“I, too, need to get outside,” Nye says. “My knights need me.”
“I thought you were in my service,” Morgaine says.
Beads of sweat shine on Nye’s pale brow underneath his shiny black hair. “You are right, Milady. Your wish is... my command.”
I want to interrupt and run out the door. There are screams and growls and the sounds of battle. But Blaine squeezes my arm, vise-like.
“Tell me what you have to tell me,” Morgaine says. “And then you may go to your knights.” She nods to me. “And you may go to your friends.”
There is another scream from outside, and a crash as something hits the walls.
Nye swallows, and opens his mouth. “Milady, we have spies in the Seelie court. We have heard that they hope to make the gate stay open... forever.”
“But why?” Blaine asks. “Are they mad?”
“Eleanor was against the idea. It is a rash plan of her son, Gilroy’s, who has come to power — or perhaps seized it — while she has been unwell. They hope to go back to having human servants, and to making sacrifices to the old ones.”
“To bring back the old ones and blood sacrifice?” Blaine looks at Morgaine. “Could that be the reason for all of this?”
She nods. “It’s possible.”
“Hold on,” I say. “What’s blood sacrifice? Like when Frumberg killed that dog for the demon?”
Blaine sighs. “Lesser demons take animal sacrifices. The older ones, the only ones capable of keeping the gate open when it is due to be closed — by me, by the way — are unmoved, unless they sacrifice something else. Something bigger.”
“You mean they plan—”
“Human sacrifice,” Blaine says with a nod. “Especially of a child, or a cub of my kind.”
Suddenly I remember what Zach said to me. “The old ones?” I say. “Could they be used to cleanse the forest here? Zach talked about cleansing the forest and the community. He’s a really extreme vegan.”
“Vegan?” Blaine asks.
“He won’t eat anything that comes from animals.”
“Neither would I, or any of the folk,” Nye says.
“You don’t think?” I ask.
Blaine shakes his head. “He sounds just like a messed up kid to me. But this cleansing—I don’t like the sound of that. If someone is using Zach to get to the old ones, they could do a lot of cleansing. Or killing, to put it more simply.”
“I agree with Blaine,” says Nye. “We have too little information, and the stakes are very high.”
“Is that why you’re here?” Morgaine asks.
“I am here, Milady, because I cannot go outside and help my people battle those ghouls,” he says. Although the room is cold, he wipes sweat from his pale white brow. “By your leave, Lady Morgaine.”
“You may go,” she says. “We will be there shortly.”
There is a tremendous roar, then, from outside. A single word. “GATEKEEPER!”
“Oh my,” says Morgaine. “That is no ghoul.”
“Look, Stanley needs to go,” Blaine says. “I’ll accompany him out.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Morgaine asks.
“I’m sure it’s dangerous,” Blaine says. “But no one said my job was easy.”
“Protect him, please,” Morgaine asks Nye, her eyes entreating.
“Morgaine, I’m a werewolf,” Blaine says. “I can protect myself. And Connor and Rowan are out there, along with Stanley’s capable friends.”
“Be careful,” Morgaine says. “And bring us back our daughter.”
“If need be, I’ll call the whole clan. But we’ll find them.”
“GATEKEEPER!”
I recognize the voice just as the door shakes and rattles on its hinges.
“What,” asks Nye, “is that?”
“Rewsin,” I say.
“Rewsin?”
“WHO DARES SPEAK MY NAME?”
The door shakes again as it is pounded from outside.
Chapter 35: OUT INTO THE DARKNESS
“So, we’d better go,” Blaine says.
Nye nods nervously. “After you, then, my friend.”
“Why don’t you open the door, Stanley?” Blaine asks.
“Me?” I ask. “Are you crazy?”
“The demon knows you. It may give us an advantage.”
There’s more pounding on the door, and plaster falls down from the ceiling.
“Gatekeeper,” Nye says. “Move aside. I’ll open the door.”
But before he can reach out and touch the handle, I grab it and pull the door open.
Pandemonium greets us.
The dog-demon Rewsin stands on Whelan’s front porch. Around him are a lot of disassembled partly decomposed body parts. The stench is horrible, but I can’t see a single ghoul that is in one piece. Nye’s guards and the werewolves are still here, too — alive, it seems, but hurting. Behind them are my friends, waiting for me: Jonathan, human but foxlike, ready to change; Enrique, pacing like a cat; and their brothers with crossbows ready to fire.
But the ghouls are finished.
“GATEKEEPER!” Rewsin calls out again, then turns to look at me.
“You’re not the gatekeeper,” he says to me. “You’re that boy who was there when he called me into this stupid body. I was going to eat you—”
“He had nothing to do with your calling, demon,” Blaine says, stepping out from behind me. “He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“We have that in common, then,” the demon says. “I want out of here. This body itches.”
He scratches idly at his stretched out skin, and a strip of dog hide falls to the ground. “It felt good, though, to stomp on those ghouls. What a romp! What a party! I haven’t had this much fun in ages.”
Then he looks at us again.
“You are the gatekeeper,” he says to Blaine. “I have a question for you.”
“Speak, demon, I’m listening,” Blaine says.
“Why can’t I get through the gateway?”
“You can’t get through the gateway?” Blaine asks.
Rewsin shakes his enormous dog head. “It’s blocked somehow. Things are coming out, but nothing can go back in.”
Blaine exchanges a look with Nye, who shrugs. Everyone is silent for a moment, but I can smell the tension in the air.
“I have an idea,” I say.
Blaine holds his hand out to still me, but the demon says, “Speak, cub.”
“How about we help you get back through the gateway and you let us all live?”
“An interesting proposition,” Rewsin says. “But I’m very hungry.”
“Very itchy, too, I bet,” I say.
“Good point,” Rewsin says, running a claw against his belly, stripping off more dog skin.
“It’s win-win, isn’t it?” I continue. “The Golden Rule: do onto others as you would have them do onto you. We help each other.”
“Most wizards treat me with the Iron Rule: do onto others as you like, before they do onto you...”
“I guess I’m not like most wizards, then,” I say.
He stares at me hard, and I try not to blink. Eye contact is important when you’re dealing with demons.
“It’s a deal,” the demon says finally. “A mutually beneficial truce. But more than that. I pledge to help you if you help me.”
He reaches out his paw. It feels better than it looks. Under the dead dog hide there’s heat, pure energy.
We shake. I feel a ripple of power in the air, something that envelops me and those around me.
Everyone seems to suddenly relax.
“So,” says Rewsin, leaning in close to me and filling my face with dead dog breath tinged with sulfur, “what’s your plan, cub?”
Luckily, Nye comes to my rescue. “Stanley and I need to talk for a moment about his plans with the gatemaster.”
“Oh,” the demon says, holding a clawed hand up to its dead dog face. “Am I intruding?”
“Jus
t give us a minute, will you?” Nye asks, a thin smile frozen on his lips.
“Watch me back up, back up,” says Rewsin, taking gigantic leaps backward, until he is just at the end of the clearing. “I’ll wait here,” his voice booms across the clearing.
“Kind of thick, for a demon,” Nye whispers.
“I heard that!” Rewsin growls, from the other side of the clearing. “But carry on.”
Blaine turns to me, then to Nye.
“I guess there’s no choice but to negotiate,” Blaine says. “The threat of the Old Ones aside, we can’t leave a demon running around here on this side of the gateway. Not to mention your riders, the vampire hordes, and the werewolf clans.”
“We need to get Meredith back. And Carolina,” I say.
“I haven’t forgotten them,” Blaine says, looking pained. “But my duty puts the gateway above them, no matter how I feel personally.”
His face is pale, and it hits me suddenly how much we all have at stake. My stomach tightens; the hunger is back and I want to bite something, but my phone buzzes.
“THE GATEWAY WILL CLOSE IN HALF AN HOUR. THE CEREMONY APPROACHES. :)”
“We don’t have much time,” I say, half hunched over.
“Are you okay?”
“A little hungry,” I say.
What did your phone say?” Blaine asks.
“Just half an hour until the gate closes.”
“Let us ride, then,” Nye says. “You will have to wait to feed, Stanley. But ride with us, if you will.”
“We’ll run, thanks,” I say, and whistle to my friends.
“Dude, you should have seen it,” Jonathan says, breathless. “It was sick. There were ghouls everywhere, and the knights were getting chomped, and the ghouls picked up their weapons and chewed on them like they were food. I thought we were dead. Then Rewsin came up and started ripping them apart.”
“WHO SPEAKS MY NAME?” bellows the demon.
But we ignore him for a moment.
“I’m just glad you guys are all right,” I say.
“Yeah, we let those black knights tangle with the ghouls,” says Enrique. “Although my brother was shooting a lot of crossbow bolts with Andres.”
Andres, though, is staring at the Whelans’ house.
“Some bad vibes coming from that building,” Andres says.
“It’s just covered with sigils,” Carver says. “Those are good vibes, actually.”
“If you say so, Carver. You’re the expert.”
“What’s the plan?” Enrique asks me.
“We’ve got to save Meredith and Carolina,” I say. “They’re somehow trapped on the other side of the gateway, and we need to get them out. And the demon will help us if we help it go back through the gateway.”
“Where is this gateway?” Andres asks.
“It’s in the pit for the new mall,” Blaine says. “The digging disturbed things that should have been left alone. Look, can we go?”
“What’s the hurry?” Andres asks.
“Meredith,” I say. “And Carolina. The gateway is closing. We’ve got to find them.”
“Go ahead,” Andres says. “We’ve got your back.”
“Thanks,” I say, but I’m terrified, really. Terrified of what we’ll find. Or not find. But that’s crazy thinking. We have to find them.
“Rewsin,” Blaine bellows. “We run. Can you follow us?
The demon rushes up to us. “I’m ready to kick some butt. Just tell me what it is: zombie, ghoul, or vampire? Where we going, chief?”
It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking to me.
“To the gateway,” I say.
“All right,” the demon says. “Faerie butt, then, maybe? They’re even tougher than vampires, but I’m ready. Follow me.”
And he’s off running, tearing through the trees, breaking branches and flattening shrubbery. There’s no chance of losing his scent trail, either, with his winning combo of dead dog stink and demonic sulfurous reek.
Blaine, Enrique, Jonathan, and Connor run with me as we follow the demon through the woods. There is a buzzing in the air that resonates in my teeth, and it grows as we go on.
“Can you feel it?” Blaine growls to me as he matches me stride for stride. “That’s gateway energy. Backing up. There must be a tremendous blockage.”
We arrive at a chain link fence, which is about ten feet tall with razor wire around the top. I’m running so quickly that the fence seems to rush up to my face and crash into it. Rewsin must have already jumped across; I can’t see or hear him.
“Hold on,” Blaine says, and he pulls out this big silver key out of his pocket. He waves it in front of us, and suddenly there’s a huge opening in the fence.
“Sick,” Jonathan says.
“Sweet,” Enrique says.
Then we’re walking through the opening. There’s a big pit on the other side. I look down into darkness. All I can see is a faint green glow.
Now there are several of us standing on the ledge.
“Where’s the gateway, Blaine?” I ask, and he points straight down.
“Dude,” Jonathan says. “How are we going to get down there? Fly?”
I just look at him. He can fly, the idiot. But the rest of us?
“There’s a road that leads down. Turn off your lights and follow me closely.”
Our flashlights off, my night vision adjusts, and I can see Blaine, ahead of me. We follow him down a narrow path and we come to the main road, where we find a locked gate. But this isn’t the gate we’re looking for.
I pull out my phone and look at the time. If the text message can be trusted, we have less than fifteen minutes.
Blaine glances back at me and sees me looking at my phone. “We have to hurry now,” he says, and starts to run down the dirt road, taking great leaps and strides. Connor, Jonathan, Enrique, and I follow him, Nye right behind us. I’m afraid we’ve lost the brothers, but we don’t have time to go back and check.
Where is Meredith?
I can smell her scent trail here, and it’s fresh. I can only hope we get to this gateway in time.
I hear a cry of rage from ahead of us. Rewsin.
“Still blocked!” he shouts. “Hurry or I will be locked in this dogskin forever!”
We’re all rushing forward now because we can see where we’re headed: a great green circle on the ground, a great opening in the rock.
“Something smells wrong,” Blaine says, sniffing.
There are lots of conflicting smells, but I can smell Meredith strongly, even over Rewsin’s stink. Her scent trail goes all the way up to this gateway, and then it...stops.
“Home,” Rewsin growls. “I want to go home.”
“That’s just where we’re going to send you,” Blaine says, raising the big silver key in his hand. He moves it against the green gateway, and the gateway pulses.
“There,” Blaine says, putting the key away. “It’s open.”
Rewsin jumps forward, crashes into the gateway, and screams with rage. “Closed! You think I’m an idiot?”
Blaine shakes his head, frowning. He holds up his hand. “It was open a moment ago — I don’t understand.”
“Hold the gate open, Blaine, and we’ll go in,” I say.
Nye nods, but Enrique grabs my shoulder. “You can’t go in there.”
Jonathan is shaking his head. “Dude, no way.”
“There’s no time to argue,” I say. “I can’t leave Meredith in there.”
I see a flash of red in my peripheral vision. Karen.
“Wait a moment,” I say, and move aside. Then she’s next to me.
“The Seelie queen is in there,” she says.
“You’re sure about that?” I ask.
“Be careful what you do, Stanley,” she says. “You could come out again and find we’re all eighty years old.”
“I have to do what I have to do,” I say.
Karen spits at my feet. “You’re a fool and I’m a fool to follow you. You
’re going to risk your life, and for what? I bet Carolina has turned her by now anyway.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. But she’s already gone. Has she even been here? She moves so fast.
I take a step toward the gateway. Blaine looks at me. “Are you sure about this, Stanley?”
I nod. “Who’s with me?”
Nye and Connor raise their hands, and Rewsin raises a rotting dog paw. And then Karen is next to me again, raising her hand, too.
“What’s this?” Blaine asks. “But you’re a—”
“Vampire. Like your wife,” Karen says, nodding. “Come on. There are only minutes left.”
Rewsin is staring at Karen.
“What?” she asks him.
“Could you scratch me a little?” asks Rewsin. “I itch something terrible. I just want to go home and get out of this itchy dog skin.”
Jonathan and Enrique are raising their hands, too, but I shake my head.
“You can’t go,” I tell them. “Your brothers would kill me.”
“You can’t tell us what to do,” Jonathan says. “We’re coming.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” Blaine says. “But if I don’t let you in soon, I’m not sure I’ll be able to let you in at all.”
“It’s fine. It’s decided. They’re not going.”
“Dude,” Jonathan says. “You’re crazy if you think I’m letting you go in there alone.”
I stop and stare at him and Enrique. I shake my head. “You told me I was the boss.”
“You are,” Jonathan says. “But—”
I growl low, and feel the change in me. “This is not the time to challenge me. I don’t want to fight you, Jonathan.”
“Fight me?” he says, incredulous, but then he looks me straight in the eyes. I don’t blink, and maybe he finally realizes how serious I am. How much is at stake.
“I need you to do this, Jonathan. You and Enrique. Watch after our families, and be there for my brother and my parents if I don’t make it back.”
Jonathan turns away, but Enrique grabs his shoulder and nods at me once, quickly. They’ll do as I ask. Enrique will make sure; I can feel it.
Blaine clears his throat. “You may only have a few moments,” he says. “Once you’re in, try to get the gate to stay open.”
“Understood,” says Nye, and Connor nods, and then Blaine moves the big silver key and we jump.
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