A Dream So Dark Read online

  “He has Maddi,” Dee continued. “We’re surprised, but ask if she’s okay because she does not look okay. So I grab his shoulder. He did this.” He touched fingers lightly beneath the shiner. “I didn’t even see it coming.”

  “I make a move on the asshole.” Dem picked up the story.

  “That asshole is my friend,” Alice said.

  “That asshole punched my brother.”

  “Point,” Alice conceded, not in the mood for a fight. She gestured for Dem to continue.

  “He drops Maddi and turns on me. Guy is fast. Really fast. And strong. I almost cannot keep up, because I don’t want to hurt him, since he’s your friend.”

  “We try to pin him down. He just—” Dee waved with his good arm, the other in a makeshift sling. “Throws us off. I hit the wall.” He pointed at the broken shelves and cracked mirror behind the bar.

  “I hit the table.” Dem pointed to a pile of wood pieces.

  Alice was having a really hard time trying to imagine Chess—who’d never so much as raised his voice for as long as she’d known him—fighting not one, but both Tweedles. And winning.

  “We don’t need details, mal’chiki.” The Duchess tied off her now full trash bag and set it aside. “Skip to the important part.”

  “Right,” both respond, chagrined.

  “There was something wrong with his eyes,” Dem said. “They were black, with circles around them.”

  “And he wouldn’t answer us when we tried to talk to him. Just kicked our asses—”

  “Not mine.”

  Dee shot a glare at his brother. “Kicked our asses, picked up Maddi, and went out the door. Then disappeared.”

  “Poof.” Dem wiggled his fingers in the air. “Left black goop all over the sidewalk.”

  “Like from Ahoon,” Dee offered. “Remember what we found in that house?”

  “I remember.” She wouldn’t be forgetting that trip anytime soon, especially since it was when the Black Knight jumped her and started all this mess. He’d been waiting for her, had probably planted that goop to draw her out. If she had quit beforehand like she planned, would things have gotten this far? Maybe if she’d walked away without taking one last mission, he’d still be waiting, and Chess and Maddi would be here and fine. The dark, twisty feeling from before flared with a vengeance.

  “That stuff was also all over the battlefield.” Dem polished off his drink in one go.

  Dee took his much slower. “Purged with little problem, though.”

  “We found the twins afterward.” Hatta moved to offer a couple more drinks to the boys, who reached for them with eager thanks. “I tried to pick up any possible trails, but it was too late.”

  Dem tapped the bar for yet another refill, earning a few words from his twin, likely something about slowing down. The two started bickering in Russian.

  Hatta poured another round, his expression pinched in concern.

  “What is that goopy junk?” Alice asked. The twins had taken a sample in Ahoon, and she’d all but forgotten about it after everything went sideways. “Is it doing … whatever is happening to Chess?”

  “It’s called Slithe, and perhaps.” Hatta took a deep swig of his own drink. “Think of it as Nightmare blood. If blood was also flesh, skin, bones, organs, all of … that.”

  “So, Nightmare juice?” Alice scrunched her nose as an uneasy feeling filtered through her.

  Hatta rolled his shoulders. “Yes. And no. On its own, Slithe is simply Slithe. It’s relatively harmless and flows through Wonderland like water. It’s only in the Nox, where there’s a high concentration of fear, anger, pain, all of the negative yuck of the human psyche, that Slithe becomes toxic enough to form Nightmares.”

  Alice frowned, memories of this morning flooding her thoughts. She tried to recall if there was something, anything, that might help them figure out what was going on with Chess. “The Black Knight summoned a bunch of that stuff on the field. It swallowed Chess and became whatever the hell that creature was. If Slithe is natural to Wonderland, what’s it doing here? In our world? What’s it doing to Chess?” She managed to keep the edge of fear from her voice, but just barely.

  “Everything natural to Wonderland comes from this world,” Hatta said, like it was supposed to be common sense and not them talkin’ ’bout the goings-on of a secret realm hardly no one knew existed. “As far as what it’s doing to your friend, I’m not sure.”

  The Duchess said something in quiet … was that French?

  Hatta’s brows lifted. “Whitechapel?”

  The Duchess nodded, her expression drawn.

  Hatta stroked at his chin before shaking his head and responding. In French.

  What the hell?

  The two of them went back and forth a little before he finally said something that seemed to placate her. Then he poured himself a second drink, which she swiped for her own, ignoring his annoyed look.

  “Um … what was that?” Alice asked.

  “What was what?” Still glowering at the Duchess, Hatta didn’t bother getting another glass and instead capped the bottle.

  “Whatever y’all said just now. About Whitechapel?”

  “Old business.” Hatta set the bottle to the side. “Let’s focus on the matter concerning your friend.”

  Alice got the distinct feeling she was being brushed off, but as much as that irritated her, she agreed they needed to concentrate on whatever was going on with Chess.

  Court slid onto a stool beside Alice. “Y’all told us he was dead.” There was an accusatory bite in her tone.

  “There was no pulse. Maddi and I both checked.” Hatta licked at his lips then pressed them together. “We truly believed he was gone, otherwise we would’ve treated his injuries. However, given present circumstances, it’s possible we made a mistake, and he was merely comatose.”

  “That’s one helluva nap,” Court murmured.

  He felt dead, though. And the way his eyes had gone dull? Staring at nothing? A chill slid down her back at the memory. That wasn’t a coma. She rubbed at the goosebumps rising on her arm. “Can … can Slithe bring back the dead?”

  “No,” Hatta answered, a little too quickly. “If it were possible, there never would’ve been a Black Queen, or a war.”

  He’s right, Alice realized. If there had been a way for Portentia to resurrect her daughter, she never would’ve given herself over to the darkness of the Nox.

  “A what now?” Court asked.

  “Okay, so, you know how Odabeth is a princess?” Alice asked. “And there was a war in Wonderland a long time ago?”

  Court nodded.

  “Her grandma was Portentia of Harts, High Queen of All Wonderland, and everything popped off when one of her daughters…” Alice glanced at Hatta. He met her gaze, his expression calm but his jaw tight. Sorry, she wanted to say, but she looked back to Courtney and continued. “Died suddenly. No one knows what happened except she’d been playing with a human girl right before they found her.”

  “Wow…” Court murmured.

  “Yeah. The Queen was devastated.” The image of Portentia weeping over the tiny crystal casket would be stuck in Alice’s mind forever. “So much so, she went to the Nox, the part of Wonderland where Nightmares are born, and tried to use that power to resurrect her little girl. But she failed, and the darkness consumed her. She became the Black Queen, and she blamed humanity for her loss. So she set out to destroy the human world, which would’ve destroyed Wonderland. Her own daughters—including Odabeth’s mom—had to fight her to save everyone.”

  Courtney lowered her hand from where she’d pressed it over her mouth. “That’s some heavy shit.”

  “Tell me about it.” Alice couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a child. Losing her father was bad enough; she saw what happened when her mom just thought about it. Mom would definitely go off the deep end if anything happened to her. “So, if the Slithe didn’t do this to Chess, what did?” Alice asked, pushing away the sickening mental image of her
mother crying over her casket.

  Bzzzzt. Bzzzzt. Court’s phone rattled against the bar top. She snatched it up and glanced at the screen. All color drained from her face. She lifted wide eyes to Alice. “It’s your mom.”

  Instant panic wrapped Alice’s mind, tight and suffocating. Shit! She’d forgotten they were supposed to call!

  “Should I answer?” Court asked.

  “Yes!”

  “But we don’t—”

  “If it goes to voice mail, that’s both our asses.”

  “What is going on?” Hatta asked.

  “I was supposed to—hold on…” Alice trailed off as Court tapped her screen.

  “Hi, Mrs. K. Yeah, we’re here. No, we haven’t seen him yet. Yeah, she’s right here.” Court held the phone out and mouthed, “Sorry.”

  Alice took a steadying breath. Just the potential fate of the world hanging on this, no big deal. She pressed the phone to her ear. “Hey, Mom.”

  “What did I tell y’all?”

  “I’m working on it. I’m at the information desk right now staring the receptionist lady in the face.”

  “Put the woman on the phone.”

  “On … on Courtney’s phone?”

  “Now, Alison.”

  “Okay, one second.” Alice hit mute and screamed into her arm. This was not happening. This. Was. Not. Happening.

  Court winced in sympathy. “That bad?”

  “She wants to talk to the receptionist.”

  “But there’s no receptionist.”

  “There’s no receptionist!” Alice didn’t mean to scream in her friend’s face; it was just—volume control was a thing of the past, like her life was about to be. She spun in another circle and screamed again. Everyone stared at her, their eyes wide. Hatta, the twins, the Duche—the Duchess!

  And like that, an idea was born. A bad idea. A horrible idea. Terrible, really, but it was the only one Alice had.

  Clutching the phone in both hands like a set of prayer beads, she half slid, half fell off her stool and hurried over to the Duchess, who actually recoiled a bit. “My mom thinks we went to the hospital to see Chess after he was in a car accident. It was the only way she’d let me leave the house. I need you to pretend you’re the receptionist and tell her we’re at Grady.”

  The Duchess’s gaze fell to the phone, and her nose wrinkled. “You want me to lie to your mother?”

  “Yes! If you don’t, I’m on lockdown until I go to college, and probably even then, meaning I won’t be able to help figure out what happened to Chess or Maddi.”

  “Alice?” Mom’s muffled voice called. “Alice, pick up this damn phone.”

  Instead, she pressed it closer to the Duchess. “Help me, please.”

  At first the Duchess stared at Alice like she was a stain on a nice blouse. She eyed the phone, then held out her hand expectantly. “What is your friend’s full name?”

  “Chester Dumpsky.” Relief poured through Alice. “The hospital is called Grady Memorial.” She unmuted the phone, then offered it over.

  “Mmm.” The Duchess cleared her throat and held it up to her ear. “Hi, this is Anne Smith with the Grady Memorial information center. Why, yes, she sure is, standing right here in front of me.”

  The Southern accent that came outta that woman was so stereotypically thick and syrupy she sounded like a KFC commercial. Alice did not expect that, and neither did anyone else, given the looks on their faces.

  The Duchess kept it up, unbothered by the room’s collective what-the-fuckery. “She asked to visit a Chester Dumpsky. Yes. Yes, he came in earlier this morning after a collision. I’ll have a room number for her here shortly. Why, yes, ma’am. Of course. Here she is.” The fake-ass smile on the Duchess’s face vanished as she held the phone out.

  Shook, Alice picked her jaw up and took the phone back. “Hello?”

  “Three o’clock. Tell Courtney to text me when you hear how he’s doing.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Bye, baby.”

  “Bye.” Once the call ended, Alice’s legs gave out, and she dropped into a crouch, her arms folded up over her knees. “Ohmigaaaaaaawd.” That was uncomfortably close. Like, when someone looked at you through the crack between the stalls in the bathroom levels of uncomfortable.

  “She bought it, huh?” Court asked from somewhere above her.

  “For now.” But she wouldn’t be able to keep this up. Not with things escalating like this. And man did she want this to be the last time she’d lie to her mom like that, but who the hell was she kidding. Lifting her head, she breathed a “th-thank you” to the Duchess, who simply shrugged.

  “Now that that particular crisis has been averted.” Hatta came around the bar to offer Alice a hand up. His smirk sent another flutter through her. “We need to make some adjustments to our plan, which is why I asked you and Courtney to return. And to give you these.” He squeezed Alice’s fingers before pressing the leather strap of her dagger belt to her palm. “Can’t have you out there unarmed. Keep these on you as often as you can.”

  “New?” Alice asked, a little surprised as she pulled one of the weapons from its sheath. The light caught in the silvered glass blade, highlighting the faintest whisper of webwork cracks.

  “Afraid not,” Hatta said, confirming her suspicion. “Just a patch job, but they should hold. You’re much Muchier than you were before. Plus, I don’t think a sword would fit in your backpack.”

  “True. Thanks.” These were small enough to fit in the bottom of her pack if she wrapped them in the pair of emergency sweatpants she kept in case of surprise!periods and monster-gut stains. “So, what’re these adjustments that need to be made?”

  “I have decided to return to Saint Petersburg,” the Duchess said before Hatta could answer. “I fear I have left my Gateway unprotected for too long, a worry compounded by the presence of so many Nightmares on this side of the Veil. However, the boys will remain, as our focus will now be divided.”

  “Divided?” Alice arched an eyebrow.

  Hatta nodded. “You, Xelon, and the princess will return to Wonderland to begin looking for the Heart.”

  Alice’s own heart kicked against the inside of her chest. Christ, she’d forgotten all about the Eye and the Heart for a second! The Black Queen’s powerful artifacts that she used to build an army of Nightmares to try and wipe out the human world. Those same artifacts were used by her daughters to seal her away after the war.

  The Black Knight was after them—it’s why he started all this, no doubt intending to bring his Queen back. They couldn’t let that happen. That and they needed the Heart in order to cure Odabeth’s mother and Addison of the Black Knight’s poison. The only way to find the Heart was with the Eye, and worry for Chess and Maddi had tossed the plan right outta Alice’s head. “So the Eye is okay?”

  “It and the princess are fine.” Hatta jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the hall leading to the back. “She and Xelon were resting when your friend made his escape.”

  “He had to be under the Black Knight’s control.”

  “Maybe.” The Duchess stroked at her chin like she was in some sort of TV show. “If he was, it makes little sense that he would focus on capturing Madeline instead of attempting to retrieve the Eye, as it was his primary objective. It seems even in defeat the Imposter remains one step ahead of us.”

  “Which is why both you and Xelon need to accompany Her Majesty to Findest as soon as possible.” Hatta’s expression darkened. “Madeline knows our intentions, and she’s a strong one but … it’s smart to make moves just in case.”

  In case he pulls the info out of her. Poor Maddi … “How long does it take to get to Findest?”

  “Longer than it took to reach Legracia,” both Dee and Dem said together.

  That journey was nearly a week in Wonderland, and a couple of days out here. Being gone for that long was not gonna fly, especially not after the way Mom chewed her out this morning.

  “Meanwhile, the Tw
eedles will take up search efforts for Madeline and your friend,” Hatta continued. “I’ll aid them on that front.”

  Alice nodded, her mind still working over just how she was going to work all of this out with her mom. “I need a day to get ready. To get my mom ready.”

  “We can come up with some excuse to buy you some time.” Court set a hand on Alice’s back as she came around her other side. “If anything, I’ll kidnap you or something. Go on a road trip without letting you out of my car.”

  “She’ll definitely send the cops after you.”

  “I’ll just cry some white tears, and they’ll let me go. Easy peasy Becky cheesy.”

  Alice blinked before busting out laughing. She had no idea why, but that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. And just when she felt it dying down, the vaguely confused look on Hatta’s face only made her laugh harder. She was practically doubled over and struggling to breathe by the time she regained control. “Lord, I love you.”

  Court squeezed her shoulders. “Love you, too.”

  “Okay.” Hatta glanced back and forth between them. “Tomorrow, then. I know it’s soon, but we can’t risk anyone getting to the Heart before us.”

  Alice threw a glance at the purple cat clock, which had managed to stay in place high on the wall behind the bar, but it still appeared to be broken, or out of batteries. “We probably need to get going. I’m supposed to be home by three.”

  “That reminds me.” Court pulled out her phone. “Telling your mom Chess is stable but unconscious.” The “keys” clicked under her thumbs.

  “I’ll walk you ladies out.”

  Alice said a quick good-bye to the twins and the Duchess, all three of them going back to cleaning up, before she hurried after Courtney and Hatta, who’d already stepped out onto the sidewalk. Even in the sun, his skin was still a sickly sort of pale. The green of his hair appeared dull, and the circles around his eyes had darkened. “Listen, I’d hoped we’d get at least a few days to try to recover, but we can’t afford the time now. I’m sorry.” He shoved his hands into his pockets.

  “It’s not your fault.” Somehow, she felt it was all hers. Still hers. Always hers. She let her friends get involved in this, and now? Now one of them was under some sort of zombie spell. And to think she’d been about to tell her mom about all this. Like hell that was happening now.