Dream Thing

“Forgive me, young Slate. It was something that I believed must be done. I was on guard for just such a happenstance. I did not pierce the veil of your words until I heard the tumult of the Young Prince’s awakening.”

“What happenstance?” Mark asked.

“The tumult,” the old man said. “The dreams come.”

Sarah was peeved. “You just happened to wake up at two in the morning and just happened to hear us?”

“You did not awaken me. It was the others.”

“What others?” Sarah demanded.

The old man shot out a finger so fast she couldn’t see it move, and the finger pressed against her lips to shush her. He held it there as silence fell.

But there was no silence, after all. There were shouts, cries and screams.

“Oh, God,” Sarah said. “It sounds like half the hospital. What’s happening?”

“Half of half, but that is a sufficient number of people in terror. The dream thing affects them, those with a particular bent and balance in their mind’s landscape. It is the thing of which you dreamed, Prince Mark.”

The man was listening to the cries from far away.

“Heed, Mark Howard,” the old man said. “It may discover you and exert its will. Say not the name.”

“I don’t know its name.”

“It may choose to tell you. Turn your thoughts away from it. Give it the least of your attentions.”

“What is it?” Sarah asked. “Why would it afflict Mark?”

The parrot chuckled harshly. “An adept mind in dangerous company,” it croaked, then looked surprised at itself.

“Quiet, bird,” the old man scolded.

“Who is dangerous?” Sarah Slate asked, and she didn’t offer the leeway for no answer.

“Remo.”

“Remo’s in Europe,” Sarah pointed out.

“And me,” the old man added. “I attract its attentions.”

“And wrath,” the bird added.

Chapter 4

“I’m acting under the direct orders of my supervisor,” Remo told the emperor of Sicily. “And I never disobey an order.”

“It is a million dollars. Surely you can disobey one small order in exchange for a million dollars.”

“Listen, Burpescusmi, I just shrugged off a career in the Extreme Naked Athletics for a million bucks.”

“What?”

“On the other hand, I could have been the best Crocodile Outback Marathon runner that there ever was. Another easy million. Or ice-wall climbing. I could have done that blindfolded. Another million.”

“I do not know what you are talking about,” said the emperor of Sicily. “Please talk slower because of my English.”

“Did I mention my TV career? Way more than a million bucks, bucko, and I would have got to bag more sleazy celebrity teenyboppers than you could shake your stick at. But I gave it all up.”

“Why?”

“My father. He would have been irked. Now, you want to know who’s really irked? Me. Why? Miguel Jackon.”

“Ten million dollars,” the emperor said. Even crazy men had their price, right?

“Not bad. If you had it. Which you don’t. Did you hear about Miguel Jackon? The whole business with the star in Hollywood. That was me. I moved it. But it’s not what I wanted to do. You know what I wanted to do?” The American began snapping imaginary bones in his hands. They weren’t especially powerful-looking hands, but the wrists were thick as the drive shaft on a piece of construction equipment.

“I can get you ten million U.S. dollars by daybreak.”

“If I cared, which I don’t. I’m already rich, see?”

“No government agents are rich. Except in my government.”

The American’s smile was made all the more chilling by the malevolent brown eyes. “What you call a government I call organized crime.”

“Yes, we are organized, yes, and now official, too. We have the legitimacy of statehood.”

“You think because some slimeball mafioso declares himself king he really is king?”

“Yes, that is true,” declared Don Bertilescessi. “Sicily has always been under the oppressive rule of the mainland Italians. Too long have they dictated their will to the Sicilian people. Until now there has been no man with the strength of will to take a stand against the dictators of Rome.”

“Doesn’t make you legitimate.”

“We have been recognized by other heads of state! This makes us legitimate!”

“Just because a bunch of other international criminals say you’re not a criminal doesn’t mean you’re not a criminal. You know how many innocent people have been killed during your reign of power? One for every rice grain in my breakfast bowl.”

“We are fighting for our freedom!”

“You’re a thug. A bully. You’re a coward.”

The emperor of Sicily grew red in the face. “No man alive today has ever called Don Bertilescessi a coward. All are dead!”

“I know. Take, for example, that village mayor from up in the hills.”

“Exactly!”

“He said that it was cowardly of Bertilescessi to hold the families of the Italian government as hostages.”

“Yes!” Bertilescessi hissed.

“So you sent the other thugs who work for you to kill the mayor. And his family.”

“He got what he deserved!”

“Hello? Stupid man? You proved how cowardly you really are.”

“I’m not a coward!”

“You’re chickenshit. The wonderful wizard wouldn’t know what to do with you.”