Mists of Everness (The War of the Dreaming) Read Online Free PDF Page B

something, not by a middle-aged, hard-ass jarhead in a wheelchair with two bad legs, whose bright idea was to use a weapon he didn’t know how the hell worked.
    And it was really dumb to throw it the second time.
    So the black hats won. Azrael de Gray was in control of the mansion, which meant—as far as Peter understood this mumbo jumbo—that he ruled the world.
    There was something worse than Azrael coming, something big and bad.
    And Peter was down for the count. And never getting up again. Arms and legs out of commission. World about to end. Very, very unlucky.
    If Peter had done his job right, if he had only done his job right, Azrael would have been the one flat on his back, paralyzed in all four limbs, and peeing in a tube.
    Peter replayed the battle in his head.
    There had to be some way for a little mortal man to use that damned god-hammer properly. If only he could have figured it right. If only these nightmares about the beast would stop. If only Raven had used the ring when he’d had the chance.
    If only, if only. Crap. Peter wished he could just go crazy all at once and get it over with.
    Bergelmir. The other giant had been called Bergelmir.
    II
    Peter, from where he lay, could view the bleak, gray metal slab of the door, often left hanging open, and a bit of the drab olive corridor beyond. And why bother to close and lock it? Peter wasn’t going anywhere … and his captors knew it.
    He could usually see the guard stationed in the corridor.
    It was not the same man every day, but he always had the same expression on his face: dull-eyed, drowsy, harsh.
    The guards never spoke nor laughed; they never fidgeted nor smoked, but stood in postures stiff as a Queen’s Own Beefeater at Buckingham Palace. Peter would have admired the military discipline, if it had been military discipline.
    Peter might have felt sorry for them, if he had not seen, where their collars were not buttoned tight, a witch-mark of a shape he knew. Whatever enchantment these men were under now, the original vow that had put them in the Warlock’s power had been sworn voluntarily.
    Whenever he turned his head (and all he could turn was his head), Peter could see the security camera clinging to the ceiling above the head of his bed. The large-wheeled cart on which his medical equipment was kept was to the right of the bed. Farther right was the small, dusty square, crisscrossed by bars and thick wires, of the tiny window. That window was his only source of happiness. Some days he would lie for hours staring at the dusty square, hoping for a glimpse of clear blue sky. Once, to his great delight, he saw a bird fly by.
    The window was his entertainment. If he got bored with the view, he could always turn his head and stare back at the guard or at the medical equipment on the cart.
    They didn’t bother to feed him; an intravenous drip led from the cart to his arm, with nutrients to keep him hungry, always hungry, but alive. A catheter led from his diapers to a pump on the cart, to carry his wastes away. For his thirst, they had hung above the headboard one of those little sipping bottles bicyclists sometimes used, with a straw and nipple for him to suck on.
    Also on the medical cart was the EEG machine that monitored his brain waves for REM sleep patterns. Peter sometimes entertained himself by banging against his pillow with violent yanks of his head, to see if he could dislodge the little metal tabs taped to his skull.
    The only other thing to look at was the drawing chalked on the wall. But the sketch was of a hideous beast, a shaggy, hunched shape with snarling fangs and dripping claws, biting at the chains that bound it. The Beast looked something like a bear, with the arms of a gorilla and the head of a saber-toothed tiger.
    Peter saw enough of the creature at night, in his nightmares, when the Beast stepped out from the wall, and prowled around the outside of whatever dungeon or oubliette he was in that night. He had seen more than enough