The Ninth Nightmare

TWENTY-ONE Hot Pursuit

It took Charlie over an hour and a half to check every room on the third, fourth and fifth floors. After he had visited the last of them, he called Walter to see if he had found anything suspicious. When he got through to Walter’s cellphone service, however, an automated voice insisted that there was no such number.

He called Walter again and again, but each time he had the same response. The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and try again. In the end he took the elevator up to the seventh floor and walked up and down every corridor. No Walter anywhere.

He knocked on the door of one room after another, asking the guests if they had been visited by a well-built detective in a red-and-green plaid coat. All of them said yes, they had. ‘He told us he was looking for signs of disturbance. Whatever that meant.’

If a room was unoccupied, he used his pass key to open it up. In two of them, he came across people asleep, but there was no sign of Walter in any of them. When he looked into Room 702, however, he found that the bedside lamps were both lit, and that the bedcover was rucked up, as if somebody had been lying on top of it.

He circled slowly around the room. Apart from the bedside lamps and the rumpled bedcover, there was no other evidence that anybody had been here, yet Charlie felt distinctly unsettled. He tried calling Walter’s cellphone again, but there was still no response.

He sat down on the end of the bed and called headquarters. ‘I know this sounds crazy, but I’ve lost Wisocky. Yes. I know. But we were searching the Griffin House Hotel and he’s vanished into thin air. His cellphone’s out of service and I have absolutely no idea where he is. I’m going to need backup to look for him.’

He snapped his cellphone shut and sat still for a moment, trying to work out what was disturbing him. He sniffed, and then he realized what it was. The faintest smell of Walter’s aftershave, Tom F Extreme. He sniffed again, but the smell had gone. Maybe he had imagined it. But he still had the feeling that something highly stressful had happened in this room; something so stressful that it had left a resonance, like the lingering resonance of a violin concerto, even after the very last screeching note has been played.

Kieran and Kiera came out of the elevator into the lobby. John gave them a wave with his rolled-up newspaper and called out, ‘Man, am I pleased to see you two! I thought I was going to die of malnutrition.’

Kieran said, ‘We looked pretty much everywhere. Nothing. I don’t think Mago Verde’s going to show.’

‘Springer seems convinced that he will,’ said Kiera.

John eased himself out of his armchair. ‘I’m never too sure about Springer. Sometimes he seems to know everything and at other times he seems to know squat.’

‘I can’t really work out who he is,’ said Kiera.

John sniffed. ‘Who he is? I’d like to know what he is. Once or twice he’s showed up and he isn’t even a he, he’s a she. Anyhow — listen, you guys, I’m going to get myself some chow before the restaurant closes. Have a boring time, won’t you? I sure did. Do you want to read my Baton Rouge Advocate?’

He turned around, and he was just about to make his way to the restaurant when the elevator doors opened and Kieran saw Mago Verde step out, wearing his shabby black suit and his greasy green grin.

‘Shit!’ he said. ‘He’s here! Mago Verde! Look!’

Kiera said, ‘Oh my God, yes! But where’s he going?’

John spun around and around. ‘Where? Where is he? I don’t see him!’

‘He’s crossing the lobby in front of the reception desk! He’s just passing the portrait of that sour-faced old man!’

‘I don’t see him! Why don’t I see him? I can usually see Dreads, but I don’t see him at all!’

‘But where’s he going?’ Kiera repeated. ‘I thought he was supposed to be coming to the hotel to dream about his last victim. But he’s leaving. There — he’s walking out through the front door. There — he’s gone.’

John thought for a moment, and then he said, ‘I think I know why he’s going. He’s going because he’s done the dirty deed already. He’s caught his victim, and mutilated her, and he’s dreamed her into the hotel walls. Now he’s gone off to find somebody who’s dreaming about Brother Albrecht’s circus — anybody. Then he can do the same as we do, and step inside their dream, and he’ll be back there — back at the freak show.’

‘But what about his victim?’ asked Kiera. ‘If she’s here, inside of the walls, how is going to take her to Brother Albrecht?’

‘I don’t know for sure,’ John told her. ‘But I guess that this hotel is like some kind of way through to the dream world — a gateway. A normal person wouldn’t be able to step into somebody else’s dream the way that we do, or the way that Dreads like Mago Verde can. Once Mago Verde is back in Brother Albrecht’s dream, he must have a way of arranging for his victims to follow him there.’

‘What the hell are we going to do now?’ said Kieran. ‘If he’s taken his ninth sacrifice already, and he’s on his way back to the circus—’

‘You heard what Springer said. We’ll have to go after him, and try to catch up with him before he manages to deliver his victim to Brother Albrecht. Otherwise, all hell is going to bust loose.’

They took the elevator back up to Rhodajane’s room. Springer was still there, watching the fire escapes. He looked sicker and grayer and more hunched-up than ever.

Springer said, ‘What’s happened? Have you seen Mago Verde?’

Kieran nodded. ‘He came out of the elevator and he left the hotel like he was in a hurry. Our guess is that he’s found a ninth victim already.’

‘But you didn’t see him enter the hotel?’

‘I don’t know why,’ said John. ‘I can only think that his real self is dead. The twins here, they can see dead people, but I can’t.’

‘You need to get after him right now,’ said Springer.

‘You look like shit,’ John told him. ‘Why couldn’t you choose somebody healthier than Deano to impersonate?’

‘Deano was your closest friend, wasn’t he?’

‘Sure, but I had plenty of other friends who were much fitter than him. My old buddy from my restaurant-inspecting days, the late lamented Laurent Pannequin — he was fit as a flea. He could run a half marathon and then sing three verses of Jolie Blonde without even pausing for breath.’

‘The late lamented Laurent Pannequin?’ asked Kieran. ‘What happened to him?’

‘Choked on a fish bone at The Bonefish Grill. Tragic. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.’

‘Listen, we don’t have time for this,’ said Springer. ‘If you can all recite the invocation to Ashapola and get yourselves to sleep, I’ll get in touch with Katie and Lincoln, and try to locate somebody who’s dreaming about Brother Albrecht’s circus.’

With that, he walked out of Rhodajane’s room, leaving the door open behind him. Kieran and Kiera followed him, but when they stepped out into the corridor, they found that there was nobody there, and that Springer had disappeared.

‘I think John was right,’ said Kiera, as they jogged along the corridor to the elevators. ‘Springer isn’t a who, he’s definitely a what.’

‘If you ask me,’ said Kieran, ‘he’s more of a how.’

Katie was almost asleep when she felt somebody shaking her shoulder. She turned over and opened her eyes. To her surprise, it was Davina, one of her old school friends from Beach High. Davina had long dark hair and dark wide-apart eyes and very pale skin.

‘Davina?’ she said. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

Davina put her finger to her lips. ‘I’m not Davina. I’m Springer. But I didn’t think it appropriate to come into your bedroom as Mr Flight, or any other mister for that matter.’

‘What do you want, Springer? It’s past ten thirty!’

‘I know. But we believe that Mago Verde took his ninth victim this evening and we need to get after him. Now.’

‘Now? You have to be kidding me! I’m tired enough from last night!’

‘We don’t have any choice, Katie. If Brother Albrecht gets his ninth sacrifice, that will be the end of everything as we know it.’

Katie sat up. ‘OK. OK, I’ll do it. Where’s your dreamer?’

‘Cleveland. He’s a music promoter called Mickey Veralnik. He’s been trying to get Kiera on his books for over a year, as a solo act. It could be that he has subliminally sensed her Night Warrior personality. That can happen sometimes, especially when somebody is in love with a Night Warrior, or obsessed by them. Night Warriors have a vibrancy about them which few ordinary people possess. Veralnik might be dreaming about Brother Albrecht’s circus because he subconsciously expects to find her there.’

‘All right,’ said Katie. ‘Just tell me where he is.’

‘The Cleveland Marriott Downtown. Room one-oh-three-three. He has had a lot to drink this evening so there isn’t much chance of him waking up any time soon.’

Katie lay back on the pillow. She could feel her heart beating hard. She knew that tonight was going to be critical, and that it would be much more dangerous than last night. Brother Albrecht and his freaks would suspect that the Night Warriors would be coming, and they would be prepared for them.

She recited the words of the invocation to Ashapola. ‘“Now, when the face of the world is hidden in darkness, let us be conveyed to the place of our meeting, armed and armored; and let us be nourished by the power that is dedicated to the cleaving of darkness, the settling of all black matters, and the dissipation of all evil. So be it.”’

She had barely reached the words ‘so be it’ when she was asleep; and within a few seconds, An-Gryferai arose from her somnolent body, and floated upward to the ceiling.

Lincoln was watching MTV when Springer came into his room at the Case Medical Center. Springer had taken on the appearance of Eulalie Passebon again, so Lincoln immediately knew who he was.

‘How are doing?’ Springer asked him, drawing up a chair and sitting beside his bed.

‘Not so bad. Doctors say I should have my spine operation tomorrow. I like your cornrows, by the way, sweet cheeks.’

Springer remained serious. ‘You have to go back to the circus tonight. In fact you have to go back right now.’

‘Don’t tell me. Mago Verde kidnapped victim number nine.’

‘We’re almost certain that he has, yes.’

‘This is it, then? Armageddon come early?’

‘It will be, unless you can stop Brother Albrecht from receiving this one last sacrifice.’

‘OK, then. Let’s lock and load.’

Springer reached out and held Lincoln’s hand. He was even wearing all of those elaborate silver rings that Eulalie wore, with tigers’ eyes and garnets and opals. ‘I want you to know how much Ashapola will appreciate what you and your fellow Night Warriors are doing tonight. Whatever happens, your names will be celebrated for all eternity.’

‘Hey, Ukulele, we ain’t dead yet!’

Springer stood up. ‘Your dreamer is a music promoter called Mickey Veralnik. He’s asleep in Room one-oh-three-three at the Cleveland Marriott. The sooner you can join us there, the better.’

‘Mickey Veralnik? I know that slimeball. He would have a dream about freaks. He’s a frickin’ freak himself.’

‘I’ll see you at his bedside,’ said Springer. ‘I’ll tell the nurse that you’re feeling tired and that you need a few hours’ sleep. I’ll tell her not to disturb you.’

‘Thanks. I don’t want her trying to wake me up in the middle of a firefight to give me a bed bath.’

Once they had recited their invocation to Ashapola, the Night Warriors fell asleep in less than twenty minutes. Their dream personalities rose from their beds and floated up into the night like ghostly kites. They sailed high above the sparkling streets of downtown Cleveland until they reached the Cleveland Marriott on Public Square, and then they descended through the ceiling of Room 1033. Dom Magator was first, followed by Jekkalon and Jemexxa, and then Xyrena and Zebenjo Y’xx. Shortly afterward, Springer appeared, looking like An-Gryferai’s music teacher, Mr Flight.

The magnolia-painted bedroom was vast, with a bed wide enough for three people to sleep in, but tonight the only person sleeping in it was Mickey Veralnik. He was lying on his back with his mouth open, snoring. His dyed black comb-over had flapped to one side, like a crow’s wing, and he was puffy-eyed and unshaven. He reeked of Jim Beam.

The Night Warriors looked at each other and none of them could hide their anxiety.

‘This is crunch time,’ said Dom Magator. ‘If any of you want to back out, that will be perfectly understandable. We won’t think any the worse of you.’

Springer added, ‘There’s a blessing that Ashapola bestows on those who are about to go into battle on the side of purity. “May your way be brightly lit by your devotion to duty, and may you be protected at all times by the shield of your honor.”’

‘And may we kick Brother Albrecht’s ass into the middle of next week,’ added Zebenjo’Yyx.

Mickey Veralnik snorted and mumbled and said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Vera, what have you done to your hair?’

The Night Warriors all held their breath and stood absolutely motionless. Ten long seconds passed, but Mickey Veralnik didn’t wake up. ‘OK,’ said Dom Magator, at last. ‘Let’s get going.’

He raised both hands and drew the brilliant blue octagon in the air. It opened up, but this time it seemed to shimmer and flicker more unsteadily than usual, like a faltering fluorescent tube before it pops out for ever.

‘What the hell’s wrong with the goddamned portal?’ asked Dom Magator. ‘Why is it jinking around like that?’

‘Mickey Veralnik’s dream is highly unstable,’ Springer explained. ‘Partly because he’s drunk, and partly because he’s dreaming that he’s in Brother Albrecht’s dream, and Brother Albrecht’s dream is close to becoming reality. It’s like a storm approaching. More than a storm — a major earth tremor. Go very carefully, all of you.’

Zebenjo’Yyx said, ‘Come on. Let’s do it, before it’s too late.’

With that, he ducked his head down and disappeared through the portal. Jekkalon followed close behind him, and then An-Gryferai and Jemexxa and Xyrena. Dom Magator went last, but before he went through, Springer laid a hand on his arm and said, ‘Ashapola be with you, Dom Magator. Ashapola be with all of you.’

‘Yeah,’ said Dom Magator. ‘And you, too, Springer, whatever the hell you are.’

He stepped through the portal. The crackle of energy was much fiercer than it usually was, and showers of sparks bounced off his armor.

He found himself in Brother Albrecht’s dream again, but this was a very different landscape from the dark and rainy hillside that they had visited last night. This was a sunbaked prairie, with fields of tawny wheat stretching all the way to the horizon, and not a single tree in sight. The sky was purple, with huge white cumulus clouds rolling slowly across it from west to east.

An-Gryferai turned around and said, ‘There it is. Look.’

About a mile away, they could see a small township, with a church spire and a water tower and a single main street lined with stores. A few hundred yards to the south, Brother Albrecht’s circus had been set up, with its black tents and its black caravans and its black pennants flapping in the summer breeze.

Very faintly, they could hear the discordant strains of In The Good Old Summertime. An-Gryferai shivered. For some reason, she found the sound of that music even more unsettling than that cluster of black tents. It was like all her childhood fears returning to visit her. And more than anything it reminded her of Daisy, her dead sister, and Daisy’s persistent nightmares about circuses.

‘How about an aerial reconnaissance?’ Dom Magator asked her.

‘Is that such a good idea?’ said Zebenjo’Yyx. ‘As soon as those clowns see An-Gryferai circlin’ around, they’ll know we’re here, won’t they?’

‘Yes, they probably will. But they’ll soon spot us, right out here in the open, even if they haven’t spotted us already. And don’t tell me they haven’t been expecting us.’

‘In that case, I ain’t takin’ no chances,’ said Zebenjo’Yyx. He cocked the quarrel-firing mechanisms on both of his forearms. ‘One peep out of any of those freaks, and they’re goin’ to wind up seriously ventilated.’

An-Gryferai took a short run through the wheat field, flapping her wings. The air was warm and she rose quickly, until she was nearly a hundred feet up. She looked up at the clouds as she flew, and she saw that as they rolled their way from one horizon to the other, they continually changed their shape, from ghostly galleons with tattered sails to monstrous dogs with bulging eyes. For a brief moment, she thought that one of them looked like the face of her dead grandmother, watching her with sadness in her eyes.

As she approached the township, she could make out its name painted on the side of the water tower, Melancholy, IA. The main street was almost deserted except for three or four pick-up trucks and a few pedestrians. She could see a store with a sign saying Clavicle’s General Supplies and a barber shop named for its proprietor, W. Severe.

Melancholy could have been a typical mid-West farming community except for the its purple sky and the fact that its perspective was all wrong and everything about it was out of proportion. An-Gryferai caught sight of a German Shepherd at the far end of the street that was almost twice the size of its owner, but as they came nearer, the German Shepherd shrank and its owner grew taller. At the other end of the street, the church was no bigger than a doll’s house.

She circled around the township twice, and then she angled her wings and wheeled toward Brother Albrecht’s circus. The big top and all of the other tents had been erected in the same pattern as last night’s dream, with the animal cages in a line between the caravans. The site was teeming with circus hands and clowns and freaks, as well as scores of ordinary, bewildered-looking people who must have been dreamers. She was sure she glimpsed Mickey Veralnik amongst them, but she could have been mistaken.

‘D.M? I don’t think the show’s started yet,’ she told Dom Magator. ‘Everybody’s milling around outside. But there are ten times more dreamers here than there were last night. It looks like Brother Albrecht is really pulling them in.’

‘No sign of Mago Verde?’

‘Not so far. I’m going to go round one more time, lower this time. I don’t think anybody’s noticed me yet. Maybe they think I’m a turkey buzzard.’

She swooped around the big top once again. She could hear the organ music playing, and the braying of a distressed donkey. As she circled over the caravans, however, she heard a high voice screaming out, ‘Lookit! Up there! Up in the sky! It’s that bird-woman!’

She twisted her head around and saw a midget clown in red suspenders jumping up and down and frantically pointing up at her. ‘There! It’s that bird-woman! The one who blew up Flammo!’

Another clown tossed a tent peg up at her, which hit her on the left thigh. Then a circus hand threw a mallet, and another clown tossed up a bucket. A whole shower of tent pegs flew up, as well as throwing knives and more buckets. She urgently beat her wings to gain more height, so that none of the missiles could reach her. Then she tilted herself back toward the west, so that she could rejoin the rest of the Night Warriors.

As she flew over the main entrance to the big top, past the sign which read Albrecht’s Traveling Circus & Freak Show, a man stepped out from underneath the archway. A man in a dusty black tuxedo, with ragged white hair and a pale gray face and a sharp green grin.

He looked up at her, his arms folded, but because of his make-up she couldn’t tell if he was really grinning or not. She guessed that he was probably scowling.

‘He’s here!’ she told Dom Magator. ‘Mago Verde is already here! I just saw him standing outside the big top!’

‘In that case, we’ll have to go in right now. You keep circling around, An-Gryferai. I need you to be ready to dive down and grab Mago Verde’s victim, if she’s here. The rest of us will have to try a full-frontal assault.’

An-Gryferai wheeled around again. Below her, the circus hands and the clowns and the freaks were already picking up pitchforks and tent pegs and machetes and beginning to pour between the tents toward the western side of the circus site, where the Night Warriors would be coming from. They were whooping and howling and calling out, ‘No more nightmare! No more nightmare! Real! Real! Real!’

Out in the wheat field, Dom Magator lifted a heavy chrome-plated carbine from the rack on his back. He unhooked a long magazine from his belt and clicked it into the carbine’s rear handgrip.

‘What’s that?’ asked Zebenjo’Yyx. ‘Not another one of your pansy-assed Knock-’Em-Off-Balance-But-Don’t-Hurt-’Em Guns?’

‘Not this time,’ Dom Magator told him. ‘This time I’ve brought something seriously lethal. A Scythe Rifle.’

‘A what do you say?’

‘You’ll see. And pretty soon, too. Here they come.’

Through the heat-distorted wheat field, trampling down the crops as they came, over a hundred clowns and circus hands and freaks came storming toward them.

‘Oh my God,’ said Xyrena. ‘We don’t stand a cat in hell’s chance.’

‘Yes, we do,’ Dom Magator retorted. ‘So long as we don’t lose our nerve. What are they? Clowns, OK? Clowns and tent riggers and midgets. And what are we? Natural born highly-skilled warriors. Absolutely no contest. Now remember — don’t fire until you see the reds of their noses.’

‘We’re about to get ourselves slaughtered to death and you’re makin’ a joke out of it?’ Zebenjo’Yxx protested. ‘You’re really somethin’, man!’

‘What do you want me and Jemexxa to do?’ Jekkalon asked.

‘Hit as many of the clowns as you can. But don’t use up all of your energy, Jemexxa. I want to see that circus razed to the ground before we leave this dream.’

‘You got it, dude.’

By now the howling rabble of circus folk was almost on them. Dom Magator stood in the center, with Zebenjo’Yyx on his left-hand side and Jekkalon and Jemexxa on his right. Xyrena stood back behind them. She knew that her time would come, but it wasn’t yet.

‘No more nightmare! No more nightmare!’ screamed the clowns and the freaks. ‘Real! Real! Real!’

Up above them, the huge white cumulus clouds boiled up, taking on the shapes of skulls and phantoms and human faces with their mouths dragged down in agony. The whole of Brother Albrecht’s dream was thirsting for battle.