Page 110 of Nightmare Rising

Could magic?

It sounded laughable. Like having the memories of an immortal. Like dreams and nightmares leaking into the human world.

Like falling in love just a little.

Magic was real.

Left to fumble for desperate, last resorts, I came up with two.

With his skin healing, I could stitch him again, complete the symbols the Cucitrice started. Some of those aided healing and strength so The Stitched could keep on fighting. It might be enough to pull him through, except...he’d be left addicted to chasing nightmare creatures and eventually self-destruct.

Scratch that.

I could add new symbols of the same sort but that might just be the same as completing the symbols of the Cucitrice, and if it didn’t, was there a risk in doubling up? I needed time to study the alchemy, and I’d have to do it without Chester’s help.

Another big cross.

So that left the wild card. It was flimsy, but it felt right.

Val had healed after the fight at the farmhouse. A smaller wound, but he had healed. Somehow simply being around that crazy fight had healed him.

Violence might be an answer.

I’d seen enough to understand that hate and fear, violence, murder, sadness, all those went hand in hand with nightmare creatures. Val was partly that. Feeding him more of such emotions might give him the power to heal. It helped because it probably fed the Nightmare King, but right now I’d deal with one problem at a time.

Standing over Val, his bandaged hand cradled in mine, I said, “You’re with me right?”

Sometimes to go forward, you had to take a step back.

Besides, I’d seen inside him. He wasn’t all nightmare. There was dream inside him too, and Val’s soul was inherently good. Maybe...

Maybe I could feed him different emotions—hopes and dreams, wishes, joy, pure happiness. Maybe you could save a man with good.

Where did good occur in abundance?

Not really my realm but...churches?

Fairs. Concerts?

Next problem—how did I get a man on life support out of a hospital with his tubes and shit intact and without alerting the security guards and other staff?

There was never an easy solution.

I’d have to unplug everything and pray he didn’t die before I found a way to feed him this healing power I wasn’t sure existed. I’d have to get around the fact that nursing staff would swarm in if I flat-lined him by unplugging all the crap.

I might kill him.

I could almost hear his last breath expiring in my ears, as I struggled to prop him against a wall—church choir in the distance, bells, the beautiful blending of perfect voices, and a dead man in my arms whose death I’d hastened.

This would be such a wild fucking goose chase.

What would Val say?

He was going to die here anyway.

I knew what he’d say. “Do it.” Not complicated, the man was to the point, once he’d decided. He’d say that.Do it.

CHAPTER40

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