SWEET DREAMS

By Wesley Overhults

Club Bewitched, San Francisco, California

Brother Night put his elbows up on his desk and then rested his chin on top of the steeple his index fingers made.  He stared at the creature in front of him.  The thing was short and had the physical appearance of a goblin.  Its skin was a sickly shade of green and its eyes bulged from their sockets.  The imp didn’t frighten Night in the least.  Few were the things lurking in the dark that could make him even apprehensive.  The demon before him was definitely not one of those things.  Fuseli, as the demon was called, had useful skills though and Night had need of those skills.  His plan to discover the identity of Trigon’s daughter had hit a wall.  Faust wasn’t producing anything of merit so it was time to try a new avenue.  It was time for the teenager to remember whose mercy it was that granted her a life in San Francisco.  Night thought it a simple trade.  He allowed her to dwell in his city so long as she did him the courtesy of staying out of his business.  However, it seemed that she continued to inject herself into his affairs and he could no longer tolerate that.

“I have some friends inside the police department,” explained Night.  “They tell me that this girl’s name is Rachel Roth.  I want you to find her.  I’m not concerned how many nights it takes you to accomplish that goal.”

“Going after someone in a city this size is tricky,” said Fuseli.  “It would help if I had more to go on than just her name.”

“This is her friend,” said Night as he slid a picture towards Fuseli.  “Her name is June Moone.  She’s a student at San Francisco State University.  If you find June, you find Rachel.”

“Now that’s more like it,” said Fuseli as he studied the picture.  “You want the usual treatment?”

“Your primary target is Rachel,” stated Night.  “Given how irksome the Moone girl has been, I wouldn’t mind living in a world without her.  Two birds with one stone, you understand.”

“The usual treatment then,” said Fuseli.  “Why’s this girl so important to you, Night?  I’d almost think you were scared of her.”

“Not your concern,” responded Night.  “Do your job as I have hired you to do, Fuseli.  The bigger picture shouldn’t concern you.”

Fuseli knew it wise not to cross Night.  The man, or whatever he was now, didn’t sleep.  That meant that he also didn’t dream.  Fuseli had no power over those who couldn’t enter his realm and Night was one of the names on that very short list.  He studied the picture of June more intently.  The university was the best place to start.  Someone there would know where to find June, and then after that it was child’s play to find Rachel as well.  Fuseli decided he might take his time with the two girls, play with them a bit before doing what Night wanted.  Most called him a pest, a trickster who lived for nothing more than being a general nuisance.  He simply thought of himself as someone who preferred to have fun.  It didn’t concern him that his fun came at the expense of others.

“I’ll get started tonight then,” he told Night as he took the picture from the desk and turned to leave.

Brother Night watched the nightmare imp go.  He had other important things to attend to and he wanted the Roth girl eliminated before he could proceed.  Night knew that he was closing in on perhaps the exact weapon he needed to put the city of San Francisco under his thumb permanently.  The only threat to his complete rule over the city was Rachel Roth and he intended to eliminate that threat before she was even aware of her status as such.  Night rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and once again his chin sat on top of his index fingers.  He swiveled around to a window and watched the glass shimmer.  No longer could he merely see the street outside where his club stood.  From outside the glass of his enchanted window, he saw the entire city of San Francisco.  He watched the city and its people brim with life even as the night went on.  They had no idea that they were his, that their lives had no more meaning to him than those of insects.  They feared the dark, these normal people who infested his city like cockroaches.  They feared the horrors that lurked inside the shadows and they were right to do so.  They were more comfortable in the warm embrace of the light.  Very soon though, they would feel the cold touch of the dark.  It would hold them in its icy clutches and they would scream for his mercy.  They would be very disappointed to find that he didn’t have any to spare them.

Rachel Roth yawned and took a bite of her Pop-Tart.  She studied the job application on the coffee table in front of her.  Despite the bad blood between herself and Lori, Rachel had taken the older girl’s advice and obtained the application from the owner of the coffee shop.  She couldn’t decide whether or not she should fill it out though.  She wanted to be a part of San Francisco instead of just the outsider always looking in.  She didn’t want to expose herself too much though.  While her new friends were better able to take care of themselves if trouble came calling, she didn’t want to put them at risk.  She had lived her life alone for so long that it was hard to let people in.  Her ordeal with the Church of Blood loomed large in her mind whenever she thought about doing so.  Hadn’t she already done it though?  True, things with Lori hadn’t turned out well but she had made other friends in the city.

“You should do it,” said June, not having to see what Rachel was staring at to already know what it was.  “I mean I hate to be a bad friend and start charging you rent, but a little extra income wouldn’t hurt either of us.  Plus it will help you get out more.”

“Kicking me out already, June?” cracked Rachel as she looked up at her roommate.  “I dunno.  I mean yeah it’s a good idea in theory but after what happened with Lori . . .”

“One bad experience shouldn’t dictate your whole life, Rachel,” reminded June.

“Depends on how bad the experience is.”

June never pressed Rachel for the details of her life.  At this point, she felt that they knew all about each other that there was to know.  Yet sometimes, June could see inside Rachel and she didn’t need any magical powers to do so.  She knew the younger girl was so broken by her past.  It cast a dark shadow over her life and June wanted so badly for Rachel to relieve herself of those burdens.  She wondered so many times how life would have been for the both of them if they were normal.  June would just be the average college student she pretended to be.  Rachel would still be living somewhere else, attending some painfully normal high school.  She would have normal parents, normal friends, and a normal job.

‘Once again you prove how naive you are,’ commented The Enchantress.

“You’re hoping,” noted Rachel, seeing the brilliant blue flare that radiated from June.

“Always,” said June.  “I think you should fill out that application, Rachel.”

“I’ll think about it,” decided Rachel, finishing her Pop-Tart and moving the piece of paper to the top corner of the table.  “June . . . thank you for everything you do for me.  I feel like I never say that enough.”

“You don’t have to,” assured June.  “I think we do enough for each other without having to say it.”

Rachel smiled and nodded as June waved goodbye and headed out the door.  Rachel continued looking at the job application and tried to figure out what to do about it.  Finally settling on a course of action, she went into June’s bedroom and snagged a pen from her desk.  Rachel went back into the living room and clicked the pen, intent on using it to fill out the application.

It had taken him the better part of the previous night to find someone that lived close to June Moone.  Fuseli didn’t mind the extra work though.  It was just more excuse to have fun with the dreams of others.  There was one student though who had been very useful.  The girl had seen someone that looked like Rachel come out of what Fuseli assumed was June’s apartment.  It was only a glimpse but that didn’t matter.  Once he inhabited someone’s dreams, Fuseli could sift through their memories.  People often recalled things better when they were asleep than when they were awake.  Of course the other side of that coin was that their memories were also more malleable.  Fuseli enjoyed playing with people that way but he didn’t make a habit of killing them or going too far with it.  He saved things like that for his special jobs, like the things he did for Brother Night.

Fuseli considered himself a demon of the world.  He had skipped through so many people’s dreams that he had traveled to all the continents at least once.  He stopped counting how many countries he had visited but America was always his favorite.  There was something about its culture, its very essence even, that made its people ripe for nightmares.  In his travels and dealings with the supernatural world, Fuseli had heard things about Brother Night.  Night was making waves, that much was certain, but it didn’t seem grand enough for him.  Fuseli didn’t care about his employer’s delusions of grandeur but he did wonder just what Night was trying to accomplish.  In order to make a splash in the supernatural underworld, you had to do something big.  You had to get people’s attention, make them stand up and notice you.  Night seemed intent on doing that and he viewed the Roth girl as his primary obstacle.  Fuseli wondered why.  Rachel didn’t seem like anything special from what little information he had on her.  There was something that Night knew and wasn’t sharing with him.  Fuseli knew enough to know that was bad for business.

Fuseli hated working in the daylight.  It was harder to skulk around in the real world when everyone could see you.  He hadn’t been able to hitch a ride with anyone though and he knew he needed to accomplish his task as soon as he could.  He squatted in the thick leaves of a bush that was outside June’s apartment building and concentrated.  He was in luck because when he focused on Rachel, he could tell that she was asleep.  He reasoned that with her nightly activities, she probably got her sleep during the day.  As long as she was asleep, he knew he could get inside her dreams.  Once he did that, he could keep her asleep for as long as he liked.  There were very few people who could fight against him while he was in their dreams.  Most people didn’t even know of his existence anyway and you couldn’t fight against something you didn’t even know about.  Fuseli concentrated hard on Rachel and felt his physical body dissolve as he slid into her dreams.  Once he was inside her head, it became painfully obvious why Brother Night hadn’t told him anything more about her.

“Jackpot,” he said to himself as he began to see what kind of demons haunted Rachel Roth while she slept.

Rachel heard a baby crying.  She blinked and tried to figure out where she was.  It was raining and it sent cold shivers up her spine.  The baby was still crying and Rachel looked around to figure out where the child was.  She saw something wrapped in a blanket on a doorstep and assumed that the child was inside that blanket.  Rachel hugged herself tight as she tried to get out of the rain and see what she could do to help the baby.  Somewhere in the distance, she heard the call of a bird.  It wasn’t the chirp of a sparrow or the cooing of a pigeon.  It was the caw of a crow.

“Hello?” called out Rachel as she trudged towards the doorstep and managed to get underneath its shelter.

The only sound that returned her call was the sound of the baby.  Rachel knelt down and pulled the blanket back so she could see the child.  She would have gasped in horror but nothing shocked her anymore.  The baby’s skin was red and its eyes were glowing.  There were four of them and Rachel knew exactly whose eyes they were.  Her hand brushed against the piece of paper that was pinned to the blanket.  She read the words even though she already knew them by heart.

This is my daughter Rachel Roth.

Rachel never knew anything about her mother.  She couldn’t even remember the woman’s face, didn’t even know her name.  All she knew was that her mother had left her on the doorstep of an orphanage in Gotham and that note along with her.  Rachel looked at the note and suddenly the child stopped crying.  A different sound filled the air.  Blackbirds descended from the stormy sky.  They lighted on the ledges of the buildings overhead and on whatever cables were strung between those buildings.  They never ceased their cawing, cackling at her in a language only they could understand.  They had the same eyes as the child did, the same eyes Rachel’s father had.  Rachel tried to stare back at them defiantly, to show them that she wasn’t afraid of them.  The note in her hands began to grow sticky.  She looked down at it and there was something dripping from it.  The ink of the words was thick now and it gave off a coppery odor that Rachel knew too well.  Blood dripped from the words on the note, smearing Rachel’s hands and sinking so deep into her skin that she knew it would never come out.  The note said something new now.

This is my daughter Raven.

Rachel threw away the note in disgust but the blood remained on her hands.  The ravens cackled at her and suddenly their shrieks all turned into a single word.  The demonic birds chanted the word “monster” to her over and over again.  Rachel put her hands up to her ears in an attempt to block out their cries but her hands were so wet with blood that she couldn’t.

“Did you think you wouldn’t be able to visit me?”

Rachel whirled around so she could locate the voice.  She knew whose voice it was.  She thought she had dragged Brother Blood’s soul straight to hell and perhaps she had.  Maybe that was where she was now.  Maybe she had died somehow and it was time to face her punishment for all the pain she had caused everyone.  She could see the crazed cult leader now, shambling towards her like a zombie from a monster movie.  His body looked decayed with bits of meat hanging from it.  Rachel tried to tell herself that this wasn’t real.  Blood’s body was perfectly fine, or at least that was how she had left it the night she escaped from Gotham.  So if he now looked like a zombie then something else was going on.

“I killed you already,” said Rachel as she tried to summon her powers in preparation for a fight.  “Didn’t it take?”

“You did worse than that,” corrected Blood.  “I knew you would see me again, Raven.  Sooner or later, you were bound to end up here.  You humans believe that Satan rebelled against your God and was cast out.  How does it feel to rebel against your creator and be punished for it?”

Rachel realized only too late that her powers weren’t working.  Blood came at her and tackled her to the ground.  She wrestled with him but it was obvious he was stronger than her.  The best thing she could do was get out of his grasp and back to her feet.  With her powers out of commission, she only had one real choice.  If she couldn’t fight then she would have to flee.  Rachel tried to figure out the best escape plan even as the ravens flew down from their perches to assault her.  They screamed “monster” in her ears and she ran in the first available direction.  Rachel barreled through the doors of what she assumed was the orphanage and those doors shut behind her.  The room was dark and quiet, silent and still like a tomb.  Rachel cautiously moved forward and it was then that she saw there was only one thing in the room besides her.  It was a mirror.

“Great,” muttered Rachel as she moved towards the mirror and looked into it.

The image in the mirror wasn’t what she expected.  She had expected to see a demonic version of herself but what she saw was perhaps worse than that.  The girl in the mirror didn’t look anything like her.  Instead it was the image of an old enemy.

“I killed your foster parents,” said Meredith Hiller as she leapt from the glass to attack Rachel.  “You have to know that they’re as good as dead by now, right?”

“I don’t believe anything you say,” retorted Rachel as she tried to fight off Meredith.  “I never did.  You and your crazy cult took my best friend away from me.”

“Are you really sure about that?” asked Meredith, grappling with Rachel and easily knocking her down.  “I don’t think you’re really being honest with yourself, Rachel.  Maybe if you looked in that mirror one more time, you’d see the real cause of all your problems.”

“Not gonna happen,” retorted Rachel, realizing that again her only choice was to run.

Meredith laughed as Rachel tried to get away from her.  Rachel turned and was about to run but only managed to make it a couple steps before she smacked into something hard.  She stumbled backwards and fell.  As she tried to get up, she could see clearly what she had collided with.  It was a giant tombstone and the name on it haunted her.  The name on the stone was Megan Waters.  It was the one thing that Rachel couldn’t stop blaming herself for.  Megan was dead and it was all Rachel’s fault.  It was her original sin, the one that had thrust her into this dark world she now inhabited.  Megan’s death was the thing that started all of this insanity and Rachel couldn’t make herself believe that Megan’s death was anyone’s fault but hers.

Rachel felt herself shaking as something came up out of the ground just in front of the tombstone.  Rachel knew it was Megan because she could never forget the girl’s face.  Now Megan looked so pale, deathly pale in fact.  She held up her hand to wave hello to her former best friend and Rachel could see the gashes in her arm.  Megan had killed herself.  It was under duress but the cause remained the same.  Rachel wondered what Megan looked like when she died bleeding out in the bathtub.  She knew if she had ever seen an image of Megan’s body, it would have haunted her for the rest of her life.

“I’m sorry,” cried Rachel as she felt herself powerless to get back to her feet.

“Not sorry enough,” retorted Megan as Meredith gripped Rachel from behind and dragged her back towards the mirror.  “Look at it, Rachel!  Look at who’s really responsible for what happened to me!”

Rachel knew what was going to happen but she couldn’t fight it.  She stared into the glass of the mirror and saw herself.  Her reflection twisted and contorted and then she saw a myriad of things.  It was every terrible thing she had ever done or been responsible for.  It was every terrible thing she feared she was going to do.  Rachel bore witness to all her numerous sins and she was helpless to do anything but scream.

June Moone knew something was wrong the second she unlocked her apartment door and entered it.  She saw Rachel lying on the couch that she had made her bed ever since settling in with June.  Rachel was clearly asleep but something was wrong.  She was tossing and turning, thrashing even.  She was crying like she was in pain and just the sound of it made June afraid.  She moved towards Rachel faster than she knew was possible and held the younger girl’s hand.

“Rachel?” she asked as she tried to wake her friend up.  “Rachel, you’re asleep.  You’re having a dream and you need to wake up.”

‘It’s more than that, June.  I’m sensing some sort of magic going on here.’

June lightly tapped Rachel’s cheek with her hand.  She didn’t want to hit the poor girl but she had to wake her up somehow.  If magic was involved then it was bad news because that meant it was probably stronger than Rachel’s own power.  June tried to figure out what to do next.  She could see her friend was in trouble and had no clue how to help her.

‘What the hell’s going on with her?’

‘Someone is inside her dreams.  Very skilled magic-users can do that but that’s not what I’m sensing.  It’s . . .’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a nightmare demon.  They’re loathsome creatures but mostly harmless.  They enter someone’s dreams and play with them, usually just for their own amusement.  This one’s doing something more though.’

‘Really, you think?  So how the hell do we wake her up then?’

‘No need to be cross with me, June.  I’ve done astral projection before but that was when I had a real body.  I don’t quite know how to do it with the two of us like this.  Plus there’s also the fact that, as much as I despise admitting it, Rachel’s powers are stronger than mine.  There’s a chance she may not let us in.’

‘Do whatever you can but we have to save Rachel.  We can’t keep letting that thing hurt her.’

With their internal debate done, June closed her eyes and let The Enchantress take over their body.  The Enchantress looked at Rachel still fighting off the imaginary ghosts in her head.  While she had no real love for the girl, The Enchantress knew that June cared very deeply for Rachel.  It was an emotion she couldn’t understand but she could feel a fraction of it through her bond with June.  Plus, The Enchantress enjoyed thinking that the fabled daughter of Trigon owed her favor should she succeed in this.  That thought was very intriguing to her.  The Enchantress closed her eyes and put her hand on Rachel’s forehead, clinching her fingers to keep her hand in place while Rachel squirmed.  The Enchantress shunted her consciousness into Rachel’s mind and made sure that June came along for the ride as well.  The next thing the sorceress and her host knew, they were standing in a very dark place.

“I always thought you would look older,” admitted June, having never really seen The Enchantress before.

“I am not some withered old crone,” reminded The Enchantress.  “Now, let’s see what we can do about Rachel.  I believe we’re in her mind right now.  I can sense a foreign presence here and I’m assuming it’s the nightmare demon.  I warn you, June, that nothing is real in this place.  Do well to remember that because we must also make sure that Rachel remembers it too.”

“What happens if she dies in here?” asked June as The Enchantress lead the way through the darkness.

“You’re a smart girl, I’m sure you can figure it out,” replied the sorceress as she continued trudging along with June at her heels.

The two of them continued on but they stopped when they heard someone scream.  They both realized it was Rachel and that made them quicken their pace.  When they got into the room, the duo saw two girls holding Rachel down and forcing her to stare into what looked like a giant mirror.

“I’ll get Rachel, you deal with them,” decided June as she moved towards her friend.

“Of course,” agreed The Enchantress as magical energy lanced from her hands and cut both Megan and Meredith down.  “I know that you’re somewhere inside this girl’s head, nightmare demon.  I’m afraid that your tricks aren’t going to work on me.  Do you even know whose head you’ve decided to use for your playground?  This is the daughter of Trigon you see fit to torture.”

The Enchantress could feel Fuseli trying to draw both her and June into Rachel’s dream but she continued to remind herself that none of this was real.  She scanned the area for any signs of hostile forces and found none.  For the moment, Meredith and Megan had both crawled back into the shadows but she knew the reprieve would be short.  Fuseli was just thinking up another means of attack but perhaps he was also considering what The Enchantress had told him.  Trigon was universally feared among those of the supernatural world.  Messing with his offspring wasn’t a good idea, especially when that offspring was his only daughter.

“It’s all my fault,” sobbed Rachel as June cradled her in her arms.

“Rachel, it’s just a dream,” said June.  “You’re laying on my couch at my apartment.  None of this is real and it can’t hurt you.”

Rachel tried to latch onto June’s words but staring into that mirror had broken her spirit.  She had done so many terrible things and there were only more terrible things yet to come if she embraced her true nature.  She was a monster and there was nothing she could do to change that fact.  What was the point of even trying anymore?  Rachel looked up at June and saw the yellow light of fear but there was something else too.  June was hoping again.  Rachel had never met anyone so optimistic about life as June.  No matter how dark things got, June always had hope.  It was everything Rachel wanted to be but she was afraid to feel that again.  She had been broken for so long that it was easier to feel all the negative emotions like anger, fear, and envy.  Yet it was the things that were hardest to obtain that were worth doing so in the first place.

“I loved her,” whispered Rachel.  “I tried to be a good friend.”

“You are,” assured June and hugged Rachel tightly in her arms.  “Please wake up now, Rachel.”

Rachel Roth opened her eyes and shuddered.  She sobbed and tried to remember how to breathe again.  She looked around and saw The Enchantress was kneeling beside the couch.  That wasn’t the only thing Rachel saw though.  There was some creature laying on the floor.  It looked like a goblin and Rachel instantly knew that the thing was somehow responsible for what had happened.  Fuseli struggled to get up but found himself locked in Rachel’s telekinetic grip.  The mind of Trigon’s daughter was too much even for him.  He had thrown everything he had at her but she was still able to fight him off with some help from her friends.  Now he was too weak to do anything but accept his fate.

“I didn’t know who you were,” he told Rachel.

“Do you think I give a damn?” asked Rachel as she began to squeeze the life out of him.  “What the hell are you?”

“He’s a nightmare demon,” said The Enchantress.  “Normally they’re tricksters, mostly pests in fact.  He wouldn’t do something like this unless someone put him up to it.  I think it would be wise to tell us the name of your employer, imp.  The daughter of Trigon isn’t known for her mercy.”

“Brother Night,” said Fuseli.  “It was Brother Night.”

Rachel thought for a few seconds about what to do.  She had been busy with other things lately so Night had fallen off her radar.  Apparently though, she had never left his.  Maybe it was time to refocus her energies on ridding the city of Night once and for all.  If he wanted to go to war with her then Rachel was glad to oblige him.

“I’m not going to kill you,” stated Rachel as she continued to squeeze Fuseli.  “I don’t even know how I’d do that actually.  I want you to understand something though.  Never come near me or any of my friends ever again.”

“Got it,” promised Fuseli.

“One more thing before you go,” said Rachel as she took a piece of paper and scribbled something down on it.  “Give that to Night.  He’ll know it’s from me.  Now get the hell out of here before I change my mind and tear you apart.”

Fuseli took the piece of paper after Rachel released him.  He hurriedly disappeared into someone else’s dream and the paper vanished with him.  Rachel turned to look at The Enchantress and found June instead.  Inwardly, she felt like crying.  Fuseli had dug up thoughts and emotions that were buried deep inside her.  Those emotional wounds were bleeding once again and Rachel found herself unsure of how she felt.  The worst thing about it was that she still couldn’t bring herself to talk to someone about all this.

“The sun’s going down,” said June.  “Are you doing your thing tonight?”

“I can’t,” said Rachel after violently shaking her head.  “June, I . . . you weren’t supposed to see that stuff.  No one ever sees that.”

Rachel looked down at herself and for perhaps the first time ever, she saw herself glowing with the yellow light of fear.  She was so scared now, so deathly afraid that she would end up alone again.  She couldn’t shake the guilt of Megan’s death and now she feared the same thing would happen to June.  Rachel didn’t know what to do now.  She found herself paralyzed by her fear and it made her sick to her stomach.

“Maybe someone should,” suggested June as she hugged her friend tightly.  “Take the night off, Rachel.  I think you’ve earned it.”

“I . . . I don’t even know how to talk about this,” said Rachel.

“Just start at the beginning,” said June as she squeezed Rachel’s hand and they sat on the couch.

Rachel took a deep breath and tried to figure out how to tell the sordid tale that was her life.  She could start at the very beginning with her mother leaving her at the orphanage.  She could tell June all about the string of bad foster families before she finally settled down with the Thornes.  Really though, there was only one place to start because all the things that came before it weren’t as important.

“Like I told you before, her name was Megan,” began Rachel.  “She used to be my best friend.”  Rachel didn’t stop talking until the tale was told and June never stopped listening.

When Brother Night saw that Fuseli had returned, he expected it was because the nightmare demon had completed his assignment.  However, it wasn’t a look of triumph that he saw on Fuseli’s face.  Instead it was a look of fear.  Night knew that Fuseli was likely unhappy about having to cross Trigon’s daughter but he didn’t think that she could defeat him.  Fuseli was the best.  Whenever Night needed him for a job, Fuseli always delivered.  This time though, something was different.

“She said to give you this,” said Fuseli as he put the piece of paper on Night’s desk and then left in the blink of an eye.

Night took the piece of paper and read the single sentence that Rachel had scrawled on it.  He angrily crumpled up the paper and threw it on the floor.  The message was clear though and it meant he was going to have to try a different approach when dealing with Rachel Roth.  Even now, her words refused to leave his head.

Game on, you sick bastard.

Next Issue: Rachel and June make plans to strike back at Brother Night and make a new ally.