by Krista Walsh
With a bit more jump to his step, Jeff went inside and took the stairs up to his tenth-floor apartment. Not quite going to the gym, but better than nothing.
Outside his door, he paused to catch his breath and looked at his watch. Five-twenty. Just over half an hour until Cassie finished her shift.
Male voices floated towards him, and Jeff shot an angry glare towards the door next to his. If everything else in his life had changed, Mr MacGregor, his high-volume television-watching neighbour, remained the same. Had gotten worse, in fact. Get outside, man. Get some fresh air.
After his initial irritation wore off, Jeff realised the noise wasn’t coming from his neighbour’s place. He pressed his ear against his own door, shocked to hear laughter on the other side. Two men, by the sound of it, having an unhurried conversation. Strange behaviour for burglars.
Jeff couldn’t decide what to do. He considered pulling out his phone to call the cops, but what if he was overreacting? Small shadows made him jump these days, so it wasn’t unlikely. He thought about knocking on MacGregor’s door, but accepted he would rather get stabbed by someone trying to steal his laptop than deal with his neighbour. The final thought made up his mind.
He pulled his overnight bag over his head and twisted the strap around his hand, ready to swing. With his other hand, he unlocked the door. Stepping inside, he caught full sight of both his guests: a wiry ginger-haired man standing next to his bookcase, and a one-armed, one-eyed man standing in the archway to the kitchen.
Jeff’s jaw fell open, and he let his bag drop to the floor, his mind numb, his reactions dulled.
The redhead watched him with concern, his hand reaching for Jeff’s computer chair as if ready to slide it over to him if his knees gave out.
The other man leaned against the wall, crossing one foot over the other as though nothing were out of the ordinary. Perfectly normal for them to be in Jeff’s apartment. In Jeff’s world.
“Hey, Jeff.” Jayden Feldall grinned.
Chapter Two
Jeff blinked once, twice. He raised a finger and pointed first at Jayden, and then at the other man, the scholar, Brady.
Then he decided he didn’t want to try to understand, pushed past Jayden into the kitchen, and grabbed a beer from the fridge. He didn’t offer one to either of the others, happy to believe for the moment that they were tricks of the light.
Neither man said anything while Jeff went through the motions of popping off the beer cap and chugging down half the bottle’s contents in one go. Jayden, an amused smirk still plastered on his lips, retreated from the doorway to stand at Brady’s side, giving Jeff room to sort things out.
The beer almost gone, Jeff mechanically walked back into the other room, rolled his computer chair well away from his guests, and fell into it. He took another swig and forced himself to accept this wasn’t a dream. That somehow they were here. In his apartment.
“What the fuck?”
Jayden’s grin returned, and he dropped down on the edge of Jeff’s bed. Still in too much shock to think about it in detail, Jeff couldn’t help but notice a roughness to the man’s once-roguish expression. The scar across the right side of his face that stretched up from his jaw and disappeared under the black leather eyepatch had healed well, hardly more than three faint pink and white lines compared to the twisted gash from six months ago. Andvellian healers—with the help of Maggie’s spells—knew what they were doing.
“I can imagine how you feel,” Brady said, the designated ambassador. Jeff rankled at the word “imagine”, but let it slide with another gulp of beer. “I must say you’re taking it better than I expected.”
“I’m still processing. Give me another minute.”
The scholar smiled, his good humour on the softer, more compassionate end of the scale than Jayden’s entertainment
“But it’s true? You two are here in my apartment. Standing here.”
“Gods, I can’t believe I’m having this conversation again.” Jayden sighed and ran his hand through his dark hair so it stuck up in all directions. “I know it’s a surprise, and we would have written first to let you know we were coming, but the messenger pigeons kept getting lost. Can we get past the ‘I’m crazy, this must be a dream’ bit a little more quickly this time?”
Jeff held up a hand. “Oh, I know I’m awake. I couldn’t make this moment up if I wanted to. How are you here?”
The final question came out louder than intended, but the slim grasp Jeff had on his temper slipped and hysteria crept in.
“Maggie sent us,” Brady explained. “She figured it worked bringing you into Andvell, so why not the other way around?”
“Because it’s wrong. Morally. Psychologically. Go home.”
Jeff got up and threw his empty into the blue box under the kitchen counter, then made for the fridge and this time grabbed three.
“Here’s one for the road.”
He tossed a bottle to Jayden and one to Brady, only considering afterwards that tossing breakable items to a man with one arm might not be the smartest idea. Jayden caught the bottle with ease, holding it steady with his knees as he palmed the cap. As if he’d done it all his life.
Brady set his bottle on Jeff’s desk unopened, but Jayden knocked the alcohol back, his mouth twisting into a grimace as he swallowed.
“What is this sheep’s piss? You call this beer?”
“When you’ve started drinking as much as I have, you go for the cheap stuff.”
“Huh,” Jayden huffed, taking a smaller sip.
“I’m afraid we can’t leave just yet,” Brady continued, undeterred.
“Why not? Please don’t tell me you need my help again. I can’t, guys, I really can’t. We made a deal. I stop writing about you and you leave me alone. Right?”
“Did we make that deal?” Jayden asked Brady. Brady shrugged. “I didn’t think so. Jeff. Brother.” Jeff’s eyebrow rose at the blatant attempt to soften him. “We’re here for a reason. The Sisters came to see us.”
Jeff’s shoulders drooped. He couldn’t even bring the beer to his lips to drown in the smooth drizzle of alcohol. Nothing good ever started with mention of the Sisters.
“You remember them, don’t you?” Jayden asked.
“Hard to forget,” Jeff grumbled. Neither Brady nor Jayden knew what they had taken from him. He had only told Jasmine, and was happy to leave it that way for now. “What did they say this time?”
Brady grabbed a chair from the two-seat kitchen table and dragged it into the living room next to the bed, keeping as much space between himself and Jeff as he could, which Jeff appreciated.
“Something about blackness spreading in the lovely province, although they left that rather vague. The part we understood without doubt was the reference to you.”
Blackness in la belle province? Why couldn’t Kay, Aya, and Lan ever have good news to share? And how could they see into his world?
“I thought I felt my ears burning the other day.” His joke fell flat with the bitterness in his tone. “They spoke of me with fondness, I hope?”
“They told us to seek out the Storychanger,” Brady replied. “That you would be our guide to stop the plague before it devours the world.”
“What plague?” Jeff asked. “Are there rats coming to Montreal?”
Jayden met his eye. “Raul is here.”
Jeff froze. A series of witty retorts fluttered through his head, and he held them all back. “That’s not funny.”
“We’re not joking.”
Jeff looked to Brady for confirmation, and the scholar nodded slowly, his eyebrows flicking upwards in a “sorry but true” expression. His face wavered in Jeff’s vision, and it took a moment to realise it wasn’t Brady moving but his own grasp on consciousness.
He forced a deep breath and leaned over to set his beer on the desk. Beer was hardly the answer. He needed something stronger.
“How?” he asked, settling back in his seat.
Jayden scratched the back of h
is neck. “Best we can figure, he was holding onto you when the vortex transported you home. He must have let go before it closed and ended up somewhere else.”
“That was never part of the spell,” Brady spoke up. “We didn’t know it was possible. Or even that that’s what had happened until the Sisters came to us. They saw something in a vision. About what’s going to happen if he comes home.”
“What about what happens to my world if he stays? You’re telling me he’s been in Montreal for six months?” Jeff stood up and started pacing the small space of his apartment. Four steps up, four steps down. The path was too similar to the last cell he’d paced, and he threw himself back in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “How is anything still standing?”
“Well, that’s one bit of good news at least,” said Brady.
“Is there such a thing? I was beginning to wonder.”
“He’s lost his power.”
“All right, that’s not horrible news.” Jeff perked up a little and looked between both men. “All of it? No meteor shower or spontaneous volcanic activity?”
“Not according to the Sisters. Something about the transition stripped him of his magic.”
“So what are we worried about? We leave him alone, he stays trapped here without any way to make anyone’s life miserable. On a grand scale, anyway.”
He doubted anyone would notice one more pretentious jackass in his world.
“If it were that simple, we would have left you alone,” said Brady.
Jayden grimaced. “Somehow he’s going to find his way back. The Sisters wouldn’t have seen it if it wasn’t a possibility.”
“We think,” Brady cut in, “that his followers back home might have found a way to contact him. If they can communicate, open the corridor on their end, we’ll have missed our chance. If he makes it home, there’s nothing to stop Raul from gaining his power back.”
Jeff passed a hand over his face and eyed his beer. “So what do you plan to do? Kill him before he gets back?”
“If the opportunity presents itself,” Jayden said, in a way that suggested he would create the opportunity if it didn’t.
“The first step is to find him,” said Brady firmly, as if he and Jayden had argued this point before.
Jeff nodded slowly, processing his thoughts. He focused his attention on the floor, on the glare of afternoon sunlight against the dark parquet, the angle of the light showing off every scuff mark and scratch from his years of moving furniture around. Every one of them from simpler times when a beer meant a refreshing treat after a long day of work, and not a necessity to deal with the two guests sitting across from him.
Vaguely he was aware of a knock at the door, but didn’t move to acknowledge it. The floor seemed like the best place to focus on for the time being.
A second knock.
“Jeff?” Cassie’s voice came from the other side. Jeff heard it, knew what it meant, but still didn’t have the mental capacity to stand up and answer her.
In his periphery he saw Brady and Jayden exchange a glance. Brady got to his feet and opened the door.
“Oh!” Cassie’s exclamation of astonishment. “Oh.” Recognition and uncertainty. “Oh.” The final note of acceptance. She moved between them much more quickly than Jeff had.
Edging her way into the room, she kept a slight distance from Brady, Jeff noticed, and moved to his side.
“Well, this is a surprise,” she said, actually managing to sound cheerful, raising herself another notch in Jeff’s respect. “What are you two doing in town?”
As if they were long lost friends. Distant relatives of Jeff’s come for a visit.
Jeff rose to his feet and, feeling a little frazzled, met her gaze. He didn’t want her to hear it all from Jayden and Brady. Confusion, hidden beneath a veneer of politeness, stared back at him behind her night-sky blue eyes. She smelled of coffee from her shift, the scent lingering on her green golf shirt and beige capris; a tidy ponytail hung between her shoulder blades.
“Raul is here. In Montreal.” He jumped right to the key point.
Some of the colour drained from Cassie’s cheeks, pupils dilating as fear set in. Jeff could hardly blame her. The last time she’d seen the man he had blindfolded her, tied her up, and used her for blackmail to ensure Jeff’s cooperation in writing him as a hero.
“Here,” she repeated. “In our world.”
Jeff saw her knees quiver and took her hands. “Yes. But he’s lost his power.”
“Huh.” The word slipped from her lips without thought or inflection. Jeff empathised with the mindlessness.
Brady took her elbow and the two of them guided her to his vacated chair. She sank into it and assumed Jeff’s role of staring vacantly towards the floor. Brady pulled the second chair out of the kitchen and arranged it into an awkward half-circle of seats in the room, which suddenly felt very small and crowded. Jeff cleared his throat and focused on deep breathing.
“How do you plan to find him?” he asked, keeping his eye on Cassie. “Did the Sisters give any hint on where to start?”
“They sent us to you,” Brady reminded him.
Jeff pressed his lips together and inhaled sharply through his nose. After a few seconds pause, he said, “Anything other than that?”
“Nope,” said Jayden. “We have no ideas. This is your city. This part is up to you.”
“But-what-I—” Jeff sputtered. “I’m not about to traipse about Montreal looking in every nook and cranny for a deranged psychopath. It’s not like I keep a Where’s Rauldo book on my shelf. Do you know how long that would take? This place isn’t exactly a half-day’s walk across the village.”
“He loves a good aesthetic,” Brady pointed out. “Is there anywhere nearby with a nice view?”
Jeff groaned. “Most of the city. Hardly a start.”
Cassie stood up, the chair squeaking against the parquet. Jeff glanced down to check for any new scuffs. Cassie scuffs. He didn’t see any.
“Sitting here isn’t going to find him,” she said.
Jeff’s eyes widened. “But—I thought—dinner?” He felt his face get hot. “Sorry, you’re right. Priorities.”
He started for the door, and Cassie grabbed his arm to stop him. “No, you’re right. Priorities,” she said. “They can’t go out dressed like that.”
As she pointed to Brady’s and Jayden’s attire, Jeff actually took a moment to see them. Brady’s ginger hair had been cut to a curl under his ears, smoothed back out of his lean face. He’d lost some weight on his lanky frame, as well, giving more intensity to his gray eyes. A white cotton shirt was tucked into brown hide pants and partially hidden beneath a leather vest.
Jayden wore a similar outfit in the colours of his House: black pants and a dark green coat with the hawk of Feldall emblazoned in gold on his breast. The coat had been redesigned to clasp at the neck and hang over his right shoulder, covering the absence of the arm underneath. As usual, he carried his sword at his right hip, a dagger in a smaller sheath next to it.
Both of them looked like they’d walked out of a Renaissance festival.
“We go shopping?” Jeff asked, unenthused with the idea.
Cassie screwed up her mouth, thinking. “The stores would be getting ready to close now, I think. They’ll have to make do with something of yours. Brady’s sort of the same size as you.”
The three men eyed each other, wondering how that would work. He and Brady were about the same height, but anything Jeff lent him would tend to the baggy. Maybe not too badly with all the stairs he’d climbed. But Jayden ….
“No way I’ll fit into anything this man wears,” Jayden said. At six-foot-four, the warrior just about loomed over Jeff, and his broad shoulders would likely tear the backs or buttons off anything he borrowed.
Cassie’s face set into a stubbornness that reminded Jeff of his mother. “Unless you brought a change of clothes, our options are limited.”
When no one else appeared ready to argue with
her, she marched over to Jeff’s closet and started flipping through hangers. Jeff stood frozen, wondered when they’d entered the phase in their relationship where it was okay to go through the other’s things—and then accepted that he’d rather leave this task up to her.
She grabbed a green short-sleeved dress shirt, and then moved to the dresser for a pair of jeans and grey undershirt for Brady, and a t-shirt for Jayden.
“I think you’ll have to keep your own pants,” she said to him, scanning the length of his legs. Jeff felt squat and ungainly by comparison.
“Wonderful. Thank you,” Brady said, elbowing Jayden with a not so subtle nudge.
“Right. Thanks.” Jayden didn’t sound very convinced, eying the shirt uncertainly.
Jeff grumbled and gestured Brady towards the bathroom. Jayden apparently didn’t need the privacy, removing his coat and then tugging the white tunic up over his head. Jeff noticed Cassie’s interest pique, her gaze glued to the warrior’s chest, but had a hard time holding it against her, just as riveted himself. While he guessed her interests were more primal, Jeff couldn’t stop staring at his scar. Compared to the lines on his face, Jayden’s torso looked ravaged. The healers had focused their priorities, it seemed. Jeff remembered the way the giant bear had struck, the massive paw swiping down, the burst of blood. Jayden should have died, no question about it. Instead, three white gashes crossed from Jayden’s right shoulder, where he’d lost the arm, almost to his left hip. They were deep, and the skin moved stiffly as Jayden manoeuvred into the black t-shirt.
In spite of the damage, Jeff could understand Cassie’s fascination as well. The man had more muscles than the latest superhero actor.
Finally, after what felt like a slow-mo reverse striptease, Jayden pulled the t-shirt down over his must-be-magically toned stomach, and Jeff was forced to watch the way his favourite Black Sabbath shirt stretched over the warrior’s biceps. In the modern dress, Jayden still looked dangerous.
“So,” said Cassie, rolling on the balls of her feet as the room fell into a somewhat awkward silence. “Why did you guys come?”