“You’re promises don’t really mean much,” I said. I glanced at Mr. Minor. “Neither of you know what it means to be trustworthy.”
“What will it take to get you to trust me?” Seanna asked.
“Show me your true form.” The words tumbled out on their own. I didn’t even think about it. There could have been so much more she was hiding from me, but that was the one thing I knew about.
“I…” She lost her voice before she could complete the thought. Maybe she never fully formed the thought at all. Her face hardened and she stood up straight. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I asked, shocked.
“If that’s what it takes,” she said haughtily. “More is at stake than…whatever.”
She paced across the small sitting room before turning back to me. There was a moment of hesitation before she reached in her shirt collar and pulled out her necklace. It was the same one she had worn the first time I met her. The polished wooden spiral seemed to catch what little sunlight filtered into the dim room. She looked in my eyes. There was hesitation in hers, but also determination. She didn’t say or do anything but her whole body started to glow purple.
“Wait,” I said.
The glow faded. “What?”
“Your parents didn’t know you tricked me into going last time.”
Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “Yeah, so?”
“All the Ashlings I met were fair and open to me. Even this douche-nozzle couldn’t be deceptive if he wanted to.” I waved a hand at Jae. “And the Mother Tree. She was very disappointed in what you did. I could feel it when we spoke that night.”
“What’s your point?”
“Point is, although your parents and the rest of the Ashlings were perfectly willing to let me sacrifice myself for them, they didn’t know you had deceived me. They thought I was doing it because I wanted to. To me, the Ashlings are a relatively decent people. I don’t want my view of them ruined by seeing you as one of them.”
The shock on Seanna face was unsettling. I had buried a knife deep in her and twisted the blade. Good. She was only feeling half of what she put me through.
The shock didn’t last long, though. Her face hardened into sharp lines.
“I’m confused,” Jae said. “What’s a douche-nozzle?”
*
Mr. Minor insisted we make a quick stop by his house before we set out. I thought it was risky, but he wouldn’t let us leave without the detour.
I flipped through the fake passport again as Seanna, Jae, and I stood in his backyard. It looked legit, but what did I know? I could just imagine showing this thing to a TSA agent who will take one look at it and call security to haul me away to a secrete airport interrogation room. What option did I have, though? Seanna played the Aoife card well. If she was still alive and on Alisundi, it was my responsibility to go after her.
I flicked a nail at the edges of the passport. It held together. I wondered where they got the picture of me to use in it. It looked vaguely like my school ID photo from last year. I also wondered how Mr. Minor had underground channels to have a fake passport made. And I wondered how they were so confident I’d go with them that they bothered to have it made before I had even agreed.
I wasn’t even sure it was the best decision for me to agree. Of course, it wasn’t. It was probably one of the worst, surpassing the first time I followed Seanna through the gateway. Much worse, considering I wasn’t under her magical influence this time.
“Found it!” Mr. Minor said as he rounded the house. He held a sledgehammer in his hand.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“You’ll see.”
“Is the flight booked?” Seanna asked.
“Of course,” the former dentist replied as he stepped to the back of his yellow house. He lined up just under the window that peeked into his kitchen and hefted the sledgehammer onto a shoulder with some difficulty. He set his feet and swung. Well, it was more like he let gravity pull it from his shoulder. It slammed into the house foundation.
“What in the world are you doing?” I asked.
Mr. Minor examined where the hammer struck. “Oh, my. That doesn’t seem to have done anything.”
“Is this what humans call gone crazy ?” Jae said.
Mr. Minor waved me over. “Come here. You’ll probably have better luck at this than me.”
He held out the sledgehammer as I approached.
“What are you doing?” I asked again.
“There’s something in here I need to get to,” he explained.
“In your home’s foundation?”
“Yes, Mr. Porter. Strike just there, would you?”
I shrugged and did as he asked. Vibrations rang up my arms as the hammer contacted the concrete. Chips of the gray stuff flew everywhere.
“That’s it! Keep going,” he cried.
“What have I got myself into,” I muttered. “Again.”
I kept hammering at the foundation. My arms and hands hurt worse with every blow, but it felt good in a way. Physical activity had always been a release for me. Any time I had too much pent-up emotions boiling inside me, there was nothing like a long run or sparring session in my Kali classes to let it all out.
After a few blows, pieces started to fall off in chunks. I couldn’t help but think I was destroying the man’s house, especially when a crack appeared running from the ground up to disappear under the siding.
“Wait!” Mr. Minor called out. “That should be enough.”
I dropped the sledgehammer and stepped back, wiping my sleeve across my forehead.
Mr. Minor produced a flat head screwdriver from his back pocket and dug the tip into the crack. He pried more pieces of concrete away until a particularly large chunk fell way to reveal a hole in the foundation. He threw the screwdriver aside, reached in the hole, and pulled out a box. He turned to us with a big smile revealing perfectly straight teeth.
The box was pretty plain. Made of wood, it was smooth and had no decorations of any kind. It was about six by six and two inches deep. A metal latch with a keyhole held the lid in place.
“Great! A box,” Jae said. I could have sworn I detected sarcasm in his voice.
Mr. Minor ignored him and held the box out for me.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Something I think will help you.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It’s hard to explain, but you should take it with you.”
“It won’t get me stopped by security, will it?” I said.
“No, of course not.” He sighed. “Just trust me, okay?”
“Whatever.” I took it from him. It was surprisingly light. “Where’s the key?”
“I don’t have it,” he replied.
“That’s helpful. So, do I break it open?”
“Oh, you could try, but I doubt you’d get very far with that.”
“So, it’s a box. With something inside that might help me. But I can’t get into it?”
“Of course, you can get into it,” he said with a wave of his hand. “You just need the key.”
“And that’s where?”
“Delicia,” he said.
Hearing just the name of that place sent a shiver down my spine and made some long-healed injuries ache.
“Are you purposely being vague,” I asked. “Because it’s really starting to piss me off.”
“No, no. Sorry. There is an agent in Delicia who has the key. Find him and you’ll be able to open the box. Or her.”
“You don’t know who it is?”
“I’m sorry I don’t.”
“Or even if it’s a man or woman? Great. Just great. This is very useful. Thanks.”
He patted my shoulder. “I don’t know the person, but I am sure you will be able to find him when the time comes. Or her.”
“Right. Great,” I said again. “That’s, uh, helpful.”
“Can we get to the airport now?” Seanna asked. “Time is short.�
��
“Oh, no,” I said. “I am not just taking off without a word again.”
6
Gateway
I’d love to say I sat Aunt Stacy down and explained why I had to leave again. I’d love to say I found all the right words to convince her it was something I had to do and she let me go with her blessing. That would have definitely made me feel less like a horrible human being.
I didn’t, though. I packed a few things in my backpack, left a note that explained I had to get out of town and I’d be back soon, and bolted as quick as I could before anybody came home.
I am a horrible human being. I had the whole ride into Denver to think about just how horrible I was at being a human being. Not even Jae’s constant talking could distract me. I spent the whole ride in the backseat of Mr. Minor’s car and watching Colorado go by while contemplating how horrible I had become.
His yammering only intensified as Mr. Minor, who apparently wasn’t going with us, a fact he failed to mention, dropped us off at the airport. Seanna on the other hand grew paler—a particularly human quality. While Jae had enjoyed their first flight from England to the States, Seanna had a more unpleasant experience. Jae explained loudly how his betrothed had thrown up in a little brown bag and laughed at the weakness of the human stomach.
We checked in and entered the security line. As we shuffled closer and closer to the bored looking TSA agents checking IDs, I started feeling a little sick myself. What if they could tell it was a fake passport? Sure, Seanna, Jae, and Mr. Minor had entered the country with them, but with the way my luck went, I’d be busted for sure. I mean, Gage Potter ? I wondered which genius came up with that name to put on the passport. They might as well have just made my name Definitely Not Gaige Porter .
The agent didn’t seem interested in a Gage Potter, though. He shined a black light on the passport and examined it from multiple angles before waving me through.
I didn’t have time to relax, however as I flopped my backpack on the X-Ray machine. What was in that box Mr. Minor gave me? I was kind of curious enough to ask if I could watch it go through the scanner and kind of terrified it was something that would get me arrested. I watched it intently as it rode the belt into the machine while I took off my shoes and stepped through the full body scanner.
Again, no alarms went off. No TSA agents waved over help to escort me into a questioning area. All I got was a “Have a good flight” as I collected my stuff.
The wait for our flight was entirely too long. I made multiple trips to the bathroom just to escape Jae’s stream of unrelated verbal consciousness.
When we finally boarded the plane, I maneuvered into the window seat under the guise of Seanna sitting in the isle so there was a less likely of chance of her getting sick. That left Jae between us. I wanted it that way. I didn’t want to get stuck for seventeen hours sitting next to Seanna. At first, I thought Jae would be a worse flying companion, but I put up with his talking in the terminal for a very specific reason. As the plane rumbled down the runway, I pulled a small MP3 player from my pocket and popped the earphones in. I didn’t know what I’d do with the thing when it came time to go through the gateway. I knew from previous experience that electronics didn’t survive the journey, but losing the cheap thing was well worth it for my sanity.
I saw Jae’s mouth moving out the corner of my eye but heard nothing over the loud guitars and drums. Sweet, sweet bliss. I reclined my seat an inch back as soon as it was allowed and closed my eyes.
*
A hand rested on Gaige’s shoulder. He sighed. He knew it wouldn’t go away. Not until he gave in to its need for him to acknowledge its presence.
He rolled over and looked at Aoife. She smiled, but there was no joy behind it. He didn’t need her empathic abilities to feel the sadness in her hazel eyes.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I know you tried,” she said squeezing his shoulder, “but you weren’t good enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t blame you. You’re not worthless or anything, but it just wasn’t enough.”
“What wasn’t enough?” He struggled to stand, but her hand held him down. “I tried to stop you from going through the gateway. I did!”
“Not that,” she said quietly.
“Then what?”
She shrugged her shoulder and waved her free hand. Gaige rolled toward the direction she indicated. He gasped as he saw a great expanse below them. They were on a rocky outcropping that jutted out, overlooking a plateau that stretched nearly to the horizon. It was covered in moving creatures that looked like ants from that distance. Flashes of purple bloomed here and there among them. Faint sounds of ringing metal and pained cries floated up to them.
“Are they fighting?” Gaige breathed. “Is that a battle?
“The demons are winning,” she answered.
“What demons?”
“The ones inside you.”
The pressure on his shoulder tried to turn him away from the scene below, but he resisted. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the battlefield. He could make out creatures falling to the ground. It was hard to tell from the distance, but they looked human, though there were several different sizes. Some large. Some small.
“Are those Balataurs?” he asked.
The pressure increased.
“And humans. And…I don’t know. What’s going on?”
“You failed.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with this,” he complained.
“You let the demons in you win,” Aoife said.
Gaige shook his head. “I don’t—”
A noise from behind cut him off. His stomach fell and he rolled. Aoife was gone. Instead, a large metal-plated dragon stood over him. Steam hissed from its nostrils and a red glow grew inside it.
*
I woke with a start, gripping the armrests so tight my fingers hurt.
Jae still talked, seemingly unaware I wasn’t listening. Seanna wasn’t either. She leaned forward to look around her betrothed at me.
I turned away and watched the clouds pass under the plane’s wing.
*
Seanna managed to not throw up the whole plane ride, though it was touch and go when we hit some pretty nasty turbulence somewhere over the Atlantic. We landed sometime in the dead of night—I was too tired to even check the time—and I sweated through British customs. The official gave my passport a much more thorough look over before waving me through.
A cab sat outside the Heathrow terminal with a driver who looked about ready to fall asleep. He leaned his head back against the head rest with his mouth hanging slightly open.
“Maybe we should find another one,” I suggested.
“He’s right here. We must hurry,” Seanna said.
The cabby jerked and looked over to see us staring at him. He scrambled out of the little car and said something I didn’t catch, waving a hand toward the back of the car. He took our stuff—we didn’t have much, just three backpacks—and had them in the trunk before we could protest.
With nothing else to do but get in, we squeezed in back. I tried to sit with Jae separating Seanna and I again, but he insisted on a window seat. I pushed as far as I could into the other side, but there wasn’t anywhere I could go in the tiny vehicle. We were making our way out of the airport before I knew what was happening.
“Why did he want to put our stuff in his shoes?” Jae asked.
“Huh?” I said.
“He said something about putting our stuff in the boot.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I muttered.
“Where you going?” the driver asked as he cut in front of another car. His thick British accent made him nearly unintelligible. At least to my thick American ears.
Seanna leaned over the seat and showed him a piece of paper. The man held the paper at different angles until he caught it in a light.
“Could you watch the road?” I said as the car drifted a little.
&nbs
p; “Wales?” he cried out. “That’s four hours, girl.”
“We will pay extra.” Seanna leaned forward again and handed the man something else.
He looked at it. “Make it two.”
Seanna handed him another piece of paper.
“Wales it is!” he exclaimed and forced his way into thicker traffic.
“We’re going to Wales?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Seanna said. “I can’t pronounce the city’s name.”
She reached forward and grabbed the original piece of paper. She handed it to me.
I angled it to catch a passing light. I blinked and looked again as another light went past the window. “This can’t be a real name.”
“Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?” The cabby said. “Oh, it is a real place.”
“Did somebody fall asleep on the keyboard when they were naming it?”
He laughed and accelerated. “Might as well catch yourselves a little kip. We’re going to be awhile.”
“Who’s Little Kip?” Jae asked.
*
I had never been out of Colorado, much less out of the country. I would have loved to see more of England, but there wasn’t much in the way of light once we left London. The English countryside was just a dark blur outside my window.
“You have to talk to me some time.”
I turned to Seanna, but my eyes slid past her to Jae asleep with his head bouncing against the window. I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eyes. That was a hard thing to do with somebody I’d made up my mind that I would kill if she betrayed me again.
“I’m not tricking you this time, Gaige,” she said as if she had read my mind. “We really do need you.”
“I told you I don’t care about you or your world.” I kept my voice low and even. “I’m going to try to find Aoife. That’s it. No other reason. Either you help me or not, but this time I’m using you. You’re getting me there—something I couldn’t do because I’m under-aged.”
“At least you’re going,” she said.
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
“You’ll change your mind when you see what’s going on.”
I turned away without a reply.
The Gatekeeper Trilogy Page 60