by R. L. King
“I…don’t know, to be honest. I felt guilty about it—we owed them so much—but even after all that time I didn’t feel like I truly belonged there. I wanted to go home. I figured I’d work out how to do it and just…slip away.”
“But they came after you.”
“Yeah. Apparently. I don’t even know why. I mean...we made friends there, but I certainly didn’t do anything that would have made us indispensable.”
Stone considered. “Is it possible they might have known what would happen? That perhaps they knew more than you thought they did?”
“You mean…they knew about these fissures? How could they? They have no experience with this dimension.”
“You don’t know that. At least one of them managed to get here, so there’s that. You didn’t talk to them about any of this on purpose. Maybe if you had, they might have had some insights.” Stone paced back and forth, glancing up toward the second floor again. “Daphne…don’t jump down my throat for saying this, but…is it possible that, in your fervor to find a way to get back here, to solve the puzzle, you didn’t take into account one of the fundamental principles of dimensional science?”
Her head jerked up. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know for certain, but my hypothesis that Jeremy is somehow causing these fissures is holding up so far. It’s possible it could be you, but I don’t think it is.”
She remained silent, but her gaze followed him as he paced.
“If it is Jeremy, the only difference between you and him is that you originated from this dimension. He didn’t.”
“But wait,” she protested. “Maybe he wasn’t born here, but he was created here. He’s our son, mine and Neil’s, and we both came from here. He’s as human as we are.”
“But is he?” Stone asked softly, pausing in front of her. “Don’t you see? He hasn’t got a physical body. Yes, technically his consciousness is human, but he’s spent his entire lifetime on this other dimension, relating to the world as someone from there would. And dimensional entities have an affinity for their home dimension. You know that as well as I do. Better, probably.” He infused even more gentleness into his tone. “Daphne…you’re the finest portal scientist I’ve ever known. You’re right—you’re probably the best in the world. But that doesn’t mean you’ve got experience with other dimensions. Unless you were up to something I didn’t know about, your work was all centered around portals to get people from point A to point B in this world. Right? Temporary, permanent, or somewhere in between, but always confined to this dimension and the Overworld.”
She looked away, obviously reluctant to meet his focused gaze. “That’s true,” she said at last. She swallowed and looked at him. “Oh, God, Alastair, did I make an enormous mistake? Was that guy Jeremy…dealt with…just trying to help us? To warn us?”
“I don’t know. And there’s no way to go back and ask him now. I don’t blame Jeremy for what he did—he must have been terrified. But right now, we really haven’t got any other choice about how to go forward, do we?”
“What are you talking about?” She spoke slowly, obviously disturbed. “You said you wouldn’t hurt him. That you’d help me protect him.”
“I won’t—and I will. But…he can’t stay here, Daphne. You know that, right?”
Her eyes flashed, but then she bowed her head.
“We’ve got to work out a way to get him back where he belongs, before he causes irreparable damage without even realizing what he’s doing.”
She didn’t answer.
Stone sighed and took her hand. “Daphne…you told me once, when we first encountered each other in West Virginia, that Jeremy is a kind boy. How do you think he would react if he knew what kind of trouble he was causing?”
“I don’t want him to know,” she whispered. “It would destroy him. He’d never want to hurt anybody.”
“I thought so. And you don’t either, obviously.”
“Of course not.”
“So we’ve got to get him back where he belongs. You don’t have to tell him about any of this. He doesn’t have to know. You can just tell him…he was here for a little holiday, and now it’s time to go home.” He didn’t bring up the elephant in the room, the one he wasn’t even sure she’d caught on to yet: the question of whether she’d accompany him when he returned. That was for later.
He released her hand. “Do you think you can do it? Find the way back so you can create a portal to send him home?”
“I…” She stared at her hands and let out a loud, despairing sigh. “I don’t know. I probably can, but it won’t be quick. There’s a lot of calculations involved. I never even thought about going back there once I came home. I can probably use Jeremy as a starting point, since you’re right—he has a stronger affinity for the place than I do. But it’s still going to take time.”
“That’s all right.” He forced himself to keep his voice calm and reassuring, even though he had no idea if it was actually all right. If they could keep Jeremy unstressed and happy, maybe he could convince Kolinsky not to call in the other dragons, and to give Daphne enough time to do what she needed to do. But dragons were unpredictable, and considering what could go wrong if something didn’t proceed as planned, he had no idea if his friend would buy in to their plan. “I’ll—do the best I can to make sure nothing disturbs you or Jeremy. You can come home with me—stay in my house back in Palo Alto.”
“Do you think that’s wise? What if something goes wrong? And what about this friend of yours, the one who wants to hurt Jeremy?”
“He doesn’t want to hurt Jeremy. He just wants to make sure he doesn’t cause any more of these fissures. If you’ll go along with this, I think I can convince him to leave you alone. He’s a reasonable person. Very rational. Under different circumstances, you two would probably get on.” He took her hand again. “What do you say? Will you trust me?”
There was a long silence, during which he could feel her hand trembling in his. Finally, though, she gave a reluctant nod. “I guess I don’t have a lot of choice, do I?” She came forward, resting her head against his chest. “I’ve screwed everything up again, haven’t I? First the problem with our original portals, and now this.”
He stroked her back. “Now, come on, love. It’s not as bad as all that.” He hoped he sounded more convincing than he felt. “We’ll get this sorted, you just wait and see. I promise, I’ll do everything I can to help. I’ve got a lot of resources.”
She nodded against him. “Yeah. Okay. I…guess I’d better go upstairs and get Jeremy. I’ll tell him we’re going to visit you. He liked you, for that short time you got to know each other.”
“Brilliant. We’ll find all sorts of things to entertain him. I’ll introduce him to my cat.”
She backed off and gave a faint, tired smile. “Let’s do this. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll…go with you, I think.”
“Why?” A hint of suspicion crept into her voice.
There was no helping it this time. “You know I want to help. But you haven’t exactly been forthcoming with me the last few times we’ve chatted. I can’t risk letting you do a runner on me again. I’m sorry, Daphne, but that’s the way it’s got to be.”
Brief anger flashed across her face, but then she nodded. “I guess I deserve that. Okay, we’ll go together. But let me warn him about you before you come all the way in.”
“Don’t worry—last thing I want to risk is touching off another of those things right here on top of us.”
He followed her upstairs to a closed door at the end of the left-side hallway. “Jeremy?” she called softly. “It’s Mom. Are you awake?”
There was no answer.
“He’s probably asleep,” she whispered to Stone. “I wasn’t lying that he hasn’t been feeling well.”
“I’m not surprised. It’s probably coming from the same incompatibility with this dimension that’s causing the other problems. Have you got some kind of mental link with
him?”
“Yes, but it’s not nearly as strong as it is where we came from.” She held up a finger and pushed the door open. “Jeremy? It’s me. I need to talk—”
She stopped.
Behind her, Stone could see her tense even without magical sight. “What is it?”
“Oh, God…” she moaned. “He’s gone.”
26
Surprisingly, the first emotion Stone felt at her words wasn’t shock or worry, but anger.
“Come on, Daphne,” he snapped. “What are you playing at? I told you, this is bloody serious.”
“What are you talking about?” She flung the door open, revealing an empty room with a mattress on the floor. “He’s not here! Do you think I’m hiding him somewhere?”
He quickly scanned the room with magical sight, then strode inside and checked the attached bathroom. No sign of the boy. Rounding on Daphne, he glared. “I think you’ve—I don’t know—sent him a message or something, like you did back in West Virginia. Told him to get the hell out of here so you can meet up with him somewhere else after I’m gone.”
“Why would I do that?” Her voice took on an edge of panic. “Why would I send my son out into an unfamiliar city with nobody to take care of him?”
“Because you don’t believe me. Because you’re afraid I’ll do something to him, to stop him from creating these fissures.” He felt bad treating her like this, but it was like the old saying: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. “I’m still not sure you’ve told me the whole truth. How many more times are you planning to lie to me?”
She whirled and gripped his shoulders. Her gaze was wild but focused in the dim light. “I’m not lying to you, Alastair. How can I make you see that?”
Before he could answer, his phone buzzed. “Just a minute. I’ve got to take this.” He yanked the phone from his pocket, noting it was a call this time and it was from Verity. “Verity. What is it?”
“You sound upset. Is something wrong?”
“Yes, something’s very wrong. I can’t talk now. What did you need?” He kept Daphne in sight. If she made any move to run, he was ready to stop her.
“I’m on my way to Rochester.”
He frowned. “What do you mean? I told you, we can’t afford to wait—”
“I’m coming from southern Minneapolis. I’ll be there in a little more than an hour, not five-plus. Can you wait that long?”
“What? How did you—” So far, Daphne was making no indication she planned to run, but the stress in her posture was obvious even without magical sight.
“Remember I told you I might have an idea? It panned out.”
“What idea?” The world was spiraling out of control right under Stone’s feet. He took a couple deep breaths and forced himself to calm down.
“Remember before, when I was on my road trip, I told you I met up with Bron and her family back in New York?”
He did remember that. He’d worked with Bronwyn “Bron” Broome and her friend Nicholas Happenstance to solve a problem down in Los Angeles a while back, and had mentioned Bron to Verity. The two had met during Verity’s cross-country journey, and Bron had introduced her to her large and very influential magical family back east. “Yes…but what’s that got to do with—”
“They’ve got friends all over the country—and some of those friends have portals most people don’t know about. I knew it was a long shot, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. Good thing I did, too. They knew somebody in Minneapolis. I told them it was really important, and they arranged to let me use it. I had to wear a blindfold and I have no idea where it is now, but I’m here. Just picked up a rental car and I’m on my way.”
In spite of his growing predicament, her initiative impressed Stone. She’d developed her own network of friends and contacts that had little overlap with his own, and was using it to come up with solutions that weren’t available to him. “Nicely done, apprentice.”
“Surprised the hell out of me too, but hey, sometimes the universe smiles on you. Anyway, what’s the problem? What’s wrong?”
“It’s…hard to explain, and I’ve got to go. The short version is, I found Daphne, but her son’s done another runner.”
“Damn. You don’t know where he is?”
“No. And I don’t know yet whether she does.” He shot a hard glance Daphne’s way. “That’s where we are right now—trying to determine that.”
“I told you, I—” Daphne protested, but he stabbed a finger up to cut her off.
“Anyway, call me when you get here. I’m not sure exactly where we’ll be, but I don’t think the boy’s got the means to get out of Rochester. Right?” he asked Daphne. “He can’t teleport or anything, can he?”
“Of course not!”
“You heard that,” he told Verity. “So unless she’s lying to me again, we’ll be here. I’m hoping it won’t take us too long to find him. Talk to you soon.”
He hung up, put the phone back in his pocket, and focused his full attention on Daphne. “Do you have a way to find him?”
“Alastair—”
“Do you have a way to find him?” Once again, he hated to raise his voice to her, but his stress level was pegging the meters right now. If Jeremy had run away, he must have overheard what they were talking about, which meant he was probably upset or agitated. That, in turn, increased the likelihood that he would accidentally spawn another fissure. They had to find him fast.
Daphne’s expression hardened. “Don’t talk to me like that, Alastair. I know we’ve got a problem here, and I’m on your side. I don’t want any more of these fissures to show up and hurt anyone else. You’ve got to know that. I want to help. But I’m not going to let you hurt my son to do it.”
Stone pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to quiet his spiking heart rate. He wasn’t going to solve this problem with intimidation. Daphne wouldn’t stand for it any more than Verity did, and that was a good thing. Inconvenient, but good.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Listen. We’ve got to find him before he gets into trouble—or before somebody else finds him. You understand that, right? The longer we let him run around loose, the higher the chance that something will happen to agitate him, or another one of those blokes from your other dimension catches up with him. Or my friend does.”
Her eyes widened. “I thought your friend was in California. Do you think he could find him from there?”
“No idea. I wouldn’t be surprised, though. He’s very powerful, he’s got a lot of tricks up his sleeve, and he’s not only highly motivated to handle this situation, but not terribly concerned about how many eggs he’ll have to break to do it. This is bigger than any individual to him, Daphne—including me. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop him.”
And I’m not sure I’ll want to, he added to himself. He didn’t relish the idea of killing a child—even a child who was nothing but a disembodied mind—but if it was the only way to stop the fissures and prevent the loss of many more innocent lives, he recognized that they might not have a choice. He gently gripped her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “So, if you’ve got any way to find him, this is the time. If we can track him down before he gets far away, we might be able to defuse the situation before it gets out of hand.”
She hesitated, then bowed her head. “I…might be able to find him.”
“How?”
“I do have a kind of link to him. Like I said, it’s not as strong here, but I can sense him when I try. It’s more tiring in a physical body, which is why I didn’t realize he’d sneaked out until I checked on him. I don’t keep it going all the time.”
“What does that mean? Can you communicate with him? Tell him to come back here, that nobody’s going to hurt him?”
“Unfortunately not. I just tried, but apparently he’s shut down that part of our link. I think he is scared, Alastair. If he overheard any of our conversation, he’s probably not only scared that somebody’s going to hurt him. He’ll
be worried that he’s going to hurt somebody else.”
A chill settled in the pit of Stone’s stomach. “You think he heard the part about the fissures?”
“We have to assume he did.” Her expression was bleak. “He’s smart. Really smart. Even though he’s completely out of his element here, that doesn’t mean we can assume anything about what he might do.” She let out a loud sigh. “I don’t even know what to say. This is my fault. I never should have brought him here.”
“Now, none of that. It’s not productive. Right now, the best use of our time is to find him as quickly as possible. Without splitting up, anyway.”
She didn’t even bother to comment on that. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Can you find him? Do you know where he is?”
“I don’t know where he is, but he can’t cut off all of our link. I think I can track him, like we do with a tracking spell. But we’ll still be limited by normal travel methods.”
“So you can’t cast off your physical body and go zipping through the ether?” Stone’s words were only half-joking. This was all new to him.
“No. You saw what happened to the man who came after us. If our physical bodies are disrupted, our consciousnesses just…fade away.”
“Damn. There goes my best hypothesis. I was hoping if we could disrupt Jeremy’s body, his consciousness would return to the other dimension.”
She shook her head ruefully. “It doesn’t work like that. I’m not sure what would happen to mine, since I originated here. But Jeremy’s wouldn’t know where to go, so it would just dissipate. It would be the same as killing him.” Her expression hardened. “So we’re not going to do that. Promise me, or I won’t help you.”
“We won’t do that. Let’s find him. If we can calm him down so he’s not doing whatever he does to create the fissures, it will buy us some time to come up with a better solution. Can you tell how far away he is? He couldn’t have got far, right? I mean, he’s just a kid on foot, and it hasn’t been that long. Maybe a mile or two at best?”
She paused, appearing to stare into space for a few moments, then narrowed her eyes. “Damn.”
