by Martha Carr
“Dammit!” Cheyenne flew through the air again by her ankle as the new monster flung her around. Two more hits with her black orbs severed the tentacle around her leg, but another reached out and caught her arm before she hit the ground. Searing heat blazed through her bicep, and she screamed before clamping her other hand down on the tentacle. That hurt just as much, but she clenched her teeth through the pain and held on. “Should’ve started with this!”
The black fire flared across her skin, sending a blazing wave of drow heat through her body before she pushed it out along the in-between creature’s flesh. The thing shrieked as the flames consumed it, and Cheyenne dropped five feet with a thud.
“Cheyenne! Look out!”
She turned just in time to see the centipede’s razor-sharp pincers glinting with some foul substance before the thing was on her.
“Hold on!” Persh’al shouted.
The ground lurched away from her as the centipede’s thousands of legs stabbed into her skin over and over. It tried to scramble across her body, but they were both whisked into nothingness. She couldn’t even hear Persh’al shouting for her as she punched the sharp-tipped legs and kicked away from the writhing monster.
She fell hard against something at her back and cried out. The centipede tumbled away, rolling over and over until it righted itself and turned to face her. This one had the flashing silver lights inside it too, pulsing up and down its long body and illuminating it from inside. This is seriously weird.
The creature lunged at her again, and Cheyenne waited until the last second before falling to her knees and grabbing the underside of the monster’s head with both hands. Tiny barbs pierced her palms, but she ignored them and unleashed another full, devastating blast of her black drow fire. The thing writhed and shrieked, hissing and spitting as the flames shot down its entire body. With a loud pop, the creature burst and lurched away from her, tumbling into a dozen pieces on the unseen ground.
Groaning, Cheyenne pushed herself to her feet and looked around. “Persh’al?”
Only the wind replied, howling through the nothingness of the in-between. Her foot scraped against a large, slanted rock jutting from the black fog, and she frowned. Well, that’s where I landed. And where the hell’s the doorway?
She spun quickly around, searching the thick smog for any sign of Persh’al and the doorway out of this place. “Hey! Where are you?”
Something slithered behind her, and she whirled around again to see nothing but thick, drifting black, smoke. No fucking way did I just get stranded in here.
She stepped forward, looking for the way out, and another stiff wind blew out of nowhere. The black smoke moved aside, and a new doorway appeared not ten feet in front of her. Beside it was another crumbled bit of stone. Cheyenne glanced behind her and took another slow step forward. Doesn’t matter what portal. Get the hell out.
The second she took off toward the new doorway, the in-between filled with earsplitting roars and grating shrieks. A shadow built to the right of the doorway, and Cheyenne darted around it before launching herself through the opening and out onto the other side.
The strobing flash of purple and green lights momentarily blinded her. She stumbled forward through two black pillars of stone jutting from the earth and nearly fell on top of a black tactical bag lying there in the grass. Then her vision adjusted to the darkness, and she found herself staring at the back end of Bianca Summerlin’s house in Henry County, the bright lights over the dining room table shining through the entire back wall of windows.
Holy shit.
Someone shouted in front of her, and figures scrambled in the dark. The flashing light of the Border portal lit up FRoE agents in various stages of surprise as they readied their weapons to attack what they couldn’t see in the middle of the night.
Cheyenne spun toward the house and was about to slip into drow speed before she locked eyes with Rhynehart. He had a fell rifle trained on her, his eyes wide behind the screen of his FRoE-issue helmet. The other agents stationed at the new portal ridge shouted, Cheyenne paused, and a blinking yellow light lit up in the top left corner of her vision: Sleep.
Without thinking, she waved her hand toward Rhynehart and the one blinking word, trying to get all the flashing lights out of her eyes. A bright-yellow spark burst from her hand and pelted Rhynehart. He grew rigid, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he toppled backward like a felled tree.
What the hell was that?
“Hands up, magical!”
Fell weapons powered up with high-pitched whines, glowing with green fell ammunition, and Cheyenne burst into drow speed. She hurtled across her mom’s backyard and only looked back once to see the FRoE agents still training their weapons at the unknown magical they couldn’t see. The bright lights of the newest portal shimmered, illuminating the tip of a glistening black tentacle reaching through from the in-between.
They can handle it. I need to get out of here.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Cheyenne ran at drow speed for ten minutes and stopped at the edge of the Henry County line. Trees groaned and branches snapped in the shockwave of her passing when she finally stopped just off the main road. Chest heaving, she looked around the empty road, the forest around her silent but for the last crickets holding out until autumn’s first cold snap in the middle of the night.
“Shit.” She stomped off the road and into the trees, then pulled out her cell phone and had to wait to turn it on. When it did, the screen lit up not only with her home screen but now with the quickly scrolling lines of data picked up by Elarit’s activator. “What?”
The halfling practically ripped the activator off the sensitive skin behind her ear, hissing at the sharp pinch. Her eyelids fluttered, and she blinked away the pain before sticking the metal coil in her pocket. So many things that aren’t supposed to happen just happened. Somebody better have an explanation.
It was a lot easier to focus on her phone now, and she pulled up Corian’s number before jamming the phone against her ear. He picked up after the first ring.
“Where the hell are you?”
“Henry County.”
“What?”
Cheyenne licked her lips and blew out a long, slow breath, trying to calm down. “I don’t know what happened. I was with Persh’al and everyone else, then the whole place just… Did he make it back? Is he there?”
“He’s here. Cheyenne, are you okay?”
She spun again, searching the darkened trees in the starlight. “Yeah, I’m fine, I think. Just really fucking confused.”
“Listen, pin yourself on a map and text it to me. I’ll come get you.”
“How did it do that, Corian? It just picked me up and—”
“Cheyenne. Hey.”
“Yeah.”
“Your location. Got it?”
“Right.” She hung up on him without a second thought and pulled up her GPS before sending him the link. Thirty seconds later, a dark, shimmering circle opened in the air above the middle of the road. Corian stepped halfway through, searching for her, and Cheyenne jogged out of the trees to meet him.
“Come on.” He reached out for her, guiding her with a hand against her backpack and scanning the road before they both stepped back through.
“Oh, shit.” Persh’al was pacing in the center of the warehouse. He stopped when Cheyenne and Corian stepped through the portal, which closed behind them with a soft pop. “Fuck!”
He raced toward her and grabbed her by the shoulders. Cheyenne winced and pulled away from him, then got a good look at her arms. Her sleeves were shredded to ribbons, the skin beneath slashed and bleeding enough to make Persh’al release her immediately and clap his blood-smeared hands to his bald head.
“I’m fine.” Cheyenne stretched out her arms and grimaced. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Probably.”
“It’s bad, kid.” Corian nodded, and Lumil ran toward them from the other side of the warehouse, pushing a wheeled office chair ahead of her.
<
br /> Shrugging out of her backpack, Cheyenne eyed the chair and the dark bloodstains covering the upholstery.
Lumil slowed down, glanced at the chair, and shrugged. “I disinfected it.”
“Great.” The halfling slumped into the chair and clenched her eyes shut. At least they’re not tying me down for an interrogation like they did with the last guy in this chair.
She shivered, her teeth chattering as a wave of chills washed over her.
Corian stood beside the chair and gently guided her to lean forward. “Take off the shirt, Cheyenne.”
“What?”
“Whatever that was got you everywhere. Take it off.”
Persh’al swallowed and turned away. Gritting her teeth, Cheyenne lifted as much as she could of her shredded shirt over her head, and Corian quickly helped her with the rest of it.
She looked down at her bare chest and stomach, smeared with blood above hundreds of tiny puncture wounds. Her teeth chattered again, and Corian looked her over carefully before pointing at her backpack. “Salve in there?”
“Yeah.”
“Persh’al, get it.”
The troll stepped sideways, trying not to look at the shirtless Cheyenne while reaching for her pack.
Cheyenne rolled her eyes and laughed despite how quickly the rest of her was going numb. “Dude, I’m sure you’ve seen worse than a drow in a bra. Just get the damn jar.”
He glanced at her with a frown, snorted, and moved a lot faster when he wasn’t trying not to look at her. The jar of darktongue salve came out, her backpack thumped to the floor, and then Corian held the large brown glass container and unscrewed the lid.
Cheyenne rocked forward in the office chair, her eyelids fluttering again as another wave of chills washed over her and made her shiver.
“Here.” Byrd appeared out of nowhere with a handful of towels, but Corian brushed him aside.
“We don’t have time. Persh’al, I need extra hands.”
“Mine?”
“Now!”
Persh’al leaped toward them, and the last thing Cheyenne saw were four hands reaching toward her, two of them covered in tawny fur, two of them light blue, covered in globs of the sticky white healing salve. A second later, her arms were pulled gently forward by someone she couldn’t see. Then the darktongue salve did its work.
The flesh on her arms felt like it was on fire, raging all the way up her neck and spreading into her cheeks. Cheyenne screamed and lurched back in the chair.
“Keep going,” Corian muttered.
“Seriously?”
“If she loses any more blood, we’re in trouble. Keep going.”
Cheyenne’s teeth chattered again, despite how hard she clenched her jaw against the agony in her arms. If I don’t bleed out in this warehouse, this damn salve’s gonna kill me anyway.
Corian grabbed her by her blazing shoulders, his tawny brow creasing in concern. “Sorry, kid.”
Even if she’d been able to speak, she wouldn’t have had the time to ask what he was doing. The nightstalker pressed down on her shoulders, and Cheyenne couldn’t help but lean over her lap. Then his hands covered the puncture wounds bleeding freely on her back, and a new wave of searing agony washed over her. The pain pulsed up her spine and neck like her drow magic, bursting into her head.
“Damn.”
Persh’al’s whisper registered somewhere in the back of her mind, but that seemed to be disconnected from her body. I’m screaming. I have to be screaming right now.
The rest of the darktongue salve was quickly applied, but Cheyenne could no longer tell where that was or how much more was needed. She slumped over her lap again, gasping and blinking away tears of pain. Finally, the burning racing across every inch of her skin died as the healing salve finished its job. The in-between monster’s puncture wounds healed from the inside out, and the only proof of their existence were the smears of blood on her arms, chest, and back.
Cheyenne drew a long, shuddering breath and ran her hands through her white hair, then propped her elbows up on her knees and held her head, not quite ready to open her eyes yet.
“There.” Corian nodded and stepped back, studying her. “Good work, Cheyenne.”
She blew out a breath and shook her head.
“You okay, kid?” Persh’al stepped toward her chair, and she looked at him with glazed eyes.
“Sure. As long as I don’t have to do that again.”
Corian’s mouth twitched into a grim smile. “I don’t think we missed anything.”
Lumil returned with a bottle of water and cracked it open before handing it to the halfling, her yellow-orange eyes wide with caution.
“Thanks.” Cheyenne guzzled half the water and ignored the streams of it spilling out of her mouth when her hand started shaking. She wiped off her chin and sat up in the chair. “Now what?”
“Now you get to tell us what happened.” Corian folded his arms and studied her.
“I don’t know what happened.” Cheyenne met Persh’al’s gaze. The blue troll shook his head. Nobody knows.
Corian watched their exchange and cleared his throat. “Start with when you got separated.”
“That’s pretty much it. We got the orcs through the doorway to whatever rez is on the other side.”
“Rez 17.”
“Okay. Then those things attacked Persh’al and me again. And I saw—” Her eyes widened, and she reached into her pocket to pull out the silver coil of Elarit’s activator. “I was still wearing this, and I saw something inside those monsters. It wasn’t like code, just a bunch of flashing lights and symbols. This thing wouldn’t translate them for me, but I think the creature I was fighting knew I had it. That I could see inside its skin.” She looked at Corian and shook her head. “I think it wanted to make sure I couldn’t bring this with me Earthside.”
The nightstalker’s eyes narrowed when his gaze fell on the coil between her fingers. “Where did you get that?”
“From one of your friends hiding under the city.” Cheyenne forced herself not to look at Persh’al, though she could feel him staring at her. If anyone’s gonna talk about Elarit, it should be him. “It was supposed to be a temporary gift, right? ‘Cause this tech doesn’t make it across.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Corian wrinkled his nose and nodded. “Keep going.”
“I mean, that was it. The monsters knew I was wearing this, and the other one ignored Persh’al to attack me instead. That’s how I got all torn up.” Cheyenne gestured to her blood-smeared body and shrugged. “Then we weren’t at the portal doorway anymore. The in-between dropped me somewhere else, I blew that fucking centipede to pieces, and another doorway just appeared out of nowhere.”
“And it took you to the portal on your mother’s property.”
“Yeah.”
Corian rubbed his mouth, frowning at the coil in her hand. “Did anyone see you?”
“I mean, the whole FRoE team saw someone run out of that portal. I’m pretty sure they’re busy fighting off the asshole things that tried to push through after me. Rhynehart saw me.” At the blank looks both Corian and Persh’al shot her, Cheyenne added, “The team leader. He’s the guy I’ve been working with the most, I guess. But I took care of it.”
“You took care of it.” The nightstalker groaned. “Cheyenne—”
“No, I mean, I knocked him out. That’s it. The activator gave me the option, and I took it. He dropped, I got outta there, and then I called you.”
Persh’al’s mouth fell open, and he took two disbelieving steps backward.
“You used the activator?” Corian’s question came out barely louder than a whisper. “On this side?”
“Yeah.” Cheyenne stared into his glowing silver eyes and shrugged. “I know.”
A low chuckle rose from the far end of the warehouse. Corian and Persh’al stepped away from each other and turned, giving Cheyenne a full view of L’zar standing in the open doorway of the square office turned guestroom. They all stared at the
drow, who stared at the activator coil in Cheyenne’s hand. L’zar’s chuckles grew, then he threw his head back and let out a harsh, uncontrolled cackle. He lurched forward, holding himself up with a hand on either side of the doorframe.
“Shit.” Persh’al rubbed his head and shot Cheyenne a quick glance. “L’zar?”
The drow just kept laughing, his glowing golden eyes wide and crazed with some private inside joke.
Cheyenne lifted her chin and glared at him from the office chair covered in her blood. “You think this is funny?”
Her father kept laughing, doubling over with his first step out of the doorway.
“Is he for real?” Cheyenne stared at Corian, but the nightstalker merely scratched behind his twitching tufted ear and averted his gaze. She leaped out of the chair, stumbling forward as it rolled across the floor away from her. “I almost didn’t make it out of there, I just had my body turned inside-out by that salve, and all you can do is laugh?”
L’zar shook his head and leaned back against the doorframe again, wiping tears from his eyes as his laughter died down into bursts of chuckling again.
He’s been standing there since I got here and didn’t even try to help.
“Cut it out.” She glared at him, and the drow pointed at her with another chuckle.
“Cheyenne.” Another sharp laugh burst out of him as he pushed himself away from the doorframe again.
“You know what? Fuck you.” Cheyenne flipped her insane father the bird and snatched her tattered, bloody shirt off the floor. She shoved it in her backpack, pulled out the bulky hoodie, and slung the pack over her bare shoulder. “I’m not gonna sit here so you can laugh at me. I’m done.”
Corian stepped toward her. “Wait a minute.”
“No. That asshole’s insane. He doesn’t give a shit about what happens to me, and I’m not gonna put everything I have on the line for a magical who does that when things get screwed up.” She snarled at Corian and thrust a finger toward L’zar. “He’s gonna get us all killed. Forget it.”