by Deanna Chase
I walked back into the living room where Dodd and Buzz still sat.
“Who’s Hammond?” I asked, as I refused to let my mind get swept up into crazy thoughts.
“He’s an old timer. Crazy strong. He trained Cormac. He was his mentor.” Dodd answered.
“And you really think he’ll have some answers on how to fix what’s happening?”
“He’s our best bet.”
“Why aren’t there anymore older alchemists? Someone with answers? I mean really, you can’t die? What happened to them all?”
“We can die. It’s just hard to kill us.”
“You put five bullets in my head, and I didn’t die.”
“Okay, so it’s really hard, but it can be done. We had something akin to a civil war about twenty years ago.”
“And that’s when Cormac took control? He must have been barely a kid.” It wasn’t a question. He was a leader born. Some people lead, but in him it was instinctual. “What were you fighting about?”
“Some of us wanted to use the portal for power over the other races. They felt that we should rule everyone who came over. And then some of the people who did manage to circumvent the system, well, that got ugly.”
“Ugly? What was uglier than a civil war?”
“The Fae cursed some of them. They died slowly and painfully. Nobody could do anything because they voided the contract first. That’s why nobody messes with the contracts.”
“When do all these people for Festiva have to come over by?”
“The next couple of days or it’s gonna start getting awkward.”
“I still don’t understand what exactly is going wrong? Do you guys know?”
“When a portal is opened, it produces a large mass of radiation. One of the things we do is pull that radiation towards us. For some reason, it’s not pulling forward like normal and we don’t know why. It’s lingering within the portal and frying anyone who goes into it.”
“What about if someone were to go into the portal while another person operates it. Instead of just pulling from the outside? Would that give you more control?”
“It might, but it’s hard when you’re in the portal. It screws with your abilities. The person would have to be awfully strong, otherwise they’d fry up.”
“Do you think I could do it?”
“Oh, no! Don’t even think about it.”
“Dodd, just answer me. Do you think I could?”
He made a loud aggravated sigh. “You might be able to. I’ve seen the power you put out. But Cormac said you couldn’t do anything else.”
“If we don’t fix this, from what I’m being told, all hell will break loose. Is that correct?”
Dodd and Buzz looked at each other hesitantly and then both looked back at me and nodded.
“And then it’s not going to be just your world but mine, too, that is in danger.”
“You’ve been kicking and screaming this entire time. Now you want to step up and save the day?”
“Do I want to? Absolutely not. But I’m starting to think I have to. I’ve met Tracker. Him ruling the world holds no appeal to me.”
“Who said it’s Tracker? Cormac thinks it’s probably Vitor.
“I don’t. I want to try and run the portal while I’m inside. Will you help me?”
“You’re asking us to go against Cormac. He just said he didn’t want you going anywhere near it,” Dodd replied.
“Yes, I am, but if Cormac doesn’t find Hammond or some other solution soon, we need to try it.”
“I don’t know,” Buzz said looking completely panicked at the idea of going against Cormac.
“You both need to man up,” I said. “Cormac will go down with the sinking ship. What good are you doing him? You need to think for yourselves and stop being babies. You aren’t hurting him, you’re possibly saving his ass.”
“She’s right. It’s not disloyal. There’ll be more defectors if we don’t get this worked out, and you know Cormac will go down dying before he steps aside,” Dodd said.
“Okay, but we give him the week?” Buzz asked.
“And it’s got to be the last resort,” Dodd added.
“Yes. We give him the week.”
Chapter Eighteen
It had been five days and no sign of Hammond. Cormac had only been at the penthouse to sleep. I wondered if he was trying to avoid me, but he hadn’t been at the casino either. Dodd and Buzz, my new coconspirators had told me he’d been on the hunt for Hammond every minute of every day.
When I did see Cormac in passing, either late at night or the crack of dawn, I could see the stress was wearing on him. He looked exhausted. Like the weight of the world rested upon his shoulders. From what I had heard, it might be the truth.
Concerned that we would have to enact my plan, I’d woken that day with a new determination. It had taken me about three hours, but I finally found Dodd downstairs near the slot machines. He was in the middle of trying to work a cocktail waitress I didn’t recognize, and I wondered if she had been hired to fill my spot.
“We’ve got to talk,” I said to him as I approached the couple.
“Sure, give me a couple of minutes.” He turned so that only I could see his face and used his eyebrows to signal he was in the middle of working the new girl.
Rolling my eyes right back, not caring if the girl saw, I went and stood at the end of the aisle as I watched him try to close the deal with the pretty brunette. She handed him a slip of paper that I could only assume had her phone number and walked away while they both smiled.
“I’ve been trying to crack that one for a week,” he said, when he came to me. He held up the paper she had handed him, waving it at me. “Sooner or later, they all succumb.”
“We’ve got bigger issues than your sex life.”
“Nothing’s bigger than my sex life. Sex is very important to me. I won’t have you belittling it.”
“Dodd, can you stop? We need to plan.”
He made a point of sighing loudly and dramatically. “Okay, let’s plan.”
“Not here.”
“Obviously. Let’s go to my place. I don’t want anyone walking in on this. Cormac will rip me a new one if he hears.”
“Lead the way.”
We took the penthouse elevators up to the floor beneath Cormac’s. His entire place was dark browns, and the biggest TV I’d ever seen dominated one wall.
“We need to do this.”
“You know it’s very dangerous, right?” he asked, all the earlier playfulness gone.
“Yes, but what’s the alternative?”
“And you know you could die doing it? From what I’ve heard, you already came close last time.”
I’d known it was possible, but it still chilled me to hear. “I figured as much.” I sat on his couch as my knees became weak.
“Why are you so set on this? I thought you considered this our problem. You haven’t made any secret about the resentment you have toward Keepers.” He handed me a shot of what smelled like tequila and sat across from me in an armchair.
“For whatever reason, I’m the only one who might be able to do it. How do I not, knowing what the alternative might be? I didn’t want it to be my problem but I don’t feel like I have a choice.”
“You could just let the whole thing work out however it does, go off and live your life. Even if Tracker took over, it might never become an issue. If it does, you would still have your life. Things might be different, but at least you would be alive to know how it turned out. Your way, you might not see next month.”
I just shrugged my shoulders.
“The way I see it, you either have a soft spot for Cormac,” he paused to chug back his shot, “or you’ve got some sort of death wish. I’m not sure which.”
I opened my mouth to speak but he held up his hand and interrupted me before I could. “Don’t bother arguing. I’m beyond stubborn in my opinions. I can see the way you look at Cormac, so there is no sense denying that. I can also se
e you’re a very unhappy person. We’ve all got skeletons, but I’m afraid you might have a whole goddamn cemetery. I’m going to go through with your plan, mostly because I don’t know if we have a choice. What really bothers me though, is that my gut feeling tells me that as much as I sense the fight in you, I’m not so sure you’d run away from death. Making plans with someone like you is dangerous.”
I sat there and pondered his words for a moment. If I was the type to self evaluate, I might agree with him. Lucky for me, I wasn’t that type. I knew I was an emotional wreck. Problem was I didn’t see the point in dwelling on the past. It had already messed me up. Why keep going back for more?
I swigged back my own shot, which I could now confirm was tequila, and asked, “So, does that mean you’re in?”
He shook his head no, but his lips said yes.
“I know you do all the scheduling. Whoever you have to bring over, set it up for Sunday. All of them.”
“Why Sunday?”
“He’s got a lead that is taking him out to LA. He’ll be gone all day.”
“He doesn’t have a lead in LA.”
“He will.”
He laughed now, but not a cheerful kind. The kind that was full of nervousness. “Now I know you’ve got a death wish. Are you insane? You planted a phony lead?”
“It’s the only way.”
“How do you know he’s going to go out there Sunday? What if he follows up on it before then?”
“Won’t happen. The lead is only going to be available to talk on Sunday.”
“Who is it?”
“Do you really want more details?”
“You know what? You’re right. I don’t want to know. He’s going to kill you.”
“He already tried once. It didn’t work then.”
Dodd went and grabbed the tequila and took a swig right from the bottle, then offered it to me. I accepted.
“Don’t tell Buzz, I don’t think he’ll be able to keep the secret.”
“I wish no one had told me.” He took the tequila bottle back and took another swig.
Chapter Nineteen
“I’ve got some news.”
I looked over to watch Cormac as he strolled into my room Sunday morning. In a matter of hours, my plan would take effect. I knew I had started to act a bit jittery. I always prided myself on keeping my cool, but that was before I’d landed in this mess. And as far as what I was doing today, I’d never done anything like this before. Cormac wouldn’t appreciate being led on a goose chase. If he ever discovered this was a set up, he would lose it.
It didn’t matter. I was going to do what I had to, regardless of the outcome and ramifications. If I died, it wouldn’t matter how mad he was. If we managed to pull it off, I bought him more time to find out what was going wrong and who was behind it, he’d need me to keep doing. I’d have leverage, not to mention I’d have saved his ass. I mean really, how mad could he be? Now I just had to make sure I had the chance to pull it off.
“What’s up?” I tried to sound casual, not moving from my spot leaning against the headboard while I drank my hot coffee.
“The lab managed to determine some of your lineage.”
My heart skipped a beat even as I remained calm. That wasn’t what I’d expected at all. “I thought they couldn’t do anything with the blood?”
“One of my guys had the smart idea of taking a Fae sample and applying it to all of our genetic lines, seeing if they could rule any out. It worked better than they had even imagined. All Alchemists descend from the original ten. They managed to determine that you are a descendant of Drake.”
“Are you a Drake?” The idea of being his cousin made me slightly sick. No one wants to think they’d lusted after a relative. That’s just disturbing.
“No.”
I took a mental sigh of relief. “So who was Drake?”
“We don’t have much information on Drake, or any of the founding ten. A lot of our history was destroyed through the years. Paranoia ran rampant through the alchemists. They were always afraid of revealing secrets. That’s how the pact came to be. They bartered with the Fae who had the ability to fuse the knowledge of the alchemists to their actual genes.”
“How does that work?”
“It’s built into our DNA now, like, the way a bird knows how to fly north. It’s a knowledge that is passed down genetically. Problem is it has become less dependable through the years, causing a lot of variations in how strong each descendant is. From the stories that I do know, my belief is that they thought it would be more reliable and consistent than it turned out to be. Perhaps they were led to believe that. I really don’t know.”
He sat down on the edge of my bed as he talked and really started looking around the room, eyeing several piles of clothes. “Why is your room so messy?”
“Why’s yours so neat?”
“Neat is good.”
“Personally, I think it’s just uptight.”
“When was the last time you let the maid in?”
“Yesterday.”
“Yesterday? You did this in one day?”
“I tell her not to touch my piles. I can never find anything after she moves my stuff around.”
“So this is how you want it?”
“Yes, Cormac, I’m a slob. Is that what you want to hear? Now get off my bed. I want to drink my coffee and watch the news.” And don’t you have an appointment?
He just shook his head as he stood obligingly. “I’ll be back tonight. I’ve got a lead to check out.”
I wanted to jump out of the bed and start getting ready, but I schooled myself until I watched his tall, muscular frame walk out the door in search of my fictitious lead. As I heard the main door shut, I sent Dodd a text message. He was waiting in the hallway less than fifteen minutes later.
“You ready?” he asked.
“I should be asking you that. You’re the one with cold feet.”
“What happened to your cute outfits?” he asked as we entered the elevator.
“This isn’t cute enough?” I smoothed my moist palms down over my skinny jeans, realizing how nervous I really was.
He shrugged. “I like looking at your legs in skirts.”
“Sorry to disappoint. I was worried there might be a draft in the portal.”
“I was hoping there was.” He had the perfect rogue smile on his handsome face. If it had been Cormac, I might have melted on the spot, because he affected me like no one else. However, as handsome as Dodd was, him I could resist.
“Not even a blush? Nothing?”
“I don’t blush.”
We went the rest of the way to the underground going over the times and numbers, until we made it down to the lower hallway. “Where is everyone?”
“How many times do you have to be told that witnesses aren’t good? It’s bad enough we are going behind his back. I didn’t want to take anyone down with us. And if we blow it, I don’t want to have to take them out.”
“I thought you didn’t kill your own?”
“Nah, we don’t. I just wanted to sound like a hard ass.”
“Dodd, anybody ever tell you that you’re a little off?”
“Well, ain’t that the kettle calling the pot black.”
“So, is this going to really screw up your relationship with Cormac?”
“He’s like my brother. I’d do anything for him. I can’t sit back and let him shoulder this all on his own.” He unlocked the final door and the pillars stood before me, huge, dark, and daunting.
“Okay, little girl, time to see what you’ve got,” Dodd said as he stood next to me.
“Don’t worry, I’ll bring it. This little girl is about to save your ass.” I heard the words I spoke and I sounded tough enough. I just hoped really did have it to bring. I sure as hell didn’t want to step into that portal whistling Dixie.
“I sent a message through for them. They’ll be ready in thirty minutes from now.”
I pushed up the sleeves of my shirt.
“Now, let’s just hope I’ll be ready.” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Hadn’t even realized I had until I saw Dodd’s face. “Only kidding, I’m good!” I infused my words with as much bravado as I possibly could, but Dodd’s face didn’t look any more reassured.
“I’ll get it up and running, but I’m not going to pull at the radiation. That’s what went wrong last time. I’ll just hold it open. You step in. You’re a natural at pulling.”
I nodded my head, not wanting to think about what would happen if I didn’t just naturally pull the radiation toward me. I thought of all sorts of crispy critters falling out of the portal. Maybe I’d be the crispiest critter of all. Either way, I just wanted to get it over with and let the chips fall as they may, but I had to wait, minute by slow ticking minute, while Dodd fiddled around the room.
When the time finally came, my stomach was churning like I’d been on rough seas all day. I swallowed hard and held on to the contents of my stomach, barely. It was hard to look like a bad ass when you were puking your stomach contents up from nerves.
“You ready?”
“Completely.” I was so full of it that I even amazed myself. He smiled and nodded as he took his place and started his end of things. I might have given Dodd a little too much credit if he believed my bullshit.
I put my hands in my pockets to hide their shaking, as I slowly watched the sparks start in the center until it grew larger and larger. Once it spanned the entire distance between the monoliths, I looked over at Dodd who gave me the go ahead. I slowly approached, knowing I dragged my feet, then took a deep breath and took the final step. The one that would either hold this masquerade together, or end it, at least for me.
As I stepped inside, the air tingled all around me and everything blurred slightly. I wasn’t sure if it was my eyes or the haze from the portal. A slow breeze picked up, but it wasn’t natural, because instead of coming from one direction, it came from every direction. I didn’t remember seeing surfer boy’s hair blowing when he had come through, but I did remember feeling a breeze last time and I realized it was the radiation flowing to me. Okay, so one problem down, having no clue what I was doing, I was pulling the radiation. Now, as long as it didn’t kill me, this would be cake.