TWENTY-THREE #2
But when he spoke, his voice had a mean edge to it. “Because when a Black Cloak is destroyed in your presence, it doesn’t return to Katarra.”
“That means nothing to me.” When her freedom meant more.
“It’s Katarra,” he said through gritted teeth, as that name slid through the air like poisoned oil.
It made her step away from the door, scooping up the poker, she let its tip drag along the ridges of the slate flooring, creating a metallic ring that echoed off the tiled walls like a blade being drawn slowly across a whetstone.
“Who is Katarra?”
“The dark lord who creates and controls the collective of Black Cloaks,” Zarek explained. “The Black Cloaks were once human, but now they’re vessels powered by Katarra.”
“Are you saying I killed a human last night!” The disbelief cracked, multiplied, and blurred as her words bounced off the tiled walls until she was surrounded by the ghost of her own panic.
“No.” The solidified shadow under the door momentarily spilled into a razor-thin halo of light across the tile as he moved. “Listen to me, Angela.”
She took a step back from the door. Once again, she got ready to swing the fire poker.
“They are not human, not anymore. I told you, it was not murder. Humans do not turn to stone, then crumble to ash. And when we destroy those Black Cloaks, they return to Katarra. They. Do. Not. Die. They are resurrected by Katarra, who sends them back into the fight. But they didn’t this time.”
Her pulse throbbed in her ears, making it harder to listen, as her fingers curled tighter around the poker.
She remembered the Black Cloak’s turning to gray stone and then to ash. And the putrid smell. All of it inhuman.
The weight of the poker suddenly became too much; its tip hit the floor to clang like a gong in a Chinese temple. Her knees weakened so fast that she slapped her palm against the door, her head hanging heavily between her shoulders, shutting her eyes tight to stop herself from falling.
She surrendered to the weight, sliding her back against the hard wooden door to the floor, dragging the fire poker into her lap like an iron dog.
“I—” She gripped the medallion, her thumb tracing its now-familiar ridges desperate for a foothold, to steady the world while the truth unfolded into shapes and sounds so abnormal from the black-and-white simplicity of what she knew.
She squeezed the medallion’s metal edges so tight it promised to bruise, using the pain to stay in the moment and not lose herself inside this panic attack.
How was any of this real? “I thought I’d killed someone. Burned them with salt and then… With that athame…”
“You did not murder anyone, Angela.” Again, leather shifted and buckles clinked as Zarek sat on the other side, where his voice curled through the wooden door panel as if shoulder to shoulder.
“What you destroyed was a vessel. A shell animated by Katarra’s magick.
The human soul that once inhabited it is long gone, and what’s left is nothing but a puppet of dark magic. ”
Suddenly, every panicked thought consumed with chaos crashed with relief. She wasn’t a killer, who could finally breathe.
“But what happened to those four members of the Black Cloak Collective who perished to ash while near you, none of them returned to Katarra for resurrection. There were three from the night we met. And certainly not the one you burned with salt last night. They were just gone.”
Her skin prickled at the memory. And that scream. “Are you sure it’s me?” Because she’d done nothing.
Zarek’s silence held more than words.
“What does this mean?”
“It makes you valuable to us, yes. But also to him. Katarra. And that is where it gets deadly.”
Angela’s ribcage tightened as an icy chill prickled over her scalp; she hugged her knees. “How bad is he?”
Zarek started with a heavy sigh. She could feel a warmth through the wood, but also his weariness, as if he’d been fighting a long time. How could she feel him like this, when he sat on the other side of this closed door?
“Katarra is a thousand times worse than the Black Cloaks. He steals magick to grow stronger and has ended civilizations in realms that no longer exist, destroying everything in his thirst for power.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this.” She pressed her spine harder against the hardwood while gripping her medallion tighter.
“I know. And I am sorry that you’re being dragged into our world like this, when normally the Accords are here to protect you and your kind.” He sighed. “But, as much as I want to shield you from it, you deserve nothing but the truth. Even if it may seem overwhelming to you, it’s the truth.”
Overwhelming? Ha! People got overwhelmed by taxes, gridlocked traffic on the highway, or credit card bills that arrived after a big Christmas splurge.
They weren’t overwhelmed by magick, dark lords, and men dressed in armored leather—things that had no business existing on the other side of a bathroom door.
“I would rather you fear reality than trust a lie.”
She believed him, which frightened her almost as much as Katarra. Why was she so willingly to believe Zarek like this?
“And I am truly sorry to scare you…’’ For the first time, his voice sounded like a man instead of a warrior.
“But you are in danger, whether you believe in our war or not. Katarra has begun his search for you, and he’ll use you to his advantage, or he’ll—” He paused as if to wince.
“I won’t let that happen…” His silence fell heavily, exacerbated by the door between them, where they sat back-to-back, on the floor.
“What about my aunt?”
“You are the priority. You won’t be missed.”
“Excuse me?” Didn’t that get her back up.
“There is a time difference here.”
“Right. Like time zones?”
“Time is not fixed, it flexes. When I am in your realm, I exist on your time. But when crossing the veyll, time stretches or compresses between realms. We have a historian who says time involves quantum physics, linear lateral lines, and distance variables such as the distance from the Veyllgates, season, moon cycle, and planetary alignments. Footnote version, two minutes in your realm could equal two days in Paradox. In this instance time is on our side, where no one will notice you’re gone. ”
Where the hell am I?
“Your aunt does not carry your anomaly. She does not disrupt magick. That makes her less valuable to him.”
“Less valuable?” The frown was fierce.
“For now, Katarra seeks power. And you are that new power. Your aunt is leverage only if she becomes a pathway to get to you as a tool to control you.”
“And would he?”
“Yes. If Katarra cannot reach you directly, he will probe your life for weaknesses as a strategy.”
She snarled through gritted teeth, “And what are you going to do about that?”
Zarek’s tone shifted into that cold, tactical tone she was beginning to despise. “I will assign the Vanguard to monitor her. They will watch for any Black Cloak activity.”
“Are you like the police?”
“We’re the custodians who protect the realms. Your world is what we call the mortal realm.”
“Where exactly am I?” Her pulse tripped again not just with panic, but over the stupidity for not asking sooner. But in her defense, she had a lot to deal with.
“Paradox. It is the realm where magic exists openly.”
“A realm?” She tilted her head as the questions spilled out. “Like a kingdom? A country. Separated by what? Because I didn’t see any border, or have my passport stamped to get here.” Did he knock her out with some drug to give her the impression that the five-minute trip was in fact hours?
“The realms are separated by the veyll.”
“Like how ghosts cross the veil in every scary Halloween story we’re told as kids. Do you tell scary stories too? Or is snatching people off the street your thing.”
“It’s V-e-y-l-l. Not veil.” He corrected her so calmly. “Think of the world as a building with many floors. There are layers separated by concrete and steel. Each floor is a realm, and we access them by parting the veyll. It’s just a door we unlock and close behind us. Like a fire escape.”
The explanation felt like a betrayal of physics. If he was right, then every astronaut and architect was simply a tenant who had never thought to look for the stairwell to the stars.
No wonder the weathermen always got it wrong; they were all staring at the wrong side of the wall.
“And it’s safe?” Her eyes roamed the room to the tall window that showed a sky so blue it looked painted. “This place? Paradox?”
“Yes. We live under heavily constructed magical wards that keep Katarra and his kind out. For now.” The words echoed hollow in her ears.
Because if Katarra consumed magick to grow stronger, and if realms had already fallen, then this wasn’t just a battle—it was a war that may not have an end. And where did that leave her?
“I’m here as a prisoner, aren’t I?”
“Strategic containment,” he corrected.
“Is that how you rename your crime?”
“I did not bring you here to use you as a weapon. And I will not allow you to become a casualty in our war.”
Angela closed her heavy eyelids. “Fine.” The word sounded so thin it echoed off the tiled bathroom, when nothing about this entire situation was fine.
She sat up and rolled her shoulders, reclaiming the space inch by inch. “Right, then we negotiate. Otherwise, I’ll be living in this bathroom with this fire poker as my new forever friend, while I work on that size-eight figure by refusing food because I won’t open the door again.”
It sounded preposterous.
But preposterous was better than being powerless.
Of course, there was silence. It was as if negotiating were beneath this noble warrior.
But this was a test, too. If she wasn’t a prisoner, if this were truly a strategic containment, then he’d have to be up for some form of bend to his steely rules.
And if he refused?
Her pulse practically pole-vaulted in her neck. What then? A cold cell with steel bars instead of stone.
“State your terms,” he finally said.