Page 16 of Nightmare Rising

Pitting on the flat of the knife had left a neat hole an inch from the tip. The handle was engraved and carried a dull gold hue. Not real gold, this was bronze. All the centuries since the pharaohs would’ve worn away a gold coating. I had to care for it, to prevent further corrosion.

I lowered it to my lap, letting my hands rest warmly over the knife on my stomach as again my eyelids closed.

Where was I getting all this information?

My mind sank, lazing about, swimming in pools of vivid memories.

This thing, the knife, had been near indestructible since the Incident...same as I was...same as the other people who’d been present. Andthe other one, the being created mostly of nightmare, partly of dream. The one who’d turned sentient and evil.

My forehead wrinkled. Who was he?

Mustn’t sleep.

Drifting, mindwalking with my newly found, ethereal fingers I traced along the skein of a path that led, wriggling, from the postcard to my nemesis.

I could feel him.

The SK was here, in the USA. A state’s name tingled on my tongue, dying to be said.

I?

Iowa?

And because shit was weird enough, a red wolf, as soft as mist, padded into the room and laid her muzzle on my arm. Light as a dream, heavy with the dreadful ferocity of nightmare.Neme.

The depths of the healing blackness lured me down.

When I woke a few hours later, I felt better. Clearer. And relieved I hadn’t died.

I still had the memories, but I was normal. Right?

The red wolf I’d dreamed was nowhere to be seen.

Humming, I went into the bathroom and shut the door, and that’s when it happened—the shadow where door met floor grew tiny legs and arms.

“It’s not real. It’s not real.” I stood there, chanting against the bathroom wall until the shadows behaved themselves.

If I weren’t so fucking terrified of shrinks, I’d go see one.

But I’d been called crazy once, and I wasn’t stupid.

Besides, there was nothing I could say to a shrink that I couldn’t say to Jack Daniels.

CHAPTER6

Val

Waitingand being bored were the raison d’être of surveillance. I had reminded myself of this, once or twice, while observing her apartment.

When she emerged, all I could think was that her curves would put Venus to shame.

The cadence and stroll of those legs...

From within, an unvoiced growl arose, deep, internalized, a feral thing that would raise the hackles of a dog. It resonated through my bones and made my cock stand to attention as I imagined, for some infinitesimal fraction of time, what I might do to her. How she might look afterward.

Her ass striped, etched with teeth-marks. Bleeding and raw. My cum splattered on her back.

Jesus.

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