“If you’re referring to the staring, I think they’re just trying to figure out my race and ethnicity.”
He zooms in front of me. “What’s that?”
“It’s like when we’re trying to figure out what type of Cognizant someone is on Gomorrah. Earth humans use those labels in similar ways, with some groups not liking other groups—like necromancers and vampires.”
“Oh, but that’s an easy guessing game.” His ears waggle in excitement. “Orcs are green, elves are thin and willowy, dwarves have beards, giants are—”
“Right.” I speed up as I get to the staircase. Though time moves faster in the dream world, or feels like it does, there’s still good reason to make haste. What the heck—I take flight instead of bothering with each step. “But it’s not always that simple,” I continue as Pom catches up to me. “Werewolves look no different from me, unless they turn.”
His furry face takes on a sage look. “So what do most humans guess for your lace and felicity?”
“It’s race and ethnicity. And their guesses are all over the place: Latin America, Africa, the Middle East… Some think I’m just a tanned person of European descent with a perm—I guess it’s the tiny nose and gray eyes.”
“I like your eyes.” Pom flits in front of me again, his gaze unblinking. This lack of common-sense social skills is why I usually ask him to be invisible when I work with my clients.
He must pick up on my thought because the tips of his ears turn red.
“Thanks for the compliment,” I say to appease him. On a whim, I change my eyes to flame red to match my hair.
Pom’s ears go back to blue. “Humans are stupid. You’re obviously not from any of those places.”
“Right.” I take a shortcut by making a portion of the wall evaporate in front of me. “The good news is that my looks give me an advantage. We Cognizant tend to settle in those parts of human-occupied worlds where we most resemble the native population—which means if I ever decide to permanently move to Earth, I could have my pick of much of the planet.”
Pom’s fur darkens. “Why would we ever want to live in such a backward place?”
He has a point. The sanitation system on Earth is still water-based, the VR technology is in its infancy, and the cars don’t yet drive themselves.
“Gomorrah is better in every way.” He’s clearly picking up on my thoughts again.
“I need to be around humans to keep my powers,” I remind him for the umpteenth time. “Plus, thanks to my amazing reputation among Earth Cognizant, I can get high-paying jobs here.”
“As in illegal, high-risk jobs,” he grumbles.
I suppress a surge of worry about the Enforcers in the waking world. Why stress Pom about something he can’t help with? Instead, I put on a burst of speed and reach the tower of sleepers.
The tower is a cylindrical glass structure made up of several levels of glass-walled nooks, each with a single piece of furniture: a bed. Once I’ve successfully created a dream connection with someone, when they dream, they show up in one of those beds. Thanks to this tower, I only have to go through the unpleasantness of touching people in the real world once.
Bernard, the newest sleeper in my collection, has taken the place that freed up when I cured my most recent legit patient of his bedwetting problem and severed our link.
As we get closer to Bernard’s nook, the rest of Pom turns black, and I curse under my breath.
Miniature dark clouds are flying above Bernard’s head.
“That figures,” I mumble. “Why’d I think I’d finally get a break?”
Those clouds indicate a trauma loop—a type of dream that’s based on traumatic events in Bernard’s life. Trauma loops plague sleepers on a regular basis, and they’re so powerful that I find it easier to just witness them without changing anything. The good news for the sleeper in question is that my mere presence during these special dreams usually breaks their repeat cycle, which helps the sleeper feel better in the waking world.
This might be Bernard’s lucky day. Not so much mine, though. I’m in a rush.
Pom flies up to the clouds and gives them a sniff, which is when a miniature lightning bolt hits his nose. “Ouch! That’s a bad one.”
I erase his pain and encase the clouds in a protective glass bubble. “Probably deep trauma.”
“I won’t join you, then.” Pom’s fur looks like coal. “The last time we worked with someone like this, it disturbed my sleep.”
To highlight his point, he zooms behind me, as if Bernard might reach out and snatch him from the air, forcing him to see the nightmare.
“Something disturbed your sleep?” I turn to grin at him. “Did you sleep twenty-three hours and forty-four minutes, instead of the full twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes?”
He sniffs. “At least I’m not on vampire blood, like some.”
“Well, technically, given our symbiotic relationship, you are on it. It just doesn’t work on you, but—”
“Whatever. I’m not going in, no matter how much you beg.” Pom lifts his chin and disappears like a Cheshire cat. Instead of his smile, it’s his furry chin that hovers in the air until he’s completely gone.
“I don’t need you there, anyway,” I say to the empty air. “I’m in a rush, and this will go faster without your yammering.”
He doesn’t take the bait.
I’m almost to Bernard when I smack myself on the forehead. Almost forgot to make myself invisible again.
Pointedly turning myself undetectable by sight, sound, or smell, I touch Bernard on the forearm the way I did in the waking world—except without any worry of contamination.
And then, unlike in reality, where I’m standing in a sleep-like trance, in the dream world I disappear from the palace and reappear inside Bernard’s trauma loop.
Chapter Four
I find myself on a playground, one of Earth’s most primitive anachronisms where children physically play. On Gomorrah, fully immersive virtual spaces replaced these long ago, which means no dirt, no germs, and a lot more entertainment options for the little ones.
This particular playground is creepy. Spiders and maggots crawl inside the sandbox, and the empty swing sways as though ridden by ghosts. Even the monkey bars look warped, and the trees remind me of an evil forest from a dark fairy tale.
I bet the original playground wasn’t like this. Bernard’s emotions are twisting the surroundings.
The man himself is strolling toward a see-saw, the hands of two cute children in his grip—a little girl who’s a toddler and a slightly older boy.
Hmm. There’d been no sign of a family when I broke into his apartment.
“Daddy, I need to wee-wee.” The girl is dancing from foot to foot.
“Me too,” the boy says. “And I go first.”
“No, me first.” She gives her brother an imperious look. “Princesses first.”
They bicker about it as Bernard herds them toward a park bathroom. A public bathroom. Gross. Private water-based plumbing is horrific enough.
I float a few feet behind them. Though this dream could easily be fiction—driven by, say, Bernard’s subconscious regret over never starting a family—my powers allow me to know the truth without a shadow of a doubt: This dream is based on a memory. All trauma loops I’ve encountered have been memories—though, in theory, one day I might come across a dream that twists the memory too much. Should that happen, I’d use my powers to pull out the truth and, hopefully, break the loop that way.