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“Does it open?” I cut in, my eyes not leaving Mom’s placid face behind the thick glass. “I need to touch her for what comes next.”
Nodding, Dr. Xipil takes out a remote screen and hits a few icons on it.
The contraption rolls up to us, and the thick glass opens like a clam shell.
“Amazing work,” Itzel says, but I’m no longer paying attention to her. Walking over to Mom, I place my fingers on her forehead. Two questions swirl through my mind as I prepare to use my powers.
Is it finally going to happen? Will I be able to bring her out of the coma?
Chapter Eight
Even without Dr. Xipil’s equipment, my senses tell me Mom isn’t in REM sleep. That means that if I were to simply jump into her dreams, I’d end up in a subdream and risk my sanity.
Why do that if I can put people into REM sleep with my powers?
I try that now, but it doesn’t work.
Odd.
I attempt it again. Still nothing.
“Is she on any stimulants?” I ask Dr. Xipil, interrupting his bragging.
“No. Why?”
“I can now put people into REM sleep, except it’s not working on her.”
“No stimulants,” Dr. Xipil says. “Just fluids and nutrients.”
Itzel’s eyebrows furrow. “Could your powers be malfunctioning after all that stress?”
“Lie down on the floor,” I tell her.
“What?” The gnome steps back, but Virgil is already in her way.
“I’m just going to test my powers on you,” I say. “Please.”
Reluctantly, Itzel lies on the floor.
“Her hat is about to tell you she’s asleep,” I tell Virgil. “Make sure your people don’t panic.”
With a loud sigh, Virgil makes a few gestures in his VR.
“Don’t fight it. I need your consent,” I tell Itzel, and she sighs before nodding in agreement.
I bend down, touch her forehead, and do the exact same push as a second ago.
Itzel is in REM sleep instantly, and her headgear begins to buzz and flash with lights, waking her up.
I wince, rubbing my ears. “Seems like this hat is an alarm in more ways than one.”
Virgil shrugs. “Waking up is preferable to what my team and I might do to a suspected Overtaken.”
Itzel sits up. “I started to have a very nice dream,” she says groggily, then looks up at Dr. Xipil. “You were there.”
“Were you playing doctor?” Virgil asks.
Itzel gets up, her ears reddening.
Having made sure my powers are in good working order, I try to push Mom into REM sleep once again.
It still doesn’t work.
I turn to Dr. Xipil. “Do you have something that can put her into REM sleep?”
He shakes his head.
I face Virgil. “Do we have any of that Koshmar drug the Icelus use?”
“I wouldn’t recommend giving that to Lidia,” Dr. Xipil says sternly.
“We don’t have it anyway,” Virgil says.
I scratch my chin. “What about Maxwell?”
“Who?” Dr. Xipil asks.
“Another dreamwalker,” Virgil says. “What about him?”
“Can you bring him over here?” I ask. “Maybe he can do this?”
Virgil makes VR gestures again. “My people are on it.”
Belatedly, I recall my suspicion that there was more to Maxwell than met the eye. At the time, I thought he was the Nutcracker, but that turned out to be Rattie.
Still, is it safe to have him so close to me and Mom?
“Keep an eye on him when he comes,” I tell Virgil. “Give him one of those hats too.”
Virgil flashes his fangs. “You don’t need to tell me how to do my job.”
Just my luck. I’m stuck in the middle of the planet’s core with a thin-skinned vampire.
“Is there a place I can sit as I wait?” I ask.
Virgil leads me into something like a waiting room, while Itzel and Dr. Xipil remain behind, chatting about their designs.
Getting comfortable in a chair, I touch’s Pom’s fur and, with the familiar falling sensation and a whiff of ozone, enter the dream world.
When I show up in my impossibly colored, manna-scented palace lobby, Pom is standing in front of a pyre of wooden logs, holding a lit match.
“Playing with fire?” I ask.
The pyre and the matches disappear, and Pom’s fur turns a deep purple. “You’re here! I’ve missed you. What’s new?”
He seems so happy that I’m loath to tell him about the recent events. But he insists, so I recount everything.
By the time I’m done, Pom’s fur is a washed-out gray. “I don’t like Phobetor. He’s a major meanie.”
“I’d use much stronger language, but I agree with the sentiment.” I stroke his head until his triangular ears regain a hint of purple.
“Can we play again?” he asks, blinking his huge lavender eyes at me.
“Does practice count as play?”
He turns a golden hue. “I think it does. Depends on what we’re practicing.”
I change our surroundings to a recreation of the environment where subdream battles occur.
An ocean of black water is now under our feet, and a magma sky is above. Not for the first time I notice that the sky is a lot like the eyes of the Overtaken—and the water is not that different from the kind inside the black windows, except I have no problem standing on subdream water.
