by Rob Cornell
He wrinkled his nose. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Pop culture’s a no-go for you. Got it.” She held her hands out at her sides like a filthy angel about to take flight, only without the white robe or the halo or… Fine, she looked more like a vamp than an angel. Whatever. “Doesn’t the way I look right now bother you?”
“I didn’t force you to go digging in the dirt.”
“You didn’t,” Jessie said. “Not directly anyway. But your boss sure did.”
Ree frowned. “I know you have issues with authority, but you’re blowing things—”
“Don’t you dare say I’m blowing things out of proportion. I’ve got a perfectly fine grasp of proportion. It’s you who’s too blind to see the danger in front of you.”
“What danger?” He closed his eyes and sighed. Then he refocused his gaze—a little too dark for Jessie’s taste, like he might tranq her after all—on her, jaw set. “We’ve had our disagreements, but I thought we were on the level. Don’t you trust me?”
Way to guilt trip her. He almost sounded like a whimpering puppy dog. I know I shit on the carpet, but you still love me, don’t you?
Jessie growled and stomped her foot. Water splashed up and spattered her legs. By this point, what was a little more wetness? Still, she was frustrated. Frustrated with herself, with Ree, and most definitely with Horseradish and Kinga-Roo. She had no allies. A position she’d never been in before.
As a kid—not that long ago, no matter how it felt—she had moaned and groaned about having no one who really understood her or cared. Certainly not her mom.
What a stupid girl she’d been.
She would have killed to have her mom here right now.
And Craig.
And a really big-ass gun.
“I trust you mean well,” Jessie said. A breeze rustled through the trees like a dying breath. She shivered. “But apparently you can’t see what’s right in front of you.”
“Right now, all I see is a tired-looking girl who needs a friend.”
His insight into her annoyed Jessie. How dare he act like he knew what she needed? Even if he was right. But she saw an opening. A small one. One she had to try to open wider.
“Yes,” she said. “I need a friend. I need someone who trusts me. Someone who will listen to what I have to say.”
“I’ve been listening all along. You won’t listen to me.”
“We could go round like this forever.” She trudged forward through the river. The muddy river floor squished under her feet. More water flushed down her boots, but she was as soaked as she could get, so she didn’t much care. “But if you think I need a friend, you can be that friend. And you can help me get away from the Agency.”
He shook his head. “Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s what I want. I am the Return. I don’t need some shadowy agency trying to control me, to use me to secure foreign oil. It’s what I want, Ree. And friends help each other get what they want. What they need.”
He swallowed. His gaze shot up toward the sound of the circling helicopter. Another sigh ran through the trees. Something skittered through the underbrush.
“I can’t,” he said.
Jessie hummed like an intrigued scientist seeing expected results from an experiment. “Interesting. Why can’t you? Because you don’t believe you should? Or because they’re telling you what to do?”
“I have orders,” he said. He humphed. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand that. There’s a reason we need to follow orders, Jessie. It’s for the greater good.”
Jessie’s stomach dropped as if she had plummeted down the first hill on a roller coaster. The greater good. She hadn’t heard that phrase in a long time. When she had first met Craig, that was his excuse for some of his behavior too. All things in service to The Greater Good.
“Not to sound all egotistical, but isn’t the greater good me?”
His eyes narrowed. He lifted his rifle barrel a couple inches, enough for Jessie to notice.
“Three years ago I made a decision,” Jessie continued. “Everything hinged on that decision. I accepted my role in the prophecy. I chose to be the Chosen One.”
“I don’t pretend to know how that all works—”
“Then let me tell you.” She sloughed forward another dozen steps. She closed the distance between them to about ten feet. Close enough that she saw Ree’s grip tighten on his rifle.
He’s afraid of me.
Who the hell knew why? She didn’t have any of the mojo she used to have. But he didn’t know that. He just admitted to not understanding how she worked—as if she were a complicated toy with a hidden ON switch.
“Let me tell you how I work, Ree.”
The helicopter’s chopping blades faded some as it flew toward the far end of its circular track. The water smelled a little fishy. The river bank’s earthy scent filled Jessie’s nose as she took a deep breath. Now that she had stopped frantically digging and had stood still for a while, her body temperature had cooled to match her wet clothing. She tried to keep from shivering without luck.
“I am the Return. I was chosen to bring back balance to the mortal plane. It ain’t the Force. And I’m not Gandalf. I have one, single skill. I send the things that don’t belong here home. I’m a glorified taxi service.”
She shrugged.
“That’s all I am. I can’t hurt anyone. I’m not a security threat. And it isn’t fair for me to be a prisoner.”
“You’re not a prisoner.”
“Then how come there’s a helicopter trolling overhead while a bunch of agents from a secret organization are marching through the woods looking for me—”
She pointed at his rifle.
“—armed with tranquilizer guns.”
His gaze lowered to his gun. Could have been wishful thinking, but he looked like he felt guilty. Was he finally seeing things from her viewpoint?
He pressed his lips together. Sighed through his nose.
The trickling river rolled on as if neither of them existed. The river had no interest in the problems of people. It would keep moving until something blocked its way or the sun dried it up.
Jessie wished she could be the river.
When Ree spoke next, he couldn’t look at her. “I’m sorry, Jessie. I have to bring you home.”
Every muscle in her body went slack. Any second now she would flop into the river and wash away, a limp husk of a human with no fight left in her. The taste in her mouth was like rancid milk.
“Home.” She laughed. “Yeah, right.”
Then some of the tension returned to her body. She clenched her fists, curled her lip, took shaky, angry breaths that made her nostrils flare. “You know what? Fuck this. You want to take me back to that hellhole, you’re going to have to shoot me.”
The corners of Ree’s eyes crinkled. Now he could look at her, now that she had again become a target to acquire instead of a person to care about. “Don’t.”
Jessie flipped him the bird. “Whatever, asshole.” Then she turned, her boots gouging into the river floor. She used those gouges as toeholds like sprinters used at the starting line and pushed off, high stepping it through the water toward the riverbank, water-filled boots like ten-pound weights strapped to each foot.
Her thighs started burning after a half-dozen steps. Her body heat rose, and with it the stink of her sweat and garbage that had fused to her skin. She might smell like a trash bin for the rest of her life.
She reached the riverbank, panting. Water sloshed out the tops of her boots. Great big globs of mud clung to the soles.
He’s letting me run.
But as soon as she thought that, she sensed the barrel’s aim straight at her back—which she could pass off as only her paranoid imagination until the dart stung her in the ass.
She had enough time to turn through the coalescing blur to give Ree her best What the fuck? look, then the blur turned to darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Tw
o
THE ROOM ELKA FOUND LOOKED nothing like the seven or eight rooms they had checked before it. Unlike the plain concrete walls in the other rooms, this one had dark wood paneling, the kind that went out of style in the early eighties. It gave the room a den-like feel, though Elka’s father’s den hadn’t looked anything like this. She remembered finding him in one of the leather wingback chairs that sat in a corner of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, reading a Stephen King novel and chuckling with his mouth closed as he flipped the pages.
What mortals thought of as frightening, he had explained to her when she’d asked, was nothing compared to the horrors their people had suffered.
Where her father’s study had smelled like cinnamon incense—a scent he claimed calmed him while he lost himself in thought—this room had a faintly sweet odor that smelled like the kind of perfume the popular girls wore in middle school.
At first, Elka assumed it came from Kit, but she would have noticed it before coming in here.
A visible layer of dust had caked into the red shag carpet’s nap, which suited it since the carpet was older than Elka. A relic from a gaudy era.
As Elka stepped into the room, puffs of dust kicking up from the carpet onto the tops of her feet where her flats didn’t cover, she discovered the massive large-screen projection TV. It stood against the wall opposite the king-sized bed with maroon satin sheets, matching pillow cases, and a bearskin spread.
The TV looked like something out of a cheesy old science-fiction movie. More dust coated the screen and the protruding projection mechanism in front of it.
Elka laughed out loud at the sight.
“What the heck is that?” Kit asked. “Some kind of old computer?”
Elka laughed again. While she had at least heard of such a thing, Kit had probably never seen anything other than a flat-screen TV, let alone a tube television. This would have to be unrecognizable to her.
“It’s an antique,” Elka said and left it at that.
On the wall above the bed hung a framed oil painting, a portrait of a man dressed in a purple suit, with dark hair down to his shoulders and eyes that looked like they could suck souls clean out of their bodies.
His blank stare sent a chill through Elka, as if the real man could actually see her through his portrait’s eyes. His face had a chiseled look to it, with sharp edges, and a hawkish nose.
“Who’s the creeper?” Kit asked, on the same wavelength with Elka about the portrait.
“I’ve no idea.”
Elka felt the heat of another presence behind her.
“I’ll be damned.”
Elka recognized Earl’s awed voice right away.
He slipped his way between her and Kit, gazing at the portrait like a Baptist at a vision of Jesus himself. His jackboots scraped through the dusty carpet as he slowly moved toward the painting, drawing clean streaks across the nap.
“It’s him,” Earl whispered.
Elka could tell he was talking to himself, but that didn’t stop her from joining the conversation. “It’s who?”
“Yeah,” Kit said. “What’s that yer fussin’ about?”
Earl threw a glare at Kit over his shoulder. “You don’t talk like that now, you hear?”
“But Uncle Eee, I’m a just carryin’ on a family tradition. Ain’t that what us folk do?”
Earl turned his whole body and took two long strides to get in Kit’s face and point a finger an inch from her nose. “This here is holy ground, young lady. I expect you to take it seriously.”
Not in the mood to stand by another spat between these two, Elka gently touched Earl’s arm. “Hey, Earl. Talk to me, okay? Tell me who this man is?”
He curled his finger in so that his hand made a fist. His hard stare at Kit sent the rest of his message—though Elka doubted he would actually hit his niece. He was too protective of her, and she didn’t show any signs that he had in the past. No visible bruises, but more than that, not so much as a flinch at the sight of his fist in her face.
She knew better than Elka that her uncle wouldn’t lay a hand on her.
But Earl had delivered his impotent threat, which seemed enough for him. He let his fist drop and he turned to Elka. “That man is the reason we are here.” He pivoted on his heal and crept deeper into the room until he stood at the foot of the bed with an almost painful look of homage in his eyes as he stared at the portrait.
“That is Gabriel Dolan, the founder of our movement. The first to demand we take the true powers of this world out of the shadows and into a new Dawn.”
Elka had done plenty of research in the years between losing her family and now. Of course she had heard of Gabriel Dolan. Many mortals and supernaturals both either feared, hated, or adored him. Sometimes all three. She had never seen so much as a picture of him, though.
Until now.
While Elka doubted he was really the first mortal to want to make the secret paranormal reality part of mainstream human life, he had certainly made a larger mark on history than any other. This underground base must have belonged to him back when he had championed his cause.
But Elka knew that Gabriel Dolan was supposed to be dead. He wouldn’t make much of a leader to Earl’s crew as a corpse.
She didn’t want to piss him off, so she kept that last thought to herself. A hundred other questions presented themselves instead. Including the biggest.
“Are you ever going to tell me how I fit into all of this?”
Earl shook his head and looked at her. His eyes were wet as if he was about to cry. He pointed at the portrait. “He knows. But he hasn’t told me yet.”
Apparently Earl did not know his beloved leader was dead. She would have to break it to him after all. “Earl, Gabriel Dolan’s been dead for almost two decades.”
Earl grinned, which made him look crazy with the tears still in his eyes. “True heroes never die.”
Something about his tone gave Elka the feeling of insects crawling under her skin. “I don’t understand.”
“He is our master. The one who gives me the dreams.”
A good six or seven feet of dusty shag stretched between them, but Elka took a step back anyway. Earl was either crazy or…or he really could communicate with Dolan from beyond the grave. She didn’t much like either option. As much as Dolan had touted his mission to reveal the paranormal world to all, he had also been known to exploit the very beings in that world. Vampire assassins whom he would leave to burn in the sun or melt under a spray of holy water when they had served their purpose—a trick Gabriel’s brother, Otto, had copied, according to rumors. Or tearing the wings off of fairies to use the precious flesh for spells. Or shaking the dust out of pixies to weaponize it by packing it into in pipe bombs.
Dust.
Elka’s heart turned into a rock of ice.
What a fool. What a complete fool she had been, trusting a mortal who had found her through instructions in a dream.
A damn, damn fool.
Earl might not yet know what his master had planned for her, but Elka did.
Which meant she had to get away from these people before Earl found out.
But what about the girl? She took your family. She defiled your father’s body. You need these people to get to her.
You are so close to vengeance.
Elka forced the hardest smile she had ever had to put on. Usually, pretending came so easy.
“Maybe he’ll tell you how I can help when you sleep tonight.”
Had her voice quivered? The last thing she needed was to give away her fear and tip Earl off about what she knew was coming. That could lead him to worry she might try to leave. Which would guarantee he made sure she couldn’t.
Earl puffed his chest out like a proud bantam. “Won’t have to wait even that long. I’m fixin’ to travel back into the Inbetween and ask him myself. Soon as the boys set up the altar, anyhow.”
Mortals had odd names for all manner of things mystical. She wasn’t familiar with the term Inbetween
. But obviously he meant some place beyond death, some place where he had a direct link to Gabriel Dolan’s lost soul.
Was that possible? Or was Earl deluded? Elka knew a lot about the supernatural. What mortals called magic was science to her people, and many others from outside this plane. Communicating with the dead—a rare event, no matter the foolish lies of mortal lore, yet still possible—was one thing. But actually visiting a dead soul in whatever dimension it haunted?
She had never heard of such a thing.
If it was true, Elka’s window to find out where the girl was and escape had narrowed to a mere sliver.
“How long until the altar’s ready?” she asked, this time certain her voice had hitched.
Not seeming to notice, Earl turned to look back at his idol’s portrait. “A couple hours. And don’t you worry. Once I understand your place with us, you’ll be the next to know.”
She could hear the sound of her uncle or father shaving one of the horns from the collection they had inherited from those they had lost in their home world. It sounded as clear in her mind as when she had heard it last for real. It set her teeth on edge.
“Now, ladies, not to be rude,” Earl said, still gazing up at the painting. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to find some other room to sleep in. I’m taking this one.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
THE HEADACHE KNOCKING A RACKET in Jessie’s head kept her from piecing together how she had ended up on the most uncomfortable mattress in existence while she stared up at a cracked concrete ceiling.
Something about that ceiling felt familiar.
She pressed the heels of each hand against either side of her head as if she could squeeze out the throbbing pain. A dry, chalky smell in the air confused her. Shouldn’t it smell like river water and wet earth?
Memories from the other side of the darkness clicked together like psychic puzzle pieces.
The woods.
The river.
Ree with his tranquilizer rifle.
The bite in her ass as the dart struck her.
She groaned and moved her hands to cover her eyes. The rest of her memories piled back into place, from her escape in the trash bin to her idiotic attempt to bury herself like John Rambo to allude the agents creeping through the woods looking for her.
