Sacire crossed his arms over his chest. "No strip search. No ley line access."
I wheeled on Orin, sleet pounding my face like beestings. "Can't we hitchhike the rest of the way?" I asked, trying not to beg.
"I got only two days," Orin said.
"We can't be too far away," I said. "Maybe we can take the Jeep? Return it later?"
"I'm not licensed yet," Orin said.
"I am!"
"Even if we drove straight there, it will take at least twenty-four hours, without bad weather or problems." Orin said this gently, but his eyes pleaded: Please don't force me to choose between you and my promotion.
Breena rolled her eyes. "Oh for God's sake, Miriam. It's just procedure. Ley sentries care about protecting the Realm, not the oh-so-precious goods you hide beneath your clothing." She pulled her shirt over her head, exposing her small triangular breasts to the world.
How does she not notice the sentries leering? Orin then shrugged apologetically at me and yanked his shirt off. Frad, and a brunette with a stern face suggesting she had something to prove, crowded to examine Orin's wings.
It's just cultural differences. I crept behind the Jeep, hugging myself, feeling out of my body. All I had wanted was to get out of this blizzard, away from Sam's trail and Breena's griping, start my new life. Now I wanted to flee the ley line I had struggled to reach. I'd plod through a thousand miles of snowstorms if needed, but I couldn't do that to Orin. Not when I risked his career and potentially cost him his dreams, all because I refused to follow customs he had adhered to all his life.
Just get it done with, I told myself. You lose some privacy, but so what? Focus on Orin and the freedoms you'll gain. My brow furrowed, the last thought ringing false in my head.
I turned my back to the sentries, set my cranberry overcoat on the Jeep's roof, then pulled my sweater and T-shirt off in a single movement. My flesh tightened and my nipples hardened to the wind. Somewhere in the storm I heard a faint chick-a-dee-dee-dee.
Tura chuckled. "Look at this," he said, and snapped my bra strap. My spine stiffened with a jolt as the other sentries chuckled and crowded around. "Take off that ridiculous thing."
I unhooked my bra with trembling hands and let it fall to the ground. A pale sentry snatched it and squeezed the cups, as if the indigo lace hid blades and bombs. Sleet melted on my skin and dripped off my elbows. Tura barked at me to hurry. I kicked off my hiking boots and socks, and stood on tiptoe. Even with magic melting the snow, my feet numbed against the pavement. The sentries examined my articles of clothing as they fell.
"Hands on the Jeep," Sacire said, after I stripped naked.
The Jeep's plastic window creaked beneath my sweating palms; my whole body prickled with goosebumps. Through the plastic I watched two sentries lackadaisically search Orin and Breena. Two sentries, I thought, bitterly. I had five, all men, even though Orin and Breena were the ones capable of wielding magic. Every muscle in me felt tense enough to snap. Acid crept up my throat. I swallowed it down and forced myself to focus on a gray stone wedged in the Jeep's rear tire tread.
Two sentries rustled through my clothing, pulling out the pockets, turning everything inside-out. A third searched through our belongings inside the Jeep, but I caught him glancing through the window, peeking glimpses of my bare breasts. Sacire slid his hand down my back and lingered on my hips. His thumbs caressed the dip at the base of my spine. "Strange to see a wingless adult," he said. "Never have I seen a woman so nude."
He crouched—his bare hands sliding slowly down my rear—and spread my cheeks apart. No gloves, I thought, and started to tremble.
"Cold?" Sacire asked, caressing inside my thighs. I clenched my teeth and refused to answer. A drop of sleet dripped off my nose. Steam coiled around me. As Sacire stood up, he slid a single finger up my leg, my torso, my neck, my jaw. He caressed the folded ridge of my right ear and leaned in close. His mahogany hair lashed my cheek in the wind. "I hear changelings are immoral," he murmured, his breath hot inside my ear. "Is it true?"
"No," I snapped.
I heard the snik-beep of a digital camera. I spun around, but Sacire shoved me back against the Jeep before I saw who had snapped the photo. "Just a precaution. For your protection," Sacire said, his words as slick as grease. "I assure you it's for official purposes only." He chuckled, then patted my rear and stepped away. "Now dress yourself," he commanded as if I was his whore. "You're clean."
What an odd statement, I thought, numbly, fumbling into jeans which clung to my moist skin. I can't recall the last time I felt so dirty.
I rushed to dress, then rejoined Orin and Breena. "See?" Orin said with an ignorant smile. "Easy." I crawled into the backseat and said nothing.
Our belongings had been dumped unceremoniously along the Jeep's seats and floorboard. I shoved my belongings back into my knapsack; Orin and Breena organized theirs in the front. My fingers clutched something hard and cold. I stiffened. How safe are these checkpoints if they missed my folding knife? I wondered if Orin's knife was still tucked inside his jacket, but didn't dare ask.
"You will be grateful to know that, because of these searches, the ley system is free from rebels and dangers," Tura said outside Breena's window as we latched our seat-belts. He handed us each a copper token with an R engraved in the middle. "These tokens prove you have undergone our search. Give them to the sentry at the ley entrance."
Sacire leered at me. "Unless, of course, you wish us to search you again."
I cast my eyes to my toes, which ached with cold inside my boots. More sentries are inside the barn? If these men stripped us outside the ley line, what safety precautions were done inside? Blood draws? Cavity searches? Electro-collars?
Breena thanked the sentries and drove off toward the barn.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
"Never had a changeling in the ley line before."
"Will it cause problems?"
The man on the stool smiled amiably. "No idea. Never had a changeling in the ley line before."
Mice scuttled in the rafters. I had expected the barn to be a repeat of the storage unit, its outside a ruse. But the barn lacked plaster walls and counters and, thankfully, checkpoints. Inside were just rotting stables, dirt packed floors, and a man on a wooden stool in front of a closed plank-door. The barn was just a barn. And yet it wasn't. It felt warm, despite only decaying boards shielding us from Delano's blizzard. The air was thick, but it wasn't the thickness of dusty attics or humid summer days. It contained a stillness, as if the barn held its breath, waiting for an unseen predator to pass.
The man on the stool lurched to his feet, his joints creaking like the barn's rotting rafters. Ginger-haired and smooth-skinned, the man's brown eyes were weathered, as if exposed to too many rains. He seemed not only in the barn, but a part of it—the wood, the rot, the dull, wild-smell of long-ago animals. He appeared younger than Orin—twenty-three or twenty-four—yet he held a sense of timelessness. I expected if you sawed his bones in half you'd find more rings inside than inside any towering redwood.
The man pocketed our tokens and chatted familiarly with Breena as he lifted our shirts to inspect our backs. His own wings resembled gnarled tree roots, with more skin than ink—the mark (or non-mark, if you will) of lower rank. How many centuries has he sat on that stool? I wondered. He probably had assisted in the barn's raising and had planted the seeds for the timber.
The man shuffled to the closed plank-door. "Have you been in the ley line?" he asked Orin.
"Just the Realm's," Orin said.
The man nodded sagely. "Very similar." The plank-door creaked open on rusty hinges. "Just opposite flow and different scenery."
The man led the three of us down a long, narrow staircase. Roots poked from the dirt walls and ceiling; the wood creaked beneath our weight. At the bottom was a pale pink light, its shine seeming to hum in the gloom. Just another light at the end of another tunnel, I thought, wryly, then realized I was holding my breath like the barn. At the base of
the staircase was a wooden deck, like a pier, but instead of an ocean it jutted into a pink haze, as if someone had lit a fire deep inside a nighttime fog.
"Happy travels," the man said, and stepped to the side.
I blinked. "We just jump into it?"
The man nodded.
My brow furrowed. I had expected a carrier. A car or a boat or something. "How fast is it moving?"
The man scratched his cheek. "Oh, about the speed of spirits."
"How fast is that?" I asked.
The man shrugged. "About the speed of spirits."
"Oookaaay. How long will it take us to reach California?"
"About the length of a dream."
I scowled. Orin cupped my shoulder. "It's not a physical thing," he said. "It's the Earth's life force. Its blood. Its magic. It moves between the frequencies, as will you when you jump in. We will reach California in roughly six physical hours. But time feels distorted inside the ley line, like a dream."
I stared at the flowing pink mass. If air flowed like a pink river, this is what it would look like. "I dunno about this. The last time I hopped blindly into something it whisked me away hundreds of miles and dumped me into a forest to die."
Breena sneered. "Changelings are worse than children."
"Ease off," Orin said. "Everything is new to her."
"Whatever," Breena grumbled. "I don't have time for fearful crap." She glared at Orin from over her shoulder. "And neither do you," she said, then jumped into the stream.
Her body's image hung on the current, like a bright light lingering in your vision after a camera flash. Then the stream pulled her apart like cotton candy and she was swept away.
I gasped. "It-it disintegrated her!"
"Just an illusion," Orin said. "Are you ready?"
All my blood fell to my feet. "I-I dunno about this." Although, if I didn't jump into the ley line, I'd have to face the ley sentries again. I swallowed, hard, unsure which fate sounded worse.
"I'm your guide, Miriam. I'll never let anything hurt you." Orin weaved his fingers with mine and squeezed. "Hold onto me tight. Good." He smiled. "Now we'll face everything together."
Orin's warm index-finger caressed mine, and my heart started to steady. Nobody had ever been committed to my well-being before. Not my mother, not my husband. I waited for the catch, for the "I'll love you if..." But there was only Orin and his backpack waiting patiently on an underground pier, his hand clasping mine.
I nodded. "Okay. Together."
On three we jumped into the stream.
The ley line whisked us west as gentle as a warm breeze. It felt sort of like an airport's moving walkway, if you had been wrapped in a comforter right out of the dryer before being carted along. A continuous soft whoosh filled our ears, as if they were pressed against a seashell. White light streamed behind us, marking our trail.
"See? Easy. The rest of our journey will be fast now." Orin's words came out seconds after his lips stopped moving, as if video and audio were out of sync. "As fast as a dream."
And the ley line was dreamlike, indeed. I clenched Orin's hand, seeming to clench it and clench through it. This must be what the darkshine is like, I thought. Except here it is light and warmth instead of cold and darkness. Moving inside the ley line was a little like walking, a little like swimming, and a little like nothing at all. Sometimes everything was sharp and in focus. I could make out every fiber of Orin's tweed jacket and each shade of sand in his hair. Other times I seemed to lose myself, as if I had become one with the warm, foggy sea.
We also weren't alone.
When Orin had said the ley line flowed on a frequency between the worlds, I assumed he meant the Realm and Earth, like his border sentry post. But now, peering into a pulsing pink abyss, I caught glimpses of other beings, sometimes other lives. Some were unclear images, like nebulous strangers strolling deep in a mist. Others were like watching a television in short blips. Lanky, ash-skinned men in rough-spun robes with knobby elbows and faces impossible to see. Spiraling smoke serpents. A vibrating child with the eyes of a lemur and the energy of addiction. A dome house with a small garden growing stalks of meat. Colorful giants crawling along adobe walls. Some of the entities seemed to stare right at us. Others seemed unaware, like amoebas.
I shuddered. "What are they? Who are they?"
"Other travelers. Glimpses of other frequencies we're streaming through," Orin said, his words still delayed.
"There are more worlds than Earth and the Realm?"
"Many more. But very few are accessible."
"Can they see us?"
Orin shrugged, his shoulders leaving white trails. "I imagine so. Who can say?"
Squat men with pointed hats scurried past us with leather satchels under their arms. A glass of iced tea tumbled off a tabletop into the lap of a woman and disappeared in a puff of air.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the Earth's magic, cozy and sweet and filling, like the feeling of fresh baked bread in your nose or of gratitude warming your heart. My eyelids glowed pink inside, as if me and the ley line had merged. I could lose myself to its gentle security, like a pocket of warmth beneath a quilt on a cold, winter night. My forehead was lax, my muscles as fluid as bath oils. Orin's fingers caressed mine. I squeezed his hand and brought it to my chest.
Then the ley line screeched and ripped us violently apart. I spiraled upwards, out of control, thrashing, writhing, losing Orin in the warm, pink abyss. I screamed, but sound never left my lips. My flesh pressed against my bones; my teeth clenched and creaked, making my jaw tremble. I whirled and whirled and whirled until the pink warmth became black ice and my skin scraped along something as rough and stinging as salt. The light died and darkness flooded as the dream booted me out into a nightmare, leaving me cold and forsaken and gagging on my desertion.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I flew up several feet into the air in a burst of grit, then crashed onto my left biceps and rolled onto my backpack, gasping. I curled up and threw my arms over my face as dirt showered down upon me. The air tasted harsh, like ammonia or chlorine or bleach. I sat up, nauseated, my head spinning. A star speckled sky stared down at me, witnessing my confusion. "What the—?" Wind roared. Sand pattered my face. The ley line's magic dripped off my body like invisible rain. "Orin?" I called. "Or—?" I gagged on fumes and nearly retched. My eyes watered and burned.
Metal clanged. Voices hollered, distressed. I wiped my eyes, hacked my throat raw. Behind me, spotlights flooded a quarantined interstate. Men in orange jumpsuits and respirators scurried around an overturned tanker truck, clear liquid gushing from its side. The headlights of stopped cars stretched beyond the wreckage, like an audience of wraiths applauding the destruction.
The wind wailed; fumes smacked my face. The ground beneath me was damp, as if the ley line was bleeding. I dug frantically with my hands, pushing aside rocks and sand to get back into the stream. "Orin?" I croaked. I coughed and hacked on air as harsh as embers.
"You! What are you doing there?"
Two men in orange jumpsuits and respirators lumbered toward me. I leapt up, gagging, and dashed into the darkness, my wobbly knees smacking together. The world spun. Dirt fell off my backpack, my coat, my hair. Sand pounded my treads, and a tumbleweed brushed past me in a gust. I'm in the desert, I realized. How the hell did I wind up in the desert?
Outcroppings jutted from the earth—looming, dark monstrosities which blotted out the stars in jagged silhouettes. I glanced over my shoulder. The men in orange had abandoned the chase and were scurrying back to their disaster. I dodged into a wide fissure, wove between two rock walls, and fell to my knees in the sand, dry-heaving.
I rummaged through my backpack, my arm throbbing from where I had struck the ground. I tucked my knife into my pocket, then pulled out the flashlight and clicked it on. The expansive darkness gobbled up the beam. Beige rock seemed to stretch into eternity, its surface as rough and pocked as an elephant's hide. Wind moaned and rushed through the hidden sto
ne valley. I buttoned my overcoat and shivered. Unlike Ohio, winter here didn't harden the air to drill inside your chest, jabbing icicles into your bones and lungs. The desert's cold was open and sweeping, an all encompassing ocean rolling over the crags and dunes to drown all warmth.
I tucked myself into a shadowy crook in the rock and leaned my head back. The sky was cloudless, as clear as glass. The Milky Way slashed the heavens like a splattering of diamond dust. "What do I do now?" I asked the stars. Millions were present, but none had an answer. Wind moaned. The temperature seemed to plummet another ten degrees. I rubbed my face wearily. Somewhere I had lost my hat. Orin was miles away by now and I was lost and alone, dumped in God knew where. It is the damn boxcar again. Was it best to stay put or to continue toward the Realm? I didn't know where I needed to go, exactly, but I had a general idea. I chewed my lip. Of course, if I arrived at the Realm's entrance alone, Orin could kiss his promotion goodbye and—
My heart jumped into my throat. Did I fall into another world? Can—?
"Changeling?"
I straightened with a jolt. "Delano?" My voice came out in a strained sigh, a mixture of relief and fright. A puff of breath escaped my lips, then bolted for the darkness.
"Oh this is bad," said a woman's voice. "Bad, bad, bad. Why is she here?"
I wheeled toward the voices. My flashlight illuminated two darklings. But not Delano. The man was lean, with a long, chestnut pony tail, his hair shaved on the sides. The woman's hair was short, layered, and as ruddy as their eyes. The man stood before her, his head tilted inquisitively. His black pants, tan sweater, and gray smoking jacket suggested he was on his way to a poetry reading, not a midnight wander through the desert. As he stepped toward me the stars dimmed and my warmth fled to feel his embrace. His eyes studied me—two half-moons on a long, pale face. The woman clenched his right arm, grimacing. Her almond eyes glanced back and forth from me to the darkling man. Her burnt orange cocktail dress rippled against her knees. Her bare toes curled in the sand.
Darkshine Page 20
