by A L Fogerty
Gloria pulled him away, and they found a place to sit in the back corner of the station near a family with two small children and a baby. The woman was pregnant, and the man was staring at his cellphone as she tried to manage the children on her own.
“How do you think all these people got here?” Sid texted Gloria.
“I don’t know. Maybe they died in the cataclysm.”
He sent her a thumbs-up emoji. He didn’t know what it meant, but it was easier than typing. Gloria looked around nervously, and Sid wished he could help her relax, but he knew she had good reason to be worried. If the cops found them, they’d end up back in jail. The cops would probably guard them better this time.
Time passed glacially slow, but the call to board finally came. Sid and Gloria and the large family all stood up. The baby was crying. The two small children were whining and clinging to their mother. The man grabbed his own bag and one other and hurried to the front of the line. The woman was left with three children and their luggage.
Sid felt for her. He wondered how she and her children had gotten here and what their ultimate fate had been. The cataclysm had been more than twenty-five years ago. If they were supposed to move on, they probably would have done it already.
He grabbed the luggage for the woman and offered to help her. She gave him a hard look and snapped at the children. The man finally came over and, noticing that his wife was struggling, took the baggage himself. The entire family hurried off to their place in line.
Sid let out a long sigh and scratched his head. He couldn’t understand this place or these people. He and Gloria waited in line as it inched forward. They were about to move through the door leading out to the bus terminal when two police officers walked into the station.
He nudged Gloria, and they slipped through the door, cutting in line. The people ahead of them complained but did nothing. Sid and Gloria rejoined the line and hurried onto the bus. Sid found a spot near the back, across from the strange family. The couple and their children were making a racket and moving around, making them easy to hide behind.
Sid could see the cops looking around the bus station on the other side of the glass window. He ducked down in his seat, and so did Gloria. Finally, everyone was settled, and the bus started away from the station. The cops moved out to the platform just as the bus turned onto the street.
Chapter 27
Kayla kicked out the fire while the others packed up their backpacks. The experience of her alternate life clawed at the edges of her consciousness. She had often wondered what would have happened if she’d stayed in Smoke Mountain and done what her father wanted. Now that she'd lived it, she knew for certain that it would have been a nightmare.
She looked at her mates—Jagger, Quinn, Felix, and Riddick. Her heart ached for Sid—she missed him and feared for his safety. But having the others there with her felt like she’d won a magnificent prize in the game of life. She appreciated them more than ever.
She bent to pack up her bag, and Jagger helped her put it on her back. Bane was at her side, ready as always to go on into the unknown. With the party ready, they moved onward. They’d been sleeping on the cold stone at the bottom of the chasm, where they’d entered. That was a very revealing welcome into hell.
“Which way should we go?” Quinn asked.
“It looks like there is a narrow passage along the cliff,” Riddick said, waving a lit torch toward the dark void of the canyon.
“There is no way of knowing if it will lead us where we want to go or if it's a complete dead end,” Jagger said.
“I can attempt a locator spell. I’m afraid it won’t tell us the exact passage to take so much as the general direction,” Malik said.
“Do it,” Jagger said.
Malik held his divining rod, carefully speaking the words of his spell. A moment later, the rod swung violently in the direction of the canyon trail. “It looks like that's the right way to go.”
They started moving deeper into the canyon, down into the dark, splintered earth. The narrow passage was squeezed between a sheer cliff and a gaping precipice.
“I don’t know if I can…” Felix said.
“Just don’t look down,” Jagger said.
Kayla looked back at Felix, worried that he wouldn’t be able to stomach the vertigo. Felix spoke with so much authority about so many subjects—it was easy to forget how sensitive he was to things like heights and noises.
“It’s okay, Felix. Take my hand,” Kayla said, reaching out to him.
Bane walked ahead, and Kayla followed her, leading Felix onto the narrow trail. A few of them held torches, allowing the entire party to see the path. Even with her heightened agility, Kayla felt anxiety shudder through her at the sight of the endless depths below their feet. It would only take a slight misstep to fall into that darkness. She reminded herself that she had wings and wouldn’t fall to her death, but that new knowledge did not remove a lifetime of animal instinct.
Riddick slipped on a patch of loose gravel at the front of the line, and his torch wavered ahead of them. Felix held her hand more tightly, stopping in his tracks. When Riddick righted himself, the party continued down the passage, but Felix wouldn’t budge.
Kayla gripped his hand and turned to look at him. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
“I can’t see the bottom.”
“Jagger told you not to look,” Kayla teased.
“I can’t help it.”
“If anything happens, I’m here. I’ve got my wings, remember?”
He let out a long sigh. “Right.” He smiled weakly in the flickering torchlight.
One foot after the next, Felix inched along the path, following Kayla and the rest of the party. She didn’t know how long they walked along that narrow ledge, trapped on a precipice of such height. It felt like an eternity. Her heart barely slowed the entire time.
When they finally stepped off into a wider expanse of cavern, the collective sigh of relief among the party was audible. Riddick inspected the way ahead, and Malik confirmed with his divining rod that they were still going in the right direction.
The farther they traveled, the greater was Kayla’s apprehension. Something seemed off. She knew they were traveling along the border of hell—if they weren’t in hell already—but her thoughts seemed almost foreign. The feeling reminded her of her experience after the ghost scratch, as if something dark and insidious was tunneling inside her. This time, she didn’t remain silent.
“Do you feel that?” she asked Felix as they walked along the cavern.
“Feel what?”
“It feels like darkness is tickling at the edges of my brain.”
“No. I don’t feel anything like that.”
She asked the others, but they confirmed Felix’s experience. She shook her head. Maybe she was losing it. She had to shake this, whatever it was. After the last time, she wasn’t going to take any chances.
Kayla reached down into her core and focused on the light of love inside her heart. She fixed her attention on the angelic power she’d inherited from her father and the alpha strength she’d inherited from her mother. With her hybrid power, she called her angelic wings to burst out from inside. With a loud groan, she threw her head back and flung out her arms. Her wings sprang from her back, and light glowed around her head. In the radiance of her light, the itching claws of darkness disappeared, and all that was left was Kayla.
Once it was done, she felt a million times better. She touched each of the members of her party and pulsed her light into them, just in case. When she came to Felix, he backed away.
“I need to feed you my light.”
“Don’t worry about me. I'm fine.” He started past her and disappeared into the dark cavern.
Chapter 28
The bus sped along the highway, moving in the direction they’d just come from. When it stopped in Border Town for a rest stop, Gloria and Sid remained on board.
“The way this place operates is so strange,” Gloria s
aid.
“It’s like a fever dream,” Sid muttered.
When the passengers boarded and took their seats, the driver closed the doors, and they pulled out of the bus stop. Sid was looking out the window as the bus moved through town, and he saw Tiffany out of the corner of his eye. He sank down in his seat, tapping Gloria on the arm to alert her. Gloria held a fashion magazine in front of her face.
They moved out of town and continued down the road. There were so many little towns along the highway that he hadn’t seen when he first traveled it. Gas stations, rest stops, diners, entire communities in the desert—none of it had been there the first time around. He could only look on in amazement as they passed yet another little town full of lost souls going about their daily lives in this fragmented world that only he and Gloria knew was hell.
He had no idea which of the people were demons and which of them were the souls of the dead. He’d encountered shifters, witches, and even vampires over the last several days, so he knew that all souls could end up in the same place, and he wondered about those who were good enough to not end up here. The shifter theology spoke of the afterlife, a place where the soul of the departed was joined with the Mother and Father in the great hunting ground of eternity. If a soul chose, it could return to the earth to live out another cycle of life in the grand cosmic game. That was what Quinn and his mother had explained to Sid.
Sid was not particularly spiritual, like Quinn, but he didn't lack faith, either, as Jagger once had. Since Kayla had come into their lives, Jagger’s old beliefs had changed considerably. Sid liked to believe he hadn’t changed much and was still the dependable, soft-spoken man he’d always been. But he knew deep down that it wasn’t true. Being with Kayla had irrevocably altered him in the most fundamental way. As he traveled through the desert with Gloria, looking for answers, he missed Kayla as he would have missed a part of himself. He’d never before felt a lack of anything in his life. He’d always believed that one should live simply, moving slowly and steadily toward one's goals, and that all things would be taken care of in time. He’d never had a grand plan or a great desire. But without her, he felt a gaping hole in his chest. All he wanted was to be with her again and to find their child and take them all home. He would lay down his life to make that happen. His mind was so completely focused on bringing his vision to fruition that he barely recognized his own thoughts. Gone was the slow and steady momentum of his life. Gone was the easygoing certainty. It had been replaced by the massive force of a boulder rolling downhill. Nothing would stand in his way. Nothing would keep him from reuniting his family and taking them home again.
The sun began to set in the distance beyond the red mesas, casting long shadows over the land. Bands of bright-yellow and orange light spread out like rivers of gold, shimmering majestically on the sand. The beauty of the landscape belied the truth of this place. It was all so big, so bold, so excessive. In Mirage City, he’d seen the frantic pace, exuberant energy, colors, lights, and sounds. It had been too much for a country wolf like him to comprehend. He longed to be back in Mist Valley. It would be spring soon. The trees would blossom, filling the forest with white, pink, and yellow buds. He’d spend a lazy afternoon by his favorite fishing hole. Maybe he’d even shift into wolf form and bite at the bass and bluegill in the lake.
While Sid was lost in thought, Gloria nodded off next to him. She quietly snored on his shoulder. She was a lovely woman, brave and resourceful. He was grateful they'd found each other in this literal hellhole. But every time he looked at her, he remembered just how much he missed his mate. Somewhere in the world, Kayla was missing him too, and that made his heart hurt more than anything. She would worry about him, and he didn’t want that. She had enough on her plate already.
He gazed out the window at the setting sun, hoping that wherever she was, they would somehow meet and continue this journey together. He had to believe that they would be together again. It was the only thing keeping him going.
As the sunset faded into night, the darkness descended on the desert. Stars spread out overhead in all directions, the same sky that he’d gazed up at every night of his life. Everything about this place was engineered to deceive the inhabitants into believing this was the real world. They probably didn’t even know they were dead.
Chapter 29
Felix crept along at the back of the group, his thoughts swimming like sharks in the darkest depths of the ocean.
This is an idiotic plan. These people have no idea what they are doing… He sighed at the whirling vortex of thoughts. You are better off without them. You are more intelligent than all of them put together.
These thoughts had started soon after he awakened from the dream of the other dimension. At first, he wanted to tell Kayla about them, since she'd experienced something similar after being scratched by the ghost. The farther they traveled into the chasm, the more compelling the thoughts became.
There is a treasure trove of knowledge just waiting for you. You are the only one worthy of this information. The wisdom and understanding of the universe is only a choice away. You are the man to uncover the lost knowledge of the ages. Abandon these fools. Your thirst is for knowledge and truth. All they care about is their simple animal comforts. Sex, children, food. They are worthless swine. Leave them now and come to us.
At first, he’d believed they were his own thoughts. Now he knew that someone else was calling him… someone who understood the depth of his intellect and actually saw what a great and powerful mind he possessed.
Jagger walked ahead of him. He had never cared about Felix’s intellect. He’d openly mocked and silenced him since he was a child. No more. Felix deserved better than that. He was far more intelligent than all the other Blackfangs put together. If anyone should have mated with the alpha queen, it was Felix. But as it happened, she had come to him last, which showed how little she respected him and how little she saw the magnificence of his mind. He didn’t need Kayla Redclaw or her alpha magic. He didn’t need his brothers, and he didn’t need the dusty little village they were all so set on returning to.
We have libraries full of books, acres and acres of shelves stacked with the greatest knowledge of the universe. You alone can decipher it. You alone have the intelligence to comprehend these truths. Come to us, Felix. We have much to show you. You have much to learn. And when you have unlocked the storehouse of information, you will be the greatest mind of all time. Come to us. Come now.
“Everything okay?” Kayla asked, turning to him. Her eyes twinkled in the dim torchlight. She was beautiful. Her auburn hair glowed crimson as it caught the light of the fire.
He smiled at her as he knew would be expected. “Of course.”
“You were so worried back at the cliff.”
He wished she would just leave it alone. He’d been so distracted by the voices inside his mind that trekking along a cliff face had terrified him. And why wouldn’t it? Doing something like that was stupid. They never should have come here. They should have just stayed in Mist Valley and gone on with their lives.
His mind rebelled. He believed in the mission. He, too, wanted to bring Oksana home and to save her soul.
Don’t be a fool. A child is easy to replace. These idiots risked the lives of hundreds for the soul of one insignificant baby, with no guarantee that their impetuous, misguided plan would work in the first place. The ineptitude is incomprehensible.
Malik believes we will find the entrance soon, he told the voice.
Felix rolled his eyes in the darkness. “Hopefully, we’ll find the way inside soon.”
You will come to a fork in the cavern. When you do, take the right trail. That will lead you to us. We will show you the library.
What kinds of books are in this library? he asked.
Every kind. But the ones that would interest you are physics, engineering, and chemistry. We have devices and laboratories too. Have you ever looked through a telescope at the night sky? Have you ever wondered if there really is
a unified theory of everything? Well, there is, and we can show it to you. We can show you the ultimate truth of all existence.
Tell me now.
We can’t tell you. You must find out for yourself. Soon, we will come for you, and then you can join us.
What about them? he asked.
Don’t be an idiot. What do they matter?
They are my family.
Some family they have been. Mocking you. Silencing you. Underestimating you.
Maybe they have done that. But I still owe them my loyalty. You promise a great deal but have so far proven nothing.
This is the extent of your great intellectual capacity? Do you need proof that life exists? Do you need proof that gravity pulls matter to the ground? Do you need proof that the earth revolves around the sun?
Those are separate issues, Felix told the voice.
Here. Here is what is waiting for you, Felix Blackfang.
He was hit by a blinding flash. A vision captured his sight. Before him was a great library, books stacked high on shelves as far as the eye could see. Along another wall was a line of working computers. Beyond the computers were scientific laboratories. Felix blinked, unable to believe the grandeur before him.
He stumbled, rubbing his eyes. A hand gripped his elbow, preventing him from falling to the ground.
“You don’t seem all right,” Kayla said, snatching him out of the vision.
“I got dust in my eye.” He pulled out of her grasp.
She’d tried to take the voice away before with her angelic magic. She wanted to remove the voice from his mind. But it said things to him, things he wanted to hear, things no one else ever said to him. At the back of his mind, he knew he should have let her make the voice go away. But he wanted just a bit more. Maybe what it was saying was true and the library really existed.
