by Jasmine Walt
He nodded. “Mother did warn me. She told me you’d come back. She also told me to give you whatever you desired. But Malina, not many of your alternates remain. There are only a handful left alive, and many of them have either gone insane or turned their back on their calling. Most of the worlds have fallen to the shaitan invasion—demons still driven to chaos by the slumbering void.”
“Well, can’t you just send me back in time to before they went insane or whatever?”
“I won’t be sending you anywhere. It’s the multi-verse that will guide you.”
And the multi-verse wanted to help me. It wanted to be saved. Hope fluttered in my chest.
“There has to be one alternate who can help me?”
Vasuki sighed. “I hope so. The fabric of our worlds is being tested. Even Nagalok has felt the power of the vortex despite Harish’s attempts to ignore it. Your truth just confirmed what my guards have been sensing. My people are frightened. This is bigger than the gods, bigger than creation. If there is an alternate who can help you, maybe the multi-verse will take you to her.”
“So how do I do this? How do I travel?”
“Nagas use doorways because we don’t belong to the multi-verse. We exist outside of it, but you are a naga born into the multi-verse. Your alternates are connected to you. They are a part of you. You can find her by searching within yourself.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Use the ring and call to her. Call to the power within you, and the multi-verse will deliver you there. When you’re ready to return, all you need to do is use the ring to loosen your grip on that reality. The multi-verse will pull you back to where you should be. I must go and tend to Harish. Despite the guards’ actions, I cannot deny that he has been appointed regent in my stead. I will deliver him back to the palace and plead my case to the council. Good luck, Malina. My prayers are with you. For all our sakes, I hope you succeed.” He made to turn away, but paused and pulled me into a tight hug. “I’m proud to call you my kin.” He released me abruptly and disappeared into the dark tunnels beyond the chamber.
I held my fist aloft and examined the ring on my finger. Here went nothing. “You ready?”
Garuda wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, pulling me up against his solid chest. “Always.”
I closed my eyes and focused on this alternate—the one who could help us save all our worlds. Please, take me to her. Please, help me. A spot of heat flared to life just below my diaphragm, followed by the strangest tugging sensation, and then we were fragmenting into nothingness. Pulled everywhere but going nowhere.
I sensed Garuda. He was around me, within me, beside me, but the words were gone. There was only matter, time, and space. The eternity of nothingness was filled with twinkling stars that winked out before my eyes. They were dying…no, they had died a long time ago. Were we already dead? Was this a pointless quest?
The stars were getting brighter, closer. Close enough to blind and burn. There was no mouth to scream. No vocal cords to make a sound. And then we were sinking into terrifying brightness.
Something cold and hard was pressed to my forehead.
Click
I opened my eyes and stared right into…my eyes.
“Who the fuck are you?” my alternate said.
23
The room was musty and dank. Anemic light flickered from a naked bulb fixed to the ceiling. Crates hugged the wall, and old newspapers littered the floor. We were underground…a basement or cellar, maybe?
My alternate studied me through blazing eyes shadowed by sunken sockets. Her cheekbones were too sharp, her arms too thin. But her grip on the gun she had pressed to my forehead was pretty solid. She blinked a few times as if struggling with her vision.
There was silence save for the sound of our breathing and the drip, drip of a leaky tap. The shadows at her back shifted.
“Put the gun down,” Garuda said, emerging from the gloom behind her.
Her hands shook and her mouth parted on a soft gasp. “No. Anything but this. Any other illusion, but not this.” Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe if I pull the trigger, it all goes away.”
Shit. “Please don’t. I’m not an illusion. I’m you from another reality.”
“She’s telling the truth,” Garuda said. “We’ve come because we need your help.”
She let out a short, sharp bark of laughter. “How pathetic do you think I am, Malfor? How desperate would I need to be to believe this crap?”
Who the heck was she talking to?
Her lips thinned. “We’ll know soon enough.” Her finger tightened on the trigger.
Oh, shit.
“Malina, stop,” Garuda said. “You don’t want to do this. Listen to your gut. Listen to your instincts. What are they telling you?”
She swallowed. “You can’t be real. I watched you die…”
Her tone was an open wound, raw and bleeding. She’d loved him, too.
I locked eyes with her. “I’m sorry you lost him. I know how you feel, because I felt it when I lost him in my reality. But he came back. I was given a second chance. Please don’t take that away from me.”
Her gaze flicked from side to side, as if she was searching for an answer. She exhaled, lowered her weapon, and took a step back. Garuda was at my side in an instant, gathering me into his arms and pressing a kiss to my forehead. The pain in her eyes, the yearning, was too much. I gently extricated myself from Garuda’s embrace.
Her expression hardened, and she stood taller. “Talk.”
“We’re from an alternate reality. Our gateway has opened, and a terrible force has awakened. We need your help to stop it. Our combined power can stop it for good.”
“Alternate reality?” She snorted in derision, but her regard was speculative.
“After all you’ve probably seen, is it so hard to accept?”
She arched a brow. “It’s just…weird.”
Garuda shot me an amused look. Yeah, yeah. I’d had the same reaction when he’d told me the theory was actually fact.
I sighed. “Yeah, it’s weird, but it’s true. And I need your help. If we stop the threat in my world, all our realities benefit.”
“Fine, I’ll bite. You’re from another reality that’s still standing. Fanfuckingtastic for you. Want my advice? No, don’t answer that. I’ll give it to you anyway. Toddle back to your reality and enjoy what time you have left.” Her shoulders drooped. “I can’t help you.”
“But you can.”
“No. I wasn’t able to prevent my gate from opening, so how the heck do you expect me to help you? No, wait. You’re right. I can help.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “I can give you a preview of what’s to come for your world. All you gotta do is climb those steps and take a peek.” She walked toward the old rocking chair in the corner and parked her butt. “Once those gates open, it’s over. Frankly, I don’t give a shit about other realities.”
This was who the multi-verse had chosen for me? This beaten-down thing hiding in a basement? “What is wrong with you? You’re the gatekeeper. You should be out there, fighting alongside the gods to push back the threat.”
Her brows shot up. “What gods? The gods are dead. My father, my mother, my friends…they’re all dead.” Her voice cracked. “There is no one left to fight.”
“So you’re just hiding here waiting to starve to death? Don’t you see? This is your second chance. You can escape this reality with me.”
“Escape…” She began to mumble to herself.
I exchanged glances with Garuda. She was crazy. The grief and loss had tipped her over the edge, and I couldn’t blame her. I’d all but given up when I’d thought Garuda was dead. If not for Ajitah, if not for my friends, I would probably still be curled up in a ball somewhere waiting for the world to end. We fought to make the world a better place for the people we loved. But if they were all gone, then what was the point? This could have been me—this broken, bitter creature with her delusions, simply waiting for the pain
to end. But I couldn’t let it be me. There was still hope for my world. Still time.
If she was like me, she needed a purpose, thrived on hope, and admired honesty.
Yeah, I’d give her that. “I found my father only to lose him. I lost Garuda only to get him back. I found my mother again but lost a dear friend. But most of my friends are still alive, so I won’t stand here and pretend I empathize with you, because I can’t. I’m not going to sympathize because, frankly, that’s just insulting. I’ve been lucky so far, and I’m grateful for that. But without you, that luck is gonna run out. My friends may not be alive for much longer, and without your help, I could be the Malina sitting in a rocker somewhere, mourning the loss of everyone I love. You may not have been able to save your reality, but you can help me save mine. So please. Help me.”
Her left eye twitched and her mouth parted as if on some realization. She strode past me into the gloom. I pocketed the ring and turned to find her putting a huge red cross on a calendar behind her. She pulled a phone from her pocket and dialed.
“Yeah. It’s a deal. I’ll be there.” She hung up, placed the phone on the ground, and then stamped it to death.
Irritation flared in my chest. “Dammit, woman. Are you going to help me or not?”
She laughed—a twisted, bitter sound. “Yeah, yeah, all the pretty words did the trick. I’ll help you. But I have a date to keep first.”
“A date?”
“Yeah, and you’re both coming with me.”
The world beyond the basement was a blistering wasteland littered with corpses, smeared with blood, and filled with an echoing silence. The sun beat down on us, wreathed in a crimson haze. My alternate led us through the dead streets. We weren’t far from the Tower of London. I recognized the landmarks.
“Where is everyone?” Garuda asked.
“Dead,” my other self said. “Dead or taken.” She jerked her head toward the horizon. “They’ve built their stronghold near Tower Bridge. They like the water, and Malfor, their leader, likes the view.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “The humans that remained were hoarded—locked up for consumption or procreation. The supernaturals have joined the demons’ ranks. Yeah, things are pretty peachy.”
She sounded almost unconcerned. Could she be that far gone? Could I ever be this person?
“Um, Malina?” Garuda said, addressing my alternate. “Why are we headed toward London Bridge?”
She kept her eyes on the road. “I told you, I have a date.”
My gut rang an alarm. There was definitely something dodgy behind door number two. I grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop. “What the hell are you planning? You go onto that bridge and you’re dead.”
She yanked her arm from my grasp. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. If you want my help, we do this first. Otherwise, just fuck off.” She strode ahead.
“Garuda…”
He pressed his lips together. “We can’t let her go alone.”
“Why do you always have to be right?”
A shiver ran over my skin as we neared the Thames and the stronghold came into view. A monolith composed of a patchwork of metal and concrete reached for the sky. They’d used the existing structure of Tower Bridge and added to it, creating a monstrosity of their own.
What the hell was I seeing? “How?”
My alternate shrugged. “Who gives a crap?”
Things were truly very different here. “So this Malfor. What is he? A shaitan?”
“Pfft. If only. Malfor is a chimera. The only one of his kind. The Kubera created him.”
The fucking Kubera. Causing trouble, but in a new form.
“He was supposed to be a prototype,” she continued. “The first of an army to bring us to our knees. Ha, but he didn’t like that idea. Oh, no. Being unique appealed to him much more, and so he killed his creator and took over. Long story short, he manipulated me into opening the gates.”
Just like the Daughter of Chaos had manipulated me.
“And now, he’s more powerful than ever…I don’t know how.”
“The Daughter of Chaos, or her influence at least.”
She stopped and turned to me. “Is she your big bad? Your Malfor?”
“No, she’s the only big bad,” Garuda said. “She’s what drives the darkness in all our realities; she just happens to be anchored in ours.”
She stared at him for a long beat. “It would explain why he got stronger once the gates opened…” She carried on walking. “It doesn’t matter how he got so powerful. He just did. He’s more powerful than any supernatural in existence. I think he may be on par with the gods. He certainly has a god complex. And he has something that belongs to me.”
The bridge was getting closer, the tower larger and more imposing. The scent of sulphur hit me, and I gagged.
“Breathe through your mouth,” she snapped. “Surely with our sense of smell, you’d have learned to do that by now.”
I bit back a snarky retort. I’d be snippy too if this were my world. The smell was almost unbearable now. Lithe bodies climbed the tower—the shaitan, visible in all their red-skinned glory. She brought us to a halt under an archway that stank of piss. Malfor’s tower was visible from our vantage point, but the angle of the arch and the shadows it cast provided us with the cover we needed to spy without being spotted.
“This is as far as you go.”
I grabbed her bony elbow. “What? No. We’re coming with you.”
Once again, she yanked her arm from my grip. “That wasn’t the deal. I go pick up my package, and then you get what you want. Got it?”
“Malina, let her go,” Garuda said. “This is her world. She knows the rules better than us.”
My alternate gave him a smile that filled her eyes with sorrow. “Always the voice of reason, eh?” Her tone hardened. “Just stay here. Stay out of sight. If he sees you, he’ll figure it out, and he’ll find a way to come for you. I’ll be back.”
“How can you be so sure he’ll let you go?”
“Malfor may be a lot of things, but he’s a creature of his word. He vowed to claim this world, and he did. He promised to make me suffer, and he has. And now he’s promised to return what belongs to me.”
“In exchange for what?”
But she was already running off toward the bridge.
“Dammit, Malina!” I made to go after her, but Garuda pulled me back.
“She’s right. We have to stay here. We could make this worse if we interfere.”
My alternate was on the bridge now, a tiny figure beside the monstrous tower. She stopped, arms loose at her sides, and lifted her chin to look up at the stronghold of her enemy. Despite the heat, an icy finger trailed up my spine. I’d been wrong earlier. She was brave. To stand there on that bridge with no backup—without Drake or Ajitah, Loki, Aaron, Carmella, or her Garuda… She’d outlived the gods of her world—the last woman standing. She was braver than me.
The entrance to the tower wasn’t visible from our vantage point, but a figure appeared in our line of sight. My alternate looked like a dwarf before him—tiny and negligible. His body glinted in the sunlight.
I glanced up at Garuda. “Metal?”
His jaw flexed. “I think so.”
“And are those wings?”
“Yes. Ghandava wings.”
Shit. What kind of chimera had the Kubera cooked up?
Below us on the bridge, my alternate held out her right arm. Malfor reached out and grabbed it. She fell to her knees, head bowed. He released her, and she slowly pulled herself up and held out both of her arms. He placed something into them. A bundle? No, wait, it was moving. It wrapped its arms around her.
“A child…” Garuda looked down at me with wide eyes.
My heart stalled and sank. No…
She nodded her head, turned away from Malfor, and ran back toward us.
“Garuda, what’s going on?”
“I don’t… I think…”
My alternate stepped into the shadow
of the arch. The bundle in her arms turned its head to look at us, and my insides twisted in sweet pain.
The child, a little girl, stared at me with frightened amber eyes.
“Her name is Sarani. She’s mine.” She looked up at Garuda. “And my Garuda’s.”
Oh, sweet gods.
“And now she’s yours.” Sarani buried her face in her mother’s neck. “Please. Take her. I don’t have much time.” She held the child out to me.
This couldn’t be happening.
The child studied my face uncertainly, and then looked back at her mother’s. “Mama?” But then, she dismissed us both and turned to Garuda, holding up her arms. “Dada.”
Garuda made a strange, strangled noise.
“Please,” my alternate said.
Garuda scooped up the child, staring at her as if she was the most intricate thing he’d ever seen. She wrapped her arms around his neck. I knew myself well enough to see the resolve in my alternate’s eyes. I knew what she’d agreed to.
This was goodbye.
“Why did you agree to this? If we hadn’t come, who would have taken care of her?”
Her mouth lifted in a crooked smile. “If you hadn’t come, I would have stormed the tower. There were two bullets in my gun. One for her, and one for me.”
“You were going to kill her…kill yourself?”
“I’m dying anyway, and with me gone… What they would have done to her would be worse than death.”
Oh god. The seal’s power was killing her, too.
“You arrived just in time.” Her mouth twisted. “Malfor told me he’d spare her if I came to him of my own free will. My life for hers. But I knew, once I was dead, he’d find her and turn her into one of his soldiers. A monster…” She licked her lips. “When you appeared in the basement, I thought it was his doing, but then you explained, and I knew this was it. My time was up, but Sarani had been given a lease on life. My Garuda loved his little girl more than life. He died trying to protect her, and I failed to get her back. But now…now he can rest in peace.”
My heart ached for her, making the next words hard to say. “You said you’d help us. If you die, our world is doomed. Your daughter will still die. The only difference will be that she’ll die in our reality instead of yours.”