Lair of Dreams (The Diviners #2)

“Theta,” Sam shouted. “Hold on!”

But Theta couldn’t really hear Sam. It was as if she were in danger of floating away, out of her body, away from fear and pain, the way she used to do with Roy, like a child crooking a finger inside her and showing her the way to a hiding closet. She was vaguely aware of Sam lunging, swinging the knife at the wraith’s broad back, vaguely aware of the knife sticking fast but having no effect. Her body shook as Sam thrust out a hand, screaming, “Don’t see me,” but the broken thing lurched toward Theta, undaunted.

“Dreamdreamhungrydream…” it said in that garbled, satanic voice.

The lamp on the front of the thing’s digger’s helmet flickered in Theta’s eyes, hypnotic keystrokes of light.

Roy’s voice rang in her head:

Where’s my dinner, Betty Sue? Were you flirting with that boy, Betty Sue? I saw you. Don’t lie to me. You know how I feel about lies.

The wraith latched on to her arm. It smelled of spoiled meat and curdled milk. Theta turned her head and shut her eyes. She thought of Roy coming for her with his fists and his taunts and his belt.

“Dreamhungrydreamhungry…” the thing growled. Unthinking. Unfeeling.

Its foul breath was on her neck, filling her nostrils.

Roy. Roy smelling of beer. Drunk on anger and disappointment and violence.

The trembling in Theta’s body had progressed to shaking. Her palms itched. Tears ran down her face, but she could not make a sound.

Don’t you cry or I’ll give you something to cry about.

The undead’s stinking, dangerous mouth was close.

On the bed. Him on top. Her mouth bloody. Blood in her nose. Close to choking.

With a cry, Theta put up a hand, a barrier between herself and the thing that wanted only to infect her with the shared dream, to stay alive any way it could, to break her as it was broken. Its skin was soft and oily against the thin cotton of her glove, like rotting fruit. Theta gagged, vomiting a little in her mouth. The itching under her skin caught, like gas finding flame at a stove burner. The temperature inside Theta rose. Rivulets of sweat poured down her body. The heat raced along her nerve endings, shooting out to her hand. The thing screeched as Theta burned it. It lashed and shook as it burned down to bone.

“Theta!” Sam said sharply. And then, more gently, “Theta, let go.”

She opened her eyes and saw Sam. The fabric of her glove had burned away, and in some places, it was embedded in her flesh. She gripped a scrap of the thing’s shirt. Sam pried it loose and dropped it, leaving it to float on the water. He examined her hands. They were red and blistered.

“Gonna need to see to those,” Sam said. “You hurting?”

“Not yet,” Theta said.

“We have to get up to the street, Theta.”

The water. It was up to Theta’s chest. She nodded, shivering. The earlier heat had gone, and now she felt as if she would never be warm again. “Sam? Please. Don’t… don’t tell Memphis.”

Sam glanced down at the digger’s hat bobbing in the sewer’s water current. He looked back at Theta. “I didn’t see nothing.”

The way they’d come crackled with light like a dozen gangsters firing Tommy guns from a moving car at night. Shrieks bounced off the walls. More were coming.

“Time to go,” Sam said.

Theta waded through the filthy water and climbed up the ladder, wincing as the pain bit at her burned palms. And then she and Sam were sliding the manhole cover off, pulling themselves up onto the neon-painted puddles of Broadway and running for the graveyard.

Ling found herself on the barren streets of Chinatown. Fog clung to the rippling New Year’s banners and the zigzag fire escapes. There were no lights at the windows, and the businesses were shuttered. Big yellow quarantine notices had been stuck to every door. The windows of the Tea House were dark. The rest of the city loomed as a distant silhouette, shadowy and unreachable.

Where is everyone? Ling didn’t know if she’d thought that or said it aloud. Her mind was as cloudy as the streets. But her body was tense, alert, ready for some impending battle.

A ship’s horn blasted a farewell, and through a clearing in the fog, Ling could see to the harbor and the great big steamer sailing away, her parents and Uncle Eddie at the stern, crowded in among Ling’s neighbors, all of them waving good-bye. Her sorrowful mother fluttered her handkerchief. Her father’s mouth moved, but Ling couldn’t hear what he was saying as the fog swallowed them up.

“Baba! Mama!” Ling cried, and it echoed in the empty streets.