The Brightest Embers

by Jeaniene Frost

  Okay, so I must have gotten it right before that when we were staying at that villa in Vatican City, except...

  Oh, shit. I didn’t remember getting it there, either.

  But I couldn’t be pregnant! Adrian had had a vasectomy! It must be all the stress that caused me to skip one—okay, maybe two—periods. That had to be it, because weren’t vasectomies a hundred percent effective against pregnancy?

  Wait. Was anything a hundred percent effective?

  In response to my inner query, I threw up again.

  Moments later, the shop door flung open and Adrian came in. My first reaction was relief, then I was back to sheer, panicked denial. To hide the evidence of what might be morning sickness, I kicked the trash can beneath the space under the clerk’s desk. Only once it was safely out of sight did I wonder why Adrian had come in through the front of the store instead of the mirror in the back. And why was he soaking wet, to the point that he dripped water all over the floor when he went straight to the back of the store?

  I heard the distinct sound of glass shattering seconds later, which had to be Adrian breaking the mirror in the dressing room. The clerk began sputtering out protests in German, but those stopped when Adrian threw a stack of bills on the counter that would more than cover the damage.

  “Sorry,” he muttered to the clerk. “But believe me, I did you a favor.” Then he took my arm. “We have to hurry. They might not be far behind me.”

  In spite of the danger he implied, part of me was glad that Adrian hadn’t seemed to notice how I’d been bent over a trash can when he entered the store. I grabbed the pilum and our satchel, then threw a hurried “Sorry, and thanks!” over my shoulder to the clerk, and left.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  “USE YOUR POWER to find the nearest hallowed ground, Ivy,” Adrian said as soon as we were outside.

  I wanted to ask why he’d taken so long inside the mirror, why he was sure that “they” wouldn’t be far behind and why he looked like he’d gone swimming in his clothes at some point, but I did none of those things. Instead, I stopped in the street, set the pilum down and sent my hallowed radar outward.

  At first, no surprise, it kept being drawn to the pilum at my feet. After a few minutes, I was able to bypass that and zero in on the intangible thrum that denoted hallowed ground ahead.

  “Follow me,” I said, picking up the pilum. But as soon as I touched it again, the ultra-hallowed item jammed my radar toward the other place. I dropped it with a frustrated sigh.

  “You’ll have to carry it for this to work, Adrian.”

  He drew his soaked shirt off and used it as a makeshift glove to pick up the pilum. I tried to ignore his wince when he touched it and closed my eyes, sending my senses outward again. I found the other hallowed signature quicker this time and began to walk toward it even before opening my eyes again.

  “This way.”

  It turned out to be a brand-new mosque, from what seemed to be the equivalent of a grand-opening sign at the front of it. When we approached the entrance, we were greeted by a smiling older man, although his smile slipped when he looked at Adrian.

  I doubted it was because of the shadows that the store clerk hadn’t noticed. It was probably because Adrian was a large, bare-chested guy walking up to him brandishing a big stick. I’d stare at Adrian with mild alarm if I were him, too.

  “Please help us,” I said to the older man, hoping he understood English. “My husband chased a thief into the river to get my bag back, but they fought and...well, look at him.”

  Ugh, I inwardly groaned. I had to get better at making up believable excuses. Then again, the river was nearby, robberies happened everywhere and how else was I supposed to explain how I was clothed and bone-dry while Adrian was half-naked and soaking wet? I didn’t even mention the stick. Hopefully, it would be chalked up to a weird American souvenir thing.

  “Of course,” the older man replied in very good English. “How terrible for you. Please, come inside. We have clean prayer clothes that he can change into.”

  We were escorted inside, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt the safety of hallowed ground envelop us. I was surprised when we were politely asked to remove our shoes, but I didn’t argue, and we were given paper slippers so at least we weren’t in bare feet. The greeter, who introduced himself as Hasan, again expressed his sympathies over our fake robbery attempt. Then he said something in Arabic to two younger men. Within moments, they came back with a long high-necked white garment that looked kinda like a dress, and with white pants.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I change,” Adrian told me, setting the pilum by the bench that I’d been hustled over to. Then he cast a deliberate look at the door. “Stay on your guard.”

  With that, he went with the two younger men, presumably to a bathroom. I tried not to worry about the mirrors it contained.

  “You have no need for concern,” Hasan said quietly.

  I gave him a startled look. Had he somehow known that I was concerned over the mirrors? Maybe he’d recognized who we really were and pieced it together? It wouldn’t be the first time that we’d been recognized by strangers.

  “What do you mean?” I asked in a careful tone.

  He gave me a sad smile. “You have no need to stay on your guard while you are here. Islam is a religion of peace. We strongly renounce all despicable acts of terror in its name.”

  He thought Adrian had warned me because they were Muslim? Hell, I was worried about our possibly being a danger to them, not the other way around.

  “That’s not what he meant,” I said, wanting to explain, but not able to say much. “He meant, um, for me to keep an eye out in case the thief had followed us.”

  Hasan drew himself up to his full height. “No one here would allow any harm to come to you.”

  “That’s very kind,” I said sincerely. “But it shouldn’t be necessary. We won’t be staying long.” At least, not that I knew.

  Hasan gestured to someone I couldn’t see. “Bring some water for our guest, please. Shall I also call the authorities while you wait?”

  “No,” I said a little too quickly, then smiled to cover it up. “We’ll file a report later. I just want to get back to our hotel. I’m not feeling very well.”

  That last part wasn’t a lie, at least. My stomach was no longer repeatedly clenching in preparation to heave its contents, but it was letting out warning rumbles. I tried not to think about the potential underlying cause and accepted the glass of water that someone new offered to me. I was halfway through finishing it when Adrian reappeared.

  The white outer garment did hang as long as a dress would, but it had slits in the sides that accommodated Adrian’s long strides. His hair was still wet, though. From the looks of it, Adrian hadn’t even taken the time to towel it dry, although curiously, he did have a towel wadded up in his hand. I wondered why until I saw him pick up the pilum with it.

  Yeah, that would work better than using his former shirt, which was currently leaving a puddle on the floor.

  “Thank you for the clothes and the assistance,” Adrian said, giving Hasan a small bow. “We have one more request. Is there somewhere private where my wife and I can talk? I want to make sure she’s okay after her encounter with the thief.”

  “Of course,” Hasan said, gesturing for us to follow him.

  We did, and I played the part of shaken robbery victim by keeping my head down and my shoulders hunched. It probably helped that I was shaken over a question that kept booming through my mind despite my best efforts not to think about it.

  Was I pregnant?

  I hoped with everything I had that I wasn’t. I wouldn’t live long enough to give birth, and the thought of taking my unborn child with me when I died was too horrible to contemplate. I can’t be pregnant. It’s just the stress that’s c
ausing the nausea and missed periods...and the excessive crying, strange cravings, increased appetite and recent weight gain.

  It was sounding less and less plausible the more I tallied up my symptoms, but I wanted to believe it more than anything.

  Hasan led us to an office that had family pictures on the desk and various plaques on the wall. The desk was neat enough to look organized, yet it had enough mild disarray to inspire comfort. I didn’t trust people who had impeccable work spaces.

  “Please,” Hasan said, gesturing to the two chairs across from his desk. “I will return in a few minutes to check on you.”

  He shut the door behind him, surprising me that it hadn’t taken more than Adrian’s single request for him to leave us alone in here. What if we were crazed Islamaphobes with cans of gasoline in our satchel because we were intent on arson? What if we were hackers intending to upload a virus onto his computer?

  “We don’t have much time,” Adrian said, unwrapping the towel around the pilum. A small, plastic object fell out. When Adrian flipped it over and it reflected my wide-eyed expression back at me, I realized it was a mirror.

  Adrian gave me a quick grin. “Took me a few attempts to figure out how to navigate these things, but I think I’ve got it now. We’ll need to stay frosty, though. I was spotted before, so I had to shake my tail by jumping into a mirrored portal that led into an ocean. Did I ever tell you demons hate salt water?”

  “An ocean?” I repeated.

  “Yep,” he said, holding his hands over the mirror fragment. “Lots of mirrors have made their way into oceans, rivers and ponds over the years, and each one is a portal waiting to happen. It’s how Demetrius and the demons with him must’ve transported themselves into the river yesterday.”

  I hadn’t gotten around to wondering about that. A lot had happened between then and now, like how I was wondering what Adrian thought he was doing with that mirror.

  “Wrap the satchel around you, hold the pilum tight and take my hand,” Adrian said, holding his out.

  I stared at him. “You’re kidding, right? We couldn’t even fit the satchel through that thing!”

  “Sometimes, size really doesn’t matter,” Adrian said, flashing me a quick grin. Then it faded as he added, “It might be small, but it’s unbroken, so it can still work as a portal. Remember how Demetrius came through your old locket necklace?”

  I did, but I thought he’d been able to do that because he was a shape-shifter who also happened to kinda be made up of shadows. From Adrian’s expression, I’d thought wrong.

  I didn’t know how this was going to work, but I put the satchel’s strap diagonally around me, then tucked the pilum between that and my body while grasping it tight. Finally, I took Adrian’s hand.

  “How does this—”

  I never got the rest of the sentence out. The mirror seemed to stretch to an impossible size, and then it swallowed me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I MUST HAVE closed my eyes in fear, because when I opened them, everything had changed. The small, comfy office was gone. So was the mosque, the streets around it and, in fact, the entire city of Trier.

  In its place was an endless, 3-D corridor filled with what looked like countless television screens. Each one showed different people, places and things, right down to various animals, birds and fish. If it were possible to have the satellite feed of every television on earth simultaneously streamed to the same place, it would look like this.

  “They’re all mirrors.”

  Adrian’s voice held an odd echo. His shadows were even more prominently on display now, swirling around him like dark swaths of silk even below his feet. How did they do that?

  I looked down and wished I hadn’t. There was no ground beneath me. It was only blackness interrupted by countless mirrors showing whatever was in front of them at the moment. I clutched Adrian’s arm, trying to stifle my instant surge of panic. Now I knew what cartoon characters felt like when they looked down and discovered that they’d run off the edge of a cliff. I even had to fight the urge to start flailing my arms and legs the way they usually did right before they fell.

  “Why is there no ground?” My voice was a squeak.

  “I don’t know,” Adrian said, closing his eyes. “There just isn’t, but I need you to trust me and stay quiet for a moment. We’re alone in here now, but we won’t be for long.”

  That wasn’t helping me control my fear! Yet I clamped my mouth shut and didn’t ask any of the other thousand questions I had. Adrian was obviously trying to concentrate enough to do something, and if that something got us out of this groundless, endless oblivion, I was all for it.

  We were suddenly jerked forward with the momentum of a roller coaster gearing up to do a double loop. I might have screamed, but I couldn’t be sure. Noise now surrounded us, indistinct yet roaring. Then light exploded in the darkness and we hit something. Hard.

  Adrian rolled until I was on top of him and his back took the brunt of our impact. I looked around, squinting at the halogen lights above us that, after the former darkness, seemed like long, thin slices of the sun.

  “You okay?” he asked, helping me to my feet and then immediately smashing the mirror on the wall.

  “Yes,” I said, then proved that to be a lie when I threw up. Good thing we’d tumbled into a bathroom. I made it to the sink just in time.

  “That might be worse than traveling through Archon and demon gateways,” I croaked.

  Adrian was giving me a very concerned look. “This is the second time today you’ve gotten sick. You might have gotten food poisoning from that street vendor this morning.”

  “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” I said fervently, and got a strange look in response.

  Right, Adrian had no idea about my pregnancy concerns. He’d been gone for three weeks during the time frame that I should have gotten my period, so he probably didn’t realize that I was almost two months late. And he didn’t know I’d gotten sick multiple times today, too.

  I should tell him all these things. I really, really should. But as I stared at him, I realized that I couldn’t. Saying it would make it real, and I wasn’t ready to face that possibility myself, let alone dump it onto Adrian. Besides, it might be food poisoning. The thought cheered me.

  “I’m fine,” I repeated, and didn’t hurl after saying it this time. To prove it, I rinsed my mouth out and splashed water onto my face, dried it with a paper towel that felt rougher than sandpaper and then stared at him expectantly.

  “Now where?”

  Adrian took my hand.

  “Now we see if you feel anything hallowed.”

  The bathroom door opened and a group of women came inside. They stopped short when they saw us and the broken mirror behind us, then started speaking in a language that wasn’t German.

  “Where are we?” I whispered, following Adrian as he shouldered past them with a muttered reply in the same language.

  “Moscow. One of the places on my list.”

  We left the bathroom and went down a long hallway with red carpet and numerous doors. When I saw tall cardboard display posters featuring famous actors and actresses every few feet, I realized where we were.

  “One of your former favorite places is a movie theater?”

  “No,” Adrian said with a snort, leading me to the nearest exit. Once we went outside, he pointed at a building with dazzling splashes of color that stood out in stark relief against the drab gray sky. “That’s where I want you to search.”

  I recognized Saint Basil’s Cathedral at once, and not just because I was a history major. Many people would know it from the famed, brightly colored domes in the shape of Hershey’s Kisses chocolates. At least, that was what they’d reminded me of when I first saw pictures of them as a child. Even now, the cathedral’s exterior struck me as so f
antastically whimsical, it seemed better suited to be located in Whoville from How the Grinch Stole Christmas than reality.

  “Good choice,” I told Adrian.

  He grunted. “I denied it to myself at first, but now I think the extravagant architecture reminded me of home.”

  What an endorsement. Come to Saint Basil’s—it’s just like visiting a palace in a demon realm! There was something no tourist group would use as an advertisement anytime soon.

  “Well, let’s see if it’s got something even more impressive inside it.”

  * * *

  “IT DIDN’T,” I TOLD Adrian an hour later. He’d stayed on the outskirts of the cathedral because when I walked up holding the pilum, I was flatly denied entry. I’d tried to say that it was a necessary balance support, like a cane, but that lie hadn’t gone over. The entrance staff had simply told me to rent a wheelchair. Despite Adrian arguing with them in Russian and even attempting to bribe them, they hadn’t budged. In the end, we decided to have him wait outside with it while I searched.

  He gave a short nod. “Four more to go, then. Do you want to stop for the day? You’re still looking a little pale.”

  “No,” I said instantly. “Let’s keep going.”

  I couldn’t stop yet. If I did and we found hallowed ground to wait out the rest of the day and night in, I’d have nothing to distract me from what I suspected to be true, and all the ramifications of that. More mirror hopping was far preferable.

  Adrian glanced at the sky, where the sun was shining hazily through the clouds. “It’s a little after one o’clock here, so the sun should be coming up in Ohio. We’ll go to the ancient Serpent Mound that’s there next. That should give us plenty of hours of sunlight in case we’re still being tracked.”

  “Sunlight didn’t stop the demons from attacking us before,” I pointed out.