I willed my heart to calm its wild beating. I would not lie in this room, stewing in fear. If Myrddin’s sedative prevented me from shifting, I’d make it work for me instead. I’d rest. I’d sleep, even. And I’d use the dream phone to contact Aunt Mab.
The Cerddorion can communicate psychically through the mental pathways that open in sleep. A dream phone call would require some concentration, but not nearly as much as a shift.
I didn’t know what time it was, but Mab was powerful enough to detect a dream-phone call even while awake. I needed to talk to her. I had no hope Mab could do anything to help me. I was beyond help—alone, immobilized, and without the vaguest clue about the location of this dark, locked room. Still, I wanted my aunt. I wanted to say good-bye.
The sedative stroked at the edges of my consciousness like a calm lake gently lapping the shore. I relaxed into the sensation, let myself sink into sleep. In my dream, I wasn’t strapped down; I was free. I drew upon the image of the lake, picturing myself sitting beside still water. The day was sunny, the sand was warm. Thick woods grew around the lake, and the air was fragrant with scents of grass and pine. I leaned over and drew my hand through the water. It was warm, like bathwater, and I made patterns with the ripples. Tiny, rainbow-colored fish, attracted by the movement, followed my hand.
When my dreamscape felt real, I was ready to make the call. I pictured Mab in various contexts, as if I were paging through an old photograph album. Mab dressed in her fencing outfit, practicing swordplay on the back lawn at Maenllyd. Mab at the kitchen table, pouring a cup of tea. Mab reaching for a book from the top library shelf. And the image that always arose when I thought of my aunt: Mab sitting by the fireplace in her library, a book open on her lap. I recalled lightly—no anxiety, no straining—that Mab’s personal colors were blue and silver. And I let those colors tinge my mental image of her. They formed a mist across her image, rising up in billows of blue and silver that swirled across my mind’s eye, and then subsided. Mab sat in her wing chair, a fire crackling beside her, just as I’d imagined.
She put a finger in the book to hold her place as she closed it. Her gaze was alert as she waited for me to speak.
“Mab—” My voice cracked as the fear rushed back. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Mab, I’m in trouble.”
Her expression didn’t change, except for a sharpness in her eyes. “What is it, child? What’s happening?”
“I’m being held captive—I don’t know where. There’s a man. He says he’s Pryce’s father.”
The book slid from Mab’s lap to the floor. “Myrddin.”
“That’s what he called himself. He . . .” I swallowed. I had to stay calm, keep fear from throwing me out of my dream. “He’s going to transfer my life force to Pryce.”
“Child, you must get out of there at once.”
“I can’t, Mab. I can’t even move. I’m strapped down to some table, and Myrddin has given me a sedative so I can’t concentrate enough to shift.”
Mab jumped up from her chair and paced in front of the fireplace, both hands pressed against her face.
“It’s okay, Mab. I’m not expecting you to solve this for me. It’s hopeless. I called you because I wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. To say good-bye.” I paused. “To say I love you.” Those were words I’d never said to my aunt. Love wasn’t part of the vocabulary of our relationship, even though it was something I’d always felt for her. Not long ago I’d thought Mab had died, but even after I got her back I still hadn’t managed to say the words. Saying them now gave me a measure of peace.
Mab didn’t reply, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t finished yet. “I want you to end your feud with Gwen. I don’t care what caused it—you and she are family. It looks like Maria might become a shapeshifter. If she does, she’ll need guidance. Promise me you’ll give that to her.”
Mab paced silently.
“Give Jenkins and Rose my love. And . . .” I took a deep breath, thinking about Kane. For a moment, he was next to me in the dream, his lips nuzzling my neck, his warm hand covering mine. His image faded. “Please contact Kane for me. Please tell him—”
“Stop it!” Mab’s sharp voice cut me off. “Just stop. I don’t want your farewell messages, because I am not going to let you die. Do you understand?”
“There’s nothing you can do. So don’t go blaming yourself.”
“There is something I can do. However, it would be dangerous to you. And I’m not certain it will work.”
Did she mean it? My aunt’s expression was dead serious—and deeply worried. But a spark of hope flared inside me. “Whatever it is, let’s do it. I’ve got nothing to lose.”
She pressed a hand to her chest and spoke softly, as if to herself. “If you didn’t survive . . . and I were responsible . . .”
“If we don’t try it, I won’t survive.”
Mab gave me a long, searching look, like there were things she wanted to say to me and didn’t know how. Then she nodded briskly. “All right,” she said, sounding like herself again. “I’m going to get you out of there by pulling you through the dream.”
“You can do that?”
“In theory. I’ve never attempted it in practice.”
“Why not? You could’ve saved me a fortune on transatlantic plane fares.”
“This is no joking matter, child.” She put a hand inside the neck of her dress and pulled out a necklace. She reached back and unfastened the clasp, then let the pendant slide from the chain and drop into her palm. “Now, pay attention. I’m going to test the process by sending you this bloodstone.” She held up the pendant. It was an oval stone, about two inches long, highly polished but irregularly shaped. The gray stone, mottled with spots of green and dark red, didn’t look like jewelry—more like something a jeweler would toss onto the reject pile.
“Hold on to the bloodstone,” Mab continued, “and whatever happens, don’t let go. Do you understand? Do not let go. It will guide you safely through the dream regions.”
I nodded. “What’s so dangerous, Mab?” As a demon fighter, I was familiar with the dream world. I’d been in other people’s dreamscapes hundreds of times.
“The danger is in traveling from your dreamscape to mine. You must pass through the collective unconscious.”
Shit. Now we were talking dangerous with a capital D. An individual’s dreamscape is generated from the dreamer’s subconscious, the mind’s basement that stores all the emotions, symbols, themes, and archetypes that emerge in dreams. That subconscious can be a terrifying place. I’d once fallen into a client’s subconscious during a Drude extermination—and it was an experience I never wanted to repeat. But if the subconscious is bad, the collective unconscious is a hundred billion times worse. It’s the storehouse for all the fears, nightmares, fantasies, and terrors of everyone who’s ever lived. Worse, it’s populated by forms. A form is an amalgam of essences—basically, it’s a big blob that absorbs everything it touches, then burps out those essences in new configurations.
If I had to cross the collective unconscious, the forms would be the real danger.
Mab must have seen the change in my expression. “Listen to me, Victory. It’s good that you understand the danger. But you must set aside fear. In the collective unconscious, fear will rip you apart.” She gentled her voice. “Don’t think about it now. You don’t have to cross that territory yet. First, we must test whether I can pass the bloodstone to you. So take a moment to relax. Use the meditation technique I taught you.”
Relaxation isn’t easy when you’re trying to decide which would be the worst fate: having your life force transferred to your enemy, being ripped to shreds by the worst nightmares humanity has ever imagined, or being sucked into a gross blob of nothingness. But even if the collective unconscious killed me, I’d die knowing Myrddin had failed. That alone was worth the risk.