A Tale of Two Goblins

chapter Fourteen

“Osric Cassius,” the woman in the pink tube top muttered to the shadow that loomed before her.

“Ding ding, right answer, bitch,” the shade seethed back, undulating as if the sound of his name on her tongue sent him into a state of ire.

“So, now that I know who you are, why won’t you show yourself?” she continued, her voice icy cold. “If I remember correctly, you’re an ugly son of a bitch.”

The shade seemed to shake himself—at least that’s how it appeared with the way the black smoke within the outline of the man began to shimmy this way and that. The sound of roaring wind blew through the cave although I could feel nothing but stagnant air against my skin. After another few seconds, Osric Cassius stood before me and he didn’t look happy.

It was as if I’d traveled back to that night when I’d stood on his doorstep and taken him into custody. He was just as thick and stocky as I remembered, though the time he’d spent in Banshee hadn’t been good to him. Tattoos traveled up his arms and legs and covered the right side of his face. His long, wiry brown hair splayed in shambles around his shoulders, greyed with time. But, his face captured my attention—the rage in his eyes and the permanent sneer on his lips.

He hated me; that was as crystal clear as the savage glint in his eyes.

“Dulcie O’Neil, we meet again and this time it’s on my terms,” he started with a smile that revealed a mouthful of chipped, yellow teeth.

“You aren’t a Dreamstalker.” The voice was my own but hearing it confused me for a moment or two as I had to fight to retain the distance between my sleeping self and my projected self in the dream. “You’re a were.”

“So, you remember me?” he asked and there was a tone of hopefulness to his voice, hopefulness that somehow he was still outlined in my memory— that he stood out from all the other criminals I’d busted and locked away.

The woman nodded and although I planned to focus on questions to ask this bastard; it was like someone had suddenly turned on a fan in my head because all my questions began lifting in the air, spinning around the walls of my mind like a cyclone. I shook the visual away and concentrated, searching for the answers I needed from him.

“You’ve been drinking Dreamstalker blood, where did you get it?” I thought the words in my mind and the woman in the dreamscape spoke them. I was getting better at separating myself from the dream me. I didn’t know why, but I felt that was a good thing.

“What does it matter?” He laughed snidely before bringing his finger to the woman’s nose and tapping for a count of three as he repeated: “You are dead.”

“Dead?” she repeated, trying to continue her ruse of playing dumb, to throw him off the fact that she knew she wasn’t dead, only sleeping.

He nodded. “Right now, you’re living on borrowed time.”

I gulped, I couldn’t help it. But, I had a job to do and so far I was doing a damned good job of it—maintaining the illusion that he was in control, that I wasn’t aware I was dreaming and in having that control, wasn’t aware I could use my magic.

“Humor me,” the woman said.

“Dreamstalker blood is all over the streets of Splendor,” he spat out and took two steps closer, glancing down at her body as he did so. The look of lust oozed from his eyes. “And there’s other creatures’ blood out there too,” he finished, his eyes concentrated on her bust.

The feeling that I had to keep him talking rammed into me but I wasn’t sure why. It was like I was buying time, but to what end, I had no idea.

“How did you find all your victims? All the people who were close to me or tied to me?” she asked.

His mouth lit up with an ugly smile before it morphed into a mere fuming white line across his face. “I had six long years in Banshee and I spent every second of my time scheming about the day I would meet up again with Dulcie O’Neil.” He wrapped his hands around the woman’s throat and smiled again. “How I would kill her with my bare hands.”

“I didn’t ask about your sentence,” she interrupted. He dropped his hands from around her throat as I breathed an inward sigh of relief. “Answer my question.”

His jaw clenched and he bashed his fist into the side of the cave, causing rocks and debris to crumble to the ground. When he pulled his hand away, there was no blood or injury, which I guessed made sense since this dreamscape was his creation.

The woman flinched and I felt the same reaction in my own body.

“It wasn’t hard to find out about you—pay the guards and they give information,” Osric answered in a non-committed sort of way, like he hadn’t spent years trying to garner the facts about me.

The woman’s eyes went wide and I could feel her shock, my own. “You pulled my ANC file?”

He nodded, his disheveled hair obscuring half his ugly face before he pushed it back. “And I searched the Internet. Your information was out there, easy to get.” He snickered. “And it wasn’t like I didn’t have all the f*cking time in the world to get it.”

I swallowed hard, realizing the corruption of the ANC wasn’t just limited to Quillan duping us all at Splendor Headquarters but, from the sound of it, Banshee had its own problems. I could only wonder how much higher up it went. That was, if I survived this whole ordeal.

Osric stepped away from the woman and ran a mitt-like hand through his hair as he walked toward the mouth of the cave and back again, as if his thoughts were racing with such intensity, he wasn’t sure what to say next and needed to pace just to expend some energy.

Before I could blink, his face was suddenly up close and personal with mine and his eyes radiated a deep, red luminosity, glowing with the fires of hatred.

“You destroyed my life, bitch! You sent me to Banshee for six f*cking years and the guards had a field day with me. They beat the shit out of me on a daily basis but it was worse at night.” I could smell the decay on his breath and it was the smell of death. He brought his face so close to mine that I could feel the scruff of his unshaven face against my cheek.

“At night the guards and some of the inmates used me as their woman.”

Shock waged through me, from my head to my toes and I cringed, I couldn’t help it. I had no idea what Banshee was like—I’d never been to the Netherworld, but his story actually made me start to sympathize with him, and feel pity for him. I closed my eyes.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” he ordered and gripped the woman’s chin, yanking her head up at an unnatural angle until she had no choice but to look at him. “Now I’m going to do to you what was done to me, day…and night.”

And just like that, my former sympathy was washed right out of me and replaced with vehemence and ferocity. There was no way in hell I was going to let this disgusting bastard anywhere near my body. Before I could respond, his fist connected with my gut and I felt myself capsize as pain reverberated up my stomach, and culminated in an undulating throb in my head. I couldn’t breathe, and felt like I needed to collapse against the floor but the manacles kept me in place, searing my wrists as I lurched forward.

Osric grasped a fistful of my hair and pulled me up, pushing me against the cave wall. His face was in mine again, his breath assaulting my sense of smell until I wanted to pass out. “You can bet your ass that swan bitch of mine is dead—she was the first one I looked up once I was released.”

I gulped. The Swan Maiden was dead. I could only hope she hadn’t suffered but seeing the cruel look in his eyes, I had to imagine she had.

And, I was next.

Osric held his hand out and I watched in horror as the ends of his fingers began growing translucent, a dull grey filling in as the flesh disappeared. He flexed and closed his hands as steel sprouted from his fingertips, elongating into nasty blades. He laughed as my eyes went wide.

You’re in a dream, I screamed to myself. None of this is real.

I had to beat the fear, to pull myself from thinking that I was actually experiencing this and to recognize it for what it was—fake, counterfeit, imitation –nothing but a sham.

My eyes slammed shut and when I opened them, I was the outsider looking in, the voyeur to the woman in the pink tube top. I breathed a pent-up sigh of relief. I was still in control.

“Nice, Osric Scissorhands,” the woman laughed in a biting tone. “Looking for some hedges to trim?”

Osric’s face blanched and seconds later, he was fuming—turning as red as a Huber Demon.

“You think it’s funny now, Dulcie, but how funny is this?”

When Osric rammed his finger blades into the woman’s arm, shredding her flesh, it was only a numbness I felt—not the true feelings of pain that the visual would have warranted. The woman screamed out and fell forward again but Osric held her up with a deep, sardonic laugh. He stabbed his finger blades into each of her thighs, ripping the blades in and out again as the gold of her blood dripped down the dull steel, staining the cave floor below. She cried out in agony but I only felt a fraction of her pain.

Suddenly, the manacles around my wrists disappeared and I wondered if my own subconscious had issued the command or had Osric seen to it? He watched the manacles break away without surprise so I could only imagine he’d been the release mechanism. And that was a good thing—I didn’t like the idea of orders issued without my being aware of them.

The woman fell to the ground, landing in a pool of her own blood. There was a horrible smacking sound as her head hit the dirt and she just lay there for a minute or two while Osric stared down at her, smiling at his conquest.

He lifted his leg and landed a well-placed kick into her midsection. She doubled over and grasped her stomach, her eyes wrenched tight with the pain.

How the f*ck much longer am I going to put up with this? I demanded as the pain began to sink into me, becoming ever clearer and more pronounced in its throbbing.

I’ve had enough, I answered my own question.

The woman was huddled over on top of herself, both her hands hidden from view. Glancing up, she made sure Osric wasn’t paying attention and smiled as she realized his gaze was wholly riveted on her ass. She shook one of her hands only slightly, but it was enough to create the fairy dust in her palm that would serve up some payback. Once the particles appeared, she released her fist, the particles falling to the ground below. Allowing them to sink into the pool of her blood, she imagined a white light of wellness suffusing her, a light only she could see.

I could feel myself growing stronger, with the pain dying away as healing invigorated me. The blood was still pooled beneath me but no matter, my body was healing itself, replenishing itself with new blood to make up for the loss.

The woman stood up, unsteady on her feet but standing all the same. Osric watched her with surprise in his expression, even though he made no motion to stop her. It was as if he wanted her to meet him on his level.

“You want more, baby?” he crooned with a hideous sneer on his face. “Cause you’re about to get some.”

He pulled his fist back and smashed it into her face, sending her toppling backwards, and landing against a rock that wedged itself into her back. She cried out and rolled away from the rock but before she could try to get back onto her feet, Osric was on top of her, his hands tearing at her shorts with an urgency that frightened her.

“Get the f*ck off me,” she yelled and pulled her fist back, landing a blow to his temple. Her arm shook with the effort and Osric flew back about three feet, his back hitting the side of the cave wall. He fell forward and landed against the ground, shaking the dirt out of his hair as he stood up. He glared at her with complete and utter shock in his eyes.

She stood up and her chest heaved as she inhaled, her hands balled up in fists at her side. She was strong in this dreamscape, stronger than she would have been in reality. And now Osric was also aware of the fact.

“So, you’ve been holding out on me, haven’t you, bitch?” he seethed. “Good, it will be more fun this way.”

And suddenly he was flying towards me, his arm transformed into an axe as he swung it at my head. I felt my dream body suddenly pulled backwards as I imagined a pair of unseen hands, grasping me and pulling me out of the path of the axe. The back of my head hit the wall of the cave and stars danced before my eyes momentarily. I closed them and forced the stars to subside, demanding my unwavering vision to return. I tumbled to the ground and before I could take another breath, Osric was on top of me again, his hands digging into my thighs, trying to rip my shorts away from me.

“You aren’t strong enough for me!” he screamed into my face and smacked me hard across one cheek. I could feel viscous blood as it languidly streamed from my busted lip.

“Then why haven’t you killed me yet?” I yelled at him.

“I control this dream,” he spat out and grasped the waistline of my shorts again. “And I haven’t killed you yet because I have other ideas.”

“How much Dreamstalker blood have you drunk, you son of a bitch?” I yelled while wrestling his hands away from my shorts.

“Enough,” he shrieked down at me. “You’re no match for me—I’ve got the power of the Dreamstalker in my blood and you are nothing,” he spat at me and his voice was level, even. He threw my hands off his own and in a split second, reached for my tube top, ripping it in two. I glanced down at my bare breasts and felt the heat of humiliation burning my cheeks.

Before I could respond, Osric’s eyes were all over them and a second later, so were his hands. The fact that his attention was distracted allowed me to focus on changing the dreamscape so I could throw him. I’d let him know he wasn’t dealing with a weakling.

I imagined a field of poppies, orange and beautiful. The sun was shining and birds flew from cherry tree to cherry tree, singing their trills for spring. I opened my eyes and found myself blinking against the bright sunlight.

Osric seemed stuck in shock as he gazed around himself in amazement. It was break enough for me to scoot out of his hold and stand up, shaking my hand until a mound of fairy dust emerged. I threw it into the air, allowing it to rain down over me. I glanced down and smiled at the metal chastity belt I’d constructed for myself—ha, I’d like to see the son of a bitch get through steel. A similar steel band protected my breasts from his intruding hands and although I probably looked like some bizarre Amazonian warrior or straight off the set of Mad Max, I lacked only one small but vital detail.

I closed my eyes one last time and pictured my Op 6, heavy in my hands, and at the feel of the cold steel in my palm, I smiled.

I opened my eyes and watched Osric as he realized I’d turned the tables on him and this was my dreamscape. He snarled but didn’t make a move for me. Instead, he got down on all fours and his back arched as bristly fur burst from his spine, covering his entire body completely. His rib cage busted out and doubled in size as his fingernails ripped open, growing into long, hooked talons. He glared at me as his nose flattened into the landscape of his now furry face, and, in its place a snout began protruding, his teeth falling out of his mouth as canine fangs replaced them.

He was bigger, broader, scarier than any wolf I ever remembered seeing and I had to wonder if it was due in part to the Dreamstalker blood coursing through his veins or maybe it was just an illusion granted by the dreamscape. Either way, I aimed my Op 6 at the wolf.

Before I could squeeze off a shot, there was a sound like the air inhaling itself and I watched in shock as the sky zipped open, spitting out a man. The man dropped from the heavens and landed with a roll on the ground, coming to stand with his back to me as he faced Osric.

“Leave her the f*ck alone,” he screamed and Osric growled, leaping for him. The man didn’t even pause to get his bearings and, instead, with his arm raised high and grasping a sword, he met Osric and thrust the sword into Osric’s side.

Osric screamed out in agony and shook his head, simply disappearing into the earth, leaving only his blood staining the ground where he’d vanished. In a split second, Osric reappeared behind the intruder, now in his man skin, and with his arm around the man’s throat. He rotated the man until they both were facing me and that was when I recognized the intruder.

“Quill?” I demanded, dumbfounded, with a sinking feeling in my gut as I tried to figure out how Quill had inserted himself in this dreamscape. He had to have drunk the blood of a Dreamstalker—the answer was obvious.

Quill didn’t say anything but blinked himself in and out of focus, disappearing the same way Osric had, and then reappearing behind him. Quill landed a foot into Osric’s lower back and Osric went down with a cry of pain. But, after rolling onto his back and pushing up with his hands, he soared five feet into the air before he started coming down again, his hands drawn around a blade.

The tip of the blade was aimed at the top of Quill’s head.

I raised my trembling hands, aiming the Op 6, and thought the words “slow motion” and before Osric’s blade could impale Quill, I squeezed the trigger. Time sped up again and at the instant that the tip of Osric’s blade met Quill’s hair, the bullet from my chamber penetrated the blade and it burst into a thousand pieces.

Osric fell against Quill, minus his weapon, and they both rolled on the ground, yelling and punching one another. Realizing this could go on forever and not wanting Quill to usurp my fight, I imagined a thick wall separating the two, building brick upon brick as it grew in seconds, towering to an unimaginable height, the top disappearing into the clouds. Side walls and a rear wall were quick to follow and seconds later, Quill was confined.

I could hear Quill screaming on the other side of the wall, bashing his hands into the concrete ineffectually. Osric glanced at the wall curiously as I extended both my hands, aiming the Op 6 at him. Osric brought his attention from the wall to me again and I smiled, nodding at him.

“Come and get me, you ugly piece of shit.”

And he did come for me, he charged me with all the fury of an enraged elephant. I wasn’t sure if he noticed the gun in my grip or not but when I fired, the look of shock on his ugly face was priceless. He glanced down at himself, watched the bullet penetrate his stomach and looked back up at me in surprise before his eyes went slack and he fell on the ground, disappearing into the earth, hopefully never to return.

I dropped the gun and felt myself sinking as the meadow began crumbling beneath my feet, the pieces falling into a black void below.

“Quill!” I screamed, watching the bricks of his fortress falling down and disappearing into nothing as they met the crumbling earth below them. The entire structure fell down and dissolved. Quill was nowhere to be seen. I screamed at the sound of bark ripping apart and glanced at the trees as they cracked and broke into what looked like puzzle pieces, disappearing into the abyss. The yellow of the sun faded into a deathly black.

I was waking up, I could feel it. But, I didn’t know what had happened to Quill and I didn’t want to wake up until I knew he was alright. I couldn’t wake up, not yet! I suddenly remembered something about spinning—about imagining the dream me spinning to maintain the hold of the dream.

I brought the image of the woman in pink to my mind’s eye and imagined her turning round and round as if her life depended on it.

I blinked and everything was black around me; there was nothing left.

#

“Dulcie!”

I woke up with a start and sat up, fear pounding through me. I could feel someone tugging at my shirt and glanced to my right, into Sam’s concerned face. I said nothing as my attention darted around the room, which was stark in its whiteness. A man standing in the corner of the room had the same expression I must have had—shock as he tried to register where the hell he was and more, what the hell was going on.

“Dulcie!” Sam yelled again and grabbed my shoulder, forcing me to face her. “What…why are we in the hospital? What happened?”

And that was when it all came pouring back into me—the Dreamstalker, the dreamscape, Osric Cassius…I’d beaten Osric, I’d won and…I glanced over at Sam again.

Sam was alive.

Tears gushed from my eyes as I jumped down from the cot and grasped her in my arms, holding her as tightly as I could. I never wanted to let go.

“Sam, it’s okay now,” I breathed. “You’re safe.”

She wrapped her arms around me and I could feel the hot wetness of her tears against my neck.

“I’ve had the worst dreams, Dulce,” she started.

“Shhh, I know,” I crooned against her ear. “Believe me, I know.”

“Girl, you’ve got a whole truckload of explaining to do!”

Dia’s voice was both angry and relieved. I turned from Sam and smiled at Dia as she dropped her expression of anger, even though I’m sure there was a part of her that was super pissed off with me. And it wasn’t like I blamed her.

She approached me in two strides and I wasn’t sure who reached for the other first but it didn’t matter. We stood in the middle of the room, clinging to one another.

“It’s over, Dia,” I whispered, and she answered me with a hearty laugh.

“I hope to Hades I never have to work with your ass again.”

I returned the laugh as I pulled away and smiled at her guiltily. “I’m sorry, Dia,” I started. “But, I did what I had to do.”

Dia just shook her head but her smile said she forgave me although she probably wasn’t lying when she said she didn’t want to work with me again. And I couldn’t blame her on that count either. I did have a tendency to do what I wanted and needed to, whether it went counter to other people’s plans or not.

“What’s going on?” Sam demanded, her voice nervous.

Dia faced her and the smile on her face widened. “Girl, I don’t have the time for instant rewind.” Then she faced me again. “I was able to track the son of a bitch using my somnogobelinus senses after all.”

I nodded, it wasn’t surprising. “He’d been drinking a lot of Dreamstalker blood. Maybe the more he drank, the easier it was for you to track him.” I paused for a second or two as my stomach started to drop. “Where the hell is he?”

“Dead,” Dia answered and sounded surprised. “I found the son of a bitch in the basement of the hospital but by the time I got to him, he was already dead.”

I nodded, remembering the fact that I’d shot him. It only made sense that since he’d died in slumber, he’d died in reality.

“Who was he?” Dia demanded.

“Osric Cassius,” I answered and heard Sam gasp. I glanced at her and nodded. “I’ll explain all of this to you later, Sam.”

“I don’t know the name,” Dia interrupted.

I shook my head. “You don’t need to—just another a*shole I locked up a long time ago—another a*shole with a vendetta.”

She laughed but my mouth had suddenly gone dry as the memory of Quill interrupting my fight with Osric met me like a nightmare. Quill had been in the dreamscape which meant he had to be somewhere nearby and hopefully wasn’t hurt.

I started for the door before glancing back at Dia and Sam. The guy in the corner seemed like he was still shell-shocked and I offered him a quick smile. “I have to go find someone, Dia,” I began as she looked at me with a question in her eyes. “Can you check on Jenny and the others? I’ll be right back.”

“Dulcie!” Sam said and her voice was panicked.

I faced her and smiled. “Sam, I gotta go but I’ll be back in a second. Everything is okay. Just listen to what Dia says.”

Dia frowned at me before she glanced at Sam again. “She needs to listen to her own advice.”

But, I wasn’t concerned—I rounded the corner and ran down the hallway, stopping to glance in every room as I searched for Quill. There was no sign of him. I nearly ran headlong into a nurse as she made her rounds and I grasped her arm, my expression wild, I was sure.

“Have you seen a man around here—tall with wavy blond hair?”

She shook her head. “No, are…are you okay?”

I nodded and released her, not sparing her another glance but continued down the hallway, checking each room as I did so. I couldn’t shake the thoughts that maybe something had happened to Quill when the dream world had disintegrated. Or, did something happen prior to that? Had Osric hurt him somehow? I didn’t want to learn the answers. All I wanted to do was find Quill, healthy and alive.

I didn’t wait for the elevator to take me to the second floor but, instead, threw open the door to the stairwell and took the stairs two at a time. When I reached floor two, I blasted through the doors and ran down the hall, glancing in each of the rooms, dodging nurses and doctors left and right.

There was no sign of Quill on floor three and now on floor two.

Luckily, Splendor Hospital wasn’t a huge medical center—it only had the three floors and after I’d exhausted all three, I scouted the basement. Finding nothing that would lead me to Quill, I started my search outside. I had to make sure he was okay; that’s all that was going through my head.

The light of the streetlamps lit my path and I searched the perimeter of the hospital, my gaze traveling back and forth from the manicured trees, to the bushes running the border of the hospital, to the benches that periodically broke the monotony of the landscape. There was no sign of him. I leaned against the wall to catch my breath and felt a scream growing in my throat. What did it mean that I couldn’t find him? Had he already taken off? Or was it worse than that—was he hurt somewhere? Tears of frustration blinded my eyes and I beat my hand against the wall.

“Looking for someone?”

I glanced to the right and watched him step around the corner, bathed in darkness. I wanted to run to him and throw my arms around him and hold him tight but I knew I couldn’t do that. Instead, I just stood there, staring at him.

“Thank you,” I said breathlessly. “Thank you for risking your life for me.”

He chuckled but the sound was sweet. “Anything for you, Dulce,” he answered and pulled his jacket closer around himself.

There were so many things I wanted to say to him, so many thoughts and words flying through my head but I couldn’t get my mouth to form around any of them.

“You take care of yourself, my little warrior,” he said with another chuckle and simply walked back into the darkness from whence he’d come.