Murder Between the Worlds: A Between the Worlds Novel

by Morgan Daimler

Oh my Gods, do they have a gift shop? Trying not to let any of her thoughts show she said, “Of course I understand.”

  Jess wrapped his arm around her shoulder, a strong comforting presence and guided her out of the room and through another maze of halls and doors. At this point Allie wasn’t even paying attention to where they were going. It wasn’t like she could run for it anyway.

  The reception hall turned out to be a long rectangular room with a crystal chandelier and tapestries on all the walls depicting significant events from Queen Naesseryia’s life. The floor was hardwood, polished until it glowed and there were no electric lights here, everything was lit by ambient magic. It was so much more like what she’d expected from the outside that Allie actually found herself relaxing a little.

  Zarethyn led her forward to where a strange elf was standing at the far end of the room, beneath a tapestry showing the Queen’s coronation. The Queen’s images showed her to be willowy, with long pale blonde hair held back by a delicate crown. The strange elf was also tall and blonde, probably from the same clan, Allie guessed, and he was dressed well in dark green silk. Allie guessed that this elf and the Queen were likely related, probably more closely than the loose ties Zarethyn and Jessilaen had to her. Zarethyn introduced her simply and Allie curtsied, an elaborate high Court move that she was surprised she even remembered how to do properly. She shoved aside the thought that it was ridiculous to be doing high Court anything in jeans and a sweater and faced the other elf. He was old, far older than any elf she had ever seen. His age didn’t show the way human age would; he looked like any other elf at first glance but he radiated Power in a palpable way that was more than a little bit frightening to someone like Allie, who had been raised to reflexively fear and mistrust powerful people.

  Despite her best efforts not to show her feelings, or perhaps because he was very skilled at reading people, the old elf, who had been introduced as Tharien, seemed to sense her fear and he spoke gently, “Peace to you child, you are safe here.”

  Allie bowed her head, overwhelmed and speechless. He reached out and rested one hand on her hair, as if it had been planned that way, and she could feel his energy swirling around and through her. It was a bizarre feeling and she wasn’t entirely sure she liked it. After what seemed to her like a very long time he finally lifted his hand again, and a moment later she looked up. He was staring above her head, thoughtfully. When he finally spoke he still sounded meditative.

  “You asked me to come and see this child Captain, to find out if she has any gift for Seeing that might explain her unusual dream. She has no such gift, of that I am certain, but I am glad you called me here and glad I came, for I rarely see such a gift as this.”

  Allie turned her head slightly to give Jess an uncertain look, although she didn’t dare speak or move further than that. It was enough for him to come up behind her and embrace her anyway, and to her surprise Zarethyn also stepped up and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  “Do not fear, child,” Tharien said, smiling slightly. Allie did not feel reassured.

  “I am sorry if I am frightening you,” the old elf said gently to Allie, who was feeling very much like a particularly interesting bug under a microscope “You know that some people are gifted with certain abilities, beyond simply being able to use magic?” Allie nodded and he continued.

  “You are an empath, which means you have the ability to read the emotions of people around you and of places. In time you may learn to harness this ability to use emotional energy to fuel your magic.”

  Allie was thinking furiously. There were no empaths in the Dark Court because they usually burned out or self-destructed very early, so her knowledge of empathy as a magical ability among elves was very limited. Her grandmother had not wanted to train Allie’s ability since Allie had been so uncomfortable with it, so she had never learned to do more than shield out the emotions of others. The idea of using emotions as a magical power source was strange, but she was familiar with the idea of emotional energy as a type of food; many Dark Court beings lived on negative emotions, consuming the emotional energy of fear, anger, or pain the way humans ate a hamburger. It wasn’t a particularly happy train of thought. As she was thinking Zarethyn had asked if her ancestry was a factor and the old elf was answering no. Allie tried to carefully frame her own question, “Pardon, may I ask something?”

  Tharien smiled, “Of course.”

  “I’m… unsure exactly what this means. I can feel what other people are feeling, that part I understand, because empathy is a common gift among humans, but I don’t understand the other part or how that relates to–whatever that thing last night was,” she tried to choose her words carefully.

  He seemed genuinely surprised, “Empathy is common among humans? Truly?”

  It was Allie’s turn to be surprised, “Well, yes. Many humans have some degree of empathy. I’ve dealt with it since I was small but I mostly only know how to block other people’s feelings. I’ve never heard of anyone using empathy for anything except to read other people’s emotional states.”

  Tharien, nodded thoughtfully.” Fascinating. Your gift then must come from the human side of your ancestry. It is a very uncommon gift among elves, and noteworthy because it allows one to see the true feelings behind the polite surface. It is unwise though not to learn how to control your power; you may be more open to the influence of those around you than you realize. With practice you could learn, I believe, to track emotions like a scent on the wind. More than that though, you will be able to use the energy you sense, as if it were any other magical energy. The other that I knew with this ability, once he had mastered it, was something to be seen. As to your dream, it likely was not a dream but either an emotional echo of the event, if you have a strong enough connection to the place it occurred in, or someone you are connected to emotionally is involved. Your gift allows you to form strong bonds with those you care about and such a connection would allow for communication, particularly of emotions, although since you are entirely untrained it is impossible to know who you may have connected to or for you to control it. It would be wise to seek training to avoid being unduly influenced by others.”

  Allie felt her mind reeling. It was unnerving to look back at your life and wonder how much of it had been influenced by other people. Was that why she had been so upset after Aeyliss died? That night when she awoke she had been overwhelmed by despair and grief; was that her own feeling or was that the massed feelings of the Guard who had been all over the property investigating their comrade’s death? She felt her skin crawling at the thought that she was so open to outside forces and Jess tightened his hold on her. That sent her mind in another direction that was just as depressing. And yet she couldn’t help but feel better, more grounded, stronger as he supported her. It was unsettling to suddenly be aware of how much she’d come to depend on his presence in such an extremely short time. She spoke again, just as carefully as before, “Sometimes I have felt like I am drawing strength from… people I care about. As if their emotions are… keeping me going when I don’t think I can go further.”

  He nodded thoughtfully, “This I have not seen before. It could be a human aspect of the gift, but I believe it more likely that it is an aspect of using emotions as magical energy. It is possible that you can use emotions also as personal energy.”

  Allie swore to herself. Repeatedly. That sort of thing was dangerous territory indeed, and she was going to have to learn how to better shield herself as quickly as possible, to prevent herself from accidently doing it. So far there was no indication that her use of Jess’s energy, minor and unintentional as it had been, affected him in any way, but she wasn’t willing to take that chance. Struggling to keep her face impassive, she said “I have a lot to think about”

  “You have much to do, I think, and there is still great danger around you. If ever you wish to further discuss this I will gladly tell you all I can,” the old elf smiled again and Allie nodded trying to smile back.


  Jessilaen and Zarethyn had stepped back as well and both bowed deeply; taking the cue, Allie curtseyed again, praying this meant an end to the meeting. She felt like her head was going to burst and she couldn’t think straight. The high ranking elf nodded slightly, and Jess guided Allie back and out of the room. As soon as they reached the hallway and the door closed she leaned against the nearest wall and covered her face with both hands.

  The Elven Captain, touched her shoulder lightly, “Why are you distraught Aliaine? That went very well.”

  “Yes,” Jess agreed, “It may be a challenge to master such an unusual ability but it will be a powerful skill.”

  He stopped as she dropped her hands and gave him a long look. “I don’t like the idea of using other people’s emotions like some sort of personal battery,” she said gritting her teeth.

  He looked exasperated, “You have no reason to see it that way. Does breathing the air in this room take anything substantial away from anyone? You have a gift to use what others are not even aware of to your own advantage. You hurt no one in doing so, and it increases your own power. It is an advantage that should be made the most of.”

  “And what if it does take something away from others? What if hurts them?” she said, unable to not say what she was thinking.

  “You do me no harm when you draw on my emotions for your strength,” he said gently. “I am absolutely certain of this.” She shook her head trying to look away, but he held her chin and met her eyes with his. “Allie, I am over 700 years old. I know my own energy and my own self. Trust me when I say this–you have never taken anything from me that I noticed or missed. If my feelings for you help in any way, then you are more than welcome to them.”

  “And what if,” she said flatly, “what you feel for me is because I created some sort of connection with you?”

  “If anyone needs to worry about that Allie, it should be I,” he replied, equally grave. “Tharien said nothing about you being able to influence or control what others were feeling, only that you are sensitive to the emotions of those around you–perhaps what you feel for me is entirely based on the projection of my own feelings about you.”

  She bit her lip, “That doesn’t sound right.”

  “Try to project what you are feeling now, if not to me then to Zarethyn,” Jess said. His brother nodded encouragingly, obviously curious. She took a deep breath and focused on sending out what she was feeling, which was mostly fear. After a moment both elves shook their heads slightly. She frowned and without thinking, tried to open up to them, and since she wasn’t sure what she was doing, she simply lowered all of her personal shields. The next thing she knew she was flat on her back on the floor with their worried faces filling her field of vision. Jess was saying, “Fetch a healer.”

  “No,” she mumbled still dizzy, “No, I just did something stupid. Give me a minute.”

  She struggled to sit, both elves kneeling to support her; she could feel worry radiating from them. She heard someone walking at the other end of the hall and sighed, feeling a surge of concern and interest from the stranger. She brought her personal shields up as fully as she could and the outside emotions disappeared.

  “What happened?” Zarethyn asked, when it was clear she had recovered a bit.

  “I’m an idiot,” Allie said ruefully. “I couldn’t project to either of you so I thought I’d try reading you, but I wasn’t thinking of where we were or to extend my shields out, or anything else remotely intelligent. So I just dropped all my shielding which I probably haven’t done since I was taught to shield in the first place. I hadn’t realized–I must have subconsciously been blocking all the external emotions to a point where I wasn’t letting myself acknowledge any of it at all. Sometimes things leak through, if a person is close to me or touching me, and I guess I just started to think of that as the limit of my range, which it really isn’t. So then I just dropped all my personal shields and it was like–it was like–total sensory overload.”

  The two elves looked at each other, and then Zarethyn asked, “What is the limit of your range when you are unshielded?”

  “I don’t know, but for a second there I think I felt the whole Outpost.” She shuddered slightly at the thought. Zarethyn’s eyes went wide.

  Jess reached out and stroked her hair, “Are you sure you are well enough now?”

  “Less dizzy, yeah. This is going to take a long time to get the hang of, I think,” she said, climbing to her feet with their help. As soon as she touched Jess’s hand she felt his emotions flooding back in.

  Crap. she thought, worried. That’s not right, with my shields fully up at most it should be a vague feeling. What the hell did I just do to myself?

  “Don’t push yourself,” Jess said, concerned. Allie decided that she shouldn’t tell them about her problems shielding now. They were freaking out enough and it was obvious that empathy was something they had no real understanding of, so it wasn’t like they could offer any help anyway.

  “I have to. We have to find this killer and I can’t be a distraction to you-“she stopped, her breath catching. “Come on, we need to get back to the house, now.”

  “What is it?” Zarethyn said alarmed by her sudden urgency.

  “I got totally sidetracked feeling guilty about…” she glanced at Jessilaen. “And then zapping myself. Anyway, I wasn’t thinking–he said the dream wasn’t a dream. I was picking up on something, the emotion from the victim. It can’t be the place, because I’ve never seen that pace before or I would have recognized it. I felt like the person was calling me, pulling me to them, so it must be the person. Someone I have an emotional connection to, like he said.”

  Zarethyn looked grim, “Someone else has been killed.”

  Allie shuddered slightly. “I’m afraid so. But I have no idea who. I couldn’t see them clearly–I couldn’t even tell you if it was a man or a woman. It was a clearing in the woods, boulder shaped, sort of like an altar–the person was tied to it, and there was someone else there, hurting them–and candles around the perimeter, marking the boundary of a ritual circle. The circle was blocking me I think…I don’t know. I couldn’t reach them, and they kept pulling at me.”

  “Stop, Allie. Enough,” Jess said forcefully. “Don’t put yourself back there again. We will go as swiftly as we may back to your home and start by checking to see that all your housemates are safe. Then we can work out from there, until we find whoever this may have been.”

  She took a deep breath, feeling her heart racing. Zarethyn looked thoughtful, “It may not even be someone you knew personally. You have devoted yourself entirely to reading the grimoire and memorizing its contents over the last few days. Perhaps that created an emotional connection to the ritual itself.”

  “Is that possible?” she asked, finding the idea comforting and unnerving at the same time.

  “I do not know, but it seems no more or less likely than anything else at this point,” he replied.

  “Come on my love; let us go” Jess said, urging her down the hall, “The sooner we know what is going on the sooner you will have some answers.”

  “I just hope my answers help your investigation,” Allie said, realizing that for the first time being called “my love” didn’t make her stomach twist.

  ****************

  Zarethyn accompanied them back to the house, as did Brynneth, meaning that Allie was crammed in the back seat with two of the Guard. She hadn’t looked forward to dealing with the physical proximity of anyone else. Since dropping all her shields and knocking herself silly she kept getting ghostly impressions from anyone within a few feet of herself, no matter how much energy she put into her shields. However sitting between Jessilaen and Brynneth, with both of them radiating concern, was actually comforting. She tried hard to block them out at first but eventually gave up when it became clear that it was futile.

  Once she stopped fighting it she found their emotions were indeed helping her feel more refreshed, and while she couldn’t stop finding t
hat disturbingly similar to the Dark Court beings that fed on emotions, she also couldn’t deny that she was obviously not doing them any harm or even noticeably effecting them in any way. Unlike the beings she knew of from her childhood who fed off of emotional energy and drained their victims in the process she seemed to be absorbing their emotions like a plant taking in sunlight, taking what was there without diminishing it.

  As they came around the curve in the road she immediately knew bad news was waiting. A marked police car was parked in front of the house along with the unmarked car that she’d gotten used to Riordan and Walters driving. She looked away, resting her head on Jess’s shoulder, trying to grasp the last moment before she had to deal with whatever this was, but all the Guard were assuming the worst and the emotional tone from both Brynneth and Jess had turned tense and grim. She fought to get her shields back up as fully as possible, and found it easier now that her energy level was better. After a moment she managed to block both of them almost entirely.

  I am really going to have to think about how much I’m being influenced by other people’s emotions, she thought, trying to distract herself. Up until now I was operating blind, just letting myself go with the flow, but now that I know I can’t keep letting myself act because someone else feels a certain way.

  The car stopped at the end of the line of cars and Allie had no choice but to get out when the Guard did. She felt a growing sense of dread as she crossed the lawn towards the house, following the Guard who were walking in formation. She was certain the official approach was to prepare for whatever they were about to learn. They walked up the steps to the front door and she felt a rising sense of panic. The last time she’d felt this way was the day she’d returned from work to find the police and ambulance here after her grandmother had collapsed. That thought only increased the feeling of foreboding.

  They walked in the door and Allie could hear Bleidd yelling, his voice furious.