The Children of Hypnos

Chapter 34: The Storm

Emery held the vial carefully so her own shaking wouldn't make her drop it. If Lana thought something was imminent, it probably was.

They hurried back outside. Stainer was still staring up at the sky. She turned and saw them approaching.

"I puked in the bushes," she called.

"Get inside!" Lana yelled back. "We don't know when these nightmares are going to start showing up, and if you're stumbling around drunk, you're going to be—"

A dark shape darted out of the sky. Emery's hand shot to her gun, Stainer's name forming on her lips, when a streak of purple light shot past her. The beam streaked past Stainer's head and speared the small form—one of Klaus's poison bats—out of the air. It sailed a few feet before exploding back into Dream essence and swirling toward Lana. Stainer blinked, eyes wide; Lana, with a gold-and-silver bow in one hand, scanned the sky.

"Get inside, Sarah," she said again, and Stainer hustled back into the research center.

Lana drew back the bowstring. As she did, a shivering arrow of purple light formed there, nocked and ready.

"They're coming," she said. "Wake Klaus up and alert as many of the hunters on campus as you can. The nightmares will focus on the center of campus because Klaus is in the Underground, but that doesn't mean a few won't straggle off."

Emery was already running for the administration building. With the vial of waking water cupped carefully in one hand, she fished her phone out of her pocket with the other and found Joel in her contacts.

He picked up on the third ring.

"Em! Are you coming up? You seriously should, everyone is here. Well, not everyone—Jacqueline never came, and Lewis and Kris were here, but they left a while ago and I haven't seen them since—"

"Is Marcia there?"

Joel paused. "Uh, yeah—yeah, she's guarding the snack table. Why?"

"Something real bad is about to happen, Jojo, okay? Tell Marcia that Klaus fell asleep, and there's a big-ass Dream cloud over the campus right now. Lana just shot one of his nightmares out of the air."

"Oh—oh, damn, okay, I'm going now. I'm going."

Emery heard him moving on the other end, the babble of voices surging around him. She glanced up at the sky as she hurried up the long, quote-etched steps of the administration building, her leg twinging all the way.

"Tell her I got water and keys from Lana and I'm going to the Underground right now."

"Got it, got it—Ms. Montgomery! Emery's on the phone and—"

Emery hung up and barreled through the front doors of the administration building, nearly flattening David the Receptionist, who was standing with his nose pressed to the doors, frowning outside.

"Tell everyone there's a storm!" Emery said to him. "Does everyone here know? The campus is about to be swamped with nightmares!"

David's mouth flopped open and closed. He said, "There's really no one here right now—just the dean—"

"GRANDPA!" Emery yelled up the stairs. "KLAUS FELL ASLEEP, GRANDPA!"

Then she turned back to David. "Where's Edgar?"

"He—he uh—I was watching him, but he kind of—"

"David, where the hell is my brother?"

"I think he went up to the party. He said, uh, he said Joel was there?"