It still felt like a dream. But it also felt completely real. Real, but with the cloudiness of a dream in his mind. Nicki Lieder. Not Pat at all. He didn’t love Nicki. But she was naked under him, and he knew how much she wanted him, and at this moment all he could think of was that he wanted her, too. Not her, but a woman, the woman here under him, the woman who had come to his bed. The woman in this extraordinary dream.

No, it’s not a dream, said something inside him. It’s not a dream, it’s someone who has the power to cloud your mind.

“You want me inside you,” said Nicki.

“Yes,” said Danny, even as something in his mind screamed at him, Listen to what she said, listen to what you just agreed to, it’s not you inside her, it’s someone asking to come into your body, and you said yes, you said yes, you fool.

And in the moment of ecstasy and release, he could feel it, this thing entering him at the groin and filling his whole body, taking control of his body. He tried to fight it, tried to move, but already he couldn’t, already it had him.

He could feel his body roll off the girl. He could see her lying there, gasping, looking confused. Looking relieved. And then weeping.

“That’s right, Nicki,” his own lips said, though he was not speaking, and only found out what they were going to say when they said it. “I’m gone now. You can have your body back, nicely healed by Danny North here. Maybe pregnant. Wouldn’t that be nice? Now be a good girl, get dressed, and go home.”

Danny’s body sat up and watched her as she gathered her clothing and put it on, still weeping softly.

“I enjoyed being inside you,” said Danny’s mouth. “You’re a sweet thing and you’ll find that this all becomes like a bad dream, and then like a good dream, and then you’ll miss me, you really will. They all do. The ones that live.”

And Danny was thinking: He was here for weeks. He found me weeks ago, when I came to Lieder’s house and healed his daughter. Was he already inside her then, or did he find her afterward, take control of her when she was clean of her cancer? Maybe Danny could have fought him off any other time, but now, asleep, exhausted, half in a dream, and then the Dragon asked him through Nicki’s mouth, asked him to let him come into Danny, and Danny said yes. But I didn’t realize what I was saying, I thought I was consenting to the sex, and it was sex in a dream, not real, nothing was real, it’s not …

Not fair.