by J. R. Thorn
Edwin jerked and the jersey fell to the ground. He absentmindedly picked it up. “Dead?”
I nodded, hoping that the stinging in my eyes wouldn’t turn into tears. “Yeah, so let’s go back in that room and figure out how to undo this.” I pointed at the way they’d come, but nearly swallowed my tongue when I realized that the secret door was gone. The shelves had resumed their normal array of completely lining the wall. The only hint that there’d been any break at all was the salty crumbs on the ground.
“Ed,” Devon said, covering himself with the paper bag. I definitely wasn’t going to get any fries now. “Can the Keymaster die? Is that possible?”
“Don’t call me Ed,” the angel snapped and sighed as he eased onto the stool in front of the Tarot cards. He frowned at them, then looked at me. “Are you her daughter?”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “Granddaughter,” I corrected.
He smirked. “Yeah, right.” He patted the table. “You better sit down for this.”
Chapter 2
If someone would have told me that on a moonlit night on the eve of fulfilling my vision, I would summon two naked angels and sit at a tiny table littered with Tarot cards and french fry crumbs, well, I would have thought them just as nuts as my grandmother. But here I was, grateful for the slim layer of wood that blocked out the most enticing of views from the naked angels who sat across from me. Their wings made the shop feel so small, even as they pulled them to their backs.
Devon, the angel of hell with slicked-back midnight hair and a matching devilish smile had just finished explaining to me that the Keymaster was Earth’s protector, and if she was dead, it meant something terrible was about to happen. Death wasn’t just a human occurrence. Everything died. Animals, foliage—even planets. Every thousand years the cycle of death came full circle for the Keymaster and Earth risked falling under with the weight of that loss. The cycle had struck a few times before, leaving echoes of disasters to ring through time. The asteroid that took out the dinosaurs. The Ice Age. The Black Plague, and a hundred other events that made my stomach churn. I was glad that Devon had eaten all my fries.
“Devon,” chided Edwin, “you’re really not helping. She’s even whiter than she was before.”
Devon grinned and pinched my chin. “Chin up, right baby?”
Edwin smacked Devon’s hand away and I flinched. “Don’t hit on the new Keymaster.”
I blinked. “Wait, what? New Keymaster?”
Edwin’s lips pressed into a thin line before he spoke again. “You’ll have plenty of time to adjust to your role, but we need to bring you up to speed.” He cocked his head to the side. “Did the Keymaster teach you about the three gates?”
“Uh,” I stammered. “No?”
Devon rested his chin on his arms as if he was bored. “This is going to take forever.”
In spite of looking like the perfect male specimens—the both of them—I was starting to distinguish Devon’s unique flair for mischief and sarcasm from Edwin’s calm seriousness. “Why don’t you start with telling me exactly how an angel hangs out in hell?” I asked Devon.
He barked a laugh. “Ah, caught that, did you? What do you think demons are? We all need to have black freaky wings and be ugly?” He leaned back in his chair until it teetered and he laced his fingers behind his head. I kept my chin high to keep my gaze from lowering to the delicious curves that ran down his abdomen. “It’s all right,” he purred. “You can look.”
Irritation prickling, I yanked him by the wrist and his chair slammed on the ground. “I don’t have to look between your thighs to see a prick,” I snapped.
He barked another laugh. “Oh, Ed, I like this one.”
Edwin glowered and crossed his arms. “She’s going to grow into her powers—and fast. If you don’t want her to kill you, then you’d better back off.”
As if in reaction to that promise, shadows zapped at my fingertips and dark magic whirled around my wrists. “The hell?” I snapped and jerked to my feet.
“Look!” Devon exclaimed. “She’s manifesting hellbound powers first! Finally. A soul that knows what’s what.” He slammed a fist on the table. “Girl, there are so many things I’m going to teach you. Your mother never cared for the dark arts and we’re going to make up for that.”
“Grandmother,” I corrected absentmindedly, turning my hand around as the shadows continued to swirl around my fingers.
“We’ll both teach her how to control her powers,” Edwin added. “The fate of all our worlds depends on it.”
“Fate of…” My voice trailed off and I sighed. “I need a minute.”
“Snap your fingers!” Devon shouted, sounding almost giddy.
I glared at him. “What?”
He hit the table again, excitement sparking in his gaze. “Go on, just do it!”
The shadows continued to swirl around my fingers, urging me on with the temptation. “The hell. Why not?” Snapping, the magic spiked as if I’d given it life. A set of leather pants and jacket appeared and fell to the floor.
Devon shrieked with joy. “Hell yeah, baby! My girl likes leather.” He jumped from his seat and wiggled into the pants. “Little tight,” he complained, then gave me a wink. He picked up the jacket and tossed it over his shoulder. “Can’t wear this until you dismiss my wings.” The wide, beautiful layers of white feathers swayed behind him and he fluttered them.
Blinking, I looked down at my fingers again. My left hand no longer had shadows, but the other? It started to glow with an unmistakable silver magical aura. I glanced at Edwin who still had his arms crossed.
“If you summon me leather, I swear to the heavens I’ll just walk around this world naked.”
I couldn’t help it. Laugher tickled at my throat, and before I knew it, it was bubbling out of me. It kept coming and wouldn’t stop.
“Uh oh, dude,” Devon said, “she’s losing it.”
Doubling over, I let the laughter take me. I knew that Devon was right. I was starting to get hysterical as I tried to take all of this in. When I managed to control my laughter and snapped my fingers, an elegant silk shirt appeared along with dress pants fit for an angel.
Edwin stooped and took the conjured clothes. “Not bad,” he commented, rubbing the silk shirt between his fingers.
Wiping the tears from my face, I tried to pull myself together. “I can’t believe it,” I whispered. “I can really do magic. Like real magic—and the first thing I do is conjure clothes like the naked angels I’d summoned were some Ken dolls. Jen would get a kick out of this.”
“Hey,” Devon said, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. I went stiff as his hard body pressed against mine with a familiarity he seemed to have around women. “Let’s not tell human friends about us. That never works out very well.”
After donning his own pair of paints, Edwin peeled Devon off of me. “You didn’t conjure these,” he explained and showed me the tag on the shirt. I gawked at the brand name that was worth more than anything I’d ever owned. “You stole them.”
Devon barked a laugh. “Hellbound powers for sure.” He gave me a wink, this time the gesture making me feel like we shared some kind of secret joke.
“Wait a second,” I said, yanking Edwin closer so I could see the tag again. My hand accidentally grazed across his bare back and my fingers wound through his feathers. Electricity zapped between us and I yanked away. “Sorry,” I began.
Edwin winced as his feathers began to shed, layers of them falling to the ground revealing sinew and bone. His wings vanished into dust and the once semi-clean floor of my grandmother’s shop was now covered in glittering angel-soot.
“Oh!” Devon squealed and presented his back. He flared his wings. “Do me next!”
Dumbfounded, I blinked at him. He rolled his eyes and grabbed my arm, pressing my fingers into the soft downy of his feathers. Electricity charged again.
Devon shrieked as his feathers dropped from his elegant wings and he cried, “I’m melting! I’m melting
!”
Edwin hardly seemed amused and Devon chuckled as he wrapped the leather jacket around his torso. “Oh come on. You guys are so lame.”
Edwin presented his hand, and I stared at the wide breadth of his fingers, taken aback by the gentlemen-like posture. “Ignore him. He’s just excited to be out of hell.” When I wound my fingers through his and looked up into his crystal blue eyes, he smiled. “Before we get started on saving the world, let’s get you something to eat.” He gave Devon a glare. “Some prick ate your food.”
“Food?” he bellowed. “That shit was disgusting. I was saving her from having a heart attack.”
Edwin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, so disgusting that you ate the whole bag.”
Stammering, I numbly allowed Edwin to guide me out of the shop. “But, the floor.” I couldn’t just leave it like this. What if clients stopped by? They’d see through the windows and—
“Hey,” Edwin whispered, taking my chin to look at him. The gentleness in his touch broke me from my panicked trance. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”
I don’t know if it was because I’d just learned magic was real, or because Edwin’s touch awoke something deep within me… but I knew that with these men in my life, he was right. It would be okay.
Chapter 3
Going to a fast-food restaurant in the middle of the night with two angels on this side of town wasn’t my idea of keeping a low profile. It didn’t much matter if their wings were gone; everything about them screamed inhuman.
Devon inhaled yet another serving of fries while Edwin chowed down on a hamburger. After watching him eat two, he shoved a tray at me. “Eat,” he commanded.
Numbly, I picked up a hamburger from the offering and slowly unwrapped it before taking a bite. I couldn’t taste anything, not when there were two angels watching me eat.
Devon’s sculpted chest even made the fluorescent lighting look good as his skin glittered between the open folds of his jacket. He grinned when he caught my gaze dipping.
Chewing, and turning my gaze to Edwin, I didn’t fare much better. His sculpted abs left little to the imagination, cutting through his silk shirt and revealing every curve and hard edge that made up his incredible body.
“Tell us about the guy who owned the jersey,” Edwin offered, startling me from the trance.
“Jersey?” I asked around a mouthful of food.
“Oh, let’s guess!” Devon said, drawing a long gulp from his soda before pointing a finger. “I bet your type is jock. And stupid.” He grinned. “Because you keep looking at Edwin with those puppy dog eyes.”
I frowned. Jeffery had been a great boyfriend. All the stupid jocks went for Jen, falling all over themselves the moment she flicked her wrist and her perfect curls bobbed over a shoulder. No. My Jeffery hadn’t been a jock. “My ex is dead,” I whispered.
For the first time, the mischief in Devon’s eyes faded. “Oh.”
Edwin smacked him across the back of the head. “Look what you’ve done. Not everything is a joke you asshole.”
Hissing and squeezing one eye shut, Devon complained, “Hey, you were the one to ask her about her ex.”
“It was an accident,” I continued, suddenly feeling the urge to talk about the worst night of my life. Perhaps it was the hysteria of tonight’s events, or the hint of sunlight through the windows that made this all hit home. This was real. This was my life now and when Jeffery had been killed, I’d always blamed myself. But now, perhaps I could lessen that burden of guilt.
“He’d come to the shop one night to see me,” I began. Both Edwin and Devon hushed and put their food down as they listened.
Jeffery had loved my grandmother’s shop. When she’d go on one of her long trips, we’d pull the shades across the windows and make love in the swirl of velvet blankets.
The jade beads used for readings would always find their way on the floor and poke me in the back. We’d laugh that we couldn’t make it back to the apartment that my grandmother rented out for me. She’d always insisted that I learn how to be an independent woman, especially when she was on one of her trips. None of my friends knew where I lived—not even Jen. If I wanted to meet up with anyone it would be at the shop where I felt safe.
But Jeffery had his own web of safeness he strapped around me. I didn’t have to meet him at the shop, but he’d indulge me. He’d draw me inside and turn over the closed sign just so I didn’t have to face my apartment and the reality of how fucked up my life was.
“My grandmother wasn’t supposed to be back for another three days,” I forced myself to say aloud. “She surprised us. When the door unlocked, we both panicked, and—” I choked off a sob as the image of Jeffery’s face hit me. “We’d been trying out drugs. He had four pills with him and we hadn’t even tried them yet. He didn’t want me to get in trouble… so he swallowed them.”
Even through the swirling buzz of that night, I still vividly remembered Jeffery looking into my eyes, realizing what he’d done. Moonlight had shed across his face and he’d fallen over, convulsing as the overdose took hold.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Edwin offered and reached across the table to take my hand. “Fate cannot be changed.”
My gaze snapped up to him. “Fate?” I asked. The word sounded vile. “Then what is it you’re trying to do by stopping the cycle of death? Isn’t that trying to change fate?”
Devon glanced at the other sleepy patrons sitting at the twenty-four hour joint, but they were too stooped in their food to pay attention to us. “It’s not changing fate if you beat it to the finish line.”
I reclaimed my hand and cupped it in my lap as I sank into my seat. “Great. So you’re here to tell me that it’s time to chase fate.”
Edwin nodded. “It outran us this time, but we’ll catch up, and then we’ll avoid all of our worlds being devoured by death.” His face went grim. “I won’t lie to you, Renee, there will be echoes. We’re far behind and we’ll have to be quick to overturn fate’s course. It’ll create shockwaves and disasters. There will be branches of calamity that others will have to work to avoid for centuries to come. Realms will split open and merge with this one, and there’s nothing we can do to stop that. All we can do is stop the worst of these events from coming to pass. Earth, heaven, hell, these are worlds that live in balance with one another. If death takes one, it’ll take them all.”
Closing my eyes, I suddenly felt far too tired to be the savior of the world—much less three. “Well, saving the world is going to have to wait until I get some sleep.”
Chapter 4
Two full-grown men made my apartment feel even smaller than it was, but they didn’t complain when I gave them blankets and they made two make-shift beds along the wall in my miniature living room. Devon laid out on the floor, lacing his fingers behind his head, and closed his eyes the second he hit the pillow. “I’ll see you guys when the sun’s down,” he said, then swiftly began to snore.
Edwin stood at the sliding glass doors and peered out into the parking lot. “Earth’s changed,” he murmured, as if to himself. “I don’t understand why Iris didn’t summon us before it was too late.”
Fumbling with another set of blankets, I clutched them to my chest. Iris was my grandmother’s true name. “You really knew her,” I said.
He nodded. “Your mother has lived for a thousand years.” His striking gaze found mine. “As you will, should you outrun fate.”
I shivered, ignoring the impossible truths he kept shoving at me. “Why do you keep calling her my mother? She’s—” then I bit my tongue when I registered what he’d just said. “A thousand years?”
He nodded. “She’s not your grandmother,” he insisted. “She’s the Keymaster. Only one of her direct line can be a Keymaster after her.” He closed his eyes. “She didn’t choose either of us for the heir she was supposed to have. She said she’d know who the father was meant to be when she found him.” His eyes opened as he gazed at me. “She chose a vampire. Why she would do that to yo
u, I don’t know.”
Swallowing, I shoved the blankets at him. A vampire was my father? Iris… was my mother? “I think that’s enough revelations for today.”
He grinned and took the offering. “Very well.” He rested a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Get some sleep, Renee, because tonight, you’re going to be seeing your mother again.”
I shivered and gave him a nod.
My grandmother—no, my mother—was dead. I had no doubt about that. If I was going to see her again, it meant that I was going to have to step foot into the spirit realm.
In my dreams I wandered a new plane, but I couldn’t find my mother. Iris, that was her real name, and I called for her over and over again.
Only eerie whispers and cries echoed back through a darkness that spanned on forever.
When I opened my eyes, a new impossibility met my gaze.
Jeffery.
His familiar emerald eyes gazed into mine in the most longing of ways. It was just how he’d used to look at me after we’d made love. I missed those short years we’d had together.
Then I blinked, and he was still there, lowering his lips onto mine. When sharp teeth pricked my tongue, I yelped.
Devon and Edwin jumped from their beds and were at my side in a second. Fists unfurled when they saw Jeffery grinning at me. “Great,” Edwin growled with a voice thick with sleep, “your ex is a vampire. Should have figured as much when you told us about the pills.”
My heart thundered in my ears and my heels back-wheeled on the rug until I flattened against the wall. I curled my fingers into the carpet until the fragile, ancient threads tore. “Jeffery?”
