Emery moved as fast as she could, but the explosion had torn away the last of her adrenline and her leg ached with every step. Emery pulled out her phone and called Joel.
"Em?" He said, breathless. "Where are you?"
"On our way up to the manor."
"This is—um—shit—this is freaking me out a little, gotta be honest." More voices swelled over Joel's drowning him out for a moment.
"We're almost there. Is Edgar around?"
"Yeah, I just saw him in the crowd, but—uh—where did you say you were again?"
"Coming up the path in the woods."
"Uh."
"What is it?"
"I thought I just saw you, but it's chaos here—"
Emery hung up and moved faster.
The path through Fenhallow Woods was lit by the same lanterns that had led the way from the dorms, and green light filtered in through the trees overhead. For a terrifying moment Emery felt like she was back in Klaus's dream, and the trees swam around her. She reached out for Wes, who put a hand between her shoulders and helped push her forward.
"Only a little farther," he said. She wanted to hug him for not telling her to stop. He wasn't doing amazing himself: his steps had gotten sluggish, his hair was matted to his forehead, and bags of exhaustion had formed under his eyes. Though he kept a tight grip on his hammer, it hung lower than usual.
The top of the statue of Eamon Ashworth was the first thing to crest the hill against the green sky. The dark forms of little bats flitted around it. The ground in front of the manor house had been gouged by claw marks and pools of acid; the manor itself stood beyond, lights blazing in its windows like fires inside a face. At the foot of the Fenhallow Manor entrance stood Marcia, wearing full armor and in combat with several green-eyed dogs, swinging a battle axe bigger than she was. The axe swept through all three dogs, cutting clean through them and spilling green blood across the ground. As the axe came around, it shrank to the size of Wes's hammer.
More dreamhunters fought around the perimeter of the house, fending off bats and dogs and quill-beasts. Veronica Lash speared a porcupine through the stomach with her naginata and chucked it at a tightly-packed group of bats. Isaiah Howard fended off a drooling dog with his sword and shield as his brother Samuel appeared out of the shadows of the house and leaped onto the creature's back, pinning it to the ground and driving his daggers through the base of its skull. A dark form appeared on the roof, two wicked silvery hammers flashing in her hands, swiping through bat after bat. Wes looked up at her, growling: "Ridley!"
"Is he awake?" Marcia yelled when she saw them approaching. Her axe stilled in the air, covered in glowing green acid blood.
"Yes!" Emery charged past her, up the manor steps. Students in costumes packed the entry hall and the twisted staircases. Emery shoved her way through, yelling for Edgar, but everywhere she looked there were only frightened faces and confusion, jostling limbs and reaching hands. She and Wes shoved their way through the doors of the ballroom, where even more students were still packed. The refreshments table in the corner had been upended. Two of the ballroom windows had been shattered, the glass scattered across the floor The students lined the outside of the room, staring at Emery and Wes as they walked in. Then staring just at Emery.
In the center of the room, Joel stood alone, still wearing his prince outfit. He held his hands out in front of himself, like he'd just lost something.
"Em," he said, face pale, voice shaky, "he was right here, Em. She took him. She looked like you, but her hair was—and she just came up and grabbed him from me."
Emery spun to Wes. "Did they give you DreamLess when they took you to the cells?"
"No. Uncle Ares thinks I'm like him and Marcia—he thinks I can't dreamform."
"Make a gateway."
The eyes of the room fixed on Wes as he stepped forward. Klaus's storm had pulled the Dream so close to the waking world that its pressure coalesced quickly in front of Wes. He drove his hammer forward into it; the hammer head disappeared through a shimmering veil in the air. Then he ripped it sideways.
The gateway formed in the middle of the Fenhallow ballroom, a perfect black at its swirling center, and on either side of it opened two very real, very large eyes, standing upward on their corners. They swiveled in their nonexistent sockets; their irises and pupils were the same pure black as Wes's eyes. Several people gasped and pressed themselves closer to the walls and the people around them. Emery, ready to spring through the portal, hesitated. The eyes swiveled different directions to fix on her. The pressure of the Dream followed them, like the Dream itself was using Wes's gateway to look at her.
She snarled at it, grabbed Wes's hand, and charged through the portal.
~
Her window waited for them inside the Dream. They stepped through. Emery ignored the view of Moscow, the gently falling snow, the hedges that now rose on all sides, twisted and dark, monsters with gaping maws. She ignored her parents in the ballroom and Wes smashed open the door to the courtyard with his hammer. The entire door exploded into a flurry of snow. Here, too, the shrubs curled upward in dark shapes, curling together in high arches to create a corridor down the pathway. At the end of the path was the gazebo, and inside the gazebo, Morrigan stood holding Edgar's neck and bending him over the inert form of his doppelgänger, propped up once again against the bench.
Edgar, tears streaming down his blotchy cheeks, saw Emery and Wes approaching and cried out.
Emery whipped out a Peacemaker and fired.
The bullet sheared through Morrigan's jaw. At Edgar's cry, she'd jerked her head to the side. Dream essence spilled through the wound. Before Emery could fire again, Morrigan had dropped Edgar and darted forward. She moved so fast, Emery didn't shoot at her for fear she'd miss; Morrigan's hand wrapped around her wrist and wrenched the Peacemaker away, and Morrigan threw her full weight forward.
They toppled to the ground. Emery grabbed at Morrigan's hair, yanking her head back. Morrigan's screams rattled the Dream around them, throbbing through Emery's head.
Then gold glinted at the corner of Emery's eye. Wes's hammer swung into Morrigan's side with a thick crunch. Morrigan flew sideways, Emery still in her grips. The two of them rolled across the stones and snow.
"Emery!" Edgar's voice seemed distant, broken.
"Stay back!" She yelled, just as Morrigan jammed several fingers into her mouth and grabbed her jaw. Emery bit down; Morrigan's fingers were like ice, tasteless and cold. Morrigan whipped them back. Wes appeared over both of them, locking his arms around Morrigan's and heaving her up, giving Emery enough room to reach for her second Peacemaker.
They were too close together, and Wes was right above her. She couldn't angle the gun to shoot Morrigan without a good chance she'd shoot Wes, too.
But Edgar—Edgar stood in the gazebo. Watching. Scared. Edgar was free.
With as much movement as she could manage, Emery flung her gun up into the gazebo. It clattered at Edgar's feet.
"Shoot it, Edgar!"
He picked up the revolver. Morrigan's hands came down on Emery's throat, squeezing. Emery latched onto her wrists and pulled her away.
"Edgar! Shoot yours! Shoot it!"
Edgar's doppelgänger slumped where it was, immobile. Morrigan threw herself back against Wes's hold, slamming her head into his nose. Blood spurted. His grip went slack enough that she ripped one of her arms free and slammed a right hook into Emery's jaw. Emery's head snapped sideways, the world turning white. When her vision returned, Wes had his arms around Morrigan once again, and had pulled her up enough that Emery could scramble out from under her. Morrigan kicked and screamed into the night.
"You're killing yourself!" She screamed. "You're killing yourself, you stupid little boy!"
Emery reared back and kicked Morrigan in the jaw, sending a lance of pain up her own thigh, but shutting Morrigan up long enough to yell again, "Do it, Edgar!"
A flash of blue light filled the air, but no sound to accompany it. The struggle stopped as they twisted toward the gazebo. Edgar stood with the Peacemaker raised toward his doppelgänger.
In the doppelgänger's sandy forehead was a hole leaking Dream essence. As they watched, a darkness spread outward from the hole, blackening the body, causing it to shrivel and decay the way the Frankenstein nightmare had decayed when Grandpa Al killed it. Edgar's doppelgänger shrank and shrank until it was nothing but black ash, and the breeze dusted it up into the air, swirling with the snow, off into the night.
The Peacemaker clattered to the floor of the gazebo.
Edgar collapsed.
And Morrigan let out a scream so piercing it shattered the Dream around them.
(Next time on The Children of Hypnos -------> Chaos)