Shadow Realms

by M K Mancos

  I waited for my mind to wrap around that information. “Who sent them there?”

  Malachi simply slid the glass of water over to me. “Here, you haven’t eaten enough, and you haven’t even touched your drink.”

  The evasion was both confirmation and condemnation. I didn’t know how I felt knowing the Convention had sealed off a part of the multiverses to house dangerous entities. A part of me wanted to fist pump for them finding a way to lock them into their miserable state away from this world; a whole other part was pissed as hell they didn’t go the route of annihilation. If they were so big, so bad and fed off the energy of others, they were a danger to our world. Simple as that. At the same time, they were life forms—killing wholesale was little better than genocide.

  No good answers presented themselves as I sat there contemplating the fate of the world and Jane Porter. Pretty much what Malachi had said was that there was no way for Jane Porter to get into the Shattered Lands.

  Or was there?

  Most places had more than one route to get there. Right? More roads led to Rome than just the one.

  “What are the Shattered Lands? Are they a prison without a back way out or are they an actual dimension?”

  Malachi pulled out a chair and sat down across from me. “Both. Neither. I don’t know all the details. My preceptor in the Convention never included those specifics in my training. I know about them, but not how they work.”

  “Then how do you know sealing this side of it won’t cause a ripple at another spot, or make them flee to find a secondary exit?”

  “I don’t. But I’d soon try as not.” He scratched his head. “Look at it this way. They wouldn’t be so hot to get you to open the gate if they’d found another way out.”

  Truth.

  I picked up my water and drank. Damn that was good. I was so thirsty I could have drunk the entire Hudson.

  “When you’ve finished, we’ll go find Kendrick and see if he’s made any progress with Maltabán.”

  I picked at my sandwich. My appetite had fled when we started discussing Jane Porter. His lack of concern bothered me more than I wanted to let on—especially from someone who claimed to not understand how the gate worked.

  Pushing the plate away, I stood. “I’m ready. We don’t have a moment to waste.”

  The fact I’d decided to forgo a shower in order to go back to the tunnels proved I was beyond myself at the moment.

  We left the little apartment and went into the street again. I had known Hoboken in my time—not well since I wasn’t a local—but well enough from previous visits that seeing it in the past seemed strange. The New York skyline across the Hudson seemed foreign and more distant than when skyscrapers reached high into the autumn sky.

  We crossed cobbled streets to the tunnel area and stopped.

  A tingle shot over my arms and down both legs. Magics rippled on the air and the entire world shimmered as if hidden behind a lacy veil. A fleeting shift in the fabric of time reset, and we stood at the train station back in our time.

  New Jersey transit trains rolled into the station on the topside tracks. Stairs led down into the awaiting PATH station.

  We looked at each other and took in our surroundings. Malachi walked to the little kiosk that sold fruits, gum, drinks, and newspapers. He picked one up off the top of the stack and read the date.

  He shook his head.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “According to this we’ve been gone two weeks.”

  That would put it near the beginning of December. We’d missed Thanksgiving. That explained all the holiday decorations at the station.

  A strong gust of wind blew onto the platform. Swirls of leaves rose up in mini tornadoes before settling back down again. A tingle of magic rode the air as static charge. I turned to Malachi.

  “The gate is still down there and active. I can feel it.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Malachi

  Damn! I’d hoped she hadn’t felt the press and pull of magic that surrounded us. I guess it was too much to ask. Being able to see and feel time wells put her at an advantage. Kells was the most remarkable woman I’d ever met, but my heart hurt with the look of disappointment in her eyes when I told her I didn’t know how the gate worked.

  That was only partially true.

  Yes, I’d lied. One of omission and protection. I have no doubt in my mind that if she knew the entire truth, she’d run headlong into danger.

  I couldn’t have that.

  Not even to save the world.

  I started for the stairs that led down to the PATH station. “We need to find a way to lock it down.”

  “Now? With what? Our charming personalities and good looks?”

  “No. But I want to find out where it is. If it’s still down there, and we can both feel the energy leaking from it, it’s got to be close. Right?”

  A cab sat at the curb and my heart constricted. Too many possibilities converged at once. Not in any of the visions had this scenario came into play. She hadn’t betrayed me, she hadn’t done anything wrong. Her only crime was in trying to help. To be here at this point in time to lend me strength and aid. The very things that made me love her, were the same that made me want to send her away. They made her a target for the shadow realms.

  “I want you to get in the cab and take it into the Village. To Kara’s shop. Stay there until I come and get you.”

  If she seemed pale before, she went that and deathly still. “You want me to leave you? Now?”

  “For your safety.”

  “Bah, fuck my safety. You didn’t seem so concerned when it was Jane Porter’s safety we were talking about.” She parked her hands on her hips like a pint-sized Valkyrie.

  Anger pierced me—not my own but projected from her. It hit me like the thrust of a dull blade through my heart.

  “I’m not in love with Jane Porter. I am in love with you. I want you safe. Not some woman I know for a fact of her very nature can care for herself.” I took a few more steps to her.

  Her eyes were huge, terrified. All right so I probably said a little too much, a little too soon, but I wasn’t going to take the words back. Time was running out and I didn’t feel like denying my feelings when one or both of us might die.

  I took her face in my hands. “Don’t look so shocked. Yes, I love you. I’ve always loved you. I’ve known you most of my life and seeing you in that diner that day took my breath away because I knew at some point I’d have to let you go to fulfill my duty to the Convention.”

  Her bottom lip trembled. “What do you mean by fulfill your duty? How?”

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen when I try to seal that gate for good. I might get caught in a backlash. It might be dangerous. I want you safe and with my sister.”

  I walked her to the cab and started to open the back door.

  Her chin tilted up in defiance. “No, Malachi. I’m not going. I’m staying with you.”

  “Please. I…”

  “What? Are you going to sacrifice yourself and expect me to live on, knowing you were too stubborn to accept my help? No way.”

  “The sacrifice of one to save the world is an acceptable loss.”

  “Acceptable to whom? Not me. No life should ever be sacrificed.”

  The wind gusted again and blew her hair across her soft, sexy mouth. If she only knew how beautiful she was to me in that moment. How my entire world seemed to tip up on its axis.

  She placed her hand over mine on the door handle. “I’ve seen this scene so many times in my visions. Each time I got into that cab and each time I’ve regretted it. Not this time. I make my own choices, not some future that would have me believe I have no freewill. I do what I want. Not what my powers dictate. And I sure as hell don’t answer to you or the Convention.”

  I couldn’t stand it a moment longer. I grabbed her by the shirt and pulled her up to my lips and kissed the ever-loving hell out of her.

  The driver put down his window. “Are y
ou getting in or not?”

  “Not,” we said in unison.

  I took her into my arms and held her there. “Thank you.”

  Those two simple words kept falling from my lips. I couldn’t seem to stop them. This amazing woman was willing to go the distance with me. I’d waited so long for her and she’d proven herself at every turn.

  “Hey, lover boy, get your ass over here.”

  I pulled away from Kells and watched as Astrid strode over the platform to us. Her normal, high, stiletto heels had been replaced by a pair of combat boots. She had a rucksack slung over her shoulder.

  I raised a brow. “Is that any way to treat a guy who’s been thrust through time?”

  “Look, you little shit, I was worried about you.” Despite the fact she barely reached my shoulder, she called me little. The idea and the endearment made me smile.

  “Well, thanks. Sorry we missed all the action. We got sucked into some time wells going into the city on the PATH.”

  Astrid frowned. “What action?”

  Cold prickled my neck and ran down both my hands. Kells glanced up at me with huge eyes.

  “We fell into wells when we were headed into the city two weeks ago. You called me and told me to go there because there were wells opening up all over the city and here in Jersey.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Never happened. At least not that way.”

  I wanted to step back and give her a long look up and down, but I was afraid at any moment I might shatter completely.

  Kells gripped my arm and gazed into my eyes. A slight flash of panic moved through her expression. “Time reset when I was down in the tunnels. I felt a slight shift, but when I came out and saw it was an earlier time period, I mistakenly thought that was the hitch I felt.”

  I gripped her hand. We’d both felt one when we moved from that time to the present. Like her, I’d believed it was the skip and not an actual jump in dimensions. I looked at the necklace I’d given her. A light blue glow came from under her shirt. The magic was activated, but it hadn’t stopped her from jumping—just kept her safe from landing someplace truly horrible.

  I gave her hand another squeeze. “All right. We’ll have to deal with it as it is now. I’ll need access to Gutenberg.”

  Astrid cocked her head to the side and jerked it toward a building that was now very familiar. “We have a branch over this way.”

  A branch of the Convention in Hoboken, of course. Why wouldn’t there be in this alternate dimension? Hell, for all I knew there was one in my proper timeline as well. None of the agents ever knew everything about the body we worked for—that would give us too much power and make us a liability should we ever get captured by the enemy.

  Astrid walked at a quick clip and we followed her into the same building where Kendrick and I had stayed, and he had owned.

  The bottom floor was a candy store. Delicious scents of handmade fudge and other confections filled the front of the shop.

  She guided us back to the office and through a door in the back that she unlocked with a twist of a wrist and light from her fingers. We went inside and down a short hallway to a staircase that only went up half a floor before coming to a landing and another door.

  “The terminal is in here.” She opened this door the same way as the other, but this one also required a verbal spell with voiceprint ID, and retinal scan. “I had one put in here after the museum was breached.”

  I had no idea what incident she referenced, but I nodded as if I did. We didn’t have time to compare notes, and I really wasn’t up to it at the moment anyhow.

  Gutenberg stood on the far wall. His mainframe came to life as we drew near. Hair rose on the back of my neck. This was a bit more advanced than the set-up Colvin and I had in Fox Run.

  It made me believe the rumors were true—that the Gutenberg’s spirit had infected the program. A real and true ghost in the machine.

  As I sat down at the terminal, I turned to Astrid. “Tell me about my family.”

  I knew from previous experience that not all timelines are created equal. But for a quirk of fate entire families might be different.

  She parked her hands on her hips and frowned. “Historically, or current?”

  “Now. My siblings.”

  “Kara owns a store in the Village. Maddie has gone big with her art career. She’s doing exhibits all over the world.”

  I sat against the chair back and rubbed my chest. At least they were all right. That’s all I wanted. My parents had the uncanny ability to live in a bubble of protection no matter the upheaval in our lives. That was in no small part to a pact me and Aunt Hattie had made when she first secretly introduced me to my powers.

  Reassured, I started to put my hands on the keyboard but decided this version of Gutenberg probably didn’t need one to communicate. He’d been upgraded. Not that the one in my timeline did, but we didn’t use it that often. It made the system run slower for some quirky reason.

  “Gutenberg, I need everything you can tell me about the Hoboken Gate.” I had no idea why I called it that. Proximity to the town? Access to the underground tunnels. It seemed to fit better than calling it some nebulous name that gave neither direction or article of inquiry.

  The computer whirled, and screens flashed then a picture came up of a text dated March 25, 1787. The nation was new, the struggle for independence not yet fully cooled.

  “It’s a journal entry for Mercy Clements.”

  Kells turned to me. “Do you know the name?”

  “She was a member of the Convention back during the Revolutionary War. Fought on the side of the Colonials. Some say she was distantly related to Ben Franklin.”

  “Okay. How does that help us?” Kells leaned forward. “I’m having a hard time making out her penmanship. She writes very tiny and closed.”

  “But you can read it?” I asked with a bit more excitement than I wanted to show.

  “I’ve had experience reading journal entries from the period as part of my research. Your ancestors loved to write about their experiences.” Kells leaned forward and stared at the screen. “Is there a conversion program on here that can take written text and put it into a regular file program?”

  Astrid pushed off from the wall where she’d been standing. “While you two do the research, I’m going to round up the troops. I feel a ripple on the magical wavelengths I can’t seem to shake.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “It’s because that freaking gate is getting ready to blow. All the elements we’ve been fighting for so long are gathering to make sure it happens.”

  Astrid pursed her lips. “And we can’t let it.”

  For the first time, I noticed her determination crack through a veil of weariness—something I’d never thought to see in my steadfast and ruthless boss. Apparently, even she got tired of the fight at times.

  But then this wasn’t the Astrid I had known.

  Kells had continued to read as Astrid and I talked. Now she grabbed my arm and pointed at the screen with the other. “This isn’t just a journal entry, it’s how she sealed the gate to begin with—it’s got her notes for the spell she used.”

  All right, that got my attention.

  I leaned forward and studied the list. Read the incantation. “Seems simple enough.” I said this knowing nothing was ever as simple as it seemed, but I didn’t want Kells to worry about me down in the tunnels. “I’ll need to find something personal to use to tie the spell to generate the energy.”

  Kells turned to me with narrowed eyes. “What do you mean you? Us.” She rocked her finger to indicate both of us. “If you think you’re cutting me out of this, you are sadly mistaken.”

  “Kells…”

  She cut me off. “Nope. Not open for negotiation. I already told you, I’m not leaving you to do this alone. I’m here for a reason. Let me be useful.”

  Against my better judgement, I knew I needed her talents and her energy. We were stronger together than alone.

  “All right. I won�
��t send you to my sister. But you have to do everything I say.”

  “Great. Where do we start?”

  Thirty

  Kells

  The laser printer was good quality and hardly made any noise as it spit out the sheet with the spell’s instructions. Good thing Mercy was as thorough as she was resourceful.

  My mind whirled with the need to know her entire story. These women who worked in secret with the Convention in times when their lot in life was to keep a home and bear children had done so much more than most of their contemporaries.

  I ran my fingers over the printout, still warm from the process. A quick scan over the list and I stopped. “What should we use as our personal items?”

  Certain spells asked for locks of hair or blood—anything that contained the DNA of the practitioner. However, this was different. This needed the magical energy or frequency of the witch repairing the gate.

  Malachi reached out and ran a finger down the chain on my neck to the charm. When he reached the golden knot work, he tapped it with a gentle finger. “This. Made with my hands and my energy and blessed with yours as you wore it through time.”

  I swallowed and put my hand around it protectively. At the thought I should give it up, I shook my head. “No. Name anything else but this. Your pendant kept me from total darkness and helped me find my way out of the tunnels. It also protected me from the shadow beings and rabid dogs.”

  A shiver moved up and down my spine at the memory.

  “More reason than ever to use it for this. You were able to deflect and pour magic through it. From what you’ve told me, not even a kind you’re used to wielding. That alone should convince you.”

  I took a deep breath. Logically, I heard what he said, emotionally I wanted to slap the shit out of him for suggesting it. To me this was my precious. If I gave it up, I’d be diminished somehow.

  He gave me a cajoling smile. “I’ll make you a new one. A better one.”