Entanglements

by P. R. Mason

  “No, I—”

  Zen waved off my denial.

  "The doctors said my problem is related to PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," he continued.

  With his disclosure I finally understood why Zen actions had been so mercurial. Sometimes he'd been the quintessential professional soldier, but then there were the times he'd run away like when we'd found Franky. PTSD explained a lot.

  He opened his wallet and pulled out a photo that had been folded over in half, image side up. The photo showed a beautiful glowing bride—her blonde hair upswept, her blue eyes sparkling, and her smile dazzling—as she posed in a shimmering white wedding dress.

  “Her name was—is—Devon.” He stared down at the photo and ran his finger over its surface in a caress. "I lost my nerve after…” His voice trailed away again and Zen seemed lost in thought for a few seconds. “Anyway,” he said finally. “I should go with you both but I just can’t.”

  “Zen.” I touched his arm. “It’s all right. You're more needed on this side of the vortex. Who else can contain Namia and the ones who come through when we go over?”

  He nodded, although still seemed unconvinced. Zen handed the photo to me and I turned up the portion of the photo that had been folded in order to see the groom: it was Zen in the photo, but a happier, less damaged, Zen than the one I’d known.

  “One day we were out walking and one second Devon was there and the next she was gone.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, reddened with unshed tears. “What I’m asking is that if you see her in Dorcha—” He seemed at a loss as to how to finish the sentence.

  “Don’t worry, Zen,” I squeezed his forearm. “If I see her there, I’ll bring her back to you. I promise.”

  “I know you will.” He grimaced. “You’re very brave, Kizzy.”

  I handed the photo back to him and he stared down at it.

  “I wish I could go with you—”

  “No, Zen,” I insisted. “We need you on this side.”

  Zen nodded but it seemed more like a sad shake of the head. He turned away to wash his face in the sink.

  * * * * *

  Although I was thoroughly sick of the tunnel to the morgue, I sincerely hoped this wasn’t the last time I would see it.

  Zen had set up battery powered construction lights to replace the ones damaged by previous vortex openings. A cage containing Namia blocked the exit to the tunnel. Two additional empty cages decorated with silver adornments were in place as well. Zen, Petra, Chase and Senji were all armed with guns. Zen’s had bullets he'd made himself from casting silver. In addition, Zen and Senji also each had a taser. Fortunately, there had been no rain and the tunnel floor was dry.

  “Are you ready?” I asked.

  Zen looked around at all that had been assembled and arched an eyebrow.

  “Yes. And so are you two.” He shot a meaningful glance at the duffle bags we carried. “Except you need one more thing.” Zen stepped forward pulling an item from his pocket. “Hold out your arm.” When I did as he asked, Zen slipped a watch over my hand. He pushed the watch up to my wrist and secured the metal clasp with a click.

  “The mechanism is waterproof,” Zen continued. “It’s an automatic mechanical watch, so it won’t need winding. Also, it shouldn't be affected by any kind of electromagnetic field in the vortex.”

  “Thanks, Zen,” I said.

  “We have twenty-two hours, thirty-two minutes and twenty seconds until the portal seals.” Rom peered over my shoulder at the watch.

  Our eyes met and I saw my own thought reflected in his face: Not much time. I turned back to Zen.

  “Now you’re ready.” Zen clapped me on the shoulder.

  I turned to Senji and Chase.

  “Senji and I have talked it over,” Chase said. “We promise no more fighting between us.”

  “At least until you get back.” Senji turned to Chase. “Oh, and buddy? This is your ass.” He smacked Chase’s posterior hard.

  “Ow,” Chase rubbed the spot. “What was that for?”

  “A hole in the ground is about to open,” Senji replied. “I just wanted you to know the difference.”

  “Very clever,” Chase said.

  “I thought you two weren’t going to fight 'til we got back?”

  “You’re not gone yet and I needed one to tide me over.” Senji grinned.

  Petra crossed to me and I hoped she wasn’t going to make me cry.

  “Just make sure you come back.” She gave me a sassy smirk. ”I don’t want to have to start all over with someone else as my best friend.”

  “Oh okay.” My laugh was chocked. “After all, it’s totally about you.”

  “Like, yeah,” she said. “Besides, I’ve gotten used to your 28 days a month of PMS.”

  “Slut.”

  “That’s the bitch I know and love,” Petra said sarcastically. She hugged me and planted a kiss on my cheek before pushing me roughly back. “I love you, Kiz. Don’t get hurt.”

  “You be careful too.” I brushed a tear before it could get to my cheek. “I’ve gotten sorta used to your dramatics.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “I forgot to tell you how I might as well be living in Darfur.”

  “I’ll listen to your reasoning when I get back.”

  With tears in my eyes, I opened the portal. As the whirlwind swirled and the circling of the vortex expanded, Rom and I joined hands. His grip crushed my fingers, but I didn't complain. We glanced at one another. On a silent count of three we simultaneously began a running start, before leaping into the abyss.

  Our leap sent Rom and me into the mouth and quickly down the esophagus of the portal. Again, I had the strange sensation of a gelatinous substance around me. My ears were plugged with it. Trying to shout to Rom was useless. I could hear my voice in my head, like when I’d been diving or snorkeling, but Rom couldn’t seem to hear me.

  This time there was a freedom and rapidness in our movement I hadn’t experienced before, probably due to the fact that I wasn’t resisting the pull but going with the flow.

  Almost immediately, I saw two figures coming upward toward Rom and me. I recognized one as the raven-haired woman—probable ghoul—I’d seen the last time I’d been inside the vortex. She floated beside a male figure. Young—a teen?—and beautiful, almost angelic in appearance with his close-cropped blond hair, green eyes and delicate features. The male hand reached out to me as we passed with long blunt edged fingers that would have been perfect for a concert pianist. This must be the entity entangled with Rom. Could this one be human or something we hadn’t seen before? I hoped Zen and company would be able to handle it, whatever it was.

  As we reached the other end, a cloud-filled sky became visible. I had just time enough to wonder what that would mean before the vortex spit Rom and me out. We landed on a hard surface in Dorcha.

  We slowed our running steps to a stop and I had a chance to take in my surroundings. The initial sensory images made me think I was in the middle of the sky. Realization came that much of the “sky” was actually wisps of fog and I stood on a semi-enclosed walkway spanning two towers of a bridge. To the right was a separate walkway. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that we’d emerged through a door that led into one of the towers.

  Rom walked me to the handrail and we gazed down at the roadway of the bridge and the river probably about one hundred and fifty feet below us. Fighting off the nausea that came with my fear of heights, I forced myself to continue surveying the area. I didn't want to flashback to that other bridge...with Adam.

  “Look there.” Rom pointed to a structure on shore, a structure I recognized as the Tower of London. With that came the knowledge of where we were. The Tower Bridge, with its two robust towers, was more like a medieval drawbridge than a suspension bridge. Suddenly, I recognized that the rook chess pieces on Prince Leopold’s board had been carved based on the design of these towers.

  Scanning the cityscape brought more confusion. I’d visited London two years ago with my
family before the divorce, and much of what I was seeing was familiar but twisted somehow. For one thing the walkway I was on had appeared enclosed when I’d seen it in my world, but the one Rom and I stood on was precariously open to the elements. For another thing, the city I saw before me was not a modern version of London with its skyscrapers, but more like the Victorian era I’d seen portrayed in movies and on television. But there were also some oddities that met my eye. So much of what was laid out before us seemed overgrown with vegetation as if it hadn't been in use for some time.

  I gazed at the horizon. The huge population of the city and crowds of tourists were missing from this London. Right at this moment, I couldn’t identify one living—or un-living—creature moving below. I had no idea of the local time, but whatever the hour, it wasn’t rush hour.

  Rom took the map from his duffle and unfolded it.

  “We’re here.” I placed the tip of my index finder on the line over the Thames drawn on the map. “That building over there is the Tower of London and I see St. Paul’s cathedral in the distance.” I gazed up at him with a smile. “We’re in London. At least the Dorcha version.”

  “Thus, north has that direction.” Rom pointed into the distance.

  “Yes. And if the rest of this map is accurate, we should cross to the north side of the bridge and make our way west along the river bank to head for Buckingham Palace.”

  A dark something caught my eye.

  “What’s that?” I said, squinting to focus better on the dark something perched on top of one of jagged tooth-like castle keep walls of the Tower of London.

  Rom followed my gaze and held a hand over his eyes. “I know not.”

  Unfortunately, the “something” turned out to be alive and capable of seeing us too. Giant black wings unfolded from around it and stretched wide. The creature took flight and soared in great arching and swooping movements as it flew closer to us. Only in statuary and carved into architectural elements had I seen this creature before: a gryphon.

  For a few moments I could only stand in awe of its magnificence. The golden brown creature’s wingspan was at least twenty feet in length. It had the head and wings of an eagle. The body was that of a lion apart from its eagle-like front talons. I’d always thought a gryphon was a mythological creature. Yet here it was...flying

  “Run,” Rom yelled and seized my hand.

  As we sprinted, heading for the cover of the north tower, the gryphon headed for us. Its screeching yell reverberated through me. The fear provoked by that call tripped me up and I stumbled. Rom dragged me forward again which earned him my eternal gratitude. Getting caught in that enormous beak would really blow.

  The gryphon flew to a perch on the edge of the walkway between the tower and us. Rom skidded to a stop and pulled me up short. The gimlet eyes of the gryphon took us in—no doubt it was eyeing its prey—as the head twitched. Rom began to back slowly away pushing me behind him.

  At that moment, two more winged creatures swooped down from the sky. As they came closer, I saw they were not as large as the gryphon; each of them was probably not more than about five feet in length. Amazingly, these beings had the heads of women and the bodies of birds. Their claws were even longer and sharper than the gryphon’s talons. Fantastic.

  Initially, it seemed they’d come to our rescue because they dove at the gryphon. Their long, wavy hair whipped in the wind like flags. I could have cheered, until one of them spoke.

  “Nasty bird,” one of the flying bird-women screamed as she clawed at the gryphon’s head. “This food belongs to us.”

  Rom and I clearly qualified as the food.

  “Harpies.” Rom shouted over his shoulder.

  The other bird-woman landed on the gryphon’s back. The gryphon screeched and tried to fly upward but couldn’t achieve lift off.

  I continued to scuttle backwards sheltered by Rom. As he moved he unzipped his duffle. My own duffle lay about two feet behind me on the walkway where I’d dropped it in the haste of our initial run from the gryphon.

  One of the harpies spotted our movement and abandoned clawing at the gryphon to dart in our direction. Rom rummaged in his bag not taking his eye off the harpy descending on us fast. He pulled at something inside but it caught on the material of the bag.

  Finally, tugging free the super soaker water gun, he trained it on the harpy. We stopped moving backwards and Rom fumbled inside the bag again for a few long moments as the harpy closed in on us. When she was about six feet away, he drew out a lighter, squeezed the trigger, and the smell of WD-40 permeated the air.

  Rom ignited the lighter beneath the stream and a twenty-four inch length of flame burst from the muzzle in an arc. The fire fell just short of striking the harpy, although I did smell singed feathers.

  “Aghhhhhhh,” the harpy yelled as her wings widened and flapped backward. She trod air to stall her forward movement. “Damn you!”

  “Run,” Rom yelled to me. “South tower.”

  The fuel supply in the super soaker was dwindling fast. The arc of the flame had decreased in length by at least six inches. Turning his body, but keeping his arm outstretched behind him so the muzzle remained pointed in the general direction of the harpy, Rom ran, pushing me ahead of him.

  I grabbed up my duffle as we passed it.

  The harpy kept pace with us, clearly seeing that our makeshift flamethrower wouldn’t last for much longer.

  Once at the tower, I clutched at the iron handle of the huge oak door and pulled it open just wide enough for me to enter and for Rom to follow me in. The flame from the super soaker had shrunk to a few inches so Rom threw it at the harpy as he slid into the opening.

  We both used our bodies to slam the door shut and immediately felt the impact of the harpy and her furious attempts to force it open. A heavy brass bolt about three quarters of the way up the door caught my attention and I pushed it into the locked position.

  Slowly, hesitantly, I backed away from the door. The lock held despite the continued rattling from the harpy’s pounding.

  Not wanting to take a chance on the ancient elevator system, Rom and I ran down about three hundred stairs to the bottom to reach the roadway level. We passed through the archway leading us outside.

  “Does the wristwatch yet work?” Rom panted.

  Holding up my arm for inspection, I saw the mechanism clicking and moving as the seconds slipped by. Twenty-one hours, fifty-six minutes, fifteen seconds to zero hour. Fourteen seconds. Thirteen seconds.

  I reported the time left and I’m certain there was more than a hint of panic in my face. Just as certainly, that look of panic increased when a group of soldiers emerged from behind the tower and surrounded us.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Halt!” A soldier—probably an officer from his medals—ordered us.

  He stood at the center of ten other soldiers all of whom were dressed in antiquated uniforms consisting of red tunics over khaki pants. More significantly, with his yellow eyes, sharp teeth and claws, this officer was clearly a ghoul. My scrutiny of the rest of the soldiers confirmed they were ghoul-like also.

  “I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Kizzy Taylor?” The officer eyed me with a sly smirk. “And her friend Rom?”

  “Who wants to know?” I asked.

  “Colonel William Crowder.” He introduced himself with a slight bow. “As you are to be the honored guests at the court, His Royal Highness, the Prince Leopold, sent us to meet and convey you safely to him."

  No matter how charming his manner, it was clear we would have no choice but to go with them.

  Colonel Crowder clapped his hands and two of the soldiers stepped forward to grasp our duffle bags.

  “We can carry our own things,” I said, resisting the pull.

  The ghoul soldier tugging at my bag bared his teeth and hissed at me. Rom was having a similar experience a few feet away.

  “I really must insist you allow us to take them,” the Colonel said, a threat underlying his words.
“We wish to be good hosts and honored guests do not carry their own luggage.”

  Reluctantly, I released my hold on the duffle, as did Rom. So much for our weapons. But this turn of events wasn’t so bad, I assured myself. At least we would easily find Prince Leopold. And if we found the prince, we would find Juliette also...

  Oh yeah, Billy would probably be there too.

  “All right.” I held up my hands. ”Take me to your leader.” No doubt this was the only time I’d ever have a chance to use that line.

  At the exact moment the words left my mouth, gunfire sounded. Several of the ghoul soldiers dropped, blackish blood spurting from their wounds. The others scrambled for cover and lifted their own weapons before commencing to return fire.

  Rom pulled me with him back into the shelter of the tower. Colonel Crowder ran in after us and cowered near the wall. The ghoul soldiers remaining outside were cut down in quick order, many of them taking gunshots to the head.

  When they all lay still on the ground we heard a shout.

  “Come out. No weapons drawn,” a female voice called.

  Crowder shook his head and remained where he was. Rom raised his hands and walked out. I followed him with my hands up too. We were confronted with a group of five individuals who were armed with rifles and dressed in street clothes. One, a young woman of about twenty, with dark hair styled in an enormous beehive, stepped forward into my face. Wearing an oversized black duster-style coat and heavy knee high boots, gave her skinny body bulk and toughness she wouldn't otherwise have projected.

  She grasped me by the shoulders and stared into my eyes, squinting. “Show me your teeth,” she barked out.

  I gave an exaggerated smile.

  “Now you.” She pointed the rifle at Rom and he opened his mouth wide. After a few seconds she nodded and said, “You both seem human."

  Her group seemed human to me too.

  The woman turned to a man standing a few feet away.

  “Go get the other one out.”