by P. R. Frost
Just my imagination working overtime.
Yeah. Right.
While I was up and about, I might as well use the facilities.
“We’ll be preparing to land soon, ma’am,” an attendant in her prim gray jumper and white blouse, informed me. “The captain will ask you to resume your seat within minutes.”
Sure enough, the floor had begun a gradual downward tilt.
“I won’t be long,” I reassured her.
The miniscule cubicle—barely enough room for me to turn around in—gave me just enough privacy to ask for other-dimensional help. Blue room smells dominated here, almost pleasant after the staleness of coach.
“Scrap?” I whispered into the ether. “You anywhere close, buddy?”
What? he answered querulously.
“Well excuse me for interrupting your sojourn in the freeze-dried garbage dump of the universe.” Scrap said he’d visit his mum while I flew south. He didn’t like airplanes much.
A few mumbled grumbles passed through my mind. What’s up, babe? he finally asked in an overly bright tone, like he was hiding something.
“Have I acquired a stalker?”
Not that I can tell from here. I’ll let you know when you hit Vegas.
“And if that is too late?” This time I sent the mumbled grumbles his way. Mine were more specific and less polite.
No stalker worth his salt will cause an incident on a plane. No way to escape.
“And if it’s a demon? Some demons can open the door and fly to safety.” A Damiri demon, like Darren Estevez, took a bat form naturally.
I was pretty sure that Donovan Estevez, his foster son, could do the same, though I’d been told by semireliable sources he was now fully human. I didn’t want to risk pushing him too hard, too far, too fast to force him into his natural form.
If you’d picked up a demon stalker I’d know, dahling. Trust me, the only danger you are in is from the fashion police. Faded jeans and stained golf shirts are for gardening, not flying to Las Vegas. And couldn’t you do something else with your hair than cut it as short as a boy’s? You look like a poodle.
Visions of short, fat, cranky dogs that yapped continuously flashed across my mind. I might have lost weight as part of the ritual that gave me Scrap—ten days of one-hundred-three-plus fever will do that to a body. But in my heart, I was always short, fat, and cranky.
“I thought you liked boys?” I needed to change the subject.
Boys, dahling, not girls looking like boys. I could almost smell the smoke from his favored black cherry cheroot.
I snorted as I washed my hands and checked my image in the wavery metal mirror. The mass of dirty-blonde kinky curls had brightened a bit over the last year thanks to a magical comb Scrap had given me. But the curls hadn’t relaxed and I was tired of the tangles, so now I sported a bob that would have been cute if it didn’t tend to stick out like an uneven afro.
Still feeling like a pair of eyes tracked my every move, I meandered back toward my seat, just in front of the wing.
A slender young man of no particular note in dress or form twitched as I passed. He looked pasty. His equally young companion, wearing an unremarkable suit, dozed in the center seat. At least I presumed they were together. Mr. Twitchy had both hands on the other man’s arm.
An acrid scent whispered across my senses. Fear.
“Sit down, lady,” Mr. Twitchy hissed at me.
“What?” I hadn’t touched him, hadn’t done anything to attract his attention other than walk past him.
“I said sit down! We’re going to crash. I know it. I just know it.” The smell of fear on stale sweat nearly overwhelmed me.
Chapter 2
The building of Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) in 1931 and the creation of Lake Mead behind it changed the economy of Las Vegas from an agricultural railroad town to a tourist destination.
MY HEART LEAPED to my throat. My balance tilted again. I had to grab the back of my seat to remain upright. again. I had to grab the back of my seat to remain
“Tsk,” an older woman behind me clucked. “Flying is safer than walking across a street.” Her hours-too-old perfume told a different story. Mr. Twitchy’s fear began to infect her.
You might want to listen to the guy, Scrap said.
I didn’t like his tone. Anxious. No sarcasm. No drawled “dahling,” or affectionate “babe.”
“Everybody sit down!” Mr. Twitchy moaned. “Please sit down before we crash.”
I plopped back in my seat and fastened my seat belt. Then I made sure the laptop was secure under my feet and the flash drive clipped to a lanyard about my neck and safely tucked into my shirt pocket. I’d e-mailed the work in progress to myself from O’Hare. If both the computer and the flash drive trashed, I’d only lose about an hour’s work.
I’m obsessive about backups. Or hadn’t you noticed?
Of course, if the plane crashed hard enough to trash both the laptop and the flash drive, I’d be dead and wouldn’t have to worry. The novel and its sequel became the problem of my agent, my editor, and my literary executor, all good friends of mine.
The plane bounced and plunged. I felt like I’d left my stomach a hundred feet above me.
Mom clutched my arm so tightly I knew she’d leave bruises. I don’t bruise easily.
Yelps and gasps all around us. Mr. Twitchy moaned, “I knew it. I knew it. We’re all going to die.”
The canned air permeated with staleness became claustrophobic. More than one person tugged at a collar or neckline, seeking more air.
A steward emerged from behind the curtain separating us mere coach passengers from first class. He blanched as the plane banked right and then sharply left. He grabbed the curtain with both hands, nearly ripping it from its cable support.
Sweat poured off Mr. Twitchy’s brow. He rocked forward and back, enduring his own private agony.
That’s when I got scared. The guy had to be a sensitive. He knew things, bad things before they happened.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a reassuring male voice came over the intercom. “We are experiencing a bit of turbulence. The captain has turned on the seat belt sign. Please return to your seats immediately. We ask that you put away all carry-on items and secure your trays. Return your seats to an upright position.”
All of the flight attendants disappeared to their own seats.
“In other words, prepare for a crash,” I muttered. This was much more than the slight sideways jiggles we’d had off and on all the way south from Chicago.
The incandescent blue of Saint Elmo’s fire shot around the wing tip.
“A bit of turbulence? I’d say that was an understatement.” Mom sounded like her old self. Then the flash of fire in her eyes faded and she resumed staring out the window.
I followed her gaze. Weird, red-rock formations flowed and twisted out of a gray-brown background below us. Splotches of black drizzled over the top. Like looking at the bottom of a seabed without the sea. The shadows promised mysteries. I’d hate to get lost in that trackless and waterless wilderness.
“The Valley of Fire,” the man sitting behind me whispered. “It’s awesome.”
The plane lurched again. We lost more altitude. The gasps and cries of alarm grew louder. A small child wailed in distress.
We passed the Valley of Fire and approached volcanic formations. This landscape was born of fire and tumult; just as trackless and without water.
“Las Vegas has put us into a holding pattern. We’re experiencing some severe crosswinds at this altitude. So please, ladies and gentlemen, sit back and relax. We’ll keep you updated.”
“Scrap, I could use some help here.”
“Who are you talking to?” Mom whispered back at me.
“Myself.”
“Fine time to start talking to yourself.”
What’s ya need, babe?
“A little information.”
On my way, but I’ve got to fight my way through some pretty ugly energy in
the chat room first.
Scrap always had to fight his way into or out of the chat room—that’s the big white place with no sense of size or shape that exists between dimensions, giving access to all other dimensions. Some called it limbo.
I called it purgatory.
“Are these crosswinds normal?” I whispered, hoping Mom wouldn’t hear me and get any bright ideas about ghosts or demons. Another encounter might tip her over the edge of sanity.
The plane banked again, smoothly. The jumping about ceased.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
“Las Vegas informs us that we will be circling for about another fifteen minutes. We’ve climbed above the severe crosswinds,” the copilot said, almost cheerily.
“They’re coming back,” Mr. Twitchy shouted. “We can’t escape them. Not now, not ever! They’re coming to get me. You all are just collateral damage.”
Excited murmurs all around us.
I peered around Mom out the window. Plain old desert undulated beneath us like the bottom of a seabed. But the weird red-rock formations northeast of the city were coming into view again.
The plane took a nose dive. Bounced. Tilted. Climbed. Rocked. Dove. The wing tips moved a fraction of a second after each jolt.
Worse than a roller coaster.
Screams. Wailing cries. A miasma of unpleasant scents. Mom looked like she’d lose her lunch.
Mine wasn’t sitting too well either.
Mr. Twitchy jumped up and ran toward the front. “We’ve got to get out of here. We’re all going to die!”
I stuck out my leg.
He fell face first. Lay there pounding the deck.
More people got up. Some paced the aisle in agitation.
A steward tried desperately to push them back into their seats. The more he tried, the more people tried getting into the aisle.
Screams deafened me.
“Tess, you have to do something.” Mom turned wild eyes on me. Her grip tightened on my arm.
“What can I do about crosswinds?” I returned.
“Are they truly crosswinds born of this Earth?” Her eyes took on an unearthly red glow. Demon thrall. Something other than my mother spoke with her voice.
I shuddered and leaned as far away from her as I could.
Are they otherworldly, Scrap? If so, there might be a rogue portal that bypassed the chat room hidden in the red-and-black shadows. I really hoped Scrap would catch my telepathic message. He didn’t always. Our bond is not perfect. I couldn’t risk Mom or anyone else hearing me talk to an imp that was transparent in this dimension except when he transformed into my choice of weapon.
I don’t know! he wailed. They’re winds, but the source? I can’t find the source.
Where are they strongest?
Silence.
Another steward appeared from the rear and tried desperately to get people to sit down.
Mr. Twitchy pulled himself up, eyes wild. I saw the same panic reflected in the faces and cries of all those around us.
I unfastened my seat belt and pried Mom’s hand off my arm. Then I rose and hauled Mr. Twitchy to his feet from the deck. “Sit down and shut up. You are only making things worse.”
“They’re coming for me. Evil spirits use the winds to find their victims. We’re all going to die!”
I edge my way toward the Earth portal in the chat room. New guardian demons have sprung up since I looked into the gargoyle nursery. Can’t let these guys know where I’m really headed. A weird-looking demon I’ve never seen before tracks my every movement. He’s all full of red scales and flits like a faery. He smacks me with the force of a fully loaded semi going seventy in a fifty-five speed zone. A little morphing and removal of the hard edges, this could be a faery on steroids dressed in unnatural neon colors of clashing orange and pink over the red scales and black hair, lips, and nails.
He smells of rancid tobacco and burning sewage.
This is not good.
From infancy, imps are schooled in many types of demons and their weak points. We have to know so that we can help our Warrior companions fight these guys.
If new demons are cropping up, then there’s trouble brewing. The balance of the universe is going cattywhumpus.
What else is new?
The not-faery demon raises his hand for another blow. I duck underneath and scoot toward the wooden door with heavy iron crossbars. Iron doesn’t bother me, but it should hold back a faery—even a not-faery-for long enough for me to open the door and duck back into reality.
Curses and taboos. The door sticks.
No, it’s not stuck; the not-faery is holding it shut with his big hand resting on the iron. I smell flesh burning from the contact. My opponent doesn’t care. A real faery would have flitted home whimpering and affronted by now.
I gulp.
My road back to Tess is rarely easy.
I still my inadequate wings for half a heartbeat. An endless time in the chat room where time is just another dimension. No way to know if the gargoyles I saw are in training now or a thousand years ago.
Then, with a mighty swoop, I push myself straight up and butt my knobby head right into the family jewels.
Mr. Stoic-pain-means-nothing jumps and howls and screams like a banshee deprived of robbing a soul and backs off.
I grab the door and am outta here.
Gray-brown desert with splashes of khaki plants is a welcome relief from the bare whiteness of the chat room that goes on and on and on without definition. Khaki is so not my color, but it’s an improvement over white.
I look around, trying to orient myself. Shivers run up and down my spine so hard they almost shake loose the beautiful warts on my bum. I worked hard to earn those warts in battle; I won’t lose them now to the creepy crawlies. No sirree.
I’m in the wrong place. I should have popped out on Tess’ shoulder. She’s near. But not close enough.
A plane cruises by thousands of feet above me. That’s where Tess is. And she needs me. I sense the plane is in trouble. If it doesn’t get out of the holding pattern that loops it through this space soon, the pilot will lose control and crash. The magnetic forces of this place are screwing up his instruments. The winds spiral up and assault the plane from every direction. The pilot can’t steer clear or outrun them.
He’s as lost as I am.
More shivers and portents of doom.
I’m surrounded by weird rock formations. Lots and lots of red, both broken and flowing. Something draws me here. Something that feels like death and liberation at the same time.
A mural of writhing petroglyphs dances across a rock face above me. I can’t read the exact symbols of homed figures and broken lines, but I sense a human running, endlessly running in circles away from evil, only to confront it again at the next turn.
This area is a maze of dead ends, and caves, and winding canyons that lead right back to the starting point. Or off into another dimension.
My senses reel. I can barely tell up from down, north from south, good from evil.
Dust, drier than a mummy, clogs my nose.
I try to pop out of the here and now, through the chat room to go back to Tess. The magnet of this place keeps pulling me in.
This is too creepy even for me.
Not a gargoyle in sight to repel me.
Chapter 3
The oldest rocks in the Valley of Fire are only six hundred million years old, compared to four billion years for the oldest rocks on Earth.
“NO ONE’S GOING TO die. Not on my watch.” I shoved and twisted Mr. Twitchy into the nearest seat. Then I clamped his seat belt closed.
He immediately reached for it as if it cut off his breathing.
“Stay there,” I said in my teacher voice, the one no teen dared brook.
His emotions continued to infect the rest of the passengers. No one, it seemed, except Mom, was willing to remain seated.
The plane tilted again. And again.
Screams.
I l
onged for a strong dose of Mom’s lavender sachets to counter the hideous air.
A good belt of single malt scotch wouldn’t hurt either. I preferred Lagavulin, but I’d settle for Sheep Dip.
A man ran forward from the extreme rear, clawing his way past the rest. Three stewards couldn’t hang on to him. His eyes wouldn’t focus. “I’ve got to get to the captain. I’ve got to make him land. Right now.”
A steward tried to follow him. Too many people blocked his way.
I couldn’t let him get past me.
He outweighed me by a good one hundred pounds and stood nearly a foot taller than me. He looked like a fullback with the ball under his arm and the goalposts within easy reach. I didn’t have a weapon. I didn’t have enough mass to stop him. Especially since the plane nosed down again, giving him momentum and challenging my balance.
Some god or goddess must have been looking over my shoulder that day. Not that I believe in such things. A little kid, wailing like a banshee, trying to get away from her mom’s too tight hug, raced forward, between and beneath the maze of legs. She got ahead of Mr. Fullback.
I grabbed her up and held her so she could see my face.
“Mairzy doates and dosy doates and liddle lamzy divey,” I sang in my brightest voice.
As if I’d conjured it, I caught a whiff of freshly laundered sheets, dried in a warm spring wind, and folded away with sprigs of lavender. Home, comfort. Safety.
The little girl blinked at me in amazement.
“A kiddley divey too, wooden shoe?” she whispered in the high lisping toddler monotone.
Then we giggled together. I raised my voice and continued the nonsense song.
“Mares eat oats
And does eat oats
And little lambs eat ivy
A kid’ll eat ivy too
Wouldn’t you.”
Mr. Fullback stopped short, grabbing the seats on either side of him. He blinked in confusion. Like he didn’t know where he was or how he got there.
The little girl and I sang the ditty again from the top. Cautiously, I eased back into my seat. Mom belted me in. Then she raised the arm between us and helped me shift the child to the more secure place. She joined us on the third round of song. Her strong contralto balanced my soprano nicely.