Quote the Drow Nevermore

by Martha Carr

  Bianca Summerlin blinked twice, lowered her glass to her lap, and looked over her daughter’s head to stare at something down the south hallway. “I’m listening.”

  “To the other side.”

  “I’m familiar with science fiction, Cheyenne. That would be how a portal works.” The halfling’s mother swallowed, her nostrils flaring as if saying a word related to any kind of magic put a rotten taste in her mouth.

  “A different world, Mom.”

  “That’s—”

  “His world.”

  “Quite enough, thank you.” Bianca downed the rest of her drink and stood. “I’ll be in my study. Do let me know when your friends arrive. I don’t enjoy being caught off-guard at any time in my own home, but twice in one night would be more than I could handle.”

  With that, the woman turned and headed past the dining table and the bar toward her study on the other side of the house. Cheyenne and Eleanor exchanged glances, then the housekeeper neatly fluffed and replaced the pillow she’d squashed and stood as well. “If you need anything, sweetheart—”

  “I’ll know who to find. Thanks.”

  With a tight smile, Eleanor set a firm, gentle hand on the halfling’s shoulder, gave it a little pat, and headed down the south hall closest to the circle of armchairs and the sofa. A door opened and clicked softly shut somewhere, and Cheyenne turned toward Ember.

  “You okay?”

  “Uh-huh.” The fae buried her face in the large wineglass, gulped, and nodded. “This is amazing.”

  “Yeah, she’s got a pretty impressive collection.”

  “And I’m drinking it.” Ember chuckled. “You know, I think I like it better when you go through all the crazy stuff and come tell me about it later.”

  “Oh, it’s much more entertaining for you that way, huh?”

  “Entertaining, period.” Turning her head slowly, the fae girl met her friend’s gaze with a frown of concern. “You make it sound like some awesome adventure with some assholes along the way. I had no idea there was all this other scary crap.”

  Cheyenne smirked. “Are you talking about the giant scorpion that almost squeezed me to death or the weird way I have to tiptoe around my mom about the whole thing?”

  Ember chuckled softly and shook her head. “All of the above. I had no idea, and I still can’t figure out how you manage to make jokes right after something like that.”

  “Meh. It’s much easier to get caught up in all the dark and terrible deadly shit. I guess I just like a challenge.”

  “You’re unbelievable.”

  “Yep. We’ve been over that too.” With a tiny smile, Cheyenne took another sip of her bourbon and set it down on the glass coffee table. “We still have, like, an hour before anyone shows up. You want a tour?”

  Ember’s eyes widened. “A what?”

  “A tour, Em. Of Chez Summerlin. Trust me, all this looks like a lot right now, but what you’ve seen so far isn’t even half of it.”

  “I am not letting you and Eleanor drag me up that giant staircase.”

  With a snort, Cheyenne stood from the sofa and walked around the wheelchair. “Not a problem. Want me to take the wheel?”

  “Please don’t let me drink and drive.”

  “Ha.” Cheyenne grabbed the handles and spun the fae around to push her down the south hall toward the other side of the house. “So, Bianca’s study is on the other side, obviously. That’s pretty much the only room over there, and I don’t get to go in there very much. We’ll skip that part.”

  “Yeah, I bet it’s bland and boring as hell, anyway.”

  They both laughed.

  “Okay. Giant half-bath for guests.” Cheyenne opened the first door on their left.

  “Jesus, that’s bigger than my closet.”

  “Yep.” The halfling shut the door again and continued. “I can’t believe I just showed you a bathroom.”

  “Hey, it’s an important thing to know.”

  “All right. There’s a giant mudroom and coat closet down by the door. Also bigger than your closet. And over here…” The halfling gestured to the swinging double doors with round windows up top used by high-end restaurant kitchens. “Eleanor’s not just an amazing chef, all right? She does a whole bunch of other stuff I don’t even pretend to know about, but this is pretty much her domain. Besides her room, obviously.”

  Cheyenne turned and pulled her friend backward through the swinging doors.

  “She lives here?”

  “Yeah, didn’t I tell you that?”

  “I can barely remember my name right now, halfling. Don’t make me take a pop quiz.”

  Laughing softly, Cheyenne spun her friend around again. “Behold. My childhood kitchen.”

  “My brain’s gonna explode.”

  “If it hasn’t by now, Em, I think you’re good.” They moved through the industrial kitchen toward the very back. “I’m pretty sure my mom had this modeled after one of her favorite chef’s restaurants. I can’t remember the guy’s name.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. I’m into a lotta different things, but food’s just food, honestly. You eat it, it’s gone, not that big a deal.”

  “You’re gonna get struck by lightning for saying that in here.”

  “Nah. Eleanor’s busy doing something else.” The halfling pulled up beside a plain white door in the far corner of the kitchen and flipped the light switch on the wall beside it. “You’re gonna love this.”

  “The pantry’s bigger than my closet too, isn’t it?”

  Cheyenne laughed. “Definitely. That’s on the other side next to the walk-in fridge.”

  “Of course, it is.” Ember rolled her eyes and gazed at all the stainless steel appliances in the massive kitchen that could run a five-star restaurant. “So why are we waiting here?”

  The halfling didn’t say anything.

  “Cheyenne?”

  The door in front of them slid sideways into the wall, and the half-drow pulled her friend backward into a small square room the size of a normal closet.

  “No way.”

  “Yes, way.” The halfling pressed one of four buttons on the panel, and the door slid shut again. The elevator lurched a little when it left the ground floor and headed up. “Uh-oh. That wasn’t a problem last time.”

  “Which was when?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Ten years ago, maybe.”

  “There’s an elevator in your mom’s house.”

  Cheyenne laughed. “Much easier for Eleanor to bring up a tray of breakfast, isn’t it?”

  “And she gets breakfast in bed. I’m… I don’t even know what I am.”

  “No breakfast in bed. And usually, it’s both of them. At least, it was when I still lived here. I can’t imagine they’d change things up after I moved out.”

  The elevator rumbled again when it came to a stop, but the door opened as smoothly as ever. Cheyenne pushed her friend out into the hall and paused for effect.

  “Okay. Another hallway. Something normal.”

  “Yeah, a normal hallway in the upstairs living quarters.”

  Ember looked at the halfling over her shoulder. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Chapter One Hundred One

  “You know how many kids dream of living in a house like this?”

  “I hope not exactly like this.” Cheyenne left the door to her old bedroom open and pushed Ember toward the last room at the back of the house on the second floor. “If anyone else gets their hands on the plans to this house, I’m pretty sure someone’s getting sued.”

  “She really takes her privacy seriously, doesn’t she?”

  For a second, Cheyenne didn’t say anything. How do I answer that kind of question? “Yeah, she does. That’s been priority number one my entire life, Em. Don’t give anything away. Don’t let people see the real person behind the image the rest of the world sees. Everything’s a secret, and every secret has a price tag.”

&n
bsp; “People pay her for secrets?”

  “Sometimes. It’s not always money, though. Among all the other things she does, Bianca Summerlin barters and trades in secrets. That might be the only thing about her that people do know. And that she’s the person to go to if you want to get the job done right. Politically, at least.”

  “Crazy. That was your whole childhood here too, wasn’t it?”

  “Yep. I mean, sure, there were certain perks.” Cheyenne tried to wipe the smile off her face when Ember laughed. “I’m not sure I’d change any of it, honestly. But it wasn’t all quality family time and happy days making lifelong memories in the Summerlin house.”

  “I know what that’s like.”

  “But I turned out pretty okay.” They both laughed, then Cheyenne left her friend in front of the set of French doors in front of them, these of lightly stained, polished wood. “Before I figured out how to basically plug my brain into computers, this was my favorite room in the whole house.”

  “I can’t fathom how anything could be better than your room, but okay. Show me.”

  The halfling grabbed both handles and twisted down, then shoved the doors open. The room beyond was cut in a half-circle, the wide, curving wall at the back made entirely of windows. A different set of furniture occupied either side of the room—sofas, loveseats, rocking chairs, and end-tables. In the center of the room in front of the sweeping windows were two cream armchairs and matching ottomans, both of them facing out toward the huge expanse of forest and the gently sloping hillside behind the house.

  Grinning, Cheyenne grabbed the handles again and wheeled Ember across the room toward the window, stopping to the right of center. “Best seat in the house.”

  “No shit.” The fae’s mouth fell open as she scanned the valley in front of them. The sun had almost set, but the pale light and a faint orange glow still flooded the valley with enough light to see twice as much as from the veranda jutting out below them. “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Yeah, it’s something.”

  “Okay, so everything else in this place has a name. What’s this one?”

  Cheyenne chuckled and folded her arms. “The breakfast room.”

  “Kill me now.”

  With nothing more to say to that, the halfling swept her gaze across the lawn and the valley. The scar of the new portal ridge ripped toward the house from the edge of the tree line like an open wound. Sure changes the overall look of things.

  “I’d lock myself in here and never leave if I had the option.” Ember took another sip of her wine but couldn’t bring herself to look away.

  “I did that once.”

  “Ha. I can see them trying to break down the door.”

  “Pretty much.” Cheyenne studied the portal ridge below. No lights. No monsters. So far, so good.

  The sound of tires crunching slowly across gravel made her turn around. “That was fast.”

  “What?”

  “Couple vans hauling FRoE agents up the hill.”

  Ember squinted at the half-drow above a smile of disbelief. “I know you can hear all the crazy things all the time, but I’m still amazed.”

  “Well, thanks.” Cheyenne leaned around the side of her friend’s chair and nodded. “I gotta go get things sorted out down there. I can bring you down with me if you want.”

  “No way. Leave me right here. Lock the door behind you. I’m good.”

  Smirking, the halfling patted the back of Ember’s chair. “I can manage the first one. Not gonna lock the doors, though. A Summerlin doesn’t make the same mistake twice.”

  “Okay, get outta here.”

  Cheyenne spun and hurried across the few feet of hall between the breakfast room and the massive staircase. She ran down the center two steps at a time, grabbing the banister on the bottom to swing herself around before heading back toward her mom’s study.

  “Mom?” She slowed in front of the open French doors and peered into Bianca Summerlin’s wood-and-leather-decorated private room. The chair behind the heavy executive desk at the back was empty, but her mom had left the bottle of Glenmorangie single malt out on the tray. And now she’s into the good scotch. Careful.

  The halfling moved quickly down the house as the crunching of the tires grew steadily louder out front. The French doors onto the veranda were closed, but Bianca Summerlin stood at her place in front of the railing, gazing out over the steadily darkening valley. The glass of scotch in her hand was half-empty.

  Cheyenne opened one door and took a tentative step outside. “They’re here.”

  “Thank you, Cheyenne.” The woman raised the glass to her lips, her elbow propped on the opposite arm crossed over her midsection. “Do make it perfectly clear that no one sets foot inside this house.”

  “I will.” The halfling waited in case her mom decided to turn around. It became clear that Bianca wasn’t moving from that position for a while, so her daughter withdrew into the house and quietly pulled the door shut again.

  Eleanor stepped into the room from the other side of the dining table before Cheyenne made it into the opposite hall.

  “Hey, Ember’s upstairs in the breakfast room, just so you know,” the halfling said, glancing at the bottom of the staircase.

  “That’s fine, Cheyenne.” Eleanor nodded, focused now on how she could help Bianca through the rest of this crazy night. “I’ll go up in a bit and see if she needs anything.”

  “Thanks, Eleanor. Those people just pulled up out front, so I’m gonna…”

  “Whatever you need to do, sweetheart.” The woman smiled at the half-drow until Cheyenne finally turned to head toward the front door. With a slow shake of her head, Eleanor stepped out onto the veranda to weather the unexpected storm with her closest friend.

  When Cheyenne slipped out the front door, the FRoE agents were just getting out of the three black SUVs that had pulled up in front of the wide stone steps. She pulled the door firmly shut behind her and moved quickly down the stairs toward them.

  Rhynehart emerged from the passenger seat of the closest SUV, already wearing a dampening vest. He wedged the helmet under one arm and shut the door before heading toward the stairs. “What the hell’s going on up here?”

  “Not that way. Come on.” Cheyenne brushed past him and headed around the side of the house, noticing the bushes she’d damaged and grimacing.

  With a sharp whistle and a wave, Rhynehart nodded after the halfling, and his team of agents followed with their vests and helmets and fell pistols and rifles and grenades.

  The halfling didn’t slow down or stop to wait for them as she headed down the flagstone steps cut into the hillside between the house and the tree line of the thick woods. Rhynehart quickly caught up with her, and they jogged down the stairs together. “Seriously, kid. I get my door busted down at seven-thirty and have to listen to Sir’s drunken rampage about a halfling know-it-all and however many heads are gonna fly because she’s trying to do our job for us.”

  “That’s seriously all he told you?”

  “Yeah, before he said to load up a containment team. Said I’d hear the rest straight from the drow’s mouth.”

  “New portal, Rhynehart.”

  “Very funny. Try again.”

  “Right. Sure. New portal.”

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and walked swiftly across the grass toward the other end of the field. The other agents’ boots clomped down in quick succession behind them.

  “Are you shitting me right now?”

  “As much as I’d love to bring three cars of your guys all the way out here for a practical joke, no. No bullshit. This is real.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  Cheyenne shot him a scathing glare before she couldn’t look at him anymore. “Tell me that again when you see this thing.”

  Almost all the light had disappeared from the clear sky overhead, but it was more than enough to see the dark spears of black rock jutting twenty feet in the air in front
of them. The halfling clenched her fists as they approached, and she moved to the right around the first stone spire to give Rhynehart the whole view.

  The agent’s eyes widened when he looked at the wall of shimmering black light shooting from between the black pillars. “This doesn’t look anything like—”

  “The Border portals you know? Yeah, that’s the point. It doesn’t act like one, either.”

  “How the hell did this get here?”

  “Ripped a giant crack in the ground, and everything else just shot up. That’s not the most important question right now.”

  Rhynehart set his helmet on the ground as the other agents fanned out behind them. Some of them whispered to each other about what the hell they were looking at, but Cheyenne ignored them. “I’m guessing you know what the most important question is, then.”

  “Yeah. Can your guys handle it until I figure out how to shut it down?”

  The man shot her a sidelong glance. “We can handle it. That’s what we do.”

  “Okay. Minor detail. This portal isn’t just different on the outside.”

  “Is that some kind of Goth code for something?”

  Not gonna touch that one right now. Cheyenne closed her eyes. “You’re not keeping magicals from crossing over. Honestly, I doubt you’ll even see any other magicals come through here.”

  “Then I don’t know why the fuck we made this drive.”

  The halfling lifted both hands to show him her palms. “I didn’t stab myself, in case you’re still confused. You ever hear the O’gúleesh who made the crossing talk about the in-between?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “Yeah, that’s what makes the Border crossing so awful.”

  Rhynehart glanced at the shimmering wall of light and shook his head. “Please don’t tell me you tried to go through that thing.”

  “No. But the asshole things that are only supposed to exist between either side of the Border tried to come through. Right here on this little patch of grass where we’re standing.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  The halfling pointed at her head. “This is my serious face, Rhynehart.”

  “Like I can tell the difference between any of your faces. Do you know how crazy you sound right now?”