Everyone else felt the change, too.

The other girl in the room, a somewhat plump thing with hair dyed a bright shade of auburn, shivered and said, “Did it just get really fucking cold in here?”

Someone else said, “Yeah. Jesus, what’s going on?”

Marcy looked into Dream’s eyes and flinched. She let go of the belt and began to rise from the bed. Then she froze, suddenly unable to retreat any further.

Dream snarled, hissed like a snake. She flailed at her bindings, rocking the bed violently and causing a lamp to topple off the nightstand. The auburn-haired girl screamed and ran for the closed door. Dream loosed a tremendous cry that filled the room like the concussion from a bomb blast. The auburn-haired girl’s body slammed against the door, then spun around and fell to the floor. When she tried to stand, blood was leaking from every orifice, spilling in trickles from her ears, mouth and nostrils. A bright redness stained the whites of her eyes and she wobbled as she tried to take a blind step toward the bed. Then she collapsed, hitting the floor with a resounding thump that elicited more screams and cries of shock from her friends.

The screaming went on for a while.

The girl on the floor was absolutely still. Dead. Dream knew she’d somehow killed her. She hadn’t done it intentionally, but she’d done it nonetheless, some instinct causing her to strike at the girl with the power she’d tapped.

Her voice emerged as a growl. “No one gets out alive.” And she meant to do it. Kill them all. Make them suffer on an epic level. Wallow in their pain.

She focused on Marcy now, drawing in some of that thrumming energy, preparing to unleash a lethal blast of it straight into the bitch’s pounding heart. She felt a tingle of arousal. She hadn’t felt so deliciously debauched since that long ago night in the Master’s bed. Each of her senses was heightened to an unnatural degree. She could hear each thudding beat of Marcy’s heart. The girl tried to jerk away from her again, but remained held in place by invisible puppet strings.

She whimpered. “Please…”

Dream smiled. “I’m going to kill you.”

Marcy winced at the sound of her own words thrown back at her.

Dream focused energy in a tight, pulsing ball, drawing it in like a ball stretched backward in the elastic band of a slingshot.

Then, as abruptly as it had come over her, the power blinked out. It was just gone, as if someone had thrown a switch. There was a moment of frozen shock, an abrupt and dramatic shift of atmosphere. Dream sagged into the sloshing waterbed mattress, so tired now, her body depleted of energy. She could fall asleep right now, even surrounded by these enemies. Her eyes fluttered, almost closed. And Marcy stumbled backward, tripped over the dead girl, and tumbled to the floor.

She was back on her feet in an instant. Her eyes were wild and darting, moving from the dead body to the stunned faces of her friends, then to Dream. She was breathing hard, like someone who’d just finished a marathon. Then she was screaming and gesturing wildly at her friends.

“EVERYBODY OUT!” She yanked her sister out of the chair and shoved her stumbling toward the door. “GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! NOW, GOD-DAMMIT!”

Michael was the first to snap out of it. He yanked the door open and Ellen staggered through it. The others followed in rapid fashion. Marcy was the last out the door. She turned and paused with the door half-shut.

“I don’t know what just happened here-” She was working hard to project an approximation of the malicious calm she’d evinced before. “-but I’m not fucking through with you. Somehow I’ll make you pay.”

Then she was gone, the door slamming shut behind her.

Dream felt only a mild apprehension at the girl’s threat. Her eyes fluttered again. She mused in a vague way over the awesome power she’d so briefly channeled, wondering where it came from, and whether she could summon it again if needed.

Alicia was standing over her again, but her image was blurred, hazy.

Dream was almost asleep now.

But she remained aware long enough to hear her dead friend speak. “That was pretty impressive, Dream. Those kids are scared shitless, what with you makin’ like Linda Blair in the motherfuckin’ Exorcist. But this ain’t over.” Alicia gave her head an emphatic shake. “Uh-uh, not by a long shot. But listen, you remember what I told you before about trouble comin’, don’t you? I wasn’t talking about these kids, honey.”

Dream’s eyes closed. “Whatever.”

Alicia leaned close. Her rancid corpse breath hot on Dream’s ear. “Trouble’s out there, Dream. Lurking, waiting for you to show yourself. And let me tell you something-if you somehow walk out of here alive, somewhere down the line you’ll wind up wishing these punks had killed you.”

Dream sighed.

She could think about Alicia’s warnings later. Maybe.

Her breathing evened out.

At long last, the world went away again.

CHAPTER SIX

The sound of the television emanating from the bedroom abruptly silenced. Allyson looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and listened to the muffled sound of Chad yawning. He was tired. Not surprising, given how long a day it had been, and given how many glasses of whiskey he’d downed over several hours of conversation with the man he called Jim.

Allyson had returned to the house less than fifteen minutes after storming off, making sure to stay out just long enough to allow Chad to believe she’d only been blowing off some steam. She had to stay in character. So she’d come home just soon enough, smiling and apologizing to their uninvited “guest,” but not making too big a deal about it. The men retired to the den while she cleaned up in the kitchen. And while she cleaned, she worked at not thinking about the hard, dangerous men who would soon be here. Whether they were coming to kill or merely apprehend, she did not know. And didn’t want to know.

Or so she told herself, over and over.

It wasn’t supposed to matter. Chad was just a mark, and his friend was just a person some other people wanted to get their hands on. She’d done everything asked of her, working her way into Chad ’s life, earning his trust, making him love her. Being there when the moment her employers said would arrive finally did. She knew she should continue to be cold and emotionless about it, just wait until the opportunity arose to slip away in the middle of the night, but…

The damnedest thing.

She liked Chad. There was no use denying it. The line between playacting and reality had become blurred at some indistinct point. The moments before placing that phone call earlier had been like walking up to the very edge of a high cliff and deciding whether to jump. She had taken that leap after only a minor hesitation, believing her second thoughts would evaporate with the deed done.

But those thoughts were still swirling around in her head, taunting her with images and fantasies of possible futures that could no longer be. They were all the more maddening for the obvious impossibility of taking it all back.

What’s done is done, she thought, silently addressing her reflection. Just leave it be and when you board that flight tomorrow morning start working on forgetting there ever was a Chad Robbins.

Right.

She had a feeling that was going to fall into the category of things easier said than done.

And as if she didn’t have enough to fret about, there was the matter of this mystery man. Chad clearly liked and respected the man a great deal, which added yet another layer of regret to her betrayal. There was something so naggingly familiar about the man. So she’d decided to eavesdrop on their conversation, kicking off her shoes and padding on her bare feet to a spot in the hallway just outside the den.