Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
CLAYTON
Clayton didn’t stop to think. The second Marshall uttered the word nightmare, he went into action, he kicked Marshall in the chest as hard as he could, sending the man flying several feet.
Marshall had been completely unprepared and left himself wide open.
Otherwise, Clayton could never have hoped to succeed at such a maneuver.
“Up, up, get up!” Clayton shouted at Mal, trying to haul him off the ground, but his hands kept passing through him. “Do you want to die, you idiot?” Mal didn’t answer because he was busy doing his best to die on the spot like an absolute wanker.
The couple they’d just met backed away and stood under Astraea’s tree. They whispered to one another, seemingly unworried about the scuffle between strangers. At least Clayton only had to worry about Marshall and not an unknown element.
Marshall got unsteadily to his feet, “Clayton, I have to…” he began, but Clayton cut him off.
“No, you don’t. This isn’t our dimension, Marshall. The Guard has no jurisdiction here,” Clayton said, not knowing if it was true or not. He was desperate and grasping at straws.
:They really don't.: Astraea agreed. :You tell him, little traveler.:
“Clayton, you can’t just expect me to let him go because you like him. That’s not how this works.”
Clayton stood in front of Mal’s terrifyingly still form, shaking like a leaf, legs barely holding him up.
He shouldn’t be standing against Marshall.
Not over anything, but especially not a nightmare.
It was an absolutely insane move, but he couldn’t help himself.
Even without magic, Marshall could squash Clayton like a bug, but Clayton couldn’t let Marshall take Mal. He just couldn’t.
Clayton wouldn’t admit to himself why at the moment, but he knew it was more than the nebulous shared custody they had over a handful of children they’d just met. It was also more than a handful of orgasms between frenemies.
“We’ll stay here,” Clayton said desperately. “We don’t have to go back to our dimension, Marshall. There’s no need for anyone to get hurt.”
Marshall’s eyes held the weight of his years as he gazed at Clayton.
There was a mixture of sadness and resignation in his voice as he said, “Even if this place isn’t under Guard jurisdiction, I still can’t let him run loose to feed on innocent people.
If he goes unchecked, he could destroy this world.
I don’t have magic right now, so I have to take him out while he’s weak.
Stand down, Clayton, this is happening.” Marshall moved toward Clayton with determination, clearly ready to deliver a serious ass-kicking to anyone who got in the way of him performing his duty.
Marshall made to stride past Clayton like he expected Clayton to see sense and let it happen, but when Clayton flung out an arm to stop him, there was a flash of light, and Marshall was across the glade on his ass once more, only this time, his clothes were singed and smoking.
“What the fuck?” Clayton and Marshall both said with equal amounts of shock and horror.
:You’re officially my favorite person, little traveler. Feel free to beat him up as much as you want.:
“I’m not going to beat him up!” Clayton shouted. “He’s my friend and maybe kind of my boss’s boss, but still, just… no one needs to get hurt right now, okay? Please, Marshall. I just want to find my children. That’s why we’re here, remember? Saving innocent people?”
“We can do it without him.”
“Can we really? You’ve got no magic, and I’m… Well, I’m me. You might as well be working with an anchor around your neck. We need Mal. Merry is only six. Tommy is four. I can’t leave this to chance. Not when chance fucking hates me.”
“Clayton, I…” Marshall sighed heavily, and Clayton watched him mentally weighing their options.
Clayton saw the exact moment Marshall accepted the reality of what having Clayton with him presented, because his shoulders sank and the fight went out of him. As Clayton had hoped, poking him in the justice for innocents button did the trick.
Marshall closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine. We’ll find your kids first, but if he does anything to anyone, I won’t stand by and do nothing.”
“He won’t,” Clayton lied. Mal would definitely do horrible things to people, but if Clayton had any say in it, it would only be to people who deserved it.
“This conversation isn’t over,” Marshall warned. “Once we find your kids, we’ll revisit this.”
That was Future Clayton’s problem, so Present Clayton readily agreed. “Absolutely. One hundred percent.”
“Though it might not come to that,” Marshall said wryly, craning his neck to peer around Clayton. “He looks half gone already.”
“What? Oh no. Oh no, no, no… shit.” Clayton whirled around to attend to his dying nightmare. “What do I do?”
“You’re not seriously asking me, are you?”
“Yes!” Of course he was. Marshall knew more about nightmares than anyone, so he’d definitely be able to save Mal.
Marshall rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. Listen closely because I’m only saying this once. First of all, you’re going to want to sit down.”
Clayton sat down immediately and motioned for Marshall to continue.
Marshall continued in a no-nonsense tone. “Next, get out something to write with. This part is important. Do you have something?”
Clayton nodded furiously. Of course he did. He was the best assistant in the history of chapter house assistants. He always had a notepad and a pen.
“Good. Now I want you to sit down and write a nice long poem about how much you’re going to miss your dead nightmare boyfriend because I’m not fucking helping you.
” Marshall kicked some dirt in Mal’s direction, whirled around, and stormed away toward the strangers whispering by the tree.
“I’m going to see if I can find a way to communicate with them while you say your goodbyes. ”
“You—! I—!” Clayton threw the notepad and pen at Marshall’s retreating form.
How dare he? How dare Marshall not be the perfect, shining example of justice and fairness in the world? Clayton trusted him. Clayton looked up to him. Clayton… really needed to pay attention to Mal before he faded away.
Mal wasn’t lucid anymore, or conscious as far as Clayton could tell, and bits of him kept fading in and out of reality. If Clayton wasn’t so scared, he’d be fascinated.
As far as he knew, nightmares couldn’t hold corporeal forms for long.
They required a host to continue existing outside of the ‘Scape. Only when they became a demon could they create and sustain a body long-term, but Mal wasn’t a demon.
He didn’t have the bowel-loosening fear aura that was characteristic of demons.
So how was Mal able to hold himself together the way he did? He’d have to be unimaginably powerful. Somehow, he held the power of a demon without the characteristics of one.
What fear was Mal spawned from? A nightmare could only feed off the fear that created it, so if Mal was suffering from extreme magic drain, only feeding him that specific fear energy would help him.
What did Clayton know of Mal? He was arrogant, irreverent, and selfish. But also oddly good with children, kind enough to eat Grampy’s food without complaining, and excellent at getting Clayton off.
Nightmares’ skills usually reflected the fear they embodied, but Mal probably wasn’t born from the fear of dying from too much amazing sex. Though Clayton was certain Mal would be able to glut himself for life if he had been.
As far as Clayton could tell, Mal was good at anything he wanted to be, and that didn’t tell Clayton a godsdamned thing. Reality itself bent to his will. It was like Mal was a dreamwalker, but only in reverse.
What kind of nightmare was exactly like a dreamwalker? Dreamwalkers were something nightmares all instinctively feared. In fact, they were likely the only thing they feared.
No.
No fucking way.
It couldn’t be that simple, could it?
As far as Clayton could tell, Mal was nothing like his kind. Most nightmares were mindless eating machines. Hopping into a host, draining it dry, and then moving on to the next, like they were juice boxes.
It was why the Real wasn’t overrun by demons. Most nightmares were so obvious that they were found and unmade by a dreamwalker within days of their entry to the Real, so only a tiny fraction of them got a chance to become a demon.
So what if Mal wasn’t going after humans at all? What if Mal was going after the monsters because he fed off pure fear itself? What if Mal was what the nightmares were afraid of?
It boggled the mind. If that were the case, Mal could become unimaginably powerful with only a small bit of effort. If he’d wanted, he could have kicked in the front door of the demon realm and feasted enough to become their king in a matter of hours.
So why hadn’t he?
Clayton gazed thoughtfully at the unconscious monster before him. Unthinking, he brushed a strand of hair away from Mal’s face, only realizing what he’d done when he made contact.
Mal wasn’t gone yet. If he still had enough essence to hold his body together, it meant he might be conscious; however, he was using all his energy to cling to his form.
Maybe he could hear Clayton.
A crazy idea popped into Clayton’s mind. One that he’d have to be unimaginably lucky to pull off. He’d have to have been right about all of his conjecture, Mal would have to be able to hear him, and Marshall would have to not murder them while Clayton saved Mal.
Clayton had never been one to rely on luck. It had always been far safer to rely on things going as badly as possible and plan from there.
“Gods, I hope this works,” Clayton whispered.
:Trust yourself, my traveller. I promise you the rest will work itself out.: