Unfortunately, he didn’t seem anxious to go on.
He stared at the far wall, his expression empty.
“Can I bring you something to drink?” she offered. “Some food from downstairs, perhaps?”
“No,” he said. “No. Thank you.”
He didn’t look at her, but continued to stare at the far wall, in the direction of a large sculpture of a dragon that guarded one side of an enormous bookshelf.
His now pale green eyes appeared impossibly distant, galaxies away.
To distract herself, she mused on the chair in which the Traveler sat.
It was one of two, a set she picked up years ago, when the club first opened. Sky blue, rounded in shape, high-backed with elaborately carved wooden detail, they imitated a kind of French Louis XV style.
Jules called them her “Alice in Wonderland” chairs.
Giving a cursory scan of the round-walled office, Alexis found herself remembering other things Devin and Jules said about this space.
Devin insisted it would pass for the lair of a supervillain.
Jules got more specific, saying she pictured Moriarty in here, battling Sherlock Holmes. She once told her it also looked like the inside of the submarine for the mad captain of the submarine in the movie, Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Some of that had even been vaguely deliberate.
Whatever Devin and Jules might think, Alexis found things went significantly smoother when she remained a bit of a mystery to the majority of humans she encountered.
It didn’t pay to let them get too close.
The floor-to-ceiling window behind her, looking down over the main floor of the club, always did remind her of the captain’s quarters of an old ship, or, like Jules said, possibly the submarine from that Jules Verne novel. Antique, wooden bookshelves covered the wall opposite her desk, the same wall the Traveler stared at now.
A low couch, pale blue like the chairs, sat in front of it, opposite the dragon and Egyptian-style cat sculptures, forming a kind of mini-library.
A lot of things she owned were the same pale blue color as the velvet chairs.
It was almost as if she’d matched details of her space to her eyes without even noticing she’d done it.
Even her dark brown hair had streaks of pale blue woven in.
Of course, she’d done that more deliberately, matching her hair to her eye color for effect, but somehow, she hadn’t fully noticed she’d done the same with her office chairs, her office couch, the eyes of her dragon statue, the glass baubles on her office’s stone fireplace, a glass vase on the bookshelf, a painting on the wall, a rug on the hardwood floor in front of her bookshelves, a sculpture of a wave on one edge of her desk.
Something about seeing the Traveler draped over the blue velvet in front of her, with his dark, chestnut hair and black clothing, made her notice her unconscious preference.
As if reading her mind, the Traveler looked down at the material of his chair, stroking it with long, well-shaped fingers.
“I have noticed you like this color very much, Lightbringer.” His eyes rose to hers. A flash of heat lit up his handsome face. “I like it, too. It suits you. And not only for your eyes.”
Alexis felt her cheeks warm.
Blushing wasn’t a usual response for her.
She didn’t blush with any creature, male or female.
She, Alexis Poole, never blushed.
Maybe for the same reason, it irritated her to do it for this creature now.
She felt manipulated.
Or possibly, it simply made her realize his illusions worked a little too well on the less-conscious areas of her psyche.
“What is it you came to tell me, Traveler?” she said, her tone a touch icier. “You said it was something you felt the need to deliver in person. You’ve hinted many times that it’s dire, important… possibly Earth-shattering… and personal. Yet now you stall, and focus on the mundane details of my rather ordinary office. I doubt you came all this way to compliment me on my skills at color-coordination.”
The Traveler smiled, reaching up to push a lock of chestnut-colored hair out of one pale eye, where it presumably obstructed his view.
“No,” he said frankly. “I did not. Although, I would far rather speak of such things.”
The last of the humor leached from that intense stare.
He sat up somewhat, his leg still draped over the one arm. Slinging an arm over the back of the chair and gripping the edge over his head, he frowned.
His eyes studied hers, growing more intense at each passing second.
Alexis swore she saw a touch of sadness there now, as well.
“I am sorry for the song and dance, Lightbringer. I admit, I had reasons for delaying this part of our evening. I do come bearing news of consequence.”
He paused, once more gauging her face with that penetrating stare.
“Grave news,” he added. “News of the most serious and consequential kind. I am sorry to inform you there has been a breach. A most serious one.”
Alexis blinked, then immediately tensed.
“Beyond you, you mean?”
He answered that with only a level stare.
“What kind of breach?” she said, impatient. “Of the portals?”
His lifted an eyebrow slowly.
“Naturally. You are a Lightbringer, are you not?”
“But not Travelers?”
“No. Not Travelers. I am speaking of a real breach. An intentionally illegal act.”
“Here? On this version of Earth? Or––”
He raised a hand.
“Not here. Not Earth. Not this Earth, I should say.”
His mouth hardened to a grim line.
Those pale eyes continued to study hers.
“The damage is substantial,” he added, his irises shifting to a light green to a near-red. “The attack was coordinated. It may not have started here, in your dimension, but the consequences are sure to reach you. They have reached you already, in fact. And I am not only talking about the probability that beings from your world have been destroyed, removed, shuffled around in response to the illegal entries––”
“Entries?” Alexis felt herself pale. “As in plural? How many beings?”
His perfectly-formed mouth turned even more grim.
“Truthfully, we do not yet know the full extent of the violation,” he said. “Only that it is very bad. The energetic shift was felt in all the worlds above the dimensional matrix. Somehow, none of it was felt here… inside the manifest world itself.”
There was a silence.
Alexis fought to think through his words.
She knew what he meant by “dimensional matrix.”
He meant all of the material worlds, all of those with a physical manifestation.
That included all of the different dimensions, not just hers.
Which meant it included all of the different versions of Earth and all the other planets and solar systems, not just the ones where Alexis lived and worked.
The reality was, the “dimensional matrix” was all Alexis knew.
It was all most people on Earth knew.
The other levels or realms weren’t accessible to her, to any Lightbringers.
Lightbringers, like humans, only went to those levels when they died.
Which meant no living Lightbringer felt this breach.
How could there be a disruption in the gates of that magnitude, and yet none of the Lightbringers felt it?
She turned her eyes back on the Traveler.
She could tell he was condensing, simplifying, telling her things in easily-digestible chunks.
Presumably, he was letting her digest this piece before he fed her another.
Which meant this was likely big, indeed.
“And?” she said, leaning her elbows on her desk and letting her hair fall over her shoulders. “Obviously, there is more. I do not generally get reports of goings-on in other dimensions. Not unless it affe
cts me directly. Not unless it entails a loss of a person, or a timeline, or a significant amount of energy from this dimension. And you have just implied none of that is verified yet.”
She paused, gauging his eyes.
They were violet once more.
Almost blue.
She wondered if he was fighting the impulse to match his eye color to hers.
Or perhaps, like a chameleon, his Traveler nature wished for his eye color to match the chair where he sat.
Perhaps all the blue in the room simply overwhelmed it.
Or perhaps the colors were completely random.
Noting him watching her look at his eyes, she frowned.
“Well, Traveler?” she said, blunt. “Do you intend to tell me the rest of it? Or not? Are you still unsure if I can handle it?”
He blinked, then frowned.
“I am, actually,” he said, equally blunt. “Truthfully, Lightbringer, I am trying to decide how to tell you all of it… and where to start. I supposed I should begin with what occurred already in your own dimension.”
She frowned. “I thought you said––”
“I said it had not yet reached this version of Earth,” he cut in, his voice faintly warning. “It has not. Also, as far as I know, the danger on your dimension has been at least partly neutralized. Temporarily, at least. For the moment. But a breach occurred here, on this dimension, as well… and they expect more.”
The silence deepened.
Yet again, Alexis fought to think through his words.
What he’d said made zero kinds of sense.
Why would anyone hit this dimension and not hit Earth?
Earth housed the primary gate, the one from which all others flowed. You could hit all the secondary gates you wanted, but without control over that primary gate, you wouldn’t get very far in controlling access to a dimension.
When the Traveler still didn’t speak, her frown returned.
“Where did it start?” she said. “In which dimension did the problem originate?”
“It is not only one. It is many. They were hit simultaneously. More or less.”
The Traveler paused, presumably to let that sink in.
When he went on, his voice remained calm.
“Your dimension was hit in that initial, simultaneous attack, Lightbringer, along with all the others. Just not at your outpost, as I said… not here on Earth.”
Alexis stared at him.
Again, she could make no sense of this.
“Why?” she said, copying his flat tone. “Why not hit Earth, where the primary portal is? Why would they bother with one of the secondaries?”
“Several theories have been floated related to this exact question.”
The Traveler paused, then made a fluid, blurred and liquid wave of one hand.
“…The most plausible of these involves a logistical mistake of some kind, possibly one that was engineered. As in, they hit the wrong world. As in… right dimension, wrong planet. It appears they might have missed their intended target.”
“Missed their intended––”
“They made a mistake,” he repeated.
“A mistake?” she said, frowning.
The Traveler held her gaze, and for the first time, she saw as sliver of emotion there, what looked almost like––
Pity.
He looked at her with pity.
Something about that brought a sick feeling to her gut.
“We think a Lightbringer ran,” he said, his voice slightly lower, but just as deep, just as matter-of-fact. “We think they fled their dimension, yet did not wish to lead the attackers to you. So they led them to one of the lesser portals. Having two Lightbringers in a single location apparently confused the attackers… they hunted the one who fled, and missed you.”
Alexis felt her chest tighten.
That cold dense ball pulled harder at her belly.
There wasn’t a single Lightbringer she didn’t know.
Personally.
She knew them all personally.
They were her friends. They were family.
“Who was it?”
“Darynda.”
“Is she all right?”
“No.” The Traveler’s eyes shifted to blue. “She is dead.”
That hot, sick feeling in Alexis’ chest grew overwhelming, even as her belly remained cold as ice. She had known, somehow, what the Traveler was about to say. Even so, the shock of his words hit like a poison in her veins.
She felt sick, angry, nauseated, light-headed.
Darynda had been one of the good ones.
She’d been dedicated.
Kind.
A warrior for the Light.
She helped Alexis a ton when she first started.
Darynda was the first Lightbringer Alexis ever met, apart from herself.
The Traveler continued to gauge her eyes as he lifted a hand, letting it fall back to the velvet arm of the sky-blue chair.
“By the time the attackers caught up with her, we had some idea of what was occurring,” he went on in that calm voice. “Your dimension was sealed off. The attackers in your dimension were dealt with… before they could track you back to Earth. We contained the problem. Temporarily, at least. The attackers retreated. They did not manage to secure any primary gates, despite their attempts to use at least two different Lightbringers to do so. It seems most of the attackers were poised and waiting at secondary gates for one of their operatives to take over one of the primaries… and this never occurred.”
He gave her a dense look.
“We do not believe this is over, however.”
Alexis stared at him.
Slowly, she shook her head.
“They killed…” She swallowed, unable to say her friend’s name, not yet. “…a Lightbringer?” Her voice strengthened, growing harder, filled with some fraction of that anger that stuck in her chest. “Who? Who were they, Cal? Who dares to hunt and murder a Lightbringer?”
There was a silence.
The Traveler delicately cleared his throat.
When he didn’t go on immediately, Alexis scowled.
“What was it?” she said, cold. “Can you tell me that, at least?”
The Traveler watched her.
His expression carried a more visible thread of caution now.
“We do not know for sure,” he said, his eyes still on hers. “They disguised their race. We know only that they came from outside the dimensional matrix.”
“Outside the…” Her eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what is said,” he responded simply.
“I thought only gods lived beyond the dimensional matrix.” Alexis’s voice grew harder. “Gods and the Ancients themselves. Perhaps some enlightened souls among the humans… and the dead, of course, who are incapable of coming here.”
She paused.
“Are you saying the gods killed a Lightbringer? Why would they do that?”
The Traveler cleared his throat, going on in that same calm, firm voice.
“I am not saying that,” he said evenly. “I am merely passing on what I was told, which is that the beings came from outside the dimensional matrix, transporting themselves into the dimensional matrix, using the portals. Whereupon they began eliminating Lightbringers––”
Alexis’s eyes widened.
“Wait. Lightbringers? As in, plural?”
The Traveler chose not to address that.
“––We do not know from precisely where these invaders originated,” he continued, his eyes now holding a faint warning. “Or what their using the realms outside the dimensional matrix really means. It is unlikely they originate from that kingdoms beyond the manifest worlds. The beings in those distant dimensions usually abhor the material realm, and do not concern themselves with it. The few gods who do are generally scorned by the rest.”
The Traveler’s voice turned thoughtful when it added,
“It is far more likely
the attackers hid there to avoid detection, in preparation for this breach. Whoever they are, they traveled far, to reach the Inner Realm. They were well beyond the place of the gods.”
“And the Ancients?” she said, frowning. “What did they say of the attackers? Or did you not think to ask them?”
“I asked.” The Traveler’s voice remained calm. “The Ancients called them ‘hybrids.’”
“Hybrids?” She frowned. “Demigods?”
“Perhaps. They did not deign to share their precise definition with me.”
Alexis folded her arms.
Staring at the Traveler, she fought to calm her mind. She fought to view this as any other problem of war, of defense and offense, of strategy, of her role as Lightbringer.
It was really damned hard to do that, though.
Someone murdered Darynda.
Someone murdered her friend.
It didn’t help at all that she could feel how much the Traveler wasn’t telling her.
It was possible he was still doling out the information in bite-sized chunks, that it would grow clearer before he finished with his visit, but she had her doubts.
No, this barely qualified as a courtesy call.
Alexis wasn’t really in the loop.
She certainly wasn’t part of the group truly addressing the breach.
If she wanted that kind of justice, she would need to seek it on her own.
6
The Real
The Traveler gauged her face, clearly waiting for her to process what he’d said.
Something about the cold, clinical look he aimed at her made Alexis wipe any trace of emotion from her expression. She tamped it all down, pushing every hint of feeling, every reaction, every sliver of empathy or caring away to where he wouldn’t see it.
It was purely an instinctive move.
She didn’t even really consider why she did it.
Once she’d more or less gained control over her own emotions––or her facial expressions, at least––she grappled with the meaning of what he’d actually said.
“Who dealt with them?” she said. “Who killed the ‘hybrids’ who killed Darynda?”
The Traveler sighed, leaning deeper into his chair.
Lightbringer: An Enemies to Lovers Urban Fantasy with Demons, Portals, Witches, Renegade Gods, & Other Assorted Beasties (Light & Shadow Book 1) Page 4