Dimensions

by Krystyne Price

  Before she could ask him what they should do, someone came hurtling through, tucked and rolled and wound up on his feet before them. “Father!” Jane shrieked, launching herself into his arms.

  “My daughter,” he said, enveloping her in his arms. “There you are at last.”

  “At last?” she laughed. “But it’s only been a few hours.

  He backed away and looked into her eyes. “No, my child, you have been gone for six months.”

  “What?” she asked incredulously, turning to look at Vasan, who had backed away. A sudden feeling of fear seized her as she looked back to Ibrahim, then to his brother again. “Vasan,” she said, moving toward him. But he stepped back, just out of her reach. She didn’t understand and cocked her head at him as she felt her father take her hand.

  “We must go, Jane,” he said. “We must go now. You must return to your dimension.”

  She turned to look at him. “Is that where this portal leads?”

  “Yes. We discovered that attempting to open a portal from your dimension made it very much easier to locate you.”

  Jane looked back at the man she learned so much about in what had seemed to her like such a short time. “What about your cousin?”

  Vasan met her gaze briefly before shaking his head and looking away.

  “He is allowing us to leave,” Ibrahim said. “I suggest we do so before he changes his mind.”

  “No,” she breathed, pulling away from her father and going to Vasan’s side. She ducked her head down to be able to see his face. “You must return to your dimension,” she said. “You can do that from mine. Come back with us.”

  “Jane, no!” Ibrahim said, fear evident in his voice.

  She looked over at her father, then returned her attention to Vasan. “Go,” he said simply. “Leave me.”

  “I—I can’t. Not now.”

  “You must,” he growled, looking at last into her eyes. “You do not understand, Jane. I cannot control every action. She may kill you.”

  “What? Why would Jal’gonnoth want to kill me?”

  “Jane, quickly, we must leave! The portal has grown unstable!”

  She placed her hands on Vasan’s shoulders. “Please tell me, Tao.” He started at the use of his boyhood name. “Tell me why your demon would want to hurt me?”

  Ibrahim raced over, grabbed her hand and began pulling her toward the portal. She struggled to remain with Vasan as finally he cupped her chin in his hand. “Because, putri saya, you are the other thing.”

  Her father pulled her harder. Even out the corner of her eye she could see the portal beginning to collapse in on itself. “I don’t understand! I’m the other thing? What does that mean?”

  “The only other thing that threatens her hold over me,” he replied. Leaning forward, he placed a kiss on her lips. “Go, puteri.”

  Without another word Vasan shoved her toward her father, who used the momentum to propel them directly into the portal. It snapped shut only seconds later, leaving Vasan bathed in the soft glow of the Void, only this time very alone.

  He stared at the spot where the portal had been and closed his eyes, letting out a breath slowly. “You are the only one who can save me, Jane. You just don’t realize it.” He sank to the nonexistent floor and buried his face in his hands. “Now it will never happen.”

  He could not weep. But he could feel pain. While she was with him, there was a chance. There was a chance for him to be made free of Jal’gonnoth and the life he had led. Never until Jane had he wanted so much for it to be so; never until being forced here to bare his every secret to her had the desire so consumed him.

  But now she was gone. He rocked back and forth as he realized the futility of it all. She was back with her father and the Tanners. Undoubtedly they’d be working to put up every barrier possible to keep him from accessing her. One way or another he knew he could force his way to her, but what he’d seen on her face before he’d pushed her away was nothing short of horror.

  If she ever did help him it would have to be done willingly. She had the purity of heart, but she could never love one such as him. Not after what she’d witnessed. He was forever doomed to live with his demon for all time. Jane would come and go, and she would be happy and safe and not exposed to the living hell of his world.

  Suddenly Vasan wrapped his arms around his body and threw his head back. His mouth opened wide and a great cry of anguish escaped into the ether. What little hope he may once have had was gone.

  When a portal opened next to him he just sat and stared at it. Two white-clad arms reached through, grabbed his forearms and pulled him through. Just like that, his team of scientists had brought him home; back to his palace.

  He didn’t thank them. He didn’t say a word to them, just walked away and disappeared into his rooms. The four men responsible for finding him and returning him to his own dimension exchanged looks, mystified by his behavior. At the very least they’d expected him to want to kill them for taking so long to get him back.

  Vasan could feel their confusion as he closed his bedroom suite’s doors, then leaned against them and took a deep breath. It was time to get back to reality. Time to get back to being who and what he’d always been. But he knew his heart was no longer in it. He heard the song of Jal’gonnoth’s children and sank to the cold, hard floor. She was coming for him, but this time he didn’t care. This time, all he could think about was the fact that this was his future for all eternity.

  “Jane,” he whispered as Jal’gonnoth appeared in the center of the room. Then she took him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jane landed hard on what she immediately recognized was the large area rug that covered the hardwood floor of her own living room. She shook her head, touching the spot that had whacked said floor nice and hard upon landing.

  “Are you all right?” her father’s concerned voice asked as he scrambled next to her.

  “Jane!” she heard John, Sr. crow. “It worked! Well done, Wiz!”

  “Why thank you, Mr. Tanner, sir.”

  “Jane, are you a sight for sore eyes.” That was Steve who spoke as his hand appeared in front of her. She grabbed it and let him pull her to her feet.

  Turning, she saw Johnny helping Ibrahim to his. “Man, I thought for sure that thing was going to collapse before you got back!”

  Steve pulled her into a hug, but she was already acutely aware of one person’s absence and asked her question into his chest. He pulled away and looked into her eyes, shaking his head. Panic set in. “Is he all right? Where is he? Is he hurt?”

  “We’re not sure,” John, Sr. said as Ibrahim enveloped Jane in a tender embrace.

  “My daughter, do not worry about your Vincent. You have safely returned to us. He will as well.”

  She shook her head and pulled away. “John, what’s happened? Where is Vincent?”

  “We don’t know where he is, Jane. He took off without a word to any of us only two days ago. He didn’t take any of his communication devices or any of our vehicles which all have locators on them. He just…vanished.”

  “Did he go to another dimension?”

  “We’ve been looking for his signature but so far there’s nothing,” Steve replied.

  Jane walked slowly into her room and sat down on the bed. Worrying her lip for a moment, she finally looked up at Steve, who’d followed her in, and patted the bed next to her. “My father tells me I was gone for six months.”

  “In our time, yes. We haven’t really checked to see how long you’ve been gone in your dimension’s time.”

  “And when did Vincent disappear?”

  “Only three days ago. It was at the dinner table we realized none of us had seen him since early morning.”

  She hopped to her feet. “What about the cave…I wrote about that in the first book – Vincent’s cave.”

  “Oh, we’ve checked everywhere – all his spots, including the cave. Multiple times.”

  She began to tremble but chalked i
t up to being tired or hungry…or both. “Steve, what do we do? There must be something I can do. Somewhere I can think of that would hold meaning for him.”

  He shook his head. “We’ve checked everywhere we could think of.”

  Jane’s eyes grew large. “Oh, my God,” she breathed, grabbing his arm. “I know where!”

  “You do?”

  “Steve, I need to go.”

  “What?”

  “I think I know where he is.”

  “Well, let me come along!”

  “It’s in this dimension. I need you to go back to your family so you don’t get run-down. I’ll find him. I know I will.”

  He grabbed her, spun her around and shook her slightly. “You’re not going after my brother without me, Jane.”

  She felt woozy suddenly, as though her entire body were made of gummy bones, and swayed into his arms.

  “Jane? Hey, Jane, you all right?”

  She answered him. Or at least she thought she had. When he asked her what she’d said, she realized she must not be speaking very clearly at all, and tried to repeat it.

  “Oh, no,” Steve said, and she could hear that he’d opened a portal, probably with his watch. Then he lifted her into his arms, but she had such a hard time focusing on anything – her surroundings were spinning and wavering as though they’d suddenly become watercolor paintings that were being rained on and shaken all at once.

  She heard her father’s voice asking what was wrong. “Dimensional Sickness,” was Steve’s clipped reply.

  Then she was being carried along swiftly somewhere, a jumble of voices surrounding her. The last thing she remembered was feeling a bed beneath her. Then she succumbed to unconsciousness, not understanding what was happening but happy to be oblivious to it all.

  * * *

  “She’s coming ‘round.”

  “Good. Maybe now she can tell us where Vincent is.”

  “How long’s she been out, Wiz?”

  “Approximately thirty-three hours, Mr. Tanner.”

  “Not too bad considering she was wherever she was outside her own dimension for so long.”

  “Hey guys?” Jane said weakly, smiling at all the concerned faces she saw. “I am right here, you know.”

  “Janie!” Johnny said, grinning and giving her a pat on the head.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m okay, Father, I guess. What happened?”

  “You had, um, Dimensional Sickness,” Wiz replied, leaning over to widen her eyelids and flash a penlight into each eye.

  “What in the world’s that? And who’re you?”

  “When you’ve been in another dimension for too long,” John, Sr. replied. “Makes you woozy and usually knocks you out.”

  “Exhibit A?” she asked, smiling and pointing to herself.

  He nodded as the man checking her out said, “Um, they call me Wiz. I’m the, um, the head researcher in the Quantum Lab at Tanner Research.”

  John nodded. “He’s the one who figured out how to open portals for us.”

  “Jane?”

  “Steve,” she replied, turning to look at his stricken face.

  “Where’s Vincent? You said you knew.”

  She nodded, her mouth a bit dry. Wiz seemed to have noticed, for less than five seconds later he was helping her lift her head and giving her a straw to sip on. She took enough to wet her palette and then lay back down. She looked around at the faces of people she knew really and truly cared about her. “I’m really happy to see everyone, but I need to talk to Steve alone, please.”

  “All right, everyone, you heard her,” John said, herding them toward the door.

  “Thank you,” she said as the door shut behind them.

  “Where, Jane?” Steve asked, wasting no time.

  “I think he’s in Darvon,” she said.

  “Darvon? You mean your Darvon?”

  “Yes.” Off his skeptical frown, she raised herself up on her elbows. “Listen, it makes perfect sense! Where did he spend all that time working with…that…Xyza or whoever to set everything up for me? You remember how I said he must have gone somewhere that holds special meaning for him.”

  Steve nodded but was still perplexed.

  “Well, Darvon’s the place we…well, I mean, that’s where he and I were…” she blushed and turned away.

  “Oh, come on, I’m his brother. You think I don’t know?”

  Her face reddened yet one more shade. “Well, it’s not something I generally broadcast.”

  “Neither does he; at least not intentionally,” Steve replied. “But I can tell with just one look when my brother’s gotten laid for the first time.”

  Her eyes widened and then she laughed and he followed suit. A few seconds later, though, his dark blue eyes turned a shade darker and he was serious again. “But really, you think he’s gone to Darvon.”

  “I do,” she nodded. “Steve, am I well enough from this…Dimension Sickness…to get going?”

  “I think so. We can check with Wiz and see for sure.”

  “Then let’s check. Because I’m not sure what he’s intending, but I’m starting to get a bad feeling about it.”

  Frowning, Steve asked, “Why?”

  “It’s that Xyza that Vincent told me helped you. With a name like that, it can’t be a coincidence.”

  “What can’t be?”

  While I was gone, with Vasan in that other dimension, I mean, one of the places I saw was his palace.”

  Steve paled but she kept going.

  “There was a woman there helping him. Steve, he’s paired with a demon. I don’t know how it works, but when he killed his father, the demon who had inhabited him, hopped into Vasan. That’s why he’s so powerful, evil, ruthless, whatever words you want to use.”

  Swallowing hard, Steve shrugged. “Okay, so, assuming that actually happened here, too, what’s that got to do with Xyza, Darvon and my brother?”

  Her heart plummeted as the words she was thinking sounded so right she almost choked on them as they emerged from her mouth. “The woman who was helping Vasan in his palace, with this demon of his, her name was Xyza.”

  Steve rose, a look of disbelief on his face. “No.”

  Jane nodded yes. “I’m afraid, Steve…I’m afraid that while you all thought this Xyza was someone from my dimension helping you put on the show for me, she was in fact someone working on Vasan’s behalf – sort of toward the same goal, but not the same end game.”

  “He wanted you.”

  “I think he wanted to stop me from helping you and your family with my books, however it is that works. So when you were casting about for help, this Xyza conveniently shows up and bam, instantaneously you’ve got everything you need to remake Darvon for my benefit.”

  Steve snapped his fingers as the penny dropped. “That’s why he showed up in Darvon! We couldn’t figure out how and why he’d been able to locate you and Vincent. It was Xyza!”

  “I’m afraid so,” Jane confirmed with a shake of her head.

  Steve rose and turned to head for the door. “Jane,” he said, then hesitated and turned back to face her.

  “What is it?” she asked, sitting up.

  “What happened to you in the last six months? With Vasan, I mean.”

  She looked down at the hospital-like gown she was wearing and fiddled with the string that was tied in a bow at her waist. “Not now, Steve,” she replied quietly, then looked up at him. “I can’t think about it now other than what I’ve seen making me believe Vincent’s in grave danger.”

  Nodding his head, Steve opened the bedroom door. She could hear him talking with his family in her living room and soon he’d returned. “Clean bill of health from Wiz,” he said. “You ready?”

  “Let me grab a shower and get dressed, and we’ll be on our way.”

  “Okay. I’ll let Dad and the others know what’s up.”

  With that Steve exited, closing the door behind him. Jane just sat on the edge of the bed and thought back
to her last moments with Vasan.

  “Because, putri saya, you are the other thing.”

  “I don’t understand, I’m the other thing? What does that mean?”

  “The only other thing that threatens her hold over me.” He kissed her lips. “Go, puteri.”

  Jane sighed as she came to her feet and headed into the ensuite bathroom. Turning the water on as hot as she dared, she stripped and stepped into the stream, letting it wash over her. Without even thinking about it, she shampooed her hair. Then she put the conditioner on, picked up the body wash and a washcloth and began scrubbing herself from head to toe. Her mind was still stuck back with Vasan; the things she’d seen…they explained so very much.

  She had always just written him as a bad guy. Even after encountering him in Darvon, after realizing he, too was real; even after feeling the way he made her feel, she’d never thought of him as anything but your typical megalomaniac, but one who had some sort of strange power over her. Now, however, she knew he was more than a run-of-the-mill human. A demon had such control over him that he could neither die nor control his actions at times. The demon probably explained his pull, his ability to pierce her defenses with a mere look. And he’d contracted the demon from his own father.

  As she rinsed the conditioner from her hair, his words went through her mind again.

  “The only other thing that threatens her hold over me.”

  But how? And why? What on earth could a demon from his dimension fear from her, a simple human female from an entirely different dimension? Did this mean there was hope for her to help him? If so, what would it require? Why would he not speak of it?

  She raised her hands in front of her to rinse them and looked carefully at her fingers. She remembered him kissing each of them so tenderly. If she didn’t know better, she’d have said lovingly. Reverently. Jane closed her eyes and just let the heat of the water permeate her, trying desperately to wash away Vasan.

  Then her eyes widened. She wasn’t from another dimension…she was from Vasan’s dimension…the Tanners’ dimension…Ibrahim’s dimension. Was it because other than Ibrahim, Jane was Vasan’s only blood relative? Or was it some other reason? It made her head spin and she purposely put those thoughts aside. For now she had someone else to worry about.