by Jayne Faith
Together we went to the pond and leaned over it. Two spectral faces stared back at us. He tapped the outer corner of one eye and then his temple.
I looked at him and shook my head. How was he making the images of other locations appear in the water?
He made the gesture again and then pointed at the water. Eye and head. Water.
“Mind’s eye?” I asked.
He nodded.
The light bulb blinked on in my head. If I pictured the destination, the water would take us there. My breath caught in my throat. Could I use the teleportation to move around and then come out of the in-between into the realm of the living? That would be a real trick.
Rogan gestured at me.
Try it.
“Can I teleport anywhere and then pass between realms?” I asked.
He hesitated but then nodded. My mind spun as I thought it through. Sure, I could teleport myself onto the Gregori Industries campus, for instance, but I’d have to make sure I didn’t end up trapped.
“Okay,” I whispered, focusing on the pond.
I trailed my fingers across the water, pictured the porch in front of my apartment, and then touched the water’s surface again. Nothing happened for a moment, but then it shimmered. It clarified into the image I held in my mind.
And then we were there, standing outside my front door.
I turned to Rogan—Atriul, as he was known here. He stepped away, and with a stab of sadness, I realized he didn’t intend to stay.
There were so many things I wanted to say to him. But after everything we’d been through, everything he’d done for me, only one thing seemed right.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for everything.”
Before I totally lost it, I closed my eyes and broke my connection to the in-between. Back in the realm of the living, Loki and I went inside. He looked up at me and wagged his tail enthusiastically, as if we’d just been on a great adventure. He wasn’t wrong—Rogan had shown me a skill that I never would have dreamed possible. It was only because of the reaper soul residing in me that I possessed such an extraordinary ability.
And the fact that I could take Loki along—he apparently had some connection to the in-between, too—made it all the better.
Deb looked startled when she saw me coming through the door.
“I was in the kitchen and didn’t even hear you leave,” she said, almost accusingly. “Where did you go?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I had to say goodbye to Rogan.”
Her expression softened into sorrow.
“I’ll be okay.” I forced confidence into my voice.
“Your magic changed,” she said quietly. “Damien?”
I nodded and then found my coat and keys. “I need to get out for a while.”
“Do you want me to come with?”
I shook my head. “But maybe you could call Lagatuda and see if they’ve made any progress on Gregori’s involvement?”
She brightened. “Of course.”
I called Loki, flipped Deb a wave, and I was out the door. I didn’t expect her to glean anything helpful from Lagatuda, but I wanted her to feel useful. If the task distracted her from imagining what I might be doing, then all the better. And I had a sneaking feeling that she wouldn’t mind an excuse to talk to the tall detective. I knew he certainly wouldn’t mind it.
As I drove away from home, I realized that I had a ghostly awareness of the in-between. It lurked at the back of my mind, hanging there in vague unrest, like the sensation of a task I needed to do but couldn’t quite remember the details of it. If I really quieted myself and focused on it, I could almost swear I felt the rivers of otherworldly magic flowing through the ley lines of that other realm.
It didn’t tug at me the way it had probably pulled at Rogan. The in-between wasn’t my home, and its magic seared me whenever I used it. I was a foreigner there. Well, most of me was, anyway.
I drove to Quinn’s Pond, a small body of water just off the Boise River beyond a somewhat seedy edge of downtown spotted with motels, dive bars, and abandoned buildings. During the summer, the pond was a spot where kayakers practiced their rolls, triathletes trained for their swimming legs, and people threw sticks for their dogs to fetch. It wasn’t cold enough yet for the edges of the water to be frozen. I parked on the street and then walked swiftly with Loki to a spot where I could look down into the water without getting my boots wet.
It struck me that in order to make the teleporting work I had to know my destination well enough to envision it clearly. The Gregori Industries campus was huge, and I was only barely familiar with limited areas of it.
Damn. What I really needed was Zarella’s help. After all, he lived on the Gregori campus, and he’d wanted to keep Evan out of Jacob’s hands. Maybe he could even get Evan out. I didn’t know how to contact Zarella directly, though. Someone in the underworld could probably help me, but I hadn’t bothered to get contact info from anyone I’d met during my induction ceremony. I’d figured that Rogan was my link to the group if I ever needed them. Sometimes my antisocial ways really came back around to bite me in the ass.
Well, I could at least go onto the Gregori campus and have a look around. I might even get lucky and find my brother on the first try.
I let myself dissolve from the world of the living and transition into the in-between. A moment later, hellhound-Loki joined me. I drew my fingers across the surface of the water and began to picture the fountain near the center of the Gregori campus.
But then I stopped. I needed leverage, something I could use against Jacob. I suddenly realized what I needed, and with a heavy heart, I knew where I’d find it. I pictured Damien’s apartment.
Holding the image firmly in my mind, I touched the water again. The shimmer came, and when it settled, the image in my mind was reflected back at me.
And then we were there. I blinked back into the realm of the living.
“Damien?” I called. The place felt dead, empty, and I wasn’t surprised when there was no response.
I looked around and then zeroed in on a small object sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter. A rectangular box about the size of a stick of butter. It looked as if it were carved out of a solid chunk of black diamond, and I could sense the residual magic clinging to it. The lid was tipped back, and it was empty. I closed it and tucked it into the inner pocket of my jacket, trying not to think of the implications. Trying not to imagine what Damien was doing at that moment. How much of the Damien I knew was even left.
I dropped the rubber stopper into the sink drain, and with Loki beside me, I ran a few inches of water. Then I trailed my fingers in the water, pictured the fountain at Gregori Industries, and touched the water again. In the next breath, we were there.
As soon as I looked around, I realized my mistake. I’d brought us to a very visible spot—not a good place to suddenly appear in the realm of the living. I needed to find a safer location before I left the in-between.
There were probably ten multi-story buildings on campus, in addition to smaller outbuildings and garages. I’d only been inside a few of them and didn’t know them well. I didn’t know all the quirks of the in-between, but there were some unpredictable features that could get me in trouble. For instance, the fact that windows were often pane-less in the in-between, but doors might or might not be present here as they were in the realm of the living.
Basically, I had to make sure I didn’t put myself in a place where I could get trapped.
I squared my shoulders and strode off in the direction of one of the buildings I’d been in before, the one where Roxanne’s brother had been held when he was caught inside one of Jacob’s genetically engineered gargoyles. He’d held one prisoner there already, so it was as good a place as any to start my search for Evan.
Of course, there had to be a door blocking my entry. I tried it and wasn’t surprised to find it locked. Keycard activated, if I remembered correctly.
“We need an open window, boy,” I s
aid to Loki.
I took a few steps back and tipped my head up, but all the windows on this side had glass panes. Just as I was about to go around the side to check out the rest of the windows, the door swung open.
I sprinted up and flattened myself against the wall right next to it and then slipped inside with Loki on my heels. Like with the driverless cars in this realm, I couldn’t see the person who’d opened it.
I went deeper into the building, searching for an inconspicuous place to pop back into the world of the living. A private restroom or an unlocked janitorial closet would be perfect.
Down a side hallway, I spotted a door that led to the stairs. It was propped open with a chair. That might work.
I sidled through and then went around to the little nook below the first flight of steps, where I released my grip on the in-between.
Back in the living world, I held my breath, listening. Fairly sure I had the stairwell to myself, I began sprinting up the stairs with Loki silently following at my heels. As I went, I realized that I’d sent myself on a fool’s errand. This was basically a needle-in-a-haystack search. I didn’t even know if I was in the right building, and it would take me about a year to sneak around undetected and thoroughly search the entire campus.
I paused three floors up, my pulse thumping from exertion and adrenaline.
I needed to speed things up, somehow. I flashed back to the in-between, and Loki appeared beside me.
Bending at the waist, I held Loki’s huge hellhound face in my hands.
“I need you to stay hidden, boy,” I said. He closed his mouth and cocked his head as if concentrating on my words. “I don’t want you to get caught up in this. Do you understand? Go hide in the in-between.”
He panted with his tongue out, licked at my spectral wrist, and then turned and disappeared into thin air.
I returned to the realm of the living and went through the door that let out into a hallway with a row of elevators. As I moved, I reached into my jacket to pull out the box I’d taken from Damien’s.
A bearded man wearing a white lab coat glanced at me, and then did a double-take at my leather combat boots. His eyes scanned up until his gaze met mine.
“Where’s your badge?” he demanded. He took a step back. “Do you have clearance to be in here?”
“Nope.” I planted one hand on my hip and lifted the box in the other. “Take me to Jacob Gregori.”
Chapter 24
“THE GUNS REALLY aren’t necessary,” I said for the third time, my hands still raised in surrender.
Scientist Guy had called security, which had resulted in a dozen of Jacob’s crew-cut ex-military guys surrounding me with automatic weapons, and an evacuation of employees from this wing. Through the whole thing, I’d just stood there calmly.
“I’m not going to try anything, I swear. But my arms are seriously getting tired. Has anyone called the boss man yet?” I waggled the box. “He’s really, really gonna want to know that I have this thing.”
My bravado was mostly borne of the knowledge that I could disappear into the in-between if anybody tried anything threatening. I didn’t want to use that card until I had to, though.
The elevator dinged, and Jacob stepped out.
Damn, finally.
He flicked his hand in a dismissive gesture, and all but two of the crew-cuts lowered their weapons and backed up.
“Ella.” Jacob smiled magnanimously, as if welcoming his favorite niece to Christmas dinner.
“Where’s my brother?” I demanded. I held up the box. “I want to see him. Now.”
My heart thumped with anger. I was tempted to draw magic but didn’t want to risk that the two crew-cuts that stood on either side of Jacob might have jumpy trigger fingers. I relaxed my arms at my sides and forced myself to stay loose.
Jacob’s eyes snagged on the box. I saw his throat constrict as he swallowed. His fingers twitched at his sides. He wanted it. Badly. But to his credit, he didn’t make a move for it.
Jacob half turned toward the elevator and swept his hand forward in a beckoning motion. “Please, come with me. I have something very important to show you.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “If you want this thing, take me to my brother.”
“Evan is safe. He’s resting,” Jacob said. “I will let you see him. But first, I need you to see something. I promise the detour will be worth it.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, but then I relented. “Make it really damn fast.”
Jacob took me down to the main floor and outside. We went into a shorter building, and the entire time the two gun-toting guys followed along as silently as panthers behind us.
My uncle led me into what looked like a mini auditorium. The crew-cuts stopped just inside the door while Jacob went down to the podium and picked up the tablet on it.
“What the hell is this?” I asked impatiently.
“You’ll see,” he said, swiping at the tablet. “Please, take a seat.”
I folded my arms, tucking the box behind one elbow. “No thanks, I’ll stand.”
Part of me wanted to close my hands around his neck and wring the life out of him. Another part of me had this morbid curiosity about what he wanted to say.
The overhead lights dimmed, and the large screen on the wall began to glow. A spinning globe appeared in the middle, and after a few turns, it flattened into a world map. Red dots began to pop up all over, with bunches of them forming masses in certain areas.
“Each one represents a death due to the interdimensional rips,” Jacob said. He came to stand near me so he could look up at the display, too. Dots kept appearing. “In total, over half a million lives lost due to demon attacks, irreversible possessions, zombie virus infections, and euthanasia and killings of those infected with VAMP2 before the implant was invented. In the decades since the Manhattan Rip first tore through the sky, I’ve spent millions trying to understand the nature of the rips and tried dozens of things to try to close them permanently. The mages of the world have been trying to do the same. But neither the most powerful technology in the world nor the most powerful magic in the world has achieved the goal.”
He lowered the tablet and turned to peer at me in the semi-dark, the map with all its dots reflecting off the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses and obscuring his eyes.
“So you want to sacrifice my brother because he has some special set of genes or magic or whatever, and you think tossing him into the rips will zip them up, and we’ll all live happily ever after,” I said, practically spitting the words.
His lips pursed for the briefest of moments, betraying his annoyance that I’d undermined the big buildup in his speech.
“That’s not precisely how it would work,” he said. Then his voice softened. “But the exact details aren’t important. It’s the larger picture, Ella. Think of it. We could close the rips. Go back to how the world was before. No more lives lost, and no more hellspawn plaguing us. No more rogue viruses claiming thousands of innocent people.”
“Or, we could just live with what we’ve done,” I said. “And why not? The vampirism and zombie viruses are more or less in check, now. We manage the demon problem. We’ve made a lot of progress.” I gestured up at the screen. “Most of those deaths happened in the first few years after the original Rip. These days the casualties are few and far between.”
A pang sliced into my heart as I thought of Rogan getting carted away in a metal coffin. My fists clenched as I remembered the sadistic beefcake who’d tied me up and sapped me with the cattle prod. Jacob might not have been there for either event, but he was directly responsible for both.
“Besides, what proof do you have that murdering Evan would close the rips?” I demanded. “Sounds pretty damned far-fetched to me.”
“Because Gregori Industries and the Order of Mages have independently arrived at the same conclusion,” he said. “We’ve both discovered the combination of magical factors needed to seal off our dimension. Believe me, I’ve
spent the last few years desperately looking for an alternative, but there simply isn’t one.”
I wanted to argue, but his tone stopped me short. There was genuine sadness in it. True regret. Regardless of what I thought of Jacob, I couldn’t deny that his focus in life was singular, and he’d thrown everything into it—his time, his extensive resources, and his considerable fortune. He wanted a solution more than anything else in life. He wanted to close the rips, to atone for the actions that had caused the disaster in the first place. He’d genetically modified gargoyles in an effort to use them as live demon traps. He’d sent a horde of demonic assassins when he’d discovered that Lynnette was opening rips. And now he was willing to sacrifice his own blood. It struck me that Zarella might be the psychopath, but Jacob was almost as bad. The main difference was that Jacob wanted to atone for his sins, in his own twisted way, whereas Zarella was happy to let chaos reign.
The deaths, all those red dots on Jacob’s diagram, weighed him down every moment of his life. But that was his problem, not Evan’s.
Before I could respond, Jacob continued.
“We could, perhaps, go on as you suggest. But there is a new twist, an additional piece that only a few know about,” he said. “We’re nearing a crisis. Our monitoring of the interdimensional activity shows a change in pattern, one that indicates we’re in for a completely new tide of devastation. The mages have detected it as well. A new and much more terrible generation of hellspawn is due to come through soon. Very soon. The mages expect new viral strains, as well.”
The foreboding in his voice sent a cold shiver curling down my spine.
“I want to know what would happen to Evan,” I said, my voice low and on the edge of trembling. “Not because I would ever agree to sacrifice him, but because I think I deserve to know what you would force my brother to suffer. What you would do to your nephew, your own family, to right your wrong.”
His lips parted, but he hesitated.
I faced him, my arms dropping to my sides. “C’mon, Jacob. Tell me.”
