Vincent shrugged. “I think she was just so happy to be involved in something that had to do with another dimension that she didn’t mind. Most of those people were friends of others she’s helped over the years, who were so grateful they were more than willing to play a part for a time.”
“Where is Xyza now?”
“Probably back where she lives. Once the illusion was no longer necessary, neither was she. It probably weakened her a lot.”
“You mean making the buildings look like they were still used? Making Trevor’s home look lived-in?”
“Yes. Some of that was elbow grease, but some of it was her magick.”
“Christ, magick and other dimensions…you know, a week ago I would’ve called the guys in white jackets to come after you and me both.”
“Exactly!” Vincent snapped his fingers, smiling. “That’s why we had to ease you into everything. Plus now you know your past, you’ve reconnected with it. You’re whole enough to be able to handle this new stuff we’re throwing at you.”
“Vincent?”
“Yeah?”
“What did you mean when you say you didn’t have a lot of time? I mean, to get me to make this personal journey and then reveal yourselves to me?”
“That’s the other part of things I haven’t told you yet,” he said, taking her hand and leading them to the bed where they sat down. “When you started writing books for us, it started helping us. We’re not quite certain how it works, but we were pretty bad off before you wrote your first book. Vasan was getting more and more crafty trying to get to Ibrahim. We had insane security, but he’d already broken through three times. It was pure luck that we were able to ward him off, but things were getting to the point where Dad was considering moving us all to an island out in the middle of nowhere to keep us all safe.”
“So all this time he’s still been trying to kill his cousin?”
“Well, it evolved. That’s still his primary objective, yes, but we’ve got some secret designs, blueprints for machines that could be used for some really nasty purposes if they fell into the wrong hands. He found out about them last time he was on the Estate; he saw a couple of the prototypes in our warehouses out there and he wants them.”
“To what end? To sell them?”
“I don’t know. But he could very easily use them to destroy not only us, but anyone else. Prototype One is going to be the fastest aircraft on Earth. He could be in, level a major city, and out before anyone knew what happened.”
“If they’re so dangerous, why are you building them? I thought you guys were more into peaceful things.”
“We are. It’s not important right now; it’s something new we’re thinking of doing. But the point is that we think Vasan has something big planned. It’s why he came back for you. You’re part of the whole thing somehow.”
“He said he wanted me to come back with him. He said he wanted me to rule next to him.”
“Rule what?”
“Not sure, but it sounded pretty global.” Jane sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Listen, I think we should go now. I’m getting a really bad feeling.”
“Yeah, and I’m starting to feel like shit. Come on.” Vincent raised his arm, pointing his fist toward the middle of the room. He pressed a button on his watch and suddenly a blue light shot out from the watch, creating a portal in the middle of her bedroom.
“Holy shit!”
“Pretty neat, huh?” he grinned, taking her hand. “You ready?”
“I think so.”
They had just turned to step through the door when a war cry pealed through the air. They whipped around to find Vasan running at them at full speed. Vincent turned and shoved Jane through the portal before she even knew he’d moved.
“No!” she cried, her voice disappearing into the bluish liquid. Vincent turned to dive through after her, but Vasan caught his ankle. He tried kicking at him, but Vasan was gaining ground pulling him back out of the portal. Vincent looked up, his head and shoulders were on the other side. Jane tumbled to a stop against John, Sr.’s legs, screaming for someone to help him.
John and Steve lunged forward, each grabbing one of Vincent’s hands. “Hold on, son!” John ground out. “Hold on!”
Jane turned and grabbed hold of John’s legs. Johnny came running into the room and immediately fell on Steve’s legs, trying to hold him down as the group kept getting pulled closer and closer to the portal.
“Dad!” Vincent cried as his father’s hand slipped away. He turned wide, frightened eyes on Steve, who used his other hand to grip his brother’s wrist.
“Vincent!” Jane cried, running for his other hand. But with one last, giant jerk, Steve lost his grip and Vincent was dragged back through the portal to Jane’s side. The door snapped shut. “No!” she yelled, running and dropping to her knees where the door had been. “Vincent!” So lost was she that she didn’t even hear Ibrahim approach. He knelt next to her and put his arms around her.
“Vincent!” John yelled, scrambling to his feet. “Steve, get the portal opened, now!”
“Wait!” Jane cried, struggling to stand with Ibrahim’s arms still around her. “You can’t go alone. Vincent’s already weak and you guys have a lower tolerance.”
“Well, you’re not going,” John said. “That’s all we need is for Vasan to get his hands on you, too.”
“It’s my dimension!” she said sternly, going to stand in front of the portal as the painting in front of it slid back. “Dammit, this is my fault, John!”
“No, it is mine,” Ibrahim said softly, standing at his daughter’s side.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, it’s my son over there.”
“This is exactly what he wants, Dad,” Steve said ominously as he approached the group. “He wants us all over there for some reason.”
Jane snapped her fingers as it all became clear. “To trap you!”
“What?” Johnny asked as he walked up to them rubbing a bruise forming on his forearm.
“It makes perfect sense! He knows if he traps you over there that eventually you’ll die! But I won’t! Don’t you see?”
John frowned. “What are you getting at?”
“Listen, I don’t know what’s going on here beyond what Vincent’s explained. All I know is that my books were helping you. But that’s no longer enough. Now I have to help you. Directly. I’m going. I’m going to get Vincent back and…Ibrahim, listen to me.”
Ibrahim looked up.
“If I trap Vasan over there, instead of the other way around, will he die?”
Ibrahim looked at John and his sons before turning back to Jane. “I do not believe he can survive there for very long any more than we can.”
“Good. Then that’s what I’ll do. I’ll get Vincent back and trap Vasan on my side.”
“But how?” John asked. “If you trap him over there, won’t you be trapped over there, too?”
She hadn’t thought of that. She looked to Ibrahim, who shook his head sadly. “Well, do any of you have any better ideas? Vincent’s time is running out!”
“I’d rather all of us died over there together than to leave him by himself,” Steve said.
“Hang on,” Jane said softly, the wheels of her mind turning. “There was something Vincent told me…” She looked up at Ibrahim. “When you threw me and my mother into my dimension, he said you opened the portal with some sort of incantation, and that you didn’t even know where it led.”
“That is true,” Ibrahim nodded.
“Well, why can’t you do that again?”
Ibrahim’s face was a mask of confusion. “I do not understand.”
Jane barked out a laugh. “This is perfect! We go over to get Vincent, the four of us,” she said, motioning between herself and the remaining Tanner men. “Then Ibrahim follows later while we’re keeping Vasan busy.”
“I’ve got it!” John said, a grin creeping onto his face. “Ibrahim opens a portal to somewhere else and we shove Vasan through it, just
like Ibrahim did with you and your mother!”
“Bingo,” Steve said softly.
“Think it’ll work?” Johnny asked.
John’s grin widened. “Damn straight it will. But we need a plan, and we have to hurry.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Vincent moved his hands, trying desperately to get them out of the panty hose Vasan had used to tie them together with. His legs were bound one to each front leg of the chair, but he figured if he could at least get his hands undone he could do something other than sit here helplessly.
His mind turned to Jane. At least he’d gotten her to safety. Then again, how safe was she, really? She’d acclimated to this dimension. Would she weaken over on their side just as he weakened over here? He tried wiping the sweat from his brow with his shoulder. His stomach churned, a permanent feeling of nausea having settled in. With each moment he became more and more tired, but he fought the feeling with all that he had. He wasn’t about to check out. Not until he knew for sure that Ibrahim, Jane and his family were safe once and for all.
But what could he do? He was surprised Vasan hadn’t tried opening the portal, but guessed the older man didn’t know that it was Vincent’s watch which opened it. He supposed he could try to open one now and get himself through it; he could just barely reach the button on his watch that would do it. But there was no guarantee they’d get it closed before Vasan followed him, and they didn’t need a replay of what had happened so many years ago with that madman in their home.
He also knew his father would be planning something. Surely Jane had told them what happened, and he also knew his dad and Steve would be feeling guilty right now for not having succeeded in pulling Vincent back home. But that guilt would propel them into trying to rescue him. Then again, he wasn’t sure that was what he wanted, for what if that was Vasan’s plan? After all, he’d kept Vincent alive when Vincent had been certain the first step would’ve been his death. It had to be for a reason.
And that reason, he concluded, was that he was being used as bait. One or more of his family members would come over in search of him and Vasan would get the drop on them one way or another. He felt his heart skip a beat and frowned in horror as he then felt it slow way, way down. No, he thought. No, not yet. Breathing became more labored as he tried desperately to free his hands. Had they done all this for nothing? Sure, Jane knew the truth now, and had been reunited with them and with her father. But the evil that was Vasan still hung over the entire operation like a heavy black rain cloud, and Vincent feared the deluge he felt was about to be unleashed.
His head dropped as his hands stopped moving. Visions filled his mind, visions of making love to Jane. At last, having had her in his arms. Touching her, kissing her, being inside her. Surrounding her. Telling her the truth, explaining about her past, about what had happened. His heart seemed to slow even more. He closed his eyes, tears mingling with the drops of sweat on his face. He’d only gotten to hold her skin-to-skin that once. But at least now she didn’t hate him, or fear him. At least now she had the complete truth about herself. And at least he’d gotten to tell her how much he loved her.
His vision began to blur, black nothing inching in from the corners of his eyes. He wondered if he’d ever see his father again. His brothers. Ibrahim. Jane. He heard Vasan approach and felt him grab his chin roughly. Through the slits of his eyes he vaguely recognized the harsh Asian features, but couldn’t understand the words he was speaking. Some foreign language. Chinese, maybe. No, that wasn’t right. His thoughts became muddied. He felt a sting on his cheek. He must have been hit, but he couldn’t reconcile what he’d felt with any action. He just couldn’t think linearly.
Vincent felt his head being shoved. It flopped around like a rag doll. His eyes closed completely. “Jane,” he whispered. “Janie.” It was the last thing he thought.
* * *
“All right. Everyone knows their jobs?” John surveyed the group before him. Each of them nodded in agreement. “Jane, are you sure you want to do this?”
“He’s your son, John, but I…” Jane looked over at Ibrahim before looking back at John Tanner. “I love him. I have to.”
The older man smiled slightly. “Okay. Ibrahim, are you ready?”
“Yes.”
Steve moved to the gold-framed portal. “All right, Johnny, take hold of my hand and Dad will take yours. The three of us have to enter together so he thinks we’re the only ones coming.”
“Steve!” Jane called as she ran up to the three of them.
“What?”
She grabbed him in a quick hug. “Be careful.” Then she looked at Johnny and John. “All of you.”
“You too, Jane,” Johnny smiled. “Okay, let’s go.”
Jane retreated to stand next to her father as the three men entered the portal and disappeared. Ibrahim moved quickly to close it. Jane began pacing, stealing glances at the one who’d had a hand in creating her, but who she didn’t know from Adam. Once when she looked up after checking her watch, she saw him staring at her.
“Ibrahim, I…” Her voice trailed off as she approached him. “We have another eight minutes before we’re due over there.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“About what?”
“You. My mother. I don’t know.”
Ibrahim nodded and a faraway look came to his eyes as he began to speak. “Your mother was very beautiful. She was from an old family in England. We met the day I went for an admissions interview at Oxford. She was also interviewing, she had just finished and exited the office where I was waiting. We began to talk, and after that we were inseparable. We married one year later while we were both students there.”
Jane’s eyes widened. Her parents had both gone to Oxford?
“I studied Anthropology while your mother was a student of English language and literature.” Ibrahim stopped and smiled. “You come by your profession honestly.” Jane smiled in return as he continued. “By the time she was with child, we had been running from Vasan for three years. From England we fled to New York. From New York we made our way west, always hoping we could lose ourselves somewhere. Be safe where he could never find us. But it was not to be.”
“Yes, Vincent told me how John went and got my mother from Oklahoma. He also told me what happened that night when Vasan came to the Tanner Ranch.”
Ibrahim nodded sadly. “I never meant for your life to be so difficult. But I fear it may have been even worse had you and your mother remained. I never…” He faltered, looking away as tears filled his eyes. “I didn’t want her to die.”
Jane moved forward hesitantly, stopping and starting before reaching out to take his hand. “You loved her very much, didn’t you?”
“More than life,” he whispered, looking up into her eyes as one tear escaped an eye. “I loved you both more than life.”
“I…I suppose I should call you Father now.”
“It is not necessary. I do not wish you make you uncomfortable. I know this is happening very fast from your perspective.”
“There’s something I don’t get, though.”
“What is that?”
“Well, you’re Asian. In my book, Vasan is half Malaysian and half Chinese. He says your mothers were twins, and you have similarities, but he looks distinctly more Asian than you.”
“Actually, he and I have quite a mixed ancestry. Our mothers were direct descendants of the prophet Mohammad. They were also one-quarter native Malay and one-quarter British. His father was Chinese while mine was half Malay and half British.”
“That still doesn’t explain me.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t look Asian at all. I mean, I’m blonde, I have light skin, blue eyes and my eyes aren’t shaped right.”
Ibrahim smiled. “You have not yet looked in a mirror here, have you?”
Jane frowned. “No, but what difference does that make?”
“When you moved into the other dimension, your ap
pearance changed to reflect where you were,” Ibrahim explained, leading her across the room. “You took on the look of Thomas Marsh’s daughter. But you do not actually look the way you think you do.”
Frowning, Jane stared at him for a few moments until she realized they’d stopped in front of a wall. When she turned, she found a mirror hanging there. She saw Ibrahim, whom she recognized. And she saw herself. At least, she thought it was herself. For the woman who stared back at her, although still with basically the same facial structure, had darker auburn hair that bordered on black. And her eyes weren’t blue, they were a brilliant green. Her skin tone was different. Instead of pure lily white, it looked bronzed, almost like she had a tan. And the shape of her eyes had changed ever-so-slightly to where they were now a little more almond-shaped than they had been.
Jane stared and stared. “That’s me?” she asked, unable to tear her eyes from her face. “It can’t be.”
“It is. This is what you look like here in this dimension of your birth. When you return to your own dimension, your look will revert back to what you are there.”
“This is impossible,” she breathed, walking up to the mirror and raising her hand to touch her reflection. “I don’t believe it.”
“You are beautiful, no matter which face you wear.”
“Ibrahim, I—shit, what time is it?” she asked, looking at her watch. “One minute, we’ve only got one minute!”
The two clasped hands and hurried back to the painting of themselves with her mother. She looked upon the picture and realized that though her mother was pretty much as she’d seen pictures of her over in her dimension, the baby most definitely was different enough that she now recognized those differences. Ibrahim touched the frame and the painting slid back.
“Jane, are you prepared for this?” he asked.
She turned and smiled at him, taking both his hands in hers and squeezing them. “Yes, Father,” she replied. “I’m ready.”
He smiled and the two of them turned, walking through the portal as one. Father and daughter reunited after so many years. Father and daughter walking into the mouth of danger. Jane had never felt more elated. Yet neither had she ever felt more frightened.
Dimensions Page 14
