The Sandman Read Online Free Page A

and Eleanor’s house and demanded that they come with her immediately to this place. Shortly after, the Oneiros had burned their house down.
    The woman sighed and made a connecting gesture with her hands. “Well, we know for certain that Maisie Lane, Jordan’s sister, is currently in hiding with Blackman and Lambert.”
    The marshal shook his head. “The tie is too tenuous to link the older sister to the Oneiros, and then Harlen to them through her. We have to wait until they wake to question them, or force them from the dreamwaters and hope they don’t lose their minds.”
    Harlen, an Oneiros?
    Gary had to correct the soldier. “Harlen Fawkes isn’t Oneiros. I swear on my life.” But someone here was. Why else orchestrate this…sting?
    The woman’s lips twitched. “And who are you?”
    Gary straightened as much as he could. “Gary Joseph Fawkes.”
    And now that he looked at her closer, he recognized her. Not that he typically knew politicians or anything but this one had been in the news. “I know who you are. Senator Fleight. Your daughter was murdered.”
    “Murdered. Exactly. By the Oneiros. And it’s time justice was served.”
    She had it all wrong. “But Harlen is on your side! The Oneiros just burned down my house. They killed Harlen’s boss. We’re hiding here so that they don’t come after him.”
    “Director Fawkes had an opportunity to thwart the Oneiros, and he did not do so. And here I find him in the company of a renegade Chimera marshal and the sister of a known associate of the people who murdered my daughter. Maybe you’re Oneiros,” she said. “Maybe you burned down your own house.”
    The Chimera soldier at her right leaned over to speak into her ear, but Gary couldn’t hear what he said.
    The senator nodded. “Give transport the all clear.”
    From the back of the house there was a thump , followed by an angry feminine squeal, then Sera’s voice. “Get your hands off me!”
    Two of the soldiers hauled her into the kitchen, grasping tightly under her upper arms, her elbows bent back. Her face was flushed with anger, but seeing Gary, she pulled herself together in one big breath. “Gary, are you all right?”
    He was already shaking his head at Senator Fleight. “She’s innocent. She’s a big-time chef.”
    “Damn right,” Sera said through clenched teeth. “Senator Fleight, I presume?”
    “Time enough for talk later,” the senator said.
    “No! You’ve got to listen to me.” Sera struggled against her captors. “The black market has fallen. Nightmares ha—”
    A single shot punctuated the air, followed by a frozen millisecond of silent shock on Sera’s face before her head lolled to the side and her body went slack between the two soldiers.
    “Sera!” Gary tried to rise, to go to her, but his bonds prevented him.
    In a swift, controlled drop, the soldiers lowered Sera to the floor as another shot rang out. The senator’s Chimera advisor went down in a heap, thumping against the front door, a red hole in his forehead.
    Gary glanced from Sera’s body to the fallen Chimera’s and back again, frantic and confused. His heart and mind felt blasted with horror.
    The senator’s advisor had shot Sera—the gun was still in his hand—and one of the soldiers had shot the advisor back.
    Blood seeped into an enormous gory corsage on Sera’s chest, just above her heart. One of the Chimera soldiers was already applying pressure. Another checked her pulse and then grabbed a dish towel so that the first soldier could use it to absorb the blood under his hands.
    “Sera!” Gary shouted again, desperate for a sign of life. This could not be happening. Harlen would be destroyed. The whole family would be.
    “He was going to shoot you next, ma’am,” said the soldier behind Gary to the senator.
    Senator Fleight had gone pale, her mouth pinched. “Oneiros.”
    “Call an ambulance!” Gary begged. Restrained as he was, he could do nothing to help Sera.
    A nod from the