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It was not so much a saving.
There was a price—free will. Like a crack addict, he’d pay attention only to what compelled him until he died.
It always came to this, sacrifice the few for the many—so many small evils to right one wrong. But, just like the people I stitched, my say in the matter was long gone.
I stood above my new recruit.
He lay tumbled, arms awry, legs sprawled against the side wall of the jewelry store. He would have looked like a doll except for a roughness to his features. Handsome, even with his shaggy hair.
“What’s your name?” I tilted my head and frowned. Unconscious, yet he was unreadable. His mind…blank. No thoughts.
There should be thoughts.
Neme nuzzled the man’s hand and whined softly.
Sweeping my hair into a bun with a twist of my wrist, I speared it there with pins and sank to my knees, bending over him until my cheek hovered just above his lips.
No rasp, just the beat of my own heart throbbing in my ears.
Unease slithered in my belly.
How could I be wrong? How could the compulsion be this strong if I was wrong?
I slid my fingers over still-warm skin until I found the pulse in his throat. His heartbeat was so steady it was almost as if he was just asleep. I breathed, shoulders sagging, my muscles eased.
He was vital.
The compulsion buzzed inside me.
In the background was the wail of sirens—my time was running out.
I grabbed my bag and pulled out a dagger—an Egyptian embalming knife, but this one was not used for extractions. There was always a strange sense of calm as the familiar old handle pressed against my palm. Purpose moved through me.
With a steady hand, I sliced at his jacket, the jagged blade sliding over flesh as I cut through the fabric until there was nothing but his heavily tattooed arm underneath.
I traced the outline of a thorn before circling a rose.
Here.
I’d stitch him here.
For once, I had both a dream and a nightmare creature tied on my spools. I was already picturing my mark on his skin as I rifled through my bag and pulled out a dream. The brilliance of the white creature wrapped around the wooden spool hurt my eyes, but I squinted and found the tip of one leg then pulled it out like taffy. It shrieked and wriggled, fluttered its tiny, luminescent wings but, hell, this always motivated people more than just sewing nightmare into them.
“You’re a rare little faery.”
The creature spat, bared white triangular teeth, and wriggled some more.
“I need you. Besides...” I split the man’s skin with the tip of my blade and began gouging the track for the symbol into his arm. “We both know you can’t think past one and one is two and this...” I pressed the strand of dream into the wound and began to sew, leaving a blazing blue-white, sizzling trail. “This is important. You’re helping to save the world.”
The shrieking and grumbling carried on, and I was a quarter of the way before I paused to wind some of the nightmare creature, a thing I called an imp, onto the knife tip instead. The dagger had never failed me. It killed, it sewed; at times it even opened doors.
Everything and everyone doing what needed to be done.
I shook some faery goop off my fingers when it oozed down the blade. Faery entrails were so ick, and I’d started the day in this beautiful suit and these beautiful shoes. The black imp spat and squealed at me as much as the little faery, protesting as I sewed its nightmare plasma into the man’s flesh.
Being born of the dreams and nightmares of humans, they weren’t truly faery or demon. The semantics of labels didn’t matter. There was just light, and there was dark, and neither of them belonged in this world.
The symbol was half done, three-quarters...centuries of practice had made me fast.
