Chapter Nine

Vince kept looking in his mirror making sure Xan was still behind him and about two hours into their trip he felt a stirring deep in the back of his mind. Along with the stirring there came a strong sense of dread. He tried to pinpoint what was making him feel this way as the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

Mykella, you okay?

He passed three exits before he received a response. In fact it was not really a response at all – all he could hear was her weeping. Why would she be crying? She already knows the fate of the world and where her destiny lies. What else does she have to be sad about?

“Why are you crying?”

Father, why hast thou forsaken me?

He didn’t expect a reply such as this. He had gone to church enough times in his life to know the words of Jesus on the cross. “What’s wrong?” he couldn’t keep everything in his mind. If a spirit such as Mykella needed to recite Christ dying on the cross then something wasn’t right and he needed to find out what.

I need to see you. I saw something – terrible – and I need to know why I saw it.

Vince nodded and reached over and picked up his phone. He dialed his sister’s number and she answered on the second ring. “I need to get a little sleep…At the next exit turn left and keep going straight until you see it on the right side.” He ended the call and tossed the phone back into the passenger seat.

They reached the motel and each received a room and Vince was asleep almost as soon as he entered his room.

He saw her sitting in the chair next to the window with her knees up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them with her chin resting on them. She wasn’t crying any more but she still looked disturbed. She reached back with both hands and unclasped her necklace and tossed it onto the bed next to Vince who looked down at it.

Her eyes went from the crucifix to his puzzled face. “Why did I see him?”

He sat up and pulled his legs over the side of the bed and faced the young woman. “See who?”

“Him! I saw them raise the big cross into the air and I saw him hanging from it. It’s the same man that’s on that. Why?” She began shaking as hysterics overcame her emotions.

He could never know the power she must have felt. Did God plan all unborn children to witness the ultimate sacrifice? Or was there something behind this? He didn’t have an answer to her question. He wished he had because he wanted to know it himself. But as it was, they are left with nothing except a young woman witnessing the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

He took her cross and held it out to her but she refused to take it. Vince thought it was he who was having problems believing in God. Everyone had to believe in something otherwise there would be no life left on Earth. And if there be no life then there would not be a battle waiting to be fought. If there be no battle then there would be no reason for Mykella to be born.

“Take it,” he said and saw her turn away from it. “Listen,” he reached out and touched the soft skin of her cheek. “You wore this out of faith and out of faith you were conceived. I question my faith but you shouldn’t. I know your mother is a very strong woman and she’s always told me that there’s a place in heaven waiting for her.”

She looked at him with tears in her eyes and half smiled. “Really? Has she really said that?” He nodded with a smile. “Can you tell me about this man? Who was he and why did he have to die and why were there so many people who cared to watch?”

“You really should be asking your mother these questions – I didn’t do very good in Catholic school.”

There was a pause between the two and then she closed her eyes, and a minute or so later he could feel a sudden thickness in the air as they sat there side by side in the small motel room.

He glanced over at the bathroom and saw fog – or was it steam? – emanating from it. He heard bare feet walking on the linoleum floor and then he saw what he never expected to see in his entire life. There were a thousand thoughts and emotions which played inside Vince as he watched a confused Samantha walk into the room.

She first saw the young woman and then registered Vince and it was he who she paid all the attention. “Vince, what’s going on? Why am I in this dream – I’ve never seen her in my life?” She looked at Mykella and studied the odd familiarity in which the young woman sat herself.

An overwhelming flood was about to break through the dam as Mykella stood up. “Mom.” Tears welled in her eyes.

Her eyes. They look like my eyes. “What the hell’s going on, Vince?”

He had to admit, this was a strange reunion. They had never met and here they are now with several months before they actually meet. “It’s a very long story. Long, and hard to believe.” He smiled and stood up. “This is your daughter, Samantha. This is Mykella.”

Samantha was shaking her head before Vince had concluded his explanation. She would not listen to this bullshit. She had to wake up. “No!” She turned and looked at the bathroom door. “Stop telling me lies,” she almost whispered and walked away from them.

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She entered the bathroom from where she came, and when she saw that her mother had left her, Mykella turned and buried her face in Vince’s chest and burst into tears once again.

He held her for a few minutes wondering how it was possible for Samantha to have entered his dream. And all that time she thought it was he who was in her dream. He didn’t push Mykella for explanations – it was too soon. Perhaps she didn’t know how she pulled her mother into the dream. And then a different thought entered his head. She had some kind of gift to bring people into others’ dreams; this could become useful in the future.

But did she understand the gift? Could she travel inside other people’s dreams? Maybe this is the kind of training he was meant to teach her. After all he was a Dream Research major, wasn’t he? Perhaps he could even get a little assistance from Professor Krieger.

And then she was gone. What an odd sensation – to have someone just vanish while you held them. The air he held was still warm and he could still smell her presence. He sat there in silence for a while and it was his larger conscious self that made up his mind to awaken and he too vanished from the room.

He heard a knock at the door and glanced out the curtain-drawn window and saw Xan standing outside. He stood up and opened the door and she walked in behind him carrying a cup of cappuccino in her right hand. “Morning, Sunshine,” she greeted and sat herself down in the same chair Mykella had sat in his dream.

“Glad you didn’t say ‘good morning’.” He sat down on the bed and rubbed his hands through his sandy-blonde hair and sighed.

She was about to inquire what was wrong and as she placed her cup on the table, she noticed that he had been writing on the motel’s notepad. “What is the role of a Dream Crusader?” she read aloud and glanced up at her brother. “A Dream Crusader is someone who has the power to travel inside the world of dreams. They can bring people into their dream or they can enter someone else’s dream.”

He looked up with a surprised expression and she smiled at him. “I couldn’t sleep last night so I listened to the rest of your father’s book. Pretty weird shit.”

“Last night she brought her mother into my dream.”

Xan formed a confused expression on her face. “Vince, Mykella’s not even alive yet.”

He shook his head and snickered. “I don’t think Dad’s ever met a Dream Crusader whose power surpasses life and death. I know she’s alive, but can an unborn child dream? She even talks to me while I’m awake. What kind of power is that?”

“The book never mentioned anything like that. It only says that Connor was trying to communicate with our Mom but even your dad wasn’t sure that he was really dead.”

“He had to have been. He never came back to life did he?”

She thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. “No. In a living form, he never came back. But, what of this Orion?”

Vince stood up off the bed and began pacing to and fro. “He has always been mortal. He was alive only through time – he was trapped in a way.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Everything.” He turned and sat down again. “Mom tells me of the future. Her body was never recovered. Allen sacrifices himself and is alive twenty years after his master finally dies. Was Connor trapped in time as well?”

Xan shook her head in a negative way. “His body was there. Mom saw him shoot his brains out.”

His brain was beginning to hurt. “There’s something not right. It doesn’t make sense. Connor kills himself and he’s the first known killing as far as we know. Then we meet Laura. She has this whole back story to tell about being given the book by her doctor when she was a young child.”

“So, what doesn’t make sense?”

“The timeline.” He shook his head and stood up, walked over to the table, sat down in the other chair, grabbed an empty piece of paper and began scribbling down what he knew. “Mom and Aunt Laura fought Orion with my father when they were fifteen, Aunt Laura was about twenty, and when they met up with Orion later, eleven years had elapsed and Mom had no recollection of anything that had happened. They fight again and this time Mom and Orion perish leaving Dad and myself to live.”

“Okay? What are you getting at – you’re starting to lose me?”

“Every time this book was the central purpose.” He reached down into his bag, found the book and slid it over to his sister. She thumbed through it and he continued. “Mom had it, or Orion thought she did, and he went after her. Eleven years later, she had it and he found her. And the funny thing is, now I’ve got it and Allen’s after me.”

“How do you know this book is the source of Orion’s will?”

He shrugged and reached up and pulled open the curtain. “Beautiful day,” he murmured.

“Vince?”

“Huh?” He didn’t even turn to look at her – he was too immersed in his own thoughts. He was wondering what Mykella was doing right now. Was she safe, wherever she was?

“Do you think it’s possible that you’re the Dream Crusader?” He snapped his head and looked at her. “I mean if Mom and Aunt Laura were one, I think it’s safe to assume it’s in our lineage.”

He had to admit that he never thought of that possibility. But no, it wasn't him. “Mom told me that it was Mykella who was the Dream Crusader. It is Mykella who will be our savior.”

“Savior,” she repeated behind a hidden sigh. “I hope you got your saviors in check.”

He felt as if he had been personally injured. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“All I’m saying is that I hope you’re not mistaking Our Savior from someone who’s just going to stop a race of demons.”

“Just going to? It sounds like you don’t believe in any of this. It was our mother who told me about it! I didn’t invent the fucking thing off the top of my head.”

“Think about what you’re asking me to believe in! From a dream research perspective, will you?” She looked down into her cup for a moment and then sighed. “I may or may not believe in the Dreamkillers – that’s my choice – but I have to believe in hope. I don’t want to believe that a war is going to break out some day between humans and nonhumans.”

Vince looked back out into the world on the verge of a nightmare and he nodded. “You should go home.” He turned and looked at her behind a distorted expression she had never seen. “Go live in your hope. Maybe the end won’t be so painful for you.”

Every known feeling save for happiness ran through her being. It felt like he had just skewered her with a sword and kept turning it in her heart. She couldn’t stop the tears – she didn’t give a damn that she was showing them! – as she stared at her brother behind glassy eyes. Maybe she shouldn’t have rejected his thoughts so soon. But it was too late for reconciliation now. Without meaning to, she had ended their brief reunion and made it into more of a meeting between two acquaintances.

She slowly stood up and opened the door. “I’m sorry,” was all she could say and then left him alone as she walked into the beautiful day.