Back From the Undead: Book 5 by D.D. Barant

Author:D.D. Barant [Barant, D.D.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Urban Fantasy
ISBN: 9780312545062
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2012-03-26T18:30:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

I wake up screaming.

I stop as soon as I realize the dream’s over and I’m awake—but it takes me a second to get my bearings, then another second to process what just happened and what the immediate consequences will be.

“Charlie! I’m—”

CRASH!

“—okay.” I sigh. “Does our expense account cover hotel room doors?”

Charlie glares at me. The only thing he’s wearing is his fedora, which actually makes him look a lot less naked than you’d think—golems have the same sex organs as a Ken doll, which is to say none. The door is on the floor, hinges and all. Charlie doesn’t let a lot slow him down when he’s in a hurry.

“You sure?” he growls, looking around like he expects to see an assassin hiding behind the drapes or under the bed.

“Yes. Bad dream, that’s all. Go back to to bed.”

“Can’t.” He looks down, then back at me. “Got a door to fix.”

“Sorry.”

“You got to stop with the sauerkraut and mushroom pizza before bed,” he mutters as he picks up the door and examines the damage. “I’m gonna need tools…”

“I’ll call down to the front desk.”

A terrific start to another great day …

I hole up in the bathroom and take a shower as Charlie waits out in the hall for maintenance to show up. I mull over the dream as I scrub, trying to figure out what it was trying to tell me.

A lot of it was actually close to reality: Cassius did smuggle anti-plague charms to the human population at the end of World War II. The plague was actually more of a curse, part of a deal the pires made with an Elder God named Shub-Niggurath to gain the ability to procreate. The deal required the sacrifice of millions of human souls, a price Cassius thought was too high. He’d done his best to help save those he could—though I don’t know if he had a human lover while he did so. Knowing Cassius, it’s entirely possible.

The black-and-white to color stuff was weird, too—in fact, as a psychologist I’ve never heard of that happening in a dream. It seemed like some kind of metaphor, beyond the obvious sexual one. But for what? The past and the present? Something simple becoming something complex?

And then there’s how it ended. The thing chasing us down that endless hallway, all the doors and the bizarre things behind them. Were they supposed to represent memories? Choices? Emotions? I don’t know.

What I do know is that the sense of menace was overpowering, so vivid and real that I can still feel echoes of it. Either my subconscious is scared to death of something and trying to send me a message—or this was more than just a dream.

It was a warning.

But from who? Cassius? If he’s trying to communicate with me through dreams instead of just picking up a phone, does that mean he’s in trouble? Or am I reading too much into having an ordinary nightmare under stressful conditions?

No easy answers pop up from the shower drain or magically appear in the soap dish.

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