Never had he held so much money. He thumbed through all twenties, fifties, and hundreds.
“Now youze canna get a bigger place,” Frank suggested, sitting opposite of him.
Kelly ordered champagne and had the vamp escorts he had hired serve it to them. The night turned out to be one of celebration, and the more Pierce drank, the more he drowned his woes. He wanted an escape. With a head full of giggle juice, he danced with a vamp gal who could barely keep up as he allowed the jazz music to take hold of him. It was all in good fun until he spotted Lucy.
At first, he believed his eyes were mistaken. He blinked several times and still she was there by the door. Blast it all, she must have asked the doorman for him by name.
“Excuse me, love,” Pierce said to the escort who was panting.
She didn’t seem to mind the break.
Pierce hurried over to Lucy, but not before glancing over at the booth where Kelly had his hands full of booze and women. Taking solace in that, he said to Lucy, “What are you doing here?”
His tone was more forceful than he intended, but dammit, this was the last goddamn place she needed to be. He gently took her by the arm and led her out and up the stairs.
“I . . . I was worried,” she stammered, following him as he walked ahead of her toward the basement. “You screamed at me and then hung up. I dropped in at your apartment and . . .”
Pierce stopped short at the top stair and turned sharply to her. “Wait a tick. You went to my flat after I told you to stay away?”
“It looked as if you had moved out,” Lucy continued, ignoring his question and moving past him. “Just about the only thing left was some old book on the floor.”
The book? Christ, he thought he’d had that with him. It must have fallen out of his suitcase during his frantic dash to flee. Fuckin’ hell, he never even locked the door on his way out.
“Do you have it with you?” he asked, following her into the basement. “The book?”
She turned on her heel and eyed him queerly. Two short rows of standing lamps with burning Edison lights made a clear path from one staircase to the other.
“No. I left it there. Why?”
Pierce ran his hand through his hair and then stumbled a bit.
“Are you drunk?” Lucy asked, staying where she was.
Pierce steadied himself the best he could. “Aye. I’ve had a few. You shouldn’t be here, Luce.”
Lucy’s chest began to heave. “Yes. I saw why.”
Pierce strained to get his bloody thoughts sorted out. “That’s not the reason. I was only dancing with the lass.”
“Until later, right?” Lucy asked testily.
“No, not until later. We were dancing. Period. No comma, semi comma, or connotation about it.”
Lucy looked none too convinced. “I came looking for you because I thought you were in trouble. It frightened me, so I did what people who care for each other do. If you wanted to end this relationship or cheat with some girl, you should’ve told me outright instead of stringing me along.”
Lucy was turning to leave when he called out, “It ain’t nothing of the sort. I . . . I am in trouble.”
She stopped at the bottom step and twisted around to face him. Tears shimmered in her large doe eyes. Just then, some bugger came upstairs from the speakeasy and pushed past them. Pierce paid the bloke little mind. Instead, he took Lucy by the hand and led her a few feet deeper into the basement, away from the lights.
“I have something to tell you,” he stated urgently. “And you’re going to think me mad, but just know that it’s all true.”
A tiny voice begged him—no yelled at him—to stay quiet. That sensible part of him was knocked to the ground by his intoxicated self, which then coaxed him to go on. It was as if the devil and the angel on his shoulders both wanted amusement.
“What?” Lucy asked in a whisper.
Pierce took a breath. “My name isn’t Isaac Chaplin. I’m not a soldier from the war.”
“Oh? And I suppose you’re not from England, either.”
“No, that part is true. I’m from England, just not from this era.”
“This era? Are you trying to tell me you’re from some other time?”
“Aye,” he answered, feeling woozy. He should have eaten before he started drinking so bloody much. “My real name is Pierce Landcross. I was born in 1817 to Gypsy parents, Nona Fey and Jasper Landcross. I lived with them until my brother and me were . . .”
“Wait.” She took a step back from him. “1817?”
“Yeah. I’m here because a mare wants me dead.”
“A horse wants you dead?”
“No. Not that kind of mare. She’s a creature who gives folks nightmares. She sent a wild elf out to do the deed. This elf somehow followed me through time. She tried killing me this morning at the cabin.”
“An elf?” Lucy pounced on the word, sounding miffed.
“Aye.”
Lucy crossed her arms. “How did you escape?”
“My grandfather saved me.”
He should have stopped right there. Perhaps lied. Anything else would have sounded saner than the truth.
“Your grandfather?” Lucy asked with surprise. “Didn’t you tell me you were born in the last century?”
“He’s an elf also,” he answered, unable to stop himself. “Apparently, they can live for a long while.”
Lucy had heard enough and left for the stairs once more. “You’re so unkind, Isaac. You think I’m an idiot to believe any of this shit?”
“It’s not a lie, darling.” He followed her. “I really came . . .”
“Stop it!” she exclaimed, whipping around to face him on the staircase.
Her tone kept him nailed in place.
She shook her head angrily. “To think that I risked it all for you.”
Lucy rushed up the stairs and was gone. Pierce almost chased after her, but he was simply too wankered.
“Lucy.”
“Leave me alone!”
Unable to go after her without falling over, Pierce dropped to the bottom step, where he sat for a long while.
“Christ. What did I just tell her?”
When Zoe arrived at The Brass Ring with her news, she found that Tony had been managing both the nightclub and the speakeasy.
“Boss is sick,” he told her. “He needed to go home.”
Zoe was disappointed. For days, she had been tracking down whoever had stolen Mr. Clark’s submarine, and now she had found it—and much more.
Zoe had bought an access ticket from a patron going into Quinn’s speakeasy and then gone inside disguised in her sharpest suit. The joint didn’t look half bad considering how quickly it had been renovated. It was no Brass Ring, but not a shabby setup, either. She stuck to a table and kept out of sight of Quinn and his cronies. The young man was with them, but it wasn’t until that cute little redhead showed up that Zoe identified him. Without a doubt, he was the one at The Brass Ring that night. She couldn’t wait to tell Clark.
The treaty. It held as true as the lies thieves told.
In her office, she phoned up Clark’s house and left a message with one of his bodyguards. “Tell him all this when he wakes up, Carl,” Zoe ordered.
“Will do, Miss Dixon.”
She hung up the phone and leaned into her chair while lighting a cigarette. Her work was done.
Entrance to the realm was simple enough once one found where the door was located. Earth itself had countless gateways pocketing it and linking it to nearly everything that had evolved and developed within the boundaries of its galaxy. The entrance to this particular realm was in the Sahara Desert, an eroded dome embedded deep in the earth where a ridge of many layers of limestone had collected in the center. The large circular plateau had rings created by a variety of colorful rocks, plants, and sand. This place had yet to be discovered by man and could only be seen as it really was from above—a circular formation in the form of an eye, staring out into space.
“This is what you came up with?” she quipped.
“I deem it appropriate, considering what we’re here to do.” He grinned wickedly. “Are you certain you wish to do this?”
Freya answered by unsheathing her knife from her belt and gripping it tightly. Njáll opened the stone door. Beyond it was a world of spring.
“Good luck, milady,” he said to her.
Flowers perfumed the sweet air. Pure white clouds drifted lazily in a crisp blue sky. Birds of all species flew about. Some perched in trees. Every tree was in bloom.
In the distance, water fell out of thin air and into a pond that connected to a stream where brightly colored koi fish swam. The suspended waterfall was where Freya found the goddess, Huld.
“Who are you?” demanded the Finnish sorceress. “What are you doing in my realm uninvited?”
Armed with her knife, Freya stabbed Huld in the throat and tore through her windpipe.
Freya held Huld’s head by the hair. “Before you die, Huld, I place this hex upon thee,” Freya intoned as the goddess slipped away. “You shall not be reborn as another deity or even as an enchantress. You will have little memory of this life. The best that you can hope for is to be reborn as a human psychic!”
The hex fixed itself to the end of Huld’s life. Freya allowed her victim’s body to drop, her silky long hair sliding between Freya’s fingers as she did. Huld gurgled out her last breath as she bled over a bed of pretty red flowers.
“You actually did it. Impressive,” Njáll praised her, suddenly appearing.
“I believed killing a goddess would be more difficult,” Freya admitted, cleaning the blade of her knife on the hem of Huld’s dress. “Apparently not.”
Njáll placed his hand upon the dead goddess’s body and read her thoughts before they fluttered off. His eyelids flickered as he did.
“Well?” Freya demanded anxiously. “Do you know yet?”
“Patience,” he advised, his eyelids still blinking rapidly. “I am searching through thousands of years’ worth of memories.”
Freya held her tongue. The Trickster needed to work quickly, for Huld’s mind was shutting down second by second and taking with it the valuable information she had come for.
“Found her,” Njáll announced, rising. “They had a final encounter before the mare went into hiding. The mare wanted to hide here in this realm, but Huld forbade it. Instead, she advised her to seek refuge in the Lost Forest.”
Freya strained to remember. Not many memories of her past life as the nymph, Temenitis, were clear.
“Yes, I believe I recall that. The woodland is so vast.”
Freya had little hope in finding the mare in such a forest. Even if she used magic, she could easily become disorientated within the wood’s entrapments, which were lurking around every blasted tree.
“I will find her,” Njáll promised. “I’ve spent much time there in hiding myself.”
Mara had spent the day hunting for food. She had managed to slay a couple of squirrels and had caught a fish in a pool of black water. As she skinned a squirrel, she cursed angrily under her breath. Mara hated how the animals in this damn forest tasted. Every creature she ate had a gummy texture to it that played ill over her tongue.
She had set up camp in a small clearing near a sliver of a stream. She had built her shelter out of mud, sticks, and branches. To prevent unwanted animals and any dangerous predators from entering her encampment, Mara would toss the leftovers of her prey deep into the forest. The fire also helped in keeping harmful creatures away. She could hear night things killing everywhere. Mara hated it here.
She couldn’t wait to hear news from Kayden. Then again, would she hear any report at all? There was no agreement between them of ever meeting again. For all Mara knew, she could be waiting in this cursed forest forever. And then there was Freya to worry about. Even with Pierce Landcross dead, the witch wouldn’t stop coming after her. At least Freya would be unable to take her life, thanks to Huld’s protection.
“You hide well, Mare of Nightmares.”
Mara’s heart knocked hard against her ribs. She didn’t need to look to know who was speaking, but she did anyway, throwing her knife in the direction of the voice. The blade hit a tree trunk and nothing more.
A strong force thrust her off her feet. Her bones rattled when she hit another tree trunk. She didn’t fall but instead stayed pinned in place, her feet hovering several inches off the ground. A man stood in her camp. Not just a man, though. Something more. Yet, it wasn’t he who was binding her.
“Hello, Mara,” Freya greeted, appearing out of the deep shadows of the forest that surrounded the camp.
“You can imprison me, witch,” Mara shouted, spittle flying from her mouth, “but you can do nothing more!”
A searing heat roasted the inside of her stomach. It quickly spread and burned into her organs like meat charred by lava. Her screaming did nothing to ease the agony. Her body was cooking, and when the heat seared her throat, her voice was silenced forever.
Mara was dying. Her protection was no longer valid. And as her body melted like candle wax, her limbs dripped off, and her brain boiled inside her skull, Mara finally realized her error.
Twenty-Nine
Georgie
Just days before American and British forces arrived, the Germans dropped mustard gas bombs on the city of Ypres in a deadly air raid. Afterward, a fleet of soldiers entered the toxic city to search for any survivors.
George Baxter wore a gas mask, the same as his fellow brothers in arms around him. The tube that went from his nose down to the airbag strapped to his chest provided safe oxygen. George listened to his own rhythmic breathing inside the heavy mask as he and the other soldiers combed the dead streets.
The city had been ravaged by battles and bombs. Buildings stood in halves, exposing the apartments’ inside like opened dollhouses. Mounds of rubble lay below. The war had annihilated some structures while leaving others untouched. The population had dwindled since the invasion began. Many people had fled, but those who remained had died when the gas bombs landed.
The overcast day only made everything more ominous. The haze of the deadly gas put a sickening see-through mist over the whole city. The roads were mostly covered with debris, and the whole area looked more like a construction zone. Whatever beauty had been, whatever happy moment was displayed here, it was now lost forever.
Ypres had become a newborn ghost town, a metropolis of the freshly departed. The bodies of soldiers and civilians lay about as if sleeping, but their faces were wrenched into expressions of horrid agony. When George went into one building to do a sweep, he discovered an entire family, their bodies tangled in a fearful embrace upon the floor.
The pitiful side of victory, he thought grimly.
George was eighteen when he enlisted. He had joined the war on the first western front as soon as America entered the Great War, and he had been fighting for nearly a year since. He had seen plenty in that year, none of which he ever expected or could ever forget. Before he joined the Army, he’d never even been out of the state of Tennessee. The only time he’d held a gun was while on hunting trips. Mostly, he would help his father brew his secret moonshine to sell. When George left to go fight, everyone in his tiny town was so proud. They wished him well and promised to hold a Hero’s Welcome parade when he returned. George looked forward to it.
The soldiers marched ahead. A tank followed gradually behind the fleet, crushing anything its wheels rolled over, the bodies of the enemy and the rubble alike. It was all the same to the winning team. They hit the main thoroughfare where more chewed
up buildings and piles of litter lined the road. The gas’s reach wasn’t as thick, but it didn’t make things any easier. Walking beside George was his friend, Ted Lewis, who’d enlisted around the same time as he did.
Ted turned to him, his eyes barely visible through the large glass eyeholes of his gas mask. Like George, he wore his Brodie helmet low to where the brim of it just touched the brass edge of the goggles.
“I think this place is done for, eh, Baxter?” he remarked, his voice muffled under the mask.
Then something clicked underneath Ted’s foot.
“Shit!” Ted yelled, looking down. “Landmine! Run, Baxter—”
The bomb went off, blowing Ted to pieces. He’d taken the brunt of the explosion, but the shock waves blew George right off his feet. The blast stole away all awareness. George knew he was lying on the ground, but he hadn’t felt the impact when he’d landed. Siren-like ringing shrilled in his head, disorientating him even when a volley of gunfire erupted around them.
“Ambush!” someone yelled, grabbing George by the coat collar and dragging him off. “Take cover!”
George shook off his daze. He wanted to raise his rifle, but for some reason, he couldn’t. As he was being dragged, he noticed that he was drenched in the blood and the chunks of meat that were once his friend. Bright tracers flashed across the air. Soldiers still on the road collapsed when a batch of rapid gunfire sliced into them. The shooting erupted from a group of three enemy troops walking toward them carrying automatic mini-guns.
“Machine Men!” another soldier hollered, running behind the broken wall where George had been dragged to safety.
“Where’s my rifle?” he finally managed to say.
“It’s still with your arm,” answered a soldier kneeling beside him.
The sound of his own breathing quickened. He looked down, wiping more blood and pieces of Ted off the eyeholes of his mask. Shredded dark strands of meat hung from his right shoulder where his arm used to be. Panicked, he was about to pull off his gas mask when someone grabbed his wrist.
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