The Sandman (2 page)

“It should be Fawkes,” Rook said. “After the proxy, he needs to wake, too. He’s nearly as bad off as Coll is.”

She shook her head. “No. No way. Harlen is public enemy number one right now. Mr. Dream Police.”

“He has the authority to get into the care center to see Steve.”

“Ha. The Oneiros just burned down Harlen’s parents’ house and killed his boss. No way.
You
have to go.”

“Sera,” he suggested. “What about her?”

Maisie scoffed. “That wannabe?”

“That
wannabe
fought and killed a mercenary in Maze City last night.”

Maisie’s brows came together. “She brought a mercenary here? Served her right, then.”

“The merc was here already, waiting for Vince and Mirren. He tried to get Sera to tell him the secret of the maze, even used a jump on her. And she still beat his ass and then trooped back across the Scrape to go to work in the waking world.”

Maisie shrugged. “Maybe she got lucky.”

“And out of all of us, Sera isn’t wanted by the police for stabbing anyone—” he gave Maisie a pointed look “—nor is she directly associated with Chimera. The Oneiros don’t know about her yet. She could get close to Steve.” Rook had even convinced himself. “She’s the one who should go.”

Sera was their best bet, and that was the truth. Maisie had to feel his sincerity in the waters. He could sure feel her misery.

“It’s just…I can’t do this anymore without him,” Maisie said. “I’ll lose it. I know I will.”

“I get it. Really, I do,” he told her. For a second, he debated whether or not to tell her about her sister. It might make Maisie that much more uncooperative, but he figured she deserved to know. “Jordan is supposed to be in the Agora right now. Who knows if it’s still standing…”

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean she’s in the Agora?”

“I mean she went to the Agora.” He took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. “She got a lead from the Revelations’ band site and went to their concert to check it out.”

Maisie’s jaw flexed. Anger comingled with her misery in the water. “I can’t believe you’re not going after her. You should be going after her. If you don’t,
I
—”

She looked to Steve again, obviously torn over whom to save: her sister or Steve.

Neither, sweetheart
, thought Rook.

“You can’t go out there,” he said, “and I have to search for more survivors. We have to trust that the Agora still stands”—
please, God, let it stand
—“and that Jordan can take care of herself. She managed to finish raising you, so she should be able to contend with anything.”

Maisie smiled, her heart in her eyes. “I hate this. I hate this so bad.”

“We all do. But we have to stick together.
Work
together.”

She looked to the constellations overhead, but he caught the flash of tears. “Fine. Sera can go be with Steve.”

“Thanks for letting her,” he said. “When we get back, maybe you should
ask
her to walk into danger. Nicely.”

“Ask her nicely,” Maisie mimicked back at him, but he felt the burn of her fear in the waters. She was just covering her worry, trying to keep it together.

Rook looked over at the mess that was Steve Coll again. The man now had a smile twitching on one side of his battered mouth. “Coll, Sera is coming to get you.” He glanced at Maisie. “Probably coming, that is.”

“Probably coming,” mimicked Maisie.

Rook wanted to hug her. Poor girl, pulled in so many directions. “Wait for her, bro. Oneiros are everywhere.”

Thank you
, Steve said in his mind.
Keep Maisie safe. This city cannot fall.

“Will do, man,” Rook answered. “Don’t waste your strength on me. We’ve got this.”

Maisie touched Coll lightly near his temple, as if she didn’t want to cause him any more pain, and kissed his shoulder where it appeared comparatively unharmed. “Please hold on. I need you.”

***

Ask nicely
, Maisie muttered to herself. They’d brought a
legion
of talented criminals into her city, and she was supposed to ask nicely. Yeah, right. Some asshole had wanted to
bleed
Steve. String him up even. And her sister might now be fighting in the Scrape?

No one could blame her if she was running a little low on the sugar and spice and everything nice. She hadn’t been born with the standard quota in the first place.

“Hey, freak!” Rook called behind her.

She picked up her pace. The sooner she got back to the others, the sooner Sera could be on her way. Rook was no kind of tracker if he couldn’t keep up.
Ask nicely.
As if he’d ever asked nicely for anything.

A vision of those black market thugs kicking Steve’s prone body flashed before her eyes. A wave of horror and nausea hit her.
Steve.
She stretched her stride to go faster. What if he succumbed to his injuries? No. She wouldn’t think about that. Couldn’t.

I’ll be okay
, Steve said in her head.

You’d better, Steve-o
, she threatened back. He was definitely not okay at the moment.

Made it back to you, didn’t I?

Maisie’s throat closed. Yes, he had.
I’m greedy
, she told him.
I want all of you.

I want all of you, too
, he said.
Need you, too.

She could feel his weakness. How close he’d come to not making it. The knowledge made the wild part within her burn.

She wanted these black market revelers out of her city as quickly as possible, though she knew it would take some time—days even—before they could all leave for their own dreamscapes. And she knew, just
knew
, they’d make trouble while they were here. She’d never actually been to the black market, but she’d once delivered their packages.

Which just made her angrier.

You didn’t know what was in those packages
, Steve said.

She damn well should’ve.
Quit talking to me
, she said.
This is
my
rant. Get your own.

He needed to save his energy. And she needed to expend some.

A tingle of awareness told her that someone was hiding in the deep doorway of the tall, gray brick building ahead. Some intrepid black market survivor venturing out to explore. No surprise there. But hide from her? In her city?

Well, he’d chosen a bad neighborhood. This whole part of the city had been built after her first job for Graeme when she’d been broke and depressed. All the floors in these buildings went down, not up. And under her city? That’s where she’d hid the scarier things her imagination conceived. Stuffed them deep down and paved right over the top.

She snorted at the absurdity of the reveler in the shadows and waved a hand toward him, bricking up the entrance and trapping him inside.

You didn’t know
, Steve said again.

Yeah, well, she’d known delivering packages wasn’t legal. Didn’t take much of a mental leap that there had to be a reason.

Love you.

Tell me in the waking world
, she shot back. She certainly wasn’t going to say it now, when it sounded too much like goodbye.

I feel it in the waters anyway
, he said.

Yeah, well, I can’t help it.
She didn’t want to help it, either. Mr. Suit. Steve-o. Never in a million-billion years would she have thought she’d fall for him.

I’m a monster, too.

My monster
, she clarified.
Now shut up and float. Some of us still have work to do.

Seriously, you couldn’t get anything out of the man at the best of times, and now that he was pulp, he got chatty. Go figure.

“Maisie, hold on!” Rook called again.

She finally slowed, but only because the closer she got to where the black market people had gathered, the more revelers had drifted from the crowd to explore. One sucker had trapped himself in the avenging angel fountain—inspired by her favorite band’s album cover. Whoops. Others wandered down the main street, shadows in the distance, which gave the city the strange sense of being occupied.

What would that be like? She’d been trying for so long.

Didn’t matter. Not important anymore.

“I have an idea,” Rook said, coming up beside her. He, too, was momentarily distracted by the dude in the fountain. “Uh…?”

“What?” she asked.

“Right. I have this friend,” he said. “You can trust her. She’s got a ruthless reputation in the black market. She’ll get and keep the others’ attention. Manage them.”

“What exactly do you want me to trust her with?”

“Your city. To help you organize the survivors while Fawkes and I go back out into the Scrape.”

“I was thinking of Eleanor, Harlen’s mom. I like her,” Maisie said. Now
she
was one tough broad.

“Eleanor will need to be waking soon, and she doesn’t have experience Darkside like my friend does.”

Rounding a corner, the crowd came into view ahead. Among them, she sensed a familiar wildness.
Thank God.
The cavalry. She grinned. “Besides, I don’t think Harlen needs to go back out.”

Vince Blackman, aka Mr. Blandman until he’d turned
madman
, was punching someone in the face. The violence may or may not have been warranted, but since Harlen stood at his side, hands on his hips and slowly shaking his head, she figured Vince had cause. This time. Mirren, on Vince’s other side, was actually laughing.

“Never thought I’d be happy to see them,” Rook said.

Since Maisie had been traveling with them in the waking world, she’d grown to really dig them. Case in point, their presence solved everything. She wasn’t going to have to rely on Sera after all. “Get one of
them
to wake and go for Steve.”

“There’s no way Mirren is going to leave her kid again,” Rook said. “And Vince is iffy at the best of times.”

She winced as the man he’d been pounding collapsed to the street.

And yeah, David, Mirren’s son, was probably in the city now, too. Just tucked away in the playground Maisie had built for him. Now
that
was a cool piece of work.

“Besides,” Rook continued, “they’re wanted for killing Senator Fleight’s daughter, and it was the senator who sent that mercenary to Maze City to find them. Sera is still the best one to go to Steve, Maisie. Deal with it.”

Ugh.
It was just that Sera hated shared dreaming, while the dreamwaters were where Maisie was at her best. They just couldn’t relate. Never would.

The vision of Steve’s head recoiling back after being kicked in the face assaulted her again. A cry ached in Maisie’s throat. She could do such amazing things, but she couldn’t help the man she…the man who…

“Deal with it?” she muttered through clenched teeth. “Send a freaking cook to save
Steve Coll
. It’s so stupid.”

And there Sera was, talking to Eleanor and some ritzy lady in pearls.

“She’s a
chef
,” Rook said. “Almost filleted the last person who made that mistake.”

“Whatever.” But Maisie walked directly over to her.

“—
must
be Lambert,” the pearl-wearing woman was saying.

“Lambert is dead,” Sera said.

Harlen’s mom, Eleanor, had her arms folded, her face lined with worry. Her gaze flicked to Maisie, eyes full of understanding even though Eleanor didn’t know her at all. Her compassion made Maisie’s eyes prickle.

She would not cry. She would not cry. Bitch, yes. But not cry. Not until Steve was okay and holding on to her. And then she’d bitch at him, too, for worrying her like this.

Lady Pearls put a hand to her chest. “I heard Lambert was in reveler care. Did he pass away?”

Maisie wanted to interrupt, but she was working on the lump in her throat.

Sera shook her head. “Not yet, but he’s never waking up, either. The Sandman did something to him. Turned him into dust. It was witnessed by his daughter, Mirren.”

And Steve
, Maisie mentally added. Steve had been there, too.

Lady Pearls’s gaze flicked up to the buildings on the left. “Then who owns this Rêve?”

“It’s not for me to say,” Sera said.

Damn right it wasn’t.

“Sera, I have a favor to ask you.” Maisie made her voice hard in case it trembled. She remembered what Rook had said—
ask nicely
—and for Steve, she added, “Please.”

“Yes, of course.” Sera’s eyes were wary.

“It might be a big favor. A dangerous one.”
An important one.

Sera nodded. “I think I can guess what it is.”

“You can?”

“I’m the only one nobody is looking for, right?”

Okay, maybe it was time to start giving Sera some credit. “Yes. That’s it exactly.”

“I’ll go just as soon as we figure out the next step.”

The recoil of Steve’s head flashed in Maisie’s mind again. “How about now, instead?”

“Then I won’t know what to tell Steve about what’s going on, will I?” Sera reached out and gently touched Maisie’s arm. “As soon as I know the plan, I’ll go.”

Maisie gritted her teeth. Steve needed help
now
.

Lady Pearls extended her hand. “I’m Vivienne Kennedy. Malcolm and I work together.”

“Nice to meet you,” Maisie mumbled but left her hand hanging to turn back to the guys. “Hey! If we don’t decide shit this minute, I swear I will wake up and leave you all for the nightmares.”

Why were they chatting without her, anyway? This was
her
city, so the plan was her call. They seemed to decide something, and then they finally came over.

The dreamwaters near Harlen seeped with his pain.

“You should wake up now,” Sera said to him. “We’ve got this.”

Rook shook his head. “Harlen is going to stay in the city and help keep order. Mirren will help him. I’m going to go back out into the Scrape with Vince to look for more survivors.” He looked at Maisie. “I see you’ve met Viv. She’s the one I was telling you about. She’ll know how to handle the survivors from the black market.”