She loosed a cry of rage and dashed forward. The girl’s hand fell to her side and her evil little grin gave way to a look of shocked surprise. Dream seized her by the shoulders and began to lift her up. A scream of terror ripped from the girl’s lungs, but Dream ignored it, knowing only she could hear the sound. She would not be swayed from doing what had to be done, would not allow this awful thing to feed from her and grow stronger, become a part of the real world. The girl’s body was quaking as Dream lifted her higher and moved toward the railing. She sobbed and pleaded, but Dream blanked it out and focused only on the task at hand, moving the light little body out over the railing.
Marcy was yelling at her: “Dream, what the hell are you doing? Have you lost your fucking mind!?”
Other people were yelling, too. Shouts and exhortations, desperate words that failed to penetrate the roaring in her ears. She also failed to hear the sound of several pairs of feet pounding across concrete toward her, but she did feel the grappling hands of the wouldbe rescuers a moment later, felt them pulling at her arms, tugging at her hair and clothes, desperately digging for any hold at all to pull her back from the brink. But Dream was resolute and would not be moved. The dormant core of power within her switched on and filled her entire body with a strength several times greater than that of all the people assailing her combined. Though she didn’t think it consciously, there was an underlying sense that these people were attempting to pull her back from an apparent suicide leap.
She leaned even further over the railing, effortlessly shrugging loose all those grasping hands as she lowered the girl and prepared to drop her. The girl abruptly stopped thrashing and looked up at Dream with wide, pleading eyes. Then her mouth was moving. Dream couldn’t hear what the apparition was saying, as the roaring in her ears continued to obliterate all external sounds.
This was it. All Dream had to do was relax her hold on the girl and let her slip away, and this one little phase of the ongoing nightmare that was her life would be over. But Dream hesitated. She stared at those thin, chapped lips as they moved. Saw the girl’s crooked white teeth and the pink wedge of tongue behind them.
The roaring in her ears ceased.
The rush of the water below returned. Then she heard the screams and the words of the people grabbing at her, words too frantic and intercut to make any sense. Dream focused on the motion of the girl’s lips and was at last able to hear her voice, its soft timbre somehow rising above the cacophony of sound from the bridge. The girl’s actual words were channeled in another direction as something alien pushed these words through her vocal cords: “The Master awaits you in hell, slut.”
She let go of the girl and jerked backward. The bodies of all the people behind her prevented a full retreat and she watched the little body drop and tumble, the rain slicker flapping up and briefly lifting her arms like a tiny sail. Then she hit the water and sliced through its surface like a scalpel cutting flesh. In the next moment she disappeared from view and the people behind her went running toward the other side of the bridge. Staggering, Dream turned around and watched their retreating backs as a frown began to work its way across her stunned features.
Someone grabbed her by the arm and she shrieked. Something inside her reflexively lashed out and she was aware of a sensation like fire blazing through her body, its sizzle banishing the cold as a wave of heat pulsed outward from her center.
Marcy screamed and jerked her hand away, shaking it like a person who has touched a scalding surface. “Dream, that was fucked up. We have to get out of here before the mob comes back for you.”
Too late for that.
Several people were still leaning over the railing on the opposite side of the bridge. One woman was slumped against the concrete barrier and wailing like a grief-stricken mourner at a funeral. The impression formed like a cold fist around her heart and the heat pulse abruptly fizzled out.
Dream swallowed a lump in her throat and thought, Oh, no…
Three men were striding rapidly back across the bridge toward her. The man in the lead was thirtyish, tall and muscular with a thick mop of curly brown hair and a beard. His eyes were dark with a bottomless rage. Every aspect of his bearing unmistakably conveyed murderous intent. The rigid set of his features. The huge, curled fists that looked capable of slamming holes through layers of steel.
Dream shook her head.
Oh no. Ohnoohnoohno…
The girl had been real.
And this man was her father.
Dream’s eyes filled with tears as she took an unconscious step backward. Her back met the railing. She briefly considered letting herself fall backward into the water. It was what she deserved. Christ, how could she have been so wrong? She’d known her long-tenuous hold on reality had been slipping for some time, but she’d never imagined such tragic consequences. She’d murdered a child, sacrificed her on the altar of her crumbling sanity.
Yes, she deserved to die. She even felt ready to meet that fate at last.
Then the man was closing in on her, eyes blazing and teeth bared as he raised one of those big fists high in the air. Then something inside Dream flexed and the man froze. A surge of energy so strong it was nearly visible pushed outward and slammed into the man’s chest like a freight train, lifting him off his feet and blasting him back across the bridge. Dream saw his eyes go wide with shock before the surge carried him away. And then he was gone, flying over the railing on the opposite side and hanging suspended in midair for a moment before dropping to the water below.
Marcy let out a breath and said, “Holy shit. Holyholy-holy fucking shit!”
The men who’d followed the father across the bridge were lying flat on their backs, blown off their feet by the energy surge. They looked up at Dream with twin expressions of horror and began to scoot backward, scrambling to put as much distance between themselves and the monster as possible. That’s what they saw when they looked at her. A monster. Not a woman. Not a human being. But an incomprehensible abomination. A thing. And they were right.
The people on the other side of the bridge were looking at her and cringing, crouching down against the concrete barrier as they huddled together and awaited the monster’s wrath. A few of them were armed men of some authority in uniforms. But they were as helpless and terrified as the wailing woman Dream assumed was the dead girl’s mother. Dream stared at them for a long moment and felt the awakened energy burning inside her, aching to be utilized again. And it would be so easy. She could flatten them all and walk away from this place unscathed.
A weak, frightened voice next to her:“Dream…seriously…we have to leave.”
A peculiar smile contorted the corners of her mouth as Dream turned to look at Marcy. “I’m a monster, Marcy.”
Marcy put a hand to her mouth as her eyes filled with tears. “Dream. I—”
“Shhh.” Dream touched the girl’s shoulder and felt her body go still. She was every bit as terrifed of her as the strangers huddled on the other side of the bridge. And who could blame her? “Don’t say anything. It’s funny. A minute ago I felt so much guilt, but this thing inside me burns that away when it’s working.” She lowered her voice a bit and leaned closer to Marcy. “I could kill all those people over there just by thinking about it. Part of me really wants to. I shouldn’t do that, should I?”
Marcy’s face twisted with a mixture of sudden grief and black humor. She laughed once, a small, empty sound. “Look who you’re asking. I’m a monster, too.”
Dream smiled. She released Marcy’s arm and touched her face. “Yes. Yes, I suppose you are. And I’ll tell you something, Marcy. I don’t think I hate you anymore.” She looked past Marcy at Alicia, who remained in the same spot she’d been throughout the episode. The dead woman watched them in a remotely curious way, a small smile playing at the edges of her mouth. Dream met and held Alicia’s gaze for a moment, then looked Marcy in the eye again. “I’m going to leave you now, but I’ll see you again.”