by Lisa Ladew
“Enough with the puzzles already, Angel, I’m full up,” she said, holding her hand, palm-down, at the level of her nose.
Angel laughed again in her mind, although the bobkitten on the floor did not move at all. “I apologize. The answers to your questions are complex. Now, we cannot tarry. You must choose a door and no matter which you choose, your aim is the same. There is a─he made some noise in his throat that she couldn’t quite follow─that you must find.”
“Wait, a what?”
He made the noise again, like he was spitting the word out, a word full of throaty consonants. Then he changed it. “I apologize. We shall call it a trinket, or a bauble, or perhaps a talisman will do.”
A picture rose to her mind of a pendant approximately an inch and a half high. It rotated in her imagination and her mouth dropped open as she saw both sides. On one side was an angel in flowing robes with a bowed head and wings peeking from its back, on the other, a snarling wolf with amber eyes.
“I’ve seen that. I had that! My mother─” she broke off, remembering the last time she had seen it. She’d been so very young, maybe four years old, and her mother had come to her in her room and sat on the floor next to her. She remembered her mother’s flowing hair and kind eyes and the way she spoke, like Dahlia was the most important thing in the world. She’d held up the pendant so that Dahlia could see it and said, “This is yours, Dahl. Your father left it for you. I see him in my dreams sometimes and I think he wants me to show this to you.” She’d spoken of Dahlia’s father in that way many times, but not giving his name or telling Dahlia any more about him. She’d just said she would tell Dahlia more when she was older.
Dahlia had held up a finger to touch the pendant, not knowing if she wanted to touch the angel or the wolf more, but when her finger grazed it, her mother had disappeared. Dahlia’s throat constricted and she couldn’t breathe over the lump. That had been the last time she’d seen her mother in that world. Two days later a delivery man had found her home alone, eating spaghetti raw from the pantry, and had called the authorities. Dahlia had gone to live with her mother’s sister, who had just gotten married. Neither Aunt Angela or Uncle Dan had seemed to like her much, but they had taken care of her. No one had ever discovered what had happened to her mom, and young Dahlia was unable to tell them what she didn’t understand.
In her dream world, her mother had still been there. Dahlia had relished going to sleep every night, knowing she would see her mother. Every time she’d tried to explain to her dream mother that she’d disappeared in the real world her mother had pulled her into a hug and told her she had such a big imagination, and that she would be a writer someday. She hadn’t had to go live with her aunt and uncle in her dream world until she had been fourteen years old, and her mother had died of something the doctors never had been able to explain. Dahlia had treasured every year she’d had her there, understanding that most kids who lost their parents did not get to still see them in another world.
“Yes, ayasha.” Angel’s voice was gentle. “You remember true.” He waited for a moment until she calmed herself, then went on. “You must choose a door, then you must find the talisman, no matter which door you go through. There is one in each world. You must procure it, regardless of the cost. What happens then, I cannot see. It depends on your choices and the choices of those looking for you.”
Dahlia walked to the first door and lightly rested her fingers on it. She could feel it. The pull of the pendant, or talisman, as Angel liked to call it. It wanted her to find it. It called to her.
She walked slowly to the next door. Another talisman, but this one brought knowledge that scared her. The talisman and the knowledge called to her, but she sensed the knowledge would break her. She hurried on and touched the third door.
“I feel many talismans behind this door.”
“That is the world you just came from. You cannot return there until your fate is bound. Only your mate can do that for you.”
“Crew?”
For the first time, she sensed displeasure, or perhaps unease from Angel. “Are you asking me, or telling me?”
“Telling you. Crew. Will he be able to find me in either of these worlds, no matter which I choose?”
“If he is willful enough, strong enough, and clever enough, he will be able to find you in any world at any time.”
Dahlia noticed he hadn’t exactly answered her question, but she didn’t care. Tingles marched up and down her spine. Crew would find her in no time. Maybe she wouldn’t have to be alone for very long.
Still, her traitor mouth asked one more question. “What if he does not find me? What happens to me?”
“You doubt him?”
She shook her head, shame heating her cheeks. “No.”
“Your imagination is strong, ayasha. Never feed it that which you do not wish to see.”
Dahlia remembered the lion and shuddered, knowing that was both exactly what he meant and not at all what he meant.
“You must choose now.”
Dahlia put her hand on the second door again, shying away from what she sensed there, then went to the first door and stood in front of it. “Will it be dangerous?”
“All worlds are dangerous, otherwise there would be no discovery, no chances, no possibility of great triumph or sorrow, and without those things, there would be no fun, no chase, no joy, no love.”
Dahlia put her hand on the knob but could not turn it.
“Do not be afraid, ayasha. The entire universe and all worlds within it support you. Many beacons and helpers exist to point your way within worlds. I am one such beacon. Your eldest sister is another. Your mate is a third. Your path will be lit from beginning to end, and if you stray from it, there will be chance after chance to find your way back.”
But Dahlia was afraid. Complete unknown was behind that door, and Crew was not in that world yet. “What would happen if I stayed here?”
“Ah, that is a choice I have not offered you, because I did not believe you would choose it. If you stay, I will guide you to your eternal reward, and you will reside there, permanently. Do you choose it?”
Dahlia shook her head. “No.” The way he said ‘eternal reward’ told her what it was. Heaven. The afterlife. Done, over, finito. She wasn’t ready.
“You do relish the danger of these worlds, like all who are here with you. Go, ayasha. I will call for you when it is time. Be as quick as you can, as I will hold the time between the worlds consistent, but I cannot do it forever.”
Dahlia grasped the doorknob harder.
And turned it.
Chapter 20
Crew stared at Dahlia’s body, anguish filling him. He sat back on his haunches and howled out his pain, then shifted into his human form and fell over the top of her, his tears spilling out onto her chest, not noticing the cold against his naked skin. “No. No. I couldn’t stop it. I’m so sorry, Dahlia. My fault, all my fault.”
A hand landed on his shoulder, then another one on his other shoulder. He didn’t have to look around to know it was Wade and Beckett. The smells of their sorrow for him overwhelmed him, lacing over the top of Dahlia’s swiftly fading lavender.
“Get away from us!” he shouted, gathering her into his arms, wanting only to smell her, remember her, have no one interfere with his grief. He didn’t give a shit about their sorrow. They couldn’t help him through it, no one could. He rocked her in his arms and buried his face in her hair, howling, even in his human form.
But then her body began to lose its form. He couldn’t feel her skin against his hands, even though he could still see her. She became transparent, fading in the dim light. “No. NO!”
Her body disappeared completely and his arms held only cold winter air. He shot to his feet. “Rhen! he shouted. “Give her back to me, goddammit! I’ll curse you, too! I swear─”
He stopped, then turned in a circle, ignoring his packmates who had moved back several feet, wary eyes on him. Her body had disappeared, like his did wh
en he slept. Did that mean?
“Knock me the fuck out!” he screamed, his voice cracking, looking at no one in particular. He ran to Beckett and grabbed him by his shirt, shaking him. “Knock me out, Beck, quick!”
Beckett put his hands up. “Crew, calm do─”
“Fuck that, Beckett! Don’t tell me to calm down! You fucking saw her die!” He let go of Beckett and ran to Jaggar, grabbing him like he had Beckett. “Jaggar, do it man, I gotta know.”
Jaggar shook his head like Crew was crazy. Oh fuck. He didn’t have time for this! He ran to Mac. “Mac, I know you don’t understand, but I gotta be unconscious! Knock me─”
Mac’s meaty fist came up in a roundhouse blow and caught him in the temple.
His world went dark.
***
Crew came to all at once, rolling off the bed onto the floor and retching on hands and knees, his head pounding. He shifted for just a moment, wondering how much more his brain could take, then shifted back to human form and stood, rushing out of his room.
Mac was at the table, eating cereal again. “Spook! What the fuck is going on? You were only here for a minute earlier, and in the middle of the day. Is she back? Is that why you’re naked?”
Crew stumbled to the table. “You haven’t seen her? Not all day?”
Mac’s face lined with worry. “No.”
Crew stared at the ceiling, what hope he had ebbing away. He sat in a chair and dropped his head to the table, his heart destroyed. There was no avoiding fate. When fate wanted you, it could get you anywhere.
“Crew, wolf, you’re scaring me.”
“She died. She’s dead. She was in my other world, and now she’s gone.”
Crew didn’t speak or move for a long time. He could feel Mac’s weighty consideration but he couldn’t care about it.
“Why did you come running back here looking for her?”
Crew lolled his head, wishing he could really die of a broken heart, because his was shattered and he was tired. “Because her body disappeared.”
Mac stood and moved about the kitchen, putting something on the table near Crew. When he popped the top, Crew knew it was a beer. He didn’t want it, but he drank it all in one guzzle anyway.
“So when her body disappeared, you thought she came back over here.”
Crew didn’t answer, dropping his head to the table again with a loud crack. What did he do now? She was gone. In both worlds. There was nothing for him.
Mac cleared his throat. “What if she went to another world?”
Crew squeezed the beer bottle in his hand until it cracked, the jagged glass cutting into his palm and fingers. He dropped his hand to the edge of the table, letting the blood seep out onto the floor. Mac’s words made no sense.
Mac cleaned up the glass around him and wrapped Crew’s hand in a towel before he spoke again. “Crew, I’m gonna need you to get ahold of yourself and get some clothes on if we’re gonna have any chance of finding your female.”
Crew raised his head slowly and looked Mac in the eye, screaming internally. “She’s dead, I told you.”
“I don’t believe she is.” Mac wrapped the towel tighter around Crew’s hand, then began to clean the blood up from the floor.
“Look. I need to tell you something that I’ve never told you before. You, ah, you know how my mom was always superstitious, right? I know you do, you lived with her for seven years. When you first showed up in our world and told me your secrets, I believed you. I believed all of it. But you made me swear not to tell my parents any of it. So I didn’t. I just told them that you had amnesia, and you needed a place to stay. She was nervous about it, so she made my dad take me and her to see The White Lady, to ask about you.”
Crew sat up a little straighter, able to think again, just a little, tiny fairy wings beating in his chest. “The augur?”
“Is that what you call her? I call her the only being on the planet spookier than you. I mean shit, you think you come from another world and she thinks she can see the future. You two made a great pair.”
Mac gave him a grin, but jumped right back into his story when Crew shot him a black look. “So, we paid her in chickens but my mom made me pay for it out of my own pocket. I had to work off that money for a long time, Spook, but I never told you because I didn’t want you to feel bad about it. You did plenty for me over the years, more than made up that debt. So, anyway, we headed out to her cave─yeah she lives in a cave, and it’s nasty─and my dad wouldn’t even go in. He said female augurs can’t be trusted, but my mom wouldn’t back down. So me and her went in alone. We sat down on these rocks while she kind of hovered above us on this big rock that looked like a stage. She was walking back and forth constantly, wearing this cliché fortune teller’s garb from right out of some stupid movie. She said she could tell us anything we wanted to know, but if we used the word want, the word need, or any pronoun, she would throw us right out on our asses and keep our money, or our chickens, or whatever. She said want, need, and pronouns mess with the spirit messages. So you gotta be super careful how you ask your questions. My mom said something like, ‘There is a boy named Crew who showed up at the farmhouse last week. Crew has been sleeping in the barn. Mac is asking if Crew is telling the truth.’ ‘The truth about what?’ the old lady said. ‘The truth about wh─.’ My mom stopped, and I knew she was about to say ‘about who he is,’ but she remembered she wasn’t supposed to use pronouns, so she thought about it for a moment. Then she pointed to me and said carefully. ‘Did Crew tell Mac the truth about the person Crew is and what Crew remembers?’”
Mac grinned, then laughed. “Good thing I went with her, because you told me the truth at least. The White Lady didn’t miss a beat, she got this super sly look on her face and stared at me. ‘Crew told the truth to Mac,’ she said, grinning. I didn’t know if she was gonna bust me out or not for lying to my mom, but then my mom said, real fast, ‘Oh good. Can we trust him?’ The White Lady shrieked at that and screamed at my mom to get out, get out, get out, and darn if my mom didn’t growl at her, but then The White Lady sent all sorts of spirits at my mom and they were just like dust and wind but my mom was shrieking and beating them with her hands. The White Lady called them off but told my mother their business was done, but she would talk to me alone. My mom looked at me and nodded like I was supposed to know what to ask and then she left the cave. So I’m sitting there and The White Lady is just pacing back and forth and looking at me and grinning, and then she says, ‘Your friend, you keep him close and take care of him. He’s going to do some important things in his life. When he’s at his very lowest point, you bring him to me. You tell him I can help him find his way to what he thinks is lost forever. He’ll have to pay with his very dearest possession, but I think he’ll find it worth it.”
Mac stopped talking and stared at Crew, letting it sink in. “I wondered over the years if you’d hit your lowest point a few times, but always decided no, you hadn’t quite yet. But when you popped over for just a moment this afternoon, screaming for Dahlia, I dug this out.” He threw a faded piece of paper on the table between them.
Crew picked it up and smoothed it out, reading the words The White Lady had told Mac so many years ago.
“I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget it. Spook, I think we can get your mate back.”
Chapter 21
Crew looked around the cave with little curiosity. All he cared about was what The White Lady could do to help him find Dahlia. The knowledge that she might still be alive was too much, like a physical weight sitting on his chest, strangling the air out of him. He wanted so badly to believe.
Too bad he didn’t know what the augur was going to want. He had no great possessions, only a little money, but all he had he would gladly give to her if she wanted it. He’d never cared about things, his life was more of an internal one.
“Up here,” Mac said.
“Who’s there?” a voice called, and Crew thought he recognized it, but could not quite place it. A
s they rounded a bend in the frigid cave, their boots puffing up dust from the bare ground, apprehension filled him.
She came into view, old and wrinkled as Mac has said, and still wearing a fortune teller’s gown like you might see at a carnival or in a corny movie. But around her shoulders was an animal stole that did not fit. Crew scented. Mink.
Mac stopped short and grabbed him before he continued any farther. “Remember, you can’t say any pronouns or ‘need’ or ‘want’,” he whispered.
“That doesn’t apply to him,” The White Lady said, her eyes shrewd. She hopped down from her rock as if she were in the prime of her life and rushed forward. “I have been waiting for you.”
Crew stared down at her, trying to read her and getting blocked at every turn.
“You stay out of my head and I’ll stay out of yours,” she intoned, her voice hard.
Crew pulled back. She was powerful, and she was more than what she seemed. He sensed many forms inside her, animal and other. He doubted she had much human in her, thinking this was just a form she took because it amused her to trick people. His eyes widened as he realized what she could be. A shapeshifter. A being able to change into any form it wanted, but bound by the strengths and weaknesses of that form. So she could turn into a wolf, bear, dragon, or anything else that existed. He’d heard of them in this world, but hadn’t quite believed they existed. But what did that mean her counterpart in the other world was?
She gave Mac a look, then stepped to stand in front of him. “You turned out fine, now didn’t you? Put some meat on your bones.” She ran a finger down his chest to his belly. “I like meat.”
Mac gave her a challenging look and stood his ground, even as she grasped his package. She chuckled. “Yes, mighty fine.” She shifted to stand in front of Crew again. “And you. So powerful.” She shook her head. “But so tired. Will you ever sleep again?”
Crew narrowed his eyes. “That’s not why I’m here.”
