by Sam Cheever
Sissy’s eyes widened. “Simmer down, Glynnie,” she warned.
I looked at her. She nodded toward my hands. I followed the direction of her stare and flinched. Angry energy swirled between my fists, biting the air in a deadly arc.
I forced my magic to recede. “I want him out of Victoria.”
Sissy looked sad. “I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t respond. I was too mad.
Victoria’s walls shivered in warning. I quickly yanked the magic back to my fists and turned to face the front door.
It opened and Hawk stood silhouetted against the darkness beyond. His gaze slid over the energy spitting at my fists and one eyebrow lifted in question. “Can we come in?”
I blinked. “We?”
He stepped aside to reveal a woman standing on the porch behind him. She stepped into the light, her deep-set eyes sparking with unnatural energy as the golden illumination of the lamp hit them. She was almost as tall as Hawk, broad-shouldered and narrow hipped, with smooth, tanned skin and dark eyes the color of an evergreen forest. Her long blonde hair was pulled back from her face and twined into a thick braid that fell over one shoulder, resting on the full curve of one breast. She wore a black tee under a black leather jacket that dipped in at her narrow waist and flared slightly over her hips. Her long legs were encased in tight black leather, and short leather boots covered her narrow feet.
The hilt of a sword showed over one shoulder, and two large guns of some kind rested in holsters at her hips. She looked like a warrior princess.
“Glynn, this is Alina.”
The woman inclined her chin and then skimmed her fiery gaze over Sissy, quickly dismissing her. The dark green gaze widened slightly when she saw Art, the first sign of emotion she’d shown since she arrived.
“You know my brother?” I asked, my voice slightly hostile.
She jerked her gaze away from Art and narrowed it on me. “We’ve met.”
Her voice was deep and smooth─beyond sexy. Alina was perfection from head to toe.
I hated her on sight.
“Alina and I work together,” Hawk said, tension on the word “work” as if there was hidden meaning there. Was he telling me she was part of the network sneaking low-magic humans out of Indy? If so, they wouldn’t want to speak of it in front of Art.
I slid my brother a look and found him still staring blankly into space.
Hawk nodded as if he’d taken a message from my worried glance. “Is he in stasis?” Hawk asked Sissy.
She nodded. “Until I release him.”
The two sniffers walked into the room and the door swung quietly shut behind them.
“What did you find?” Hawk asked my friend.
Sissy filled him in on what she’d told me.
Hawk stared at Art for a long moment, his expression tight. Finally, he said, “He’s a liability. He needs to go.”
I knew he was right. I’d had the exact same thought myself. But it didn’t stop me from getting my back up about it. “That’s not your decision to make,” I told him angrily.
He opened his mouth and then snapped it shut, apparently deciding to let that particular disagreement simmer between us for a while. Instead, he said, “Alina has news from MI.”
Sissy and I looked at the intimidating hunter.
Alina gave us a smile that turned my bowels to water. “As suspected, we’ve learned that the Body is behind the recent attacks here in Render. They’ve been cultivating a stable of magical boogies for years, intending to create magical weapons.”
Sissy and I just stared at her, our eyes wide. Finally, I asked, “Where are they getting them from? Those things aren’t from this dimension.” I thought of the lizard thing that had stepped out of my vision onto the streets of Render.
She shook her head. “The Magistrate has been able to open limited-use portals to other dimensions. He’s gotten many of them through those portals. Some, like the wraith, were created by feeding terrifying amounts of magic into unwilling victims to see what would happen.” Her lips compressed into a thin line, her expression grim. “Much of the energy he’s harvesting goes to his experiments.”
“Harvesting?” Sissy asked. I hadn’t thought she could get any paler. But then Sis had always been an over-achiever.
“I’ll explain later,” I murmured, not wanting to sideline the conversation right at that moment. To Hawk and Alina, I said, “If the Magistrate already knows how to gain access to other dimensions, maybe he doesn’t really want Victoria’s portal.”
“I wish that were true,” Alina said in her rich, smooth voice. “But his gateways are unpredictable and take a tremendous amount of energy to create. They last for only a few minutes. He craves the ability to come and go into other dimensions at will.”
“This all just reinforces my point,” Hawk told me. “If Martin gets hold of your portal, think of how much damage he can do.”
I frowned, crossing my arms over my chest. “Art is not going to be sacrificed to the Magistrate’s lust for power,” I insisted.
“Be reasonable, Glynn,” Hawk said. “Your brother is under the control of someone. We don’t know who it is. And you’ve caught him trying to open the portal twice already. If he stays, our enemy will have someone inside who can undermine everything we try to do. And we’ll be fighting this battle on two fronts.”
His argument was perfectly reasonable. I even agreed with him. But the space between agreement and action was too large for me to travel at the moment. “He stays. At least until we know what’s going on. We might be over-reacting. We might not even be under attack.”
Hawk and Alina stared at me, and I couldn’t help thinking they were judging my intelligence for keeping my brother close. I didn’t blame them. I didn’t really think it was smart either. But he was family. The only family I had left. And his situation wasn’t his fault.
Not entirely.
“I can take him to my house,” Sissy offered. “I’ll ward the house so he can’t leave.”
I frowned. If whoever was riding Art decided Sissy was in his way, he might use my brother to hurt her. “I don’t want to put you at risk.”
“I can take care of myself,” Sissy argued, visibly annoyed at my lack of confidence.
“I know you can, Sis. But they’ve already taken Mitch,” I told her. “He was the most careful of all of us.”
“Your brother can’t find out what Alina and I have been up to,” Hawk said. “He’ll jeopardize our entire operation.”
“If the Body comes after the portal, your operation is lost anyway.”
“Not entirely,” Alina said. “We have other…outlets for our work.”
She was telling me they used other small towns outside the city to move their people through. Of course they did. It only made sense. If they always moved into one area, the Body would become suspicious.
I thought about my options, not liking any of them.
“The decision doesn’t belong solely to you,” Hawk finally said. His tone was soft, but the resolve behind them was rock solid. I knew he was right.
Still.
“I can monitor the witch’s house,” Alina offered. “Keep an eye on things there. If she needs me, I can be there within seconds.”
I didn’t like it but saw no way around it. Hawk was right. Too many people had a stake in what was about to happen. I didn’t have the right to jeopardize it all to protect my brother. I nodded. “Okay. But he’s not going to like it,” I said.
“I can keep him in partial stasis until we get him settled at my place,” Sissy said. “Once the wards are in place, I’ll release him and explain the situation.”
I stared at Art for a long moment. He’d never forgive me. And I didn’t blame him. “Okay. But I’d like Hawk to be there when you tell him. Just in case.”
“No,” Hawk said.
“No?” I asked, incredulous.
“Alina can handle that. He knows her. I’m going to be doing something more important.”
“Saving the people of Render,” he told me. “You and I are going to get them together and convince them to leave.”
We decided to hold the meeting at Della’s house because it was warded the best of any of the homes around us except for Victoria. Since I was the one coming to them with an impossible request, I thought it would be best to hold the meeting on relatively neutral ground.
Della didn’t seem surprised to find us at her door. Which surprised me. Then again, things clearly were changing rapidly in Render. It wasn’t exactly a leap to find out we had a problem that needed discussing.
Inside her home, Della looked solid again, her white hair thick and shiny and her silver eyes clear. The blue ring around her irises was so dense it nearly covered the silver.
But despite her apparent health, the usually smooth space between her eyes was creased with dual lines of worry. “They’re coming,” she told me. The hand that rose to push a wisp of errant hair off a pink cheek shook slightly. “They’ll invade Render and take everyone.”
Della didn’t like being touched. I’d always thought it had something to do with the fact that she was a spirit form. But something inside me tightened at the fear in her eyes. And I reached out to clasp her cool hand. She looked surprised for a beat and then squeezed my hand back. “We’re not going to let that happen,” I told her.
She held my gaze for a long moment. It was probably just my imagination, but I thought I sensed her magic probing my mind, looking for the answers I was only pretending to have. After a moment, she nodded. “What can I do to help?”
“Call everyone? Ask them to meet us here tonight? We have a plan.” Okay, it wasn’t a plan so much as an escape strategy. But it would have to do.
She nodded. “Yes. When?”
“Eight o’clock?” Hawk asked.
Two hours. I hoped that would be enough time.
Della nodded and we left.
I turned to Hawk as we headed across the pitted lawn to Victoria. “I have something I need to do.”
“I’ll come with you,” he said.
“No. I need to do this alone.”
“Are you sure?”
I held back a shiver of fear through sheer force of will. “Yes.”
He inclined his head. “I have to speak with my crew. Make sure you’re at Della’s by eight. They’ll be more likely to listen to you than me.”
I nodded and stood there as he melted into the darkness. Some instinct screamed at me to call him back. To ask him for help.
But I couldn’t do it. Grams had said I needed to do it alone.
With a sigh, I headed into the house.
25
I crouched in the shadow of an enormous bush at the edge of the property. I’d been watching the shed for twenty minutes. Nothing had moved inside or around the place. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was there. Something I couldn’t see.
All around me, crickets sang a familiar song that leeched some of the tension from my muscles. It was just another night in Render. Crickets were singing. The night was calm.
Then the crickets’ song ceased, and a soft panting sound broke the sudden silence behind me.
I hadn’t intended to bring Nicht along on my questionable adventure. But I’d had to bring Boyle because I had no one to keep him safe at the house. Everyone was doing other jobs where it would be too dangerous to include him.
And I couldn’t leave him alone at Victoria. The house could engage powerful wards to protect herself from attack, but she couldn’t anticipate the guardian spirit of a baby gargoyle that would inspire Boyle to climb up to the roof and try to protect her.
No. The baby was safer with me.
Apparently, he and his pony-sized dog were an unbreakable pair.
I turned to the dog and shushed him softly.
He slammed his mouth shut with an audible snap, the large, white teeth disappearing into the unrelenting blackness of his face. In fact, if it wasn’t for his glowing red eyes, the entire dog would have disappeared.
I frowned at him. “Can’t you do anything about the headlights?”
He whined softly.
I sighed, reaching back to scratch his big nose. Unfortunately, he took that as permission to start panting again.
“Okay,” I whispered, “I’ve put this off as long as I can.”
Nicht stood carefully so as not to jostle the sleeping baby draped over his back. Boyle mumbled softly in his sleep and resettled himself into the dog’s thick fur, his skinny legs and arms draped loosely over the sides.
“I’m going to hire you as a sleep nanny,” I told the hound.
He made a soft, “woof!” sound, and we started toward the shed.
Motioning for Nicht to stand near the door, I walked around Mitch’s tiny home a couple of times to evaluate the area, stopping at the small window of the kitchen and peering through with each rotation. I listened carefully each time, hearing nothing inside.
No light.
No movement.
No sound.
Finally, I opened the door. It creaked slightly and I jumped a foot into the air, emitting the high-pitched squeal of a sissy girl before I could stop myself.
Mentally flagellating myself, I stepped into the shed.
Nothing had changed since the last time I was there. The air might have been a bit mustier. But the kitchen was the same, and Mitch’s Seer chair still stood empty in the center of the main room.
I settled the small, wooden box I’d carried in onto the floor and opened it. Nicht stood near the door, his nose pointed outside, keeping watch.
I pulled out the bag of portal ashes, the grave dirt I’d dug from behind the house, and the small medallion I’d also found buried there. Grams had told me that the answers to the portal had to be found in the place where it led.
Outvald.
The information had brought an icy shiver climbing down my back. I didn’t want to go to Outvald. There was nothing but horror for me there. But Grams didn’t share my fear.
“It’s where we’re from, child,” she’d told me. “It’s where our legacy magic began.”
I’d shaken my head, pacing the room as pure terror ripped through me. I’d fought the portal enough times to know. What tried to escape was evil. Pure and simple. It was death.
“You must trust your heritage, child,” Grams had said, her voice hardening in the face of my resistance.
“I can’t,” I’d told her. “Don’t you see? The portal sheds evil like hair from a balding man. It reeks of it. If I go into that portal…” I’d shuddered, the motion so violent it nearly took me off my feet. “I won’t survive it.”
“You must go to Outvald, child,” Grams told me in a voice that rattled the windows. “You must find the portal entrance and place the medallion there. It is the only way. You came to me for answers. Now you must do as I say.”
She was right. I’d known it. But that didn’t take the stink of fear away. It didn’t make it any easier to breathe. I’d nodded. “Tell me what I need to do.”
And so, she had.
She’d told me that I must go to her grave and dig in the space six inches in front of the cross we’d marked it with. She told me to dig six inches into the soil with my fingers and extract soil from that spot. And that I must use my power to draw the energy from the medallion, pulling it from the place six feet down, where her bones lay.
The mystical power of Thrice Six. Not an evil symbol as many humans believed. But a magical one.
I’d done as she’d said, trying not to think of the fact that the medallion had been lying across her cold fingers when we’d buried her. It had touched her cold skin, its power infusing her with the magic that allowed me to speak to her even after death.
By taking the medallion, I’d silenced her. And I felt the severing of that tie like a knife to my hear
t.
I’d walked away from that interview intending to do as she’d said. But I couldn’t just open the portal and wander through it into Outvald. I had to know what I’d be walking into.
So I’d come up with the plan.
The plan sucked giant water balloons. But it was better than going in blind.
I would use Mitch’s Seer energy to peek at Outvald. I’d use the tools that tied me to the other dimension and try to focus my visit, so I didn’t just emerge psychically in some random spot. I needed to see the other end of the portal.
I needed to know what was waiting for me there.
I didn’t really know how to prepare for what I had to do. I only knew I needed to shed some light on the task.
I glanced at Nicht, seeing the small form draped bonelessly atop him. I walked over and lifted Boyle from the hound’s back. “In case you need to move,” I told Nicht.
The hound made a soft, chuffing sound, his gaze never leaving the night beyond the door.
I lay Boyle atop Mitch’s soft bed and brushed my fingertips across his tiny cheek, tears burning my eyes. How was I going to keep him safe if I had to go into the portal? How would I protect him from the Body? The thought of those human-shaped monsters in Indy getting hold of the tiny gargoyle made me see stars.
I couldn’t let it happen.
But I couldn’t take him through the portal with me. It was much too dangerous.
I scrubbed at the tears and bent toward Boyle, kissing his soft cheek. “I’ll be right back, sweet boy.”
I forced myself to move to the chair, to pick up the three items I’d carried with me, and to settle into the overstuffed sucking behemoth of a recliner.
I slipped the chain of the medallion around my neck and sat back. I’d barely tucked my fingertips into the ash and the dirt before I felt the magic pull me in.
I’d expected to land somewhere in Outvald, looking at the end of a portal. Instead, I was plunged into the heart of raging, ravaging flame. Heat sucked all the oxygen out of the air, pressed against me like an actual physical presence, and made me want to turn and run.
