by Sam Hall
I blinked and looked at her now, a grown woman. Her fists were clenched and she was blinking back tears, but she wasn’t making eye contact with any of us, probably because she’d start yelling at us again. She doesn’t need me anymore, I realised; me to redirect Mum’s anger away from her. She probably wanted the opportunity to deal with it herself, put some boundaries up between her and us. Intellectually, I was pleased for the change. Emotionally, I wondered what kind of relationship we’d have.
Gabe’s arms slipped around me. I shifted against the iron band of his arms, letting out a little huff when they stayed where they were, finally going limp and letting them cradle me more gently when I realised he wasn’t going to move. His lips dropped down to my neck, trailing a couple of kisses along it.
“Here and now is not the time to have this conversation,” Dad said. “Cecelia, it’s time to go home.”
“Why, Dad?” Tess asked. “Everyone’s finally saying what they’ve always wanted to say. The truth is coming out. You can’t expect to always gloss everything over with a few hugs and kind words.”
“Tess . . .,” I said. It was an unwritten family rule, no one picked on Dad. He had been the breadwinner before Mum’s late-career success, the peacemaker, the one to work out the compromises. Without him, it would have been out and out war.
"I'm done," Tess said. "If I'm never going to be allowed to speak my mind, I'd rather be at home."
"Take my car," I said. She glared at the keys in my outstretched hand. "I've had too much to drink and I don't want to leave it here." She shrugged and grabbed them without comment, disappearing back into Wizards of Ink.
"This meeting–" Mum said.
"Not now, everyone's too upset," Dad said.
"But–"
"Mum, I'm not saying you're wrong, but you have to wait until you're asked for help. Don't send us anymore invites, we'll let you know when we want a meeting." Dad's arm went around Mum's shoulders as she crossed her arms as if to physically hold back the torrent of advice she wanted to unleash on me right now. I watched her consider what I said and then finally, nod her head.
"Good girl," Dad said. "See you next weekend?" he asked me.
"Sure."
"Be good to see you as well, Gabe. Bring the Indian," Dad said with a grin, shushing Mum's splutters of protest and steering her out the door.
"Better call a cab," I said, "I'm ready to bail as well."
"I haven't had that much and have two helmets. You want to go on the bike?"
I admit I was a bit apprehensive about it, but once I slipped on the back and wound my arms around him, I felt a lot more comfortable. The bike roared to life once he'd kicked it over and we took off. It is a lot like flying, I thought as we swooped down the streets, the speed so much more obvious outside of the insulation of a car. The roads were damp and empty, the breeze cold enough to make me shiver, but when we pulled up, I burst out laughing. Gabe grinned back at me, taking my helmet, seeming to know automatically what I was feeling. We walked up the stairs hand in hand.
23
"Ash, Ash."
"Wha . . .?" I grumbled. The bed was warm and it was dark still, there was no reason to be awake now. I pulled the blankets around me tighter.
"Security for the shop is on the phone. They think there's been an intruder," Gabe said.
"Ergh, are they sure?"
"Talk to them. I'll get dressed. I can go down if you like."
"Hello?" I said into my phone.
“Sorry to call you so early in the morning, Ms McKinnon, but we received a report that sensors picked up movement inside your shop. We did a drive-by, checked the front and back doors, but everything's locked up tight. We did a sweep, the only thing we noticed is one of the cupboard doors in the storeroom had been left open.”
“Someone’s been in the shop!” My eyes flicked open finally. Thoughts of our meagre stash of cash and gold all gone had my heart racing from a dead start.
“Not that we can see. As I said, only one cupboard door was open, but with no signs of entry, it could we be a rat or a cat.”
“I’ll be right down.”
“OK, one of our guys will meet you at the front door.”
“Babe, what’re you doing?” Gabe asked as I vaulted out of bed and started yanking on knickers and some jeans. “Babe?”
“Someone broke into the shop, maybe. I don’t know. I need to get down there. Somethings happened and I need–”
“Hey, hey,” his arms swept around me and he stopped me mid-wrestle with my bra. His large hands ran down along my arms like you’d stroke a startled horse. “Your car is with Tess. We’ll take the bike, but you need to rug up. It’s going to be bloody cold.”
“OK. Yep, I can do that.” I bundled myself into a heavy jumper, a thick jacket and a scarf as if on automatic. We clumped downstairs and then rode over to the shop. I was off the back and over to the front door as soon as Gabe killed the engine.
“The front door is still locked,” I said to the guy in the blue security uniform.
“Yeah, as I said, I think it’s just a false alarm, but we let clients know, just in case. I looked around the back, front and at the doors in the tattoo shop and saw no sign of tampering. The safe still seems to be secure, nothings been smashed or touched except one of the cupboard doors. When I had a look inside it, it was empty, so unlikely to be anything other than just an old latch or something. I can take you through, if you like?”
Empty cupboard? Three guesses which one that was. I was willing to bet what was left of our meagre fortune, it was the large one at the back of the shop, which became a portal when activated. I needed to get rid of the guard and Gabe, stat, and get hold of my bloody sister.
“Was my sister, Tess, called about this?”
“Yeah, we tried her first but got no answer.”
Right. I smiled and said, “Look, thank you so much for calling. I think you’re right and it's just a rat or something. I’ll check it out and if there’s any hassles, I’ll let the police know.”
“You sure?” the guard asked. “I’m more than happy to stay.”
“I’ll look after her, mate,” Gabe said.
“Righto, well, keep us posted if anything turns up,” the guy said, finally going back to his car. Now, I needed to get Gabe to head home.
“Gabe, you may as well go home. I’ll do a quick check and take the car home. You’ve got work tomorrow.”
“I’m not leaving you alone, in the middle of the night, in a shop that may or may not have been broken into. Come on; the sooner we check this out, the sooner we can go back to bed and maybe do something that we’ll both regret when we wake up.” I gritted my teeth as he pulled me against him and pushed his face into my hair. He was lovely and sexy and my body was already proposing some possible ideas for what we could do later, but right now, I needed him gone, so I could see what the hell had messed with our portal last night. He got distracted, pushing my hair to one side and kissing his way down my spine, so I pulled my phone out and called Tess. The phone rang and rang and rang until I got her message bank. Well, it was the middle of the night. I turned in Gabe’s arms and met his lips with mine, trying to keep it just a peck, but he deepened it, his lips hard, his tongue questing. Fuck, I really didn’t . . .
He groaned when my body relaxed against his, our hips aligning perfectly, his shifting to grind his hard length into me. I pulled away finally, gasping. “Let’s not dry hump outside the shop. I’ll look inside and then we can go.”
“We’ll look inside,” he corrected, taking the keys from me and opening the front door. I rolled my eyes as we went in, locking the door behind us. I turned on the lights and looked over the counter, shelves and stock quickly. Everything seemed like it should. Gabe disarmed the alarm, no point in dragging security out again. I checked the till, then ducked into Wizards of Ink and while there was a hell of a lot of bottles and cans lying around, it looked the same. Gabe checked the door and shrugged when it was locked.
&n
bsp; “Can you have a look in here for me?” I asked, “I’ll duck in the back.”
“Ash–”
“They said that it’s all good.”
“The guard wanted to come in with you.”
“Maybe he just wanted my number.”
“With me by your side? He wouldn’t be so stupid. How about you look out here and I go in the back.”
“Gabe . . .,” I said between gritted teeth. In the half-light, partially illuminated by the reflection of the yellow streetlights outside, he was a beautiful lump of manliness, but right now I needed him to dial the testosterone back by about 70%. I took a deep breath. It’s not his fault. I’m the one trying to hide something from him.
“I get it; you’re an independent, tough chick, but babe, I’m not letting you go in there by yourself.”
“You know you can’t stop me, right?”
“That’s right, just as you can’t stop me,” he linked his arm with mine. “C’mon, I’ve got better things I plan to do to you than argue about who’s looking in the storeroom.”
When I walked in, sure enough, it was the portal door that was open. I gave the rest of the room a cursory look, but didn’t see anything untoward. I opened the safe, but nothing was missing, neither was the stash under the floorboard. Gabe raised an eyebrow at this but just shook his head. “It looks like it was just a rat, though there’s no footprints in the dust.”
The floor was still seriously dusty from moving. There were lots of smaller girl footprints, some larger ones from the guys when they helped with the books and there were . . . My eyes widened when I saw some, blurred and mixed in with the others that didn’t look like any of our footprints. One set was longer, wider and contained toe prints tipped with claws. I sucked in a breath, remembering those weird silver-eyed bat things. I grabbed my phone and rang Tess again, surreptitiously looking up at the ceiling. My eyes flicked over the white expanse as I waited for the phone to start to ring. I nearly jumped ten feet when I heard an answering ring in the storeroom. Gabe picked up Tess’s phone from the main table with a quizzical look. I hit end call and walked over to find a neatly addressed envelope underneath it. I opened it, knowing what I was going to read and wishing like hell I didn’t.
“Ash, what’s happened?”
Gabe’s voice sounded echoey and distorted like it was coming through a tube or a tunnel. It reverberated in my ears slightly as I read the words.
‘I’ve gone through the portal. I know you’re pissed, but I thought about it last night. No, I haven’t really thought about much else since Merlin arrived. This is what I’ve always wanted to do with my life. Like so many little girls and boys, I dreamed of going through a portal and experiencing whole worlds, universes. Exploring stuff that people on Earth will never get the opportunity to see. You can have my half of the shop. I’m hoping you’ll keep it or sell it to the boys on the proviso that they keep the portal, but don’t feel obligated. I’d go through the portal, even if there was no chance I could come back. That probably sounds really shit, but Ash . . . It’s not like I’ll never see you, Dad, even Mum again, but I have to do this. I’m really hoping that over time, you’ll understand.
Love always, Tess.’
I scrunched the paper in my hand, not so much to stop Gabe’s prying eyes as to channel the surge of anger into something. I stood there for a moment, unable to hear Gabe’s words or register his touch. All I perceived was the hard ball in my hand and the fury that held my body rigid. She was gone, fucking gone through a portal to gods knew where. I could just see her, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, stepping into some completely different world, assuming it was just like in the books we read as kids. Friendly animals, heroic quests, pretty boys, it would all be laid on for her and all she’d have to do is remain pure of heart and courageous and right would prevail in the end. She’d completely ignore the fact these would be complex realities with their geopolitical paradigms with little to no interest in one fragile little girl. Fuck.
My eyes narrowed as I raised them up from the ball of paper in my hand, just in time to see Natty slip out from inside one of the cupboards under the bench; his ears laid flat against his skull and his big brown eyes flicking from one side to the other. “Jesus, Fuck!” Gabe said, backing away from Natty, feeling around for some kind of weapon on the benches. “Ash, get back. I don’t know what the fuck this thing is. . . .”
“It’s Natty,” I said, feeling incredibly tired. I stepped forward, ignoring Gabe’s attempts to keep me back. “What do you know about my sister? Did she go to your realm?”
Natty nodded, eyes on Gabe. Then he said the very words I did not want to hear, “Gump’s got her.”
“What. The fuck. Is going on?” Gabe demanded, looking at the two of us. “What is a Gump? What realm? What is this thing?”
“Natty, this is my boyfriend, Gabe.”
“Nice to meet you,” Natty said, holding out a paw that Gabe just looked at, eyes wide, taking in the rough pads and long curved claws.
“And what is a Natty?” Gabe said turning to me. “And why aren’t you surprised to see something that looks like a mutated kangaroo in your fucking storeroom?”
“What’s a kangaroo?” Natty asked, scratching at his neck. “Is it some kind of warrior?”
“Huh, he does look like those kangaroo things from Tank Girl,” I said before I noticed Gabe’s eyes narrowing. “Natty is a being from another realm, another world. My grandmother was a fairly proficient witch and she created an inter-dimensional portal in this storeroom. One day, someone knocked on it and when we opened it, we saw it was Natty. He used to sell supplies to my Nan.”
I watched Gabe start to say something, only to stop, frown even more and then have another go at least a couple of times. Finally, he straightened up and looked me square in the eye. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“At what point in a relationship do you share this kind of thing? I’ll have to consult my Emily Post. Look, I watch a lot of movies when people start telling people about this kind of shit, it gets out. The CIA, the FBI, they all descend and take over and start doing anal probes. That didn’t sound like too much fun, so we kept it quiet.”
“When?”
“A month or so ago. Merlin was helping us learn how to use it and Tess, obviously, decided to put her learning into practice."
"Merlin? Don't you mean Mervin? That guy who was helping the other bloke with the mental illness?"
"No, I mean Merlin," I said, looking straight into his eyes, resisting the urge to pull away from his grey stare. "And that guy didn’t have a mental illness."
"So, that guy was really King Arthur? And Mervin was what, Merlin the magician? Are you kidding me with this shit?"
I shrugged. "You're sharing a room with a mutant kangaroo and you're questioning that?"
"What is a kangaroo?" Natty demanded, throwing his hands in the air. “And how do they get mutated?"
Gabe seemed to re-see Natty, flinching when he saw his claws flex. "Fuck. Fuck!"
"You can see why I didn't want to tell you. Natty, who is this Gump? What will he do to Tess?"
"I think he's going to sell her."
"Ash? Ash! What are you doing?"
"Looking for supplies," I said, opening cupboard after cupboard. I found a knife and an old packet of nuts. I placed them in a pile. We had a million magical items, but I had no idea what to do with them.
"You're going after her," Gabe said.
"Have to. Natty, what’s something useful to take to your world?” I asked.
"Ah–"
"Don't answer that. You don’t know what or who is on the other side of that portal. You don’t know what passes for a weapon, who this Gump guy is, or what the hell to do about it,” Gabe said.
“Swords, knives,” Natty said.
"What?"
"We usually use blades as weapons."
"Well, I don’t have one of those," I said, "but I'm not leaving my sister to the tender mercies of a guy called Gump. I'
ll ring Jez, sort out access to the shop and be back when I can."
"Ash. Ash!" Gabe grabbed my arms and shook me. I just met his gaze flatly. I liked him, I really did. There was something that with a bit of nurturing and some time to get to know each other, could turn into something deeper; deeper than I'd ever really gone before. But right now I only felt a slight shadow of it, a whisper that said perhaps I shouldn't burn all my bridges here, that I might regret it later. I resisted the urge to tell him to fuck right off. What he thought, wanted was irrelevant. Someone had my sister; I felt her loss like I missed a limb or something. It was a cold, hard, unending pain that made it hard to breathe. I would try to placate Gabe with as few words as possible and then go through with Natty to get her.
"What do we need, to get Tess back?" Gabe asked, taking the words right out of my mouth. I looked him over, noted the strain in his face, the deep lines around his eyes. "Gold, something flashy to catch his eye. He won't just let her go. A talking smooth skin is a rare find. Most are little more than animals."
"I can get that," Gabe said, "though the gold is a little harder. Give me a few hours, Ash. Please, I'm begging you."
"Why?" I asked with a frown. The prospect of waiting a few hours, carrying this weight on my chest was daunting. I knew that if I got going, it would lift somewhat.
"You are much more likely to get through to Gump with a show of force, otherwise what's to stop him taking you as well?" Natty asked.
At least then I'd be with Tess, I thought, but I shook my head. "Fine," I said, the weight dropping down deeper into my chest.
"I'll be back, love, as soon as I can. Sit tight; I promise we'll get her back." And with that, Gabe took off, out of the shop and onto his bike. Natty watched me as I sat down on a chair, staring at the ground. I knew I needed to snap out of it, I needed to make coffee, find equipment, ring Jez, sort out a message for the boys, make sure Jez had enough cash to keep things running for the next month at least, as we had no idea when we would be back or how time flowed on the other side of the portal.
