He never made it fully out of the city before the car died. The end came with an awful rattling noise and then it grinded to a slow halt on a dark street somewhere on the north side of the city, where D.C. stopped and Maryland began. It seemed a miracle he’d even made it that far, considering the amount of damage it had sustained in the hails of gunfire.

Unfazed, Joe left the vehicle right where it died on the side of the road, and then set off on foot. He was glad to leave it behind. The bullet-riddled car drew far too much attention, there was no doubt. He wondered briefly whose car it was—though Roy had driven it during the mayhem, it surely was not his. Likely he’d hijacked it in the same way Landon had commandeered someone’s motorcycle.

It was well past 1 a.m. and the suburb was dark and quiet. Joe saw not a soul, and the only movement he detected were from some rats scampering around in a trash-ridden gully. While walking, he felt the weight of his phone in his pocket—it had survived the night’s events just fine. It called to him, in a firm, commanding way, but Joe was very reluctant to look at it. He figured he might be better off dropping it down into the sewer. But eventually he gave in, and with a groan, he pulled it out and had a quick glance. As expected, there were a slew of missed calls and unread texts, from so many of his panicked friends, wondering what had happened to him. But he hadn’t the strength to look at even a single one. Instead he dropped the phone right back into his pocket. Those were messages from some other world. They didn’t make sense in the one he was in.

After walking a few blocks he saw up ahead there was a gas station and convenience mart that actually looked open. The pale lights shone on the entrance and cast shadows across an empty lot. Joe walked toward it. While still a good hundred feet away, he heard a crisp bell tone sound as the door popped open, and lo and behold, Roy emerged from it.

He moved gingerly, his suit ragged and ripped in a few areas from the tumbles he’d taken. He held a beer in his hand, an aluminum can, and as Joe watched in muted disbelief Roy popped the top and drank from it brazenly while standing by the entrance to the store. He was nearly finished with it by the time Joe finally spoke.

“What the hell, Roy?” Joe asked. He remained standing there, stunned, as Roy crushed the empty can and dropped it into a trash receptacle.

“Are we having fun yet?” Roy asked.

Joe walked a little closer, until the two stood facing each other in the empty lot that was strewn with gravel and debris. Around them the streets were dead quiet. Roy looked back at him with a light, tired grin. His expression said he was weary, but there was relief written into it as well—like they’d won something.

“Are we safe now?” Joe asked. “Or is Landon still on our ass?”

“I think it’s over. For now, anyway.”

“So I mean… seriously, what the hell, Roy?”

“I know, Joe. It’s a lot to take in.”

“No, I mean, why didn’t you get a beer for me? You selfish ass.”

Roy broke down quite genuinely, cracking a very real smile. “Don’t worry, kid. We’re going to a bar now. Just keep your head on straight until we get there. Then we drink. Then we talk.”

“Oh, thank God. I like this plan. I like it very much.”

“I thought you might.”

“Your car died a couple blocks back, by the way. I left it there on the side of the road.”

Roy gave no reply.

“It’s not even yours, right?”

He shook his head dismissively, like that was a preposterous notion to begin with.

“Yeah, I mean why would you even need a car? Since you can teleport? When are you going to explain that one to me, Roy?”

“Look, there is not any grand explanation I can give that’s going to be anywhere near satisfactory for you.”

“But you can teleport, right?”

Roy looked at him patronizingly. “Sure,” he replied. “Something like that.”

“You’d called it becoming unbound earlier. But it’s basically teleporting. So how the hell do you do that?” Joe barked.

Roy spoke with an air of impatience. “The same way you leap off buildings. And soar from rooftop to rooftop like a ninja in a kung-fu movie. You gonna explain that one to me too, Joe?”

Joe fell silent.

“Now, c’mon,” Roy said. “I need alcohol in me. Let’s get walking somewhere.”

Joe felt great relief as he walked alongside of him. “As I said, Roy. I like this idea,” he said. “Not a lot of bars are open now, though.”

“You let me worry about that. We’ll find something.”

“What are we going to find around here?” He cast a wide glance about the empty streets around them. “This neighborhood looks like it’s from the apocalypse.”

“Careful with that kind of talk,” Roy replied. “Now come on.”

They walked on in silence, under glowing white streetlights, past quiet shops and warehouses, some of which were in disrepair. There was an auto body shop littered with trash and parts all about a weed and gravel-filled yard.

It seemed ridiculous to Joe that he wasn’t taking the opportunity to fire off a million questions at Roy. But he felt too weary, too detached. So finally he forced himself to start talking.

“So, that guy… Landon. Him coming after me like that…”

“Yeah?”

“It would seem that, one, well, he’s obviously still fucking her. Two, he found out about me. And three, he’s dangerously jealous, in addition to being a totally deranged psycho. In a vacuum, that’s it, that’s the answer. But somehow I know that isn’t right. What just happened is… way too over the top.”

Roy shrugged. “You could still go with that though, if you want. The ludicrous love triangle.” He spread his hands in the air, as though showcasing it. “That one plays all the time. It’s classic. Timeless. It’s almost comforting.”

“So what’s really going on, then?” he asked. “Landon is in the sect?”

Roy shrugged halfheartedly. “Sure, we could go with that, too. Landon’s in the sect, and he hasn’t the same patience that your girlfriend does, trying to recruit you. He sees you as a threat, so he’s trying to extinguish you. That’s plausible.” Roy actually gave him a thumbs up.

Joe gave a deep, cynical sigh. “It sounds like you think this is all bullshit.”

Roy returned a hard stare. “I’ve already told you the fuckin’ truth. You just weren’t ready to accept it yet.”

“Tell me again, then. I’m ready now.”

“There are dream weavers in this world, Joe, those that can bend the world to their liking, and to their whims.”

“Dream weavers. I’ve heard that term before.”

Roy nodded. “So, this girl, Danielle…”

“She is to my liking,” Joe said, finishing the sentence for him. “She is to my whims.”

“Exactly.”

“She’s a fantasy I created. Without even knowing it.”

“Yes.”

“But that doesn’t explain how Landon fits in.”

“I told you, Joe. The fantasies are all well and good. But the nightmares follow.”

Joe felt goosebumps sprout all over his body. “So you’re saying I created him, too.”

Roy nodded. “Yes, you did. And they’re both very dangerous. Don’t forget it. One can send you to heaven. But the other can send you to hell. Either way, you’re dead.”

“But I know a guy who’s a dream weaver.” He thought of Eddie Morrow, and his smug, confident grin. “He’s spun the world to his liking, and he… seems to be doing just fine. Better than fine, actually. He’s on top of the world.”

“Well, they may not be visible, but... he has his demons, too. Trust me. And they’ll come for him. Like I said, Joe. The nightmares always follow.”

Eventually, Roy led Joe toward one of the nameless buildings lining the street, seemingly at random. It looked like it was a hundred years old. The windows were dark and it was devoid of any signs of life whatsoever. Roy rapped on an old door, while Joe looked on skeptically.

To his disbelief, within just a few seconds he saw a small panel on the door pull away and a set of striking eyes peering back at them.

“What is this, like a speakeasy?” Joe asked. He actually started chuckling, thinking how absurd this was.

There was recognition in those eyes, and moments later they heard the door unlocking from within. Then it opened, and a woman stood in the entryway. She was young, in her mid-twenties Joe reckoned, and she wore a simple T-shirt under a plain apron, with her hair held back in a red and white bandanna. It was a flamboyant thing that looked to Joe like something gangsters would wear in a Nineties movie. Though Roy’s suit was ragged and even ripped in several areas, that didn’t seem to alarm her at all as she invited them in pleasantly, like she’d been expecting them.

“Please, sit down,” she said.

“Thanks, Amy,” Roy said warmly, as he took a seat. “This is Joe,” he added.

“Hi, Joe,” she replied, smiling, like she already knew that. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Joe said, while looking around.

It was a tiny bar, dimly lit, and with only a few stools. Amy asked what they wanted. The glass bottles of liquor shined along the back wall behind the bar and Joe thanked God.

“Shots,” Roy said, and with that one simple word, Joe felt the stress rolling off both of them. Roy especially—he actually seemed celebratory. “What’s your drink?” he asked.

“Vodka.”

“Make it two,” he said.

Amy put down two shot glasses and poured them each to the brim.

They took the shots and Joe felt his entire body ease. It had a similar effect on Roy, who sat on the stool next to him with a cool grin. She filled their shot glasses again before stepping away to resume some kind of busywork behind the counter. Joe couldn’t help but stare curiously at her.

“So you told me not to go chasing dreams,” he started. “Yet you manufacture this bar? With this lady from your past, who is probably your old girlfriend or something?”

“Very astute, Joe,” Roy replied. “Why do you think she’s an old girlfriend?”

Joe shrugged. “I can sense the air between you two.”

Amy overheard from behind the bar and Joe saw her smile. She was a stunner, it was clear to see, and even her plain clothes and bar apron couldn’t obscure that fact.

“You can dabble in it,” Roy said. “Sometimes you’ll need to, actually, to get yourself out of a jam. So it’s important to hone your skills. But you have to control them, and you have to stay grounded, because it’s easy to push it too far. Especially if you’re new at this, or if you don’t have any restraint.”

Joe nodded. “The hostess tried to seduce me the other day at Capital Libations. She was somewhat… shall we say aggressive?”

“Oh, I remember. You were spinning out of control. A real loose cannon.”

Joe stared hard at the bar and concentrated.

“What are you doing?” Roy asked.

“Imagining stacks of cash to appear. I’ll start with just a cool 10k. I’m not greedy.”

Joe kept staring.

“It’s not working,” he said. Then he looked up at Roy. “Why isn’t it working?”

“Because I don’t think money is what you really want,” Roy said. “You can’t trick it. You can’t lie to yourself.”

“Of course I want money,” Joe protested, almost defensively. “How could I not?”

Roy shrugged. “Apparently you don’t. It’s not really a surprise. Money doesn’t inspire everyone. And I guess it doesn’t inspire you. This is proof.”

“It’s more about a certain lady,” Joe proposed, looking over at the bartender. “That’s what inspires us.”

Amy was easily within hearing distance, and so she gave him a glittery smile that registered perhaps more deeply than it should have. It prompted Joe to reach for his shot and he threw it back. In the afterglow he saw red light drifting in through the window from outside.

Curious, Joe peered out through the glass. There was a neon sign in the parking lot, set with a design that could instantly draw a man’s eyes with only a few curved lines drawn in just the right way. That neon sign absolutely had not been there before, Joe was sure of it—but it was there now. Joe also heard a thumping beat arise from nothing. It was muffled, like it came from next door.

Amy shot Joe a different kind of look now, a naughty one that said he was bad. Yet she went right along with it.

“The club is open, guys,” she said. “If you want to head back there.” She pointed to a door along the wall that adjoined their tiny bar to whatever was happening next door, acting as though it had always been there.

Roy chuckled and looked at Joe. “You did that pretty easily.”

Joe spoke defensively as he stood to his feet. “Hey, you said yourself that you can’t trick it. That you can’t lie to yourself. So… it is what it is.”

Roy stood up too. “Just be careful, Joe. You have to have restraint. Remember.”

“Isn’t that how it always is in a strip club? Look, but don’t touch? This is nothing new.”

Joe pushed the door open and they were greeted to a flood of booming pop R&B hip-hop. Well, Joe wasn’t even sure what to call it, actually—it was trendy new shit he didn’t really know. He walked further into the cavernous club. Red and blue neon set the walls aglow in sleek, shimmering hues. There was one girl dancing on stage, and a few others working as waitresses, their mostly bare bodies painted in the same red and blue neon. A DJ at a booth wore giant sunglasses and a Detroit Pistons jersey, which despite everything Joe thought was hilarious.

There was a bar in the club, a long, sprawling one that wrapped around the stage. Joe and Roy sat down at it, their eyes at the level of the dancer’s mile-long legs. A waitress approached them, a brunette, her various articles of lingerie and numerous hair ties all a bright, shining green that glowed in the black-light, announcing her body like a megaphone.

“What would you like?” she asked, just loudly enough to be heard over the music.

“Something tall,” Joe replied. “And strong.”

“Make that two,” Roy chimed in.