Dream Hunter (Bailey Spade 2)

There’s a reason I had to get it from the likes of Napoleon.

I catch Virgil’s gaze. “Can you get medical help for them?”

“It’s en route,” he replies.

Valerian leaps to his feet and looks around. “Where’s Wrakar?”

“Sleeping,” I say. “Hopefully.”

As one, we rush to the back of the morgue.

We find the necromancer on the floor, with Kit standing over him, sword ready for a strike.

“As soon as he’s in REM sleep, I’m going in,” I whisper to Valerian.

“Be careful,” he replies in a low voice. “Yours isn’t the only way to get the information we need.”

I nod and watch Wrakar’s closed eyes for any sign of movement. Then loud voices reach my ears.

It’s the emergency workers. They’ve come to take Ariel, Itzel, and Felix.

“Don’t worry. I’m blocking his sense of hearing.” Valerian nods at the necromancer.

Interesting. I didn’t realize his power worked even on sleeping people.

Valerian walks over to pick up Onassis’s gun, then approaches an EMT dwarf and chats with him for a few seconds. When he makes his way back, I see he’s also gotten himself a hygieia device.

“What was that about?” I ask, glancing at the medical workers.

Valerian hygieias me from head to toe. “I made sure they’d take Felix and company to the same hospital as your mother. And I told them to put the bills on my tab.”

If we were alone, I’d probably kiss him twice—once for the disinfecting and once more for taking care of my friends.

And then maybe a third time for being alive.

And a fourth, just for me.

“Can I at least chop off that finger now?” Kit pipes up.

I round on her. “Don’t. That would wake him up.”

She frowns. “He hurt my friends. He has to pay.”

“And he will pay,” Valerian says darkly. “Don’t you worry about that.”

After that, everyone watches the sleeping Wrakar in sullen silence until I feel that strange sensation again, the feeling of a nearby person going into REM sleep.

I check Wrakar’s eyes to be sure.

Yep. He’s dreaming.

Taking the hygieia device from Valerian, I clean a spot on the necromancer’s wrist and touch it with great reluctance.

A moment of concentration later, I’m in the dream world.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Well?” Pom demands. “How’s—”

“Still working on saving Gomorrah,” I reply and rush to the tower of sleepers.

Locating the necromancer, I breathe a sigh of relief when I see the lack of clouds over his head; the last thing I want is to deal with a necromancer’s trauma loop.

“Will this be scary?” Pom whispers.

I shrug, my gaze not leaving my target. “I’d sit this one out if I were you.”

“Okay, I will,” Pom says and starts his Cheshire cat disappearing act. When only his mouth is visible, he throws out, “Good luck.”

Inhaling a deep breath, I touch Wrakar’s wrist and dive in.

My surroundings are familiar—and make no sense.

Under my feet are the calm waters of an endless black ocean and above me are angry, fiery skies.

This looks just like the place where all the subdreams take place, except it can’t be: I double-checked to make sure Wrakar was in REM sleep, and more importantly, when inside subdreams, I never realize that’s what’s happening.

Why and how would Wrakar be dreaming of this? Did a dreamwalker describe subdreams to him? That would imply other dreamwalkers see the black ocean and fiery skies when they end up in subdreams, and I thought that was just my subconscious at work.

Something else occurs to me, something even stranger.

I don’t see Wrakar anywhere.

Odd. Can a dreamer be missing from his own dream?

Looking around, I realize the necromancer isn’t completely missing. As I concentrate, I feel a presence.

A presence that’s slowly congealing out of nothingness to stand on the ocean in front of me.

When I can make it out, I realize that he—or it—looks nothing like the necromancer, even one distorted by the most nightmarish imagination.

The creature is humanoid but taller than the biggest giant. Even without that size, it would be the most frightening thing I’ve ever gazed upon—yet paradoxically, I can’t explain what scares me about it so much. His face is beautiful, but in a terrible, overwhelming way.

If I had to pinpoint what makes it so, I’d say it’s those eyes. They make me think of black holes. Looking into them is like seeing every nightmare I’ve ever experienced. Like looking under a dark bed as a small child. Like licking the floor in a public bathroom. Like—

“Begone,” the creature booms, its melodious voice conjuring my every fear.

An image of my friends dying before reaching the hospital flits through my mind. Then one of Mom never waking up. Then—

“Begone!” the voice repeats, and just like that, I’m kicked out of the dream.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Where’s the bomb?” Valerian demands as soon as I come out of the trance.

I shake my head, my heart hammering in my chest as I back away from the necromancer and nearby bump into Virgil.