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When I finish, I tell Valerian I don’t need the illusion anymore, and he removes it. Through the mask, the smell of charred flesh isn’t as bad as I feared, though watching everyone shove that unsanitary meat into their masks is nauseating.
“What do you think the Overtaken want?” I ask, mostly to distract myself.
Dylan lowers her meat skewer. “I guess they want whatever you know who wants.”
“We call him Collywobbles.” Felix wipes his greasy fingers on his shirt, and I almost ask Valerian to reapply the illusion. “But yeah, what does he want?”
Valerian tosses a log into the fire. “In the long run, more nightmares. Or more precisely, power.”
I frown. “But how does killing my sister accomplish that? Or attacking us?”
“Not us.” Valerian’s forehead creases. “So far, I’m only aware of the Overtaken attacking you and Maxwell.”
“Who’s Maxwell?” Ariel asks at the same time as I exclaim, “Me?”
“Maxwell is the dreamwalker with the other team. We’re going to meet him soon,” Valerian says. “As to why—something about dreamwalkers must be a threat to Collywobbles, and he doesn’t seem to trust Icelus to deal with it.”
I turn to him—and can’t help but notice that we’re close enough to kiss, or would be if I were ever insane enough to let that happen. Well, and if there were no masks in the way. “How do you know it was me the Overtaken want?”
Valerian heaves a sigh. “The mess in the werewolf restaurant wasn’t the first time they came after you. The Enforcers thwarted five attempts prior to that—two by your apartment and three near your work.” Eyes gleaming, he places a hand on my knee. “That’s why I wanted to put you in a safe house.”
“Great.” I not-so-gently remove his hand. “Now I’m on the priority kill list of a god.”
No one replies. They just sit there, looking at me with pity.
I shiver, and not just because of the brisk evening breeze. As if to make things worse, I overhear Chester telling a scary story to his fellow New York Council members at the nearby fire. On the word “eviscerate,” I tune the rest out.
“I wonder how many Overtaken there are?” Ariel asks after she finishes with her hunk of meat and tosses her skewer into the fire. “Also, do we know how Collywobbles turns people into them?”
“Maxwell might know the answer to the latter, but I can tell you about the former,” Dylan says, again taking on that professional tone. “Thousands of people on Gomorrah have reported symptoms consistent with what we’ve dubbed the Overtaken. But the number of the affected is harder to puzzle out on Earth and other similar places since the condition has only affected the Cognizant thus far, and we can’t report supernatural-sounding details like fire eyes to human doctors. So we still don’t know if humans are immune, or if Collywobbles just hasn’t bothered with them.”
Ariel shakes her head, her expression subdued. “So many people turned into mindless puppets.”
“That’s not exactly what happens,” Dylan says. “When awake, the Overtaken are actually normal. Even at night, they only get up and sleepwalk on rare occasions—when Collywobbles has something for them to do, we think.”
Felix’s eyes widen. “So if we’d woken up the giants and the other people who got killed, they—”
“Those deaths are on Collywobbles’s conscience,” Ariel says sharply. “When it comes to self-defense, don’t second-guess yourself or you’ll be the next corpse.”
On that cheerful note, the conversation peters out until Dylan yawns loudly, creating a chain reaction with the rest of us.
“Someone should watch me at night,” I say, not meeting anyone’s gaze. “If the Nutcracker attacks and wins, I might be a danger to you all.”
“I’ll take the first shift,” Ariel says. “Felix can go next, then—”
“No.” Valerian crosses his arms over his chest. “I’ll watch her.”
I open my mouth, then close it. I’m not sure how I feel about Valerian watching me sleep. Definitely not aroused. Or intrigued. Also, why does he want to do this? Is it because he doesn’t trust me to be asleep at the same time as him—worried I’d waltz into his dreams and steal his precious secrets?
When no one argues with him, he puts out the fire, fishes out a sleeping bag from Colton’s backpack, hygieias it, and puts it a perfect distance from the coals.
I stomp over to the sleeping bag and climb in. Puck him and these little acts of kindness. If he keeps this up, I’ll feel like a jerk holding on to my grudge, which I bet is his evil plan.
Before I can stop him, he zips up my makeshift bed. “Sweet dreams,” he murmurs, gazing down at me. “I’ll be here if you need me.”
“Whatever,” I say, glad he can’t see Pom turning coral pink on my wrist.
Closing my eyes, I instantly drift off.
Chapter Eleven
