Darksider: Reveler Series 3 (12 page)

“Ms. Bright?” Lambert asked.

James shrugged. “I’m working on her. She’ll give us what we want eventually.”

They were doing something with Allison Bright. What about Sera? Was Sera here somewhere?

The
him–not him
strain flared through Harlen.

Lambert looked over his shoulder, and Harlan’s vantage swam for a brief glance out the window. It was as if Lambert sensed someone watching, a common first sign that he perceived the proxy. Harlen didn’t have long.

“Don’t push,” Lambert said. “We need her in play for a while longer.”

James turned the conversation. “Did you get Harlen?”

“He was different than you described, the very picture of what a Chimera should be.”

Again,
Chimera
with a
shhh
,
not a hard
k
.

“Trust me, we go way back,” James drawled. “Fawkes likes a good time. Likes women. He breaks rules as if they don’t exist. He’ll be easy motivate, and easier to hang out to dry.”

Where’s Sera?
Black spots were forming in
his–not his
vision.

Lambert looked over his shoulder again. “Have you seen Travis? He was going to give me a report on the old case files, see if we have viable revelers there.”

A look of discomfort flickered on James’s face. “Yeah, he was here a little while ago, but I can’t seem to find him now. Ran off again. I keep covering for him, but eventually someone else is going to notice. He’s more trouble than he’s worth.”

There was a brief but pregnant silence.

“What do you mean
running off
?” Lambert’s voice went silky smooth.

Yes.
What did James mean? Travis Clayton—Harlen had met him a few times. He’d seemed kind of reserved and quiet. What had he been doing with old case files? What was he doing now?

“Enjoying the perks Darkside, I guess,” James answered.

Was Sera one of his perks?

Him–not him.
The pressure in Harlen’s head, the suffocation at his throat, the fist around his heart—if he could’ve, he would’ve screamed.

“What if he’s meeting with our enemies?” Lambert spat at James. “Have you considered that? What if he’s playing both sides?”

James went
pfft
. “Not Travis. He’s a sad sack. Only wants attention. He’s harmless.”

Not harmless
, Harlen thought. Not if he’d been stalking Sera for a year and had visited her restaurant. She’d gone through a window. What was Travis planning to do next with her?

The burn within Harlen roared across all his senses.
Him–not him.
And this was just the beginning. It would get worse as instinct tried to resolve the duality, one way or another.

He reminded himself that Sera was tough. She’d fight now that she knew Travis was real. She could handle herself. He had no choice but to trust her.

A shudder ran through Harlen.

Lambert held up a hand to quiet James. “Do you feel that?”

James frowned. “No?”

Lambert turned and backed into the center of the hallway. “This Rêve is compromised.”

“Didier,” James said, placating, “you’re paranoid. There’ve been no breaches from this Rêve. None.”

Lambert slapped James’s face hard enough to send him to the floor. “Speak to me like that again, and I’ll give you to the Sandman. Get Allison Bright out of here without her knowing, and then kill the Rêve.”

The Sandman?

Harlen knew he had to hang on just a little longer. Chimera was corrupt, Darkside in danger. This is what Coll and Rook had feared.

Lambert crossed out of the Agora—felt like knives flaying Harlen’s Darkside flesh—and stalked into the Scrape, a hand raised to protect his eyes from the stinging shards.

Pain was now a white-bright note singing along Harlen’s nerves.
Him–not him
demanded resolution. That or die. It was an existential imperative that brooked no more delay.

Lambert must have felt it, too. He whipped around to look behind him. “Show yourself!” he screamed into the storm.

Any moment now, Harlen wouldn’t have a choice.

In the careen of Lambert’s vision, he saw figures drawing closer—naked, dickless gray men with gray eyes, body proportions slightly off.

Coll’s monsters.

Lambert shrugged and flung his arms about, as if trying to dislodge something from his back.

Harlen almost lost his grip.

Lambert heaved again, screaming in frustration.

Harlen separated and was flung backward into the wind, landing in the midst of the creatures that Coll said ate revelers. They stared down at him with implacable eyes—Coll’s eyes—their next kill.

Violent tremors ran over Harlen’s body. Happened every time.

“
Allez-y! Bougez
!” Lambert yelled, his voice carried this way and that in the gusting air.

Harlen couldn’t see him. He crab-crawled backward away from the monsters. Cold. They were so cold.

A creature lunged toward him, but Harlen struck back at it and managed to get partway to his feet, before another leaped on his back, its icy mouth at his neck.

“
J'ai dit, Bougez-Vous
!” came from somewhere in the wind.

He had no idea what Lambert was saying. The residual pain from the proxy almost brought him back to his knees.

They can be killed
, he remembered. Vince Blackman had told him that. Blackman had survived days out here.

Harlen could, too. He had to find Sera.

He tripped in the sand, ate a mouthful of the stuff when he went down, but heaved himself back up under the frigid weight of one of the nightmare creatures. Threw it off him and bulled forward, head into the wind.

Where could Sera be?

***

Sera gnawed on her lip in giddy anticipation. Stalker Guy had been going in circles, trying different streets and alleys, entering buildings, only to arrive, screaming hoarsely, back at the same corner.

It was a form of torture, and she was enjoying it.

“Weaselly guy, isn’t he?” Maisie said. Their rooftop vantage point afforded them a view of Sera’s stalker trying to walk straight down a road, but it was a Möbius strip.

“Do you think Harlen will know to come here?” She’d kinda thought he’d have shown up by now.

“He seemed smart to me,” Maisie said. “Steve-o likes him, so eventually I figure I will, too. It’s you I’m not so sure about anymore.”

Sera groaned. “For the millionth time, I didn’t bring a monster in here, aside from Stalker Guy.
And
where else could I have gone?” Maisie had yet to come up with an alternative answer. Maybe Maisie had her on a Möbius strip, too.

“I hope he can do what he says he can do,” she continued. “The surveillance thing? That could really help us.”

No.
“Look, it’s dangerous. It could seriously hurt him. He could be caught.”

Stalker Guy screamed again on the street below.

Maisie made a line out of her mouth. “I’d noticed you weren’t keen on him trying. You got all tight and white and spooked.”

“I care about him.”

“Somebody has to try to stop Lambert.”

“Why does it have to be Harlen?” Sera had a feeling he had done enough already in his life.

“I’d do it if I knew how,” Maisie said. “That freak Lambert can’t take over Darkside.”

Sera had to poke there. “Isn’t your Steve a freak, too?”

“Well, yeah. What’s your point?”

Ugh.
“My point is, that surveillance thing will ruin Harlen’s life. Not that I have any say in what he does.” But she hoped he’d at least listen to her.

“Are you going to run with him?”

Sera blinked at her.

“You know, run,” Maisie repeated, making little running legs out of two of her fingers. “Didier Lambert knows that we know what he is. And I
stabbed
him. Do you think the Greatest Mind of Our Time is going to let us live?”

“Wait, what?” This was all new to Sera. “You guys are on the run somewhere?”

“Yep. And Jordan and Rook haven’t shown up, so I have no idea if they’re okay today.”

“Where are they?”

Maisie shrugged. “That’s the point. I don’t know. We’re not supposed to know where each other is in the waking world. We split up and meet here at night.”

“And they’re not here.”

“I swear I’m going to push you off this roof.”

Sera ignored her. “Where’s Steve?”

“Out looking for them,” Maisie said. “And if he doesn’t find them, you better believe I’m going to ask—I’d fucking beg—Harlen to do his surveillance thing and find my sister.”

Sera felt Maisie’s worry touch her. Inside, the girl was probably frantic. Life upended, monsters Darkside, and now her sister was missing?

They needed to cut each other some slack.

“Harlen said Chimera is already on to him,” Sera said. Her own small horror.

“Yeah. He needs to disappear, too.”

And just a minute ago Maisie had asked her if she was going to run with him. Now it made sense.

Maisie shrugged. “The decision to run is a lot easier when there are bullets flying at you.”

Sera felt like she was in an uncontrollable fall, everything good escaping her grasp.

“But probably one day he just won’t wake up.”

“I think I get the idea, thanks.” Her voice sounded like it came from a deep, deep well.

“Sorry.” She shrugged. “But I’ve been through all the thoughts, all the fears. I know the worst ones. I’m just helping you get there quicker.”

Harlen in danger. Harlen doing that surveillance thing for these crazy people. Harlen’s hands shaking.

Was she going to leave him alone to it?

She couldn’t
run
. She had a contract with the Adria brothers, whom she loved, for Marina del Sel. And she was part owner of the second location, too. If she lost her investment, so be it. But to be responsible for losing theirs? God. They’d believed in her.

She thought of Harlen, sleeping on the floor next to her bed. He’d given up everything and had come back for her once. He’d understood how much her cooking and having her own restaurant,
her dream
, had meant to her.

In the end, the choice was very easy.

***

A woman’s voice was yelling at him, which was not unusual. Harlen incurred female wrath as often as he got phone numbers. This one seemed pretty bossy, though, so he cracked a lid.

Sera was leaning over him, breath ragged. “Honey?”

He liked Sera leaning over him. She could be on top all she wanted, but he’d prefer her positioned a little differently. And yeah, they could work with honey, too.

He pulled his slyest smile and lifted his arms to move her. Pain rolled over him again, and with it, darkness.

Foundering in the waters, he heard a different voice. “His will to live is clearly intact. I think he’s going to be fine.”

When he surfaced again, familiar oily black spots clouded his vision. Beyond them, distant, was a window with fat moldings and an oversized velvet couch across the room. As far as he could tell, he was lying belly up on the other sofa in Maisie’s secret room. Coll and Maisie, heads close, were talking to each other. Maisie swiped at tears.

A tremor went through him, an echo of
him–not him
.

Something on the floor moved. He blinked and found Sera kneeling next to the sofa, eyes wide and worried, tucking her brown hair behind her ears.

Harlen tried to sit up. Then had to try again, harder.

“No, no.” She pushed him back down. Kissed him to stay put. He decided that was a good idea.

Wait.
He reached for her. “Are you okay? Did Travis …do anything?”

She was already shaking her head. “I’m fine. And no. If Travis is the Stalker Guy, he tried his creepiest, but I outsmarted him. He’s trapped in Maze City right now and has been crying for a while now.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No,” Sera answered again. “Really. I’m good. I got away. What happened to
you
?”

Harlen glanced up at Coll, who’d already moved closer. He had the monster-eye thing going again. They looked real this time. Lambert and a half dozen gray creatures had made a believer of him. Maisie was behind Coll, arms folded, chin dimpled. Mad. Or sad. Maybe both. Something was wrong.

But he’d start. “First, there
are
monsters out there. Cold motherfuckers. And yes, Lambert is associated with them.”

Maisie turned away, as if disgusted, and looked out the window into her violet night.

Coll had a cooler head. “You know this how?”

“You did that proxy thing,” Sera said. It was almost an accusation.

Harlen sighed and nodded. “Yeah, I proxied Lambert.”