Chapter 33

I comeout of the trance to the sound of a lightning ball smashing into a distant wall.

Kit is in pixie form, which is how she's dodged the projectile again.

Sneaking a peek at the beds, I see Cadmael get up.

Yes! Now we just need to keep the High Priest from noticing this development.

Kit spots Cadmael too and reaches the same conclusion. Abandoning her pixie shape, she turns into a drekavac.

Now we're talking. All she needs is to touch the High Priest with one of those pustule-covered tentacles, and the evil gnome will be writhing on the floor in pain.

Realizing the same thing, the High Priest dodges Kit's appendage and sticks his hand into his pocket.

With all my remaining strength, I grasp my knife. Before I can summon enough energy for a stab, the High Priest notices my intent and jerks his hand out of his pocket.

In his grasp is a vaguely familiar device.

There's a hiss.

I blink in confusion. My knife is in the hands of the High Priest.

Pucking blood loss. It made me miss the moment he took that from me.

Drekavac Kit whips another tentacle at the High Priest.

He slices at it with the dagger.

The tentacle drops to the floor.

Kit's scream is as horrific as her drekavac form's appearance.

Seizing the moment, the High Priest hurls the knife at Kit's head and follows up with a lightning ball.

The blade enters Drekavac Kit's eye. She screams even louder—which is when the lightning ball smashes into her chest.

The drekavac becomes Kit once more, only with a missing hand and a charred hole in the middle of her chest; her clothing wasn't as protective as Valerian's.

The High Priest shoots her with another lightning ball. Then another.

Kit collapses, now a charred corpse.

No. Not Kit. I can't lose—

The High Priest turns to the stage.

Puck. He wasn't supposed to notice Cadmael. But he does—and shoots the older gnome with a ball of lightning.

Cadmael drops to the floor.

Puck, puck, puck.

He was but a few feet away from the bomb. It might as well be thousands of miles now—the digital countdown on the screen reaches zero.

I gasp in horror as the bomb explodes, the wave of heat spreading in a vaguely familiar fashion.

Suddenly, Pom shows up between me and the approaching demise.

His fur is pitch black, his lavender eyes wild. "You said to let you know if you're having a nightmare," he pants. "I'm letting you know."

A nightmare? As in, a dream?

I stop the explosion. Exiting my body, I heal it and jump back in.

Wow. I am dreaming. But how? Or the better question is: When did it start?

For a second, I entertain a fantasy that this whole thing, the bomb and Icelus, was a bad dream. But no. Now that the pain isn't clouding my mind, I know exactly what happened.

That device and that hissing sound—I remember them both. When I met the High Priest as Dr. Cipactli, he used this very thing to put himself into REM sleep in order to sample my powers.

Koshmar, he called the drug. He said it creates nightmares that get progressively worse. He also said that the first one always features whatever the sleeper experienced right before falling asleep—in this case, the continuation of our fight.

I float up in relief.

Everything I experienced after that hiss, including Kit's death and the explosion, was a nightmare.

Kit is still alive out in the waking world.

The bomb didn't explode.

Cadmael might still make it.

Maybe. Hopefully.

Regardless, I can't believe Dr. Capactli was offering to use this drug to wake Mom. I'd dodged a huge bullet when I rejected his help. If I'd let Mom be his patient, she'd be in this room as one of the sacrifices.

The bastard. He clearly lied about the most important aspect of this drug. He claimed that if a nightmare gets bad enough, the sleeper wakes up. That's obviously not how it works, else I would've woken up as soon as Kit was killed—and Cadmael when Itzel was tortured. It seems like the real way this Koshmar works is to keep someone in nightmares indefinitely, an evil only a follower of Phobetor would dream up.

I wonder what would've happened to me if I'd accepted his job offer.

Nothing good, I'm sure.

On a hunch, I teleport to the tower of sleepers—specifically into Kit's nook.

It's as I thought.

She's here, dreaming.

"Dr. Cipactli—that is, the High Priest—didn't just spray me," I explain to Pom, who appears beside me. "I need to wake her first."

Grabbing Kit's hand, I jump into her dream.

* * *

Kit isin the same cursed room on the hundredth floor—no surprise there. She's watching as the High Priest disembowels me. The me in Kit's dream, that is.

The grief on her face is touching. I didn't realize she cared that much about me.

I freeze the scene, turn the High Priest into a toad, and stand so she can see me.

"What's this?" she asks, eyes rounding.

"A nightmare, and you better wake up." I quickly explain what's happening.

She strains to wake up. I help her with a strong jolt, and she disappears.

As soon as I'm back in the tower of sleepers, I wake myself up.

Time to deal with the High Priest in the waking world.