The doors were locked when we got to the office building, and Fate pulled out a key I’d never seen. He jiggled it into a nearly rusted lock that looked like it had never been used.
Our footsteps echoed in the lobby, accentuating the creepy, empty feeling. No one was coming in anymore. There was no work and no purpose to report. The only purpose the building served now was as a target and this building didn’t have the same luxury of being warded by Lars.
The accountant, the only human occupant, had been told we had a roach problem that was going to need strong fumigation. The fact that he hadn’t even blinked an eye at that explanation just showed the dire need for some renovation.
If it hadn’t been for Jockey, we wouldn’t have been there either. He’d stayed behind with the Nightmares in their pasture, a place that wasn’t here or there. Jockey had been confident, for untold reasons, that he was perfectly secure. I was inclined to believe him. This was the only way we could gain access.
“You ready?” Fate asked, as he stopped in front of the entrance to the hallway that would lead to the Nightmares’ pasture.
I stepped forward and opened the door. It didn’t matter if I was ready or not. We needed any information we could get. Digging around in Malokin’s head was our best possibility of obtaining knowledge. It didn’t matter who you were or what you could do in the land of dreams; the Nightmares had free reign. No one could shut them out.
As soon as we entered the dark hallway, the wind picked up and so did the screaming. It was more intense than the last time I’d walked down this hall and was reaching a screeching crescendo that made me want to cover my ears. There were a lot of scary things happening in the world, and they were leaking into people’s dreams.
“Hurry up,” Fate said ushering me forward with hands on my waist from behind.
“What’s wrong with this place?” I asked as I moved forward, sensing something off as well.
“Not sure, but it doesn’t feel right.”
We reached the rustic barn door at the end and Jockey opened it before we had to knock. “Come in,” he said, ushering us with his hands.
His riding boots had lost some of their shine since the last time I’d seen him. A large scuff marked his riding helmet as if he’d taken a fall recently.
“Did you do something to the hallway?” I asked as Jockey was laying a large board across the door, and Fate was walking farther into the field and appraising the situation.
“Yes. But not to worry. You weren’t in there long enough to pick up any ill effects.” He grasped the handle, testing his barricade before stepping away.
“What did you do?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” he asked in his factual way.
I snorted quite unbecomingly. “Yeah, after you ask like that, I have to know.”
He didn’t even crack a smile as he started to explain. “Uninvited guests won’t have a very long life. There’s a reason you wake up before you die in a dream. Anyone who comes here unwelcomed won’t come again.”
The possibilities clicked instantly, and I wondered if things got bad enough to risk it, was that an easy way to do away with Malokin? “What about someone like Malokin?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I can’t, anyway. If he were to come to the hallway I could, or here in the pasture. This is my domain. But the dreams? I don’t have any control of those. The mares could but that’s not how they work. They stimulate nightmares but they don’t create them.”
“But could they?”
“They could but that isn’t something I would encourage, not to save fifty worlds would I do that. Some lessons can’t be unlearned.”
He was a heavy type of personality and his words were even weightier than normal. Nightmares spinning out of control and killing people? Enough said.
His eyes perused me as if I were horseflesh. “Rough night?”
I narrowed my eyes slightly. “You saw my dreams?”
“Occupational hazard. Unavoidable, at times.”
“Then you know they weren’t any worse than normal,” I replied, making it clear that was the end of the subject. I moved to catch up with Fate.
The field was exactly as I’d remembered; perpetual nighttime with dew laden grass shimmering the reflected light of the huge moon above. The mares, more than a dozen of them with gleaming pure black coats, were gathered on the tree lined field some distance away. One nickered nervously and the rest took up the call, shrill neighs ringing across the pasture.
“What’s wrong with them?” Fate asked as Jockey and I approached him.
“People are having some crazy dreams these days. It spills out onto them. They’re exhausted, rundown and on edge. If this weren’t important, I wouldn’t risk letting you come here. They’re not themselves.” Jockey stood looking at his herd with his arms crossed in front of his chest. “But I know it is. If there’s anything you can find that will help, it’s worth it.”
“What if he’s not sleeping?” I asked.
“Then you wait.”
***
The waiting didn’t turn out to be as horrible as I’d imagined. Jockey had a saddle blanket he lent us and went about caring for the mares, leaving Fate and I laying on our backs, staring up at the starriest sky I’d ever seen.
“Is that our moon? It’s so gigantic and it’s always night here.” The shadows formed the same face, making me think it was.
“Yes.”
“You sure?” I asked as we lay shoulder to shoulder.
“Yes. I’ve asked him.”
“Jockey?”
“No. The Man on the Moon.”
I instantly envisioned a man gleaming in silver grey who winked a lot. “Why haven’t I ever met him? Does he come in at all? I’ve never seen him at the office.”
“Because you’re new and he only comes by every couple of years.”
New; another word for transfer. It didn’t bother me the way it would have a month ago, not from him. Sometimes I felt like this Fate was a completely different person to the one I’d met when I first started.
“The other day, you said you never wanted this for me. Why did you want me gone so badly?” I asked and then waited, fearing the answer. What if he said he’d hated me or I was annoying?
“Because I know what the stakes are for us, our kind. The dangers and the pitfalls. I knew something bad was coming, and I didn’t want you to be in the middle of it. Our people, ones who weren’t transfers and were born to this life, were disappearing. Friends of mine, gone. I’d have coffee with them in the morning and they’d be gone by nightfall. If they couldn’t stay alive, I couldn’t imagine how you would when you were at a disadvantage.”
“Did you have to be such a dick about it? Couldn’t you have just said that?” And perhaps not have crushed my feelings on a daily basis?
“You’re stubborn. I thought it would be more effective to make you miserable. I didn’t want to see you disappear like the others.”
He fell silent, as if it was still a touchy subject to him. It was the most human I’d ever seen him act.
I tilted my head to look at his profile. “Was it hard losing them?”
“Some were harder than others. The Karma before you, we were close. It’s different if you are born to this. In a human existence, you lose people suddenly for all different reasons. When it happens to us, it’s shocking,” his voice was softer and he didn’t look at me as he spoke but remained looking up at the stars.
“After that, how could you sit across the table from him and agree to a truce?” I didn’t think poorly of him for it but I couldn’t understand it, either.
“Because, in that moment, it was what I needed to do,” he answered. It was the answer I would’ve expected, and yet it contradicted what he’d done for me.
“It didn’t last very long anyway,” I said, thinking back to the scene in the convenience store that happened less than a week later. “Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
And there we were, like it had just happened, back to the same question and the same avoidance.