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The clown snorted. “We don’t need Nightmare as it is to survive. The fears and dreams of humans feed us more than enough to keep us alive.”
“Without Dream, humans won’t survive,” I argued.
“Dream will never vanish.” The clown shrugged. “And sometimes change is good.”
“They’re erasing the land,” I protested.
His smile deepened. “To remake it.”
Okay, fine, he didn’t care.
“Where is he? Last chance.” The reflected clowns began juggling something metallic and shiny. Drops of red fell from the reflections’ fingers.
“Who?” Robby asked with a yawn, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Instead of answering, the clown gestured. All of the insects pinned to boards or otherwise displayed in the collection clattered their wings behind the glass.
Even the fossilized ones.
My throat closed, and my lungs apparently stopped working. I grabbed at my chest, trying to get a breath out. “What the fuck?” I gasped again when I finally managed to suck in some air.
It didn’t help that I saw the vampires edge backward, eyes darting from case to case uneasily.
Nic swirled into mist, and I wished I could join him. He hadn’t left me. He’d simply gone to a more defensible state. Geraint flexed his hands and cast about as if looking for a weapon.
I tried not to whimper, feeling useless. My tenuous control over the shadow essence failed me completely. I huddled against Geraint’s back and hoped my knight could protect me. The damsel in distress feeling wasn’t a comfortable one, but I wasn’t a fighter. I was a dancer and currently completely out of my element.
“You will give me Diokophobia,” the clown hissed. He threw his hands out in a grandiose gesture that the reflection clowns mimicked. The objects they juggled flew outward, along with a spray of blood. The glass cases shattered.
I winced at the tremendous crack and covered my face, knowing it was a futile attempt to save myself from the shrapnel.
Nic swirled his essence around us, deflecting most of the glass.
He solidified next to me, wavering. The prince put a hand to his face and wiped away a smear of blood. Then another. He fell to one knee, and I went to the ground with him, grabbing his arm. My hand came away from his semi-solid arm, wet with blood. He’d taken the brunt of the glass for us. It hadn’t killed him, because he was at least partially made of shadow, but it obviously hadn’t been good for him either.
“Nic!”
The clown laughed. The insects with wings a-clatter took to the air and dove at us.
I shrieked and shoved my essence at Nic, hoping it would help him recover so we could get out of here.
“I’m all right, Ember,” he gasped.
“Great, because we need to get out of here.” Robby had pulled a sword from nowhere and swung the white blade through the air, batting at insects. He couldn’t possibly get them all, and my skin crawled as I brushed them away, frantically.
Geraint grabbed me under the arms and pulled me to my feet.
Nic struggled back to his, and we sprinted for the exit, only to come up against the wide-eyed vampires.
They bared fangs, and one licked his lips at the smell of blood in the air.
Insects dove at us from behind.
Robby and Geraint went for the vampires.
The clown’s chilling fingernails-on-slate laughter grated against my ears, sending prickles down my spine and piercing my eardrums until all I could hear was that and the clack of wings. I screamed as an insect with a particularly large stinger dove at my face.
Geraint batted it away and pulled me behind him.
