"I’ll be free. If I can't convince Dukats that Joe is innocent, he won't be my problem anymore. The feds will take him," I said.
"I'll call Lace and see if she can help you tonight," Gabriella said.
"Thanks."
"Appreciate you coming along," I said to Lace as I picked her up from Barrios house. I found it hard not to wince when I looked at her fire-damaged cheek. Gester had nearly killed her last year and she still bore the scars. I could only see part of the damage, but the scars traveled down her neck and over the entire left side of her body. She'd undergone multiple surgeries and healing rituals and had more to come. She bore it all stoically, but I could see the pain behind her eyes in quiet moments.
"Gabriella didn't say much. What's up?" Unlike many of the more creative witches I was familiar with, Lace preferred simple clothing, choosing dark denim pants and a black turtleneck beneath a long winter jacket. She'd been an outwardly beautiful young woman before the encounter with Gester. Her selflessness in facing the demon showed an inner strength I found even more intriguing. She serenely accepted her loss which I found inspiring, as did the lucky few who came in contact with her regularly.
"I need to break into a building," I said. "There's a man who's killed a girl and I believe ordered the death of another."
"Thanda Williston. Are you going after Fagin?"
"How'd you hear about that?" I asked.
"Leotown isn't that big, Felix." She rested her scarred hand on my stone forearm; her fingers cool to the touch. "I didn't know Thanda well. Word is Fagin did something bad to her."
"I saw her killed in a dream," I said. "He used a staff that pulled her life's energy out of her body. It was horrible."
Her breath caught. "Just like you saw my uncle summon the demon."
"My dreams aren't a replay of events," I said. "But the broad strokes are always right on. There's no doubt in my mind that Fagin killed Thanda. He's after something and I don't think he's done killing."
"What's he after?"
"An artifact I've heard referred to as the Key," I said. "Do you know of a witch in her late teens, short red hair, light green eyes and a big temper? I think she's in Fagin's crew."
"That's Missy Fitzhugh. She's the sister of a boy from Gabriella's past," she said.
"You know about Robbie?"
"Gabriella is my sister," she answered. "We cannot keep secrets from each other, especially not a memory as powerful as the suicide of an innocent under her care."
"Robbie was in jail when he hanged himself," I said defensively. "There was nothing Gabriella could have done about that."
"I don't blame her, Felix," Lace said, calmly. "It is a pain she carries. As her sister, I must accept this pain and bear it with her. To deny her feelings is to require her to carry them alone. Are you sure Missy Fitzhugh is a witch?"
Her question stumped me. In my dreams, I'd just known she was a witch. I’d really seen no proof of it. "I saw a young witch near where Fagin dumped Thanda's body. I was using my wizard's sight, so I guess I don't know if it was the same red-haired girl you say is Missy. It felt like her, though."
"Why didn't you talk to her?"
"She disappeared. One moment she was staring at me and the next she stepped through what I think was a portal."
"A portal? To where?" Lace asked.
"If I knew that, I'd have talked to her." I smiled as I pulled into a parking spot on a side street two blocks from Fagin's warehouse.
"Never dull around you, is it?" Lace whispered as she joined me on the sidewalk. "Hold my hand and don't go too fast."
I nodded and dropped my voice to match her whisper. "Got it."
Lace murmured an incantation and a translucent black veil settled around us. When we first found Lace, she had learned virtually no magic beyond this one spell. It allowed her to very effectively cloak herself from view. With Gabriella's help, she'd been learning the magic of her Scottish Gypsy heritage and had strengthened this spell so that she could move slowly without breaking the cloak.
I found it difficult to walk as slowly as she required, but respected her tugs as we made our way around to the address Dukats had provided.
"If things get crazy inside. I need to know you'll leave without me," I whispered as I awkwardly pushed my truck's keys into her coat pocket.
"Gabriella would not appreciate me leaving you in peril."
"Just promise," I said. "I'm a big boy and this Fagin character is dangerous."
"I promise to be careful."
I sighed, perhaps too loudly, as we rounded the corner of the same alley I recalled from my dreams.
I pulled back on Lace’s hand. "Hold up." We stood to the side and suddenly the red-haired girl from my dreams appeared out of nowhere. I looked up at the fire escape as if to prove to myself she hadn't simply jumped, but it was no longer a question in my mind.
"That's Missy," Lace whispered so quietly I could barely hear her.
I nodded and held my position as Missy rapped on the steel door. Once she gained entry, I tugged on Lace's hand, led her to the end of the alley, and stopped us at a spot opposite the closed door.
"What are we doing?" Lace whispered again.
I held a finger to my mouth and pointed. I frowned sadly as a young man walked dejectedly toward us and the door, his head hung low. He lacked the spring in his step that he'd had in my dreams. Lace nodded and held still.
"Charley," he announced in a low voice, pounding the door twice.
With my left hand, I flicked a brick shard into the door's path as it closed behind the boy. Together, Lace and I slid through the doorway and crept along the inside of the warehouse's exterior wall. The furniture was laid out just as it had been in my vision. Wooden crates sat in front of dilapidated couches. I spotted a new detail; the addition of Fagin's BMW sedan in front of a tall garage door. A knot of teens gathered around an older man, dressed exactly as I remembered him from my vision.
"Cough it up, kids. What have you for old Fagin today?" He held out a cloth bag while one by one, items were dropped in. When it was Missy's turn, however, he laid his silver tipped staff across her wrist.
"It's all I have, Mr. F.," she said.
"My best liar and yet you are as transparent as glass. You have the Key, dear girl. You will hand it to me." His voice was low with menace.
"I didn't find it," she defended weakly. "The cops showed and I had to run."
"Out of here. All of you," he shouted, swinging his staff in an arc.
Missy turned to run, but he grabbed her wrist, dropping his loot bag as he did.
"Not you, my dear. We have much to discuss."
"Please," she begged. "I don't have it. I'll go back."
"I'm afraid the time for lies has passed." He roughly grabbed her by the nape of her neck, struggling for a moment to get a good grasp. I wondered if this propensity to grab teens by their necks was the reason she'd cut her hair so short.
"No. Don't! I'll give it to you."
"Too late," he said. "I smell its power on you and you have become a liability. I will take what is mine."
"You need to get out of here, Lace," I whispered and stepped away from the protection the cloak provided.
"Adoleret!" I fired a lance of white-hot flame directly at Fagin's chest. Time seemed to slow as the magic sailed across the open space between us.
Fagin turned at my incantation and raised his silver-tipped staff into the path of the fire, splitting it in two and deflecting both arcs harmlessly.
"You will unhand the girl!"
"Says who?" Fagin looked at me with furrowed brows. "Who sent you and why are you interfering?"
I closed the distance between us until I was ten feet from where they stood. "You will not murder another innocent."
"What? Thanda?" he asked, incredulous. "Hardly an innocent. Why, she just got out of juvie for prostitution. I turned her out myself, just as I did with Fitzhugh, here. Now move along. There's no reason to get between me and what is mine."<
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"You can't own people, dipshit. Step off before I make you," I said.
With a quick move, he let go of Missy's neck and gestured in my direction. Instinctively, I raised my right hand and caught a blue, flaming dart, which fizzled on contact with my stone palm.
"Adoleret!" I pushed three apple-sized flame balls at Fagin, raking my hand as they released, to give them a spread as they flew.
"Just have that one spell, do you?" he mocked as he blocked one of the balls and stepped out of the path of the second. The third ball struck him on his leg, scorching a furrow across his thigh. The stress in his voice when he'd taunted me was evident, but he had a point. I'd tossed two of my most powerful fire spells at him and he'd come out relatively unscathed.
"Enkavma," he said, his right hand glowed as a blue gout of fire erupted and rushed at me.
"Scutum," I responded. My ghostly buckler appeared and the stream of fire deflected into the wooden rafters. The heat was beyond intense. I tipped my shield so that the fire moved to the side. The wooden post next to me ignited and started burning brightly.
Missy took the opportunity and jumped away from Fagin.
"Oh bloody hell," he exclaimed and dropped his assault.
"Lapide pugno." I swung my fist, still too far away to make contact. Fagin raised his cane defensively anyway. The invisible punch knocked the cane from his hand with a crack that sounded like a gun shot. He expelled air as he fell on his back.
"Later, boys," Missy said as she pulled a golden platter the size of an index-card from her coat pocket.
"Oh no you don't," Fagin said from the ground. "Spróxte." The artifact tumbled from her hand as she slid away.
A slight breeze on my cheek and a sense of foreboding made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. With a flick of my hand, I used telekinesis to pull the golden object to me a fraction of a second before a hidden arm materialized and swiped at where the plate had been.
Missy's eyes flew open wide. "Run!" she implored. "Save yourself!"
The gleam of metal in the wan light caught my attention. For the second time that night, I instinctively raised my stone hand to protect myself.
This time, a dagger had been thrown at me by a petite, olive-skinned woman dressed in a satiny, blue and golden embroidered dress. I stepped aside and put distance between us. Instead of striking at me again she looked at me, confused.
"A second Baltazoss whelp. Could it really be?"
"Felix Slade," I replied. "You are?"
"Give me the Key." The golden plate vibrated in my hand as she gestured for it.
I was knocked aside as Missy collided with me, her hand grabbing for the plate. The two of us tumbled backwards and I let go of the artifact in my attempt to catch myself. The world twisted in a gut-wrenching, nausea-inducing way.
For a few seconds, I continued to fall as my vision blurred. It was completely unexpected when my butt hit the ground and a great cloud of dust rose around me. Even more confusing was the soft contact I felt as I realized someone else had landed next to me.
"Get off, pervert!"
I turned, still mixed up in a jumble of arms and legs. My ass felt like I'd fallen seven or eight feet. I was going to have a good-sized bruise from this adventure. I looked into the dirty face of Missy Fitzhugh. In the chaos of our fall, I’d felt her hands slipping into my pockets, obviously searching for the artifact I'd dropped.
"You're not going to find it," I said, pushing against the hot, hard-packed clay.
"Find what?" She scrabbled from beneath me, her long limbs creating distance between us.
I stood and brushed the red dust from my pants. "So far, I've mostly heard it called the Key," I said.
"You better have it," she said. "Or we're totally screwed."
What I saw in my peripheral vision confused me. Not only were we not in the warehouse, but we were outside, and there were two moons in the sky. We stood on a wide, brick road that went as far as the eye could see in both directions. The terrain was hilly and devoid of vegetation, aside from yellowish tufts of grass and a few sparsely located cedars that appeared to be fighting for life. The hard-packed, red dirt was dry to the point of cracking.
"Where the hell are we?" I asked.
"I think that's exactly where we are," she said.
"Hell?"
"Yes and that Key is our only way back home."
"Well, damn. Why'd you drag us in here?"
Anger flashed in her eyes. "I saved your life, you stupid shit. In case you didn't know it, that was Adajania."
"The woman in the shiny blue dress?"
"No, Yoda," she said. "Yes, the demigod in whatever the fuck she wants to wear!"
I shook my head. "First time I've seen her. The other guy was Yoda? I thought that was Fagin."
She looked at me like I was speaking another language. "Are you messing with me?" she finally asked, tilting her head to the side. "You seriously don't know who Yoda is?"
"Look, there was only one guy there. I'm pretty sure it was Fagin," I said.
"Shahbanu Narin Adajania knew you," she said, ignoring my statement. “She called you Baltazoss.”
"That's my Mom's name," I said. "So who's Fagin?"
"Fagin is one of her disciples," she said. "He literally worships Adajania."
"Okay, then who is this Yoda?"
"Bollocks. There was no Yoda. Just Fagin and Adajania."
"You brought him up,” I said.
"Great," she said, exasperated. "I'm stuck in hell with an idiot."
Chapter 12
There Be Dragons Here
"Where are you going?" I asked as Missy walked down the barren highway.
She didn’t even bother to turn around. "Anywhere but here."
"Where's here?"
"I told you," she said. "We're in hell."
I grabbed her arm and she spun violently, raising her hand to strike me. I let go and held my hands up defensively.
"Hands off, asshole," she said.
"We should stick together. Why do you think this is hell? And if so, do you really think you can walk out of here?"
"No. I know this is hell because I've seen the demons. And you've stuck us here without a way back. No matter how you look at it, we're screwed. I can tell you for a fact, though, we don't want to be caught on this road by whatever makes those tracks." She pointed to huge cloven hoof prints on the dusty, brick road.
"This is Kaelstan," I said. "I've been here before."
She held my gaze for a moment. She had the strangest, light green eyes. "How?" she finally asked, no doubt having determined I was telling the truth.
"Long story. But, you're probably right; I doubt we want to get caught on the road if my previous experience with demons is any guide. Any ideas?"
She pointed behind us to where the wide road disappeared into a mountain range. "Mountains look like trouble." Long, dark shapes circled lazily above the sharply rising foothills ten miles from our position. "We don't want to get caught outside at night either."
Without further conversation, she turned and walked toward the ridge of a shallow ravine that ran perpendicular to the roadway.
"How do you know that?" I asked, catching up with her.
"It's hell. Doesn't take a genius," she said.
"This is not hell," I argued. "Not in the Christian sense, at least. This is Kaelstan, one of the three planes of mortal existence."
"How do you know that?"
"Books," I said. I'd only recently learned the information and was hoping she'd have something to add. "The demons are real enough, though."
"Potato, po-tah-toe," she said. "You say Kaelstan. I say if demons live here, we're in hell."
"I suppose. But if you want to get out of here, you'll need to keep an open mind."
"Seriously? I'm just trying to figure out how to survive until tomorrow," she said. "It's not a safe place."
"What's Adajania want with that Key?"
"Beats me. All I know is what I’ve pick
ed up from Fagin. He says I’m not supposed to ever let her find me. She usually hides here in Kaelstan, where her enemies can't get to her. One of her things, though, is that she can pop back and forth between here and Earth whenever she wants. The Key is supposed to be on Earth, safeguarded by one of her followers. Fagin was jealous when he found out Rosen had it."
"Rosen was selling it. That must have drawn her out," I said.
"Her enemies have more money than god," she said. "They'd have given anything for that Key."
"Didn’t work out for him very well. He was selling it to a law firm with her name on it. Same law firm that wanted to talk to you when you were in jail a week or so ago," I said.
"Figures. He was a dumb little turd for going against Adajania," she said. "How'd you know about me being in jail?"
I shrugged. "Small world. Doesn't matter that much."
As we walked, I searched for signs of life – aside from the yellow grassy material and the occasional cedar tree. The trees, on closer inspection, turned out to have sharp needles and resembled cacti more than evergreens. I'd caught a glimpse of a few smaller rodents hiding amongst the red boulders in the gully to our left. In the dust, there were also the telltale signs of snake tracks. I'd greatly appreciate never meeting one of those creatures, as the body appeared to be as big around as my leg. It was probably best to keep this information to myself.
I was certain the sun above us wasn't the same one that shined over Earth. I contemplated the existence of the three worlds, one of which I'd never seen. Were we on different planes, as the text I'd recently read suggested? Or were we on different planets, in different solar systems, somehow joined in a way that science could explain?
My mind wandered back to our present situation. Missy preferred not to walk next to me, instead keeping a few feet between us. We walked in silence. It was late in the day if the angle of the sun was any indication. It looked like we had less than an hour of sunlight left, yet it was still hot, arid and in the mid-nineties.
Missy had kept the black trench coat on and sweat dripped down her grimy neck, making her short, spikey hair damp. Everything about her persona was prickly. I reflected on what I knew about her - which wasn't much.
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