by G A Chase
Myles arranged the women around the table. “We want to figure this out fast—before Colin gets the idea we know where he has stashed Kendell. I wish I knew what to look for, but if anything seems strange, don’t hesitate to say so.”
The women leaned in over the projection. “Just start up this diorama,” Polly said, “but go slow to begin with so we can get a feel for how it works.”
For an hour, Myles stared at the holographic rendering as if troubleshooting an intricate Victorian mechanical toy to bring it back into working order.
“What’s that?” Lynn asked.
Myles got down on his knees to inspect the section of river she was looking at. “I don’t see anything.”
She pointed to a patch of river lit by the moon. “That rectangular section of water looks translucent, and it’s moving in time with that pilot boat.”
Myles let the professor run the image until the water patch moved under the wharf at the end of the working docks and the gang lost sight of it. “Good eye, Lynn. I’d never have caught that. Professor, run the movie backward for a bit.”
Now that he knew where to look, Myles caught sight of the section of mysterious water emerging from under the concrete landing and working its way back to under the World Trade Center. When the boat swung around and the rectangular light-gray water anomaly disappeared under another overhang, Myles had the professor stop the projection and run it forward again. “Looks like we found out where it was dumped after he used the fail-safe, and its final resting spot as well.”
Polly shook her head. “I’d like to see the next few days. Colin had to be inside the box when he abducted Kendell, and that would be awfully difficult if that vault was still underwater.”
The whole gang huddled around the projection as Professor Yates increased the speed. As a day passed on the diorama, Myles worried that they were taking a needless risk. All Colin would need to do was look out at the river, and he would see people and boats moving in fast motion.
But when Myles again saw the rectangular hole in the water, he knew Polly had been right. “There it goes. I don’t see any boat that it might be attached to this time. You don’t suppose Colin was riding on top? There’s no way I would go shooting down the Mississippi on something I couldn’t see or control.” The water anomaly disappeared into a thicket along the levee.
Minerva pointed through the trees that lined the river. “There’s a shipwreck below those limbs. When I was in high school, we’d use it as a make-out spot. You can walk to it at low tide. Based on the size of that water anomaly, the wreck would be plenty big enough to house that vault.”
They all watched intently, but they couldn’t make out any more of Colin’s activities through the dense vegetation.
Myles’s body still ached from lying on Delphine’s floor. He put his hands on his hips and stretched out his back. “Looks like we have a location. If no one has any objections, I think we can return Colin’s hell to its normal programming.”
Everything along the river of the diorama switched back to the way it had been. Professor Yates came out of the hallway. “Simply knowing where the vault is won’t get you inside it. It’s not just invisible in hell—you won’t see it in life either.”
What if I kidnap Luther and force him to open it? Myles knew the thought was irrational. The stress of having Kendell imprisoned in hell was getting to him. Luther was Sanguine’s responsibility, and even if he weren’t, it wasn’t as though Myles could break into the World Trade Center and force the man to do anything.
46
Myles left Professor Yates’s lab to do some thinking while staring out at the river. He felt completely lost without Kendell around to help him make sense of what he knew. His history of crossing dimensions was one big jumble of experiences, which made it even harder to come up with a plan for rescuing her.
Polly caught up with him on the concrete bench. “Where to next, fearless leader?”
“I wish I knew. Heading down to the shipwreck won’t do us much good if we can’t see or feel the vault. We wouldn’t even know if it was there, let alone get it open. And even if we did open it, I’m not sure how Kendell would cross between dimensions. Honestly, this whole interdimensional-connections crap gives me a headache. I don’t even know where to start.” He hated sounding so pessimistic, but he had to speak honestly. If anyone would understand his emotional state, it would be Polly.
She stared out at the water. “You and Kendell are the experts at all this paranormal stuff. Me and the band are happy to help, but I’m afraid when it comes to what you two have been doing, it’s like watching two mathematicians solving some advanced calculation. I can’t even make sense of the symbols. Who do you trust who might be able to help us figure these things out?”
Working through a problem helped him keep his emotions in check. “It might be easier to list who I don’t trust, and why. Delphine is the most knowledgeable regarding all things voodoo, but she had a lot to do with getting us into this mess by tempting Kendell into pursuing voodoo. Honestly, I’m still dubious about how much Delphine knows when it comes to anything other than voodoo.”
Polly rubbed her bare arms against the October chill. “She did help form the virtual overlay to hell, but other than that, she’s been pretty useless. We need someone who really understands the nature of other dimensions, not just the one.”
Myles was somewhat relieved Polly didn’t argue him into keeping Delphine on the list of potential counselors. “The Church has probably more history with other dimensions than any other organization, including Luther’s, but they’re not exactly forthcoming with information.”
“They give me the creeps. I hate being preached to, and I always feel as though if I say the wrong thing, they’re going to condemn me—or someone I love—to hell. Who’s next on your list?”
“Luther Noire—”
Polly cut him off. “Come back to him later. I suspect he’s where we’re going to end up, but I’d really rather find a less biased source of information.”
“Agreed, but the list is starting to get a little thin. Sanguine is good at working the system, but she’s not her grandmother. Agnes Delarosa not only understood other dimensions, but she built hell as well. Unfortunately, I’m not that good at talking to the dead.”
Polly looked across the river and tilted her head as if she’d just noticed something. “What about Mary? She greeted us when we took that VW ride into hell, and she let us use her plantation as the first gate. I never gave it much thought at the time—mostly because I didn’t have a clue as to what was going on—but how did she know to find us?”
The sweet old woman had seemed so nonthreatening that Myles had simply accepted what she’d said without question. He tried remembering the various other interdimensional doorways he’d used. “She is unique in our meetings with people from other dimensions. We did meet Serephine in Anthony Laurette’s old mansion, but we had to find the interdimensional trap door first.”
Polly turned to him. “And we met with Miss Fleur in the convent, but as it’s part of the Church, that’s not surprising. Between these gates and embassies, I get confused about the rules.”
Myles nodded, less in agreement than from the knowledge sloshing around in his brain. “I know what you mean. The Mary we know in this dimension was very friendly toward Kendell, and she did claim to be a seer. I know she’d meet with us, but I don’t know if she’s as knowledgeable as her interdimensional counterpart.”
Polly got off the cold bench and offered Myles her hand. “It’s a place to start. Worst case, we end up back at the World Trade Center. I’ll happily take a pleasant conversation and a cup of homemade gumbo from Mary over Luther’s sneer of self-importance and day-old beignets any day, even if she is crazy.”
* * *
Myles kept his eyes closed as Minerva coaxed her old VW up onto the Crescent City Connection. His memory of the poor underpowered bus being souped up to handle the drive over the same bridge made him grip th
e overhead rubber handle. On that trip, they had arrived in hell. He was slightly relieved when she downshifted into second gear for more power instead of up into the paranormal fifth gear for dimensional crossing.
Polly nudged him in the side. “You can relax. She doesn’t have that silver-skull gearshift handle—not that it would work.”
He relaxed his grip on the handle, feeling just a little bit foolish for the unsubstantiated fear. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to puttering around in this breadbox.”
When Minerva took the exit, Scraper pointed toward a Rouses grocery store. “We should pick up some food for Mary’s clan. Seems like it would be rude for all of us to show up expecting a meal without at least helping out where we can.”
Myles pulled out the credit card Kendell had gotten for the Scratchy Dog. “Fill up a cart. Anything more than that, and they might be offended. As they’re still living among the trees, they won’t have a fridge, so stick to nonperishable items.”
He’d never really appreciated how fast four women could fill a cart or how they could pick the most expensive items, but if the shopping spree resulted in useful information, the splurge would be worth it. With the bags loaded into the back of the van, they headed out to the homeless enclave along the river. The bus’s suspension groaned when Minerva drove over the levee and onto the grassy tree-lined batture.
Mary ran out of the cottonwood grove to meet them. “I’d know the sound of the old VW engine anywhere. We’re just finishing lunch, but I’m sure there’s enough jambalaya left in the pot to fill your stomachs. For some reason, I managed to make more than we needed today.”
Myles and the band carried the plastic bags loaded with provisions through the dense vegetation to the camp made up of tarps and discarded lumber.
Mary made sure each of them was comfortably seated around the constantly burning bonfire. The piping-hot bowl of food she handed Myles smelled of shrimp and rich Cajun spices. Though there was work to do and they had questions that needed answers, he took his time, savoring the first few spoonfuls of rice and seafood.
Mary sat between Myles and Polly. “What’s happened to Kendell, and how can I help?”
Myles felt encouraged by her intuition that Kendell was in trouble. “She’s been abducted into a hell dimension. We’re hoping you can help us figure out some of the details. You called yourself a seer. What did you mean?”
Mary set her bowl on the ground and wiped her mouth with her apron. “Most people understand that if they’re faced with a choice and pick one direction, in some alternate reality, they might have gone the other way. Typically, that awareness is just philosophical, and no one really pays much attention. A seer, however, can connect to the versions of her that took the other directions. Each branching creates a twin, and like siblings that have shared a womb, we have our special awareness of each other.”
The food was so good that Myles almost regretted scarfing it down so fast, but with Kendell in trouble, he felt guilty for taking any more time than necessary on culinary pleasures. He set the empty bowl aside. “We understand that with each direction picked, an alternate dimension is created. What we really need to understand is how those realms interact.”
Mary sat quietly for a minute as if she’d slipped into a trance. “Are you referring to the interdimensional embassies?”
“The embassies,” Myles said, “but also the gates. I’ve traveled between realms, but it was always based on someone else telling me what to do. No one bothered explaining the process. To find Kendell and rescue her, we’re going to need to know what’s going on. There aren’t many people who understand how to cross dimensions, and fewer that I trust. It seems to me that the version of you we met in hell occupied both an embassy and a gate.”
Mary snickered. “I told you I’d know that VW sound anywhere. It takes a skilled seer, but some of us can not only detect what’s happening parallel in time, but also follow along with events in the past. A really gifted person can even read the near future, but those people have to keep their skills a secret. Too many prophets end up with tragic lives that are cut short by unimaginative institutions. As you might guess, embassies are often set up by seers because we’re at ease looking into other realities.”
Polly added her empty bowl to the growing stack on the ground. “So we know people from the different dimensions can meet in an embassy, but can they exchange items or even cross over themselves? We know Colin was able to take some of Delphine’s totems from her shop into his hell because it was an interdimensional portal.”
“Each seer establishes her own rules with her alternate self, though transferring anything from one to the other is unusual. I’ve never heard of a person walking into an embassy from one dimension and out the embassy from another. To do so physically would scramble a person’s memories. If she weren’t a seer, she’d likely go insane.”
Great, Myles thought, so I can’t just walk from this cottonwood grove into hell. Though even if I could, I still wouldn’t be able to see that damn vault. “Is there a connection between the embassies and the gates?”
“Gates are far more complicated. As you used me for the first gate between your reality and hell, I won’t bore you with specifics you already know. The gates started when certain people who were familiar with the embassies got a little put out that they couldn’t be in charge. They set up the gate system as a competing connection between realities. A person who approaches them correctly may travel between realms through the gate system, even though they can’t through the embassies.”
“You mean the loas of the dead built the gates as a challenge to your embassies?” Myles asked.
“Those voodoo loas never liked that a person couldn’t travel through an embassy. Their system is a little too controlling for my tastes.”
Polly held her plastic cup of sweet tea. “What about the gate guardians? Can they go back and forth between dimensions?”
“Only the one in charge of the seventh gate. All of the other gates are preliminary tests. But if that guardian—either Kendell or Baron Samedi—goes through the passage without some way of holding the door open, they’ll become stuck on the other side.” The matronly homeless woman stared into the fire. “Like the embassies, the gates are mostly useful for talking to the other side. Humans really aren’t meant to leave their designated realities.”
Lynn got up and warmed her hands next to the fire. “Aren’t you both an ambassador and a gatekeeper?”
“I agreed to Kendell’s request to be the first-gate guardian partly to help her and partly out of curiosity. I’m afraid I may have failed her in letting Colin pass, but being a seer doesn’t always come with twenty-twenty future vision.”
Myles could imagine Sanguine saying much the same thing. She must be the seer in charge of hell. Why didn’t I realize that? “So a person can’t travel between dimensions through an embassy and can only do it through the gates if all seven are used correctly. Then how did we drive to hell?”
“Voodoo and Wicca each have their own rules. Imagine two friendly counties who have a bunch of embassies on each other’s lands. There would always be situations where people would have to travel from one county to the other. Agnes Delarosa built the hell dimension, but Marie Laveau was heavily involved in the design. As Marie’s descendent, Delphine was able to create a voodoo passage to hell by using the two pieces of Baron Samedi’s cane. She was lucky to have such a powerful object from Guinee as her talisman in both life and hell. Such trips can be quite risky. People traveling between dimensions have a way of creating all kinds of horror-story myths. Frankenstein’s monster, for example, was just some poor dude who lost his memory and got torn up physically by using electricity to cross dimensions. Mary Shelly wasn’t the best seer I’ve ever known. That’s also how we ended up with stories about time travelers.”
Great, another strikeout. “What about Baron Samedi? He was able to travel from Guinee to life, but then something went wrong when he went to hell.”
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br /> Mary tossed a log on the fire. “Samedi and those loas are idiots. He never should have gone to that first Mardi Gras. Any seer knows not to go wandering around in another dimension like a drunk tourist on Bourbon Street. He deserved to lose his cane to Baron Malveaux. But to get to your question about his trip to hell, Agnes Delarosa’s hurricane was so powerful Samedi got sucked into it. He was like a brick that got hurled so hard it punched a hole in the wall between the two realms. When he returned to Guinee, the hole was patched. This is the kind of thing that happens when there isn’t a seer in charge.”
Myles feared how Mary would take the news about his journeys between realms. “Papa Ghede gave me Baron Samedi’s cane. I’ve used it to enter Guinee and even reopened the door from Guinee to hell so Kendell could enter and save Sanguine.”
Mary poured some bourbon into her sweet tea and offered it to the others. “That probably wasn’t the smartest move on your part, but I understand why you did it. Love is a whole different brand of magic, and it’s beyond my understanding. I’ve seen stupid ideas succeed because of love and brilliant schemes go down in flames because of a lack of human connection. I can only tell you how things are supposed to work. Even the loas know better than to allow someone to bodily pass from one dimension to another. That hole Samedi created when he passed into hell must be worse than I thought if you were able to open a gateway such that Kendell was able to walk through it.”
The added alcohol quieted some of the fears that were rearing up in Myles’s imagination. Score one for love, but no one’s offered me a magic love potion for saving Kendell. “But it is possible to travel between dimensions without using an embassy or the gates.”
Mary sighed and pulled a crocheted shawl around her shoulders. “People have been making magical objects—both intentionally and by accident—from the time Cain killed Abel with a stone. As the first human death, Abel might well have been the first person to transfer to another dimension. You’re the psychometry genius. Can you imagine what kind of energy must have been left in that rock?” She nodded at the World Trade Center across the river. “Luther Noire has made collecting those little trinkets his specialty. The problem with using a magical object to cross dimensions is there’s no way of knowing where, when, or in what form you’ll end up. Again, we’re talking horror-story monsters and science-fiction villains. Fortunately, there aren’t many magic practitioners clever enough to create objects powerful enough to cross dimensions. As a seer, each time someone breaks into my realm, I create stronger protections against it happening again. That’s another reason we formed the embassies—mutual dimension protection.”