Unseen #2: Door to Alternity

by Nancy Holder

  After a few minutes of conversation, Doña Pilar found her among the shelves. She had a string bag dangling from one arm and a grim expression on her face.

  “What’s wrong?” Willow asked.

  “Her daughter,” Doña Pilar explained. “Consuela. She helps here at the shop, sometimes . . .”

  “Oh, no,” Willow moaned, getting the picture. “ Disappeared?”

  The older witch inclined her head. “Sí.”

  “How long?”

  “Two days, now.” Doña Pilar unconsciously crossed herself.

  “I’m so sorry,” Willow said. “We have to move faster. We have to find these kids.”

  “We are moving as fast as we dare,” Doña Pilar argued. “It is more important to do it right than to do it fast.”

  “I know,” Willow agreed, letting out a sigh. “It’s just so frustrating.”

  “It is that.” She went about her shopping, leaving Willow to examine things she’d only heard about. She was looking at a large glass jar of rat kidneys when she heard Tara’s voice.

  “Willow?”

  “Tara!” She looked around, stood on tiptoes to peer over the shelves. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at Mr. Giles’s house,” Tara said. Willow couldn’t see her, but she could hear her as clear as if she were standing next to her. “I found this in a book,” Tara continued. “I thought it might come in handy. It’s called audial projection.”

  “Makes sense. Can anyone else hear you?”

  Doña Pilar came back around the end of the aisle, staring at Willow as if she’d taken leave of her senses. Willow smiled at her. Doña Pilar shrugged, shook her head, and trundled away.

  “Guess not,” Willow said. “Do I have to talk out loud, or can you hear me if I just think?”

  “I’m talking out loud here,” Tara said. “This isn’t the same as the mind-links we’ve been working on together. It’s very directed, according to the book Mr. Giles had. I can pick who I send to, and only the chosen receiver can hear me. But if I break the link, you can’t talk back to me unless you go through the ritual.”

  “Is it hard?”

  “It’s not easy,” Tara said. “I’m getting a little worn out here as it is. It’s really tough to talk and listen and control my breathing and mental focus all at the same time. While standing on a bed of nails.”

  “No way!”

  “No, the nails part is a joke.” Tara giggled. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too, Tara. This’ll be over soon.”

  “Promise?”

  “It has to be,” Willow said. “I can’t stay away much longer.”

  “I’m glad,” Tara said. “I’m going now.”

  “Okay, Tara. Thanks for calling!”

  She went to find Doña Pilar, who was at the counter paying for her purchases. “That was so cool!” she exclaimed. “Tara called me! In my head! Audial projection, she said it was.”

  Doña Pilar and the shopkeeper exchanged glances and smiles.

  “Oh, so you guys knew about this all along?”

  “There is much you still have to learn, little Willow,” Doña Pilar said.

  “I know, I know. But I’m picking it up pretty fast, I think.”

  “You are an exceptional student, Willow. The best.”

  Willow took the string bag and carried it out of the store for her, still beaming from the conversation and the compliment.

  Then she remembered that Consuela was missing, and felt ashamed.

  “We have to do more,” she said urgently.

  Doña Pilar said nothing, only patted her shoulder and walked on.

  Nicky de la Natividad felt like a prisoner, and he didn’t like it.

  His prison was in an apartment upstairs over an auto repair shop. At least, that’s how it was presented to the public, but Nicky knew it was a chop shop, a place stolen cars were brought to for repainting, repairs, the filing off of Vehicle Identification Numbers, so the cars could be resold or used by members of the Echo Park gang or other associated groups. One favorite stunt, he knew, was to remove the seats, the engine and the wheels, and then to abandon the carcass somewhere. It would be found, but the car’s original owner wouldn’t want it in that condition. The insurance company would total it, paying the owner the full value of the claim. The body of the car would be sold cheaply at auction—to a representative of the gang, who would bring it back to the shop on a trailer, where the engine, wheels, and seats would be restored, and a perfectly good car was now theirs legally, complete with pink slip.

  Nobody lived in the upstairs apartment. It was a hangout, a place to lie low. It had three bedrooms and one bath, a living room and a kitchen, all filthy. Since no one lived here on any kind of permanent basis, no one bothered to clean up the place or take out the trash.

  But it was a prison to Nicky because they held him here—subtly, but unmistakably—against his will. There was always someone coming by to “visit,” but each of his requests to leave went unanswered. They had taken away his gun and brought him three take-out meals a day, along with cigarettes he had no interest in smoking. There were always people downstairs, day and night, working on cars or just hanging out. Nicky knew they’d been instructed to stop him if he tried to leave, even though nothing had been said outright. And since they kept his door locked, and the windows were barred, it didn’t really matter. He was stuck.

  Today a young member of Echo Park named Billy Cruz had dropped by. Billy had been one of the poor kids who went to the same Catholic church as the wealthy de la Natividad family. In fact, it had been Salma who had gone against their snobby parents’ wishes and made friends with him.

  Of course, Salma had had no idea that Billy was connected to organized crime. But Nicky, who had, hoped for some news of his sister, and of Rosalie Estrada, from whom he hadn’t heard since his Night of the Long Knives.

  “Hey, Nicky, what’s up?” Billy asked. He sat on a foul mattress that occupied one corner of the small bedroom. An ocean of fast-food wrappers hid the floor. Nicky thought of them as an alarm system when he slept— anyone sneaking in would have to wade through the sea of rustling paper.

  “I’m getting sick of sitting in here,” Nicky replied. “They don’t even have cable TV, man.”

  Billy scrunched up his face. He was good-looking, always had lots of girlfriends. Even Salma had had a crush on him for a while, back when they were all younger.

  “That totally sucks, dude,” he said sympathetically.

  “I know.” Nicky spread open his hands. “But every time I try to go, they tell me it’s not safe for me out there yet.”

  Billy nodded. He pulled a cigarette out of a pack in his shirt pocket and lit it. Inhaled. Nicky didn’t smoke, but the scent took him back to the oil fields. This was mierda. He was muy macho; he had risked his life for the Latin Cobras. No one kept him locked up.

  “That’s what Che says, dude,” Billy continued. “Says you and him have ticked off the Russians bad. You went outside, you’d be dead before you went a mile, way I hear it.”

  Nicky clenched his teeth, pissed off and suddenly realizing he was not going to take this crap any longer. “I’m willing to take that chance, man. I’m going stir crazy here. I read the same stupid magazine ten times already. Anyway, how come Che gets to be out there and not me? He locked up someplace?”

  “Che’s Echo Park, dude. He’s home turf. You’re the visitor.” Billy took a drag on his cigarette, frowning sadly. “Soon, Nicky. It’ll blow over. Give it a day or two.”

  “Mano, no se.” He took the cigarette from Billy, sucked in smoke, thought of Rosalie and wished she, at least, were here. “I don’t know, Billy. I think Che wants something from me.”

  Billy thought for a moment before answering. “Of course he does, Nicky. He wants to know how to become, you know, invulnerable, or whatever it is. Like you was in that oil field. When you show him how to do it, he’ll most probably let you go.” He crossed his legs and lit another cigarette, gestu
ring for Nicky to keep his. “What was that about, anyway?”

  Nicky’s scalp prickled. Billy had confirmed his fears. They’re holding me hostage. They’re not gonna let me go unless I give him the secret.

  “I can’t do that, Billy. Not for somebody else,” he lied. “That’s a once in a lifetime deal, and you can only do it for yourself. It’s called the Night of the Long Knives, and it’s a spell—a combination of spells, really, that makes a person invincible for one night. That’s how I was able to set off all those charges in DeSola’s oil field and walk away from it.”

  Billy considered. “But you could teach him how to do it for his own self, couldn’t you?”

  I gotta keep myself indispensable, Nicky thought quickly. I gotta get some status, some rank.

  “It ain’t like learning how to ride a bicycle or something, man. I was raised by a bruja. I got magick in my blood, in my heritage. And even with all that, it was hard for me. Che doesn’t have that background.”

  He drew back his sleeve, showed Billy the wound he’d suffered the other night when the Russian had shot him. “And it doesn’t last long. One night, that’s it. After that, you get shot, you get hurt. This hurts like crazy, man. It itches.”

  “You got lucky, though,” Billy said, examining the wound. “Six inches over, you’re dead.”

  “Yeah, I got lucky.” He rolled down his sleeve. “I got shot, and people tell me I’m lucky. Orale, what kind of life is this, mano? Is this what we wanted when we were kids?”

  Billy smoked for a few seconds. He leaned back his head and concentrated on blowing smoke rings. “It’s what I wanted, Nicky. My uncle, my brother, they were both in the Echo Park Band. It’s all I ever wanted. But you, man, you got money, you got opportunity. What you doin’ here?”

  Nicky was silent. He paced the room for a moment, feeling the rotting floorboards beneath his feet. The place smelled like car parts. “I don’t know for sure,” he said finally. “I been giving that some thought.”

  “I think you got to try, man.” Hunkering forward, Billy dangled his hands between his knees. He looked hard at his compadre.

  “I think you got to teach Che, you want to get out of here. I mean, you’re a Cobra, not a member of Echo Park. Whole reason he hangin’ with you is he wants you to be his pal, teach him that stuff.”

  Nicky moved in close to him, so Billy had to look in his eyes or look away. “Is that something you know, Billy, or something you’re guessing?”

  “I don’t know it know it, if you know what I mean,” Billy responded. “But I pretty much know it, you know?”

  There was a moment, and Nicky realized that Billy was not here as his friend. He was here as Che’s messenger.

  His guts churned.

  No one here gives a damn about me.

  “I got you,” he said to Billy.

  Billy said smoothly, “And if I were you I’d do it as soon as you can.”

  “What’s going down?” Nicky tried to sound curious, but his voice was shrill and scared.

  “I don’t know for sure, dude. It’s probably nothin’, you know. But there’s a lot of stuff going down out there that ain’t good.” Billy’s voice dripped with sincerity. “People disappearin’ and all.”

  Nicky said carefully, “I heard about some of that.”

  “Yeah, well, you probably didn’t hear that Salma is one of them.”

  Oh, God. God, don’t punish her because of me. I’m the bad one. I’m the one who used Black Magick. Don’t let them hurt her because of me.

  “That’s what I heard, anyway,” Billy said, as the silence stretched between them.

  “You sure about that?” Nicky croaked.

  “Pretty sure,” Billy said, tamping out his cigarette in an empty McDonald’s container. “I mean, maybe it’s nothin’, you know. But I thought you’d want to know.”

  “What about Rosalie?” Nicky asked. “I haven’t seen her since that night.” They both knew which night he meant: the Night of the Long Knives.

  The night he had really blown it, big time.

  “I don’t know nothin’ about anyone named Rosalie,” Billy tossed off. “She a Cobra chick? I don’t know no Cobras, remember.”

  “But you hear stuff, right? What about the rest of my crew? Little King, Dom, all those guys? What’s the word?”

  “Word is, they’re just layin’ low,” Billy said. “That oil field fire, that was a big deal. Newspapers, you know, TV. Live from Channel Five. Sunnydale cops, even some feds, what I hear. So your amigos are hidin’ out until it blows over.”

  “I’m going to get out of here,” Nicky said evenly. “I got to get out of here. I got magick, don’t forget.”

  “It ain’t gonna be that easy to go,” Billy warned, sounding very concerned. You cabrón, Nicky thought. Faking like you care what happens to me. “There’s a guard outside, and another one downstairs. Che’ll kill ’em if they let you go.”

  Nicky took another drag off his cigarette, feeling sick and dizzy and so mad he didn’t care what he said or did. “Why doesn’t Che have the guts to face me himself, he wants something from me?”

  “Dude, you know how he works. He’ll wear you down first, get you till you’re beggin’ for him to let you teach him what he wants to know. Then he gets what he wants and you feel like you got what you want.”

  “That don’t work anymore,” Nicky said, sending the message as clearly as he could. “Not with my sister and Rosalie missing.”

  Billy shrugged. “Gettin’ yourself shot ain’t gonna bring ’em back.”

  Narrowing his eyes, Nicky said, “I want to talk to Che.”

  “He’ll see you when he’s ready to, man.”

  Nicky’s tone was determined. “He’ll see me now.”

  “I don’t think so.” Billy’s tone was calm, maybe a little sad. Maybe somewhere inside him there was a heart. After all, Salma had liked him, and she was a good judge of people.

  Except for me. She looked up to me. Some big brother I’ve been.

  He took a breath and threw it down. “Billy, you ain’t going to get in my way, are you?”

  “I’m just tellin’ you, man,” Billy said, “there’s guards outside.”

  “You strapped?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  Nicky held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

  Billy shook his head. “Nicky, I can’t . . .”

  Nicky wagged his hand. “I known you a long time, Billy. I never done you nothing bad.” He said, “Salma liked you. My parents, they told her not to talk to you, but she did.”

  Billy’s face reddened. He gazed down at his hands; Nicky saw the gang tattoo in the web of his flesh between his forefinger and thumb.

  “Don’t make me put a spell on you, man,” Nicky threatened.

  The other guy reached into the waistband at the back of his jeans and drew out a small Beretta automatic. He said, “I don’t want to see any of the guys get hurt, Nicky, that’s all.”

  “I don’t want to hurt them.” He meant it. He didn’t.

  “But I know how important Salma is to you,” Billy murmured.

  “That’s it, Billy.” Nicky felt like he had a lasso out, and he was just about to throw it over the head of a wild animal. Too quickly, the coyote was just gonna bolt and run. “I just want to take care of my sister, you know?”

  “I know, man.” Billy sighed heavily. Nicky wished he was surer of him, but there was no time. “Just don’t get in no trouble.”

  “No such thing as trouble Nicky de la Natividad can’t get out of, Billy.” He took the little gun from his friend, checked the clip, and shoved it back into place with a satisfying click. Somehow the weapon soothed his nerves, like an infant with a pacifier. He didn’t know what he might step into, but he had the feeling that he could handle it. “It’s just a matter of playing the angles.”

  “Nicky.” Billy put a hand on Nicky’s arm, stopped him. “You gotta—you know, Che would have me capped if he knew I let you go.”

>   Nicky understood. He didn’t take time to think it over. With the gun in his fist, he drove a powerful jab into Billy’s jaw. His friend collapsed on the bed.

  Nicky stepped out of the room.

  The dreamlike landscape didn’t change as Salma walked, although she had thought for a while that it might, in the same way that a dreaming person might walk from a familiar kitchen into a school hallway and then onto a crowded train, all without proper transition. But that didn’t happen here. Instead, it changed only in the ways that a normal landscape did as one passed through it, changing angle of view, coming around a bend and seeing the base of something tall that previously had only towered over trees and cliffs.

  It still disturbed her—the colors were all wrong, the sizes seemed not to fit somehow. Things that should have been small, bushes and small succulents, were gigantic here, and where they might have been green on her Earth they were shades of red and blue and purple. Other things had no corresponding objects in her experience—an enormous rock-looking thing that pulsed like a heart, then twitched as if it were a cocoon that a butterfly was trying to escape from when she looked at it. If she looked away, or only looked sidelong at it, the thing went back to pulsing rhythmically. But when she looked straight at it again, it resumed its twitching, and she had to look away for fear that it would erupt at her.

  She hurried past it, but there was always something around one curve or the next to make her just as frightened. She began to have a sense of how Alice must have felt after she’d gone through the Looking Glass. She had always wondered, if someone had looked into the Looking Glass closely enough, or concentrated hard enough, would they have been able to see Alice in there? Or was Alice—as Salma believed she was—completely invisible to everyone who had ever known and loved her?