Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Daniel slipped through the back door of Bookmark'd , inhaling the familiar scent of paper, coffee, and new books. The employee break room looked the same as it always did; same scratched table, same old microwave, same poster of a maiden rescuing a dragon—his brother had thought that one was funny.
But something felt off. The air held a static charge that made his skin prickle.
He pushed through the staff door into the main store and froze.
The usual peaceful quiet of the store had been replaced by a constant buzz of excited chatter. Customers packed the aisles, many clutching copies of portal fantasy novels. Daniel caught snippets of their conversations:
"—just like in the books?—"
"—my cousin saw lights in the park?—"
"—government's covering it up?—"
Through the front windows, a news van's satellite dish stretched toward the sky.
"Cracker!" Jamie's voice cut through the chaos. His brother emerged from behind a display of bestsellers, dark circles under his eyes betraying his cheerful tone. "Good thing you're here. The paranormal section's been ransacked three times today. I've got teenagers arguing about whether vampires or werewolves would win in a fight against whatever's causing the portals."
"Trick question. It's obviously dragons." Daniel dropped his messenger bag behind the counter. "You look like shit."
"Missed you too, brat." Jamie ruffled Daniel's multi-colored hair. "I see you haven't abandoned the cotton candy look yet."
"Better than your attempt at growing a beard." Daniel scratched at his brother's patchy stubble. "What's this supposed to be?"
Jamie swatted his hand away. "I've been too busy to shave. Besides, I look good like this."
"Right."
"Anyway," Jamie waved him off. "Come have a coffee in the break room real quick." He jerked his head toward the back.
Daniel glanced at the packed store. "While it's this busy?"
"Sage can handle herself for a moment." Jamie was already heading for the break room, leaving Daniel no choice but to follow.
In the breakroom, Jamie pulled two chipped mugs from the cabinet. "So. Extended vacation suddenly canceled?"
"Like I told you on the phone, I got worried."
"Worried." Jamie's mouth twisted as he poured coffee. "About some missing persons cases?" He slid a mug across the table. "Two days ago you begged me for more time off because you needed to 'process some stuff' and now you're rushing back because of local news? You're being weird."
Daniel wrapped his hands around the warm ceramic. "I'm always weird. Weird's my middle name."
"Your middle name is Farqhuad because our mother was still loopy from the drugs when she named you," Jamie said, making Daniel groan.
Farqhuad, really? What sort of name is that? Caelen interjected. It's not worthy of you.
Daniel ignored him.
"Now," Jamie said, "tell me what's actually going on with you. What did you need to process?"
"It doesn't matter," Daniel said. What else could he say? Hey, remember that story I'm usually so obsesssed with? Turns out it's real and the hot villain kidnapped me.
Even for him, that was too weird.
You still think I'm hot.
"Shut up."
"What?" Jamie asked.
"Never mind," Daniel said awkwardly.
Jamie shot him an odd look. "Talk to me, cracker. Why are you back here?"
"I'm just trying to protect you."
"Protect me?" Jamie shook his head. "I'm the big brother, remember? That's my job."
Daniel slumped in his chair. "Can't I worry about you too?"
"Sure you can," Jamie allowed. "But maybe worry less about mysterious disappearances and more about the fact that we have a dozen teenagers about to destroy our YA section? Your YA section," he emphasized.
Daniel gulped down his coffee. "Right, those poor defenseless books need me."
He escaped the break room before Jamie could dig deeper, weaving through the crowded store to his sanctuary: the children's and YA section. Rainbow-colored fairy lights twinkled overhead, casting a magical glow across the hand-painted murals of dragons and unicorns that he'd spent countless weekends creating. Plush reading nooks nestled between towering shelves, complete with bean bags and cushions shaped like magical creatures.
You painted this? Caelen asked, and Daniel felt a rare swell of pride within him. The Shadow King was impressed with him.
I am always impressed with you.
That was a lie, Daniel reminded himself. Not praise he should listen to.
Daniel made himself refocus as he moved through his domain, straightening spine-out books to face forward, rescuing volumes from the wrong shelves. His fingers traced the familiar spines, taking comfort in their solid presence.
"Mr. Daniel!" A small voice piped up. "Do you have any new dragon books?"
He turned to find Sophie, one of his regular story time attendees, bouncing on her toes. "Let me think..." He tapped his chin dramatically, making her giggle. "Did you read the one about the dragon who couldn't breathe fire yet?"
"Three times!"
"Well then..." He led her to a display topped with a stuffed dragon he'd dressed in a tiny leather jacket. "This is one of my new favorites. The dragon opens a coffee shop."
Sophie clutched the book to her chest, beaming. This was why he loved his job—seeing that spark of joy when a young reader found their next literary adventure.
Between recommendations and re-shelving, Daniel almost managed to forget about the portals. Almost.
He couldn't help glancing out the window between helping customers. The crowd around the police tape had tripled in size since he'd arrived.
A stack of books crashed to the floor behind him.
He spun around, but no one stood near enough to have knocked them over. The volumes lay scattered across the carpet, all of them fantasy titles.
What a weird coincidence. Daniel crouched to gather them. The overhead lights flickered once, twice. In the children's corner, Sophie looked up from her dragon book, confused.
"Everything's fine," Daniel called out with forced cheer. "Just some electrical issues."
But when he turned back to re-shelving, a shadow darted across his peripheral vision. Too tall, too fluid to be human. His heart slammed against his ribs as he whirled to track it, but nothing was there.
He was being paranoid.
You're not being paranoid, the voice in his head said, and Daniel tried not to laugh about how absurd that was. He had a voice in his head reassuring him that he wasn't going insane.
How comforting.
You should leave this place , Caelen urged.
"I'm not going to listen to you."
A bell chimed as the front door opened, and Daniel turned toward the sound. Three people strode into the store that immediately caught his attention with how out of place they seemed. Their clothes looked like something out of a period drama with their high collars and elaborate embroidery.
They almost looked like cosplayers, but Daniel had been to enough conventions to know the difference between even the best handmade costumes and whatever these were. They looked too worn, too real.
The strangers moved straight toward the counter where Jamie stood helping a customer, their purposeful stride parting the crowd like Moses and the Red Sea.
Intrigued, Daniel made his way to the counter as well. By the time he got there, the shortest of the strangers—a woman with silver-streaked dark hair pulled into an elaborate updo— was already addressing his brother.
"We understand there have been... incidents in the vicinity," she said, her accent impossible to place. "We'd like to know if you've witnessed anything unusual."
Jamie's customer service smile didn't waver, but Daniel saw the tension in his shoulders. "Unusual how?"
"Disturbances," another member of the group said. This one was shorter, with skin that seemed to shimmer faintly under the fluorescent lights. "Strange lights, perhaps. Or people acting oddly."
Daniel stepped behind the counter next to his brother. "This is a bookstore," he cut in, forcing a laugh. "Not a haunted house."
The silver-haired woman's eyes snapped to him, and Daniel felt the weight of her gaze like a physical touch. Something about the way she looked at him made his skin crawl, like she was reading something written beneath his surface.
After a moment, her lips curved into a knowing smile. "Daniel Martinez. We've been looking for you."
Daniel's stomach dropped. "Never heard of him."
"Please." The shimmering one stepped closer. "We know about Knox. About all of them. Where are they hiding?"
"Knox?" Daniel forced a laugh. "Like the fort? Sorry, wrong state."
Jamie shot them a confused look.
The third stranger, a stocky bronze-skinned man who'd remained silent until now, spoke in a voice like grinding stone. "We can help with the portals. This is our sacred duty, but we need to find those responsible."
"Your duty?" Heat flushed through Daniel's chest, replacing his nerves with anger. "And who exactly are you?"
"We are the Barrier Keepers," the silver-haired woman declared. "We maintain the boundaries between worlds and preserve the natural order of things."
"Well, you're doing a shit job of it!" Daniel's voice rose, drawing stares from nearby customers. "If you're supposed to be maintaining barriers, where were you when people started disappearing? Where were you when—" He cut himself off before mentioning his own kidnapping.
The woman's face hardened. "We cannot act effectively without cooperation. Tell us where to find Knox and the others, and we can resolve this situation before more humans vanish."
"I told you, I don't know any Knox." Daniel crossed his arms. "And even if I did, I wouldn't help people who show up making demands while looking like reject extras from a Renaissance fair."
The stone-voiced one stepped forward menacingly. "You dare…"
"I dare a lot of things." Daniel lifted his chin. "Now, unless you're planning to buy something, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. We have a strict 'no threatening the staff' policy."
The silver-haired woman spoke again. "Without our intervention, the barriers between worlds will continue to weaken. More portals will open. More people will vanish."
"Why would I trust you?" Daniel glared at the lady.
"Because this is so much bigger than you." The shimmering one's voice held an edge of steel. "Both worlds hang in the balance."
"What the actual hell is going on?" Jamie grabbed Daniel's arm. "What are they talking about? What worlds?"
"Nothing," Daniel said quickly. "They're clearly confused."
"That's enough." The stone-voiced keeper cut him off. "Come with us to the park. We'll show you exactly what we can do. How we can seal these rifts before they spread further."
Daniel was not convinced. "Right, because following three strange people into a park where people have been disappearing sounds like a brilliant idea."
It's a terrible idea.
Wow, he and Caelen agreed on something.
This was almost enough to make Daniel change his mind out of spite.
The silver-haired woman extended her hand. "You've dealt with monsters from the other side. You know the danger is real. Let us prove we can help." She looked at Jamie. "Your brother can accompany us," she offered. "You'll be quite safe. We only wish to demonstrate our abilities, so you understand that we mean well."
Daniel chewed his lip, studying the three strange figures. Part of him burned to know what they could do, to understand more about what was going on—he could already picture the faces Adrian and Leon would make when he returned with way more information than they'd been able to dig up. But Jamie...
"Fine." Daniel stepped around the counter. "But Jamie stays here."
"Daniel." His brother sounded like he wanted to protest.
"Someone needs to watch the store." Daniel forced a smile. "Besides, what are they gonna do? Force me to act in a period play?"
Jamie's jaw clenched. "This isn't funny. These people are weird, and you're acting weirder."
"Trust me?" Daniel squeezed his brother's hand. "I'll be back in thirty minutes tops. If not, call the police."
"Twenty minutes," Jamie countered. "And I'm calling if you don't text updates every five minutes."
"Deal." Daniel pulled away before Jamie could change his mind. He faced the Barrier Keepers, squaring his shoulders. "Lead the way. But try anything sketchy and I'll scream bloody murder. There are enough people around that someone will notice, and I can pitch my voice amazingly high."
The silver-haired woman's mouth curved. "We have no intention of harming you."
"Yeah, well, I'm not letting myself get kidnapped again." Daniel brushed past them toward the door. "You coming or what?"
He heard Jamie sputter behind him. "You were kidnapped?"
Daniel quickened his pace, pretending not to hear. He'd deal with that slip-up later. Right now, he needed answers about these portals. And if these people could actually help...
The Barrier Keepers fell into step beside him as they exited the store. Daniel pulled out his phone to text Jamie:
Still alive. Walking to park. Will update in 5.
He hit send and headed to the gate of the park.
The news van that had been there earlier was gone now, though yellow police tape still fluttered in the breeze. Two officers stood near the perimeter, drinking coffee from paper cups.
The shimmering Barrier Keeper's hand landed on Daniel's shoulder. Daniel jerked away. "Personal space, dude. I don't even know your name."
That's right. Do not let these people touch you.
"Be still," the keeper said, grip tightening. "They cannot see us now."
Daniel opened his mouth to argue, but the words died in his throat as they walked straight past the police officers. Neither cop looked up or showed any sign they'd noticed three people in Renaissance fair costumes and a very colorful guy in a cardigan ducking under the police tape.
"This is..." Daniel glanced back at the oblivious officers. "Are we invisible?"
"In a manner of speaking," the silver-haired woman said. "We've stepped slightly sideways from your reality. I am Elysia, by the way." She gestured at the keeper who was touching Daniel. "This is Galen, and Tarian." She nodded to the man with the voice like gravel.
"Right." Daniel pulled out his phone to text Jamie, trying to ignore how weird all of this was. "So pleased to meet you."
Still fine. At park. Police can't see us??? Will explain later.
He hit Send as they walked deeper into the park.
He looked around, expecting to see the shimmering doorways Adrian and Leon had described to him. Nothing caught his eye. There were only empty benches, scattered leaves, and patches of dried grass where the summer heat had taken its toll.
"I don't see any portals," he said, turning to Elysia. "Aren't there supposed to be glowing doorways or something?"
"This goes beyond portals." Elysia's silver hair caught the sunlight as she shook her head. "What we're dealing with are zones of overlap."
"Zones of what now?"
"Areas where the fabric between worlds has grown dangerously thin." She gestured toward a copse of trees near the playground. "Reality itself is destabilizing. Watch closely."
Daniel squinted at the indicated spot. At first glance, nothing seemed amiss. Then he noticed how the shadows fell wrong, stretching in directions that didn't match the sun's position. A squirrel darted up one trunk, its movements jerky and unnatural like a video playing at the wrong speed.
Shadows stretched the wrong way, reaching toward the sun instead of away from it.
"What the hell?" Daniel stepped closer, fascinated despite himself. The air felt different here and smelled like there was a storm coming.
"The boundaries between worlds are eroding," Elysia explained. "Small things slip through first. Animals, plants, weather patterns. Then the tears grow larger."
A butterfly fluttered past Daniel's face. He followed it with his eyes until it suddenly disappeared.
A shiver ran down his spine.
Was this what had happened to the people who'd gone missing?
"The things that disappear here," Daniel made himself ask, "they end up in Veridia, right?"
"Some do," Galen said. "Some just… unravel."
"Unravel?" Daniel repeated. "What do you mean, unravel?"
"These barriers aren't meant to be crossed," Tarian rumbled. "When something passes through an unstable zone, sometimes the fabric of existence itself..." He made a ripping gesture with his hands.
Daniel stepped back from the warped area, heart pounding. All those missing people... Had they made it to Veridia, or had they simply ceased to exist?
He glanced back toward the entrance of the park. Even now there were nerds lying in wait, hoping to investigate this park and find a door to another dimension. They had no idea what sort of fate might await them.
His phone buzzed. Time for another update to Jamie.
Still ok. Learning scary stuff about missing people. Back soon.
"You said you can fix this," Daniel said, shoving his phone back in his pocket. "So fix it."
Elysia shot him a look, and then she motioned for her partners. The three of them moved to form a triangle around the distorted area. Elysia raised her hands, and silvery light streamed from her fingers. The other two followed suit. Galen's magic shimmered like heat waves rising from hot pavement, while Tarian's power didn't seem to have a visible form at all, but an earthen smell hung in the air.
Daniel's skin prickled as he watched. The wrongness in the shadows intensified, twisting and writhing as if trying to escape. His stomach lurched as reality seemed to bend around the keepers' combined power.
A high-pitched whine filled the air, making Daniel's teeth ache. He clapped his hands over his ears, but it didn't help—the sound wasn't physical, it was like the fabric of reality itself was screaming.
The magic condensed into a sphere of swirling energy above the distorted area. Daniel's eyes watered, trying to look at it directly. The sphere pulsed once, twice, then sank into the ground like water into sand.
A wave of force rippled outward. The wrongness in the shadows snapped back into place. The air cleared. Even the dried patches of grass seemed greener.
"There," Elysia lowered her hands. "This area is cleansed. The barrier between worlds is stabilized."
Daniel blinked spots from his vision. Where the distortion had been, everything looked normal now, almost too normal, like a pristine patch in an old carpet. "That's it? Just like that?"
"What were you expecting?" Galen asked. "Fire? Explosions?"
"Kind of, yeah." Daniel shook his head. "I don't know what I expected."
Tarian surveyed the area. "This will hold for a while."
"A while?" Daniel asked. In his pocket, his phone buzzed again.
"We can only apply a bandaid for now," Elysia explained, clearly unhappy with the situation. "That is why we need your help to find Knox and the others. They're making the situation worse."
"How? By existing?"
"In a way, yes. Their presence here is further destabilizing this world." She pulled a small card out of her pocket and offered it to him. A business card with just her name and a telephone number.
Daniel studied it curiously, then he looked back up at her. "You're going to make them go home?"
"We might use our powers to help them fit better into this environment if they choose to remain."
"Bullshit. You're going to send them packing." Daniel knew better than to trust these strangers. "And speaking of going home, that's what I'll be doing now."
Daniel turned around and headed toward the exit of the park before the Barrier Keepers could stop him.
What was he going to do about this situation?
He needed to talk to Adrian and the others. But what if the keepers used some weird magic to spy on him now that they knew where he was?
The store's familiar bell chimed as he pushed through the door, and Jamie ambushed him before it could finish ringing.
"You didn't respond to my last text!"
"Sorry, got distracted by reality breaking." Daniel tried to duck past, but Jamie blocked his path.
"No. We're talking about this. What did you mean about being kidnapped?"
"It's complicated." Daniel ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up worse than usual. Three customers browsed nearby, peering at them over the tops of books. "Can we not do this here?"
"Fine. Let's go to the break room." Jamie steered him toward the back, past shelves of pristine new releases and dog-eared used paperbacks, and into the break room. There, he shut the door and crossed his arms. "Spill."
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Daniel sat in a chair.
"Try me."
"Remember when I didn't answer my phone for a few days?"
"When you said you had food poisoning?" Jamie's eyes narrowed. "You were kidnapped?"
"Kind of? But I'm fine now." Daniel picked at a loose thread on his cardigan. "Obviously."
"Obviously?" Jamie's voice rose. "Daniel, what the hell? Why didn't you tell me? Did you go to the police?"
"No, because how do I explain that my kidnapper was from another dimension?" The words burst out before Daniel could stop them.
Jamie stared at him. "Another... dimension."
"See? This is why I didn't tell you." Daniel blew out a breath. "You think I'm crazy."
"I think you're not telling me everything." Jamie pulled up the other chair. "Start from the beginning."
Daniel opened his mouth to respond, but movement caught his eye. Through the break room's small window, he glimpsed a familiar tall figure with white hair slipping between the nerds outside.
His heart stopped. Caelen.
No, it was a cosplayer.
A fucking cosplayer.
Daniel blew out a breath, noticing now how quiet his mind had become. He hadn't heard from the Shadow King since the Barrier Keepers had helped him sneak into the park. Had Caelen lost track of him?
"Daniel," Jamie prompted again, concern evident in his voice.
Daniel tore his gaze from the window. "How much do you know about the weird stuff that's been happening? Like that bridge incident last month?"
"The one where that cosplayer showed up?" Jamie leaned back in his chair. "The white-haired guy pretending to be that character from that webnovel you like so much?"
"Monsters of Veridia." Daniel's fingers drummed against his thigh. Of course Jamie wouldn't recognize Caelen. He'd never read the series, always insisting that real books belonged on paper, not screens.
"That's the one." Jamie nodded. "Some kind of publicity stunt, right?"
Daniel shook his head. "It wasn't a stunt. That was actually Caelen."
Jamie's eyebrows shot up. "Come on, you can't mean that. Next you'll tell me dragons are real too."
"You think the bridge thing was fake?" Daniel met his brother's skeptical gaze. "What about all these people vanishing in the park? Is that a publicity stunt too?"
Jamie's smile faltered. "That's different. People are actually missing."
"Yeah, and there's a reason for that." Daniel wished he knew how to explain this without sounding insane. "The same reason Caelen was on that bridge. The same reason those weird Renaissance fair rejects just showed up in your store." He paused. Jamie looked sceptical, but Daniel pressed on. "Look, those stories in Monsters of Veridia? They're real. All of it. The characters, the magic, everything." He leaned forward. "And now something's happening to the barriers between that world and ours. People are falling through."
Jamie's face went through a series of expressions: disbelief, worry, then something that looked dangerously close to pity. "Daniel, I know you love these stories, but…"
"I'm not making this up." Daniel wanted to pull at his hair in frustration. The memory of those days in Caelen's captivity flashed through his mind. The fear, yes, but also the fascination. The way Caelen's green eyes had gleamed in the darkness. The brush of his fingers against Daniel's skin.
He hadn't made any of that up.
Daniel shook the thoughts away. "Those people in the robes? They're called Barrier Keepers. They're trying to fix the holes between worlds."
Jamie studied him for a long moment. "You really believe this."
"I don't just believe it. I lived it. And now people are disappearing. Right outside your store. Some of them might not even exist anymore."
"What do you mean, not exist?"
"The keepers said sometimes people just... unravel when they cross through unstable areas." Daniel shuddered at the memory.
Jamie still had that pensive expression on his face. "You're talking a lot about the weird people and not at all about how you were kidnapped."
In his brother's gaze, Daniel felt caught.
"It was Caelen," he admitted softly.
Damn it. He really didn't want to talk about this. Least of all while sitting down. He got up from his chair. Moved around the room.
"Remember that convention I went to? The one with the Monsters of Veridia panel?"
Jamie nodded, watching him with a quiet sort of intensity.
"Well, Caelen showed up there. He grabbed me thinking I was Adrian. You know, the book blogger I'm always talking about? Adrian runs The Realistic Romantic."
His fingers traced the edge of the break room table. The memory of Caelen's fingers in his hair made his skin tingle even now. When Caelen had drawn energy from him…
When he'd been able to look into Caelen's mind in return…
No, he couldn't think about that now.
"See, Knox and Adrian have this whole thing going on," he explained. "And Caelen wanted to hurt Knox by taking Adrian. He just got the wrong guy."
Oh, I did not get the wrong guy at all.
Why did Caelen have to choose this moment to come back?
"Did he hurt you?" Jamie's face had darkened. He wasn't big or strong, barely taller than Daniel. He'd cried the first time he'd gotten a tattoo. One of those guys who claimed the pen was mightier than the sword.
But there was no doubt in Daniel's mind that his big brother would have swung his fist at the Shadow King if he could have.
"Did he do anything to you?"
Daniel's throat felt tight. "No," he managed to say.
But if he hadn't gotten out of there when he had…
You would have enjoyed that night.
Daniel suddenly had a very vivid idea of what the Shadow King had planned to do to him, a flash of bare skin in chains that made his cock want to grow hard in spite of his situation.
You would have enjoyed it very much.
He probably would have, damn it.
Daniel licked his lips. "He didn't hurt me," he said, focusing back on his conversation with his brother. "He just... kept me locked up for a few days until he realized I wasn't Adrian."
A sanitized version of events.
Jamie's expression said he wasn't convinced. "And then he just let you go?"
"Knox showed up." Daniel picked a bit of lint off his shirt. "There was this whole dramatic confrontation. Very on-brand for both of them, honestly."
"This isn't funny, Daniel."
"I know it's not." Daniel slumped against the break room wall. "Trust me, I know how crazy this all sounds. But it's real. The magic, the monsters, all of it. And now the barriers between worlds are breaking down, and people are disappearing, and those keepers want my help to find Knox and the others, but I don't trust them at all."
How had his life turned so complicated so fast?
"Okay." Jamie stood up and put his hands on Daniel's shoulders. "Let's say I believe you. What are you going to do?"
Daniel met his brother's concerned gaze. "I need to warn Adrian and Leon. I should probably go back to them. I just need to make sure I'm not being followed somehow."
"You're not driving all the way back there today," Jamie said firmly.
"You're not the boss of me," Daniel gave back. An old joke of theirs.
"Actually I am, and I'm ordering you to have a good night's sleep tonight, and then we'll figure this all out, okay?"
A good night's sleep. Right.
When had Daniel last had one of those?