by Aaron Crash
That made him smile. “Maybe not.”
Tessa squeezed him. “As for Zoey? She will figure herself out. And we can be there to help her. It’s going to be a long journey. If we continue to love her and each other, we’ll be okay. In the end, sex is not a big deal and really, really powerful, both at the same time. It’s so strange, and we have a lot of hang-ups about it. Even me still.”
He kissed her. “Tessa, you are amazing and brilliant.”
“About sex and relationships I am. For a lot of this other stuff? Totally clueless.”
Mouse came traipsing in and sat down at the dining room table. She let her head fall to thunk on the table. Her blonde hair was sticking straight out from her head in all directions. She looked rough. “Coffee.” She coughed. “Must. Get. Coffee.”
Tessa laughed. “Coming right up. I love this life! It’s like a slumber party every night!”
Aria was already loading their vehicle for the road trip and working hard. That woman never stopped.
Zoey came in from her run. She was in a thick wool sweater, a hat, and gloves along with some tights that hugged her thick legs. Smelling of the cold, she sat down next to Mouse and rubbed her back.
Steven expected Mouse to lash out with some sarcastic comment or push the werebear away. She didn’t. Instead, she leaned into the touch.
Zoey smiled at him. He smiled back. Every day she was getting stronger. When would she be strong enough to tell them about her past?
Would they find some answers in Texas? Steven didn’t know, but he was determined to stop the assassination attempts on him, and the hitmen seemed to have ties to the Lone Star State. At the same time, he was drawn there to investigate another of the mysterious chambers, maybe with full pools and more answers.
All he knew for sure was that, other than the cluster in Texas, all the three intertwined circles had been blue, including the one that marked the Denver portal to India.
The marker in Texas, however, had been red. Blood red.
TWELVE
Their first day driving to Texas was going to be full.
Steven wanted to check out the Denver portal, which was marked on the topaz pen’s map. And he’d promised his mom he’d help her decorate for Christmas, which was only a few weeks away.
On their way out of town, they stopped at a Little America to fill the new Cadillac Escalade. Little America was a Western institution, part gas station, part restaurant, part hotel. Its mascot was an inexplicable penguin.
They still had the battered old Ford Bronco II, the Orange Crush, as well as the rusted Suburban from Montana that Tessa had dubbed the Poupon. When Bud suggested they get rid of both vehicles, Steven disagreed. They ran. They were fine, and with the growing collection of women at the Infinity Ranch, he needed as many vehicles as he could get.
It was Tessa’s unofficial job to name their vehicles, and she was baffled at first. “What do you call a new car? I’ve never had a new car. And it’s a Cadillac? What? All I can think of is, ‘Jeeves, could you drive to the King Soopers for some capers?’”
And just like that, the new SUV had a name. Jeeves.
The wind continued to blow. A few flakes of icy snow leaked from the clouds but nothing serious.
Steven pumped gas with Aria while Tessa, Mouse, and Zoey went inside to get ice cream. Yes, it was cold, but Little America was famous for their ice cream cones.
All three women were in various versions of jeans: Tessa’s were ripped while Mouse’s were tight, showing off her cute ass. Zoey’s jeans didn’t quite fit her. They had to be loose to accommodate her thighs, but then her butt was lost. She kept having to pull them up but watching her do that was oddly adorable. She’d left behind her silence to become a big, awkward, friendly girl, quick to smile, and sometimes he knew she laughed just to be a part of the group, not really understanding what was going on. And that was okay. Better she laughed than cried. Sometimes, though, he’d catch her tearing up as she gazed out the window at the countryside.
Sabina stayed in the car, in the wayback, sleeping. Jeeves seated six comfortably but could hold eight. With how he was collecting women for his Escort he’d have to buy another one sooner rather than later.
Aria talked to him while the big SUV sucked gas. She wore a long red wool coat with a furry black hood. On her feet were black boots. “What you are doing is right, Steven. I am very glad things are progressing so well.”
Steven had bought a black North Face Gore-Tex shell he wore over a gray wool sweater. His mom had knitted him a black scarf to go with it.
“And what am I doing that’s right?” he asked.
“Sending Liam and the Five Widows to Australia. I approve.” Aria gave him an intense look.
He felt a big “but” in the air.
“Glad that you do,” Steven said.
Then Aria hit him with it. She glanced into the SUV window to make sure Sabina was sleeping, then she said in a low voice, “Some dragons in India believe that if you are born a Dragonsoul, that is your destiny. If you weren’t, you should accept that you are human. Sabina is a powerful Magician, sure, but she might be fated to fail the rituals. She is risking a lot.”
“Maybe,” Steven agreed. “But it’s her life. And in America, we believe in self-determination. We love stories of self-made people.”
Aria nodded. “You do. But sometimes the people are unmade by their dreams.”
“Part of the deal,” Steven said. He recalled what Liam had said about Sabina’s motivations. “But I think in this case, she is recreating herself. I want all of us to support that.”
“I have,” Aria said. “Even though I disagree with it.”
“What do you think of Zoey?” he asked.
Aria smiled, and her striking green eyes glittered. “At first I had my suspicions. But now? I see she is strong, she is simple, and she adores you. She is a perfect addition to your Escort.”
“Is simple good?” Steven asked.
“Of course! I am simple. It is a good way to be.”
“How are you simple?” The pump clicked, and he replaced the handle.
Aria replied at once. “I serve you. I fight for you. I love you because you are good, powerful, and I can trust you. It is all very simple. We battle. We win because we are strong.”
“Strong and smart,” Steven corrected. “We’ve not won on muscle alone. We’ve gotten lucky, sure, but we’ve also come up with some pretty effective strategies. We’ve revolutionized how dragons use shield spells, for one thing.”
“Because of Tessa.” Aria’s face showed her love for the barista.
Steven nodded. “Yeah. And I love her too.”
Tessa, Mouse, and Zoey returned with bags of travel snacks and their ice cream. They piled into the Escalade and got back onto I-25, going south. Aria rode shotgun. The three ice cream girls packed the middle row, all licking and sucking on the cones. Zoey got some vanilla on her nose, and Tessa licked it off her before kissing her on the lips. Both giggled.
Mouse rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Steven wasn’t sure about Zoey’s sexuality. Just one more question he had for her. He knew she was hanging out with Tessa and Pretty, but that didn’t mean they were fooling around together. Tessa and Pretty? Oh yeah, lots of banging there.
Tessa sobered. “Bad news. Other than ice cream, Zoey is not much for essential travel food. She said no to both Corn Nuts and Donettes. I even tried nacho-cheese Doritos or chili-cheese Fritos, but she refused. And she declined a Yoo-hoo.”
“What in the hell is that?” Mouse asked. “Is that like, ‘Damn, girl, you have some nice yoo-hoos.’”
“No, not boobs, a Yoo-hoo is a chocolate drink,” Tessa explained.
“I eat healthy,” Zoey said. “Is that okay? I bought carrots and trail mix.”
“Yeah, trail mix. Just raisins and peanuts.” Tessa shook her head. “It’s just so sad. What about the M&Ms, Steven? What about the M&Ms?”
>
Steven laughed.
When asked what music she liked to listen to, Zoey turned the question back on them. And so Tessa put on their road trip favorites. She played “Stacy’s Mom” for herself, “We Own It” for Aria, and “Free Bird” for Mouse.
That last song seemed poignant now. Shortly after the last time he’d heard it, Mouse had left them to face Rahaab alone.
For Steven, she put on “House of the Rising Sun,” but she went with The Animals version from 1964.
Steven had to smile. “I like it, but I like the Five Finger Death Punch cover better.”
“Oh, come on,” Mouse said. “The new one is total crap.”
“Uh, I have to agree with Ms. Tact back here.” Tessa then went Wikipedia on them. “Do you know how old that song is? It dates back to the 1920s if not older. They think a version might have been around since the seventeenth century. For real. And is the house a brothel? Or is it a prison? Or is it a pub? We don’t know. The only thing we do know is that The Animals do it the best.”
“I like Bob Dylan’s cover,” Sabina said from the back.
Aria didn’t side with him. “I’m with Mouse and Tessa.”
“Zoey?” Steven asked.
The big bear girl colored. “What? Oh, I don’t know. I like all the music. Don’t make me choose, okay?” She seemed visibly uncomfortable.
“It’s okay,” Steven said. “You don’t have to.”
Tessa held her hand and calmed her. Steven felt bad for putting Zoey on the spot. It had all just been conversation. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but then the werebear was new to the group, and it was obvious she didn’t want to make waves.
“You’re outvoted, Steven,” Aria said.
He shrugged. “I have someone actively trying to kill me. And I don’t think it’s for my poor music taste. In the end, I have more important things to consider.”
“Not sure there’s anything more important than your music taste, my Prime,” Tessa said. “I have serious doubts about your Primacy.”
“Take a ticket and stand in line,” he shot back. “I got a world of shit to do. Check out the Denver portal, help my mom decorate for Christmas, drive down to Texas to see why all the pool chambers are blue except the one near Odessa, Texas. Oh, and figure out which Dragonlord Prime is trying to kill me.”
At some point, he wanted to call the Wayne twins to get their take on things and feel them out more. Could they be involved? He had to consider the possibility. That would be a damn shame.
They hit Denver, and he pulled into the northwest parking lot of Sloan’s Lake off Sheridan. They all piled out. Steven thought it must be quite the spectacle. Steven and five beautiful women from model hot (that would be Aria) to an emo goth chick (Tessa) to homespun earthy (Zoey fit the bill there). Mouse was the token sexy blonde. Sabina turned heads even as she unfolded her white cane.
The clouds soon gave way to Colorado sunshine. It was fifty degrees and climbing, so the path around the lake was full of moms pushing strollers, bicyclists, and a few runners.
They walked down the path to the restrooms and park office on the north end.
“So this is where the portal is?” Steven asked.
“It is,” Aria said. “I swam through here two years ago.”
He wondered what she meant by “swam.” He would soon learn.
They walked around to the east side of the squat building made of big gray stone, cemented together. There were three garage doors, which probably housed maintenance equipment. However, they found a corner wall that was all rock.
“Tessa, could you hide us, please?” Aria said.
“Magica Defensio.” A pink force field flashed into existence. Tessa had gotten good at creating charms that were part shield spells, part concealing magic, to stop humans from seeing things she didn’t want them to see.
And Zoey was big enough to shield them from the path a bit, anyway.
Aria continued to orchestrate things. “Sabina, please, we need an Incanto spell on those bricks to access the chamber.”
The Latina Magician cast the spell, her eyes glowing green for a minute. The rocks in the corner split to reveal a staircase leading underground.
Steven went first, followed by his Escort. Once the last person was in, the stones shifted around like busy ants to hide the secret passageway. The staircase had been chiseled out of rock, roughhewn and wet. It descended fifty feet to open into a room not unlike the one they’d seen at the Grand Lake Aerie. That one had been sealed off from the outside world. This one had a definite entrance. Friezes of dragons and humans had been carved over an archway as well as on the walls, surrounded by mountains and pine trees. These forests, however, showed no sign of demons carved into the stone.
A single large pool glowed in the middle of the room, full of swirling crystalline blue water.
Approaching it, Steven smelled the scent of sulfur. It was a hot spring of some kind, or maybe that was just the odor of static portals. Again, he was reminded of the sacred pools in the Lookout Mountain Aerie.
Glancing up at the ceiling, he saw the jagged slashes of Dragonsoul script. He read the words:
This Eye Is Open. Do Not Let Yourself Be Seen.
“What can you tell me about those words?” he asked Aria.
She didn’t have an answer. She merely shrugged. And yet her face seemed troubled.
Mouse went to the pool and gazed down. Shadows of blue light flickered over her face. “It’s really more of a throat, right? But ‘the throat is open’ doesn’t really sound very mystical, does it?”
“Open throat does sound dirty,” Tessa agreed.
“And dragons love that poetic shit,” Mouse finished.
Sabina chuckled. “No, chica, you obviously don’t, and you’re a dragon.”
“The exception that proves the rule,” Mouse replied.
Sabina cast a Divination spell, and her eyes gleamed green. Now, she didn’t need her cane. She walked to the pool.
Tessa helped Zoey get closer to the portal entrance. The Morphling’s eyes were wide, and she seemed ready to bolt for the surface at any minute.
“Maybe I shouldn’t see this,” Zoey said. “Maybe this is secret Dragonsoul stuff, and I’m not worthy.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with being worthy.” Aria peered down into the waters. All of them were clustered around the basin. There was no bottom. It just disappeared into darkness. The water danced, and the glow threw wrinkled shadows around the sculpted walls.
Aria’s eyes traveled over the surface of the pool. “I emerged here last year. My father shipped my things. I brought some clothes in a waterproof bag. And I had a scroll to read an Incanto spell to get out. That was it. A new life for me, but only for a little while. I was meant to marry Rhaegen Mulk.”
“So you swam through the eye?” Steven asked.
“Yeah, see?” Mouse protested. “Swimming through an eye doesn’t work. You swam up through the throat from India. That works.”
Aria didn’t respond.
Steven thought that swimming into darkness, in hot water, trying to get to the other side would be frightening, especially for someone coming to a new country on their own. He marveled at Aria’s bravery. She was Old Blood and Guts, a warrior every bit as tough as General Patton had been.
Steven processed his thoughts out loud. “So this portal is working. The pool, or eye, of the Grand Lake Aerie was closed, okay? And not letting us be seen is probably a reference to the Zothoric. But what else is there to learn? Sabina, do you see anything?”
“I see your father here, Steven,” the Latina Magician said. “Stefan Drokharis, studying the friezes, trying to discern who created the portal and why it has been static ever since. And I see Dragonsouls building it, casting spells, millennia ago—after the Egyptian pyramids, but before the founding of Rome, when humans wearing leather hunted on these lands and Dragonsouls drifted through the clouds unseen.”
Tessa touched the waters of the pool a
nd whispered, “Magica Divinatio.” Her eyes glimmered with a bright pink light. “Across the universe. Isn’t that a Beatles song? This portal emerges in Mumbai on the other side of the globe, but really, time and space fail in its waters. Across the universe. It was a movie. It’s a novel by Beth Revis. We had it in our school library.” Her mouth went slack.
Sabina let out a sob of horror. Her face had gone pale.
“No,” Tessa hissed. “Time and space. A crust of bread. There is mold. There are maggots. Across the universe. They must eat.” She then said a word—it slithered out of her mouth, hard consonants, long wheezing vowels.
The walls came alive for a minute. Where there had been blank stone before under the friezes of pine trees, there were now eyes, fangs, the slash of talons in the rock.
“No, they might see. They might see!” Sabina shrieked. “Magica Incanto!” She fell to her knees, her eyes dark. Tessa had also lost her divination spell and her eyes were no longer pink. The barista collapsed to the smooth stone floor. Aria went to her, to help her, while Steven ran for Sabina.
Zoey turned tail and fled for the surface.
“Well, for the love of biscuits,” Mouse spat. “This is just peachy. I’ll go comfort the Morphling. You guys get your shit together and get the hell out of here.” She sped away.
Now the darkness at the bottom of the pool seemed sinister. Steven wanted his Escort out of there.
“Let’s go,” he said. “We can talk about this up in the daylight.”
“What kind of word came out of my throat, Steven?” Tessa asked in a small voice. “It hurt my throat to say. It hurt my soul.”
He didn’t know. But he thought they might have just heard their first word in Zothoric.
He glanced back at the walls. The stone under the friezes of the pine trees was empty again. Had he just imagined that it had changed? He didn’t think so. But he took blank stone as a good sign.
THIRTEEN
They restored the wall of the park office and were soon driving down Sheridan. Steven called his mom and told her they were on their way. She was overjoyed to have help decorating for Christmas, still three weeks away.
