by Linda Welch
Maggie hunched on the other couch, the unlit Christmas trees in a row behind her. I eyed the tree Gia Sabato threw me into as I thought about the Dark Cousins and Dagka Shan. They said they’d contain him so he would never again be a threat. What happened? Did he escape? Or did they deliberately free him?
“What does Dagka Shan want? Is he taunting us, or are we supposed to find him?”
“I think we are meant to find him,” Royal said.
“No way. I don’t want to go near him, never again. Nope,” I said firmly.
“I do not think we have a choice.” Worried, he sat up and gripped his kneecaps with crooked fingers. “He made Magnusen shoot you so I would go after the man.”
“So he could give you the message?”
“Yes.” He soared upright and paced across the room. “But we do not know where the Cousins are.” He spun to face Maggie but spoke to me. “You remember what Gia said to you before the Cousins went into hiding?”
Remember? How could I forget? The woman pinned me to the wall at the time. “Something about going to a deep dark place where men have never set foot. But you said you’d find them.”
“And we have searched. We pursued them worldwide from one isolated location to another, but on our arrival they were already gone, always one step ahead of us. Then they disappeared altogether.”
“I never asked before, but what are you going to do if you get them, anyway?”
“Gelpha in North and South America stand ready to answer the call. We can take an army to the Cousins and contain them in a place from where they cannot escape. But it is irrelevant now. They appear to have vanished off the face of Earth.”
“Did they. . . .” I had been careful how I spoke of Shan and the Cousins; Maggie probably thought they were relatives of mine. But I couldn’t keep quiet when I needed answers. “Did they open a Gate?”
Maggie hesitated when she repeated my words. As expected, the Gate reference puzzled her.
Royal shook his head. “I did not feel it, as I did when they closed.”
He pushed his fingers into his hair again and grasped a thick hank in each hand, as if to literally tear his hair out. He squeezed his eyes shut. “How can we. . . ?”
His hands and shoulders dropped at the same time, his eyes opened to slits. “Only the other day a fellow Enforcer proposed a location. I was inclined to disregard his suggestion but it is the perfect hideout for the Cousins. We deliberated if we should go there. Your shooting put everything on hold. But now. . . .”
“Why deliberate and not just go?”
“What we know of it is vague, more legend than fact. And it is without doubt a dangerous place.”
“Where is it?”
He pushed an open hand in Maggie’s direction. “I would rather not say.”
I clenched my hands. He frustrated me something awful. “Royal Mortensen, spit it out!”
“A hidden place. Part of the world but not of it.”
“Part of the world but not of it,” I parroted in a dry voice. “And a legend to boot? Sheesh, could you be any more mysterious? Then why did your friend suggest it? Why discuss going there with other Enforcers?”
“Some of my people insist they have been there.”
I slapped my hand to my forehead and tried to calm down.
He said, “I do not want to give you false hope, but I intend to check it out.”
I braced my hands on my hips. “I hope it’s not a waste of time.” Who knew how long remained to me, but I didn’t wound Royal by telling him that.
He lifted his hands, palms out, fingers spread. “I’m ready to try anything, Tiff.”
“Fine,” I grumped.
“I have to speak to someone, if I can find him. I should not be long.”
“Whoa!” Maggie’s eyes snapped open. She sprang to her feet. “Enough! What are you two talking about?” She eyed Royal through half-lidded eyes. “Who are you? Who are these people you’re chasing? And what in God’s name is a Gate? And hidden worlds? Are you two crazy?”
Hell’s bells. “Maggie—”
“Don’t waste your breath, Tiff. I want answers or I’m gone,” she said sharply.
Royal considered her from across the room. He knew he should tell her something if he wanted her cooperation. He scowled, expression anything but friendly. “Very well,” he said in a flat tone. “Sit down.”
She backed up and lowered her butt to the couch. Royal stood in front of her, making her look up at him. And he told her about Gelpha and Dark Cousins, only a fraction but enough to blow the average human mind.
He sat and clasped his hands, threading his fingers. “As for this other realm, if I can find the man I need, I will bring him and he can tell you of it.”
“Wow. Oh wow,” she said after a silence. She wasn’t capable of anything more. “Wow.”
“I’m going now.” Royal looked anything but eager to go out into the night. His slumped posture radiated exhaustion. He looked tired and needed to rest, but I knew he’d ignore any suggestion that he take a break.
He hauled his tall body off the couch. “You will wait for me, Tiff?”
“If it’s okay with Maggie.”
The girl opened her eyes. “Why the hell not? It’s not as if I have anything else to do, such as get on with my life.”
Ouch. Not a happy clairvoyant.
Royal stood at the door. “I’ll return soon, Sweetheart.”
And we could go retrieve my roommates. “While you’re doing whatever you’re doing, we’ll go get Jack and Mel.” I didn’t look forward to persuading them they should go to my house. Much as I appreciate how they helped me, I didn’t want them here, constantly butting in when Royal returned.
Maggie told Royal and his brow scrunched. “You will not.”
“Why not?”
“I need you here when I return.”
“How long will you be? Half an hour? An hour? We can pick them up by then.”
His gaze narrowed on Maggie and he pointed one finger at her. “You will stay, Miss Benson. Is that clear?”
She opened her eyes, gulped and croaked, “Yes.”
How dare he! We’d see about that. “I don’t need Maggie. I can go get them myself.”
Maggie shut her eyes again to repeat me.
“How long will you take to find either of them, how much longer to find the other? What if we must leave immediately when I return?”
I wished he saw my glare. It would have reduced him to a quivering puddle. Honest.
“Go on then, but I’ll make sure Jack and Mel know abandoning them is your fault.”
As if that would save me from their ire.
Staring at the floor, Maggie said not a word. She must be trying to process what Royal told her. I was surprised she hadn’t interrupted him with questions.
A second later I knew why.
She reached for her backpack, stood and headed for the door. “Thanks for an entertaining evening.” She spun and looked at me. “Don’t come to my house again.”
She did not believe a word Royal said. Perhaps she would, had he been more forthcoming but his terse statements barely scraped the surface.
“Maggie, please.” I walked toward her.
One hand pushed air in a defensive gesture. “And don’t try to grab me. I hope you get into your body, Tiff. But you’ll do it without my help.”
I tried to reel her back in. “Maggie, wait. Listen to me before you go.”
I spoke quickly at first to anchor her interest before she walked out. A couple of minutes later she still stood there with her mouth open. I didn’t have all night to tell her everything, but when I finished she knew how I met Royal, my history and ancestry. And I elaborated on what I said to Royal: the Norton case in England, our romantic getaway to Boston which ended up anything but romantic, and my devious uncle Cicero.
I didn’t want to tell Maggie about Cicero but I mentioned him to Royal as a surefire way to get his attention, and she heard enough to warran
t an explanation.
When I think of my uncle, though I try not to, I imagine him moldering away in the Gelpha penitentiary; in my mind’s eye it’s a cold stone structure, suitably dark and damp, where prisoners never see daylight. I hope Lawrence never sets him free.
Telling Maggie consumed the better part of an hour and thankfully my voice didn’t become hoarse. When I finished, Maggie was back on the couch, staring up at me. I gave her a moment before asking, “Do you believe me?”
She pinched her lip between her teeth, then said, “Yes.” And with more strength, “It’s ridiculous, and fascinating, and blows me away, but I do believe you.”
“Then please stay.”
She exhaled a chuckle. “How could I leave now?” She returned to the couch. “They look different from you? What does Royal look like?”
How do you describe Royal to a person who has not and never will see a Gelpha as they truly are? I smiled as his image glowed in my mind’s eye. “The sun.”
“He adores you. I can tell. I guess he’s okay, for an alien.”
“He is not an alien.”
“What else can I expect? Vampires after my blood? Werewolves skulking in the shadows? Zombies shambling through the streets?” She bounced on the couch. “Please tell me there is going to be a zombie apocalypse.”
Maggie dozed on the couch. I looked through the office window and watched life go on without me. Pedestrians strolled or hurried along the slushy sidewalk: couples, groups, families, chatting, laughing, moving beneath the warm glow of the faux antique street lamps and colored neon in shop windows. Two small children stomped in a wide puddle and their mother scolded them. Cars drove slowly, heading Uptown or Downtown, or searching for parking spots.
Royal did not return alone.
Hair the color of heavy cream laced with shimmering yellow strands framed an aristocratic face with an aquiline nose. Pencil-thin brows arched above pale-yellow eyes with black iris. As he turned his head, the light picked out a trace of pewter in his skin. A beautiful man, tall and well-built, in a soft creamy wool shirt under a brown leather jacket, and heather-brown slacks.
“Tiff, this is Felipe Noyola. He is an old friend. I explained the situation to him so you can talk freely.”
Felipe made a brief half bow, eyes never leaving Maggie’s face. “I am pleased to meet you.”
“This is Maggie.” Royal’s head swung side to side. “You are here, Tiff?”
“Hi,” Maggie said sourly as she sat up. “Yeah, that’s me, Maggie. Ignore me, same as he does. I’m merely the vessel Tiff speaks through.”
I spoke in her ear. “He doesn’t mean to be rude. I think the way he acts with you is a coping mechanism. He has a hard time separating us two.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, let it out and rolled her eyes to one side. “I suppose so.”
“What?” from Royal.
“Forget it,” Maggie said. “I’m turning it over to Tiff now.” She closed her eyes.
“Tiff Banks,” I said. “Glad to meet you.”
“I hope you do not change your opinion when you hear Royal’s plan,” Felipe said, composed for a man plunged in the middle of this.
Plan? We had a plan?
Chapter Fourteen
“What you are about to hear . . . you may think it less than rational,” Royal said.
A snappy retort involving comatose girlfriends, clairvoyants and how he imagined anything could be irrational came to mind, but I let it slide.
“When Kien and I were children, we heard our parents talk of a hidden place below where people fled to a sanctuary long ago, a vast region, part of Earth but concealed from most eyes.”
Below? An underground cavern? “Seriously? Maybe a big empty area could stay hidden once upon a time but not in the modern world. Sonar or radar or whatever should detect it. And what about all the satellites orbiting and taking pictures?”
“So you would think. Yet Felipe went there.” He turned to Felipe. “If you will, Felipe?”
Felipe nodded and sat on a couch. He threaded his fingers together and studied them for a moment before lifting his head. “You will, without doubt, think I have lost my mind,” he began.
“My father went Downside when I was a younger man. He returned home with no memory of it, apart from going there and returning. Of Downside itself, nothing.
“So I went myself and went prepared, or so I thought. I took this.” He took a small square box from his jacket pocket, a recorder of the style used twenty years ago. He pressed a button.
“This is incredible,” his voice said from the recorder. “The people, their names, their faces . . . everything is fading.”
The recording stopped. Felipe said, “I recorded this when I returned to Manhattan. To be precise, from the time stamp I recorded it just as I stepped back into Manhattan after leaving Downside. I could have said more, I think, of what little remained in my memory, but I assumed I had recorded the entire experience.”
I eyed the recorder, waiting for him to turn it back on or tell us what he heard on it.
He held it up, his brow wrinkling. “Apart from those few words, the tape is blank. And by the time I returned home, all memory of what I saw Downside vanished.”
It was the feeblest attempt to validate a far-fetched story I ever heard. I could have pulled it apart a dozen different ways.
“However,” Felipe continued, “I do recollect going to Downside. I walked through darkness until I saw a light, a lamp beside a door. The door opened when I reached it and I looked through at what appeared to be the waiting room in an old train or bus station. I stepped inside, and what happened after, what I saw or did, is gone. The next thing I recall is looking back through the same door, at the same room, as I walked in the darkness again.”
I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “What makes you think it was . . . what did you call it, Downside? It could have been anywhere.”
“Only what I recorded as I left, and my father gave me the directions to go there.” He reached in his pocket again. “And this. I found it in my pocket after I got home.”
He unfolded a square of thick, creamy vellum paper and handed it to Royal. I angled behind him. Small black squiggles covered the paper.
“Chicken scratch.”
Maggie came to peek. She squinted as if trying to make sense of the squiggles. “Yeah, chicken scratch. Is it their writing?”
“I do not know. Hopefully someone Downside can interpret it for you.”
“Why go when you know you’ll forget everything?”
“I suppose exploration is hard-wired into our nature, just as it is yours. To boldly go where no man has gone before, or in this case, gone but cannot recall going.” He grinned with a flash of pointed teeth. “I thought it would be different for me, I would be the one to solve the enigma of Downside.”
Royal asked, “You said Manhattan?”
“You are not serious,” I burst out with. “At a time like this, you’re chasing fables?”
Pain creased Royal’s face and I knew I hurt him. “Yes, Tiff. I will investigate every avenue, the most tenuous, the most bizarre.”
“And if it is real, someone tampered with their memories. Do you want that done to you?”
Felipe said, “Think carefully, my friend. It is the reason I never returned.”
“I am going,” Royal said quietly in a steely voice. “How do we get there?”
“I will give you directions. But be warned, to reach the entrance you walk in unnatural darkness, it is unnerving. Father called it a bridge, in the sense it joins the two worlds.”
Another world? A few years ago, if anyone seriously told me about other dimensions with Gates and Ways to them, and another race lived in a plane of existence connected to my world, I would have laughed my head off. Could I accept yet another realm I knew nothing of? “So it’s another plane of existence, like Bel-Athaer?”
“No. As I said, it is deep in Earth, but hidden.”
Felipe had co
nvinced Royal this place was real. What if it was? A knot formed in my stomach and twisted. The thought of Royal going somewhere I knew nothing about, a place I couldn’t imagine, chilled me. “Not without me. We’re partners, we work well together. I may see something you miss.”
He expected me to say that; he replied as my last word left Maggie’s mouth. “Tiff, be reasonable. You cannot help me. You will be nothing more than an observer.”
“Royal, I have to go with you.” I swallowed what I wanted to say; expressing my fears made this business harder for him. If the pale body in the hospital dies while you are away, if something awful happens to you as you look for Shan . . . I may never see you again after this night. If I go with you, at least we’ll be together. Every moment I spent with him was precious.
Did his thoughts mirror mine? He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger; looked down, then to the side and spoke in a dry, soft voice. “As you wish.”
I would have fallen with shock if I knew how. He gave in sooner than I expected.
“She’ll be more than a disembodied observer if I’m with you,” Maggie said as her eyes popped open.
Royal’s face got his stiff, exasperated look. “I cannot take you. I do not need the distraction of a naïve young girl.”
“If Tiff goes, she’ll need this naïve young girl,” she bristled.
“Not on your life, young lady.” I saw the ugly things Shan did to his victims. Maggie must not go with Royal.
He said, “You are right, of course.”
I groaned. “Royal, no!”
Maggie didn’t repeat it, damn her.
Royal said, “You will stay with me, do as I tell you with no questions asked.”
Maggie nodded enthusiastically. “Anything you say.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t believe her. She meant well, but it must be awful hard to keep silent except to repeat what I said when much of it sounded inexplicable. The need to question us became overpowering and I foresaw those questions breaking free of their own accord.
Felipe said, “I must be on my way.”
“Downside?” An appropriate name for a place below ground. “Does that make here Upside?” I joked and Maggie spoke for me.
