I Can't Sleep
1
Yusuke Tremaine waited just off the school's campus. Whenever he wasn't involved in something, he met his friend as she came down the sidewalk. He walked her home from there.
Yusuke paced on the concrete square as he watched the building's front. The school had been repaired since he and an out of towner had found a demon summoning shrine in the janitor's closet. Kay had kept him informed of what was going on about that.
Nothing else had replaced it. Yusuke figured the person who had set the trap in the first place had moved away, or died. Their killer had just waited for the right time to activate.
Yusuke smiled when he saw Kay coming down the sidewalk finally. He moved to the entrance of the bus driveway so she could see him standing there in his dragon jacket and jeans. He had found a black t-shirt with the words NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH FORCE emblazoned on the front of it in tan. He waved.
Kay Banner waved back. He noted the bruises under her brown eyes, and the untidy mess of her hair. That wasn't like her. She was as careful as he was careless.
He compared her appearance with yesterday's. Something had happened in the night.
"You look awful, Kay." Yusuke took her books, putting them under an arm as he went.
"I didn't get much sleep last night." Kay rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. "I kept having nightmares for some reason."
"What kind of nightmares?" Yusuke kept her from running into a light pole with a hand on her elbow.
"Monsters, body invasions, all kinds of things." Kay reached up and ran the fingers of one hand through her hair. "Every time I thought I would dream something pleasant, it turned into a nightmare. My gingerbread men tried to eat me."
"Maybe it was something you ate." Yusuke offered that as an explanation but he doubted it. Kay cooked for her family, and she was a champ. Nothing she made caused nightmares.
"I doubt that." Kay shook her head. "Too bad you can't punch bad dreams like you do ghosts."
"Who says I can't?" Yusuke smiled. "I haven't had to before now."
"Do you want to try it?" Kay smiled. That made her look better. "I need the sleep. I have exams coming up."
"When do you want to do it?" Yusuke shrugged in his jacket, green eyes flashing.
"Let's do it tonight." Kay nodded as she considered the plan. She and Yusuke had undertaken similar tasks. He would protect her.
He had inherited some wonderful gifts that made him a terror for those who stood in his way.
"No problem." Yusuke hoped his talent was up to the challenge. "I'll come by about eleven."
"Do you think you can really help?" Kay hated the doubt. Yusuke had always helped her whenever she asked.
"We won't know until we try." Yusuke suppressed his own doubt. "If I can't do it, I'll call that magician I told you about. Maybe he'll have an idea of what we can do."
"Let's stop and get some coffee." Kay yawned. "I'll need it just to get home."
2
Yusuke and Kay stopped at a coffee shop trying hard to imitate Starbuck's. He paid for the biggest, most caffeine enriched, sugary thing they could stuff in a cup. He handed it over with a smile.
"That should keep you awake until we get to your house." They settled in a booth near the window. The afternoon sun covered Kay in brilliance while leaving Yusuke in shadow except for the glow of his green eyes.
"I hope so." Kay pulled the top off the cup and sipped the steaming liquid. "I have to cook and finish a paper tonight before I go to bed."
Kay's eyelids drooped as she talked. Yusuke moved the cup out of the way as her head sank to the table top. Snores exited her open mouth.
Yusuke sipped the coffee and put it aside with a wrinkling of his face. The liquid had a strong bitter taste. Only it hadn't worked.
Yusuke shook her shoulder. That made her shift her snoring into a low gear buzzsaw sound. At least she wasn't having nightmares yet.
What could he do?
Yusuke decided to let her sleep. That seemed reasonable considering she had been interrupted all night. He held her hand. If she did have a nightmare while he was there, maybe he could glean some kind of information he could use to his advantage.
Kay started whimpering. Her hand clutched Yusuke's in her sleep. Her expression pierced his heart.
Yusuke summoned his talent with an invisible glow lighting his eye. The blue light mixed with green as he tried to figure out something he could grasp.
Once he had his hands on something, the fight was as good as over. Getting that grip sometimes proved the trickiest part of things.
A trail of light surrounded Kay's head. It sent spikes randomly along her scalp. Yusuke's hand seized one such eruption. Fatigue dragged him down into darkness.
Yusuke looked around. He knew he was asleep. He knew he sat in a corner booth at a coffee shop. He also knew he was chained in a dudgeon somewhere.
He needed to wake up.
Kay screamed from some other room.
Yusuke pulled the chains off the wall. He went to the door and kicked it down. He looked out in the hall. Guards hustled to keep him from finding Kay. He concentrated on her, letting his talent grab him.
He felt something trying to stop him. It tried to dampen his ability as the guards rushed forward with pikes and axes. It tried to make the scene his nightmare of losing Kay.
Anger pushed through Yusuke. It turned his hands into claws that ripped and tore. The guards evaporated in a second as his fury rushed forward. His glowing eye fell on the doors around him, sensing life. He kicked one down in an instant.
Kay lay on a rack. Ropes tied her to the bars that pulled the victim's limbs out of socket. A man in a mask turned to face the angry medium. His hand rested on the tightening wheel. A fist crushed his face in before he could turn the wheel again.
"Yusuke?" Kay looked relieved and confused. "Are you real?"
"We're dreaming." Yusuke pulled the bindings apart. "Something is doing this to you. We have to wake up."
"I don't think I can." Kay rubbed her hands. Mental pains became physical pains. "How did you get here?"
"There's some kind of vapor around your head in the real world." Yusuke grabbed a hand to make sure Kay stayed with him. "I grabbed it and it brought me here."
Yusuke realized he didn't know if he had the real Kay, or a fake. He could be saving a decoy while the real Kay suffered.
And he had no way to tell as long as he was stuck in the dream with her.
He would just have to operate like he had the real Kay and hope for the best. Waking up would settle things for sure.
How would he know he had woke up?
"We'll look for an exit to the real world." Yusuke led the way into the hall. He felt that presence trying to fight him. "Once we're clear, I'll call Jack and ask him what he thinks."
"What if we can't find a way out?" Kay kept up, grabbing an axe with a wicked hooked blade as she passed where the guards had fallen.
"There's always a way out." Yusuke went to the stairs. A sealed door stood at the top. "We just have to find it."
"This way." A voice called from a door that appeared at the top of the stairs. A man in a brown suit waved at them. "I think this is what you need."
The door sat at an angle from the closed wooden barrier. Yusuke could see the coffee shop beyond the threshold.
"How do we know that's real?" Kay raised her axe.
"We don't." Yusuke turned his eye on the opening. "I can tell you that this thing can't stop my eye. We're going."
Yusuke pulled Kay through the opening. His eyes snapped open as he woke up. Kay moaned from her makeshift pillow before sitting up.
"Drink all of this down." Yusuke handed her the coffee. "Something is after you."
3
Gordon Sands rubbed his face as he watched the two kids leave the coffee shop. He couldn't tell, but it looked like they hadn't noticed him. That was good.
Sands had a feeling this wasn't over. He entered dreams all the time. What had happened was a new one on him. Something had caused what he had seen. He just didn't know what yet.
He made sure his briefcase had been untouched while he had zoned out before following the kids. His rumpled brown suit had seen better days but he preferred it to new clothes. He had worn it in.
Sands knew that spending his time in dreams could ruin the real world. He fought that by keeping himself buttoned down against the blandishments of fantasy. He didn't want to search the dreams of others because he couldn't do anything in reality.
He wanted to do it to help the dreamers.
Many of the people he encountered in the dream world seemed prey to things in the waking world that they found hard to undertake and finish. Sometimes he nudged them into taking action and moving on with their lives.
His experience with the two kids he followed was nothing like that.
This had seemed like a hypnotic suggestion he had seen in action once. Someone had implanted the dream in them. It had been done to make them hurt.
The only way he knew to fight something like that was to find the anchor point in the dream and rip it clear. That should stop the nightmare until another suggestion could be planted. That meant he had to enter their dreams tonight and figure out what was going on from the inside.
Sands knew that he could do it if he could survive the dream long enough. It just wouldn't be pleasant to fight through whatever defenses existed and seize the cause of the bad dream and get rid of it.
Sands sipped his coffee as he walked behind the couple. Luckily the boy seemed too concerned with keeping his companion awake. He figured she had been attacked for hours already before they had met at the coffee shop. The nightmares must be there to wear her down for some reason.
It didn't explain how the boy had been in the dream, or why target the girl at all.
He needed more information about those things.
Sands was in unfamiliar territory. He would wait until the girl fell asleep. He doubted the boy would be able to keep her up for long. Then he would enter her dream and try to figure out how he could help her.
He didn't see any alternatives to his plan. The wrong dream could get you killed. The risk was there even in a regular dream.
These seemed to be more dangerous than the usual.
The couple staggered to a house that seemed out of a fairy tale with its gardens, cobbled walks, and bright cheery colors. Sands stood on the corner and looked for a place to sit without being seen. It didn't look good.
Sands decided that a lawn chair next to the house would have to do. A bush should hide him from the street. The chair sat under a window so no one should be able to see him from inside. He sipped his coffee and worked on his numbers while he waited for things to calm down.
Sands put his paperwork away when he felt the tingle of a sleeping mind above him. He slid the case under the chair to get it out of the way. Then he closed his eyes.
Sands left his body behind as he entered the border of the world of dreams. Images floated around him of what was going on in the sleeping minds that plugged into the sleeping realm. He looked for the closest, then narrowed it to the girl by listening for her voice.
He reached into the dream. It pulled him in. He paused to take his bearings.
Sands stood in woods, listening to silence. He looked but saw nothing but trees in every direction. He needed to find the girl if he wanted to help her.
He wondered what kind of menace could be shrouded in the forest.
Sands reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a pair of binoculars. He held them to his eyes and turned in a circle. The girl was being dragged into some kind of pit by a tentacle. She dug into the ground but was losing ground.
The boy appeared a moment later. He grabbed the tentacle and pulled it apart. He helped the girl to his feet as more grabby appendages reached out of the pit.
Sands exchanged the binoculars for a rocket launcher. He had a number of things stuffed in his pockets from his visits to other dreams. The rocket launcher seemed to be the thing for the job.
Sands armed the tube, looking through the scope. This was going to tip his hand. Whatever was causing this would take notice and try to retaliate. The choice was to let the kids suffer from whatever was in the pit. His finger pulled the trigger when the crosshairs turned red.
The rotating ball of light sped through the forest, avoiding trees with deceptive grace. It paused above the pit for a second. Then it plunged down. A ball of fire threw slime into the air like some jelly geyser.
Sands blew smoke from the barrel of the weapon before putting it away.
He headed in the direction the missile had burned in the grass. He spotted the kids looking around for the next menace. He hoped they wouldn't decide that it was him.
"I know you." The boy pointed an accusing finger at him. "You were in that other dream."
"So were you." Sands crossed his arms. "I had always thought that was impossible. How did you do it?"
"I want answers." The boy's eye started to glow.
"Yusuke." The girl started to fade. "Something is happening to me."
"Kay!"
4
Yusuke Tremaine grabbed at the empty dream air. He turned on the stranger in the brown suit. The man seemed puzzled, but already thinking of his next act.
"Where's Kay?" Yusuke balled his fist, ready to attack. He wanted answers to his questions.
"It's her dream." The brown suit pulled out spyglasses and looked around with them glued to his eyes. "She could be anywhere inside it until she wakes up."
"This isn't a natural dream." Yusuke let his fury cool. This guy hadn't done anything wrong yet, and he knew something about the place. He could be the guide necessary for finding out what was going on.
"I know." The brown suit started off through the jungles. "This is some kind of hypnotic suggestion. Someone has put the girl under their control. They seem to be trying to inflict mental pain on her until she breaks down."
"What do we do about it?" Yusuke's eye told him he was dealing with some kind of spirit. He didn't know if he trusted the brown suit, but he had to tag along if he wanted to help Kay.
"We protect the girl until we find the area the compulsion controls and we get rid of it." The suit waved his hand. "This way."
Yusuke found himself in a desert when he reached the tree. Heat blew on his face, sand burned his exposed skin. He saw a speck in the distance.
"The suggestion will try to keep us from her." The suit reached into his pocket as he walked forward. "That way it can make us afraid while its torturing the girl. It's a two for one."
"I'm not afraid." Yusuke started moving forward too. He noted the speck seemed to stay the same distance. "I'm mad."
"Don't let it get in the way." The suit pulled a pistol from his jacket. "Dreams are tricky."
The suit fired the pistol at the speck in the distance. A rope flew out from the barrel and landed very close to where the dot stood. Yusuke noted a cloud like bugs drifting up after the impact.
"Hang on." The suit hit a switch on the side of the pistol as Yusuke grabbed his jacket. The rope retracted back into the pistol. Either it pulled the target close to them, or it pulled the two of them to the target. The medium couldn't be sure.
The results were the same. They wound up beside Kay, helping her fend off an army of bugs. She had been tied to a stake. Yusuke pulled the ropes loose easily.
"It's okay." The suit poured water over her head. Insect bites vanished completely. "We're here. This is all to make you afraid. Be brave. We'll solve this."
"Thank you." Kay hugged Yusuke. "I know this is all a dream. I'll make the real you a cake when I wake up."
"Wear this." The suit handed Kay a bracelet. "It'll keep you with us. The goal seems to hurt you mentally. As long as we're along, that'll be hard to do."
"Thank you." Kay put the bracelet on her wrist. "I know you're part of the dream. This is very nice."
"We're not part of the dream." Yusuke shook his head. "We're both real. I got here when I grabbed some kind of current in your head. I don't know who this guy is but I know he's real too."
"He's right." The suit smiled. "We're both real, and we're here to help you out of this."
"I don't understand." Kay looked at one, then the other. "I'm asleep but the both of you are here in the dream with me."
"That's exactly right." The suit looked around the desert. "Something is causing this. We're here to make it stop."
"How do we do that?" Yusuke felt a rumble in the sandy ground. Something was coming. "We have company coming."
"Let's get out of here first." The suit pulled at the sand, scooping a hole out. "Follow me."
He jumped in.
Yusuke picked Kay up in his arms and followed. He didn't know who this guy was, but he knew he could trust the man. There was something that said this was his ball park, and he knew what he was doing.
Yusuke put Kay down at the entrance of a cubicle. The suit went to one and sat down at the desk. He flipped the computer on and typed a password. The pictures on the cubicle walls were blurred messes.
"Where are we?" Kay looked at the maze stretching out around them.
"This is a replica of my office in the real world." The suit typed some more into the computer. "This should buy us some time to look for where the torturer is currently."
"Your office is like this?" Yusuke couldn't see an end to the cubicles. He jumped in the air. They stretched out forever.
"Dream logic." The suit smiled. "But sometimes it feels just like this."
"What you doing?" Kay leaned into the cubicle to look at the screen.
"Trying to find your problem." The suit typed some more. A map came up on the screen. "It looks like it's shaped a part of the dream into something like a gauntlet. It's trying to restrict how we can get at it."
"What happens if we can't get rid of it?" Yusuke thought he heard moaning from somewhere in the corridors of boxed offices.
"It keeps making the dream worse for Kay until her mind snaps." The suit shrugged. "I'm not a doctor, but being able to sleep is a way to deal with the real world. Kay might die."
"This thing is as real as us." Yusuke frowned, hopped up to look the land over. He had definitely heard something. "I'll have to wake up to trail it when we kick it out of Kay's head."
The suit nodded. He probably thought it was like him. Yusuke thought entering dreams were the only thing they had in common.
"I have an alarm I can give you." The suit stood, rummaged through his pockets. He pulled out an alarm clock and handed it over. "This should wake you immediately."
"Let's go talk with this nightmare maker." Yusuke hopped again. "I have a feeling that she's working on your office while we're talking."
"It's still trying to scare Kay." The suit stood and shut the computer off. "Only it's trying to scare us too."
"This is like that movie with the monster in the office building." Kay looked around. "You know where everyone got trapped and it came out of the ground and started eating everyone. We thought it was funny."
"It's not so funny now." Yusuke looked around for an exit. "How do we get out of here?"
"We can use the elevator." The suit led the way. "That'll take us to the edge of the influence. We'll have to walk in from there."
"We better hurry." Yusuke kept Kay in front of him. "It sounds like we have a bunch of guys loose in here with us."
"There's the elevator." The suit pointed. "Only they got there first."
"Not for long." Yusuke charged forward. Ghouls in tattered suits tried to get in his way. Limbs flew as the boy swung his open hands. He kicked the heads down into the maze as the torsos bounced on the carpeted floor.
"Let's go." Yusuke pressed the button to open the door.
5
A castle made of hooked stone and black ivy stood on the other side of the elevator. Gargoyles glared down from pedestals. Their wings unfurled when the three humans stepped into the courtyard. A stone fence with metal spikes kept the rest of the dream world away from the castle.
"We have to get in there." Gordon Sands looked around. "Then we'll have to get up to the top. I doubt we'll be able to climb up the outside of the building without a lengthy fight."
"Whatever is causing this will be waiting." Yusuke stared at the gargoyles. "It has to know we're here."
"How do we get in?" Kay clenched her fists. Fighting was something she had the will to do, but not the skill.
"Through the front door." Sands pulled a key from his pocket. "Get ready for trouble."
"I'm ready." Yusuke nodded. The glow from his eye sparked visibly in the dream world. "Stay close, Kay."
"You don't have to tell me twice." Kay nodded herself. A bat of a broken piece of rebar appeared in her hand. "Let's go before we change our minds."
Sands walked toward the door. The gargoyles stirred, then launched to stop him. He started running as they swooped down.
He should have used the rocket launcher instead.
"Keep going." Yusuke had one hand on Kay's arm as he followed the brown suit. "I'll handle this."
The stone monsters reached for the members of the party. They opened their mouths to take bites from their intended victims. Yusuke pushed forward. He grabbed the nearest stone skin and slammed it into the cobblestones of the courtyard. It laid there, stunned by the impact.
Sands reached the door, slid the key into the wood, and turned it. The door popped open. He kicked it out of the way so he could see inside. He didn't want to run into something nasty like a giant mouth.
Yusuke picked up the one gargoyle he had stunned. He used it as a hammer to keep the rest of the hoard off their backs. The winged sentries tried to swerve away from the stone flying at them. Some of them didn't move fast enough.
"Quit playing around, Yusuke." Kay used her makeshift bat on one of the gargoyles when it fell close to her. The vibration from the impact shook her arms in place. "Let's get inside."
"I'm ready when you are." Yusuke sent his tool crashing through the fence.
Yusuke and Kay stepped inside the castle with Sands. The brown suit held a flashlight in front of him. He played the light around the inside of a great meeting hall. Suits of armor stood in line on either side of the room.
"I don't see a way to go up." Sands played the light across the ceiling. "Any suggestions?"
"We need a secret door." Yusuke slammed the door on a gargoyle's face hard enough to use its head to punch a hole in the wood.
"How about a secret clock?" Kay went to a grandfather clock half hidden near a support column. She opened the cover to the face so she could move the hands.
The armors started moving. Gauntlets started moving polearms in sweeping patterns.
"What are you doing, Kay?" Yusuke retreated from the armor to give himself room to protect Kay from harm.
"Remember that mystery I was reading." Kay turned the watch hands to different positions. "There was a secret door behind a clock."
"Okay." Yusuke grabbed a polearm behind the axe blade and snapped the staff apart with the other hand before the user could stop him. He reversed motion to drive the axe on the end he had seized into the knight's helmet. "How do you open it?"
"There was something to do with the position of the hands." Kay frowned as she moved the hands. "I can't remember the numbers."
"Try three o'clock." Sands fired his launcher at one of the army. He missed. The rocket fired into the wall and blasted it apart.
"It worked." Kay pushed the clock out of the way. "How did you know?"
"Three O'clock is the worst time of the night." Sands fired his launcher again. The rocket struck at point blank range this time. It carried the target across the room before exploding.
"Let's go." Yusuke kicked a walking armor out of the way. He had a pile of unmoving suits around him. "There's no point in staying here if we don't have to."
Kay stepped into the secret door. She vanished inside the column. The clock snapped back over the opening. The hands were gone.
"What just happened?" Yusuke kicked the clock out of the way. Blank stone marked where the door had been.
"They took her." Sands fired the launcher into the ceiling. "We have to get up there if we want to help her."
"How do we do that?" Yusuke hit the column with his fist. A hole appeared in the solid shaft.
"We climb." Sands put the launcher away, pulled out his rope gun. "That's the only thing we can do. We just have to do it fast."
6
Kay Banner held her bat in front of her as she looked around the throne room she found herself in. The staircase exit slammed shut as soon as she stepped out on the stone floor. She had turned to check it. The door was gone.
"I'm surprised that you have held out for so long." The voice belonged to a barbarian queen on the brass throne under windows of gray light. Her face shifted unpleasantly like wax under Kay's gaze. "Most humans kill themselves the first two days. Not you. You created two personas to help you. I'm impressed."
"Why are you doing this?" Kay brandished her club. "I don't know you. What have I done to deserve this?"
"I'm fulfilling the purpose of my existence." The Queen stood, flicking a scepter into the dream with a move of her long nailed hand. "I create nightmares to feed on the fear of the dreamer so I might grow fat and produce offspring. Only you have stopped being scared with the creation of your personas. That hasn't happened before. I admit I'm at a loss."
"I'll let you leave my mind if you go right now." Kay bit her lip. She sounded more confident than she felt. "I don't want to hurt you."
"Is that a trace of fear I sense?" The Nightmare Queen smiled, stretching her face. "Maybe I can heighten that feeling for you."
"I'm going to put you down." Kay brandished her bat. "This is my head, and I don't need another voice making me crazy."
"Have you had sex with an octopus?" The Queen smiled.
"What?" Kay stuck out her tongue in a sick to the stomach face. "Are you crazy? That's gross."
The floor erupted in a swarm of tentacles. They wrapped around Kay's limbs, holding her in place.
"You're about to find out how gross it is." The Queen's smile grew wider into a grin. "There's nothing you can do to stop it."
"You're wrong." Kay set her teeth. "I'm going to kill you."
Kay pulled against the tentacles. She glared at the Nightmare Queen. Fury overrode everything else. The long arms snapped one by one as she pulled loose from the animated cables.
"I'm going to kill you with my bare hands." Kay's arms pulled loose as she snapped some more of her captor's appendages off of his body. "Fear me."
"I don't think so." The Nightmare Queen stabbed Kay in the leg with her sword, slicing her jeans as neat as a laser. The girl fell. "I'm here to torture you. I'm here to spawn off your misery. I will never fear you."
"What about me?" Yusuke Tremaine appeared in the room from a crack in the floor. His eye glowed with blue and green light mixing in anger.
"Her persona." The Queen looked doubtful. "I don't know how she created you again, but you can't stop me either."
"I'm not a figment." Yusuke pulled Kay loose from the grabby appendages as casual as he would have done in the real world. "I'm real, and I'm here to kick your face in."
"Where's the man in the brown suit, Yusuke?" Kay looked at her leg, wishing for bandages. A roll appeared in her hand. She had worked on Yusuke enough to know how to treat cuts.
"He's coming." Yusuke's face glowed as the light from his eye spread. "He said he wanted to make sure the rest of the dream was blocked off."
"I don't believe you." The Queen stabbed with her sword. Her mind made it real. It should cut this figment down. Then she could return to the girl.
Bars slid down over the windows. A portcullis covered the door. Plants grew to block out the light from the dream sky.
Yusuke grabbed the point of the sword with his hand. He moved forward just as he would in the real world. The blade snapped off as he kicked. His foot hit the Queen in the shin. She stumbled back with the snapped bone sending pain through her body.
"I don't let people hurt my friends." Yusuke stabbed the Queen in her other shapely leg with the broken point he still held in his hands. "I take that personally."
Kay applied the bandage to her leg, glad that the cut didn't seem as bad as she had first thought. She moved away from the combatants. Yusuke tended to splatter his enemies into thrown Jell-o.
"I reign supreme here." The Queen brandished the point of her sword back to its originality. "You can't stop me."
"I reign supreme." Kay sat cross-legged on the floor. "Get rid of her, Yusuke."
Yusuke glowed like a sun. The only thing brighter was his smile.
Yusuke grabbed the Nightmare Queen's wrist and shook the sword loose with one hand. The other hand stabbed into her liquid face. She reeled back from the blow. A foot helped her. She crashed into the wall with the windows, blowing through the dream mortar with ease.
"The castle's fading, Yusuke." Kay stood up. Her leg didn't bother her at all now.
"I'm going to make sure she left." Yusuke pulled out the alarm clock. "The other guy will look out for you if we're wrong."
"I can look after myself." Kay smiled as he faded away. She looked around the misty room. She could look after herself a little better after this.
Yusuke woke in the darkened room. He looked around with his lightning speed. A worm the size of a cucumber drifted on the air. It flew toward the wall in the hopes of leaving the house in one piece. The medium's hand closed on it, crushed it to dissipating vapor.
"I don't let monsters eat my friends." Yusuke watched the strands of ectoplasm fade away.
Kay smiled in her sleep. She turned over, thinking of some other place. Yusuke wondered what she dreamed but decided it was time to head home. He could ask her later after she had slept enough to recover her rest.
He was sure it was something lovely.
epilogue
Kay Banner smiled when she spotted Yusuke Tremaine waiting for her at the end of the sidewalk from the school entrance. Her face had cleared of tiredness and wear from her nightmares. She hugged the delinquent before handing over her books.
"You look way better." Yusuke smiled. Even the dragon on his jacket looked happy.
"It's thanks to you and that other man." Kay skipped along on the sidewalk. "I slept the night through for once."
"No problem." Yusuke shrugged. "You had a bug. Now it's gone."
"Let's get some coffee before we head to my house." Kay smiled. "I have some makeup work for the two days I missed."
"No problem." Yusuke spun the books on his index finger. "I'll treat."
"Really?" Kay raised her eyebrows.
"Sure." Yusuke watched the books blur to a disk. "I rolled some muggers last night."
Kay shook her head. She knew he trolled for criminals. There seemed to be no shortage of people willing to go to the hospital.
Yusuke was not known for his gentleman ways.
Kay opened the door for them when they arrived at the shop. The counter people smiled when they saw her. They frowned when they saw Yusuke coming behind her. He frowned back.
"I'll get us expressos." Kay took a tattered bill from Yusuke. "Go get us a table."
Yusuke went to the table at the back of the room. His green eyes roamed as he waited for Kay to arrive with his coffee. He didn't like it usually, but the way Kay ordered it almost made him a believer.
"Here you go." Kay settled in the seat in front of him. "One expresso for you, one for me."
"Need any help with your homework?" Yusuke watched the crowd. Things happened. He liked to at least pay attention so they didn't catch up to him.
"I think I can handle it." Kay sipped her coffee. "What do you have planned for the night?"
"I need some more money." Yusuke sipped his coffee. "I'm planning to hit the parks again."
"You could get a job." Kay shook her head as she worked on her expresso. "Then you wouldn't have to wait for someone to rob."
"I see it as a public service." Yusuke smiled. They both knew he didn't care about anyone else but her. "I'm demonstrating the right way not to get hurt while trying to rob someone."
"And how many graduates have graduated from your lessons, professor?" Kay envisioned a long line of students paying to get mauled by Yusuke.
"None." Yusuke scanned the room again as he drank. "Big red F's are all I have given out so far. I have high hopes that I will find one student who can take an armbreaking without screaming like a baby."
"Good luck with that." Kay sipped more of her expresso. She thought there were some recipes she could try using it as an ingredient. She would have to check her books when she got home.
"Until I find that one perfect student, I'll have to keep looking." Yusuke finished his cup. "It's the only way."
"Why do you need the money?" Kay knew that Yusuke had been working on his house for the longest time. He had totally renovated the old place since he bought it from the city.
"I'm going to be putting in windows soon." Yusuke put his cup aside. "I need new frames and glass to be fitted in."
"When can we come over for a housewarming?" Kay knew that Yusuke hated parties, barely tolerated anyone. She and the man who had helped get Yusuke's house for him seemed to be the only exceptions to the rule.
"Come by in a couple of days." Yusuke pulled out a sheet of paper. "I'm hoping to have the windows ready to go by then. It kind of depends on how many donors I can persuade to put in charity for my fund."
A man in a brown suit crossed Yusuke's field of view. He sipped coffee and read a newspaper. He stood at the end of the serving counter, not bothering to try and find a seat at one of the available stools, tables, or booths.
"Does that man look familiar to you?" Yusuke pointed at the man in the brown suit. "I could swear I've seen him before."
"I feel the same way." Kay turned to spot the man Yusuke indicated. "I don't remember where."
"Neither do I." Yusuke started to get to his feet. "I should go over and ask him."
"What if we're wrong?" Kay shook her head. "We shouldn't bother someone just because he reminds us of someone else."
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained." Yusuke stood up. "I'll be right back. Don't worry."
Yusuke walked over and tapped the man on the shoulder. He turned, paper and briefcase in one hand, coffee in the other. His eyebrows lifted over mud brown eyes.
"Do I know you?" Yusuke stared at the bland face, reaching for recognition but finding nothing.
"I don't think so." The man in the brown suit smiled. "Gordon Sands. I'm an accountant."
"Yusuke Tremaine." Yusuke sensed something false about the statement but he couldn't tell what. "I fix people's problems."
"Glad to meet you." Sands nodded, went back to his paper.
He wasn't going to tell Yusuke about his role in the nightmares they had fought through to save his girlfriend. It was better if they forgot about him.