Crossroads

by Alexie Aaron [Aaron, Alexie]

  “Mia…” Charles warned.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” she said, pointing behind him.

  Charles turned around, and Murphy stood there glaring.

  “Mia, you really should be more respectful…” Charles stopped; she had already left. He turned back to Murphy. He was gone too. Charles threw up his hands. “It’s worse than having freshmen on a site!”

  ~

  Mia returned once she was satisfied that the Martin invasion of Ralph and Bernard’s apartment was under control. She had given Nanny Berta a few days off while she was in Chicago. Brian was enjoying going to the museum with Bernard while Varden was Ralph’s little helper with the twin girls. Ralph had backup from the seamstresses downstairs if the girls got to be too demanding. Fact was, it was hard to keep the ladies out of the apartment once the babies were spotted on the elevator.

  Mia returned with pizza and other local Chicago specialties for the PEEPs crew. She slid into Ted’s spot while he and Cid ate.

  “How did the walkthrough go?” she asked.

  “Your father was very accommodating. He was rather put out with you and Murphy,” Cid said. “Although, I thought the two of you handled it masterfully.”

  “What did we do?” Mia asked.

  “They know what you did,” Murphy said, appearing in the corner.

  “Thanks for the misdirect, Murph.”

  “You’re welcome,” Murphy said. “How were the kids?”

  “The girls are loving Ralph. Varden is loving being Ralph’s little helper. Brian was still at the museum with Bernard. And Dieter called me; Acalan wanted to know if we wanted his old painting cabinet for Varden.”

  “What did you say?” Ted asked.

  “I haven’t asked you yet,” Mia said.

  “Me?” Ted asked.

  “You designed Varden’s space.”

  “I never thought of a place to keep his stuff besides behind closed doors.”

  Mia handed him her phone. “I had Dieter take a photo of it.”

  “It’s large. I worry about Varden climbing on it,” Ted said.

  “Or living in it,” Cid added. “That’s what I’d do if I was a kid.”

  “I think, with the proper lecture, he will appreciate the gift,” Murphy said.

  The three looked over at Murphy and nodded.

  “Okay, we’ll take it, and, Murph, you’ll give him the lecture.”

  “Hey, now…” Murphy said before he caught on that Mia was teasing him. “I like it better when you’re rattling Mike’s chains.”

  “Not going to happen. He’s been loaded for bear since he got here today. I’ve barely spoken to him. How did I get into the doghouse so soon?”

  “I overheard him talking on the phone,” Cid said.

  Mia looked at Ted and said, “You’re a bad influence.”

  Ted ignored the comment and prodded, “Well?”

  “Evidently, he’s been offered a permanent spot on a new show Arlo is producing if you’ll sign on to work with Arlo.”

  “Never going to happen,” Mia said, staring at one of the camera feeds.

  “He knows that, and it made him mad that Comic-Con and his new show were a no-go unless you’re involved.”

  “I thought Burt nixed Comic-Con?” Mia said.

  “He did, but he hasn’t broken it to Mike yet,” Ted said.

  “Why?” Cid asked.

  “Burt said it wasn’t the direction he saw PEEPs headed in,” Ted said.

  “Which is what?” Cid asked.

  “Whoa, gentlemen. We have movement near Amanda’s old office,” Mia said, only just refraining from tapping on the screen. Mia put the coms on live. “Burt, Mike, we have movement on the second floor. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s shadowy and moving out from the southwest corner of the hallway.”

  “Mia! Get them out of there!” Charles said, bursting into the command center, waving a handful of paper.

  “Burt, Mike, we advise you to leave the house as soon as possible. I’m sending Murphy and Enos in to cover your backs.”

  “Understood,” Burt said.

  “Mike, I repeat, get out of the condo. Do you hear me?” Mia asked.

  There was no answer.

  “Burt, Murphy, and Enos out of the condo,” Burt reported.

  “Who had eyes last on Mike?” Mia asked, handing the com to Ted.

  “I think he was on the upstairs patio,” Burt said.

  Mia walked out, brought out her wings, and shot up and over the apartment building. “The patio is empty, but the door is still open.”

  “Mia, be careful,” Ted said.

  “I’m drawing my sword. Enos, come in through the front door. Birdman communication. Sorry, Ted, I can hear you, but I’m going on silent.”

  “Charles, what are we dealing with?” Ted asked.

  “Amanda’s last paper was on pre-Columbian ritual sacrifices.”

  “Mia, you remember your favorite guys in the museum? Well… Charles thinks that Amanda lifted a few artifacts when they were in the museum.”

  Ted heard Mia say a very un-mommy word before she went silent.

  Chapter Forty-five

  “Mia, I’m on the bottom floor,” Enos communicated through the birdman channel.

  “Don’t come up yet,” she returned. “Go and see if Mike is in the bathroom or checking out one of the main floor rooms. He doesn’t have his earcom in. I’m looking at it on the kitchen table.”

  Mia tapped out a Morse message to Ted.

  “Mia found Mike’s earcom. Come on, guys, look for Mike. He has to be there.”

  “PORTAL!” Charles yelled, looking at the paper.

  Cid winced, pulling out his earcom.

  “Talk to me, Charles,” Ted said.

  “Amanda was trying to prove that the box from Norway wasn’t a doorway by studying part of a doorway. Look at that shimmer just beyond the hall light. That’s a portal. I’ve been through enough with Ed to know one.”

  “Mia, there is a portal three yards to your right. Hold up,” Ted instructed. “Do you see Mike on any camera? Jake, run the feeds backwards.”

  Jake did so and stopped.

  “Mia, Mike went through the portal,” Ted said.

  “Enos, fly to Ed’s house and bring him here,” Mia ordered.

  “Are you going in?”

  “I’m going to do my best not to.”

  “Ted, I’m sending Enos to get Ed. I need Murphy,” Mia whispered. “Dad, get that information to Baxter.”

  “On it,” Charles said, picking up his phone.

  “Is there still the dark entity in the corner of the hall?”

  “No.”

  Mia pulled off her glove and put her hand on the carpet. She saw Mike walking down the hall heading, probably, for the bathroom. He was surprised by a warrior… Mia ran the tribal markings in her mind. She also read the warrior’s mind. How could she read his mind? Why was he thinking in English? “Ted, tell my father I believe the warrior is Zapotec. They may be either trying to extract information out of Mike or they are going to use him in a human sacrifice. Ted, I’ve got to try to save him. This is my fault. I have to make this right.”

  “Mia, what can you do?”

  “I’m going to be a god and retrieve my minion. If I can’t get back, I’ll just have to live long enough to meet you again. This time, I’m hop, skip, and jumping over Burt and Whitney.”

  Murphy rushed up the stairs and watched as Mia shed her clothing and put on a collar. She looked over at him. “Are you coming?”

  Murphy blushed and tried not to ogle Mia as he walked into her body. Mia activated the collar, and a full suit of armor covered her body. She took a deep breath and entered the portal.

  Charles was arguing with Baxter as he entered the command post.

  “Mia said the warrior may have been Zapotec,” Ted said.

  “Where is she?” Charles asked.

 
; “Oaxaca,” Baxter said. “I need to get in there and find what the warrior was searching for.”

  “Enos is bringing Ed.”

  “Good, but we may not have that much time. Did she go alone?”

  “Murphy is with her,” Ted said.

  “Good. Give me that paper,” Baxter said and speed-read it. “Wrong fucking conclusion! How did she get one of two portal pieces?”

  Charles raised his hands. “I don’t know, you’d have to be a fucking magician. It’s in the deep vault of the museum.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” Ted asked.

  Charles motioned to Baxter to explain. Baxter said, “Amanda writes in her paper that the early Zapotecs used small portals to enter and exit their stone structures. No one imagined that perhaps they could cross time. She researched other cultures and wrote in things Charles remembered hearing when He-who-walks-through-time opened the time portals. She worked out how to turn the dual-stone portal into time machines. She thought that maybe if the vault they brought back from Norway wasn’t a treasure chest, it most certainly was a time-portal stone. The question Amanda left unfinished was, to where?”

  “You’re telling me that Amanda figured out how to open a portal between this world and the world of the early Zapotec?” Ted asked.

  “No, she got it backwards. You would have to be in the pre-Columbian Zapotec stone structure beside the other portal stone to open the door into our world,” Baxter explained.

  “She didn’t open the portal because she couldn’t from here, and, yes, Amanda is dead. It was done on the other side, but how?” Ted asked.

  “How far back did Gabriel drop Beverly?” Charles asked.

  No one knew.

  “You don’t mean that this is all Bev’s fault?” Ted asked.

  “No, mine,” Gerald said, climbing in the trailer.

  Ted got up and pinned the man to the side of the truck in one move. He had him by the throat. “Why is it always you and your pathetic obsession with that psychopath that threatens my wife and family?”

  Gerald couldn’t answer. He barely had enough air to breath.

  “Ted. Cool head. This isn’t helping Mia,” Cid said, pulling Ted’s hands away from Gerald’s windpipe. “Let him speak.”

  Gerald coughed and accepted the bottle of water Cid handed him. He raised his hand for a moment. “When we were hiding out, Beverly told me about Amanda’s paper. Of course, Beverly thought it would be a great way to get her hands on some gold. I filed it away in my mind until I decided to go and look for her.”

  “Then it was you who destroyed the condo?” Charles asked.

  “Yes. I couldn’t find the paper.”

  “Amanda didn’t have the portal piece,” Baxter said, putting the paper down.

  “No, but she had the incantation. I brought the portal piece in and was looking for the paper. I thought maybe she had a copy at the museum. That’s where I’ve been. I had no idea you people were here.”

  “Why do you think my sister is with the Zapotecs?” Charles asked.

  “Since the moment Gabriel left with Beverly, I have continuously scanned history and looked at every new record of a disruptive female. I was just going to check this timeline out when I got sidelined. Where was the paper?”

  “In the kitchen cabinet underneath the punch-bowl stand. It’s where Amanda kept all her valuables.”

  “Why does Mia think it’s her fault?” Ted asked.

  “She let Beverly live,” Gerald said. “Ted, Beverly’s only been gone a few days and already history is changing. You may not realize this, but the area south of here and west of the Mississippi used to belong to the Unites States. I thought I would go and put a stop to this once and for all.”

  “Mia said they were supposed to wipe her memory,” Ted said.

  “I taught Beverly how to contain her memory in another area of her body. It’s how no one has been able to read her completely. That includes me.”

  Enos arrived with Ed. It took Ed a moment to be caught up.

  “Can you reopen the portal?” Ted asked.

  Ed looked at Ted as if he was an imbecile.

  “Sorry, bad question. I’m going with you,” Ted said.

  “No. Only gods can do something about this.”

  “You can’t go alone,” Ted said.

  “I’m not,” Ed said. “Baxter is coming with me.”

  “Is this wise? You two are the only ones who can open a portal,” Ted said.

  “Take me, please,” Gerald begged.

  “So you can turn on everybody?” Ted asked. “I think not.”

  “I can look like a god, just like Mia does,” Enos said from the entrance of the trailer.

  “Let Gerald go,” Charles said. “He’s not a villain, just a chump in love.”

  Baxter handed Enos a dagger. “If he runs, kill him with this.”

  “That’s a demon blade,” Ed identified.

  “People, if you haven’t caught on yet, I’ll spell it out for you,” Baxter said, bored. “Gerald is a demon, a former crossroads demon. They are the original wheeler-dealers. He’s been inhabiting the Haitian Shem clan since the French landed.”

  “How did you know?” Gerald asked Baxter, amazed.

  “Something Mia said once. You see, prior to recently, she’d always been attracted to orange demon eyes even when they are cloaked,” Baxter said.

  “He’s not just a demon but a fallen,” Ted said. “Mia said the fallen have the orange eyes. Demons have an honor code. The fallen do not.”

  Burt, who had been watching silently from the corner, cleared his voice. “Maybe you don’t have to go. Mia is more than capable. I think it’s time that all of us give the girl some room in which to operate. If she’s not back in a half hour, then open the portal and go after her. Until then, have a little faith.”

  Ted nodded. “He’s right. I think we should bring this meeting inside the condo. Ed, please can you stay?”

  “Nanny Berta said she’d help Judy out, so yes, I’ll stay.”

  “Thank you,” Ted said. “Jake, we need you to keep two files going on world history. Alert us to every change. I can’t believe the Pacific States of South America were in the United States at one time. We’re a poor country. We could have used all that gold and oil out there.”

  ~

  Mia stepped out of the portal, surprised to find she was inside a stone structure of some kind. She moved quickly into the shadows and undid her collar. Murphy slid out, and Mia closed the armor again. She pulled her wings back but kept them out. The metal feathers that dragged behind her sparked when she walked.

  “You’re not trying to be quiet, are you?” Murphy scolded.

  “No. Gods don’t need to be skulking around.”

  Mia followed the drag trail of Mike’s rubber-soled heels on the stone floor. She found herself in an open chamber. Mike was lying prone on the ground in front of a stone dais. Seated in a carved stone throne was something straight out of Mia’s nightmare at the museum. He turned and looked at Mia, and his eyes lit up.

  “Why have you stolen my mate?” Mia asked.

  “How can you speak our language?” the chief asked in English.

  “I am a god, do not trifle me with questions.”

  Murphy, who had found a gong, took a swing at it with his axe. The low tone reverberated off the inside of the stone throne room.

  Mia did her best not to flinch. The guy could have warned her. “I will have to destroy your world. The bat god has spoken.”

  “Let’s not be hasty,” the chief said.

  “Where is the wrinkled white witch? I will take her as restitution.”

  “She has taught us how to live, how to speak, and how to keep the Spanish devils from our shores.”

  Murphy hit the gong again.

  “What the devil is going on here…” Beverly said, walking out of an antechamber. “Have you killed the… Oh shit!”


  Mia looked at the old woman, almost bent double from all the gold that hung around her neck, and shook her head. “How long did it take you to corrupt this society?” she asked Bev.

  “A decade, give or take a few years,” Beverly answered. “I was hoping that Gerald would be joining me soon. I left him enough clues.”

  “How did you know how to work the dual-portal-stone system or even when the other portal stone would be in place?” Mia asked.

  “I didn’t. I just had the priest say the incantation every day. Today we got lucky.”

  “Why did you have your warrior take Mike?” Mia asked.

  “I needed proof of the timeline. Can you imagine my surprise when your fuckbuddy shows up.”

  “He’s not.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” Bev said.

  “Actually, because of your fiddling around with this culture, my world is very different. Mike is one of eight husbands. Can you imagine the problem I have on my hands?” Mia lied.

  Mike lifted his head. “I’m her second lay on Sunday. She wears me out.”

  “I don’t get it?” Bev said. “Where’s Gerald?”

  “At home with the Nephilim. He’s husband number two. I didn’t find out he was a fallen until I gave birth to the monster. By the way, Guillaume is husband number one.”

  Bev launched herself at Mia. Mia stepped aside and kicked the old woman on her butt, forcing her to the ground. She then used her sword and cut the necklaces off Bev’s neck. She handed them to Mike. “Make sure there are eight of them. I don’t want anyone fighting.”

  Bev stood up and waved her hands around wildly. “What are you waiting for? Kill her!” she commanded the chief.

  Mia cleared her throat. “I’m looking around, and I think you’re still in a male-dominated society. Maybe you should still your vile tongue before they cut it off.”

  The chief looked at Mia and then at his knife and considered it.