The Children of Hypnos

[Vol. 2] Chapter 28: Pestilence, Plague, Poison

"This one."

Marcia punched the bookcase, and the whole thing exploded into Dream-cloud. Emery stared, dazed. After mincing her doppelgänger's head, Marcia had gotten a second wind, and she had had to pace the library five times to "get out the nerves," as she called it. Then she had brushed her hand along the bookcases on the walls and almost immediately found the one with the hidden passage behind it.

"Do you feel okay?" Emery asked.

Marcia started down the staircase behind the bookshelf. "Never better. Keep up."

Emery had never seen someone become a dreamkiller before, but she assumed the process happened about the same way for everyone. Marcia now radiated that dreamkiller aura, powerful even inside the Dream, and Emery couldn't pretend it wasn't comforting. Having a dreamkiller around, even one who was new to her own enhanced abilities, was preferable to nothing. As long as Marcia didn't go on some kind of rampage, as it felt like she might do now.

The staircase spiraled down and down and eventually came to a wooden wall with a lever set in the back. Instead of pulling the lever, Marcia punched the bookcase again, and it exploded like the other. Emery wished she would stop punching things—using her negator powers, even as a dreamkiller, was a stupid waste of energy when the Dream was providing other ways to do things. And besides, Emery was already exhausted from her own draining adrenaline, and Marcia's aggression was doing nothing for her frayed nerves.

Beyond the bookcase was the laboratory, looking ransacked and empty like the last time Emery had seen it. Hallways branched off to the sides, and there was no main door.

"There's another hidden passage here," Marcia said, nose flaring as if she could smell secrecy in the air. "Past that broken wall."

Emery didn't want any more secret passages. She wanted to go back to school and lay down in one of the infirmary beds. She wanted to go to sleep.

A crash in the distance turned their heads. Sounds of a struggle echoed down the hallways, coming closer on their right, and suddenly Ridley spilled into the room in a mess of gangly limbs and foul-smelling slime. She sprinted past them before Emery or Marcia could say a word, disappearing up the spiral staircase they had just come down.

Wes was hot on her heels, but Emery's overwhelming relief was cut short. His hammer was out, his face twisted in anger. Marcia grabbed him before he could follow Ridley up the staircase.

"It's not Ridley!" he yelled at Emery, who had started up after Ridley. "It's not her, it's her doppelgänger!"

Emery stopped. "But her hair—"

"She—she tricked me, that's what they do, they trick people." Wes was out of breath, angrier than Emery had ever seen him, his black eyes wide and wild. He struggled against Marcia's hold, but weaker every second, as if she was sucking the life out of him. "She—she didn't—" He bent over Marcia's arm, now looking sick. "Ridley was—"

He retched. Nothing came up. He sank to his knees, where he leaned on his hammer and bowed nearly to the floor. Emery kneeled at his side and put a hand on the back of his head. "What happened?"

He told them. Emery listened in horrified silence; Marcia's furious energy seemed to have deserted her. Like witnessing the creation of a dreamkiller, Emery had never seen a doppelgänger consume their dreamhunter, and she had never imagined it happening like that. Feeling the Dream pressing down on all of them, knowing at any moment that they could be ambushed, and unsure of what else to do, Emery moved her hand to the back of Wes's neck and gripped hard, resting her head on his.

"We can't stay here, Wes. We have to keep moving. Right now that's all we can do. We have to find Klaus and get out of this place. Once we're back at school, we'll figure out what to do."