The Dream Thief (9 page)

I had no doubt that fate would come for us, but in the end she comes for everybody, and when the time came I'd fight tooth and nail.

Right now I had far better things to do.

 

Thank you for purchasing
The Dream Thief
by Kerry Schafer! Keep reading to get more info on Kerry's books and read an excerpt from the third book in her exciting sci-fi/fantasy series,
The Dream Wars
.

 

The Dream Wars Series:

 

The Dream Runner

The Dream Thief

The Dream Wars

 

The Between Series:

Between

Wakeworld (Coming January 2014)

 

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, or visit her
web site
!

 

 

Chapter One

 

E
ven a perfect kiss
can't last forever.

Will and I stood in the field beside the barn, wrapped in an embrace that ought to have stopped time and saved the planet. He'd revived me from the dead. I'd given him back his music. These are not small things and you would think we'd earned the right to a reward.

A couple of minutes was all we got before my cell phone went off.

Ba dum ba dum. Badumbadumbadumbadumbadum.
Yeah, my ring tone is the theme from
Jaws
. It's appropriate, because when the phone rings it's nearly always the Dream Merchant, and therein lies danger.

"Let it ring," Will said, trapping me in the circle of his arms and stealing my breath with another kiss.

But then his cell joined mine. Just a straightforward ring for Will, no bells or whistles or trendy tune.

We clung together, trying to ignore the summons, but you can't ignore an entity who owns your soul. Not that I haven't tried a few times, but the Merchant always wins in the end. The noise intensified in a way I'm sure is technologically impossible, until our eardrums were fit to burst.

One last desperate embrace, and we gave in.

My phone was in the pocket of my jeans. By rights that phone should have been dead as a doornail. It was drenched in spilled memories, and as soon as I touched it a current of sensations zapped through me. Compared to the onslaught that had killed me less than an hour ago, this was nothing.

Will grabbed his phone at the same instant and we answered in stereo.

"Hello?"

As I listened to the Merchant, I watched Will's eyes darken, the curve of his lips straighten into an unyielding line. How she managed to talk to both of us at once I'll never know, but we hung up as we'd answered, as one. And stood in silence, avoiding each other's eyes, separated by the words we were not permitted to speak.

"Duty calls," I said, finally.

Will shrugged. "It's been ten years. What's another couple of hours?"

I wanted to shush him, to make him take the words back. It was too late, though, he'd already waved a red flag at fate with an invitation to come and get us. Might as well make the best of things.

"Meet you at the house after?"

He shook his head, and my heart twisted into a knot before he broke into an irrepressible grin.

"My tree," he said. "Bring sandwiches. After dinner, well—I always wanted to make love to you in a tree."

I stuck out my tongue, like I was ten and we were still pals instead of lovers. "Last one there is a rotten egg," I shouted, already running. "Let's get on with it."

 

 

I
hate hospitals.

Yeah, yeah, I know they are supposed to be places of healing and all that, but I bet more people die in hospitals than in establishments that are supposedly bad for your health. Like bars, for example. Or prisons. In the past I'd expended a lot of energy trying to avoid running dreams in the halls of death. Resistance always proved futile, and I'd learned it was better to buck up and get it over with. Especially now, when I was in a hurry to get back to Will.

The Sisters of Mercy Hospital was small as hospitals go, a modest two-story structure with lots of windows. Flowerbeds flanked a wide entryway paved with flagstones. There were wooden benches and even a small fountain. An old woman sat in a wheelchair, dozing in the sun, a hand-crocheted afghan spread across her lap. A kid burst out through the front doors, laughing, followed by what looked to be parents, holding hands and moving more slowly.

I was barely aware of them, busy fighting off an onslaught of bad memories.

Can't see much from my stretcher, only faces and sky and then a ceiling lined with fluorescent lights. I want to get up and run, anywhere. Away. My chest aches, every breath a sharp pain. Maybe it's the near drowning. Maybe it's my father's death and the rage that is already starting to build. Where is Will? I want him with me, I want to beat on him with my fists, I want…

Enough. The memories were always there, waiting, and life didn't stop because of them. Squashing them down, I made a dive for the front doors, which opened obligingly to let me enter. Once inside I stood still, looking around and waiting for activation of my homing signal. Normally when I go to pick up a dream I've got this built-in sense of where to go. Today, I wasn't feeling it.

To my right, just inside a wall of windows, two men sat in a waiting area. One flipped through a magazine, while the other dozed with his head tipped back at an awkward angle. A small desk provided sitting space for a blue haired lady who looked up at my approach and asked, "Can I help you, dearie?"

No harm in asking for a little help, given the circumstances. "I'm looking for Margerie James."

The smile wiped right off her face, like I'd opened a can of Erase a Smile, and her soft bottom lip actually quivered. "You must be one of the relatives from out of town. So sad. They're in 212. Just go on up the stairs, and then take a left."

After that, finding the room was a breeze. I walked past the nurse's station like I knew exactly what I was doing, and paused for just a minute outside the closed door to 212.

Margerie was an old fashioned sort of a name. Probably some dying senior citizen, looking to relive happier days. I could handle that.

Someday I'll learn that nothing is ever easy and stop setting myself up, because when I opened that door, I wasn't at all sure I could handle this assignment.

The boy lying motionless in the bed couldn't have been more than fourteen. His head was shaved and the bones of his skull showed through the fragile skin. I could barely detect the rise and fall of his chest beneath the sheet draping his thin body. Behind closed lids, his eyes moved from side to side as though he were dreaming.

A woman sat in a reclining chair beside him, a book open in her lap. Her eyes were on the boy, not the book, and when I opened the door she didn't even look up until I spoke her name.

"Margerie?"

She nodded, not even asking who I was.

Oh gods. She wasn't faring much better than the kid.

What I wanted to do was run, but I dragged a chair over from the other side of the room and sat down facing her, my insides tying themselves into knots of dread. Her eyes drifted back to the boy. Mine followed. His skin looked translucent, the blue veins visible and easily traced.

"They say he'll never wake," she said. "Do you think it's true?"

The kid looked like he was dying by inches, but I'm not a medical expert and my job was bad enough without throwing an opinion into the ring. I went for the direct approach.

"Margerie, I'm a dream runner. The Merchant sent me."

For the first time, animation came into her face. Her eyes went all glossy with tears and she clasped her hands together at her breast. "Oh, praise Jesus. I didn't know for sure if she was real. And she sent you to help us. A real live angel."

If I'm an angel, I'm the angel of destruction and disaster. When I show up, it's best to run for cover, because the gift you think I'm bringing is more than likely to be a curse. I took a deep breath and blew it all out in a way that would have made my long ago counselor proud. "Nope, not an angel, just a human being with a job to do."

"You're an angel to me."

They never listen. I always try. "Look—this dream thing isn't a miracle. There's a heavy price tag attached. Do you understand?"

Usually when I get this deep into trying to warn people I'm stopped by the equivalent of a shock collar that sends a warning jolt into my head. This time there was no pain, which worried me.

"You think the cost matters?" Margerie said. "Look at him. I'll give anything."

I was trying not to look, frankly. But as if the boy himself knew it was time to perform, his face distorted in a grimace and he began to thrash, his eyes darting from side to side. His lips parted in a wordless gurgle.

Margerie was out of the chair in a heartbeat, smoothing his forehead, murmuring soothing nonsense words.

"Should I get the nurse?"

"No need. It's just a seizure. They won't do anything."

Little by little the boy eased. His limbs stilled and his face went placid, only I swear I saw a tear roll down his cheek.

My own heartstrings had tangled into a giant knot and there was a lump in my throat. "I don't think there's a dream that will make up for what is happening to your son."

She ruffled up like a broody hen and I thought she was going to slap me. "You think I want it for myself? I want a dream for him. To give him in place of this nightmare he keeps having over and over."

"It doesn't work that way," I said.

She rounded on me, drawing herself up to full height with her hands on her hips. "Explain to me how it does work, then, Missy."

But I honestly was a little flummoxed. Nobody else in the history of my days as a runner had ever asked for a dream for somebody else.

"Well," I said, trying to draw out my thinking time before answering. "The rule is that if you make the request then you're the one that's read. The Dream Merchant concocts a dream for you out of the desire of your heart. You're going to end up with a dream meant for you, not him."

"So read him instead."

"It doesn't work that way. You're the one who asked. He's in no shape to sign a contract."

"He can't ask. I'm his mother, and I'm asking. Try."

"Look, you don't understand about the Merchant. She knows who she sent me to read. She'll know if I read somebody else. It won't work. It has to be this way."

But even as I said the words, I realized they weren't true. In the past there had always been an invisible control that guided my hands and my words, that made my head feel the pain of a thousand hammers when I tried to go off script. I'd sold my own soul to the Dream Merchant in exchange for a dream of revenge, and ever since I'd been bound to her service.

Today, everything felt different. I'd had to ask how to find the kid. It didn't hurt when I went off script with an explicit warning. I didn't understand why or what it meant, but for whatever reason, I was free to act on my own. So maybe I would read the kid after all. Chances were I'd pay later, but hey, if it brought these two a little happiness, I could put myself on the line.

And then the door opened and Will came in.

My heart went all mushy at sight of him, but at the same time I didn't want a witness to any sort of rule bending, even Will. Especially Will.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded.

He didn't answer—didn't even look in my direction—just crossed the room to the bed. His steps were jerky, his arms so ramrod stiff they didn't even swing. Without introducing himself to Margerie, without any of his easy charm or even an acknowledgement that he knew me, he bent down and laid his hands on either side of the kid's shaved head.

His behavior was downright spooky, and my heart started pounding so hard it threatened to jar my teeth and eyeballs out of their sockets.

Nothing happened.

Just as my heart settled down to normal, the kid's eyes rolled back in his head. His mouth opened and closed; his body twitched.

Margerie leaped up and clawed at Will's arms, trying to break his contact with her son, but he didn't even seem to see her. I was too frozen with shock to do anything except watch as the boy's jaw went slack and his eyes stopped moving.

I thought maybe he was dead, but then his chest rose and fell.

Will looked like he was going to be sick. There was a definite greenish cast to his skin. His lips were clamped tight; his eyes squinted half closed like he had a headache. His body moved normally, though, and there was no more of that weird robot thing. Without a word to anybody, he walked out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

"What was that?" Margerie asked, her eyes on the boy. He was still breathing and at first glance looked more peaceful, but there was a new emptiness about him I didn't like. I put my hand on his chest, which barely moved in slow shallow breaths. His heartbeat felt faint and far away.

"I'm not sure, but I'm going to go find out." All I could think about was Will, and the sick certainty that the Dream Merchant was behind his behavior. I needed to go after him, but I had a job to do.