Page 58 of Nightmare's Dance

Nic shrugged. “So far, no. Perhaps if we were at full strength, us with our princess, and the Dream princesses with their prince—who they have not found yet. As it is, Nightmare is fractured, and Dream can’t find their prince without access to the conscious realm.”

“Wow. Okay, so you have to have mortals? Why?”

“To keep the energy in the realms fresh,” Nic said. “Before you ask, it has nothing to do with reproduction.”

“Oh.”

“There are always three princes or princesses of Nightmare, same with Dream. The combination of genders is variable, and occasionally their gender is also fluid. The one they choose to be their mortal fourth usually carries the title of princess or prince based on the bearer’s preference, but not always. Especially in your case, they made assumptions.”

“Gotcha. So, we need to go find succubi. Aren’t those like sex demons or something?”

Robby laughed. “Yes, they are. But they’re also fairly universal nightmares and dreams, so they travel both realms extensively. They are the tour guides of the dream realm, if you will.”

I tried to wrap my mind around that and couldn’t. “Let’s go then.”

Nic quickly thanked the wolves for their help, and I gave Ghost another scratch before we headed off toward the edge of the blight that had erased the land.

We walked in uncomfortable silence that Robby broke with a jaunty whistle. He was enjoying the heck out of something. Probably Geraint’s tension.

I wanted to make everything better, but couldn’t think of what to do, so I just trudged along. It took longer than I thought it should to reach the end of the smeared landscape. Walking into the flat color tones of the boundary lands was a relief. I’d have been happy to be back in the nightmarish forests after that stretch of nothing.

My fingers itched to take Geraint’s hand. Or even Nic’s. Hell, I’d almost settle for Robby’s hand at this point. I did not like this unsettled energy between us. I watched my knight for a while. He alternated between shooting worried looks at Nic, shooting worried looks at me, and staring at the ground. Then he’d act like he remembered he was a guardian and survey our surroundings before starting over again.

Nic walked along like he didn’t have a care in the world, and he ignored Geraint other than the handful of commands he’d given yesterday.

Robby kept whistling that same song over and over.

The landscape alternated between dense forest, serene valley with a flowing stream in the middle, and craggy mountains, seemingly placed at random. There was no logic to our surroundings. The only thing that saved us from having to scale mountains was a path that wound through the whole chaotic patchwork. We stuck to the path.

No one bothered us, unlike our trek through Nightmare. Occasionally I saw quaint settlements. Other times cities loomed, complete with vehicles and flying cars. For a while, I watched the changing landscape without realizing how quickly it moved compared to the speed we walked.

When it hit me that I observed the countryside and cityscapes as if I were speeding along in a car, I stopped, frowning.

“The magic of the road,” Nic supplied when he turned toward me.

“Weird.”

Nic nodded and gestured for me to continue, though I doubted he found the road strange since he was used to these bizarre lands.

We walked for maybe a couple of hours and covered distance I couldn’t fathom. Finally, Nic led us from the path. I almost expected some sort of jolt as we slowed down to a normal pace, but the transition was smooth, imperceptible even.

The village, I guess you could call it, that we walked into looked like a cross between a spaghetti western’s idea of a town full of brothels and actual homes and businesses.

Beings shaped like humans—female, male, and androgenous—wandered the streets in various states of dress or undress. The style of clothing varied from a woman in full Victorian costume except her ankles were showing, to sexy pirates, to strippers, to women wearing men’s shirts and nothing else, and men dressed in tight jeans and flannel, or barely there boxer briefs. There were styles of dress I’d never seen before and hairstyles and body ornamentation I wasn’t familiar with. Not only did styles vary, but body types varied as well. My mind reeled, trying to take it all in and sort it out.

We were looking at manifestations of people’s sexual fantasies taken form by succubi and incubi.

Nic held out his hand for me to take. Trying not to see the hurt in Geraint’s expression, I accepted and let the prince bring me to his side. Nic had taken on a mostly solid form at the moment, though his edges still faded into shadows that wavered around him like mist.

We attracted attention almost immediately, though the beings left us alone.

Nic led us to a fancier hotel. Robby darted ahead of us, pushing open the door and bowing as Nic strode past him with me on his arm.

The lobby mimicked an upper scale hotel in the conscious realm. I’d even been in a few very similar. Except all the mirrored surfaces were shattered.

Geraint trailed behind as we went straight up to the desk. A bored-looking woman greeted us. At first glance, she was attired as you might expect the front desk clerk of an upper scale hotel to dress. But when you paid attention, her shirt was too tight, gaping at the buttons over her ample breasts, her skirt was too short, and the stockings she wore were clearly attached by garters.

She straightened from her bored slouch when she recognized Nic.

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