Kara felt something like a stranglehold around her neck. When she looked up, Frederick was gone. In his place stood Bezeal, his eyes as red as fire. “You!” she hissed. “You . . . all this . . . time.”
The invisible rope continued to tighten on her neck, but Kara put both arms around the cobalt chain bag, and then fell backward into the portal.
The portal had severed Bezeal’s hold on Kara. She navigated the meandering tunnel of distance, time, and place. Her watch finally indicated the proper coordinates, and Kara descended into the forest, riding a streak of crimson lightning until she hit the ground. She found herself in a narrow clearing in the midst of the tallest trees she had ever seen. Not twenty feet away, stood Archer and Kaylie, their hands down by their sides like gunslingers.
Kara smiled wryly at the thought. Little Kaylie with pigtails . . . a gunslinger.
“Kara?” Archer blurted. “How . . . how did you?”
“Really, Archer?” Kara quipped. “You two give off enough EM that my sensors could find you anywhere on this planet.”
“She’s got Nick!” Kaylie squeaked.
“Yes,” Kara said, “I have Nick.” She lifted up the chain cage with Nick inside. She held up her free hand, and razor-sharp lances of steel grew out of her fingertips. “I have him, and I’m going to kill him unless you quench your will.”
“What?”
“Shut it down, Keaton!” Kara screamed. “Stop trying to undo everything I’ve worked so hard for. This is my world!”
“We can’t,” Archer shouted. “Don’t you see that we can’t? We’re Dreamtreaders, and this is our world to protect.”
“All I’m asking is that you call back your will for fifteen minutes,” Kara hissed. “That’s all the time left . . . all the time I need.”
“Kara, please!” Archer shouted. “It doesn’t have to go like this.”
“You’ve forced my hand!”
“No,” Archer said. “Someone else did.”
“What?” Kara growled.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Archer said. “Deep down, you know these plans haven’t really been yours.”
Kara swayed a moment, seemed to master herself, and then said, “Of course these are my plans. I steer my own ship.”
“I’m sorry, Kara,” Archer said. “But we can’t stop. We have to repair the Rift . . . we have to try.”
“Then Nick must die,” Kara said, slowly moving her sword fingers toward Nick within the chains. He was awake and wriggling like a madman, but he couldn’t escape.
“No!” Kaylie cried. “Kara, you touch him, and I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Kara laughed.
Kaylie tore free from Archer’s grasp. Actually, she didn’t tear free. She vibrated, became a blur, and then, suddenly, she stood halfway between Archer and Kara.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Kaylie said. “I’ll use it all.”
Kara stammered, “W-what?”
Kaylie scrunched her nose and glowered. “I’ll use all my will in one shot.”
Kara’s eyes widened. “But you . . . you’d die.”
“So what?” Kaylie said. “So would you.”
Kara’s blade-hand froze, but she remained defiant. She glared hard at Kaylie, and, to Archer’s utter amazement, Kaylie—God bless her—gave the stare right back.
Wait, Archer thought. That itch was at the back of his mind again. This time it was telling him to think. He’d just told Kara that it didn’t matter. But it did matter. It mattered a lot. It might even be everything.
“Kaylie, Kara, wait!” Archer yelled.
They both looked up, but Kaylie didn’t take her eyes off Kara for long.
“Kara, listen to me,” Archer said. “Before this is over, I need to know . . . why? Why do you need the whole world?”
Kara half-rolled her eyes. “Really? The answer is simple, Archer. I don’t need it. I want it.”
“That’s it? You sound like a spoiled child!”
Kara laughed. “Pathetic,” she said. “You’re only spoiled if others have to get everything for you. I’m taking everything I want. And what the heart wants, the heart gets.”
“It’s not your heart that wants it,” Archer said.
“That’s the second time you’ve said something like that,” Kara growled. “What do you mean?”
“You think this has been your plan all along?” Archer shouted, his eyes growing fierce. “The whole Lucid Dreaming kick, starting in middle school? You really believe you thought of that yourself?”
“What?” Kara blurted. “Of course I did.”
“The whole Nightmare Lord plan? The subterranean breaches? The Rift—you really think that was you?”
“Keep talking, Archer,” Kara muttered, glancing at her watch. “In five minutes, it won’t matter.”
“It was Bezeal!” Archer yelled. “Everything. You think it was all your idea, but that’s how that little maggot works. He worms his way into your head and whispers his plans. It’s what he did to me. It’s why Duncan and Mesmeera died at my hand. And he’s been whispering to you for a lot longer.”
“You’re insane,” Kara replied. “Bezeal is a footstool—”
“That’s exactly what I called him!” Archer shouted. “And guess where that suggestion came from? From him! He wants us to think he’s a little nothing when he’s really the puppeteer pulling all our strings.”
“Archer’s right!” Nick cried out. “That’s what his treatment is: whispers. I know. I just experienced it. It’s terrible. It gnaws at your will, your hopes, your . . . your dreams.”
“No,” Kara said, shaking her head. “No, it’s not true.”
“Think about it, Kara,” Archer said, “and think fast! Go back to the first time you had any of those ideas. Was Bezeal there?”
“I . . . no. He couldn’t be. I didn’t even . . . know him . . . no.”
“Kara, I visited your mom,” Archer said, his voice both urgent and gentle.
“You what?” Kara cried.
“Amy and I went to see her,” Archer went on. “I was trying to find out why you had changed. You were my friend once, but something broke, and I know what it was.”
Kara’s reply was nothing more than silence.
“Your mother told us,” Archer said. “She told us after your dad left . . . that you had an imaginary friend. She told us you’d talk to this invisible person.”
“So what?” Kara spat. “Lots of kids have invisible friends. It helps when you’re upset.”
“What was his name?” Archer demanded.
“What?”
“His name, Kara! What was your imaginary friend’s name?”
“Bill!” she shouted. “So what? It doesn’t—”
“It wasn’t Bill, Kara!” Archer yelled. “It was Bezeal.”
Lightning flashed above, and its thunder sounded like a bomb detonating.
Kara dropped Nick. He hit the ground and groaned.
Archer pressed on. “Your mom confirmed it. We didn’t suggest it. She told us the name of your friend, your confidant, the one you went to when you were sad or angry—his name was Bezeal. Every one of these devious ideas that entered your mind—that was him.”
Kara blinked. The blades disappeared from her fingers. “Every idea?”
“Well,” Archer muttered, “maybe not every single one, but . . . most of them. The worst ones.”
Kara began to tremble. Slowly, she fell to her knees and covered her face with her hands. But it wasn’t out of a sense of defeat.
Archer gasped. He lunged for Kaylie and threw up a will shield . . . one second before Kara unleashed a deafening, banshee-like wail of agony and anger.
That wasn’t all. Unseen will flashed out of Kara. Redwood trees began to topple all around the clearing. Archer could barely hold his shield in place. He then realized he wasn’t. Kaylie was augmenting the shield now with her own strength.
Branches and whole trunks, driven by hurricane winds, cras
hed and slammed through the woods, bouncing with great cracks off Kaylie’s shield. The leaves and debris made it nearly impossible to see, but slowly the storm ended. Kara looked up. Her eyes were blood-red and crackling with slender crimson sparks. “What . . . what do I need to do?” Kara asked.
FORTY-EIGHT
THE NIGHT OF NEVER-ENDING TEARS
WHEN ARCHER, KAYLIE, AND NICK ENTERED BALTIMORE, the once beautiful city looked as though it had been through a war. It had.
But, Archer thought, it was a war of people’s own making. Buildings burned out of control, wrecked cars littered the roads, and the Inner Harbor was awash in trash. Waking up to the reality of it all would likely take most people to the brink of madness. Beyond it all, however, was one who needed to answer for his crimes.
“You’ve got it, right?” Archer asked as they turned the corner on Pratt Street.
Kaylie frowned. “Archer, we rehearsed it a hundred times.”
“It’s a bonzer plan, mate,” Nick said. “We’ll give it a burl.”
“No,” Archer said. “This isn’t something we try. We do this, or . . . or the whole world pays.”
Each busy with his or her own thoughts, the Dreamtreaders spent the rest of the walk to the Dream Tower in silence. They entered through the revolving doors, and Kaylie happified the guards at the desk and outside the elevator.
They stepped inside, and the elevator doors closed.
“Floor please?” the automated voice asked.
“Communications,” Archer said.
The doors opened, and more than a dozen guards trained their assault rifles toward Archer, Kaylie, and Nick. Three seconds later, the rifles fell from their hands, and the guards sat down to suck their thumbs.
“Bonzer!” Nick laughed.
“Promise me, Kaylie,” Archer said. “Promise me you’ll never happify me.”
“It’ll cost you,” Kaylie said coyly. “Fortunately for you, I’ll accept cash, check—actually, I just accept candy.”
Archer laughed. “Let’s get our friends.”
The communications center was awash with muted colors from all the fiber-optics in the tall racks of network hardware. “Razz?” Archer called. “Amy? You guys in here?”
Amy came tearing around a tall battery backup system and tackled Archer with a hug. “I thought you’d lost,” she cried. “We’ve been up here so long. I kept hearing things. It was scary.”
Razz tangled in Archer’s hair. “Oh, you’re back! You’re back!” she squeaked with excitement.
Archer felt the blush run hot to his face. “I . . . um, Amy,” he said. “Thank you, but, uh . . . can you let go of me?”
Amy laughed, released him, and backed up a step. “I was just happy, is all,” she said. “Yep.”
Kaylie used a little will to hover up to Archer’s height and grab Razz. “C’mere, you little fluffy critter, you!”
“Hey, unhand me!” Razz squealed halfheartedly. “Well, I am rather fluffy.”
“Bonzer job here,” Nick said. “You cut the Veil.”
“I knew you could do it,” Archer said.
“But . . . it’s gone now, Archer,” Amy said. “I can’t make things with my mind anymore.”
“You’re better for it,” Archer said. “Be glad.”
Nick gestured toward the elevator. “Archer,” he said, “we’d better be on our way.”
After dropping Amy and Razz at the main floor, Archer told the automated elevator, “Beneath.”
“Floor restriction. Initiate recognition protocol or choose another floor.”
Archer nodded at Kaylie who placed her will-enhanced palm to the scanning screen. “Protocol Wind Maiden One,” she said.
The elevator began its descent, and Archer said, “Figures she’d use that as a password.” No one laughed. Not even Archer. When the doors opened in Kara’s cavern below, Archer knew they would face their most dangerous enemy of all.
When the doors finally parted, Archer immediately noticed the distant sound of crying, a kind of tremulous sob echoing in the cavern. The Dreamtreader trio charged past the barracks and armories, across the open floor, and halted at the Inner Sanctum.
Kara was there on her knees. Bezeal held the flaming Vorcaust in his green hand. “Give it to me, now!” Bezeal hissed. “You failed . . . in everything! The Shadow Key belongs to me.”
“I’m telling you,” Kara wailed, “I don’t have it.”
“Of course you do,” Bezeal growled. He raised the whip.
“She doesn’t have it, Bezeal!” Nick yelled.
Archer stepped forward. “We do.” He took the key, pushed it in the keyhole, and said, “Scath, get inside, right now.”
A flurry of weeping, cursing, hissing shadows fled between the Dreamtreaders, Kara, and Bezeal. They disappeared into the Inner Sanctum, and Archer turned the key. The slab door shut with an echoing boom.
“Saved me a step,” Bezeal said. “Thank you, Archer.”
“What happened to your rhyme?” Archer asked.
Bezeal hissed in reply. “Hand . . . me . . . the Shadow Key!”
“I don’t think so,” Archer said.
“Boy, do not trifle with me,” the merchant snarled, his voice thick with menace. “The Shadow Key is mine.”
“Not from where I’m standing,” Archer said, holding up the key and waggling it.
“Insolent child,” Bezeal sneered. “Think you’re powerful because you unmade the Rift? Pitiful. Your beloved Waking World is ruined.” “Not ruined,” Kaylie said. “We’ve got our anchors back. We won’t get fooled again.”
“Only a matter of time,” Bezeal whispered. “Now, give me the key, or I will slay all four of you . . . where you stand.”
“Slay us?” Nick echoed. “Now what a spewing mad thing for you to say. I ought’a punt your sorry rump into the next galaxy, fair Dinkum.”
Bezeal’s eyes turned blood-red. His voice dropped an octave, and the entire chamber turned suddenly cold. “I will shred you,” he whispered. “For the last time, give me the Shadow Key.”
“Now, Kaylie!” Archer yelled. “It’s our only chance!”
Kaylie threw her hands forward and snapped open the portal to the Dream. Kaylie dove through, followed in a heartbeat by Archer and Nick, but before she could close the portal completely, Bezeal slipped through as well.
Crimson tornadoes slithered down from the turbulent sky, and Old Jack towered high over the Dream landscape. The three Dreamtreaders were waiting when Bezeal appeared.
“Thought you could escape?” he hissed. “Fool, you’ve ventured into the wrong realm. I will trap you here, and your mortal bodies can rot in the Waking World.”
Archer stepped forward. “I didn’t think you would follow us,” he said. “But I guess I’d better give this to you.” He held out the Shadow Key.
Bezeal’s Cheshire grin appeared briefly, but vanished, and his eyes grew very small. “You give it . . . freely?” he asked, moving cautiously toward Archer. “Think you that Bezeal will grant you mercy?”
“Just take the key,” Archer growled. “And shut up.”
Bezeal snatched the Shadow Key from Archer’s hand, and then clutched it to his breast. “There will be no mercy,” he hissed.
“It’s not going to do you any good here,” Archer said, crossing his arms. “The Shadow Key, I mean.”
“I control the Scath,” Bezeal said. “And the Masters Bindings . . . and they are such good bait.”
“Well, that’s what Archer’s talking about,” Nick said. “See, you’ve got no Shadowkeep. Rigby’s gone, and Kara won’t ever come back. You don’t have a Nightmare Lord.”
Clutching her Patches doll, Kaylie stepped forward. “You see, Bezeal, we’ve beaten you. We’re Dreamtreaders, and we hold the power here.”
Bezeal’s eyes turned red. He began to tremble. “Your power is—”
“And,” Archer interrupted, “we know who you are.”
Speaking once more in that horrible voice, Bez
eal said, “If you knew me, you would know there has always been a Nightmare Lord. No. 6 Rue de La Morte was but one Shadowkeep; there have been thousands of others. And I have been there for each and every one of them.”
As if a mantle of dark thunderheads had rolled over the landscape, the ambient light of the Dream dimmed, and a faint, red glow surrounded Bezeal. “You call me Bezeal,” he said, and his silhouette began to grow, “but I have worn many other names.”
“Kaylie, don’t look,” Archer whispered urgently.
Nick physically turned Kaylie around and ushered her back. Even Archer stepped back.
Taller now than any of the Dreamtreaders, Bezeal was still growing. “Some have called me Belial. To others, I was Beelzebub. I’ve even been named such a banal moniker as Old Scratch. But would you know my real name, Dreamtreaders? Think you that you could bear to hear it spoken from my lips?”
Archer turned his head, but from his peripheral vision, he saw Bezeal’s shape change. The hooded robe was gone. In its place were dark wings, similar to bat wings, but ragged and torn as if from wear. The pinprick eyes had grown to blazing red slashes, and a fiery crown burned in the air above his head. “My name,” he said, “spells your doom, and not just for this world but forever. You know me now, don’t you? Oh, yes, you know.”
A door in the darkness opened, and brilliant white light poured through. Archer, Kaylie, and Nick covered their eyes, but they were not afraid. Now, they were smiling.
Archer saw that Bezeal—or whatever he wanted to call himself—however, had raised a wing to shield his eyes.
“Ah, so that’s where you’ve been hiding all these years!” boomed Master Gabriel, stepping through the door. “I have suspected for centuries, of course, but nothing like a confession to make things certain.”
“You!” Bezeal hissed. “You cannot harm me. The time is not yet nigh.”
“Oh really?” Master Gabriel asked. He drew his sword, Murkbane, and the blade lit with brilliant white fire. “I am afraid you have that quite wrong. Your greatest suffering is most certainly yet to come. But that does not mean you cannot suffer now as well.”
Bezeal held up the Shadow Key and yelled, “Scath, come to your master’s aid!”