Free Dreamquake: Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet by Elizabeth Knox Page A

snapped. “You taught me that! And if a pack of mangy convicts needs our help, let’s help them because it’s the right thing to do, not because God loves them!”
    The school principal, a tiny woman, rushed with brisk little steps into the quad. “Rose Tiebold! I hope you are not shouting at your father. Academy girls
do not
take that tone with their elders.”
    “Bearded ninny,” Chorley muttered, sniggering. “Mangy convicts.”
    “I’m sorry, ma’am,” said Rose. Then, irrepressible, “But he’s a sore trial to me.”
    “That’s enough of that, my girl!” The principal shot the sniggering Chorley a quelling look. She said to him, “Itwould be far better for Rose if, when she’s rude, she wasn’t so confident that she’s also amusing.”
    “Yes, I see.” Chorley wiped his eyes.
    “Is this interview over?” the principal inquired, tartly.
    “Yes,” said Chorley. “I have to go home and burn my Darwin.”
    “Da!” Rose squeaked, and they both started giggling again.
    “Rose! Mr. Tiebold! Please!”
    Chorley took the principal’s hand and shook it. “Thank you for your time, and your concern,” he said. He gazed into her eyes.
    “Well—er—yes,” the principal said, then stood blushing and flustered as Chorley turned and left them.

9
     
    HE MAN IN THE CHAIR BEFORE CAS DORAN’S DESK WAS TIRED OF ANSWERING THE SAME QUESTIONS, OF GIVING answers that couldn’t satisfy anyone, even himself.
    “The assailant smashed the lights and broke the doors,” he said. “He was wearing a mask. Or he had dirt on his face and a black mask tied across his eyes. He was wrapped up in something thick and squishy. His body felt soft when he knocked me down. He was there one moment, then gone the next. It was dark all along the second tier. Mrs. Tiebold was shouting at us because a mob was after Mr. Mason. I sent my men down to see what they could do for Mason—then, shortly after that, the police arrived. I didn’t see where our assailant went.”
    Secretary Doran was silent for so long that the former head of the Rainbow Opera’s fire watch finally raised his face.
    “Whoever he was, he was awake before the dream ended,” Doran said. “Or he hadn’t slept at all.”
    The man nodded.
    “A coat, a hat, padded clothes, well-built, masked, perhaps six and a half feet in height, you say?”
    “Yes. And he was gritty, as though he’d been lying on the ground.”
    “The doors were hanging off their hinges. The doorframes were splintered.”
    “Yes, I saw that later,” the man said. He looked miserable. “I should have ordered the alarm bells rung as soon as the screaming started. We just watched Mrs. Tiebold fighting it—the nightmare. We couldn’t understand at first that everyone was doing the same thing. I’ve never seen a dreamhunter with a nightmare.” The man made claws of his hands and touched his pallid, unmarked cheeks.
    Cas Doran’s hand went to his own face and the stiff rows of adhesive bandages.
    “It was an emergency. We weren’t meant to stand by amazed,” the man said. Then, “Will I be prosecuted?”
    “That’s up to your manager, and the police.”

     
    Grace arrived home earlier than Chorley expected, battered and dirty. He was able to tell her that Laura was no longer at her aunt Marta’s but was safe, and Rose was back at school.
    “I’ll want to talk to Laura,” Grace said.
    Chorley opened his mouth to explain that that might be difficult, and why, but his wife interrupted him. “I’m going to have a bath,” she said.
    Half an hour later, Chorley carried a tray upstairs—soup in a cup, buttered toast, coffee. He put a stool by the tub and set the tray on it.
    Grace said, “I’m going to catch the express to Sisters Beach tonight. I’ve got a copy of Secret Room. It’s somewhat spicy, so I’d better not give it to our neighbors. Summerfort is far enough from other houses. The dream isn’t at my full size—something to do with Plasir’s eensy-teensy