Lair of Dreams

“Turn away from the world, sister,” Wai-Mae said gently. “Stay and dream with me. If we take that one”—she nodded toward Henry—“we will have so much power. Enough for many, many dreams. Soon, the other world will open for us. The King of Crows is coming. He will—”

A loud thwack reverberated in the tunnel as Henry smashed a rock against one of the brick screens. His whole body trembled, but he reached down deep, and with a cry, he smacked the rock against the wall again, cracking the screen. The energy inside it swooshed out on a tail of light that swirled around, then dispersed into the dark. Wai-Mae faltered a bit. Henry went to smash another, but he could barely lift his arm.

“You have no honor!” Wai-Mae grasped Henry’s head between her palms. “I will make you suffer as I suffered.”

“Wai-Mae, stop! Stop and… and I will dream with you,” Ling promised.

Wai-Mae released Henry, and he again fell to the ground. Sick and hurting, he made a feeble swipe at Wai-Mae’s ankle, but she stepped easily out of the way.

“Will you dream with me?” Wai-Mae trailed fingertips lightly down Ling’s arm, and in the gesture were both terror and desire, a coin twirled on a bargaining table the moment before coming to rest in judgment. “Will you promise?”

Don’t promise. Pearl.

Ling reached into her pocket. Nothing.

Pearl, she thought. Pearl. A spark flared at her fingertips. It tripped up her hand. She could feel the pearl taking shape, round and hard and real.

“Will you dream with me?” Wai-Mae asked, more insistent. “Will you promise?”

“Ling…” Henry warned. “Don’t.”

Ling brought her hands to her mouth as if in prayer. Then she motioned Wai-Mae closer with a finger. Wai-Mae dropped down; her face hovered near Ling’s.

“I. Will.” Ling brought her mouth to Wai-Mae’s. “Not!”

Quickly, Ling pressed her lips to Wai-Mae’s. She loosed the pearl she’d just slipped beneath her tongue. Wai-Mae’s eyes widened in surprise. Her fingers fanned at her throat.

“Take… it… out,” Wai-Mae growled.

Ling shook her head. Henry crawled to Ling’s side. The tunnel wobbled, erasing itself. As it did, the dream world also began unraveling. Pine needles browned and fell. The forest thinned to sticks. The flowers of the meadow sank back into grass that flattened to nothing. For a moment, they were aboveground, on the streets of Five Points. Firecrackers exploded in the sky, brief pops of hope above the sagging rooftops.

“No,” Wai-Mae croaked, trembling. She struggled to breathe. Two tears streaked down her cheeks. “This… will all die with me. No more. Without dreams is to die twice.”

They were back in the old train station. Light crackled up the walls and along the expanse of ceiling like shorted electrical wires. And then the station began to curl in on itself, a dream unwritten, something to be forgotten by the banal blur of morning.

“Please…” Wai-Mae begged.

For a moment, Ling’s courage wavered. She looked to Henry. “Can’t we save her?”

“We are saving her,” he reminded her.

Wai-Mae glowed, a star brightening before death. Bright rays fractured her body, a violent birth, an inevitable collapse. And then there was an explosion of white light, shooting out across the dreamscape. Henry and Ling shielded each other and shut their eyes against its brilliance.





In the graveyard of Trinity Church, Memphis and Evie dug at the muddy earth to make a shallow grave. She swiped a filthy, wet arm across her equally sopping brow.

“Where are they?” she called over the rain.

“I’m sure they’ll be here any second,” Memphis answered, but he sounded nervous. “Best thing we can do is to keep digging.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Evie groused.

“Memphis!” Theta came tearing around the corner of New York’s oldest church with Sam right behind her.

Memphis leaped up and embraced her. “I was so worried about you.”

“We ran into a little trouble with a fella who wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Sam said.

“One of those things had you cornered?” Memphis said.

Theta nodded.

“How’d you get away?” Memphis reached for Theta’s hands and she cried out. Memphis saw the weeping flesh there. “Theta! How’d you get these burns?”

“I-I…”

“It was a steam pipe,” Sam said with a quick glance at Theta. “Let’s just get these bones into hallowed ground and give ’em a proper burial.”

Sam, Evie, and Memphis dug furiously until they’d managed a decent hole.

“Good enough, you think, Memphis?” Sam asked.

“I say it’s good enough,” Evie insisted.

“Then here goes nothing,” Sam said, rocking back on his heels and breathing heavily.

Memphis and Theta lowered Wai-Mae’s skull and remaining bones into the shallow grave, then Memphis packed the dirt over it with hands made cold by the wet and the chill in the air.

“I don’t know about Chinese rituals. But it seems as if we oughta say a prayer of some kind,” Memphis said.

“What kinda prayer do you say to get rid of a ghost?” Theta asked.

“I surely don’t know. But I expect a prayer of any kind is better than none.”

All of them bowed their heads except for Sam.