by E G Bateman
“The meteor storm is almost upon us. The conditions are favorable.” Caleb’s comment was met with silence. He looked unwillingly at himself in the mirror before he closed his eyes and drew a few deep breaths.
And clean yourself up. You’re disgusting. His eyes flicked open as Azatoth’s voice rattled through his mind. The demon laughed.
His movements slow and weary, he washed the blood from the sink and wiped it from his face with the toilet tissue, then flushed it. He took several more breaths to settle himself before he recreated his glamor. Soon it would be over, one way or another. He would either be rid of Azatoth or dead. By that point, he wondered if he cared which.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Caleb returned to the bedroom. He looked at Bryan and smiled again but this time, somehow looked more dangerous. “Have you heard from Alexa recently?”
“Who?” The young man’s vision flicked from him to Rand.
“Surely you know who Alexa is,” the sorcerer pressed.
“I’m sorry. I haven’t a clue.” He didn’t need to visit the hall for that one. It was obvious he shouldn’t know who she was.
“Alicia’s sister.” He stared intently at Bryan and his face filled the screen.
“Her what?” Chief Rand interrupted. “I’m sorry, you’re mistaken. She doesn’t have a sister.”
“Actually, Kevin, she has a twin, and coming into contact with her is the only way Alicia’s abilities could have increased like this. It also means the other girl is now very weak. The council has kept them apart to stop this from happening.” He looked at the sleeping woman.
In the pocket, the two friends glanced at each other. Lexi felt relieved to have their theory confirmed.
“So if we get the other girl back here, it might fix this?” Kevin sounded hopeful.
“Sadly, not at the moment. Alexa is a problem. She absconded from Kindred a year ago.”
The chief’s eyebrows reached his hairline. “She left? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“It gets worse,” Caleb continued. “She then seduced a young mage away from his family and from his intended blood match, a young man who is beside himself with worry.”
Scott snorted.
“Now, she seems to be on a vendetta against the organization. We think she opened the portal in Palm Springs and attempted to murder me in Cabo.”
Bryan looked from one man to the other. “But what about Ali? How can we help her? Can’t we track this woman?”
“Clearly, the sister’s after her. Perhaps she was in collusion with Lorenzo. She might have encouraged him to go on this evil, murderous rampage.” Caleb shook his head as though he were genuinely sad. “We must keep Alicia safe. There’s a place—you may have heard of it—Emmersley House. It’s kind of a spa. She’ll be protected there.”
“You’re taking her away?” Her husband sounded nervous.
A whirring noise started in the dimensional pocket. Lexi jumped and whirled. Her hand fumbled instinctively for her katana but she dug herself in the hip. “I really miss that pocket.”
“You’ll have it back soon,” Scott assured her.
They stepped to a printer and watched a document print out of Emmersley House and Spa, followed by a picture of Caleb with his hand in Alicia’s hair. They looked at the screens to see that it mirrored what happened in real life.
“Gross.” Lexi shuddered and turned away. She stepped into an aisle and studied the booths on either side.
Scott stepped beside her and did a double-take “You’re right. You did have the same posters.”
She looked at the pictures of her old bedroom. Sure enough, it displayed the identical pictures.
He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe you’re psychically linked with her.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t think so, however.
They continued to walk.
Her companion looked into a booth while she wandered up an aisle. She came to the end of the row and a black, metal door with a sign that read Bad Stuff. Lexi put her ear to it, sure she could hear something on the other side. She moved her hand cautiously to the handle.
Chief Rand’s voice drew her attention to the screens. “Maybe you should get out for a while. Have a walk around the Quarter. Sitting in here isn’t doing either of you any good and you know they like to see us out there doing our job.”
Bryan guffawed. “Are you sure about that? I’ve had very strange looks from the witches and shifters I’ve seen, and I mean more strange than usual. They want to know why we left them without support when Lorenzo went crazy.”
Kevin patted his shoulder. “There was nothing you could have done about it. It was chaos in Palm Springs and your investigation in Cabo was important. For God’s sake, someone tried to kill the head of the Kindred counsel.”
Bryan turned to the sorcerer. “I’ll come with her though, right?”
The man smiled his insincere smile. “Of course. I’ll get her settled and we’ll arrange a replacement unit to cover you here. You’ll follow within a couple of days. I promise.” He clapped his hands together briskly. “That’s agreed then.”
The young man looked at him, his expression wary. “I don’t understand why she has to leave. If Ali’s even stronger now than she was before and that means the sister’s weaker, surely she can’t be in danger from a powerless ex-legacy. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Let’s get a picture of that address.” Scott started to retrace his steps and Lexi turned hesitantly away from the curious black door. They reached the printer and he picked up the sheets of paper lying in the tray. His cell phone appeared instantly in his hand and he took a picture of the details.
Caleb shook his head. “Bryan, you’re a clever young man.”
His tone drew their attention and they walked closer to a screen.
“That’s a very good point,” the Kindred leader continued. “I should have thought of it myself.” He stretched his hands to the other two men at the same time and placed one on one each of theirs.
A slam drew the attention of the young hideaways. It was the door they’d entered through on the platform above. Alarmed, they looked at each other and hurried to the stairs. They both slapped their hands over their ears as hundreds of shutters descended over all the booths. One clunked over the printer as they moved past it. The screens changed to a black background with a red digital five-minute countdown.
Lexi lowered her hands as the sounds echoed and faded around them. “What the hell is going on?”
“I think Caleb’s counseling him. I don’t understand why the shutters—” As Scott spoke, the image and words vanished from the sheets of paper in his hand. “Oh.”
They reached the top of the stairs. The door to the walk-in closet was clear glass from their side. Lexi was about to push on it when their adversary appeared in the room on the other side and they froze.
He looked around and poked through a couple of drawers before he pulled a copy of Playboy out, flicked through it, and shoved it back. With a smirk, he flicked a glance at the mirror door, half-turned, then looked again, directly into her face. Her heart hammered in her chest as he walked toward it.
She clenched her fist, ready to punch through the glass.
The sorcerer stopped about a foot from the glass and straightened his tie. With an inward sigh of relief, she realized he saw only himself in the mirror. He tapped at the floppy fat under his chin, turned, and disappeared.
Breath exploded from Scott in a panicked exhalation. “I didn’t know it was possible to gain access to another mage’s dimensional pocket without their permission.”
Lexi was confused. “Dolores got into mine.”
“She has permission because she puts things in there for us and I trust her—and I don’t stash Playboy magazines in there.”
“Really?” She smirked. “Where do you stash them?”
He rolled his eyes and led the way into the large area once more.
She looked around the hall and
her gaze settled on the blank papers in his hand. “I don’t understand this. I’ve never heard of objects vanishing from a dimensional pocket because someone’s been counseled.”
Scott raised an eyebrow. “How would they know?” He slid the blank sheets into the printer tray.
Startled by the question, she stopped and gaped at him. “Oh. Fair point.”
He smiled. “I think you’re right, though. We only use ours as storage.”
“Yes…for teddy bears,” she teased.
“And candy wrappers,” he retorted. “Bryan seems to have this connected to his memory. Honestly, it’s genius. The paper is an object but what’s stored on it is a memory.”
They stood and watched the screen as it counted down. At one minute to zero, the counter turned green and the shutters began to rise. Lexi wandered to a booth and pointed to a photograph of a book. “Hey, this is my favorite series—The Belgariad by David Eddings.”
She touched the screen and it sprang to life. Alicia threw the book, which hurtled toward Bryan and he caught it. “Look, I’ll take it back. I only thought you might like it.”
Alicia, who looked about eighteen, pointed at him. “I feel like you’re trying to turn me into someone I’m not. I don’t even like fantasy and who the fuck is Leonard Cohen? Stop putting posters on my walls.”
“I don’t want to look at this stuff anymore.” She stopped the screen and led them to the printer again. “It’s supposed to be private.” The truth was, she didn’t know what to make of it.
The countdown reached zero and a beep sounded. Bryan appeared in the hall on the platform at the top of the stairs where a huge button had appeared on the wall with stop alarm written on it. He pressed the button, then froze when he noticed the two of them. Scott stepped in front of Lexi and she rolled her eyes.
The other man shook his head before he walked down the stairs. “Sorry. It takes a few seconds for things to come back.”
Lexi looked at the screen. He was also in the bedroom, staring at the empty doorway.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he went directly to the printer. “Why was I counseled? That memory hasn’t come back.” He picked the blank sheets up.
“Caleb told you he’s taking Alicia to recover at a spa,” Scott explained.
Bryan flicked through the papers. “Caleb was here? I don’t see the printout.”
“Sorry. I saw it before the shutters came down, though.”
“Shutters?” The other man looked around the hall.
“All the booths and the printer were sealed behind roller shutters.”
“Ah! That makes sense. I’ve never been in here when it happened. That’s interesting.” He looked around. “I apologize if you’ve seen anything embarrassing. I panicked and didn’t know what else to do.” His gaze shifted to the door which read Bad Stuff.
Lexi wished she’d had time to open it. “We watched a video of me ugly-crying my eyes out. You gave me a doll.”
“That was the day you joined us.” Bryan turned to Scott. “Do you remember the details about where Caleb wants to take Ali?”
“I took a picture of it.” The sorcerer took the phone from his pocket and showed the other man the photograph.
Bryan looked at it and the printer whirred to life again. A photo spewed from it of Scott’s screen with the details from the note. He picked it up and they followed him to what appeared to be the most chronologically recent row of booths. He stopped at the noticeboard marked Caleb and he pinned the picture to the wall. The board was sparse. “As you can see, there’s barely anything here, yet.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I have a whole stack of information for you about him. When I get my abilities back, maybe I could set something like this up and send it over.”
He narrowed his eyes as though he wondered how that might work. She suspected she’d given him a new project to work on.
“Did you know Caleb was in here?” Scott asked.
The other man froze. “In here?”
“Well, in the walk-in closet up there.” He pointed.
Bryan exhaled sharply. “That’s what it’s there for. I’ve suspected for a while that the more powerful mages might be capable of peeking in our private spaces, so I keep weapons and spare clothes there and a few things that make it look like it’s where I keep my secrets. The idea is that they hopefully won’t look any further.”
Lexi smirked. “Yes, he saw that too.”
He blushed.
They walked along the row to the entrance. She tried not to look at the booths—it felt even ruder because Bryan was there with her—but she drew to a halt when she saw a picture of herself perched over Alicia with her katana. She gazed at it in horror before she looked away quickly.
It made her think about why she had attacked the girl so violently. “Why did she stab Scott?”
“When I got her home, she was raving about a doppelgänger and a sorcerer trying to kill her. She thought she was acting in self-defense and it was purely instinct. Let’s get your legacy abilities back. Maybe Caleb won’t take her away if I can convince him this extra strength has simply worn off.”
Lexi looked at the two mages. “Will it disturb her when my magic leaves her?”
Bryan shrugged. “No, she’ll stay asleep until I wake her.” He turned and she realized with some surprise that they had returned to the bedroom. The two friends stood in front of the bed and Bryan was seated exactly where he had been during Caleb’s visit.
“Where is she?” He stood.
They all stared at the empty bed.
“He’s taken her already?” Lexi turned to Scott.
The other man looked at the wall. “The posters have gone. Everything’s gone. He doesn’t plan to bring her back.” Bryan’s face had turned white. “When I first came into the hall, I wasn’t thinking about her at all. He’d taken her out of my mind completely. Now, I have to pretend I don’t remember her. Oh, God, not again.”
She looked at him, surprised. He seemed more annoyed than anguished.
Scott typed rapidly on his cell. “I’m messaging Dolores. We’ll get on this immediately and will find her.”
Lexi could think of nothing to say. She found the disappointment overwhelming. When the fae door appeared, she pushed to her feet and hurried to it.
“We’ll let you know as soon as we know something,” was the last thing she heard Scott say before she stepped through.
In the diner, Dick took one look at her face. “Shit!”
She tapped her hip nervously where her dimensional pocket should have been. “Caleb arrived and took Alicia. He said he would take her to somewhere called Emmersley House.”
The vampire tilted his head and he frowned. “Emmersley…” he said as though the name resonated.
Scott stepped through and heard her explanation. “Should we go after him in your current condition?”
She turned to him. “He has my sister. It’s very clear from what he said to Bryan that the excuse he gave for taking her was a lie. I can still wield a sword and fire a gun. I’ll be fine. Of course, I’m not happy about feeling so weak. Maybe I should start on the vamp blood again.”
Dick stepped away hastily. “Don’t look at me. My contribution was involuntary.”
Dolores waved a hand and her fae door vanished. “It wouldn’t work anyway. Without access to your legacy abilities, you’re essentially a regular human. They don’t get superpowers from vamp blood.” She slapped Scott’s arm. “Are you looking for pie again? Everywhere you go, it’s pie, pie, pie.”
He dragged his gaze away from the menu. “Sorry, but they make amazing pie here.”
“If you want amazing pie, I’ll take you to Phil’s Cornerdown Kitchen sometime. Or maybe not. We don’t want you to die of longing.”
Scott fixed his gaze on her and smiled. “Die of longing? Where is this place?”
“It’s in a corner dimension of its own. People have been known to sit and die because they didn’t want to eat anywh
ere else.”
“What does he make?”
“Meatballs in Can’t-Feel-My-Face sauce, Wings with Fuckno dip. The usual.”
The sorcerer’s eyes glazed over. “I have to try it, Dolores. You need to make that happen.”
She checked the time. “Right, focus. You head to Vegas and get packed. I’ll look into the fae who killed Melvyn.”
“Can we help?” Lexi wondered if she would ultimately be squeezed out of the team. She knew that shouldn’t be her first concern, but she couldn’t help the feeling that she was losing who she was, piece by piece.
Dolores sighed. “I’ll look for answers in Fae. You head to Emmersley House. I’ll prepare your background and arrange your flights.”
She stared at her. “We don’t even know where it is.”
Dick’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “That name sounds so familiar.”
The fae stared at him. “It’s in Maine.”
Scott nodded to her. “You know it? Cool.”
She looked at him with an odd expression. “I’m surprised you don’t.”
He grinned at Lexi. “This place must be famous. I wonder if we’ll meet any celebrities.”
They left the diner and climbed into the SUV. The sorcerer sighed. “When we get there, I want a last dip in the pool.”
Dick turned in his seat to look at him. “You have something important to do, remember?”
“Oh, right. Well, after that, I’ll jump in the pool.”
Lexi massaged her temples. “I’m going to lie down.” She wasn’t even curious about whatever they were talking about.
Jesús came to meet them when they approached the condos. “Mr. Levin, the furniture has arrived. They asked what to do with what they were removing. I told them to pile it at the management company’s offices.”
Dick grinned. “You did the right thing. Wait, did you tell them to set it ablaze?”
