Shifters After Dark Box Set

by S M Reine et al.

  “So I’m an accident,” Summer said.

  “You’re a happy product of circumstance,” Gran said.

  Summer couldn’t bring herself to speak anymore. She dropped her hands into her lap and stared at the monitor.

  Gran circled the desk to look at the picture.

  The office was dead with silence.

  Summer’s lips moved wordlessly as she searched for the right questions to ask. When she finally managed to speak, her voice was tiny. “What are pictures of you doing on this old computer?” Summer asked. She swallowed hard. “And who are all of these people?”

  “That’s… Well, that’s Levi and Bekah right there, and probably Pyper in the back. Hard to tell,” Gran said. Summer went to the previous picture. “Those are the witches—uh, James and Stephanie and Brianna. Barely knew any of them.” Another click. Gran’s fingers trembled over her own lips, almost like she had to pull the words from her own mouth. “And that’s Seth and Abel.” She sucked in a hard breath. Her forehead wrinkled. “God, it’s been years.”

  “Who are these people?” Summer asked again.

  Gran’s finger traced the figure on the left. “Abel’s your daddy.”

  Summer couldn’t look at it anymore. She pushed back her chair and stood. “It’s not…this isn’t possible. This computer’s hundreds of years old.”

  “Babe,” Gran said gently, touching her shoulder.

  Summer pushed her off. “You’re immortal, but you’re not that old.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “So what is going on here?”

  Gran sighed. “It’s hard to explain.”

  Wasn’t it always?

  Summer needed air. She flung the office door open, rushed down the stairs, and kept going. She didn’t care that they were supposed to stick together for safety anymore. She needed to get away.

  ~ ~ ~

  Nash knew something was wrong the instant that he returned to his office and found only Summer’s grandmother inside. His feeling of dread grew when she didn’t leave the moment that he entered. For all of their short hours together, both Abram and Gwyneth Gresham had been obviously avoiding his company—not too strange, considering the intimidating effect angels had on mortals. Most mortals, anyway, if one excluded the occasional beautiful, irrepressible shapeshifter.

  “Where is she?” Nash asked.

  “Summer’s gone,” Gwyneth said without lifting her eyes from the computer monitor. “Abram too, near as I can tell.”

  Nash’s fists clenched at his side. “Where?” he asked, his voice dropping into a dangerous growl.

  She only shook her head and kept staring at the computer that Summer had assembled. He moved over her shoulder to see what was so fascinating.

  It was a photo of Gwyneth Gresham herself.

  “What in God’s name is this?” Nash asked, wrenching her around to face him. “Are you a spy? Tell me how you came to be here!” There was a command in his voice that could not be denied. Not by any sane mortal.

  “I don’t respond to orders, boy.”

  He gathered himself to his full height. Ethereal energy crackled in his fingertips. “Boy? Have you any clue who you’re speaking to? Hold your tongue or I’ll cut your—”

  A shock of pain across his cheek silenced him instantly, but it took several heartbeats for him to realize what had happened.

  Gwyneth Gresham had slapped him.

  The instant urge to hit her back was almost overwhelming, especially when she jammed her finger in his sternum.

  “You don’t threaten me,” Gwyneth said. He tried to step back, but she grabbed his chin in a crushing grip and jerked his face down to look at her. “I once shot a man who held my life in his hands just because he threatened my family, and I’d do the same to any other. I couldn’t care less if you’re an angel or Lucifer himself. You watch your mouth and show some respect.”

  Nash didn’t have a mother, but if he had, he imagined that a scolding from her would have been very much like being in Gwyneth Gresham’s sights.

  He pushed her arm away, but she didn’t back down.

  “For the record,” she said, a little calmer than before. “I respond perfectly fine to please and thank you.”

  Was this mortal joking? Please and thank you?

  The ethereal energy built around him. The computer monitor fuzzed, the lights dimmed, and something distant gave an electrical pop. If he didn’t calm himself, he was going to knock out the power in his entire house.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The energy went with it, and the lights came back on.

  “Explain how your current appearance is identical to these photos,” he said. And then, with no small effort, he added, “Please.”

  “I’m a zombie. Necromancy. You know how it is.” She shrugged. “The other side’s gotten ugly. There are people in the government trying to regulate things like us. They wanted to take babies away from preternatural parents. Split families. Register, divide, recruit. So we planned to come here in order to stay together.”

  “The other side,” Nash echoed.

  “Earth,” she said. “You think I don’t know where I came from? I know this world is a Haven.”

  In truth, he had assumed that Summer’s family must have been natives to the area, and as clueless as she was about the other side. An idea blossomed inside him—a tiny, hopeful spark that was in danger of consuming him. “That doesn’t explain why you’re in the photo,” he said.

  Gwyneth gestured to the monitor. “This computer belongs to a group called the Union. They must have been spying on us as we planned to move over.”

  “So you came here deliberately,” he said. “Which means that you know how you got here.”

  “Sure, I do,” she said. “The real question is, how did you get here?”

  “I chose the wrong side in a war. I was betrayed and exiled by my kind.”

  “So you’re a victim.” But the old lady wasn’t stupid. She tilted her head to the side to study him. “Why do you want Summer, Nash? She told me how you talked her into the internship. The dresses, the scholarship. You wouldn’t have done that for just anyone.”

  “I hoped that she could tell me where the doors to Earth are located. Obviously, if she had come through, she must know where to go back,” he said. “But I was wrong. She knows nothing.”

  “That’s because she was only a baby when I brought her over.” Gwyneth sighed. “I think I should show you something.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Following Gwyneth Gresham’s directions, Nash drove out to the hills beyond Hazel Cove, beyond MU, beyond the forest. She was quiet for the entire drive, as though distracted by the deepest recesses of her thoughts.

  When the road ended, she climbed out of the car just as quietly, and he followed her into the hills.

  Nash didn’t recognize the area. He hadn’t bothered exploring since he was first locked away, and he doubted he had so much as flown over those hills in centuries. So he was surprised when she pushed aside a cluster of thorny bushes to reveal a steep tunnel behind it.

  “What have you found, Gwyneth?” he asked.

  She gestured at the opening in the hill. “See for yourself.”

  It was a steep climb down the tunnel, and a dark cave waited at the end. Nash scanned the empty chamber. It was dark, dusty, dry. White chalk was smudged on the left-hand wall. The stones at the back were marked with ancient petroglyphs.

  It was an interdimensional door.

  He crossed the cave in three long strides and pressed his palms to the wall.

  Nash still remembered being exiled like it had happened just days earlier. During his last argument with Leliel, they had been standing beside a door just like this—though it had been on the Earth side, not the Haven side. He had woken up in the forest, naked and alone, so he had never witnessed an intact door in the Haven.

  But it was here. It was whole.

  “Can you open it?” Gwyn asked from behind him.


  He ran his hands over the smooth surface. “Is this how you entered?”

  “Yeah. More than twenty years ago, carrying two tiny babies in my arms.”

  Nash spread his palm over one of the largest marks. “Close your eyes,” he warned before releasing his ethereal energy into the wall. Gray light flooded the entire cavern—but the petroglyphs didn’t respond.

  “What was that?” Gwyneth asked, squinting against the sudden darkness.

  “I was knocking, but there was no answer,” Nash said. He slammed his fist into the wall. Stone cracked, and his knuckles ached with the force of it. “Damn it all!”

  Gwyneth frowned at the petroglyphs. “No answer? What does that mean?”

  He took a few deep breaths to calm himself before speaking. “The other side must be damaged. But you may still be capable of opening the door.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “These are one-way gates, intended to contain humans to their native dimensions,” Nash said. “A human from the other side should be able to operate it.”

  “But we originally opened it from the other side,” Gwyn said.

  “Did you?” Nash asked, lifting an eyebrow. “What mechanism opened it?”

  “Computers. Like the ones in your office.”

  He scowled and paced, arms folded tight across his chest. “Meddling. Tampering. Perhaps those idiot humans have broken the door entirely.” He gestured. “Try it anyway. Touch the petroglyphs.”

  “I’ve tried before. Nothing happens.”

  He bore down on her, letting her feel the full weight of his intimidating gaze. “Try.”

  Gwyn didn’t look impressed to have him looming over her, but she touched a hand to the wall anyway. As she had said, nothing happened.

  The disappointment was immediate, crushing, and final.

  The door was broken.

  Nash sank to one knee, bowing his head in a moment of silent prayer. “I am dead, you know,” she said from above him. “Might be the problem.”

  “That shouldn’t matter,” he said, struggling to pull his composure around him like a cloak. “If anything, the door should respond more readily to the native magic keeping you animated.”

  “So nothing’s passing either way, is it?”

  “Not through this door.” He was tempted to punch the wall again, but instead, he channeled his frustration into pacing the chamber. “But Leliel didn’t bring herself to the Haven through force of will, and she would not have allowed herself to be confined even if she had. See this?” He jabbed a finger at a symbol near the top of the arch. “This says ‘three’.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that this is the third entrance to the Haven,” Nash said. “Indicating that there are at least two more. The other marks indicate where to look.” He traced his fingers over the petroglyphs. Even though he couldn’t readily read the arcane ethereal language, his fingertips recognized it, like some kind of strange muscle memory.

  “What else does it say?”

  “The glyphs describe a map,” Nash said, eyes unfocused as his fingers continued to read. “A sphere five hundred thousand cubits in circumference—that would be the Haven. A single land mass. A body of water…most likely the lake beside which I built my home…”

  “Why would they describe a map? Why not just draw one?” Gwyn asked.

  “An illustration can be interpreted by anyone with eyes. A description can only be interpreted by someone who understands the language. This isn’t meant to be read by mortals.”

  Nash fell silent and focused on reading for a few more minutes.

  He had already known about the first gate—it lay underneath Wildwood, and it had been destroyed before he even arrived, most likely as a casualty of the war. But the description for the second one was most interesting. It was underneath Lake Ast. “Fascinating,” he murmured, mind spinning with ideas.

  But how would Leliel and her “friends” have passed through the second door? They would have emerged from the lake beside his house, and his security cameras would have caught that.

  The petroglyphs didn’t describe any more doors. It had to be the lake.

  “Let’s speak outside,” he said. He couldn’t stand to be in the cave for a moment longer.

  The forest looked huge from his perspective on top of the hill, but he had flown around the entire world too many times to fall for that. The open sky was no more than an illusion of freedom.

  He was so close.

  Nash took Gwyneth’s hand to help her climb out of the tunnel. Her skin was warm and dry, but something about her didn’t feel quite human. “When I reach the remaining door, I will take Summer and Abram back to their family,” he said, and he was surprised how fiercely he meant it.

  “But I don’t want to take them back, angel man. I want to find that other door and bring my family over here.”

  He scoffed. “To this prison?”

  “To this sanctuary,” Gwyn corrected gently. “You’ve been locked away a long time, so maybe you don’t remember what it was like on the other side, but…it’s nothing like this place. We’re in a place that should be Heaven, Nash. The only thing that makes it Hell is being away from those we love. As long as we’re together, anywhere can be home.”

  “Will you think that when you’ve spent millennia of your eternal life in this bubble?”

  “So long as I’ve got my family,” Gwyn said. “Tell me what we’ve got to do to send you back.”

  “Well, I don’t believe that Leliel entered our world through the second door,” Nash said. “There is one more possibility—the fissure.”

  “What’s that?”

  He locked his fingers together like the coupler between train cars. “There are physical junctures at which the universes touch, and if you know what to look for, you can walk through it. I once searched for this fissure, but it doesn’t respond to me—it requires a mortal from the other world.”

  “You want me to go find it for you,” Gwyneth said. “That’s an awfully big order. I don’t even know where to start looking.”

  “Ah, but we do.” He pointed at the cave they had just exited. “The third door.” He pointed to the lake, and then in the direction of Wildwood. “The second, the first. They form a triangle. The fissure will most likely be at the center, in the forest north of Marut University.”

  “The forest is awfully big.”

  “But you know it better than anyone else. In any case, you’ll know the fissure when you see it. You’ll only need to get within perhaps a thousand meters of it to hear the humming.”

  “What will you be doing while I’m off looking for ‘visual artifacts’?” she asked.

  “I will find the second door, just to be certain,” Nash said, capturing one of her hands in both of his. “I must ask you to do this for me. If Leliel’s guarding it, then I dare not send Summer there. It’s too dangerous. But you…”

  “Do you love Summer?” Gwyneth asked.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Is that relevant?”

  “Maybe.”

  Nash dropped her hand.

  Did he love Summer? Love was a mortal thing. It incited fights, created new life, caused pain and splendor. If someone had asked him if he loved Leliel in the days they were married, he most likely would have denied it. Angels were above such silly emotions.

  He had no definite answer for Gwyneth, but he could see that it mattered to her—it mattered very much.

  “I am fascinated with her,” he said finally. “She fills the hollow spaces in my mind.”

  Gwyn grinned. “I’ll see if I can find this ‘fissure’ thing for you, so long as you promise to keep an eye out for Summer while I’m gone. Whatever’s going on in your head, I certainly love her, like she’s my own daughter. I don’t want none of them nasty things eating her.”

  “I’ll care for her until your return,” Nash said. “I’ll lay my life at her feet if I must.”

  She snorted. “D
on’t be getting all dramatic now. Let’s go find the way out of this world, huh?”

  ~ ~ ~

  Something about Nash’s gardens had a tranquilizing effect on Summer’s mood. She stretched out on the damp soil underneath an apple tree, closed her eyes, and let the misty drizzle of rain sprinkle on her skin. It washed away all of her stress.

  But the peace of the garden did nothing to solve Summer’s problems. There was still no sign of Abram. Gran was keeping secrets from her. And her parents didn’t even love each other.

  The bushes rustled. Someone sat beside her.

  “Where’s Gran?” Summer asked, rolling onto her side to look at Nash. He had a black umbrella propped on one shoulder again.

  “She’s agreed to run an errand.” At her look, he amended that to, “Actually, she’s doing a favor for me.”

  “Must be a heck of a favor to convince Gran to do it for you.”

  His smile did funny things to her stomach. “You have no clue. She’s an incredible woman. You’re blessed to have her.”

  “That’s the truth,” Summer said, sitting up. She wiped clumps of damp dirt off of the back of her arms.

  “I must say, I enjoy your grandmother’s company. You have a lot in common. A certain fire.” Nash’s hand brushed over her back, wiping off more dirt. Even that casual gesture made her body ache. “She also possesses great humility. I believe she is truly happier living in that forest hovel than in the grandeur of my manor, and I suspect you’re much the same.”

  Her mouth suddenly felt dry. His gaze dropped to her lips when her tongue darted out to wet them.

  “So why did you want that scholarship in cash?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “That was one of the terms of your internship that you insisted upon,” Nash said. “A cup of coffee, and fifty thousand dollars in cash. Very uncharacteristic of Gwyneth Gresham’s granddaughter.”

  She had completely forgotten about that stipulation. She had been so busy with the attacks and the mystery that the computers presented that money seemed utterly unimportant. “I don’t know.”

  His eyes sharpened. “Don’t lie to me. Why do you want the money, Summer? What do you plan to buy?”

  She swallowed hard. She couldn’t lie when he was looking at her like that. “A bus ticket.”