
“Help!” Timothy croaked. He beat the demon with his fists. “It didn’t happen this way! I got away! I didn’t die! I didn’t die!” He jerked and fought.
In the next instant, Timothy woke in twisted sheets. He realized that he was in the barracks in the underground complex. He was safe. But his heartbeat felt as if his heart was going to explode at any second.
Leah stood at his bedside. Somehow the young man was still locked into the dream. She was still with him.
He drew the SRAC machine pistol hanging from his bed and leveled it at her. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know,” Leah answered. Even to her ears, her voice sounded like it came from a million miles away.
“Get out of my head,” Timothy ordered. “Take those bloody nightmares with you.”
Leah backed away. All around her, other men and women writhed in their beds. She felt the nightmares forming inside their minds.
Face pale and splotchy, Timothy climbed from the bed and kept his weapon trained on Leah. She knew it wouldn’t hurt her; she wasn’t really there. This was just another nightmare.
“You,” Timothy said. “You’re the one causing all of this.”
“No,” Leah said. “It’s not me.”
“I saw you in my dream.”
More people in the barracks came awake. They were lethargic, haunted by sleepless nights and past horrors. They looked at Timothy.
“You weren’t there,” Timothy said. “You weren’t there the
