Chapter 28

This floor is clearly meantto be rented out for big parties, like weddings and Jubilees, but that's not how it's being used at the moment. Far from it.

A row of hospital beds stands where dining tables usually would. On the beds are comatose people who must be sleeping—I know because my newfound REM sleep sense can detect many of them dreaming.

Next to each bed stands an Icelus member. They're all wearing the masks from the werewolf's dream and holding intricately designed daggers, their attention on the podium where the wedding band would typically be.

Following their gazes, I audibly exhale.

A black-clad figure stands with his or her back to us, fiddling with an unfamiliar device.

My heartbeat skyrockets.

It's not that hard to guess what's happening. The figure is the High Priest, and the beeping device is the reactor-turned-bomb. Most concerning, on the screen where the married couple would usually watch a video collage is a digital clock counting down seconds.

Everyone stares at the remaining time.

Ten minutes and ten seconds.

Do you think it's until the explosion?I message Valerian. Or the moment they should run upstairs if they mean to escape via the gates?

Let's assume time to explosion,he replies. I wouldn't put it past these fanatics to blow themselves up for their deity.

Oh, yeah. I forgot about the deity part. These idiots worship Phobetor—or Collywobbles, as far as Valerian's concerned.

The countdown hits ten minutes exactly.

It must be some critical milestone in whatever's about to happen because the walls all around the room turn into screens displaying a slideshow of horror-movie-worthy images.

Wait a second. I've seen something like this before. It was—

The black-clad High Priest turns from the bomb to face the Icelus members and announces in a booming voice, "The first sacrifice."

A thin elf in a drekavac mask stabs the sleeper nearest him.

My jaw drops open—but not from the violence I've just witnessed.

I know the High Priest, know that Darth Vader-like mask and voice.

It's Doctor Cipactli, the gnome who works at the sleep clinic I nearly put Mom in.

Puck.

She could've been that sacrifice.

Speaking of sacrifices, they now make a macabre kind of sense. The sleepers must be having nightmares, so the Icelus fanatics probably think that killing someone in that state will bring them closer to the nightmare deity, or some nonsense like that.

Cipactli's clinic is where I've seen those subdream-like images, too.

Hold on.

I scan the sleepers.

Yep. Gertrude, the gangrene-giver from the New York Council, is right there. Poor wretch. We're not exactly pals, but I don't want her to be a sacrifice to a made-up god.

Another sleeper, on a bed near Gertrude, catches my eye.

It's Cadmael, Itzel's grandfather.

Focusing my REM sleep radar power on him tells me he's dreaming, so he's alive for now.

I wish Itzel were here so I could reassure her.

Frantically opening my VR, I write everything I've just realized for Valerian, adding that Doctor Cipactli studies nightmares—a natural subject of interest for a worshiper of a deity like Collywobbles.

Valerian pulls out a gun just as LEGO letters show up in front of me, chilling me to the bone: He's a gnome!?

Pucking puck. Most powers don't work on gnomes.

Valerian takes aim, but he's hesitating and I can understand why. We need the gnome conscious to tell us how to disable the bomb. The stun of the gun might knock him out for longer than the time we have left. An equally good question is how we'd make him talk in the first place. Valerian can't use his illusion torture on a gnome—and even if we magically got the High Priest to sleep, I wouldn't be able to get the answers either; as I recently learned, I would need the gnome's consent.

I glance at the stage.

Crap. The High Priest is looking right at us, a lightning ball already in his hands.

Valerian seems to finally come to a decision, but before he squeezes the trigger, the High Priest launches his projectile.

The ball of energy zooms toward us with the speed of light—and smashes straight into Valerian's chest.