by Lizzy Ford
Shanti listened, more because she was terrified of what happened if she fell unconscious around him than because she wanted to take advice from him.
Why him? She asked herself for the millionth time since being banished to the basement and surrounded by corpses. She’d stayed because she innately knew to fear the consequences. The proof of Eddy’s insanity lay around her.
“Any new insight into how you turn into a magic gateway between Hell and Earth?” Eddy asked.
“I told you. I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t think it’s anything I can control.”
“Not even with those rocks of yours?”
She groaned at the tease. She’d lost two of them in the forest during her and Kaylee’s escape from 3G.
“If so, wouldn’t I have accidentally opened a portal by now? I’ve carried the stones my whole life. They were passed down to me by one of the many, many gatekeepers. If it were that easy, a gateway would’ve opened when I went to the right location.” She’d broken down and confirmed the truth about the portals only after he confronted her on the bus and claimed he could see the truth.
It had taken five words, and her greatest secret – and fear – were both realized.
You’re the gateway, aren’t you? His tone had been conversational.
However, it was what she realized next that shattered her attempt to remain tough, untouched by the gruesome circumstances she found herself in. The panic and tears were completely out of her control.
“Kaylee has less of a clue than you do,” Eddy mused. “You’d think there’d be an instruction manual to opening a gateway to Hell. Guess I can Google it.” He laughed.
Shanti frowned. She didn’t put it past someone in the world figuring out how to do it and posting it online.
“You’re hiding something,” Eddy said.
“Not about the portal,” she replied.
“That statement reads as true. But it’s important, whatever it is.” He knelt near her. His warmth and scent reached her. He’d bathed recently and no longer smelled of rain, forest and mud. His nearness left her insides fluttering and her soul whispering happily.
“It’s my business,” she said.
“All right.” He rose and moved away.
“Is Kaylee okay?” Shanti ventured.
“Of course.”
“I thought I heard voices upstairs.”
“We have a new ally.” Eddy returned to rummaging through a box. He grunted as he lifted a heavy one and dropped it on the ground. “Does your secret have anything to do with our soul agreement?”
Shanti’s breath caught in her throat. She sat in stunned silence.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” Eddy continued in his normal conversational tone, as if they weren’t discussing one of the two most important facts in her life. “It won’t happen, though. Not the way it’s supposed to. I have a different purpose here, and so do you. Sorry, sunshine, but we’ll never work out, even if we’re supposed to be soul mates.”
“I wouldn’t want us to,” she breathed.
“Great!”
Shanti shivered. How long had he known? She didn’t notice when they first met, not until they were on the bus together. She definitely hadn’t given the truth away. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than to be the soul mate of a man who slaughtered an entire family and buried them in their own basement!
As a fifth gen, she wouldn’t be capable of committing evil for another few generations, according to what the other angels said.
She hadn’t earned this curse. Was this another lesson in how unfair the human world was? Because she was tired of learning that one!
“Can I go upstairs?” she asked, hating how the energy of the dead inched into her mind, no matter what she thought about. It surrounded her, left her claustrophobic.
“Any games, and I won’t hesitate to do to you what I did to these people. No more beating up on Eddy. We straight?”
“I understand.” And did she ever. He left her in the basement overnight with her wild imagination, the scent of blood, the still energy, and the horrifying truth that he had bludgeoned or stabbed parents and their children to death.
It was a mind game at the ultimate level, leaving her surrounded by death with only her senses to tell her what happened. Eddy knew just what to do to freak someone out and remove any doubt as to what he was capable of.
She was tough, but she was neck deep in someone else’s game. Eddy played on a depraved level Shanti wanted nothing to do with.
“There’s someone who might want to talk to you,” Eddy said. He shifted to her once more and took her arms. He helped her to her feet and released her, but not before she felt the warm electricity marking him as hers drift through her body. “The stairs are ten steps straight ahead of you. Don’t stray, or you might step on someone.”
How could this psychopath be her soul mate?
Shanti didn’t dare stray from the path. She placed one foot in front of the other, terrified of disrespecting the dead who had already suffered enough. Reaching the stairs, she planted one palm against the wall and ascended slowly. When she reached the top, she considered closing the door and locking it.
Like Kaylee, she was afraid to escape when she had the chance. To do so was to invite the vengeance of a man too unstable to predict.
“Hey, there,” a male voice said.
Shanti assessed the energy of the man standing on the other side of the kitchen. He projected the calm, steady aura of a guide. Her brow furrowed. The kitchen itself smelled of food recently heated in the microwave and gun oil.
“It’s a long story,” he said, amused. “I’m Nathan.”
“Nathan. Kaylee’s … friend,” Shanti said.
“Exactly. I don’t know why you were in the basement, and I’m not about to ask,” Nathan said. He crossed to her and rested a hand on her arm. He guided her to the table and pulled out a chair.
Shanti sat. She was on the verge of sobbing again, not out of fear, but out of confusion and exhaustion. She’d been unable to sleep since Eddy put her in the basement. While she understood ghosts weren’t real, being surrounded by corpses wreaked havoc on her thoughts.
“You must be gateway number two,” Nathan said. “What can you tell me about the third?”
Shanti hesitated, uncertain whom to trust. Kaylee trusted this man, but Shanti hadn’t yet figured out whose loyalties were to whom. “Not much,” she replied. “I lost her stone.”
“You lost your stone and Kaylee’s. We found them in the forest.” Nathan corrected her neatly, without Eddy’s lethal edge. “Wanna try again?”
Shanti swallowed hard. She wasn’t going to be able to lie to the spirit guide or assassin. “If there’s a place, I can’t see it. I can only hear it. The last time I checked, it sounded like … wind. Lots of wind through an open area. It smelled like sand. Or dirt. I’m not sure.”
“Too vague,” Nathan said pensively. “Are you okay?” This question was quieter, softer.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m scared.”
“My alliance with Eddy is temporary. I need to be close to Kaylee and the three portals in order to protect you all. But I will get all of you out of this, one way or another.”
Despite his confidence, Shanti wasn’t at all convinced. Even if she escaped, she wouldn’t be free, not with 3G and Eddy’s people hunting her at every turn.
“About the gateways,” Nathan continued. “How do they work?”
“I don’t think we’re supposed to know. Eddy asked me the same question. The only thing I know is that I have to be at the site and Kaylee is probably the only person who can close a gateway once opened.”
“Interesting. I keep wishing she wasn’t involved in any of this.” While she couldn’t place the note in Nathan’s voice, she could read his energy. He was worried to the point of despondent, as if he didn’t think Kaylee was going to survive.
Shanti wasn’t so certain the archangel would, either. No one in
volved was guaranteed a life beyond what happened the next few weeks.
“I’d like to see you and Kaylee interact,” Nathan said.
“Interact?”
“Your energies.”
“Why do you need to know how to open a portal anyway?” Shanti asked uneasily.
“I don’t. But I want to know how to close one or prevent it from being opened in the first place. If I can remove one of the factors, no one will be able to do it. Maybe there’s something in your combined energies that will tell me something. Anything.”
Shanti nodded and swallowed hard. She felt Kaylee’s tense presence when the former archangel entered the kitchen. She wasn’t the only one whose energy was heightened to the point of erupting: Nathan’s calmness took on an edge that left Shanti shifting away.
Any doubt Shanti had about the connection between the two of them vanished.
Kaylee rested her hand on Shanti’s shoulder in a silent greeting. She stood beside her.
Nathan was silent. His energy stilled as he focused on something other than his soul mate.
“I got nothing,” he said at last.
The ensuing silence was thick with unspoken words and heavy emotions. Shanti understood their pain. Though she felt nothing for her own soul mate, beyond bafflement and horror, she could imagine what it was like to have someone she cared about and not be able to be with him.
“We’re leaving in the morning,” Nathan said. “Eddy and I will figure out a place to lay low. 3G is aggressively hunting you both. To my knowledge, they don’t yet understand the link between the gatekeeper and gate, which puts our third gatekeeper in danger. They’ve already tried to murder one of you. Shanti, if you can think of any other details about the third key holder, let me know.”
“I have Amira’s stones,” Kaylee said. “We can work together on it.”
Kaylee’s energy, streaked with black, remained erratic. Shanti was in no rush to remain with either Nathan or Eddy. She stood.
“Let’s figure it out, Kaylee,” she said. “Living room?”
Kaylee rested a hand on her arm without answering. The two of them walked to the living room, where a television played quietly.
Kaylee’s energy changed immediately upon leaving the kitchen. Shanti recognized a touchy issue when she saw it. Rather than ask her friend about Nathan, she sat beside Kaylee on the couch and held the stone belonging to the third portal.
“What did Eddy do to you down there?” Kaylee whispered.
“Scared the hell out of me,” Shanti admitted.
“He’s good at that. You’re okay?”
“Physically. Mentally, I think this whole experience is going to leave me pretty scarred.”
Kaylee laughed. “Me, too.” She fell quiet, concentrating on her stone.
Shanti’s senses picked up nothing more than what she’d found before. She focused on breathing in the scent. It was dirt but not wet, earthy dirt. More like … dust. Dry and smoky.
“Cactus,” Kaylee said. “It’s familiar. Let me check something.”
“Do you smell the dust?”
“I think so. Wherever she is, there doesn’t seem to be anything else around. Like she’s standing in the desert.” There was a quiet moment. “Weird,” Kaylee murmured. “Saguaro cacti, the kind that grows near where my grandparents lived for a few years. Nathan!”
“What is it?” Nathan called.
“Is there any chance the third key holder is in Tucson?”
Shanti released the stone.
“Under my nose?” Nathan grumbled. “Nothing’s impossible. What are you seeing?”
Kaylee explained it.
“Figures,” Nathan said. “It could be anywhere in the Sonoran desert. But …” He drifted off. Shanti heard the rustling of paper. “Pedro gave me this last time I visited him. He marked two addresses in Tucson: one mine, another on the southeast side of town. That crazy bastard gave me her location without telling me.”
“Pedro’s the wisest entity that’s ever existed. He’s not crazy,” Shanti said.
“I’m starting to understand that after three millennia,” Nathan replied. “I’m guessing we’re going on a road trip.”
“Do you want Eddy to know where the portals are?” Kaylee asked, concerned.
“I want to reach them before 3G does. As long as Amira stays away, Eddy can’t do anything. But we need to put this third gatekeeper under protection. It’s a risk we have to take.”
Shanti listened, comprehending the situation while disagreeing, as she suspected Kaylee did. Did Nathan underestimate how dangerous Eddy was? Or was he confident he could handle whatever Eddy had planned?
Nathan left, and Kaylee began to relax once more. Shanti didn’t voice her observation that things had to be awful between them, judging by their energies.
“What if we planned to escape?” she whispered.
“You and me?” Kaylee asked.
“Yes. To Arizona. We can find the third portal before anyone.”
“We can trust Nathan to do his job.”
“But not Eddy,” Shanti pointed out. “If we kept far enough ahead of them, we could reach the portal first.”
“Where is this coming from?” Kaylee questioned. “You didn’t make a run for it when it was just Eddy. Now there are two obstacles. Did he do something to you when you were in the basement?”
“No,” Shanti replied. It was technically true. Eddy’s connection to her had been in place since before either of them was born. “I get tired of being protected and feeling like I can’t make my own decisions.”
“I understand.” Kaylee was quiet, considering. “I honestly don’t think we could stay far enough ahead. They aren’t like normal guides from what little I’ve seen. They can find us when they shouldn’t be able to.”
Disappointed, Shanti wasn’t completely surprised. She was operating out of a sense of panic, wanting to be as far from her psycho soul mate as possible. Kaylee was being rational.
“Okay,” she said reluctantly. “Maybe we should wait until we’re closer to Arizona to plan something.”
“I am tired of not being in control of my life,” Kaylee added. “I don’t know if I have a choice right now. There doesn’t seem to be any benefit to being a reincarnated archangel.”
“Yet,” Shanti responded. “There will be. It’s impossible for you not to be meant to do something truly incredible.”
“I hope so.”
“What does Shadowman say?”
“Nothing at all recently. If I had to guess, he feels weaker. I’m not sure how that’s possible. I’m alive. Shouldn’t he be back to normal as well?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Shanti replied, mind on Kaylee’s occasionally funky energy. “But isn’t it a good thing he’s weak?”
“I want to think so but … something tells me it’s a sign of something really bad. Worse than my new normal.”
Shanti was quiet, uncertain what could be worse than being attached to an archdemon determined to take his form and start the apocalypse. Kaylee’s energy turned dark, her aura black. The air around her grew chilly like a fall breeze.
“Are you talking to him?” Shanti murmured.
“No. Why?” Kaylee had slumped and appeared fatigued.
“Curious.” It wasn’t the first time Shanti had seen Kaylee’s aura change without her reaching out to Shadowman. Why would Kaylee’s energy resemble the cold emptiness of death, if she weren’t communicating with Shadowman? “I’m hoping he has some insight.”
“I can ask him again. He’s been ignoring me lately, unless we’re in danger.”
“Maybe wait until we’re in danger again.”
Shanti managed not to inch away, even though she wanted to. She hadn’t had the nerve to ask Kaylee about her aura. Even if she did, would Kaylee understand the question? Her friend was the closest thing to a civilian involved in the war between good and evil.
Kaylee straightened, and her energy returned to normal. “I’m feeling draine
d. I think I’m going to relax upstairs for a bit.”
Shanti didn’t blame her. Her friend left, and Shanti listened to Nathan and Eddy moving around in the kitchen. Nathan appeared to feel the tension as well. She heard the sound of the back door closing. Eddy’s scent and presence were unusually strong, which she assumed had to do with their connection.
After a moment, Shanti rose, traced her fingertips down the couch so she didn’t run into it, and made her way back to the kitchen.
“Most people don’t come back for a second round after I interrogate them,” Eddy said.
“You know I’m not a threat.”
“I wouldn’t say that. I’ve seen you in action.”
Why him? The question wouldn’t leave her mind. Fed up with her thoughts, Shanti paused in the doorway.
“What happened to Kaylee?” she asked.
“At what point?”
“When you brought her back.”
Eddy shifted in the chair in which he sat. His energy remained neutral; he had somehow learned to suppress it from revealing his emotions and intentions.
“Death clings to her,” Shanti prodded. “It shouldn’t, once the magic used to return her is gone.”
“Maybe it’s Shadowman.”
“It’s not,” Shanti said firmly. “It’s like the spell or curse or favor or whatever you did to bring her back is still in play. She almost seems … dead and suddenly not. Like your spell didn’t work all the way and sticks around to bring her back whenever she dies again.”
“Careful. You don’t want to go down this path,” Eddy advised. “I’m impressed that you can sense this much, but you might want to drop it.”
She was right or close to right. Shanti tilted her head, assessing him, searching for the smallest tell in his aura or energy. He gave away nothing.
Not about to press the psychopath, she turned away, towards the direction Kaylee had gone.
“How many –” she started to ask.
“Four to the carpet. Then twelve down the hall. Turn right and the stairs are there. Top of the stairs, turn right and walk fourteen steps. That’s where Kaylee is hiding out.”
Shanti released a sigh. Eddy knew too much, sensed much more, and generally freaked her out every time they interacted. She reached the fourth step and stretched for the wall. The tip of her toe brushed the carpet of the hallway, while her fingertips trailed along the wall.