Chapter One

For the third night in a row, Peter jerked awake screaming in Spanish. Davy woke up with a hoarse cry, startling the pair upstairs, who thumped and thudded their way down the stairs and burst into the bedroom.

Peter was sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, trembling. “Peter?” Mike was at his bedside. “What is it? ‘Nother nightmare?”

“Si . . . I-I mean yeah . . . ”

“Spanish again?” Micky said. Peter nodded.

Davy shuddered. “This is getting spooky! I’m starting to understand him!”

“Peter, puedes me comprende?” Mike asked.

He nodded. “Perfectly. I understand you perfectly.”

“This is too weird,” Mike said, scratching the back of his neck—something he did whenever he was spooked or worried.

Davy shook his head. “Man, that isn’t going to come off, no matter how much you scratch.”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Mike said dismissively.

“Don’t change the subject,” Micky said, cuffing Davy very lightly. “What’s goin’ on, Peter, you gettin’ language lessons in your sleep?”

Peter glared at him.

“Might as well tell us what’s goin’ on,” Mike said reasonably. “We’ll just keep buggin’ you until you do.”

“I’d tell you if I knew,” Peter sighed. “Every night I dream in Spanish, and every night I understand more and more.”

Davy’s face went white as milk. Mike noticed the reaction immediately. “Davy? What is it?”

“That’s my dream . . . ” Peter looked up at him, shocked and confused at the same time. Davy nodded. “I dream in Spanish every night, about going to Mexico like in Mike’s song.” He pronounced it ‘ME-hee-co’—perfect, accentless Spanish.

“This sounds like more than just a coincidence,” Mike said.

Micky groaned. “Mike, I really hate when you say stuff like that.”

“Why?” Peter asked. “Are you dreaming it too?”

“No!” Micky said quickly. “Precisely my point! If Mike keeps talking like that we’ll probably end up in ME-hee-co!”

Davy grinned and pointed at him. “You said it that way too! You are dreaming it!”

“No, I’m just imitating you, mate!” Micky said. “Look, if we quit now and go back to bed, we can just forget any of this stuff ever happened and maybe we won’t end up in . . . whatever we were gonna end up in!” He swallowed. “That’s not what I meant to say.” All eyes were on him.

“Micky, if something is going to happen, as you put it, then simply pretendin’ Peter an’ Davy aren’t really sharin’ dreams isn’t gonna make it not happen,” Mike said.

“Not that I want to be sharing dreams with anybody,” Peter said. “It’s creepy.”

Mike frowned. “What’s in these dreams, besides Spanish words?”

“A woman—” Peter began.

“Being abused,” Davy finished softly.

“Abused how?” Micky—who’d always privately enjoyed hearing the gory details—asked.

“I didn’t see,” they said in unison, then Peter finished. “She was just crying and bruised.”

“You don’t suppose . . . ” Micky began, then closed his mouth, as if what he was planning to say was too unbelievable even for his own ears.

“Go on,” Peter said softly.

“You don’t suppose there really is a woman who’s being hurt?” Slowly, Peter nodded. Micky looked at Mike. “What should we do?”

Mike thought for a moment. “Nothing, for now. All we have are two dreams in Spanish. Probably a fifth of the world speaks Spanish. We can’t go runnin’ out into the night ‘cause of that.”

“Let’s try to get some more sleep,” Davy said. “After all . . . we may need the lessons.”

Peter grinned. “Yeah, not everyone grew up in Texas and has spoken Spanish since he was a kid,” he teased.

Mike stuck out his tongue as he turned to follow Micky back upstairs, still unable to ease the disquieting murmur churning in the pit of his stomach.

“You okay?” Micky asked once they were alone.

“Yeah,” Mike said, his attention clearly focused elsewhere.

“Mike?”

“Hmm?”

“Penny for ‘em.”

Though usually responsive to gentle prodding by his bandmates, this time Mike wasn’t willing to share his thoughts with anyone but himself. “Nothin’, Mick. Go on back to bed.”

“Okay.” He nodded and lay down, eyes already heavily lidded. Unaware of what he was saying, he mumbled, “Buenas noches, Mike.”

“Buenas sueños, Micky,” Mike murmured as he lay back onto his bed.

“Mmm . . . para ti tambien,” he muttered, before the soft snoring started.

~~~~~

Mike dreamed.

He was in a town square, the pueblo architecture distinctly Spanish—either Mexican or Southwestern US. Mike knew from his childhood in Texas that the two were interchangeable, the latter an adaptation (some said a pale imitation) of the former. His friends flanked him, dressed not in their black uniforms, but in the gaudy outfits and bandoleros of Mexican outlaws.

“You are outnumbered, gringos!” a voice thundered. “You thought you could trick El Diablo!” As always the dream was in Spanish.

Mike’s dream body turned, starting at the sight of the man who looked more like a bull than a human. His massive body was formed of black smoke, and lightning sliced across the sky as he laughed, shaking the ground beneath them.

“MIKE!” the hysterical shriek drew his attention to Davy, who was being dragged onto the back of a monstrous black horse.

“Davy!” he screamed, lunging forward. The horse took off, leaving a cloud of black dust in its wake. He heard Peter’s cry for help, but the dust swirled even thicker, and a second thundering of hoofbeats sounded, Peter’s voice growing fainter.

“PETER, NO!” Mike reeled backwards, his back connecting with another body; he turned, his hands tightly gripping Micky’s arms.

“Mike! Mike, where are they?”

Mike turned, bracing himself as the ghostly men surrounding them closed in. “They’re gone, Mick. And I have a feeling we’re about to join them.”