Just like my killer had, but this one was different.
Before the details settled into my brain, horror screamed through me, and I shut my eyes.
Out. Out now!
With a rushed yank backward, I flew out of him, violently popping into the world again, back to where I was before.
In his office.
But this time I was on what I had for an ass, spread over the floor in front of his couch.
My essence quaked. I wasn’t a body anymore. Everything was back to ghost-normal, and he was still sleeping, although now he’d changed position, clearly restless, riddled with what had to be a nightmare.
I took a moment, just in case his subconscious was playing a trick on me and I was actually still in his dream. Horror movies always finished that way, with a shock ending that you don’t expect, just like Halloween, where Michael Meyers isn’t really dead.
When nothing happened, I relaxed. What the hell had everything meant in that dream, anyway?
Dragons. Air machines. A video game in action.
Elizabeth.
But what haunted me the most was Gavin’s face as he was turning around during those last moments.
Now that I was safe, my brain let me see what I’d blocked out as I’d exited the dream, allowing me to realize that his mask had been made of clear plastic, eerily dulling his features.
And emphasizing the trails of bloody tears running down his cheeks.
10
By the time I flew back to home base, night had fallen, and before I could stab another window in Amanda Lee’s house with shears again, I found her in the backyard, in the hot tub near her own modest pool.
She was neck deep in bubbling water, her red-and-gray-streaked hair pinned up. Actually, she looked like a bobbing head, just like that fortune-teller in the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.
“What a night,” I said.
“Why, hello to you, too, Jensen,” she said as I settled over a wicker chair that faced the tub. She sounded real vegged out.
Until I told her about the dreamland in Gavin’s head.
She was giving off some nervous energy during my story—I could feel waves of it from her—but when I was done, a satisfied smile ended up taking over her mouth, like his dream was nearly as good as a confession.
“We’re so close to making everything right,” she said. “Do you know that? Just a few more pushes toward the truth…”
Pushes. From me. This haunting had really started.
“I figure that having Gavin asleep made our interaction a little different today,” I said. “Being in his head was like conducting an interview in Hades, but I think I learned a thing or two about him.”
“I think so, too. And, for future reference, we know a little bit more about how you work. When humans are awake, you enter a hallucinatory plane with them. When they’re asleep, you’re in what you call a dreamland.”
“Yeah, definitely good to know. But you know what was extra-strange about today?”
“There seem to be many levels of strange going on.”
No kidding. “Well, on this particular level, the dreamland had similarities to that star place. You know, with fake Dean?”
“Right. What sort of similarities?”
“I had a solid form in this dreamland, just like I did in the star place. What’s that about?”
A frown from Amanda Lee. Uh-oh.
“That is strange,” she said. “I wonder…”
Of course there was a huge BUT.
She shook her head, laughed a bit. “It’s a ridiculous idea. Never mind.”
“We went beyond ridiculous a while ago,” I said, gesturing to myself, because… seriously?
She inclined her head toward me. “All right. You were in a solid body during this dream today. And you were solid in the star place. Is there a possibility that this fake Dean character had the power to put you into a sort of sleeping state and then he entered your dream? Or maybe it’s even the other way around. You were in his mind?”
“I’m not sure if a creature like him has a regular mind.” I had no clue what that jerk was capable of. I mean, if he wasn’t an angel of death, then what the hell was he? In this Boo World, anything was possible.
“So you’re saying that the star place might not even be a place,” I said. “It’s more a state of mind.”
“It’s only a theory.”
The murmur of the spa’s water continued, and Amanda Lee straightened up, exposing the red halter straps of her suit as she cupped water in her hands and splashed it over her face.
“Long day, huh?” I said.
“Just an interesting one. It’s too bad you can’t come in here, too, for some unwinding.”
I laughed, and Amanda Lee closed her eyes and leaned back again.
“You feeling better about what happened in the forest?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I still didn’t want to talk about the spooky psychic vision she’d shared with me today. “Way better.”
“Good. I knew you’d bounce back.”
“Luckily, it didn’t take me long to juice up again.” My death spot had given me enough natural energy to last for a while, I supposed. “After I entered Gavin’s dream, I even had enough rah-rah to comb through his office for information before he started to wake up. I didn’t find much, though.”
“No evidence about Elizabeth?”
“None. Not out in the open, at least.” I still couldn’t figure out how to open drawers and closets—and squirming into them through the cracks only left me in closed and dark places—so who knew what was hidden away from me?
She let her arms float on the top of the churning water, as weightless as I was. Maybe she needed a lot of weight taken off her today and this was just another way a psychic and medium could do it.
“I want you to tell me every detail about his dream,” she said. “Nothing is too minor for you not to mention. We’re going to see what we can get out of it, and what it tells us about his state of mind.”
I did what she asked, and when I was done, her eyes were wide.
“I could interpret that dream for hours,” she said. “Wasn’t it terrifying to be in there?”
“Nah.”
Seriously, it was, but I wasn’t about to shout it out.
“When I have visions,” she said, “they aren’t even that intense. I’ve had a few that have come close, but…” She looked up at the sky, like it held every answer she needed. “Where do I even start with this one?”
“The dragon?” I asked.
“It’s as fine a place as any, but I have to tell you that the problem with interpreting dreams is that it’s more effective when you have feedback from the dreamer. That’s how it is when I read the tarot, too.”
So she was an experienced dream interpreter. Surprise, surprise.
“What do dragons even mean?” I asked.
“In this dream, it could be a symbol of a fiery, passionate nature. But those two traits can lead to trouble in a person. It could also mean the killer knows he needs some self-control.” She looked straight ahead. “Yet isn’t that something every murderer needs?”
I wished all killers had it, believe me. “What about the huge black bird in the fire sky?”
“Usually a bird signifies hopes and goals, but this creature sounds like a protector since it was flying over the girl in her air machine, like a wingman. Still, it was a black bird. A crow?”
“I think so.”
“Death,” she said. “Misfortune, disharmony. Or even a new phase in life on a metaphorical level. Death seems the most appropriate reading.”
Or was that the reading she wanted?
I still wasn’t sure. “And that weird air machine with the girl in it?”