The Nightmare Charade (21 page)

“What the hell was that?” Eli said, sitting up.

“Magic,” I replied. I still felt the tingle of it burning over my skin.

“Let's not do that again.” He wiped away blood from where he'd bitten his lip as he fell.

“Agreed,” I said.

But there was no need. When we got to our feet and approached the tomb, Moira and the scythe were gone. Eli and I were lying inside it instead, two doppelg
ä
nger bodies posed toward each other, forehead to forehead, arms to arms. We looked like a sculptor's rendering of Romeo and Juliet, the final act of tragic romance.

Neither Eli nor I spoke as we took in the sight of us. We looked so real, so entirely like ourselves. I wondered if I could touch this Eli within the dream, but I knew I didn't want to. His skin would be cold, icy, and lifeless. We weren't asleep like Moira. We were dead. The longer I stared, the more I realized it. Our cheeks were colorless and sunken. A deep dark bruise crested my forehead. A line of blood encircled Eli's throat.

“What is that we're holding between us?” Eli said. The tremble in his voice was slight but present. I winced, hearing it. And for an awful moment I considered manipulating the dream, erasing this vision for something better, a future I wanted instead of this ill omen. But I didn't do it. There was too much at stake.

I stared at our cupped hands, fingertips pressed to fingertips. But not palm to palm. Something black and weirdly shaped blocked the way. “It's the Death's Heart,” I whispered.

Before my eyes, the skin on my doppelg
ä
nger's face began to draw in on itself, creases forming like paper being crumpled by a fist. Her eyes began to sink backward, disappearing into the sockets as the bone of the skull grew more pronounced.

But beside my doppelg
ä
nger, Eli's took on flesh and color. His chest began to move up and down as he slowly returned to life.

“No,” Eli said from beside me. “This isn't real and it's never going to happen.” He leaned forward and grabbed the Death's Heart from between our doppelg
ä
ngers' fingers. As he started to pull it away, his doppelg
ä
nger's eyes flashed open. They were wrong. Jagged yellow slits for irises stood out against all black. His lips spread apart, revealing fanged teeth and a forked tongue.

The doppelg
ä
nger grabbed Eli's wrist, its movement as quick as a whip crack. Eli yanked back, but the doppelg
ä
nger held fast, fingers pinching. Shaking off my paralysis, I lunged forward, grabbed the doppelg
ä
nger's arm and tried to pry him off. Its skin was hot and slick, scaly like a snake's.

“Let go!” I screamed at the wrong Eli. It hadn't even seemed to notice me before, its entire focus centered on the real Eli, but now its head swung my way. Its tongue slid out, and I cringed back, but didn't let go.

Finally, with our combined strength, Eli broke free. He skidded backward, the Death's Heart still clutched in his hand. I backed away, too, resisting the urge to run. There was nowhere to go on this barge, nowhere but out of the dream. But I didn't want to leave. Not yet. Eli and I needed more time.

Side by side we retreated from the doppelg
ä
nger Eli as it climbed out of the tomb. Only climbing wasn't the right word—it slithered. Before my eyes, its features turned waxy and began to blur. It was the same as when Paul put on the shape-change necklace. Only the blurriness didn't stop at the doppelg
ä
nger's face. It extended outward, obscuring its whole body. The nose, mouth, and eyes of a human boy elongated into the features of a snake. Skin became scales; shoulders and chest became extended rib cage.

As the change completed, the giant coral snake from the basement cellblock was now here on the barge.

“Get out of here, Dusty,” Eli said. “Leave the dream and wake me up.”

I swallowed, still not ready to leave. A wink of silver caught my eye, and I stared down at Bellanax on my wrist. I could kill the snake, I realized. Taking off its head would be easy. Only, the snake had been Eli a moment before, a version of him if not the real thing. What would happen after I killed it? Would it shape-change back into Eli's doppelg
ä
nger? The thought turned my stomach—and made up my mind.

“All right,” I said. “I'm going.”

Eli nodded, his eyes still fixed on the snake. “Do it fast.”

I didn't respond, just shut my eyes and willed myself out of the dream. When I returned to my body and full consciousness, I grabbed Eli by the arms and gave him a shake. “Wake up!”

He didn't respond, his eyes still doing that fast rhythmic sweep from side to side.

The sleeping spell
. I wrenched my gaze behind me and onto Bollinger. She had dozed off and was lying awkwardly to one side. I couldn't believe the noise of my return hadn't woken her yet. I needed her awake, only I couldn't be sure she would undo the sleeping spell. She hadn't last time.

Beneath me, Eli's body clenched and his mouth opened in a sneer of pain and horror.

“Eli,” I said, shaking him harder. “Wake up.”

But it was no good. The spell lay too heavy on him, and I had no idea how to perform the counter-spell.

What was happening in the dream? Was the snake hurting Eli? If it were a normal dream, I wouldn't worry, but the prophetic ones were different. I'd once been attacked by Marrow's black phoenix inside a dream and the wound it gave me had followed me out of it.

Close to panic now I turned, ready to wake Bollinger and force her to undo the spell. But then pain seared around my wrist—Bellanax awake and pressing for control.

I grabbed the silver band, slid it off my wrist, and disengaged the glamour. Free of the spell, Bellanax was stronger and more present, easier to control. I fought to stay in charge of my mind.

Tell me the spell,
I thought, my concentration centered on the sword in my hands.
Teach me. Show me
.

For a moment, Bellanax resisted. It seemed to rear up like a wild horse trying to break free of its lead. But then it settled and the resistance reversed. The words of the spell flowed into my mind.

“
Ou-hupno,
” I said. It was as if I'd cast the counter-spell a thousand times. The magic came easily. It swept over Eli, dragging him awake.

His eyes opened, and he peered up at me, slack jawed. Realizing the picture I must be presenting as I stood over him with naked sword in hand, I stepped back and reapplied the glamour.

“Welcome back,” I said, sliding the bracelet onto my wrist once more.

He sat up and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Took you long enough.”

“It wasn't easy,” I said, and glanced down at the bracelet then back again. “What happened? Did the snake hurt you?”

Eli slowly nodded, and I noticed how green he looked. A tremble went through his body. “It killed me, Dusty. It swallowed me whole.”

 

15

Alibis

The following Wednesday, Paul finally managed to hack into Deverell's files. I got the text just as I arrived back at the dorm after another dream-session with Eli. The last two had been much less eventful than the snake dream. On Monday we visited the Rush again, only to find it empty—no snake, Titus, or anything else. Tonight we'd visited the barge again, but it, too, was empty. Nimue's tomb had been replaced with the ouroboros bed, but there was no one lying on it this time. I couldn't explain the sudden drop in the dreams' intensity, but I would take it.

It took me a full five minutes to translate the text using the cipher Paul had given me the morning before. It was a code of his own design and so complicated it made my head swim with awe. Sometimes his intelligence was a bit scary. When I finished it read:

I have the files. Volunteer to get the burn kit tomorrow in class. It will be missing.

I frowned down at the screen. Burn kit? Ms. Miller had said that we would start studying fire salamanders tomorrow. I knew the lizards had a habit of randomly bursting into flames, but she assured us we would be fine. Then again, she'd promised that the azbans would prove docile and lovable, too, but my finger still ached from the not-yet-healed bite on my right hand.

Painstakingly using the cipher, I managed to type back:

How do you know we will need a burn kit?

A couple of minutes passed before my phone buzzed again.

Fire salamanders, someone will get burned. Just make sure it isn't you.

I caught myself smiling at that and then went back to sleep.

*   *   *

“Paul has the files,” I announced to Eli at breakfast the next morning.

He stopped mid-chew, swallowed, and then smiled. “That's great. When do we get it?”

“I'll get it during bio. He has a plan for me to sneak away for a second and pick it up.”

“Oh.” Eli's eyes dropped to his plate. “Well, be careful and don't get caught.”

Each polite word sounded like it cost him. I sighed, hating to cause him worry. We'd seen Paul a couple of times since that first meeting, but so far Eli's attitude toward him hadn't softened one bit. I had a feeling some of it was because of the anxiety dreams still plaguing him. There hadn't been any sign of either of our dead bodies in the last dream-sessions, but his normal dreams were a different story. I'd started the unfortunate habit of asking him about his dreams every morning, hoping each time he would smile and say they'd been pleasant. But so far no luck.

Even worse was that I was starting to have them more often, too. I was doing my best not to think about it—and I hadn't spoken a word about them to Eli either. What was the point? All it would do was provide fodder to make his worse.

When I arrived at the Menagerie for bio, there was no sign of creepy-bearded Paul. And despite his prediction, the first thirty minutes of class passed without incident. The fire salamanders were caged in a separate area from the trash trolls, a grassy, tree-filled space with several ponds and various water features. Actually, minus the lizards roaming the place, it would've been beautiful. Maybe even with the lizards. Aside from the way their tongues kept shooting in and out of their mouths, they were kind of pretty.

Until one of the smaller ones exploded right in Carla Petermeier's palm. She shrieked and threw the creature halfway across the cage. It crashed into one of the ponds with a loud plop. The fae water lilies nearby immediately closed up, their pink and yellow petals quivering as they scrunched together.

“It burned me!” Carla was holding her hand out in front of her, the thick leather gloves still smoking. For a second, I thought she was just playing drama queen, then I realized it was more overreaction. She had gotten burned, a couple of angry red dots formed on her forearm.

“Stop your shouting,” Ms. Miller said, storming over. “Do you want
all
of them to start exploding right now?”

For a second, I thought she was going to smack Carla, and I couldn't help but feel a stab of disappointment when all she did was peel off the glove. Katarina had been back in class since Monday, and she and Carla had started an aggressive taunt-Dusty-every-second campaign. Well, everywhere except for psionics, that was. Mr. Deverell had made us all sign the Student Conduct Agreement last week. Katarina had been livid—and making up for lost time wherever she could.

“Someone bring me the burn kit off the equipment cart,” Ms. Miller said.

Crap,
I thought, realizing this was my moment, and stupid me, I hadn't stayed near the cart. Looking like an anxious idiot, I leaped into action and raced over to the cart, bumping at least two of my classmates out of the way. I got there first, examined the cart for half a second, and then announced, “It's not here, Ms. Miller. I can run back to the classroom and get it.”

“Yes, all right,” Ms. Miller said.

Ignoring the peculiar looks, I turned and bolted out of the cage. Let them think what they wanted. Heck, maybe Carla would assume I was trying to make amends and tell Katarina about it. I wouldn't say no to a cease-fire. Not that it was likely to happen; Katarina never backed down.

A few minutes later, I arrived back in the classroom. “Paul?” I called, not seeing him anywhere. Aside from the closet, there was nowhere for him to hide, not unless he had a spell of invisibility in his arsenal. Where was he? Clenching my teeth in frustration, I went to the closet and searched the shelves for the burn kit, but it wasn't there. Of course, it wasn't. Paul had stolen it at some point to make this work.

I spun on my heel, ready to search the hallway and crashed into Paul as he came through the door. “Ouch. You stepped on my foot.”

“Sorry.” He wrapped his hand around my arm. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” I pulled away from him. “I was worried you weren't going to show up.”

He grimaced, the gesture mostly obscured by his thick beard. He reached up and pulled off the shape-change necklace. His creepy bearded-man features blurred back into Paul. “I almost wasn't. Problem down in the dragon caves.”

“Dragon caves?”

“Yeah, there's a whole network of them beneath the Menagerie.”

“There are dragon ca—” I stopped, shook my head. “Never mind. Do you have the files? I've got to get back to class.”

“Yeah, I do.” Paul reached into his pocket and withdrew a flash drive. I saw at once it was the one my mother had given me. “I'm sorry, Dusty, but nothing on this was salvageable.” He handed it over.

“Bummer,” I said, unsurprised but still disappointed.

“But there's a lot on this one.” Paul pulled a second flash drive out of his pocket and gave it to me as well. “I was up half the night going over it. You're not going to believe this, but … I think Corvus might've killed my uncle.”