Marked (18 page)

Only
calling it a dream didn't do it justice. I'd landed in a nightmare
that was beyond anything I'd ever experienced before. I seemed to be
in a jungle, but the plants were all spines and leaves that were
stiff and sharp enough to cut. I could hear something—or maybe
multiple
somethings
—moving
around just out of sight.

For
the first time in recent memory I was glad that I didn't have as keen
of a sense of smell as Alec and the rest of the shape shifters. The
stench that was assaulting me was strong enough to bring tears to my
eyes and make me gag. The melody of scents I was picking up
overwhelmingly smelled of death.

All
of that would have been unsettling enough if that was the only thing
that was off about my surroundings. Unfortunately it wasn't. The
plants all gave off a kind of dark light that was hauntingly
familiar.

When
I finally realized what was so odd about what I was seeing, I almost
wished that I hadn't ever put the pieces together. What I was seeing
was almost the complete inverse of what I normally saw when I shared
a dream with Alec.

Rather
than giving off the pure, soft silvery light of living things, these
plants seemed to be eating the light. It turned the plants into
malevolent entities, but that wasn't the complete story. I'd seen
this kind of living darkness once before—in the nightmare from
the morning before Alec had been shot.

I'd
forgotten most of the terror-filled dream that Alec had woken me
from, but now that I was once again dreaming I was suddenly certain
that this wasn't some kind of terrible coincidence. The dreams were
similar not because they had both originated from the same dark slice
of my subconscious but because they had both been created by an
external force.

I
was being stalked by Dream Stealer just like Alec was, just like
Kristin had been. That meant that there was no longer any question as
to whether Dream Stealer was capable of breaking multiple people at
once. He was. I just needed to remember that piece of information
once I woke up, that or go through with my resolution to talk to
Donovan about my recent lack of quality sleep. I wasn't very
optimistic about either outcome.

I
looked down at myself and realized for the first time that all of the
light I could see was coming from me. It made the light-absorbing,
darkness-emitting plants around me feel even more sinister. It wasn't
just that they were absorbing the light, they were absorbing
my
light—they were devouring me one photon at a time.

It
was beyond disturbing, but it also meant that I would stand out like
a bonfire for anything else that happened to be out there and able to
see my glow. There wasn't any guarantee that the creatures I heard
moving around in the darkness could see the light from living things
like a shape shifter could, but I wasn't going to just blindly assume
I was invisible to the things that I sensed were already stalking me.

I'd
been in countless dreams where I'd changed some aspect of the
dream—often without meaning to—so it seemed worthwhile to
try to change my surroundings to something less dangerous. I
visualized the dark jungle morphing into a bright, cheerful meadow,
but nothing happened.

I
tried concentrating harder, but it still didn't seem like anything
was happening. I could hear something circling around behind me,
setting up for an attack, but all my efforts so far had gained me was
the beginnings of a splitting headache.

It
was time to change my strategy. I needed some kind of equalizer. The
image of the massive sword that I'd seen so many times in Alec's
bedroom came unbidden to my mind and this time when I visualized it
as being part of my dream I felt an odd kind of…catch…as
my mind grabbed onto something and forced the sword I wanted into
existence.

Only
it wasn't exactly what I'd wanted. My focus must have wavered at the
last second because rather than the dark, gleaming steel I'd imagined
I got a weapon that was the same size, but which gave off the cool
white light of a living thing. Luckily my faulty concentration had
also resulted in a weapon that was much, much lighter than the real
weapon I'd been using as my model.

I
wasn't stupid enough to think that having a sword meant I knew how to
use it, but the softly glowing weapon still gave me a sense of power
that I hadn't expected. I took a couple of tentative practice cuts
with the sword and smiled as it effortlessly sliced through a spiky
tree that was as big around as my wrist.

I
spun in place, using my weapon to clear an area more than ten feet in
diameter. It wasn't much, but I wanted room to move around in and I
now had at least a modicum of space. I turned my head from side to
side in an effort to locate the creature that had been circling me,
but the movement had stopped.

A
shiver worked its way up my spine as I realized that meant whatever
I'd been hearing was ready to pounce. Silently cursing the stupidity
that had made me spin around and lose track of whatever was out
there, I put the point of my sword in the direction I thought I'd
last heard movement coming from and steeled myself for what I knew
was coming.

I
thought I was ready, but when it jumped out at me I still almost
wasn't fast enough. I'd been wrong about where it was located and my
sword was out of position, but I somehow managed to bring it around
enough to score a long slash on the creature's side as it closed with
me.

There
was an odd tugging feeling on my left arm as my blade cut it, but for
a second, as it recoiled back out of range of my sword, I thought
that I'd made it through the first exchange of the fight without
getting hurt. It wasn't until I looked down at my arm that I realized
the tugging motion had been the creature slicing into my arm with its
claws.

It
was funny, but the cut didn't hurt until I saw the blood leaking out
of it, but once it started hurting it was pure agony. I tried to
force the pain to the back of my mind, but that didn't do anything
about the fact that my left hand wasn't working quite right now.

I
could feel tears gathering at the corners of my eyes, but in that
moment I couldn't have said for sure whether they were tears of pain,
fear, or rage. I was scared out of my mind, and telling myself that I
couldn't actually die from anything that happened inside of a dream
wasn't doing anything to lessen my terror.

On
the other hand, I was so incredibly tired of living in a world where
I was constantly outclassed. The
thing
I was up against right now wasn't Dream Stealer, but that just meant
that it could be killed and I wanted it dead.

Once
again grateful that my weapon was so light, I shifted it fully to my
right hand and studied the creature that was slowly circling me. It
was vaguely humanoid, with a head, two arms and two legs, but even so
it made my skin crawl in a way that was usually reserved for spiders.

It
was nearly six feet tall with the muscled body of a gymnast, but its
skin was a rough, black material that made it hard to follow in the
near darkness and each of its fingers was tipped with foot-long claws
that looked purpose built for rending and tearing.

That
alone would have been enough to convince me that what I was fighting
had no real-world counterpart, but it was its mouth that was the most
unnatural. It opened its mouth to hiss at me and I saw rows of teeth
emerge from the darkness. It was like getting a close-up view of a
shark only much, much worse because its jaw was hinged in such a way
as to let it open impossibly big. It also looked like its teeth must
retract somewhat when it closed its mouth because there was no way
that teeth that long would fit otherwise.

I
turned in place to keep my sword between the two of us, and the
creature hissed at me again, multifaceted eyes tracking my movements.
Just as I realized that it didn't have a tongue it sprang at me
again.

I
tried to stab it, but it slapped my sword aside with its claws and
slashed at my head. I should have died right then, but as I was
backing away from it I tripped and my fall caused its claws to pass
just over the top of my head.

I
slashed in the creature's direction with my sword as I fell and was
rewarded with a strike to its arm. It was a weak blow, so much so
that it barely qualified as such, but it was better than nothing. Luckily
it was enough to make the creature back off again, which was a good thing because I'd
reflexively used my left hand to catch myself and the pain nearly
caused me to black out.

I
was shaking as I rolled back to my feet. I just wasn't fast enough. I
needed to be faster if I was going to survive, which was
impossible…except making a sword appear out of thin air was
unarguable proof that this really was a dream.

I
went on the offensive, trying to buy myself time to think. I stepped
forward and slashed at the creature, but it easily dodged my sword,
darting backwards and then lunging towards me with the same
preternatural speed it had demonstrated so far in the fight.

There
was no way I could possibly get out of the way in time. I was too
slow but I
willed
myself to move faster, to match the fiend that was about to rip out
my throat. It shouldn't have worked, I'd misjudged just how little
time my attack would buy me and my mind seemed to be moving so
slowly.

I
caught a dark flash out of the corner of my eye, something too fast
for me to completely register and then I felt the same odd catch in
the back of my mind at the same time that my headache exploded into
something far more severe even than the pain in my wrist.

It
felt like someone reached inside my head, grabbed ahold of one of the
hemispheres of my brain, and proceeded to rip a big hole in it. I
screamed in spite of my best efforts to keep it all bottled up
inside. It was the kind of pain you got when you'd damaged something
in a way that you could never fully heal from. It was silly to worry
about something like that when you were about to have your throat
ripped out by some nightmarish creature, but somehow the idea that
I'd somehow inadvertently ruined myself was scary in a way that dying
wasn't. You could only die once, but you had to live with a crippled
mind or body forever.

I'd
been screaming for what felt like forever, but the creature still
somehow hadn't hurt me. I opened my eyes and found that the
creature's claws were still headed towards me, but they were moving
as though through molasses.

It
was impossible, but it was happening and I did my best to take
advantage of it, but I was moving just as slowly as the creature. The
air felt like it had the consistency of water and I simply wasn't
strong enough to power my way through it faster than it wanted to let
me move.

I
wasn't going to have enough time to dodge backwards, so instead I
stepped into the creature, angling my sword so that it would be
correctly placed to block the follow-up strike that I knew would be
coming as soon as my enemy realized that I was too close for its
leading arm to get me.

From
there it was natural to let the momentum my sword already had send
its hilt up into the bottom of the creature's mouth. In the precise
instant when the hilt of my weapon collided with the thing I was
fighting, the pain in my head hit a new crescendo.

The
impact of metal on flesh was still satisfying. I'd hit the creature
hard enough to launch it into the air, but I hardly noticed all of
that because I was too busy trying to clutch my head with my free
hand.

I
staggered back to my feet at the same time as the creature. I reached
past the pain and tried to speed myself up even more, but something
inside my mind had been pushed as far as it was capable of being
pushed. The creature opened its mouth to hiss at me again and I had
the pleasure of seeing dark, black blood pouring out of the wounds
its own teeth had inflicted on its mouth when I'd hit it with my
sword.

We
circled, and this time I raised the point of my sword slightly so
that it was pointed at the creature's head. That seemed to make the
creature more nervous than anything else I'd done so far. It kept
moving its head from side to side, changing the angle between it and
my sword—much like I'd done earlier when I'd been trying to
locate it based on what I could hear of its movements through the
underbrush.

I
took an experimental stab at my enemy, the kind of half-hearted
attempt that I thought would help me avoid getting too far out of
position, but rather than missing by a mile like I'd expected to, I
scored a shallow gash on the creature's cheek. It still seemed to be
having a hard time following the movement of my sword.

I
stepped back and slashed at the creature, and nearly lost my grip on
my sword from the sheer force of the creature's block. There was
something there I could work with, but I didn't have much longer, not
at the rate I was currently losing blood.

I
took a deep breath and then launched two more short slashes at the
creature that triggered the same kind of brutal blocks that I'd come
to expect so far, but this time I was ready for the force behind the
counters and I got my sword back into position each time before the
creature could get into striking range of me.

Based
on the way that it was batting at the air in front of it in an effort
to knock the point of my sword away, it was getting frustrated. I
pulled my sword in closer, still keeping it angled so the creature
couldn't see it, and then as it stepped closer to me, I also stepped
forward and rammed the point of my sword towards the creature's head.

Once
again it saw my sword coming towards it at the last second, but this
time I was moving too fast for it to dodge to one side. Under other
circumstances the feeling as the sword went home in the creature's
flesh would have made me sick, but this time all I felt was relief
that I'd managed to survive.