by Amie Gibbons
Nothing.
“Raise a petal if you can understand me.”
Still nothing.
“Okay. The last one understood me,” I said to Tyler.
“Maybe that one had been around for a while and educated or something.”
“And these ones are babies.” I nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. That means…” I couldn’t say it. It was too much, too unreal.
“It means this isn’t the first one of these portals to pop open,” Tyler said, tucking her gun away.
“Yep.” I raised my voice even though they gave no indication of sentience or understanding. “We’re going to go call Apollo and we’ll be right back. We won’t leave you alone, okay?”
“What if something else comes through that?” Tyler nodded at the wormhole.
“That’s why we’re going to hurry.”
“Yes, I agree. This is quite worrisome.”
Tyler and I whirled. Ravena stood not ten feet away next to one of the white, square things that had a bunch of ducts coming out of it like a potted plant.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Are you stalking me or something!” I shrieked.
The two plants closest to us snapped straight, turning their blank flower faces to Ravena. They raised petals with what looked like itty bitty versions of the quills the bigger one was throwing on Friday lining the underside of the petals. Almost like the veins running through plants were somehow solidified and ejected.
Maybe they were.
“Cassandra, I think they’re reacting to your tone,” Tyler said. “It’s like they want to protect you.”
I looked from my little army of flower friends to the portal that birthed them and was still swishing in the background.
“This day can not get weirder.”
“Never say that. It can always get weirder.”
She didn’t have her gun out. I would’ve, but Tyler didn’t want people to know she was ready and willing to kill them until it was too late.
“May I interrupt?” Ravena said, smiling wide and charming at Tyler. “I do not believe we have met. I’m Ravena. And you are?”
Tyler pursed her lips and looked him up and down.
“Hmmmmm.” She shrugged. “Tyler Carmichael. Indian demon, right?”
He gave a nod. “And you I predict are an Irish fairy of some sort. The power around you tastes wild and green and it’s only surpassed by your beauty.”
“Oh,” Tyler said with a pout that probably drove men up the wall, “I’d say come over here and say that, but I smell your stench from here. I know a liar when I smell one.”
Ravena’s smile fell. “I see she has already been taken by the Greeks and their ilk as well,” he said to me.
Tyler’s face stayed smirking.
I walked over to the nearest duct, where the closest flower still had its petal up and pointing at Ravena like I had been with my gun yesterday. It turned its little face up at me, almost seeming to glow. I reached out, trusting Tyler would keep an eye on our unwanted guest, and touched its top petal softly, just in case it would bruise.
It wrapped its petal around my finger and pulled it down to snuggle its fluffy brown face against it.
“Ummmm, any explanation? Any at all?” I don’t even know who I was asking. Maybe the flowers? The softness tickled my finger and I grinned.
“I believe they have imprinted on you,” Ravena said.
“So you know what these are?” I asked.
“No. Wherever that portal comes from, it has nothing to do with my land or our myths. I think you should speak to the Greeks about this. Portals do not appear out of thin air.”
I pointed to the whirl of purple with my free hand. “That one did.”
“Everything comes from somewhere. Everything requires energy.”
“What do you want?” I kept my voice even so as not to upset my new friend as I freed my finger and tickled him under his petals.
“Why do you keep coming after me?” I asked when he didn’t answer. “What changed between when you were scowling at me on Friday and when you popped into the hospital Sunday? What is so freaking special about me?”
And if I’m so freaking special, why isn’t Apollo keeping a closer eye on me and riding to the rescue?
Ravena held up his hands as though fending off the question assault. “My people and I are speaking to every being of our power level. Every lower god, demon, fairy, psychic, human with powers. Every single one. To try to convince you all of what we already know because we lived through it the last time. The major gods will subjugate us. Not just us, but the humans you are so worried about. They want humans alive to worship them, that is all. I want you on our side. Both of you.”
“I’m not following most of this,” Tyler said to me, coolly turning a shoulder to Ravena like a cat blowing off someone trying to pet her. “But he’s full of shit.”
“I assure you-” Ravena started.
“Don’t lie to me.” She gave him a mere flick of a glance before turning her back fully on him.
“You getting anything else off him?” I asked.
“No.” She did turn and look at him then. “What do you want? Really? What’s the end game here?”
He glared, sizing her up. “To survive.”
“You’d survive by going along with the plan at the alignment,” I said. “You want more or you wouldn’t be risking this. Why are you here? What do you want?”
He looked down, tucking his hands behind his back. Strangely vulnerable.
“Security,” he said after a beat. “That’s all I want. To be safe. To live my life without those more powerful than I using that power against me.”
“That’s all you want?” I asked.
“It’s all anyone wants, isn’t it? I think if people are honest with themselves, they’d say when it came down to it in life, they worked and fought to be safe.”
I shook my head. “Really? Because I’d say when it comes down to what we want and fight for and even die for, it’s love.”
I stared him in the eye, urging my mind to fall into it again, to see inside his soul.
Didn’t happen.
He was telling the truth about wanting to keep his powers, and that he was trying to convert others, but there was… something.
I took my finger away from the little flower. It made a gesture like it was trying to grab my finger again but I was too far away.
“Oh, I’m sorry, little guy.”
Ravena smirked, lights flashing around his heart. Just a blink, but it was enough.
I stared harder, gritting my teeth, hands balling into fists. “You’re lying.”
He frowned, meeting me glare for glare.
I stepped forward. “I get why you’re doing this, Ravena. I really do. You want the gods to be knocked down to your level. I don’t like what the gods do to people sometimes, and they may turn on me later, but you would turn on me as soon as it suited you. I’ll stick with the devil I know, thanks.”
“You’re a fool, Cassandra. A naïve, simple, young fool if you think they won’t use their power to crush you.” Ravena switched his gaze to Tyler.
“There, we agree,” she said, propping a hand on her hip. “But I’ll take fighting them with my friend after we kick your ass because I know I don’t agree with you. Those who would give up freedom for security deserve neither.” She pointed a manicured nail at him and he shook his head.
“Spoken like Americans. You didn't grow up in a hierarchy. You do not know what it is to know you will never be more than you are, to never have the opportunity to become more.”
“That’s a good thing,” I said.
“It’s a lie,” he snapped. “You are less; you simply do not acknowledge it. That will not stop you from being squashed like the bugs they think you are by the time this battle is through.
“Join me, my resistance. You want freedom, security, love, whatever else, you will not get it except by their leave once the alignment is past. Let us
weaken them, bring them down to our level without losing anything ourselves. You know it’s not right for anyone to have that much power. It isn’t safe for anyone with less.”
“Oh please,” Tyler snorted. “You may as well have said all animals are equal, some are just more equal than others.”
She kept her eyes on him but said to me, “Can I kill him now?”
“You talk a pretty game, Ravena,” I said instead of answering. “But I’m still going back to what you keep implying, that there is a hierarchy and it can’t be changed without taking things away from those with more, conveniently leaving you on top. You want the more powerful gods knocked down to your level, but whenever humans come up, you think they’re less than you.
“You told me on Friday I chose poorly and you dismissed me. And then you came back, offering me a choice. So something happened since then to make you think I was on your level and there was still room to change my mind. So I’m going to make this very clear. On the side of defectors vs. gods, I choose humanity.”
Ravena curled his lip, looking as disgusted with me as he did Friday, the real demon showing through. He raised his hands and I could feel the air shift towards him.
“You made your choice; you won’t live with it.”
I focused on him, on the red energy swirling around his hands, condensing into something tangible. I took that energy, breathed in its smoky goodness, tasted it like scotch on the back of my tongue, and plucked it out of his hands.
“I will,” I said as his eyes grew wide and I pulled the ball away. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about magic, it’s that it’s all energy, and emotion and belief shape it. And I believe it’s time for you to get the hell out of my city.”
I pictured the energy taking him, sweeping him away like a tide.
And dropped it on him.
He disappeared.
I hit the floor.
I may have passed out for a moment, but Tyler pulled me back up under my arms, surprisingly strong for someone that looked like a Victoria’s Secret model. She pointed and I followed her finger to the wormhole.
It didn’t make any noise this time but it pulsated, like it was humping this world.
Grrrrrr, came from it and my stomach fluttered.
It wasn’t the same noise as before. It was from something inside the hole… something that didn’t have a foothold in this world.
Yet.
“Tyler, we should go,” I said, grabbing her arm, trying to stay on my feet as a wave of dizzies hit me. Couldn’t afford to pass out now, no matter how comfy the concrete floor looked.
She answered by raising her gun and stepping forward. When had she pulled it back out?
“Tyler!”
“Just wait. The flowers aren’t hurting anything. Maybe that one won’t. Or, it will hurt someone when we could’ve stopped it.”
“Appealing to my sense of duty. Not fair. You have an extra gun?” I faced the hole again as she shook her head.
“Sorry.”
“Then you better be able to handle whatever comes through that because I’m pretty sure my magic’s tapped. Why hasn’t anyone shown up? Like the police or the witches at the hotline or the gods?”
Or Apollo.
“You’d think they’d have some sort of alert for these things,” Tyler said.
“Yeah.”
The portal bubbled out, something obviously formed in the bubble before it sucked back in. It pounded out again, bigger, and again and again, growing so much each time I thought it’d pop.
Then it did.
Without sound, it popped open and a black panther dropped out of it, landing on his feet and looking around with little hops following his neck movements.
“Holy shit,” Tyler breathed, arms wavering. She stepped towards it.
“No!” I grabbed her arm again but it was too late. The panther spotted us.
It regarded us for a moment with a look that was almost human.
“Screeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
I almost wet myself and every hair on my body stood straight up with the panthers’ scream.
I stumbled back, limbs shaking with the urge to run. That primal voice inside said this was a dangerous predator that ate humans when we were just another weak primate and not the dominant species on the planet.
Maybe that’s where the portal was from, the past.
Tyler shook me off and went for the panther. No, she was going off to the side of him, straight for the portal.
“Tyler! No!”
“I have to see!” she yelled, making me freeze.
I’d never heard her yell.
The panther looked at her like he was surprised, too. She cleared the edge of the hole, moving for the portal on the other side with bee-like purpose.
“See what? Come back.”
She glanced back at me with wide eyes. “You don’t understand.”
I think someone else is driving the crazy bus right now. “That the portal’s talking to you? Yeah, I get it. Now get away before it sucks you in.”
“I can’t not try.”
“Try what?”
She reached out a hand like she was going to touch it and the panther screamed again, backing up and taking a running leap over the giant hole, trying to tackle Tyler before she could get any closer to the swirling purple. Or maybe he wanted to go back through, too.
Tyler started, pulling back for a second. The panther didn’t quite make it, landing on the edge of the hole and struggling to dig his claws into something to hang on. He scrambled for a few seconds and went down with a kitty yowl.
The portal wisped away, like a cheap funhouse smoke effect.
Tyler crumbled, dry-clean only wool suit clad knees hitting the dirty concrete. I swear I heard her whisper, “No.”
I stared at her. She’ll get up, she’ll be fine. Shake it off, say that was weird, but not be damaged. She has to be okay.
Because if I was right, that portal just invaded her mind. And knowing Tyler, she wasn’t the type of person to tolerate that kind of invasion well.
I waited. Maybe she just needed a second to come out of it.
“Yerowwwwwwww,” echoed up the fallen slab of concrete and Tyler jumped to her feet.
She looked at me over the hole, eyes solid and hard and all her. She kicked off her heels, nodded once and jumped through the hole.
“Tyler!” I darted for the edge of the hole. It was at least a twenty foot drop but Tyler was standing at the bottom in bare feet, staring down something towards the front of the courtroom over the top of her gun.
She made a face a second later and ran out of sight.
Meaning the panther had just run off, probably to find a way out, which would mean running into lots of unsuspecting people on the street.
I ran for the stairway.
When I got down a floor, I tried the push door but it wouldn’t open. There was a card reader next to it so apparently I’d need a card to get in.
Shit!
I could either stand here waiting for someone to let me in or go down and outside and go from there.
I picked the one that’d keep me moving because standing around gave me way too much time to dwell.
I hit the lower level. The door opened on the first push and I emerged into the bright, cool blue day in the back of the courthouse and quick walked around the building.
There were a bunch of people from the courthouse gathered out front behind a roll of police tape.
“Ma’am.” A guy in a cheap suit with an authoritative voice stepped in front of me. “I’m sorry, no one can go in.”
“I’m not, Detective. I just came out. I’m a Prosecutor. My friend’s st…”
“Cassandra!”
I whirled just in time for Ashmore to wrap me in a hug.
“Oh! Okay.” I hugged him back.
“I heard some of it.” He pulled back “What happened in there?”
“That’s what I was trying to say.” I turned back to the detective.
“My friend’s in there with a panther.”
“A panther.” He could’ve given Joey Bishop a run for his deadpan money.
“Magic is running amok in the world, you’re talking to two psychics, there’s a bill being pushed in the House to register magic users. We’re mainstream! Don’t look at me like you’re hearing a panther came out of a wormhole pre-Awakening. Just believe me.”
“Wormhole?” he said in the same tone.
“Screeeeeeeeeeee,” ripped through the morning.
I pointed to the front doors as something big and black body-checked them into swinging open.
“Panther,” I said as the big cat fell out between two of the doors.
The panther swung his head back and forth, taking in the world and the crowd watching him with quick cat motions. He leaped down the stairs, running towards the river and away from the mass of loud, swarming humanity.
I ran by the shocked detective, under the police tape and up the stairs. Somebody called after me but I cut him off with a pull on the door and ran in.
“Tyler!”
“Polo!” answered a moment later.
Tyler rounded the corner just past the metal detector and slumped against me.
“I can barely hold myself up.” I slung an arm around her waist and moved us towards the door though, tears burning behind my eyes. “I thought he ate you.”
She paused. “I’m too wiped to think of something dirty to say, but it’s there. I’ll email you.”
“You do that.” I pushed open the door and we hobbled out. “Why are you so tired?”
I let go and she plopped down on the top step. I sat next to her, pretending there weren’t throngs of uniformed and badged people coming up the stairs for us.
“I think that portal took some of my energy.” She shook her head.
“Are you okay? It looked like it took you over or something.”
“Not exactly, it was more like an urge. Like there was a new line of Stuart Weitzman shoes coming out.”
“So we don’t need to check you into therapy or anything?” I smiled and she did back.
“Well, I didn’t say that. I’m pretty sure you’d check me into a nuthouse in a Nashville minute, but that goes way back.”