Gatekeeper

by Alison Levy

  “Oh!” said Bach, eyes wide. “Didn’t you know? The crawlspace under this house is littered with stuff.”

  Rachel stared at him a moment and then closed her eyes and shook her head. “What?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “There are tons of food wrappers and empty cartons. There’s also a lamp, a chunk of pavement, something that looks like a rice cooker, a couple of doorknobs, a sink faucet, a street sign with some weird language on it, a barstool, a—”

  “What?” she shouted, grimacing in pain the moment the word left her mouth.

  The daemon shuddered in response to Rachel’s yell. Its movement startled the puppy; he tucked his tail, whimpered, and licked Bach’s hand.

  Bach cringed a little under Rachel’s accusatory glare but continued, “And that little tree out back is actually a big vine. It’s rooted under the house. Looks like it must’ve sprouted from a seed down there.”

  “That’s insane,” she said. “I had to do an inspection of this place when I moved in. I checked the crawlspace and it was empty.”

  “Not anymore,” said Bach with a shrug.

  “But who could’ve put that crap down there?” she asked no one in particular. “Who would sneak into a pocket dimension just to dump their trash?”

  Bach’s eyes flickered, and she realized he was searching his sight-beyond data banks for an answer.

  “No one,” he finally said. “I’m sure of it. No one was here.”

  “So how did it get under the house? How did all that crap end up here without someone carrying it through the passage?”

  Bach stared at her strangely, as if she had said something in another language. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I know no one was here, but that’s all I’ve got.”

  “I . . . oh, forget it,” Rachel said. “I’ll figure it out later.”

  The puppy scooted under the table and gently nudged her leg. She looked down and he wagged his tail. The tail whapped the daemon, softly thudding against the coat with each sweep. After five or six whaps, the daemon shifted its weight, startling the dog. He moved to the other side of Rachel’s chair to avoid the invisible creature.

  Rachel sighed. “Come here, you,” she commanded.

  The dog scampered out from under the table and stared up at her. She looked him over with a curious eye. His body was long and bony, and his white legs were gangly from youthful growth. His wagging tail had stiff bristles like a hairbrush, and when it came to a stop, it curled up, resting on his rump in a perfect O.

  “Hmm,” said Rachel, surprised. “It’s not a mix.”

  “He’s not?”

  “It’s a Noki,” she said. “It’s a herding breed. The tail and ears are a dead giveaway.”

  “So it’s Arcanan? How’d an Arcanan dog end up under this house?”

  “I guess the same way all that other stuff got there.” Rachel pinched the bridge of her nose. “However that happened. I don’t know. I’m tired, I hurt, and I don’t give a shit. I’ll deal with it all later.”

  She started to rise, winced, and sank back down. Bach jumped to his feet and flew around the table to help. She managed to pull herself up by holding on to his arm. Once she was upright, without a word, she gently pushed off of his chest and made her way into the hall.

  BACH STOOD, WATCHING her go. Then, with a sudden jolt, he ran into the hall. Just as she mounted the first stair, he blurted out, “Hey!”

  She looked at him, her eyes carrying the weight of her terrible night.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I, uh . . . I never had any right to expect your kindness. So thank you for it. If there’s ever anything I can do . . . please tell me.”

  She smiled wearily, a smile that was polite but unconvincing, and nodded a little. Bach didn’t need his sight-beyond to see that there wasn’t an ounce of strength left in her to devote to him and his thanks. What little energy she still had was earmarked for the journey to her bed. Slowly, she continued her way up the stairs, one hand on the railing and the other clutching her bandaged ribs.

  Bach’s eyes stayed fixed on her. The sight of her labored climb filled him with a desperate resolve he had never felt before but now fully embraced. She had believed him. When he told her no one had come through the passageway to dump trash, she had accepted his word as definitive. It was a strange but amazing sensation to be believed despite not being able to provide any proof. He owed her too much to repay, and yet he had to repay it. He had to.

  The puppy lingered at Bach’s heels, his adoring eyes never leaving him.

  Bach reached down and rubbed the animal’s head. “Good boy,” he crooned. “I’ll take care of you. Don’t you worry.”

  Back in the kitchen, the daemon sat under the table, still and oblivious.

  EPILOGUE

  He sat in the locked, windowless room and stared at the wall. He took carefully measured breaths while keeping his back flat against the wall behind him, the chill of the bricks biting through his torn shirt. His hand was heavily bandaged, but still the blood from his wounds seeped through. Bitten by a daemon wearing a woman’s coat. The indignity of it turned his stomach. The only thing that kept him from dwelling on it was the greater indignity of having been defeated and captured in his own home.

  Those two little bitches he had tried to hold in his basement were clearly to blame for this travesty. The gatekeeper had obviously been bait, while the other one had been sent to spring the trap. If all had gone as planned, there would have been fresh blood all over his basement, his tools, and his skin by now. Instead, he was locked in a cell, and the blood on his clothes and ruined hand was almost entirely his own. Those damn whores.

  The Arcanans he worked with should have warned him ahead of time that a collector was after him. So far, he’d been waiting for them to show up, stalling by dealing out only tidbits of information to his captors, but so far there was no sign of rescue. He snorted. To hell with them. He had no compunction about telling the Arcanan authorities about his allies if this was the best they could do for him. When the guards returned to his cell, he would give them more than the barebones facts that he had previously supplied. He would throw them all to the dogs.

  With a bang that made him jump, the cell door suddenly opened. Through the poorly lit doorway, the prisoner’s eyes fell upon a familiar face—one that did not belong to the men who had questioned him earlier. He smirked and his blood warmed with satisfaction.

  “Decided not to leave me here, huh?” he taunted. “Do I know too much about you to be left unsupervised?”

  “If that was true,” said the Arcanan, “you’d be dead by now.”

  The words registered less as a threat than as a blow to his ego. His grin faded into a snarl.

  “Don’t fuck with me,” he said. “You need me.”

  “Yeah,” said the Arcanan, his tone one of blatant disgust. “We do.” He curled his lip. “We wouldn’t have gone near a sack of shit like you unless we had no other recourse.”

  “Watch what you say,” he snapped. “If you piss me off, who’s going to do the bloodletting you’re too squeamish to do?”

  The Arcanan shook his head and scoffed. “If you think being a murderer makes you special, then you’re even more delusional than I thought.”

  He glared, his anger fueled by the fires of resentment and damaged pride.

  Before he could say a word, his rescuer stepped back from the door and waved at him impatiently. “Get up,” he ordered. “I’m taking you out of here.”

  He glanced up and down the hall as he exited. There was no one in sight, and the Arcanan seemed unconcerned that they might be caught. Newly confident, he followed the other man through a maze of doors and hallways. Several times, as they passed through one empty room after another, his guide paused and held up his hand for silence, seemingly waiting for an unseen passerby to move out of their path.

  By the time they reached the right door, they had encountered no one and had set off no alarms. The Arcanan opened the door
onto a deserted street, a flickering lamppost casting irregular shadows over the cracked sidewalk. He held out a wallet and car keys. “Take your shit and get outta here. Don’t go back to that house. We have a new location prepared for you. The address is in your wallet. Settle in there and keep a low profile—very low. The Arcanans will be after you now, and if they find you this time, they won’t send just one unprepared collector. We’ll do what we can to thwart their investigation on this end, but we can’t draw attention to ourselves, so you’ll have to be on your guard.”

  He sneered. “They won’t catch me again.”

  “See that they don’t.” The Arcanan pointed up the street, gestured for him to start walking, and turned to head back into the dark passage.

  He shoved his belongings into his pocket. “You know,” he said, drawing the retreating man’s attention, “all my work to open the passageway is gone. All those girls . . .” He grinned, his teeth gleaming in the stuttering light. “I’ll have to start over from scratch.”

  The Arcanan stared at him over his shoulder with his nose wrinkled, as if he reeked of filth. After a beat, he hissed a breath through clenched teeth, returned a reluctant nod, and said coldly, “Then you’d better get to work.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’m overwhelmingly grateful to my husband, Matt, who has provided me with more love and support than I ever could have asked for. If not for his support and encouragement, I never would have found the courage to publish.

  I’m always thankful for the love and brain-bending questions of my son, Eric. He gives me a lot to think about, changes my perception of the world, and makes me want to grow.

  I owe a big debt to Eileen McFalls and the Women Writers of the Triad critique group. Their analysis of my work—from glowing praise to brutal-but-honest criticism—has made me a better writer.

  A special thanks to Mrs. Webb, my sixth grade English teacher. I first began writing when she told me I had talent. Good teachers change lives.

  Thank you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Credit: Ivan Saul Cutler

  ALISON LEVY lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with her husband, son, and variety of pets. When she’s not writing or doing mom things, she crochets, gardens, walks her collies, and works on home improvement projects.

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