Roundtable nights, p.8
Roundtable Nights, page 8
Emilie’s brow furrowed in concern. “When you were drawing before, the ether turned your imaginings into actual monsters,” she said. “We need to make sure it’s not happening again.”
I squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “It shouldn’t happen like that anymore. Not since Merlin accepted the mantle of the Vesica Piscis. It was supposed to shield his mind so that the dark ether wouldn’t draw from his imagination like it did before.”
But Merlin still looked troubled. “Alessandro never said that my mind was protected from any influence. Only that the ether wouldn’t use my imagination to hurt people anymore.”
I wished I had a definite answer for him. “I don’t know, son. Maybe it was just a nightmare. Dark monsters. Mordred coming back. I’ve had a few nightmares about those things, too.”
Merlin shook his head. “I know when I’m dreaming. This wasn’t just a nightmare. It was like I was there—it felt too real.”
Emilie opened her arms, and Merlin leaned in close for a hug. “We can’t be too careful, Elijah. Maybe it’s nothing, but what will we lose—apart from a little sleep—if we look into this a little more and it turns out to be nothing? If this was real, though, and we didn’t look into it…”
“You’re right. Let’s go check the books Alessandro left behind,” I suggested, slipping my feet into a pair of slippers beside my bed. “The Adepts of the Vesica Piscis compiled all kinds of arcane knowledge in tomes. The study downstairs has a book, if I remember right, that detailed their research on… strange entities.”
I led the way down the old wooden stairs to the study, the floorboards creaking under our feet. Emilie followed close behind, one hand resting comfortingly on Merlin’s shoulder.
Sir Percival darted around our ankles, nearly tripping me a couple times, as I tried to put one foot in front of the other. I swear, for someone who used to be a human, he sure behaved like your run-of-the-mill pain-in-the-ass feline.
The room was lined with overflowing bookshelves, stacked haphazardly with leather-bound tomes and loose pages. I scanned the shelves, running my fingers over the dusty spines until I found the one I was looking for.
“Here it is. The Bestiary.” I pulled the heavy book from the shelf, sending up a puff of dust that made me cough.
Merlin’s eyes lit up when he saw the intricate illustration on the cover—a dragon curled around a flourished and embossed letter B. “Is this it, Dad?”
“Let’s find out.” I sat down at the desk, settling the giant tome in front of me. Merlin squeezed in on one side of me, while Emilie perched on the desk’s edge.
I slowly turned the crackling pages, scanning entries for griffins, hydras, and more fantastical creatures I never realized existed. But the way the Bestiary’s author wrote about these things, they all were real—or at least used to be. Merlin kept peering over my shoulder expectantly.
“Hmm, nope... not this one either,” I murmured as we paged through the book. Strange beasts and monsters stared up from the yellowed pages, but none matched the form Merlin had drawn.
Then suddenly, a furry head popped up right in front of the book, blocking my view. “Hey, watch it!” I said, as Sir Percival’s fluffy butt bumped the tome sideways. The frisky feline just meowed and batted playfully at the pages.
“Shoo, Percival!” Merlin giggled, lifting the cat off the desk. I pulled the book back in front of me with a sigh. It was a thick book. It probably had a thousand entries.
The temptation was to speed up the process, flip through the pages as quickly as possible, but we needed to make sure Merlin verified each monster on the book’s pages wasn’t the ones from his nightmare. Most of them, I knew straight away, weren’t what he drew. I flipped past them without a second thought. Every now and again there was something similar to Merlin’s drawing, and I waited for his confirmation that it wasn’t it before moving onto whatever oddity was waiting on the next page.
I continued slowly turning the pages, scanning each entry carefully as Emilie peered over my other shoulder. The minutes ticked by and I could feel Merlin growing restless next to me.
“This is taking forever,” he grumbled.
“Patience, my boy,” I said gently. “We’ll find it.”
I turned another page and there it was, a creature that looked exactly like Merlin’s drawing. It had the same spindly limbs, elongated torso, and oval head. Merlin jabbed his finger at the page excitedly.
“That’s it!” he exclaimed. “That’s what I saw!”
I examined the text beside the illustration. “It’s called a Mare,” I said. “A parasitic being that feeds on human fear by inducing nightmares.”
I quickly scanned the entry, looking for anything useful. “It says here the Mare flees before the person wakes up, so it’s rarely seen. It doesn’t do any real harm to its hosts. It feeds and flees. I’m sure it’s terrifying if one is feeding on you, but so far as monsters go, these things are pretty tame.”
Merlin furrowed his brow. “But what if someone was controlling them? Dark ether changes everything. The one I saw had ether all around it. What if these things are pulling monsters out of people’s nightmares?”
I scratched the back of my head. “That tracks. The sasquatch, the wolf I faced earlier, I suppose they could be the product of a nightmare. But the dentist who steals your teeth?”
“A classic nightmare trope,” Emilie said. “You might be onto something, Merlin.“
A chill went down my spine as I shared a look with Emilie. “Merlin, you said you saw these things in the neighborhood?”
Merlin nodded. “They each rose from different houses. You think they’re really out there, around the block?”
I shuddered. Corvus Blackwood was purchasing properties in the area. Sloane knew which ones, exactly. “Do you think if we brought up the satellite view of the neighborhood, you could say if the houses we point out are the same ones the mares were at in your nightmare?”
Merlin scratched his head. “Maybe. I don’t know. But probably. It’s all still so clear in my head. I can picture every detail.”
I grabbed my phone and quickly dialed Sloane, putting her on speakerphone.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” she grumbled upon answering. I could envision her bleary eyes glaring at the clock.
“Sorry Sloane, but this is important,” I said urgently. “Merlin had a nightmare.”
“Small world. So was I. But you’re his dad, Elijah. Why are you calling me about a nightmare?”
“Wait,” I said. “You were having a nightmare when I called?”
“Yeah, a real doozy,” she replied with a nervous laugh. “Terrifying as hell. Like I was chasing down a criminal in the streets and he led me right into his gang’s lair. Come to find out, they were vampires, and he’d brought me to them for dinner. I know it’s silly. Scared me half to death, but hey, just a dream, right?”
My gut clenched. “I don’t think it was just a dream. And if you just had a nightmare about vampire gangsters… you might be in danger. We may have discovered what’s making the monsters we’ve been facing lately.”
I quickly explained our theory about the Mares and Blackwood weaponizing dreams.
Sloane inhaled sharply. “If you’re right, then those vampires might be…” There was the sound of rustling as she scrambled out of bed. “I’m coming straight over.”
But then I heard a loud bang. Sloane screamed and gunshots blasted back through the phone speaker. Would the vampires she made in her nightmare die from gunshots? Real vampires didn’t—I’d met a few myself over the years. But what Sloane was facing wasn’t the same. These were vampires of her nightmarish imagination. Maybe if she thought that bullets could kill them…
Not likely. She was shooting at them because it’s what she did. She was a cop. She knew, like everyone else did, that vampires—no matter what film or book they’re from—don’t die from gunshots.
I willed my staff to length. “I need to teleport to her place. She won’t make it out of there without me.”
Merlin quickly grabbed my hand. “Dad. Be careful.”
I nodded. “Love you, son.” I glanced at Emilie. “Love you, Em.”
“Love you, too!”
I spun my staff overhead. I didn’t know how many vampires I was about to encounter. But I had a staff—it’s wooden—and if the vampires of Sloane’s nightmare followed the usual trope of pop-culture vampires, a stake to the heart would do the trick.
That was the split-second plan I came up with. I didn’t have any time to waste. I widened my stance ready to fight, as the portal spun around me and Merlin, Emilie, and Percival disappeared from view.
9. Fear and Fangs
The portal snapped shut behind me as I stepped into Sloane’s living room, staff at the ready. Chaos greeted me. A horde of snarling vampires, their fangs bared and ready to feast, encircled Sloane. Anyone else would cry, terrified and helpless. Not Sloane. She was fighting for her life. A boot to the fangs. A fist to the gut. It wouldn’t save her, but if she was going down, she was going down fighting like hell.
I wasn’t about to let that happen.
With a sweep of my staff, gnarled branches burst forth from its shaft, impaling each bloodsucker through the chest and freeing Sloane, who scurried across the floor toward me. My smug satisfaction quickly turned to confusion as the vampires writhed and ripped themselves free, angrier than before.
“What the hell?” I said. “A stake through the heart doesn’t kill them?”
Sloane shrugged helplessly. “Bullets don’t work either.”
I swore under my breath. Of course, bullets wouldn’t work on vampires. “How do we kill them, then?”
“Beats me,” Sloane said. “Monsters are your department, magic man.”
“And the mare made these vampires based on your dream! Whatever you think kills vampires, that’s what works.”
Sloane tilted her head. “Sunlight, maybe?”
I gritted my teeth in frustration. “It’s the middle of the night! You seriously didn’t realize vampires can die from stakes? If there’s one thing consistent in pretty much every vampire movie or book out there, it’s that a stake to the heart can ruin a vampire’s night!”
“I don’t watch vampire movies,” Sloane protested. “Or read vampire books. I’m more of a thriller kind of girl.”
“But come on, who doesn’t know vampires—never mind. We can’t fight them if we don’t know how to kill them. We have to get out of here.”
I spun my staff overhead, trying to will a portal open, but the vampires were on us in an instant. Their gnashing teeth and clawing hands forced me to abandon the spell, defending Sloane and myself instead with another flurry of gnarled branches sprouting instantly from my staff.
As one particularly ugly bloodsucker lunged for my throat, he rasped in a heavy Romanian accent, “Ve vant to suck your blooood.”
I shot Sloane an exasperated look. “Seriously? Do you always dream in clichés?”
She threw up her hands in defense. “I don’t know why I dreamed them up. I don’t think about vampires—ever!”
“It must be the Mare’s doing,” I said. “Blackwood’s directing its attacks.” That opportunistic bastard would use any tool at his disposal to get what he wanted. Of course, what he wanted exactly remained something of a mystery.
Sloane’s eyes widened. “You think he’s controlling the Mare?”
I batted away another vampire with the butt end of my staff. “It’s the only explanation. Now let’s table this discussion until we’re out of staking distance, shall we?”
“Any ideas how to get out of here?” Sloane panted, grabbing a kitchen chair and throwing it at the crowd of vampires gathering around us.
I stabbed out with my staff, like fending off rabid dogs. This wouldn’t work for very long. “You’re the one who dreamed them up. Think of a weakness. You must’ve seen Dracula or something. Hence the accent they all have.”
Sloane shook her head. “I saw Sesame Street growing up. It’s probably based on the Count. You know, von, ha ha ha. Two, ha ha ha.”
“We aren’t fighting killer Muppets, Sloane. That can’t be it!”
Sloane tilted her head. “They hate crucifixes, right?”
I snorted. “If you say so. In reality, vampires couldn’t care less about religious symbols.” At Sloane’s shocked look, I added, “Yeah, vampires are real. Not like these. Story for another time. Do you have a crucifix?”
“There’s one over my bed,” she said.
“Bedroom it is.” I slammed my staff to the ground. The plywood under our feet responded, as if coming back to life. It buckled like waves on an ocean. Not enough to stop the vampires, but it gave us an opening. I grabbed her arm, pulling her towards the doorway as I continued swinging my staff at any vampires who got too close.
We stumbled into the bedroom, slamming the door behind us. Sloane yanked the crucifix off the wall, dropping it into my outstretched hand.
I pressed my staff against the door, bringing it to life like the floors before. The natural grain shifted until it more closely resembled ripples on the sea. I pushed the crucifix through. Held it just in place, and closed the wood around it.
The screams on the other side of the door signaled the vampires’ disapproval. “Noooooo! Ze pain! Ze agony! Take it away—AWAY!”
“Will that hold them?” Sloane asked.
“I don’t know. It’s working for now. Let’s get out of here before we find out.”
The vampires’ screams intensified as the crucifix did its work. I ignored them, focusing on the portal as I spun my staff. It was our only way out.
A green tornado formed overhead as Sloane huddled close to me. I brought the portal down around us and the bedroom faded from view. We appeared back in the library at the DDA, where Emilie, Merlin, and Sir Percival were still poring over the bestiary.
“You’re back!” Emilie shouted upon our arrival. “Glad you made it!”
Sloane wiped her brow. “Me, too. That was…”
“Terrifying?” Merlin finished her sentence.
Sloane nodded. “And that’s not the worst of it. If Blackwood is controlling these creatures, somehow, and he sent one after me. This is personal. And after our confrontation in his office earlier, he must think we’re getting too close to what he’s planning.”
“You guys learn anything more about the mares?” I asked.
Sir Percival traced one of his claws across the page as he examined the writing. I hadn’t read the entire entry before. I had to leave to help Sloane.
“Right here,” Sir Percival said. “It says that sometimes a mare’s influence can trouble a person’s mind for months after the mare leaves. Call it a side-effect of the mare’s attack.”
I shook my head. “So one nightmare breeds another. How is that helpful?”
Sloane cleared her throat. “What’s the cat saying now?”
Emilie moved closer to Merlin, Percival, and the Bestiary, but craned her head back toward Sloane. “The book says that a mare’s nightmares can recur for a while after the mare attacks.”
“Well, that can’t be good,” Sloane said. “If this mare can make monsters out of nightmares, and it already got to me, what happens the next time I go to sleep?”
“We don’t know,” I said. “There has to be a way to stop this.”
“Slay the mare!” Sir Percival said. “It should stop whatever nightmares the mare inspires.”
“Kill the mare…” Emilie was deep in thought. “And the monsters made from a nightmare might die as well.”
“That means if we keep hunting the dentists, the sasquatch, the vampires, whatever, that we’ll never end this. The only way to beat this problem is to kill the mare responsible.”
Merlin shook his head. “Most of them aren’t dangerous. They wanted my help. That’s what they asked. It’s just one that’s a problem right now.”
“Maybe,” I said. “There’s only one that you saw. If Blackwood and the Mordredans are using one, and they’ve captured more, it’s only a matter of time until they gain influence over the others. We need to identify the properties involved. Do you know which ones Royal Son purchased lately, Sloane?”
Sloane retrieved her phone from her pocket and scrolled. She showed me her screen. “Here’s a list.”
I grabbed my phone and started typing out addresses. Then, I loaded a bird’s-eye satellite view of the city and showed a few of them to Merlin. “Are these the houses associated with the mares you saw in your dream?”
Merlin gulped. “Yeah. Every one of them. If they got to me in my dreams, does that mean…”
“It might mean Blackwood is trying to reach you,” I admitted. “But the other mares out there can inspire dreams, too. Perhaps they managed to reach you, somehow, as a cry for help.”
“Then we need to help them, Dad! Not just because they’re hurting, but because if we don’t, something worse is going to happen. That voice in my nightmare…”
“He told you Mordred would come back.”
“Not just come back,” Merlin said. “He’s coming for me.”
Sir Percival leaned back on his hindquarters and raised a paw toward Merlin. “Then this is my vow, sire. I shall defend you with my life. Nine times I shall stand with all my valor, and nine times I shall fall before I allow the vile fiend to harm you!”
I scratched the back of my head. “It could be a simple threat. The dark mare you saw messing with your mind, stoking your fear. But it might not be. The question is, how does all of this fit with Blackwood’s goal to revive Mordred… again?”
“There’s something about the places Mordredans are holding the mares,” Sloane said. “If all they needed was a prison for monsters, they wouldn’t need these properties. They could buy one place and hold all of them there.”
