Chapter 73: Lights, Camera...

"You must heal yourself, James," she said. "And you must do it quickly, for time is shorter than you know."

Beside me Walter had sunk to one knee with his head bowed, "My Lady."

"Rise and do as you have been commanded."

To say I was shocked to see her would have been an understatement but apparently this wasn't the time to go into it.

"How?"

"As your Walter has pointed out to you, and you have discovered yourself, you walk in both worlds. You must take your sister into the other realm where you may heal her."

Taking Jamie into dreamspace made so much sense I wondered that I hadn't thought of it sooner, but at the same time I didn't understand how that solved the problem of the drugs coursing through my/our body. Still, one thing at a time ... closing my eyes I transitioned us both into dreamspace. The last thing I saw before we moved was the Sandman talking on his cell phone.

"You were right," he said. "He found me ... No, I have him. How is this possible and how did you know? No, you are holding something back. I don't know what kind of game you are playing, Dahrinka, but we will discuss this again."

Dahrinka! What the fuck? Then I was in the bright sunlight of the glade, kneeling next to my body. It was very odd looking down at my body and knowing that it was Jamie inside and not me. But then I realized this was no different from looking down at my body when she was using it to kick someone's ass. Beyond her I could still sort of sense the dark room, but I could only focus on one or the other. Apparently without Jamie the old limitations were back in full force, and right now I needed to focus on her.

I had expected Jamie to recover as soon as we got there so I think I was justifiably concerned when she just lay there, motionless in the same position my body had fallen in the other room. But at least the well was gone and I found that I could let go of her without worrying about her slipping away.

"What do I do now?" I asked.

"James, you must put aside this double-mindedness you cling to and believe in yourself. Time and again you have been shown that in this place there is little that is beyond you. Have you not, even recently, asked yourself if you were placing unnecessary restrictions on yourself by holding to the rules of the other world?"

"Yeah, I have, but how..." I realized whom I was speaking to and knew the answer without finishing the question. "You and Walter have both referred to this as a separate realm or world. Does that mean that it's not just something I've created in my head? Not just a fantasy space where dreams overlap?"

"No, it is far more than you have ever imagined and as much as you have done here, with all that you have accomplished, you have not begun to brush the surface of what this space truly is or the potential that it represents. But we do not have time to go into that right now. If you are ever to learn these things you must first survive. As Walter said, you walk in both realms, but it is more than that, much more. You exist in both realms and what you do in either affects both. There is no time to explain further now. Look to your sister, heal her and in doing so, heal yourself. If you survive then we will speak again."

And just like that she was gone and I was alone with Jamie. Now what?

Heal her she had said. But how? I was no doctor, and even if I was, how do you heal a tranquilizer? It was just a chemical reaction in the body, a foreign substance in the bloodstream, I didn't know how to ... I was being stupid.

"Bob!" I called and suddenly he was there.

Just as quickly I sent him back and hoped that it was fast enough to make the difference. It cost me my focus on the other room but I watched as he managed to catch himself before crashing to the floor of the tub, watched as he glared at the empty ceiling for a moment before turning to rinse the shampoo from his hair, turn off the water and sit down? Again he looked up and this time his lips moved in an unmistakable, "Well?"

"Sorry about that," I said as I brought him back in. "I should have looked first."

He looked like he was about to say something when he noticed Jamie lying on the ground. "What happened? Did she stay out too long?"

"She's unconscious. I was shot with a tranquilizer while she was in control and ... it's complicated. Bob, how do I counteract it?"

"Well generally you would use some kind of stimulant but it depends on what kind of drug you're dealing with. Without that you run the risk of a bad reaction. Jimmy, how could you be shot with a tranquilizer? The only people who would do that don't know where you are or did they find you?"

"They didn't," I answered. "Is there another way besides a stimulant?"

"Well yeah, a tranquilizer is just a foreign chemical substance introduced into the body to specifically suppress certain chemical reactions in the brain."

"Like a poison?" I asked. "A poison that only works on one specific system?"

"Not a poison exactly, because by definition poisons are lethal, but it's a good analogy. And if you have the right anti-toxin to break it down ... but you still need to know what you're dealing with."

Suddenly it came to me. "Not here I don't; thanks Bob. I have to go. I'll try and explain later."

I sent him back to the bathtub and immediately knelt next to Jamie. Pulling a syringe out of nowhere I jammed it into her thigh near where the dart had hit and drove the plunger down, emptying the contents into her leg. The reaction was immediate as she took a gasping breath, then sat up, flung her arms around me and wept.

"Oh God Jimmy, thank you. I thought ... thank you for not letting go."

"You're welcome, I love you too, now lay back down, we don't have time for this. We're in deep shit. Go back and play dead until we figure out what's going on here."

And just like that we were back in the dark room. Only now it was a different dark room. At first I thought he had moved Amy's bed but then I realized it was us he had moved. We were in the room with Rebecca now. I wondered what was happening with Amy and instantly I found myself back in the other room where Walter was now holding her apparently unconscious dream-body in his lap watching her slowly grow and change. Now that I had my own body as an anchor point again I was apparently free to move around again. Not far away the Sandman was quickly and methodically wiping down the room for prints. He finished quickly and left, I assumed to repeat the process on the other rooms. It looked like we were going to be leaving. The fact that he wiped down all the surfaces on Amy's bed and medical equipment I took as a sign that she wasn't coming with us. Hopefully that was a good thing.

"Walter," I said. "It appears we may be leaving. Stay with Amy, I don't want to risk losing her."

"My Lord," he responded, fist over his heart and bowing slightly.

Based on what I had just learned, I suspected anyone messing with Amy was going to be in for a real surprise. I didn't know how much he could actually do but ... one more thing to add to the 'Worry About It Later' list. I went back to break the news to Jamie and check on Rebecca. As I was entering the room, a thought crossed my mind and I wondered if I could do for her what I had just done for Jamie? I could tell just looking at her that she was still out. No time like the present to find out. I shifted us to the other side, leaving Jamie to keep an eye on things in the real world.

I plunged my magic syringe into Rebecca's thigh and just as with Jamie, the reaction was almost instantaneous. Only dream-fast reflexes saved me as Rebecca woke up swinging. Two quick blocks and I managed to move far enough out of harms way. I could have just restrained her but at the time I was operating on instinct. Live and learn. Next time leave her tied up, wake her up, then turn her loose.

"Rebecca, it's me."

She was already taking in her surroundings.

"Jimmy! God am I glad to see you. I was afraid it would be like with Angela and I might have to spend a week or two getting my ass kicked before you found me. Can you track me back to where I'm being held? Is there anything I can do to help? Is Rod standing by to come save my ass?"

"Breathe Hampton, breathe."

That caught her up short and she sort of glared at me for second before smiling. "Okay, I deserved that, but seriously, what's the situation, I don't remember anything after climbing in the bastard's van this morning. It was just this morning, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was just this morning. As for the rest; I found you because he had Amy." Tell her the whole story? No, not yet, I didn't want her distracted. "As for where we are. We're both handcuffed in a little room at what looks like a combination rec center and maintenance building in Arroyo Park. Rod is standing by waiting either for me to tell him it's safe to come in or for the tracking unit in the car to go off. Amy is in another room in the same building and, before you ask, yes, she's safe and unharmed. Now for the bad news..."

"Wait a minute," she said, interrupting me. "We're both tied up in a building at a park, with the Sandman, nobody knows where we are, and that was the good news? I don't think I want to know."

"It's a combination of more good and bad," I said. "The bad is that he appears to be getting ready to leave, I'm guessing to move us somewhere else. The good news is I don't think he's taking Amy with us. So when the tracker goes off and Rod gets here, she'll be safe again. The bad news, really bad news, is that this whole thing appears to have been a set up. He knew I was coming, Rebecca, he was hiding in a closet in Amy's room and shot me with a tranquilizer."

"So we're both unconscious. Then how are we having this conversation? I thought you couldn't work through the drugs?"

"I'm not unconscious; I kind of gave myself a shot to counteract the tranquilizer. I brought you here and did the same for you so..."

"You can do that?"

"Well, I did it, so I guess I can," I answered. "I think it's because we're together so I already know where you are."

"Oh, yeah, sorry. So when we go back we'll both be awake. Damn, this is incredible. But we're going to have to be careful. One slip and we're screwed. Wait, you said something about it being staged, what did you mean?"

"I mean, I think we're here, there, whatever, in the park, specifically for the purpose of me finding you."

"Why do you say that?" she asked.

"Right after he shot me he called someone and said 'You were right, he found me.'"

"What? How could he have known you were coming unless..."

"Right, unless whoever was after me is somehow connected to him. Yeah, I've been thinking about that in my spare time. It gets worse, I think I know who it is."

"Who?"

"Your partner."

"What? Henslith? You're out of your mind, she couldn't..."

"He asked whoever it was how they knew I would find him. When they didn't tell him he said, and I quote, "I don't know what kind of game you are playing, Dahrinka, but we will discuss this again."

"But that's insane, how could she be working with him? He killed two federal agents just so he could kidnap her."

"What if he didn't?" I asked. I really hadn't been giving it all that much thought — I'd actually been sort of busy, but now the pieces were arranging themselves in my head and the picture wasn't pretty. "What if she staged her own kidnapping to make it look like he did it?"

She started to answer but I held up a hand and continued, "Hear me out. You said the two agents guarding her were shot up close, that neither even had a chance to draw their weapon. Maybe they didn't think they needed it. I mean, if Henslith was walking up to them they certainly wouldn't suspect anything was wrong, right? She could walk right up and light the one guy's cigarette for him and neither would even blink. Then there is the apartment. Your guys actually found the dart he supposedly used on her. Sandman doesn't leave clues. He shot both Easy and the other girl last spring and took the darts with him — and they were both in public — but now he leaves the dart in her apartment?"

"But if he didn't take her, then why haven't you been able to find her?"

"What if she's like him?"

"I don't follow you, what do you mean like him? You mean like screws loose upstairs that keep you from reaching her?"

"Not just a screw loose," I corrected her, "but the same screw loose. When I was talking to Rene about all this he told me of his life and how he came to be like this. He talked about his training and when he started to notice things. He mentioned that he wasn't the only one being trained. There were three others, a boy named Deryk who died during a training exercise, a girl name Lucia that was killed by a cartel or something, and another girl named Dahrinka. Rebecca, what if your partner was that fourth person? It would certainly explain why I couldn't reach her."

"That's nuts, Jimmy, she works for Interpol for God's sake!"

"Yeah, she does, and until something went wrong, so did Rene. Remember last week when we were talking with Allison and we couldn't figure out why Sandman would take your partner? No matter how we tried we couldn't come up with an answer that made sense? Maybe that's because he didn't take her."

I could almost see the puzzle snapping into focus for her. "The note! Son of a bitch, the note! That's what he was talking about! It fits! She's been playing us the whole fucking time! No wonder she's the leading expert on the Sandman, she knows him! She's the one that killed Abrams ... He said in the note that it wasn't him; but that someone wanted us to think it was. She duplicated one of his old kills to point the investigation at him. But why would she being trying to catch him if he knows about her?"

"Maybe she wasn't actually trying to catch him but trying to find him," I suggested.

"What?" she asked. "Why would she be trying to find him?"

"Maybe what he's been doing has attracted attention and someone wants him stopped before we catch him and find out the truth."

"But our orders were to capture him, not kill him. They wanted him back alive, not dead."

"Well, maybe somebody wanted him back... , but that doesn't mean everybody did. Rene said someone in their own organization was pulling their strings. What if one group is after answers and the other wants to keep them from finding out the truth?"

Suddenly, Jamie's voice came to me, "Ask her about the Black Queen."

"What?" I asked.

The scene froze and she appeared, "I've been following along. If Rene's alternate was the Sandman and Henslith is like him, what's the name of her alternate? If it's her then I think I know how she found out about us. Well, you anyway, they still don't know about me."

"How?"

"Palm Springs."

"Palm Springs? What do you..." the light came on, " ... Shit! She was drugged! That's why she wasn't dreaming and I couldn't find her, Henslith had her drugged and was pumping her for information. Okay, go away or hide or something."

I un-froze the scene.

"Rebecca have you ever heard of someone called The Black Queen?"

The look on her face said she had.

"Where did you hear that name?"

"Should I take that as a yes?"

"The Black Queen is the most wanted woman in Europe, possibly in the world."

"Oh gee, let me think..." I said sarcastically. "She's an assassin?"

"Fuck!" she swore, shaking her head and stomping away. I don't think she noticed but the sky was actually getting a little dark in reaction to her mood. "Damn! Damn! Fucking Damn!" She turned back to me. "Yes, she's an assassin. She was the number two killer in Europe until five years ago when the Sandman suddenly disappeared. Since then, apparently due to lack of competition, she's number one. But you didn't know that, so how did you find out about her?"

"Boris."

"Khvlek?"

"Yeah. And he's dead now by the way, someone got to him in the hospital and injected something into his IV. I got him to talk, he'd never met the person who hired him, didn't know who they were, just the name — The Black Queen, and he was so afraid of crossing her that it took me days to get the information from him."

"But how could she have known about you?"

"You told her."

"What, no way! I never told her about you. She knew I had a source I wasn't telling her about, there was no way to hide that, so Rod and I told her up front that I had an anonymous source, but I never told her, would never tell her, about you."

"Not on purpose. Remember when you went to Palm Springs, and when you got back we were all worried because you had been gone, not even dreaming the whole time? I think she was drugging you and pumping you for information the whole time. The drugs kept you from dreaming and kept me from finding you."

"No, that's not ... I would have ... I mean we're trained against that kind of stuff."

"Of course you are — in a hostile situation, caught by bad guys, I'm sure you'd put up a hell of a fight, but if someone you trusted slipped you something ... maybe a mild hypnotic just to get your guard down before you ever realized something was wrong. I'm no expert but once you were under they could just tell you to forget the whole thing and even leave behind something to make it easier the next night. She had you for what, four nights? She probably knows about you and Robbie Johnson in the tree house."

Robbie Johnson had been Rebecca's first kiss. They had been hiding in the tree house in her back yard at the time but her little sister had spied on her from an upstairs window. Years later, when I needed something to convince Rebecca that I'd been talking to Amy, she had told me about it.

"Okay, okay. I'll admit this is all possible, and it even makes sense, but if that's all true then what the hell is going on now? Why would she be working with him if she was sent to kill him? Why would she try to frame him for Abrams' murder and then..." she bit her lip. "Shit! She's trying to disappear; just like he did five years ago. She was sent to kill him, but then she saw a chance to get away and she took it. She staged the whole thing to make it look like he got her, even killing two agents in cold blood to make it look like he did it. No one else has ever escaped once he had them, so no one would be surprised if she didn't either. After all, she was number two until he disappeared. Who else could kill number two but number one? But why is she after you?"