by Terry Spear
“School?” Jared looked horrified. Then he gave Hunter one of his sarcastic smirks. “Yeah, you say you aren’t hung up on the Kubiteron, but you’ve been moping for three days since we left her off in Baltimore. But I can’t believe you want to go back to school just so you can watch over her. We graduated already! If my parents learn I’m going to senior year at high school again instead of starting college, they’ll flip.”
“They won’t find out. She needs us. She’s trouble, Jared,” Hunter said, finding his seat on the plane. “She finds it and lures it to her location. Hell, we don’t need tracking devices. All we need is her.”
***
Alana was in one fine pickle of a mess, as her grandmother would say. Alana’s father swore she’d get this astral plane traveling business under control someday. But no matter how much she had tried to learn how to break away from it and return to her physical body, she didn’t have any real power over it.
Someone had opened the portal, but whoever had done so was long gone. The blue and green lights were gone. The demon whoever the summoner had brought forth was gone. Just like last night. It had happened so quickly and so many times that she thought she had been dreaming. Now it was like it was happening all over again. Portal… no portal. And no one anywhere near it.
So here she stood in the middle of the zoo by the lion exhibit, no one seeing her, and no one for her to track down. She needed to find a summoner’s book to destroy. But there was no summoner. And no minor demon to return to the demon world. Better yet, thankfully, no Matusa to have to deal with. She saw no sign of charred bodies or other violence, just a couple of sleepy lions watching her.
Hopefully no one would ask to see a ticket that proved she had paid to enter the zoo.
That’s when she realized the zoo was devoid of people! It wasn’t even open. Not on a school day. Great. If anyone saw her, she’d be toast.
How would she be able to explain she was really in school? Physically.
She was still in school, wasn’t she?
Oh, poor Samson. He probably was beside himself concerning what to do with her. Too bad she couldn’t be in two places at once. She hadn’t been able to master such a thing yet. Her father had said given time, she might be able to. At least he could.
That wasn’t happening for her either. At least for now.
A chill swept over her as she recalled more of what she’d thought had been a nightmare that she’d encountered during the night. She’d been here before, chasing blue-green portal lights as if they existed on an alien world. She remembered seeing… the African penguins at the Rock Island Penguin Habitat. And a reticulated giraffe. Even a hellbender in the Maryland Wilderness area. The huge salamander would slime its enemies when feeling threatened, but was also known as a snot otter and devil dog and was hiding under a rock when she’d seen it.
Or maybe she hadn’t seen them in an astral teleportation. Maybe she’d only dreamt about them since she’d seen them in real life when she’d visited the zoo before.
So, why hadn’t she remembered what had happened last night the first thing this morning?
Upon waking she’d forgotten what she’d seen in her dreams. Or had they been dreams? Had she been pulled in her astral form to an open portal, but been so sound asleep, she hadn’t realized it was real?
The constant draw from one spot to another had been so unreal, so dreamlike that she couldn’t imagine that it had been for real. She hadn’t seen anything but the lights. No demons. No summoners. As soon as one portal evaporated, she had been pulled to a new location at the zoo to see a new portal, one by the cheetah exhibit, then another near the polar bear exhibit.
Bringing her fully aware she wasn’t alone at the zoo, a man shouted in an angry voice, “Hey, you there! We’re closed! How’d you get in?”
Heart tripping, she turned to see a man wearing a maintenance uniform headed straight for her, looking peeved. She supposed she didn’t appear like she could be any of the staff here, taking care of the animals. Not the way she was dressed in blue jeans, sneakers and a light pink T-shirt that had a large sparkly dark pink heart centered on it. When she’d learned she was half demon, she’d thought of wearing something more—demon-like. Particularly because she helped to rid Earth world of them, but also because she hunted ghosts and was half witch.
Black. Skulls. Angels with black wings. Dark, demonic.
But that was way too cliché. So she dressed as if she was an angel instead. Pink hearts. Sweetness and light. No demon would think her anything but an angel.
Right.
She watched the big man lumber toward her. She could speak now in her astral form, but if he tried to grab her, his hand would go right through her as if she was a movie projection. How weird would that be?
He would call the police. How would he explain what he’d seen?
If he didn’t touch her, he could escort her outside of the zoo where she could wait for her mother to pick her up after he’d call her for Alana. She couldn’t do such a thing. She’d need him to go back inside and not watch her. And she could just… vanish.
That wouldn’t work. Her mother would come for her and Alana wouldn’t be here. She was too far away to contact her mother telepathically, or she’d just do it that way. Her mother was on a job in Annapolis at the moment.
The chilling realization hit Alana. Why hadn’t she returned to her physical form at school? When the portal closed, she was supposed to do that. Unless…
Another was open at the zoo somewhere nearby. Was someone thwarting her from feeling its compulsive draw?
The man towered over her, a hulking six-four she guessed, his hands on his hips. A big black mustache half covered his thin lips and looked like the other half had flown up his nose. “How did you get in here?”
“I… thought the zoo was open.” She offered up some tears.
He wasn’t falling for it. “The park’s closed. Gate’s closed. Ticket booth’s closed. How did you get in here?”
“My mistake. I wanted to see the lions.” She waved her hand at the lions, the male licking its paw, the lioness resting her head on her paws, snoozing.
“Come with me.” He reached for her, but she quickly stepped back.
“I’m coming,” she said, agreeably. He just couldn’t touch her.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” he asked, glancing down at her, his look fierce.
“Home schooled,” she lied. If her mother had been more patient with her, Alana would have asked her to homeschool her for her senior year. She wouldn’t miss the parties or prom or any of that stuff. She wouldn’t be asked out anyway.
And she’d only learn what she needed to. Who needed high school?
Then she felt the unmistakable draw of another portal being opened. Oh, no… oh, no!
She backed away from the maintenance man so he wouldn’t see her vanish in thin air, because that’s exactly what she was about to do. Someone was summoning demons at the zoo. Why? Probably because it was so vacant right now.
The few staff that were here were probably busy taking care of the animals. Or like the maintenance worker, not able to be at all places at once.
“What the…,” the man said in astonishment as she faded into oblivion.
But only for a second. She’d truly hoped she would have returned to her physical form, though that worried her, too. What had Samson done with her? She couldn’t be sitting in classes like she was comatose. He must have taken her home.
Without wishing it, she was whisked away to another portal. Like the other, it closed just before she arrived. And there was no one there. No summoner. No portal. No demon. She was now by the exhibit housing the gorillas.
What was going on? It was like something was haywire, the portals appearing at random, but no one was summoning them, and no one was coming through them, either.
What if someone had developed a remote portal opener so he or she wouldn’t have to be at the portal location when the demon came throug
h? If it was a Matusa, the summoner would be safe. If the demon was one of the others, the summoner could pick them up later.
But no, there was no one here.
And didn’t the summoner have to be at the portal to claim the demon right then and there, not later?
What if the summoner was only testing the device? And he hadn’t worked out the bugs yet?
Then a more sinister thought came to mind. What if someone was messing with her personally? Was testing to see if summoning portals would pull her along like on a leash, bending her to his will? Ensuring she couldn’t be at so many places at one time? So that the Matusa could enter the city unhampered? But couldn’t they do that anywhere in the world? Why here? And why now? She was only one gate guardian.
Yet again, she wondered if she was the guinea pig, the test subject to see if she could handle it. If she couldn’t fight them, they would use it on other gate guardians. If she could handle it, they’d go back to the drawing board.
At this rate, she’d never return to her body. Was that the whole point?
Being in two places at one time was exhausting for a body.
“Hey!” a gruff, angry voice boomed.
Omigod, the same maintenance man. Next he’d call the police and then it would be on the local news.
Girl vanishes and reappears and… another portal… no!
Yep.
She vanished again! And she hoped the man wouldn’t think he was losing his mind. Not that he had appeared that way. He looked more like he believed she was playing some Halloween-worthy trick on him. He wanted to know just how she was doing it. And he would put a stop to it.
This time she was in the reptile house. She didn’t see a portal, nor a summoner. She didn’t think a demon was here. At least not visible. Not that they could often hang around invisibly. Though Samson could. But she felt different.
Her skin chilled with awareness. Then her breath grew frosty, and she whipped about. Indigo was breathing down her neck.
“Where have you been?” Indigo asked. “I’ve been hopping all over thissss zzzzoo, looking for you. He’sss here.”
She felt it, too. “Matusa,” she whispered.
He nodded and pointed to a work room where they milked the snakes for venom to prepare anti-venom for snakebite victims.
“Where is the summoner?” she whispered, fearing whoever it was would probably be dead. She looked back at the room, eyes widening. What if the Matusa was using the poisonous bite of a snake on a hapless summoner? Several bites from poisonous snakes could do the job right and ensure that whoever summoned him would never do so again.
Heart skittering, she heard someone approaching the reptile exhibit and sirens nearing the entrance to the zoo. “Police are on their way. Wait, first units are already arriving. We’re searching for the girl… or I should say the camera relaying the projection. No, I swear she was as real as you or me. And she answered me, just as if she was standing beside me. A projection can’t do that. Nor how would she, or the projection, know how to answer me correctly? All right. I’m nearing the entrance of the reptile house. I’ll check it out.”
No, she wanted to scream. If the demon was in the reptile room and the maintenance man saw him, the Matusa would kill him without blinking an eye.
Before she could rush out of the reptile house to intercept the maintenance man, the door opened to the work room.
Matusa. Gorgeous. Why did something so evil have to appear so beautiful?
Dark lashes framed dark eyes. He was wearing a cap with a tiger on it, his long black hair curling about his shoulders. He gave her an almost imperceptible smile. “Kubiteron,” he said in a seductive way that meant she was his for the taking. Only she wasn’t. Not in this form. “Tell me, where are you?” He reached out to touch her, but realizing his mistake, he dropped his hand at his side. She might look real, but she was anything but.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” she asked in a whisper.
“You know why I’m here. I’ve been summoned.”
Yeah, she knew that part. But why was he here in this particular place, hiding in the reptile house? “And the summoner?” She hated to ask, but she suspected he was dead.
“He was some idiot who had designed a device to remotely summon portals ten at a time. Except that all it does is infuriates my kind.”
Past tense. The summoner was some idiot. But he wasn’t any longer.
Then the rest of the words the demon spoke sank in. A device could remotely summon ten portals at a time. Alana stared at the Matusa blankly. What a disaster that would be for those like her who were trying to stop the demons from being summoned to this world.
“Why would this infuriate you? More of you can slip into our world then, right?” Certainly, it would make it much more difficult for her to stop them.
“No.” He looked angry, and she was afraid he’d turn his fury on her, but remembered that she was only an astral projection, and he couldn’t hurt her. The form felt so real sometimes, it was getting to be difficult to remember that. “The portal collapsed in on itself and killed nine of my brethren before I was able to make it through this one. And take care of the summoner. One of us had to do it.” He smiled and the look was pure cold-blooded evil.
She could understand his need to stop the summoner from killing more Matusa. Some were just as reluctant to leave their world as were the lesser demons. None could help the call of a summoner. Only the Matusa could do something about it after they were summoned.
“I know what you are, Kubiteron. And I know who you are. Alana Fainot. You have visited our world and I was one of the ones who saw you there at the hall of records, and even participated in the battle between your witch’s kind and my own people. I know the Matusa named Hunter who wants you for his own. Many are willing to risk taking you home and making you theirs. Partly because you are a Kubiteron and the choicest of mates. But also because you now serve in the position of guardian, and we would rather you live among us and no longer have the ability to thwart us here on Earth.”
“Ha!” she said, forgetting the maintenance man, who was still talking on his phone. “You won’t ever be able to take me from here to the demon’s world.”
The Matusa’s mouth curved up just a hint. “The others may want you, but you will be mine. As soon as I discover where your physical being is, you and I will return to Seplichus. It’s what you want, isn’t it? For me to be gone from this world?” He held his finger up to his lips. “Company’s coming. Remember me. I am Thorst.”
“Don’t you dare—,” she began to warn the Matusa, not wanting him to kill the man. Though there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
The Matusa stepped into the workroom and shut the door. It was up to Alana to cover for what he had done. Not cover for him, exactly, but keep him from killing the maintenance man also, should he find the dark-haired stranger in the work room with the dead body of the summoner.
Her mother would surely get a call from the police. She’d have to pick Alana up at school, too, until her astral and physical forms could rejoin. How long had it been?
Alana glanced at her watch. Holy cow! Two hours. Two class periods.
Poor Samson! He might have already alerted her mother. Or not. He really didn’t trust her since she wasn’t at least half demon.
Alana rushed outside, and the maintenance guy dropped his phone and swore up a storm. Before he picked up his phone, he grabbed for her. Maybe to satisfy his curiosity that she was just a projection. Maybe forgetting that she really wasn’t there because she looked so real. Or maybe he thought she truly was the real girl this time.
What if after she was able to leave this place, if she was able to leave this place, they investigated the whole zoo, looking for the camera and found a dead man in the reptile room. And she’d been there, trying to stop the maintenance man from investigating it.
She’d kill the Matusa, Thorst, that got her involved in this mess.
She jumped back from
the man before he connected, or rather, didn’t connect, as he grabbed for her. To her astonishment, he managed to seize her arm. Her solid arm. And she did what any sane out-of-body person would do.
She shrieked.
Chapter 3
“Where is she?” Hunter asked Samson, not even letting him get a word in edgewise as he picked Hunter and Jared up at the airport and ushered them to her car in short-term parking.
“Well,” Samson said, and the way he said well in an elongated fashion, Hunter knew he wasn’t going to like this.
His heart had been charging hard on the whole plane trip, and he couldn’t stop it from racing no matter how much he had told himself Alana would be all right. The thing of it was, she could very well be at death’s door… and…
“Well, what?” Hunter asked, irritated, ready to slug the words out of Samson.
“She’s in two places.”
“All this time, still?” Hunter said incredulously.
Jared whistled in disbelief from the back seat of the car.
“She couldn’t be. Not unless a portal had remained open that long. She would have closed it. What’s going on?” Hunter asked, his mind racing now as fast as his heart.
“Like I said,” Samson started again, “she’s in two places. She’s at a hotel room, and she’s at the police station.”
“What?” Hunter wasn’t getting it. If someone tried to take her astral self somewhere, they couldn’t. She wasn’t really physically there. Even if she tried to leave with the police officers without them touching her, she couldn’t be a long ways from a portal. She would just… vanish. Wouldn’t she? At least that’s what she used to do.
“We don’t know. I swear she’s still at the hotel and her mother’s with her at the police station. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her mother so upset. It’s like Alana is truly at the police station. But she can’t be. I have the zombie version of her at the hotel.”
“And you want to be her mate?” Jared asked.
Both Samson and Hunter gave Jared a quelling look.