by Renée Jaggér
Suddenly, flashing lights appeared on the front of the SUV’s roof.
Shannon pounded a hand on the steering wheel. “What the shit? I was only going eight over the limit!”
Aida raised a hand. “Wait.”
The flashing lights were not red and blue, but purple and green.
Nonetheless, Shannon started to decelerate. As she did, the dark blue vehicle sped ahead of her around the side and then blocked the lane. Shannon slammed on the brakes, alarmed, and jerked the wheel to the right, rumbling off the road to come to a stop a short way out into the scrubby field at the side.
The other SUV then drove off the road and stopped behind them, blocking their reentrance to the highway. All four of its doors opened.
Callie gaped. “Who the goddamn hell are these people? They can’t drive for shit!”
“I don’t know,” Shannon grated, itching with the need to toss a lightning bolt into someone’s face, “but they’re about to find out who we are.”
Out of the blue vehicle stepped four women. None of them looked alike, representing different ages, races, and body types, but all were dressed from head to toe in heavy leather outfits of deep purplish-red. The clothing was stylish in a bizarre way, although it looked like medieval armor.
Two of the strange women approached each side of the Cayenne, and their apparent leader, a tall Mediterranean sort with black hair pinned up in an elaborate bun, rapped her knuckles on the driver’s side window.
Shannon hissed but rolled it down.
“Who are you?” she demanded, locking gazes with the dark eyes of the intruder, “and what the fuck is going on? You don’t look like law enforcement. You have no right to—”
“We,” the woman cut her off, in a sharp voice with a vaguely European accent, “are the Venatori. And we know who you are.”
Shannon’s mouth snapped shut, and the blood drained from her face. Aida, too, was looking a bit pale, and even Callie couldn’t manage to blurt anything out.
While her companions glared at Aida and Callie, the leader kept her dark gaze on Shannon.
“You foolish girls have caused a great many problems for us, and for the magic-using community in general,” she went on. “You have grown reckless, doing far too much that draws attention and begins to be reported on the news.”
Shannon ground her teeth and was about to protest that Bailey was the one who’d blown things out of proportion. However, the woman wasn’t done yet, and it was strangely impossible to talk over her.
The leader intoned, leaning closer, “the time has come for you to cease and desist. The very highest levels of our order’s leadership are furious, and they have discussed your actions. Drawing their wrath is not wise. Furthermore, you have proven unable to deal with the situation.”
The trio in the Cayenne smoldered at being talked to this way, but none spoke save Shannon, after a moment’s pause.
“What situation?” she asked.
The leader gave a snort of contempt.
“Bailey Nordin,” she stated. “She is a danger to us all, one serious enough that we have come to take care of her ourselves. You are hereby ordered to remove yourselves from this pursuit. Your childish plan involving the male witch Roland is nothing compared to the business on which we’ve come.”
Shannon’s hands trembled. “What gives you the right to—”
“Silence!” snapped the leader. “You are the ones who have acted outside your rights. If Roland is as powerful as the rumors say, we shall take him for ourselves. Such a wizard should contribute his genes to our order.”
“What?” Shannon almost sobbed. It took all her self-control not to say more. Not to hit the woman in the face with the biggest blast of percussive magical force she could summon. She turned her face toward the windshield to stare straight ahead.
Aida and Callie, too, seemed both furious and despairing, but they were holding it in, saying and doing nothing.
Everyone knew that no one was a match for an entire group of Venatori witches. Everyone.
The leader smiled. “Now,” she suggested, “perhaps you should turn around and drive back to Seattle.”
Marcus stood within a deep pool of forest shadows, his hood pulled over his head to further obscure his face. He was still and silent, turning over all Bailey and Roland had said.
The girl swallowed. Is he going to answer me? She wondered if they’d finally told him something he was unwilling to deal with.
Then he spoke. “Yes.” He gave a slow, deep nod. “We must move things forward and quickly. There are certain ways, but it’s regrettable that we have to resort to them.”
Roland made the swallowed-groan sound in his throat again. “Mmm. Well, that doesn’t sound good, does it?”
In her head, Bailey agreed, but she said nothing.
Marcus looked around at the surrounding forest, and up at the last glow of the sun as it vanished behind the mountains. “It is neither good nor bad. It’s dangerous, but sometimes, dealing with danger is how we grow.”
They stood there in silence for a moment, each alone with his or her thoughts.
Bailey was just glad they’d been able to find the shaman again. She’d figured the best place to start was the part of the back road where they’d dropped him off earlier. Then they’d simply called his name into the woods and waited for a reaction.
Fortunately, Marcus had shown up only a couple of minutes later. Wherever he was staying, it must have been close.
Now, with night having fallen, there was a sense that they had dark business ahead of them.
Marcus wandered a few paces deeper into the woods. Bailey was about to ask him what he was doing, but Roland put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. Then she heard him chanting under his breath in low, almost sinister tones.
She held still, recalling what Roland had said about the importance of concentration in any magical endeavor. Marcus held up his hands, continuing his meditative incantation, and for a moment, nothing happened.
Then he spread his hands as if pushing open a door, and that was almost exactly what happened.
Before him, a portal appeared, the reality they knew folding back to reveal something that looked almost like a vertical mirror of shimmering liquid or a segment of the darkened sea, standing up straight. Its “water” was a deep and luminescent purple, the color about halfway between the midnight skies of autumn and the clear facets of an amethyst.
“Whoa,” Roland breathed. “That’s impressive, and that’s coming from me.”
Bailey just stared. If it was a doorway, she wondered, where did it lead?
Coming out of his semi-trance, Marcus turned back toward them, his shoulders shrugging as he slowly exhaled.
“This,” he began, “will take you to a place where your abilities will be tested and developed beyond what I can teach you in normal time. We simply call it ‘the Other.’”
Roland gave a short, low whistle. “I’ve heard of the Other. Obscure high-level stuff. To be honest, I never looked into it in detail.”
The shaman’s eyes went distant. “It is a place between places, an eldritch locale where the paranormal can and does reside in peace and flourish to great and terrible extents. This doorway will take you to a corner of it that is almost empty. Almost. It exists in its own pocket of reality, with a few denizens who dwell there, separate from all other beings.”
Bailey blinked. “I see. Marcus, you’re making it sound pretty goddamn scary. Not that I’m the type to be afraid of things, but still.”
“Yes,” said the big man. “It is scary, and you should be afraid, but only as far as you need to be in order to be cautious and take things seriously. Beyond that, fear becomes pointless. Do you understand? Fear can warn you of danger, but you must not let it cripple you from acting.”
Hugging her arms to her torso, the girl nodded. “Right.”
Roland did likewise. “It makes sense. That’s been my theory on the subject for quite some time now.”
&n
bsp; Marcus turned back toward the glimmering portal.
“The Other is, in its way, a living place. In the past, it’s been used for extreme training by other shamans and werewitches. It’s certainly good for that purpose, but the risk is great. And you will be alone.”
Bailey took a deep breath.
“Well,” Roland qualified, “not quite alone.” He took her hand, and in the darkness, she smiled, happy to have him beside her.
“Magic,” Marcus continued, “can take sentient form in this place. It will challenge you, although I cannot say how. It’s different for each individual. But it will guide you through all the hurdles you must clear in order to evolve. You may not think you need them, but you do.”
The girl let her breath out, long and slow. “I understand,” she stated. “So, no point wasting time.”
She strode past the shaman, pulling Roland along with her until he caught up. The two of them stepped straight into the glowing purple mass.
There was a brief tingling coldness and a sense of every nerve being alerted while their heads swam in dizziness, and then it was over as quickly as it had begun.
They now stood somewhere much different than the pine-forested mountains of Oregon.
Before them stretched a vast primordial swamp or bog, somehow barren-looking despite its wetness. Enormous trees twisted out of the earth, widely spaced from one another, yet their gnarled limbs spread so expansively from their trunks that they formed a partial canopy.
The sky, for its part, was a deep silvery-purple, at once bright and dark, indicative of neither daytime nor night.
The landscape undulated and was littered with mossy boulders and patches of weeds and thorns, and steamy white mist wafted up through gaps in the masses of peat from the surface of the standing water.
“Oh.” Roland sighed. “This is picturesque, I suppose.”
Bailey glanced behind her. “Shit. There’s no portal back!”
Roland looked as well, and his shoulders slumped. “Well, that’s lovely. He could at least have warned us. Presumably, we’ll have to either figure out how to conjure our own exit or find another one somewhere in here.”
Howls echoed out of the vastness before them, then an awful scream that almost sounded human.
Bailey tensed. “What the hell?”
Roland stepped forward. “He did say we’d be ‘tested,’ whatever that means. Trial by combat? Well, I’m pretty sure my magic is up to the task.”
He closed his eyes and raised his hands, and then stumbled back as if in confusion.
“Uh,” he murmured. “Nothing’s happening.”
“What?” Bailey stared at him. Subconsciously, she had been trying to gather her powers, but she’d had no success thus far.
The wizard cleared his throat. “My magic doesn’t seem to be working.”
They looked at each other, wide-eyed, as the howls drew closer.
Chapter Three
They ran. Plunging, stumbling, bounding, or dashing as needed, they thought of nothing else but moving. Staying ahead of them.
It had probably been only a few minutes since their pursuers had caught sight of them, but the Other distorted their sense of time, and so did their panic and terror.
Neither Bailey, who had always been bold to the point of recklessness, nor Roland, who was well-experienced with the supernatural, was immune to the crashing wave of overwhelming fear that had descended upon them.
Roland, with his greater height and longer legs, had gotten slightly ahead, despite Bailey’s strength and athleticism. He glanced over his shoulder. “Come on!” he shouted and slowed his pace.
Bailey had just cleared a twisted, pulsating root, more like the body of a huge snake than part of a tree. Her boots landed hard in the spongy blackish matter below it, and water squished up out of the soft earth as she struggled to increase her speed.
She caught up with Roland, and they bolted toward an elevated spot of land up ahead, barely visible beyond the shifting veils of mist.
Behind them, the mixture of animal howls and awful demi-human screams grew closer.
The things that chased them were formed of shadows, deep black in hue, yet they looked solid—phantasmal wraiths made of no earthly matter, given physical form by the arcane power of their dimension. And the alien matter of Bailey’s and Roland’s bodies—or their souls—seemed to draw them. Hungrily.
The pair reached the slope, thick with dead-looking weeds, which led up to a kind of stony ridge hovering above the bog. Roland stopped and urged Bailey forward, trying to get her up before him, trusting his legs to help him catch up to her in good time.
She bounded ahead, tugging on his jacket. He had fallen behind.
“Shit!” she gasped, glancing back from halfway up the slope.
The phantoms had converged on them too fast, unnaturally fast, and Roland was surrounded on three sides. His eyes bulging in horror, the wizard threw fast punches at the creatures closest to him, and to his surprise, the blows had an effect. His fists left rippling dents in the strange jet-black matter of their bodies, and they moaned and staggered back, buying the young man a precious extra moment.
He hurtled up the slope, reaching Bailey just as she was about to run back for him, and they helped each other crest the ridge. The mist had grown too thick to see what lay ahead.
“Uh,” Bailey wheezed, “does this go anywhere, or are we going to be trapped up here?”
“I don’t know,” Roland shot back. “Better place to fight them off, if nothing else.”
They stumbled over the mossy stone, and suddenly the fog parted. Only a few feet before them, the ridge ended, and directly below it was a pool of a sticky black substance. Dropping off the ridge from this end would see them both sucked down into the marsh, drowned or worse.
“Crap,” Roland muttered.
“You ‘re right about that,” grunted Bailey.
They turned around to fight, ignoring the cold sinking sensation and their near-certainty that anything they tried against these adversaries would be futile.
The wraiths, horribly similar to humans but ultimately alien, were crowding up the slope to fan out across the ridge, too fast for their bizarre, almost dreamlike motions. They seemed to operate on pure nightmare logic.
Faced with these beings, the pair lost control of their conscious thoughts. Regular human cognition was pushed out of their skulls by a powerful cocktail of fear, adrenaline, and animal desperation. There was only the instinctive drive to do whatever it took to fend off their attackers.
And as the black shapes drifted across the rocks toward them, uncanny calm and focus set in.
Then Bailey, not thinking about what she did, extended her arms, palms outward, and a few red sparks appeared, followed by an arc of electricity that jumped from her hands to the nearest wraith.
The creature shrieked, its inky phantasmal flesh shuddering like a disturbed liquid. Its shape grew indistinct as it moved back, trying to escape the current of lightning.
The red bolt turned on the next wraith to move toward the girl.
Bailey’s jaw had dropped. Roland was stunned as she smoothly fanned away the horrid creatures with a small yet consistent stream of electricity, halting them or driving them back.
A few moved toward Roland.
The wizard raised a hand over his head and then brought it down, fingers extended toward the creatures. Gouts of yellow-green flame flowed from his hands to engulf them, causing them to half-melt. They slunk away even as the crackling fire died.
The pair did not slacken their pace. Crimson lightning and chartreuse flames forced the wraiths away from them. The things screamed horribly in pain or fear or both. It didn’t seem possible to kill or destroy them, but the elemental magic had enough of an effect that they gave up the attack and fled back the way they’d come.
Roland stopped hurling fire and shifted the earth, pushing the wraiths along and raising barriers to prevent their easy return. He forced them toward the lo
west and soggiest parts of the swamp, and well away from him and Bailey.
The werewitch maintained her electrical arc, meanwhile, until the last of the phantoms was gone.
Then it was over, and they stood, breathing in the cool, fetid air, before slumping almost in unison against a rock near the rear of the mossy shelf. No sounds disturbed them save the occasional howl, now far distant.
Time passed, maybe as much as an hour. Here in the Other, where the laws of nature seemed warped, it was difficult to judge. The wizard and the werewitch did not speak to each other at first, simply relishing the sound of each other’s heartbeats since it meant that both of them were still alive.
At some point, they’d clasped hands, their forearms pressed together, but Bailey couldn’t recall when—not that it mattered.
Roland broke the silence. “Okay,” he breathed, “I think we need to talk about what just happened. And why, and how, and all those other questions. My brain is working properly again, and it needs to understand this shit.”
Bailey looked at him and nodded. “I don’t think it’s meant to be understood,” she suggested, “but I’m all for talking about it. As long as those things, or something even worse, don’t hear us and decide to come back.”
“Fair enough.” The wizard sat up straight and ran a hand through his lank and sweaty golden hair.
“For starters, I think the main thing we both want to know is why the hell our magic didn’t work in the beginning. I’ve never had that happen to me. At least, not since I came into my own and learned all the basics. So it must have something to do with this place specifically.”
“Aye,” Bailey concurred. “I’m a lot less experienced than you, but something wasn’t right for me either. At first, anyway. But then it did work, and it was, I don’t know, different. Like the rules of how it happens are ass-backward here.”