Chapter 16

Reacting on autopilot,I grab my gun, aim at the ferocious maw, and shoot.

The werewolf slumps onto his dog bed.

Whew. I cover my chest with my hand. My heart is still threatening to punch a hole in my ribcage.

LEGO letters appear, and they look kind of angry: You killed him?

Puck. We did need this guy for information.

But wait.

I check the gun screen and exhale in relief as I show it to Valerian. Luckily for the werewolf, the last time I used the gun, it was in stun mode, and it seems the setting stays the same when you turn on the gun again.

In that case, grab his front paws.

I look at Valerian like he's about to turn into a wolf himself.

He saw us before I made us invisible with my powers. He might tell Icelus.

I go into VR and frantically type out, So we what? Kidnap him?

The LEGO text appears even angrier: We detain him. I'll take him to a Senate facility and wait until he falls asleep again.

With a sigh, I grab the giant paws. As far as plans go, Valerian's isn't terrible—assuming the werewolf doesn't snap out of his stunned state.

When I mention my concern to Valerian, his reply is: Just shoot him every few minutes.

I nod and strain to lift my half of the wolf as Valerian easily lifts his half.

Nope. Too heavy for me.

Grab this paw. Valerian gestures with one of the back ones he's holding. We'll drag him.

Dragging works much better. I barely break a sweat by the time we get to the elevator—and we only hit his head on something twice.

Figuring it's as good a time as any, I stun the wolf again.

Once on the roof, we drag our victim to the car and fly toward the city center.

Valerian takes off his mask, but when I reach to do the same, he shakes his head.

I don't want anyone associated with the Senate to see your face.

I nod and shoot the wolf once more.

We fly in a tense silence until the car descends onto a sleek-looking roof.

Shoot him once more and hide the gun, Valerian commands.

I do this, and when we land, I see why.

A vampire dressed in an Enforcer uniform is waiting for us—Valerian must've written ahead. Seeing my mask, the vamp lifts an eyebrow.

If I were him, I'd be more curious about the unconscious wolf.

Before Valerian and I can say anything, the vamp injects our poor victim with something, then hoists him over his shoulder like a sack of flour and strides toward the elevator.

Take my car, Valerian tells me via LEGO text. I'll get in touch via a regular message. It'll just say, "Ready."

I bob my head.

As soon as you get that message, go to my place. Don't dreamwalk in the werewolf alone.

Before I can object, he hurries after the vampire.

I tell the car to take me home and close my eyes.

* * *

I wakeup from an intense sensation that's flooding my every cell with warm, pleasant energy.

What the puck? Am I having an aneurism?

My breathing quickens and my nails dig into my palms as an even bigger tsunami of pleasure rushes into my body, making my extremities tingle and my toes curl.

Did someone slip me some vampire blood, or did I just have a spontaneous series of orgasms?

Then I realize what it must be.

The game demo. It probably reached a critical mass of users as I was dozing off, and this is how it feels to get the resulting power boost.

Feeling calmer, I close my eyes and do my best to relax and enjoy it. A few blocks later, the sensations abate and my mind clears further. With a surge of excitement, I process the implications.

This is it. This is what I've been working toward with Valerian's team.

I can finally try waking up Mom.

Unwilling to wait even a second longer, I jump into the dream world and check if she's in the tower of sleepers.

To my intense disappointment, she's not.

I instruct the car to fly to Mom's hospital, then open my VR dashboard and write to Valerian: I need your help. Can you meet me in my mom's hospital room?

His reply is almost instant: Where?

I tell him the address and which room, and he confirms that he'll see me there.

To distract myself for the rest of the ride, I open up Leal's journal and skim through it. A recent entry piques my interest:

Too much evidence points to one unsettling conclusion: There's an Icelus agent right here in the New York Cognizant community. He or she is clearly placed highly enough to spread rumors that generate fears—and thus nightmares. Youngsters seem to be particularly susceptible, so I wonder if the agent is one of the Heralds.

Wow. Heralds are Earth Cognizant for whom the Mandate restrictions are less stringent, so they can speak about the existence of our kind with Cognizant teens who grow up not knowing what they are.

I look for more info on this but only find a few names of Heralds Leal had cleared using dreamwalking. Seems like he didn't have time to find out who the agent was—these last entries happened right before he was murdered.

A slight jolt brings me back to my immediate surroundings, and I realize the car has just landed on the roof of the hospital.

I sprint to the elevator and take it to Mom's floor.

"I'm visiting my mother," I tell the nurses at the station. "Last time, her vitals went haywire; if that happens again, will you be able to handle it?"

The taller of the nurses, the gargoyle whose dreams I snuck into to check on Mom, says, "Does a mooft shit at the zoo?"

Yuck. Fighting the urge to berate the nurse, I charge ahead to Mom's room.

Just as I'm about to step into the room, I hear an unwelcome voice that's too high for all but bat ears.

"Miss Spade. We need to talk."

I spin around and scowl at the billing administrator—or the Horseshoe Bat, as I've mentally dubbed her. "Do you usually patrol this place at night?" I ask, fighting the urge to take out my gun and use it on her.

Her nose goes up. "If you could step into my office—"

"I paid all the outstanding bills. If you didn't get the payment—"

"There's a new policy when it comes to long-term patients," she says nastily. "We need their stay to be prepaid a month in advance."

"Fine." I bring up VR and send over a payment. "Check your account now."

She looks confused. I guess she'd pegged me as broke.

"Will there be anything else?" I snap. "Any other policy you want to make up just for me?"

She blinks. "I—"

"In that case, I'm going to see my mom."

"The visiting hours are—"

"Do not test me."

She must not like what she sees on my face because she steps back and says, "The visiting hours are merely a suggestion."

Yeah. I thought so.

She scurries away, and I finally enter Mom's room.

Immediately, my chest tightens. Mom looks the same, all ashen and still. Even some of the old equipment, like the feeding tube, is back. I have to get her out, but since she's not in REM sleep, I'll have to tackle a subdream first. And if I die there, I'll become a crazed killer, and she'll be my first victim. Which is why I need—

Valerian walks into the room with a concerned expression on his face. "What's going on? Is everything okay with your mom?"

I nod. "The demo went live. I'm going to get her out."

He looks her over, frowning. "She's not in REM sleep."

I take out my gun, make sure it's still on stun, and toss it to him.

He catches the gun, looking even more confused.

"The password is yitten," I say.

He looks at the gun, then at me. "What?"

"If I don't say the word ‘yitten' when I come out of the trance, stun me and get help."

Before he can argue, I grab hold of Mom's delicate wrist and dive in.