by West, Shay
Tani and Keena were watching TV when he got home. Both bounced up off the couch, eager to have real human contact. Eli didn’t blame them; the TV was a poor substitute for the real thing.
“What sort of nonsense did you two watch today?” he asked as he put his keys and badge on the table next to the door.
“Lots of things. There was a program about a period of your history called the Wild West. Very violent, but very intriguing. Then there was a show all about food and cooking. We never realized there were so many different things to cook,” Keena said.
“We did watch something today that was disturbing,” Tani said.
Eli braced himself, wondering if he and Keena had managed to find something pornographic or something.
“There were a lot of people and they were doing very mean things, very bad things. This one girl was having relations with a man who was not her husband and she was plotting to also kill her husband to take his money.”
Eli had no idea what sort of nonsense Tani had watched.
“Don’t forget the part about the guy that wakes up from that thing called coma and finds his wife with another man,” Keena added.
Eli bent at the waist laughing. “You guys watched a soap opera?”
“I don’t understand what that show had to do with soap,” Tani said, clearly confused.
Eli had to sit down at the table. He laughed until his sides hurt and tears fell from his eyes. The looks of utter confusion on the faces of his guests only made him laugh harder.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh, it’s just...” he trailed off as more laughter burst forth. How long has it been since I’ve laughed like that?
“I am not even sure I can explain what soap operas are. But they aren’t real either. Well, I guess they are kinda real, but just way more dramatic.”
“Tani and I want to help with the meal tonight,” Keena said.
Eli smiled and shook his head. “Tonight someone else is going to do the cooking and will bring it to us. Come here, I’ll show you.”
He beckoned them closer while he opened his laptop. He punched in the URL for Pizza Hut and rubbed his hands together greedily.
“I already know you two like meat, so I figured we’d get a pizza loaded with everything.”
Eli chose the size, sauce, and toppings while Tani and Keena looked on in awe. He added a large order of breadsticks and a bottle of Coke. He had an account, so check-out was a quick affair.
“Now we wait for them to bring it to us,” Eli said.
“You have people that will bring you food?” Tani asked.
“Isn’t it great? I use this website a lot, actually. It’s easier to order a pizza than to cook when it’s just me.”
“Just you? But I thought you and Ava...” Keena trailed off.
“We’re partners at work and that’s all. That’s not to say we’re not close because most partners are, it’s part of the job; but we aren’t together like I think you’re thinking.” Eli gave the two a knowing glance. “What about you two?”
“Oh, we’re not...I mean, we’re partners, certainly, but...” Tani stammered.
“I just assumed when I heard you talking in the room the other night.” He shrugged. “Well, you know.”
“We were just talking. It is forbidden for unmarried people to do...” Keena flailed her hands.
“What happens if you get caught?” Eli asked, sure he didn’t want to know.
“The two people are forced to marry and there is no dowry,” Tani said.
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Eli said.
“It’s awful. Without a dowry, the young couple is forced to beg until they can get on their feet,” Keena said.
“The families don’t help?”
Tani shook his head. “The families uphold the laws and traditions.”
“Do you have arranged marriages?” Eli asked.
“The upper class and royalty do, yes, but commoners are allowed to marry whomever they choose,” Keena said.
“And do you two plan on marrying someday?” Eli laughed at the expression on their faces. “It’s not a secret. It’s obvious how you two feel about each other.”
“We’ve never discussed it before. This is highly improper,” Tani said, shuffling his feet.
“It’s perfectly proper here. Anyway, I think you two are good for each other.”
Keena looked at Tani sadly. “We’ll have to see how everything turns out with all of this before we even think about living a life together.”
Tani merely nodded.
“I think I have a plan, but I want to wait until Ava gets here to go over it,” Eli said.
The three sat on the couch and watched TV to wait for Ava. He refused to let them watch any more soap operas or reality shows. He scrolled through the channels and landed on one of his favorite movies.
Eli settled back and explained the awesomeness that was John Wayne to Tani and Keena. The pair sat riveted to the screen, unable to grasp that none of it was real. Eli went to the table, grabbed his laptop, and showed them pictures and videos of movies being filmed.
“Personally, I hate watching how they make the movies. Kinda ruins the magic, so to speak,” he added, forgetting that these two actually believed in magic.
A knock at the door signaled the arrival of the pizza. If it had been Ava, she would have knocked quickly, then walked right in. He grabbed his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and paid the young kid at the door. Eli juggled the two large pizzas, breadsticks, and Coke. His stomach gave a loud rumble as he caught a whiff of the pizza wafting through the cardboard box.
He placed the food on the counter and grabbed some paper plates from the bottom cupboard. Just then, Ava arrived, her arms loaded with six packs of beer.
“Perfect timing, partner,” Eli said as he side-stepped the open fridge door.
“That’s me! I always arrive when the food’s ready,” she said as she put the beer in the fridge.
She came back up with four bottles of microbrews. Eli was normally a MGD drinker, but since working with Ava, he found he liked the fancy crap she tended to drink.
Eli laughed at the looks of ecstasy that passed over Tani and Keena’s faces when they bit into the moist, gooey pizza. They ate so fast, Eli feared they would choke to death. He couldn’t blame them; it was hard to eat slowly when the food was this good.
Tani and Keena giggled when they took their first drink of carbonated beverage.
“You gave the kids Coke? They’re gonna be on a sugar high,” Ava scolded.
“It’s not like it’s a school night,” Eli said taking a huge bite of a breadstick slathered in marinara.
Ava laughed and put her hand over her mouth to prevent spewing food all over the kitchen table.
After dinner, the four sat at the table. Eli knew they were waiting on him to begin, as this was his show, but he wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. What he was going to ask them to do would be dangerous.
He took a deep breath and began speaking.
CHAPTER 36
“JUST TO WARN YOU, this plan of mine is crazy and dangerous, but it’s the only thing I could come up with. If anyone has their own ideas or stuff to add to the plan, I’d love to hear it.” When no one objected, he continued.
“We need to destroy the machines that run the gateways. That much I think we can all agree on. The question is how to do it.” He turned to face Tani. “What sort of weapons do you have on your world?”
“Swords and knives.”
“That’s it? No firearms, explosives?” Eli asked.
Tani shook his head. Eli sighed. He’d been expecting this, but he had been hoping for a miracle.
“Okay, then we’ll have to bring our own weapons with us.” He frowned. “We can do that, right?”
“You can bring anything you want through the gateway,” Tani said.
Eli rubbed his hands together. “That’s good news. Okay, so here’s what I was thinking. We go through the gateway
and use explosives to blow up the machinery.”
Ava blinked and leaned back. “Just like that, huh? Waltz on in there and blow the thing up?”
“Give me a minute, there’s more. And I don’t think you’re going to like it.” He glanced at Tani and Keena. “We also need to destroy the scrolls and any other writing pertaining to the machinery, so that no one can ever rebuild it.”
“Eli, you have lost your mind.” Ava crossed her arms over her chest.
“It’s the only way to close this case for good. If we don’t destroy the machine, more of them will keep coming and the dead bodies will just keep piling up. If we only destroy the machine that runs the gateway, but not the writing that describes it, Master Kelhar will be able to repair or rebuild it. Then we’re right back where we started.”
“What you ask is impossible. The scrolls and books are kept in Master Kelhar’s private chambers,” Tani said.
“That’s why we need you two to come along on this little trip through the gateway. We need to find Master Kelhar and steal the books and scrolls. The fastest way to do that is to have you both lead the way.”
“Eli, can you hear yourself? Taking these kids on a job like this? It’ll never work,” Ava said.
“That’s only because we’ve never done anything like this. But it’ll work. It has to.”
“This is a very bad idea.”
“Do you have anything better? Because if so, I’d love to hear it. We’re out of options and out of time.”
Ava opened her mouth to protest, but closed it again, shaking her head. “If we’re going to do this, we need a solid plan.”
Eli nodded and got up from the table. He came back with several pieces of printer paper and some pencils. He handed them to Tani and Keena.
“I need you guys to draw the monastery. Every detail. Outside and inside. This is important. I need to know the location of doors, windows, trees, bushes, anything that can provide cover, where the Enforcers are stationed, how many people occupy the monastery, everything.”
“We will try our best,” Tani said, taking a pencil and beginning his drawing.
Eli turned to Ava. “We’ll need to get our hands on some explosives.”
“Oh sure, let me just run to the corner market and get some.”
“I’m serious, Ava. If we’re going to disable the gateway machinery, we have to blow it to kingdom come.”
She reached across and took his hands in hers. He didn’t quite know how to respond, so he left them there. She had a look on her face he couldn’t decipher.
“What I’m about to tell you, you can never repeat, nor ask me anything about it, nor ever ask me to do anything like this again. Understood?”
Eli swallowed and nodded, unable to make a sound.
“I can get the explosives.” She held up a finger when he opened his mouth. “You can’t ask, remember?”
He was beginning to regret his promise to keep quiet. If she can get what we need, who cares?
“Okay, so that part is taken care of. Once those two finish the layout, we’ll be able to make a more solid plan.”
“I take it we’re going armed?”
“To the teeth,” he said with a grin.
***
Eli looked over the pictures of the monastery. If Tani was right about the dimensions, it was big, bigger than he expected. Damn, it’s gonna be hard to cover everything. Eli rubbed his grainy eyes, wishing there were another twenty hours in the day. “Hey, it’s getting late. Why don’t we finish this tomorrow?”
“Great plan. I can hardly keep my eyes open,” Ava said.
“You okay to drive home?”
“I’ve driven way more tired than this,” she said, as she got up from the table. She smiled as she looked down at Keena and Tani, both with their heads on the table.
“I’ll get these two to bed. You head out. See you at the office tomorrow.” He yawned so hard his eyes watered.
He woke up the pair asleep at the table and waited until they shuffled to their rooms before turning out the lights and heading to his own room. He quickly brushed his teeth and pulled off his shirt. He contemplated taking a shower, but decided to wait until morning. He removed his pants, placing his gun on the bedside table. He crawled under the covers and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
CHAPTER 37
ELI GRABBED THE DRAWINGS of the monastery before he left for the office. He wrestled with bringing the pictures or leaving them behind. Bringing them meant a chance someone would see and wonder what he was doing with rudimentary schematics. If Platt caught him, he’d demand to know what was going on. But leaving them behind meant a whole day of planning wasted. The sooner he could figure out what the plan was, the sooner they could close the gateways for good.
Ava was already at her desk, and even had a cup of coffee waiting for him.
“Did you bring the drawings?” she asked in a low voice.
“Sure did. And I think this might be easier than I was thinking last night.” He scooted his chair around the side of his desk and Ava did the same.
“At first I was worried about the location of Master Kelhar’s quarters. But see here?” He showed her a window just outside the gateway chamber and another near Master Kelhar’s chambers. “Tani and Keena can exit the window, sneak around the outside of the building, and keep under cover of the bushes that run along most of the building. There’s a few places where they lose cover, but we’ll have to risk it. If Tani is right, Master Kelhar’s private library has its own window. They can go in, burn the scrolls, and be gone without Kelhar ever knowing they were there.”
Ava nodded. “And what do we do while they’re gone?”
“We set up the explosives.”
“We’ll need to have them show us how to set the machine for home before they go to Master Kelhar’s quarters. I really don’t want to get stuck on another world, Eli.”
He looked up at the sound of fear in her voice. He hadn’t really thought much about what would happen if they couldn’t get back home.
“I don’t want to either. So we’ll have them get everything ready and show us how to activate the machine. Then we set the timers and off for home we go.”
“What happens if we meet some opposition?”
“We take them out.”
“Just like that, huh?”
“I’m not for wanton killing, but we have more than seventy victims who deserve whatever justice we can dish out. Since we can’t punish the ones who did the actual killing, this is the next best thing. We take out their damn machine, so they can’t come here ever again.”
She sighed. ”You’re right. I hate to think of killing innocent people, but you’re right. If we don’t do something, even more people will die.”
“How soon can you get the explosives?”
“I already got in touch with my contact and he can have what I need by tonight.”
“That soon?” He rubbed his face. “Guess that means we can leave as early as tomorrow.”
Ava took a deep shuddering breath. “This is crazy, absolutely crazy! We’re sitting at our desks discussing a plan to blow up machinery on another world.”
Eli’s pulse raced. He’d been unwilling to believe the truth until it showed up and nearly blinded him. But now that he knew who was really behind the killings, he had to act. Eli thanked the cop side of his brain for that. He could waste time denying the truth, or he could act on the evidence.
“So it looks like I’m coming over again tonight?” she smirked.
“You have been spending an awful lot of time at my house lately. You gotta be careful. People around here are gonna start talking,” he said, as he moved his chair out of range of her flying fists.
Eli walked over to the white boards, knowing that if everything went as planned, there wouldn’t be any more pictures of victims to add. There was a separate board dedicated to the best surveillance footage they had of the killers. Platt had given every one of them to the press in the hop
es that someone in the general public would call in with information. Eli and Ava played along, knowing that no one would be calling with any solid leads. Part of Eli wanted to tell the public the truth: that soon they wouldn’t have to worry anymore about being butchered in the streets, that he and his partner had everything well in hand.
They’d lock me in the nut house.
Ava walked up beside him. “Tell me this is gonna work.”
He looked down at her and smiled. “It’s gonna work.”
She breathed deeply and let out a sigh. “I’m going to go do something normal and mundane and having nothing to do with other worlds. I’ll see you at your place with the goods.”
Eli busied himself with the endless amounts of paperwork that accompanied the job. He hated not being able to put all of the information he and Ava had obtained in the last few days into the file folders. Normally, they would be about four inches thick by this point in the investigation.
Even if he and Ava were successful in shutting down the gateways for good, no one here would ever know about it. The victims’ families would blame the police department, tell them they weren’t doing their jobs, demand they do something. There would be the occasional news broadcast with Platt asking for information, and a few leads would trickle in, but none would pan out. The cases would all go cold.
Ava left the office before he did. “See you later. Save me a beer or four.”
Eli found endless tasks to do, telling himself he wanted to complete them before going home. But a small voice in his head giggled and accused him of being afraid. Once he had the explosives in hand, there would be no turning back.
You’re scared of being on another world.
That was the real kicker. Sure, he was afraid of dying, the same as the next guy. Not that he obsessed about it or anything, but he wasn’t at peace with the idea either. He’d never been religious or even spiritual, so the idea of death was a scary void of unknown.