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by M. L. Ryan

  The sound of the gunshots thundered in my head. I lifted myself up and watched in horror as Alex collapsed backwards, blood spilling out from his chest and head.

  “No!” I screamed.

  No, no, no. Not Alex—he has to be okay, I thought frantically. I tried to crawl over to where he was sprawled on the floor, but Angelica grabbed my hair and yanked me upright.

  She shoved me onto the desk. I fell, face-first near the overturned remnants of Otto’s food, and my right hand landed next to the fancy chopsticks. I palmed one just as I heard Angelica say menacingly, “You’re dead, bitch.”

  She flipped me over and pulled me up by the front of my shirt and I used the momentum she created with this maneuver to help propel the chopstick toward her. I wasn’t aiming for any particular place, but she leaned her head in—probably to taunt me again up close and personal before she killed me—which allowed me to ram the pointy end of the chopstick directly into her left eye.

  I expected her to scream. Instead, she stood silent and motionless, her right hand still clutching my shirt. I could only see a few inches of the chopstick protruding from her ruined eye; blood oozed freely from the now mostly empty socket. I felt her grip relax, and then her knees buckled and she slid to the floor.

  I wanted to heave, and probably would have had not Otto picked that moment to fire at me. The sound was deafening and I felt a searing pain in my shoulder, followed by something warm spreading down my arm. Otto pointed the gun at me again, but Sebastian launched himself at Otto’s legs, causing the shot to miss me completely and Otto to tumble backward.

  With Otto now on the floor, Sebastian leapt upon him. He grabbed the gun in Otto’s hand, trying desperately to find the strength to wrestle it free. I could see that Sebastian was tiring, and before I could think of a way to help him, Otto had pushed him away.

  I didn’t want Otto to shoot Sebastian, so while he was still on his back on the floor, I jumped up and landed with both feet on Otto’s wrist, dislodging the gun from his grip. Then I kicked the weapon as far away as I could.

  Eyes filled with rage, Otto stood up and came at me. He grabbed my shoulders, and then screeching like a wounded animal, flung me viciously across the room. I hit the big stone fireplace with such force, I actually heard the sound of bones breaking. Intense, unyielding pain enveloped me.

  I heard a crash, a lot of yelling, and then everything went black.

  ~18~

  I heard birds chirping. Little, high-pitched twitters that sounded like sparrows or finches arguing over seed in a bird feeder. Did Otto have an aviary?

  Wherever I was, it was dark. Maybe I was dreaming? Dead? I concentrated on forcing my lids open. That’s better—there’s some light. I must have just had my eyes closed. I was pretty sure my eyes were now open, but everything was blurry. I blinked a few times and gradually things came into focus.

  I was in a bed. A big bed—king sized, with a fancy antique brass canopy. That was probably a good sign. Hospitals only have twin beds and the closest thing to a canopy is the privacy screens hung from the ceiling. I couldn’t see a clock anywhere, but filtered light came through a large bay window, so it was likely either just after dawn or just before sunset. I tilted my head to the side so I could take in more of my surroundings. The room was spacious and appointed with lots of nice furniture. However, I did have an IV in one arm.

  Shifting my head to the opposite side, I noticed a woman slouched in a large, upholstered chair next to the bed, sleeping. Long, dark hair partially obscured her face, and my vision was still a little fuzzy so I couldn’t identify her, but my movement must have woken her up because she began to stir. She lifted her head and all at once, her features came into focus.

  Angelica.

  She bolted out of the chair and moved quickly toward me; I screamed and tried to get out of bed but my body wasn’t cooperating. Angelica had an odd, pained expression and she held her hands in front of her and kept repeating, “Hailey, it’s not what you think!”

  Really? Because I was thinking that I shoved a chopstick in her eye, so she was probably even more pissed at me than she was before when she just wanted to kill me for no apparent reason. Actually, her eye looked a little odd, but not destroyed, the way I remembered it.

  I was still shrieking when Sebastian ran into the room. Instead of grabbing Angelica and pummeling her, Sebastian said, “Don’t be afraid, it’s all right,” to me and, “Move back!” to Angelica. Angelica complied and sheepishly backed to the far corner of the room.

  Sebastian sat on the edge of my bed and gently held my hand. “I am sorry, my dear. If we had realized you were set to awaken, I would have made sure it was I you saw first.”

  “What the fuck is she doing here?” I shouted frantically. “And where is Alex?”

  Sebastian and Angelica glanced at each other, and then she dropped her head as if embarrassed.

  I felt a warm tingling where Sebastian touched my hand that quickly spread throughout my body. It must have been one of those Courso anti-anxiety specials, because I immediately felt more composed.

  I frowned. “Did you just drug me?”

  “Forgive me, but I have much to tell you and it will be much easier for you if you are less agitated.”

  I was definitely calmer and the added benefit of the magically induced tranquility was that I also was thinking more clearly. All sorts of things were now running through my mind. What if Sebastian had been in with Angelica and had been playing Alex and me the whole time? Or this could be Otto, just making himself look like Sebastian.

  “The Courso can alter their appearance,” I began. “You could be anyone.”

  Sebastian gazed at me intently. “You are employed by a maker of chinchilla-milk cheese.”

  Not common knowledge, but not exactly a secret either.

  “Not good enough,” I said, shaking my head.

  A small smile curved on his lips. “You keep your underwear in the middle drawer of your dresser, arranged by color like the spectrum, with black next to purple and white on the opposite end by red.”

  “True, but someone could have broken into my house and seen that. I’m still not convinced you are Sebastian.”

  He looked at me thoughtfully, then leaned in and said, “Once you realized that I could see what you could see, you never undressed without closing your eyes except for one time, on my birthday, when you let me peek at you in the full-length mirror.”

  He had me there. Much as I tried, I couldn’t think of any way someone other than Sebastian could know that. I never even told Alex that I self-flashed Sebastian as a birthday present.

  “Okay, I believe that you are really you. But you’d better explain everything that happened after I passed out, because I’m still not completely sure I can trust you.”

  Sebastian smiled. “I have not betrayed either you or Alexander, but I am pleased that you are wary given the circumstances. Now, do you want your explanation told chronologically, which I must say I prefer, or in some other format of your own choosing?”

  “For god’s sake, Sebastian!” I took a deep breath before I asked the most important question, the one I needed the answer to most. “Is Alex alive?”

  Sebastian looked over at Angelica. “Yes.”

  The vise grip that had been clenched on my heart finally let loose and I felt tears start to well up in my eyes.

  After taking a moment to compose myself, I said, “Where is he? Why isn’t he here?”

  “Hailey, I am here.”

  But it wasn’t Alex’s voice that said those words—it was Angelica’s.

  I looked at Sebastian with a combination of confusion and anger. “What the hell is she talking about?”

  “Immediately after you hit the fireplace, our back up rushed in. They heard the gunfire and knew something was wrong, but they had to take out the hired guns before they could get to us. In any event, they arrested Otto and secured the area. As soon as they entered the room, I went to Alexander.”

&nbs
p; Sebastian paused, and a pained expression flitted briefly over his face.

  “He was gravely injured—two gunshot wounds to the chest, significant damage to a number of organs. I tried to heal him, but I was too exhausted from the reconvergence and the fight and I’m not certain that even at my best I could repair all the damage. I knew he was fading and I did not want him to die. You had… conveniently dispatched Angelica, her spiritual essence had dissipated and her wounds, while fatal, were more easily repaired. So I healed Angelica’s body and transferred Alexander to her.”

  I heard all the words, but I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. I just stared up at Sebastian with my mouth hanging open stupidly. After what seemed like an hour, but was probably only a few moments, Angelica… uh, I mean Alex, slowly moved toward the bed, then stopped a few feet away from the footboard.

  My voice was small and quavering when I could finally form words.

  “Is it really you?”

  “Yes. I’m so sorry I frightened you.”

  “We were concerned, and apparently rightly so,” Sebastian began as he shot a dirty look toward Alex, “that if you saw Alexander in his current state, without prior explanation, you might have a negative reaction. He hasn’t left your side since you were brought here. In fact, he refused to leave until he was certain that you were alright.”

  The tears that I had previously been able to hold in check flowed freely now. I buried my head in my hands and sobbed, relieved that Alex was alive, and bewildered as to what this all meant. When all the pent-up anxiety, fear, and confusion had dissipated, I stopped crying and wiped my face with a corner of the bed sheet.

  Finally, I said, “How long have I been here, and for that matter, where is here?”

  “You’re in a safe house in Prague,” Sebastian replied. “You were pretty banged up. Besides the relatively minor gunshot wound to your shoulder—it was really only a flesh wound—your aerial adventure, courtesy of Otto, added a severe concussion, a compound fracture of your arm, and several broken ribs.”

  My body felt kind of rubbery, but nothing seemed to hurt. I lifted my arms and examined them; they both worked fine and neither had a cast, the one without the IV did have a small gauze bandage wrapped about halfway between my wrist and elbow.

  “I must have been unconscious for a long time, I don’t feel any pain.”

  Alexelica answered this time. “About three days. We sent for the best healers in this part of Europe to take care of you, your wounds healed while you were still out. I was so worried when you didn’t wake up right away. The Healers said it was unpredictable because you were human.”

  I could barely look her… him… in the eye, the same eye I had popped like a bubble tea-pearl in a Vietnamese fruit drink. Not wanting to dwell on the fact that I had actually killed someone, I forced myself to think of something else.

  “What did you mean, Sebastian, when you said Alex refused to leave?”

  “We have had the healers here attempt to repair Alexander’s corporeal self, but they have not been able to do so. However, the most skilled healers are quite old and refuse to travel to this dimension. I am hopeful that they will have more success, but it will require Alexander to travel with his body and the sooner we start, the better. He would not go whilst he felt you were in any danger.”

  “I thought it was impossible for a… what did you call it… an empty body to cross dimensions without disintegrating,” I blurted out frantically.

  Sebastian patted my hand. “But we are almost positive that if Alexander’s corporeal self crosses in close physical proximity to his essential self, there will be no danger.”

  “Almost positive?” I looked impatiently back and forth between Sebastian and Alex. “Don’t you think waiting until you are completely positive would be preferable?”

  Sebastian didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked over at Alex. After a moment, Alex let out a breath and nodded, then turned to stare out the window.

  “I wish we had the time to be absolutely certain. But, as you know, this is not an exact science.” Sebastian ran a hand through his hair. “Truth be told, it’s not even a science at all. This obviously has never been tried, but his essential self will be right there with his corporeal self. Based on how my body reacted to the close proximity of my essence within you, I believe that Alexander’s body will be protected by his essence in Angelica if they cross together.”

  He paused before continuing. “I don’t want to risk Alexander’s essence with my ignorance. At the moment, he appears to be safe where he is. Alexander insists on having his own body—a desire I understand completely—so I will try. Even if his body survives the crossing, that is only the first hurdle. As I said before, his corporeal being had extensive damage that, even with healing, may not be able to sustain life. It is, after all, not the usual practice to heal a body once the spirit has died, so again it is foreign territory.”

  “Are you saying if Alex makes it past the crossing, he could die in the transference?”

  “I’m saying I just don’t know. The only examples of successful transference I have to build upon are me into you, and now Alexander into Angelica. There are many differences between the two situations: I indirectly broadcast myself into a human host that was alive, while Alexander is now the sole inhabitant in Angelica’s body. And transferring Alexander back to Alexander will be unique as well.”

  A young girl came into the room. Of course, she was probably Courso, so “young” was a relative term. She looked about seventeen, but she was probably in her seventies. She carried one of those trays with the legs for eating in bed, which she placed on a dresser across the room. Sebastian moved from his place at the side of the bed as she approached.

  “I’m glad to see you awake,” she said cheerfully, while re-arranging the pillows behind me and helping me sit up.

  She retrieved the tray and set it over my outstretched legs. There was some kind of clear broth and a bottle of water. I took a swig of the water; it was cool and, thankfully, noncarbonated and it felt fantastic trickling down my dry throat.

  “You should try to eat some broth,” the girl offered. “If you can keep that down, we can move on to solid food. But you haven’t eaten in three days, so it’s best to take it slow.”

  The soup smelled good, but I wasn’t really hungry—I was both twitchy and nauseous. Apparently, there was way too much potential for disaster with regard to Alex for either my psyche or my stomach to handle. I knew that she was right, and I needed to have at least a little.

  I loaded the spoon with the dark liquid and took a tentative sip. Not only was it delicious, but it seemed to immediately settle the queasiness. I was suddenly overwhelmed with hunger, and I momentarily entertained the idea that someone spiked my food with some kind of magic anti-emetic or appetite enhancer. Whatever the reason for my newfound desire for food, I finished every drop. While I was still consumed with worry, at least physically I felt better.

  Sebastian crossed the room to where Alexelica stood.

  “We have tarried too long, my boy. I’m sure you two would like a few moments alone and I have some details to attend to before we depart.” Sebastian placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder before leaving the room.

  Neither of us said anything at first, we just looked at each other. I’ve always hated awkward silences, so finally I reached my hand out toward Alex. He took it hesitantly, and then grasped it in both of his.

  I studied the person in front of me. Gone were the sexy clothes and expertly applied makeup. Instead, this was the scrubbed clean version of Angelica, with hair pulled back in a simple braid and clothed in a pair of jeans and a blue sweatshirt. I stared into icy-blue eyes, instead of the rich azure of Alex’s eyes, and tried to find something of him in her face. The expression—one of concern and affection—I had seen before, many times, and was definitely Alex.

  “Just when I thought this whole situation couldn’t get any weirder, now I find out you’re a trans-sexual,” I j
oked, feebly trying to break the tension.

  He smiled and shook his head. “Leave it to you to find something amusing in all this.”

  “Hey, you should know by now that when I get nervous, I can’t control the smart-ass.”

  “It is one of your most endearing qualities.”

  Now that I had let out some of my tension with drollery, I became serious.

  “Alex, are you sure you want to risk going back to Courso?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I want to return to my own body.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  A small smile curved across his lips. “I wish you could, but only those with magic can move between dimensions. Hailey, I won’t be able to communicate with you directly once I cross, but I will come back, one way or another.”

  I really hadn’t come to grips yet with the possible ramifications of Alex permanently inhabiting Angelica, and now definitely wasn’t the time to talk about it. So I said simply, “We’ll figure it out.”

  Sebastian came back into the room, followed by Opie and Mr. Mochachino, our contacts in the desert when we left Arizona.

  “Aiden and Cortez will stay here until you are able to travel, and then they will escort you back to Tucson,” Sebastian announced. Then he turned to Alexelica and said, “It is time.”

  Alex squeezed my hand again, leaned down, and kissed me gently on my forehead. He took a deep breath, turned, and nodded at Sebastian and they walked out the door.

  Tears spilled onto my cheeks as I stared at the empty doorway. Aiden and Cortez said something about going to check on something somewhere else and slipped out of the room.

  Only then did I let loose, and buried my head in my hands and cried until there were no more tears left.

  ~19~

  It was two more days before I was cleared to travel. Physically, I was fine, a little tired, but I had successfully moved from broth to real food, so there was no reason for me not to go home.

  Sebastian was, thankfully, correct about Alex’s body being able to pass through to Courso as long as it was in contact with his essence. We had received word a few hours after they left that they had made it safely across the dimensional boundary. Alex’s sister, Tannis, had accompanied them to Courso and Alex made sure that she went back to our dimension and notified me that all was well. Then, I guess, she went back to Courso to help Sebastian.