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“You think they’ll stay the execution when you tell them all this?” Pom asks.
I make Valerian disappear. “Well… this theory has a major flaw: I have no clue why he would kill all these Councilors. Motive is a pretty important part of crime investigations. Without that, plus some kind of proof, the Council won’t listen to me. At the end of the day, this is just a wild theory.”
“I still think you should talk to someone,” Pom says. “Maybe Kit will think of a motive. How about we go into the tower and see if someone from the Council is sleeping?”
I shake my head glumly. “I’d need my powers to enter other people’s dreams.”
“You haven’t recovered yet? I thought that’s how you create stuff like this.” He waves a paw around us.
“Just changing my surroundings doesn’t mean I have my powers back. Even humans can learn to do something like this, à la lucid dreaming. To really know if I’ve recovered, I need to try to enter someone’s dream.”
“Let’s do that, then.” He torpedoes toward the tower of sleepers, and I hurry to catch up.
“Felix and Ariel aren’t here,” he says when we get to the nooks.
I take a quick glance at where a few of the Councilors would be if they were sleeping, but they aren’t there. “Maybe it’s daytime in New York.”
“Then why is Bernard sleeping?” Pom points at the mustachioed man’s room.
“He’s been keeping odd hours.” I make my way over to the clouds representing more dreams in the poor guy’s trauma loop. “I guess I could use him to see if my powers are back. That’ll give us a clue as to how long it’s been in the waking world.”
Pom gives me a baffled look. “You’re going to finish Valerian’s job? Even though we think he’s the killer?”
“I don’t have to finish the job. I could guide Bernard through the rest of his trauma loop but not do what Valerian actually hired me for. Then again, I think I should finish it.”
Pom’s ears twitch quizzically.
“If I finish, when Felix goes to sleep, I could ask him to send word to Valerian that the job is complete, so he remits the funds as promised. Killer or not, Valerian’s got lots of money.”
Pom turns an indeterminate mix of colors. “I guess.”
I approach the sleeping Bernard. “I’ll deal with his remaining dreams in the trauma loop first, then decide.”
“Good luck,” Pom says, bouncing up and down.
I give him a wave, make myself invisible, and touch Bernard’s scarred forehead.
Chapter Thirty-Six
I’m in. My powers are back—and I almost wish they weren’t.
A dirty, beaten-up man is chained to a radiator in an abandoned warehouse.
I recognize him instantly. It’s the wiry, balding middle-aged defendant from Bernard’s courtroom dream, the one pronounced not guilty of murdering Bernard’s boy. When his smell reaches me, I gag. What the hell? He stinks so bad my only option is to disable my olfactory sense. He also looks much thinner than at the trial, his shifty eyes filled with insanity and desperation.
His face stony, Bernard approaches, wood saw in hand.
“I’m sorry,” the chained guy croaks. “Please let me out. I didn’t mean to kill him. Things got out of control. I was abused when I was—”
“You want out? Here.” Bernard drops the saw and kicks it within the prisoner’s reach.
The guy frantically saws at the chain but only destroys the tool in the process. He hurls the toothless saw back at Bernard with a guttural cry—and misses.
“You can’t cut metal with a wood saw,” Bernard says coldly. “You know what you really need to do. You’re just not ready yet.”
Oh, no. I kind of knew where this was going, but still. Mega yuck.
A few days pass in a blink, and Bernard returns with a new saw identical to the last. This time, the insanity in the prisoner’s eyes is even clearer. He doesn’t even plead with Bernard, just sits there, gaze glued to the saw in his tormentor’s hands. Without a word, Bernard drops the saw to the floor and kicks it over. The guy grabs it and reluctantly places the sharp edge above his wrist.
I shift my gaze to Bernard’s face, and when the nauseating sounds begin, I disable my hearing. From Bernard’s expression, you’d think it was his wrist being sawed in half. He’s muttering something, and though I’m not great at reading lips, I think he’s saying, “I’m a monster. I’ve become worse than the very evil I was trying to—”
Suddenly, his eyes widen to the size of plates.
I follow his gaze.
His right arm a gory mess, the prisoner leaps at Bernard with an animalistic snarl, shouting something.
I reenable my hearing.
The guttural roar is something I’d expect from a wounded bear, not a man.
Clutching the saw in his remaining hand, the man slices at Bernard’s face. The teeth of the saw bite into his forehead, and Bernard screams in pain.
