A World Divided

by Rebekah Clipper

  Henry yelled and jumped onto the back of the distracted creature. He pulled the knife from where it still resided in the beast’s side and stabbed into the creature over… and over… and over. The feline screamed its rage and bucked like an angry bull at a rodeo. White, frothy drool rained from the creature’s mouth mixing into the black ichor that flowed freely from its wound. Henry held on as tightly as any bull rider and continued to stab indiscriminately. His mind went blank as his fight-or-flight instincts took over.

  It took him some time to realize the creature lay unmoving beneath him. The knife fell from Henry’s fingers as his body vibrated uncontrollably. He pulled himself off the creature and scrambled away. When he reached a leg of the dining room table he stopped and sat on the floor. In front of him the corpse of the demon was covered in a black, viscous liquid that still pumped slowly from an indeterminate number of wounds. The floor surrounding it was equally saturated. Henry looked down at his hands. Now that he was aware of it, he could feel the sensation of the rapidly drying liquid between his fingers. He vomited profusely and dry-heaved for several more moments as the adrenaline worked its way from his system.

  “Henry?” asked a quiet voice from the floor to his right. Lisa was trying to sit up.

  “Stay down, Lisa,” he said, surprised at his even tone. “Let me look at you.”

  After a shaky breath, Henry pulled himself to his feet and walked over. Lisa ignored his order and sat propped against the wall when he reached her. He knelt next to her and looked her in the eyes. Her pupils were dilated, and she seemed a bit unsteady. “Can you tell me your name?”

  “Lisa Baxter,” she responded, “or if you want to be more specific Lisa Marie Collins Baxter. I am sixty-four. I have a daughter and granddaughter that are currently missing, and no, I don’t have a concussion.”

  “I see,” said Henry. “What hurts then?”

  “Henry, I don’t need a work-up,” Lisa snapped. “I have some aches and pains, but I’ll live. What the hell was that thing?”

  “I have no idea,” said Henry, sitting down beside her. He ran his fingers through his short hair, forgetting they were covered in goo. “I think… it was Clemmens.”

  “The officer? How is that possible?”

  “I have no idea,” said Henry, feeling like a broken record. “We have to call… someone. Who the hell do we call about this?” Henry was beginning to feel hysterical. He knew he was in shock, but that realization didn’t lessen the effect. He started laughing uncontrollably. Lisa’s hand found his shoulder. She kept it there until Henry was able to contain himself.

  “It’s okay,” said Lisa. “It will be okay, Henry.”

  As the words left her mouth the giant feline beast leapt to its feet and charged at the pair. Instinctively, Henry threw his arms in front of his face and closed his eyes. His eyelids were assaulted by a shockingly white light and then the beast was on him. He frantically beat at the creature with his arms as it lay motionless on top of him. After a moment he realized it was a dead weight and stopped fighting. What the… The crushing weight eased as someone pushed the creature off Henry.

  “Henry,” said his father-in-law. The older man knelt to help his wife stand. “Lisa? Are you okay?” He looked frantically into the woman’s eyes. In response Lisa wrapped her arms around her husband and kissed him passionately.

  “Oh, Alex!” she said, finally. “I thought we were dead. What did you do?”

  “I’ll explain everything, but we have to go right now.” Alexander gave his wife a pleading look. “Please, love. It’s not safe here.”

  “You’re right,” she said. Lisa grabbed onto Henry’s hand and pulled him to the door, not giving him a chance to protest. Alexander followed behind them to Lisa’s SUV. He took her keys and waited until his passengers were loaded inside. Henry sprawled across the back seat, not the least bit concerned about ruining the leather.

  Alexander drove in silence for several minutes. Henry didn’t mind the quiet, needing to make sense of what had just happened. Clemmens had seemed so normal, even friendly under the circumstances. How could he have turned into that ravening beast? He had acted like the man Henry knew until he had seen the knife… the knife!

  “We have to go back,” he said frantically, bolting up into a seated position. “We have to get the knife.”

  “What knife?” asked Alexander.

  “Don’t worry,” Lisa said, “I grabbed it before we left the house, while you were wrestling that foul creature’s body. It’s in my purse.” She reached her hand back and Henry placed the green patchwork purse into it. Rummaging carefully, Lisa pulled the red-hilted blade out.

  A look of shock crossed Alexander’s face. He slammed the brakes causing Henry to smash his nose painfully on the passenger seat in front of him. Alexander let out a string of obscenities as he eased the vehicle to the side of the road. Henry stared at him with his mouth open and water streaming from his eyes. He’d hit the seat hard.

  “What the hell, Alexander?” Lisa squeaked. “You nearly made me stab myself.”

  “Stupid, idiot dog,” Alex grumbled.

  “There was no dog,” Lisa retorted. “What is this knife? What was that thing? How did you make that light? You owe me an explanation now, dammit!”

  “Lisa,” Alexander started.

  “Don’t you Lisa me, mister. I swear I will get out of this car and walk if you don’t start talking.”

  Henry watched as Alexander’s face contorted in contemplation. Whatever the man was hiding weighed heavily on him. “I think I know where the girls are,” he said, looking down at his hands.

  Henry perked at that. “Where? Take me to them.”

  “It’s not that simple, Henry,” Alexander replied. “The shape changer and the knife have confirmed a theory I’ve been considering since the girls disappeared. I’m afraid my past has caught up with me at last. I never wanted the girls to pay for my mistakes.”

  “Alex, you’re not making any sense,” said Lisa.

  An unidentifiable emotion passed across the older man’s face. He looked into his wife’s eyes with an aura of resignation. “I’ve been lying to you for years. I’ve polluted your mind with a false history. It was the best thing I could do for you. You have to believe me.”

  Henry sat up in the back seat and quietly shifted forward. “What did you do, Alex?” He didn’t care if Alexander was Caitlin’s father. If he’d done something that led to the kidnapping of Henry’s wife and daughter, he would regret it.

  “There’s another land, separate from our own.” Alexander didn’t remove his eyes from his wife’s. “Hundreds of years ago a nearly impenetrable ward was placed between the lands of magic and those without. Children of the sorcerers who constructed the ward held the power to walk between worlds and the power lived on through their descendants. I’m one of those descendants.”

  “That’s pure madness.” Lisa broke her gaze away from Alex, looking down at the blade she held. Henry wanted to agree, but he was still covered in the fluids of a demonic hell-cat who’d been a respectful police officer less than thirty minutes earlier.

  “Please, you have to listen.” Alexander grabbed Lisa’s hand. She tensed but didn’t pull away. “Thirty-six years ago, a terrible war broke out in my homeland of Clarensdell. When the revolutionaries were subdued the choice was made to wipe the memories of the truly disloyal and integrate them into a non-magic environment. I was ordered to coordinate efforts here in Washington State with a team of about fifty other soldiers.

  “We had 27 mages work for two solid weeks to develop a large-scale amnesia potion potent enough to scrub entire lifetimes of memories. Once sufficiently wiped new, mundane memories were added. I don’t know how they managed it. One-hundred and forty-eight individuals lost their identities that day. I’m not sure they all deserved it.”

  Alex stopped for a moment, staring at his wife’s profile. Henry and Lisa remained silent.

  “It took nearly a year to get everyone indoc
trinated into their new lives,” he continued. “We have multiple outposts set up in several regions of the United States and Canada. Once a year, world walkers from around Clarensdell perform a ritual to open stable doorways between our worlds. Soldiers pass through and live there until the next year to gather intel. We scattered the rebels among the outposts and immersed them into local populations.

  “I was given the option to go home after that first year. I chose not to, because I still had a lot of concerns about the relocation and wanted to stay close. Each year I was given the same option, but I fell in love with you, Lisa. And I fell in love with this life. It’s so much less complicated here. I do still perform their annual walking, but I removed myself from the rest of it decades ago.”

  He looked at Lisa. She sat with her mouth pulled into a thin line. “Lisa?”

  “I don’t know who you are,” she said softly. Her jaw was taut and her eyes shimmered. “Tell me what you think happened to my girls. Fix it. Then I want you out of my house. You aren’t the man I married.”

  Henry was too shocked to speak. Alexander looked resigned. “You have every right to throw me out, but before that happens, I need to get you somewhere safe.”

  He put the SUV in drive and pulled away from the curb. “I think someone who crossed over with me somehow got his memory back. There’s only one man I can think of who would be able to pull that off and have the knowledge to wield the knives properly. Every one of the five blades has unique abilities that can be bent to the wielder’s needs. I believe he used the Kerath blade, the one you have in your hand, to absorb the girls’ abilities to world walk. Because he didn’t perform the ritual with the stabilizing incantation an influx of power pulled everyone in the vicinity into Clarensdell with him. How he could have had time to build up the link is a mystery to me.”

  “He was in the crawlspace under the house,” Henry said absently. “I had a contractor down there who found the knife. Dammit, Alex!” He resisted the urge to punch the back out the older man’s seat. “Everything happened because of you. Arthur said a sorcerer approached him about Caitlin. If what you’re saying is true, then my wife was specifically targeted; not for her looks but because she’s your daughter.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” Heat tempered Alexander’s voice. The car swerved. “As soon as I puzzled it together, I knew my daughter had been beaten for my mistakes. It’s killing me.”

  Lisa sobbed. Alex reached out to her. “Don’t touch me. Don’t look at me. Don’t come anywhere near me. You’re a stranger.” Silence enveloped the car.

  So many questions ran through Henry’s mind. He felt like he was on some sort of prank show. Any minute Elise and Caitlin would pop out and everyone would yell, “psych!”

  He hadn’t thought he could feel any less in control. His whole world was being thrown upside down. Everything he knew about reality and fantasy were being tossed out the window, and he didn’t know what to believe anymore.

  “How do we get them back?” Henry asked, bypassing all his other questions for the most important one.

  “First, I’m dropping my wife off at a safe house,” said Alexander, “then you and I are going to open a door.”

  “If you’re going to get our girls, then I’m coming with you.” Lisa’s tone broached no argument.

  “No,” Alex said as he pulled onto a two-lane road leading up into the mountains, “you aren’t. There’s absolutely nothing you can say that will change my mind. You can’t go to Clarensdell. It’s not safe for you.”

  “But it’s safe for you and Henry?” Lisa barked. “You lost the right to tell me what to do the moment you exposed yourself as a liar.”

  “I will tie you down, if I have to.” Alexander’s hands were tight on the steering wheel. “You can hate me forever. You can curse my name. I love you too much to put you in that kind of danger. I know you’re scared and angry. I would be too if our roles were reversed. Even so, you have to trust I’m doing this because your safety is the most important thing to me. I’m reluctant to bring Henry, as well, but he has a right to protect his wife and daughter.”

  “And I don’t? That’s an awfully chauvinistic view. They’re my family too. They are my blood, and nothing will stop me from keeping them safe.” Lisa’s eyes were wild; the air thick with her ire.

  “That’s enough, Lisa.” Alex slammed his palm on the wheel.

  Lisa crossed her arms and glared angrily out the passenger window. An uncomfortable silence filled the vehicle. Henry relished the quiet. There was no way he could absorb anything else. His mind was swimming in a sea of contradictory information, and there were no life rafts of sanity to grab.

  Steadily, they moved away from town and further into the tree lined mountains. Alexander turned onto a single lane, dirt road. They wound through the trees for another fifteen minutes until they reached an ornate, gold-plated gate that stood twelve-feet high. Alex pulled over to a large boulder and rested his hand on top. A quiet click revealed a small compartment with a keypad hidden in the rock. Alex entered a few numbers and the gate slid soundlessly to one side.

  Vibrant roses surrounded elaborate fountains on either side of the long, paved driveway. Their pungent perfume was perceivable even with the windows up. One final turn revealed an expansive circular drive. In the center was the most gigantic fountain Henry had ever seen outside of Las Vegas. It was filled with angelic, almost cartoonish, beasts. Just beyond it was a mansion comparable in size to the White House.

  Henry had seen it before. It was featured on one of those programs that showed off the homes of the ultra-wealthy to make mere plebeians feel even worse about their humble surroundings. The owner was the man who’d created the show Elise was so fond of. He ran the entire enterprise out of his gargantuan estate. Henry only remembered it because Caitlin had paused the show to grab Elle, so she could watch it with them. Caitlin was always watching shows like that on HGTV.

  As they pulled up to the front entrance, a man exited the building and waited for them. Alexander stopped the SUV in front of the man, who opened Lisa’s door without a word. Henry slowly exited the vehicle on stiff joints.

  “Good day to you, sir. Master Lockland will be so surprised you’re here.” The butler spoke directly to Alexander, hardly glancing at the other two. “What should I tell him is the cause for your unexpected visit?”

  “Just tell him the borders have been compromised, Barry.” The butler furrowed his brows.

  “Of course, sir,” Barry replied. “Please come in and make yourselves comfortable. I took the liberty of freshening the guest bathrooms in the west wing when you were flagged by our cameras. Take some time to clean up, and I will have Master Lockland meet you in the lounge in thirty minutes.” He was looking directly at Henry when he said the last part.

  Henry looked down at his saturated clothes. The rot had dried and cemented to his skin. A headache threatened behind his right eye. “Thanks.”

  Barry turned and led them inside, where they weaved through a maze of shockingly colorful hallways. Henry was shown to an opaque glass door with rose-gold trim and an obnoxiously elaborate flower-inspired handle. The ridiculous theme continued into the bathroom. Cherub-style, rose-gold flying rats appeared to suspend in midair with their comically large paws wrapped around an oversized, rectangular shower head. The shower took up half the tiled room, only separated from the rest of the room by a red-tinted, entirely translucent glass wall.

  Quickly, Henry stripped and stepped into the shower. The rain-like stream from above immediately warmed up, exhaling steam. He grabbed a washcloth and soap from a shelf built into the wall. Then he scrubbed. No matter how hard he pressed, he couldn’t erase the residue. It clung to him, encroaching through his pours and attaching to his soul.

  He felt filthy. During his externship, he’d worked in the hospital and saw some pretty horrific things. They were a drop of water compared to the waterfall evoked during the fight for his life. He’d stabbed that thing over and over,
fluid flying into his face. A rhythm was born with each strike, and he’d liked it. The thought still brought bile to the back of his throat. He was terrified of the thrill that rhythm had inspired.

  Finally, he turned the water off. His clothes had disappeared and were replaced by a plain, white T-shirt and brown khaki pants. A package of boxer-briefs sat next to them on a shelf just inside the door. Thinking about someone entering while he showered creeped him out. This whole place creeped him out.

  Dressed, Henry exited the room. Barry stood waiting for him. “Please follow me, sir.”

  “Uh, okay. Thanks.”

  They walked to a room with two-story tall windows that looked out on an expansive garden. The view was breathtaking. Lisa sat on the opposite end of a blindingly aqua couch from her husband. Her body was turned away from Alex, hair still damp from the shower. Henry wondered if she’d ever uncrossed her arms from earlier.

  Henry sunk into a salmon-colored recliner. It threatened to swallow him. As he battled his way to the edge of the chair, a large man entered the room. His mustache was impressive. It bushed out in an auburn and gray puff of glory, gracefully falling around both sides of his thin lips. He wore slender spectacles that rested on the tip of his nose and a bright purple, velour three-piece suit.

  “Carey, hot damn, how are ya? I’m so sorry to hear about your family. What’s this nonsense about our borders being compromised? There’s been no reports of suspicious activity at our access points.”

  “Our borders have been breached, Lockland,” Alexander responded. “An unauthorized and highly volatile passage was opened in my daughter’s home using the knife of Kerath.” He held the blade out for Lockland to inspect. “My wife and son-in-law were attacked by a shape-changing florean earlier today. I strongly suspect that Daemeon is behind this, and I’m almost positive he used Caitlin and Elise to get back into Clarensdell. You need to contact Alberta immediately. They’ve got traitors in their midst. There’s no way Daemeon could have disappeared without notice unless he has men on the inside.”