What the… I froze in horror as Naima emerged from the swirling white vortex. No… no, you died! You were dead! I saw you get crushed. I couldn’t get the words to come out of my mouth. My throat had pretty much closed up.
The beast bared her fangs and lunged forward. With her claws out, she snatched Suri right out of my arms and dragged her into the portal. It happened so fast I could barely think.
“NO!” I leapt into the portal after them, just as it began to close.
I landed on my stomach a second later, on a patch of wet grass. The wind had been knocked out of me. My ribs ached as the initial pain of landing subsided. With a groan, I dragged myself to my feet.
Blinking away the white light that had seared the backs of my eyes, I looked around. Naima and Suri were nowhere to be found. I didn’t know whether to be more shocked or terrified. If anything happened to Suri, it’d be my fault. I should’ve known better than to be out in the open like that. Of course Katherine had eyes on me. Of course something like this was going to happen. Any kind of attachment spelled weakness, and she’d pounced on mine. Literally.
How did she bring that beast back to life? I’d watched Erebus crush Naima to death. I’d seen the blood spray out of her mouth and heard the crack of her bones. What ungodly, freakish thing had Katherine done this time? I should’ve known that, too—Katherine would never have let her sidekick die. But that wasn’t important now. I needed to find Suri. She was an innocent in this. A terrified bystander. I should’ve gone back to the coven when I’d had the chance and left things as they were—a nice encounter with a pretty girl, nothing more.
Naima had clearly been waiting for an opportunity to strike. She couldn’t have gotten to me while I was in the coven. Levi was right. That pained me to admit. He’d told me to stay close to the coven. I should never have gone outside it. See, you are a liability. You’re no hero. I’d been an idiot, and now Suri’s life was on the line.
Rubbing my eyes, I noticed the strangeness of wherever I’d landed. It’d looked normal through blurred vision. But now, I realized it was anything but. I was standing on a tiny island, surrounded on all sides by water. But not normal water. No, this was more like… well, liquid light was the only way I could describe it. It shifted and glinted, the iridescence moving like ripples in a pond. It was incredibly weird, but sort of beautiful. Like melted pearls. Millions and millions of ponds like this stretched away to the horizon of bright, white sky. It was hard to tell if the sky was reflecting in the ponds or the ponds were reflecting back at the sky. Either way, it hurt my eyes.
The ponds each had a small island in the center and were connected by grassy pathways. This stuff was white, with a diamond sheen that made it look like glass. There were rose-like flowers growing, too, each one pure white, down to the stems and the leaves. The Queen of Hearts would’ve had a field day. This place was pretty peaceful, in the eeriest way. Totally silent.
I peered across the odd landscape, hoping for a sign of Suri or Naima, but they didn’t seem to be here. They have to be. Even if I couldn’t see them, I had to find them. I’d traipse across every single pond if I had to.
I lifted my hand to my neck. The scar that Levi had left on me was burning. He was bound to figure out I wasn’t in their dimension anymore. But it wasn’t like he could send a rescue team. He probably wouldn’t, even if he could, just to spite me. He’d wait until I came back instead and lock me up the moment I appeared. I didn’t so much care about that, as long as I could find Suri. I needed to get her out of here before Katherine did something to her.
I was about to set off across the nearest grassy path, when I noticed a man standing nearby. I hadn’t seen him at first because he wasn’t exactly solid. He seemed to be semi-transparent, getting more or less opaque depending on how the light hit him. He was staring right at me with an unsettling look in his eyes. He didn’t look angry or anything, but there was a fondness in his smile that set me on edge.
“Jacob… I didn’t expect to see you here,” the strange man said, approaching.
“Do I know you?” I couldn’t wrap my head around any of this.
The man looked like I’d smashed my fist through him. “Yes, you know me.”
“I do?” I couldn’t place him, for the life of me.
“My name is Elan.”
My heart jolted. The name was so painfully familiar that it hit me right in the gut. Sucker Punch 101. Everything I’d ever been told about my parents came flooding back.
Elan had been my father’s name.
Fifteen
Jacob
I’d never met my dad, but I knew he’d gone portal-opening for Katherine on a cult mission. Then, he’d vanished, and nobody had known what had happened to him. He’d never come back. Most people thought he’d gotten stuck somewhere between dimensions.
“Are you… are you my dad?” I asked.
The man nodded. “Yes, Jacob. Yes, I am.”
I wanted to believe him. I really did. But there was something off about him. He moved in a weird way, as if there was a time lag or something. And that transparent thing was strange. Was this what happened when someone got stuck between dimensions? Did they turn see-through?
“What’s up with you? Why are you all… transparent?”
He smiled. “It’s a long story. There will be time, in due course.”
I’d wanted this moment all my life. And now that it had arrived, for some reason I wanted to run away from it. There was something weird about him. Plus, given his past, I didn’t know if I could trust him. What if he was still working for Katherine? He’d done it before.
“Are you… Are you still on Katherine’s side?”
“No.”
I frowned. “You might be lying.”
“I might be, but I’m not,” he replied. “I was done with her a long time ago.”
“How can I believe that?”
“Are you worried I’m going to hurt you?” He looked concerned but still ambiguous.
I shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. Last thing I heard, you were Katherine’s minion. How do I know that has changed?”
“Trust me,” he said simply.
“Yeah, people have said that before, and it hasn’t gone well.”
“I realize you must have heard some terrible things.” He paused. “But, as an assurance that I mean you no harm—watch.” He stepped forward and put his hand out, but it passed straight through me. He couldn’t touch me, even if he wanted to. I didn’t know whether to be glad or disappointed. Especially as I still didn’t know if I could trust him.
“Look, I’d really love to talk and figure this out—whatever this is—but there’s something pretty urgent I need to do first. If you’re really not on Katherine’s side, then maybe you can help,” I managed.
He nodded. “Anything for you.” He sounded legit, but that didn’t mean he was.
“Did you see any other people come through here, not long before me?” Suri needed me. And with every second I wasted, I was putting her in more danger than I already had. Even so, a thousand questions raced through my head. Questions that had to wait.
Elan frowned. “Should I have?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” I bit my lip, frustrated. “All I know is, Katherine Shipton stole a girl from the coven I’ve been staying at. She snatched her because of me, and I have to get her back. She’s also kidnapped Echidna, the Mother of Monsters, so if you know anything about that, that might be useful, too. I don’t know if Suri is part of that, or what. Or if I’m supposed to be part of that. But I need to get Suri back before Katherine does something horrible to her.”
Elan nodded slowly. “That would explain all of the unusual sounds I’ve been hearing in Lethe, lately.” His voice sounded strangely faraway, as if it wasn’t quite attached to him.
“Lethe?”
“Where you are now,” he explained. “This is the Land of Light, otherwise known as Lethe, and if what you’re saying about Echidna is true, this is likely wher
e Katherine plans to kill her.”
I frowned. “But what do you mean about unusual sounds? Why would there be weird sounds?” I was having flashbacks about those freaking Purge beasts in Tartarus. I didn’t want to have to fight my way through a horde of them again.
Elan smiled. “You don’t know who Echidna really is, huh?”
“She’s the Mother of Monsters, right?” I figured he had more insight into her than I did.
“And what do mothers normally do?”
I frowned. “Give birth.”
“Do you think she’d do that quietly?” Elan chuckled.
“Oh.” It hit me. Unusual sounds. Giving birth. Monsters coming out of Echidna. She’d definitely make some weird-ass sounds if she was shooting out creature babies all over the place. If I hadn’t been worried before, I was terrified now. Suri was here, somewhere, and those baby monsters could be after her. Katherine definitely wouldn’t hesitate to feed her to them.
“Where are these sounds coming from? Do you know?”
Elan shook his head. “I only hear the noises in short bursts. If Katherine is holding Echidna here, then she must have control over the situation. She’s likely bottling up the babies as soon as they come out, to use for her own ends. I get the feeling Katherine has changed very little since the last time I encountered her.” Yeah, my dad definitely had more insight into Echidna than I did. Although, from what Harley had told us about Eris Island, this wouldn’t be the first time Katherine had used Purge beasts to benefit herself. In the cult, she used them for power. Maybe she was getting what she could out of Echidna now, Purge beast power-wise, before she completed the fourth ritual.
“How come the Child of Chaos here hasn’t kicked her out? I’m guessing it’s Lux, right?” I asked.
“It’s hard to say. Children of Chaos are fickle. Lux might be biding her time so she can keep an eye on Katherine, or Katherine might be keeping under the radar due to the strange behavior of Lethe, as a place.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you must have arrived here right after this girl you’re looking for, yes?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I jumped through the portal a couple of seconds after them.”
“Portaling into this place doesn’t work the same as it does in other places, otherworlds included,” he said. “The ponds and the landscape continue to shift in a constant cycle. Unless your feet are firmly on the ground, the world beneath you will move without you. It almost killed me when I first arrived here.” He glanced at me with sad eyes. “Can I ask you something?”
“Uh… I guess.”
“Are you like me?”
“How do you mean?” I could see a resemblance between his face and mine, but it was hard to tell with the transparent thing.
“Are you a Portal Opener?”
I gave a small smile. “Yeah.”
“I always wondered if you might be.” That stabbed at my heart. He’d thought about me. All this time, he’d been thinking about me.
“Can you help me get to the source of these noises?” I forced my emotions down. I couldn’t be vulnerable right now. If Echidna was making these sounds, then that was probably where Naima was, with Suri. And, maybe, if I got really lucky, Katherine would be somewhere else.
“I can, but you’ll need to be careful,” he replied. He seemed hurt, but I couldn’t fix that yet. Soon, I hoped, but not yet. “These ponds are treacherous. They have a hypnotic quality that can draw a person in and drag you down in a second. I would have suggested you try to portal your way around here, but if you miss a single step, or land in one of these ponds by accident, there’ll be no way to rescue you. They’re deadly, and they won’t ever let you out.”
“What are they made of?” I glanced down at the nearest pond, watching the shimmering ripples of the pearlescent light-liquid. It was pretty hypnotic. I could’ve stared at it for hours.
“Lethe is an otherworld with peculiar rules. It doesn’t abide by any physical laws, and it is rife with snares intended to keep you here,” he said. “We’ll have to work our way across the grass pathways. It’ll be a long trek, but it’ll be safer than the alternative. Plus, it’ll give us a little bit of time to talk, if you want to?” He cleared his throat and turned away. “I understand your urgency, but this is the only way to ensure you get there without getting caught or killed. No matter what your task is, you have to keep yourself safe first.”
I nodded reluctantly. “Then lead the way.” I still wasn’t sure if I was ready to talk. This was all a bit much. Rescuing Suri was stressful enough. Adding years and years of abandonment issues and therapy to the mix was a recipe for disaster. But what if I didn’t get this chance again? I couldn’t let fear stop me. I couldn’t let those years of pain win, not if I could get some answers here. Even if they weren’t the ones I wanted to hear, it’d be something.
We walked across the diamond-grass pathways, though my dad moved strangely. It was somewhere between floating and walking, making me feel like a heavy elephant next to him. After a couple of minutes, my first question appeared. It was a simple one. One that hopefully wouldn’t involve too much deep digging into my emotional psyche.
“How is this even possible?” I asked.
Elan looked at me. “Lethe?”
“No, you being here. If you got stuck here, why didn’t you just portal back out again? Everyone thought you’d gotten stuck between dimensions, but if this is an otherworld, then that can’t be true.”
He sighed. “Because… Because I’m dead, Jacob.”
I almost toppled into one of the ponds. Even with him being all see-through, it’d never occurred to me that he might not be alive anymore. I’d gone through a bunch of weird, Portal-Opener-related scenarios, and death hadn’t been one. That was the trouble with loved ones—even if someone told you, point blank, that they were dead, it was hard to believe it.
Even now, I was having trouble. That couldn’t be right. I knew my mom had died, but I’d always clung to the hope that my dad was alive out there, somewhere. I’d always dreamed of being reunited one day. I’d pictured rescuing him a thousand different ways. And now, to hear that chance had been stolen from me… I couldn’t come to grips with it. It wouldn’t sit right in my brain.
“What do you mean?” was all I could say.
“I died, Jacob.” His eyes filled with pain.
“How?” I wasn’t even sure I wanted to know. That would’ve killed the last flicker of hope inside me, that he’d gotten it wrong.
“To tell you that, I have to start at the beginning.” He turned his face away from me. Like it was too painful to say while he was looking me in the eyes. “You see, your mother and I were seduced by the picture Katherine had painted of an idyllic world, where magic ruled and those who were unworthy were denied their magic, while those who needed it the most were given more power.”
He glanced at me, as if to gauge my reaction, and I tried not to make a face. “It sounds insane now, to think we were sucked in by her words, but if you know anything about her, then you know how charismatic she can be,” he continued. “She preyed on us, because we came from difficult backgrounds—ones that made us easy to manipulate. Being Native American, I’d become disenchanted with the state of our nation and the way they treated my people—magical and human alike. Katherine promised to change that. She promised to give power back to those whose blood and life were bound to this soil. She said those of Native blood would be the first to be gifted with more power.
“And then, with your mother, who was a Latina, smuggled into the country as a baby and dragged around by the cartels all of her life—Katherine promised her a better future, where nobody was judged by where they had come from or how legitimate they were. She said that when she became the leader of her brave new world, her citizens would transcend being ‘American’ or belonging to any one country. She said we’d be citizens of Eris instead.”
“Why would you believe her?” I’d never been sucked into Katherine’s �
��charisma,” so I couldn’t understand how anyone could be. Even my own parents.
“Because we were wronged by everyone we’d ever met, even magicals. When your mother first discovered her abilities and sought out a coven, they treated her like dirt. Katherine offered unity and belonging that we’d never experienced before,” he said. “Even now, I think, why should magicals be the ones who live in hiding, afraid of how humans might react? I don’t agree with Katherine’s way anymore, but I still wonder if there might be a chance for humans and magicals to live together with everything out in the open. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Anyway, back then, I felt that there was no balance and no justice, and Katherine made herself seem like the only solution to that imbalance.”
I was starting to understand a little better. Being half Native American and half Latino, I’d experienced my fair share of judgment and discrimination. I’d been called a lot of names in my life. And I wasn’t as old as my dad had been when he joined the cult. Maybe, after a few more years of that constant grind, I might have felt similarly. Words stung like barbs and clung on long after they’d been hurled at you. Plus, I’d never had to face the mistreatment of my people head on. My mother and father likely had, considering where they’d come from and the time in which they’d been born.
“In the end, we joined the Cult of Eris. We were some of its earliest members,” my dad went on. “I met her there—your mom. The moment I laid eyes on her, I knew she was the woman for me. I’ll never forget that laugh, or that long, dark hair, and those brown eyes. She could hold the attention of a room simply by being there. And I felt like the luckiest bastard alive, to have her love me, and to love her in return.”
Harley Merlin 7: Harley Merlin and the Detector Fix Page 12
