“You could have shared that with the rest of us,” I said, and I knew the traces of sadness on her face were evident on my own.
I stepped back from them, my new inner circle, I supposed, and took my first step toward the security checkpoint off in the distance. “I’ll see you all in a few days. Just hurry, okay?”
“We will,” Reed said and stepped forward to wrap his arms around me. His embrace I didn’t try and shrug off. I might even have leaned into it a little. “Just watch your back until we get there to do it for you, okay?”
“Will do,” I said, blinking the little droplets of water out of the corner of my eyes.
“You’re not gonna start the party without us, are you?” Breandan asked with a grin.
“I’m not in control of the party,” I said, giving him a smile of my own, this one heartfelt, for once. “But when it starts, I sure could use a little luck.” I gave them all a smile and a nod and got a few in return, before I turned my back and walked through the surging crowd, heading for the plane that would carry me home. “And a little help from my friends,” I whispered.
Chapter 39
“Hey,” I said to the figure in my dream. He was a little blurry, but the sandy blond hair was curly, like I remembered, and all around us was the barroom I had been in less than a week earlier.
“Holy crap,” Scott Byerly said, looking around like he was in shock. “Is this … are you dreamwalking to me?”
“I am,” I said and the atmosphere around us rippled like the surface of water.
Scott frowned. “Am I drunk?”
I shrugged, a little mystified. “I assume so, given the last state I saw you in, but hey, maybe you’ll surprise me.”
“Huh,” he said, looking around, clearly impressed. “Zack told me about this once, about what you guys—” He stopped and flushed, obvious even in the dream world. “Sorry.”
“Told you what he and I did in dreams?” I felt the barest hint of amusement layered with wistfulness.
“Yeah,” he said with a little more blush. “And I can confirm, I am definitely drunk. I think I passed out, actually.”
“I need you to pick me up at the airport,” I said.
His face registered surprise again, then a moment of thinking things through before he spoke. “Wait. You used your power to dreamwalk to me so you could save yourself cab fare?”
I paused. “When you put it that way, it sounds kind of bad.”
“Whatever,” he said. “Give me the flight number and arrival time. “ I did, and he eyed me cautiously. “I can’t promise I’ll be awake at that time of morning, but if I am, I’ll be there to pick you up.”
I smiled faintly at him. “You better. Remember the last time we talked, how you said you’d fight with Reed and me if it came down to it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, I was drunk. That sounds like something I would have said, yeah.”
“Well, we’re doing it. We’re putting together something to stop this extinction.” I looked at him with all the strength I had in me. “I could sure use your help.”
“Who, me?” He pointed at himself and spoke in a voice laced with irony. “I am become Moist, the wetter of envelopes and henchman to greater powers than myself.” He was subdued for a moment then I saw a little twinge at the corner of his eye, a little emotion. “But whatever help I can offer, you’ll damned sure have it.”
“Thank you, Scott,” I said and ran a hand along his cheek before I snapped back to wakefulness. It occurred to me in the moment I awoke what effect my touch would have given him, and I felt a hint of flaming embarrassment for just a moment. But only a moment. I looked around me, around the plane. Once more I was in a middle seat, surrounded by people. This time, though, the armrests were mine. I hadn’t even been nice about it. I just took them.
I stared down at the folders in front of me. One of them held a single printout from Karthik, only a paragraph long, the only record of a man named Simon Nealon that they could find in their entire database—which, Karthik privately confided in me, probably meant that there were other things in there that he was simply unable to access. Things that no one could probably access, save for Janus, who had still not woken up even as I left. I had visited him on the day I took off, but he looked so small, so shriveled, just a shell of the man I’d known. It didn’t even look like him. He had been a titan of the old world, a god who had lived for thousands of years. Century had destroyed him—him and nearly all of his kind. And they were just warming up.