Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
Istep into Chase’s kitchen with a grin and a perky “I’m back,” and the second I do, this sexy, stalwart, totally chill ancient warrior not only jumps—he drops an egg.
It lands with a splat, and I can’t keep down my laugh.
“Now you’re in trouble,” he says, pulling me close and kissing me like he means it. And, yeah, I like it. A lot.
But not so much that I don’t push him away. “Sorry,” I say, with a shake of my head. “I need a man with nerves of steel. You jumped.”
“Startled,” he corrects. “The egg just slipped.”
I make a tsking noise as I shake my head, right up until he takes my wrist, tugs me to him, and presses my hand against what is a very nice erection.
“Oh,” I say. “I guess that kind of steel counts, too.”
He laughs, then pulls me in for the kind of long, slow kiss that says he missed me. When he finally draws back, his thumb moves once along my jaw. “Tell me everything.”
So I do. And the laughter goes out of the room as I talk, because there’s no funny way to say any of it.
“He knows,” I tell him. “Kali’s army. The creatures. All of it. I handed him the whole thing, and you know what he did?” My voice is climbing, and I let it. “Nothing. He still wants the barriers down. He’s just going to deal with Kali first.”
“Arrogant bastard,” Chase says. “He talks about all the realms breathing the same air like it’s a gift. But you can’t put the Others in a room with Retribution and call it unity. Retribution would gut them before the air even cleared.”
“Exactly. And when I pointed out that people from my realm are going to die, too, he agreed. That’s the part I can’t get past—that the Real getting torn apart is an acceptable loss to him.”
Chase is quiet for a moment. “That’s him,” he says finally. “He has a picture of what he thinks will happen, and he’s wrong. He has no understanding of just how intense the devastation in the weaker realms will be.”
“I cross my arms and scowl. “Oh, he understands.”
Chase shakes his head. “Whatever else he may be, my brother is not intentionally cruel. He is, however, ridiculously stubborn. Once he believes a thing, his path is set.”
I just scowl. What else can I do?
Chase looks up from where he’s wiping up egg debris. “Did he say where I land in all this?”
“He said the soldiers who answer to him—not Kali—will stand for the Real when it comes to a head. And that if there’s work that needs both of you, you only have to send for him.”
Chase huffs out a breath that isn’t quite a laugh. “My brother—the one who’s been a thorn in my side for millennia—just offered to come running if I call.”
“Will you?” I ask. “Call him?”
“If it comes to Kali? Yes. We want the same thing this week, he and I—that bitch stopped. That’s enough to share a foxhole.” He meets my eyes. “It’s the weeks after I’m not sure about. When Kali’s done, and he’s still got his hand on the barriers.”
“I still love him,” I say, the words almost a whisper. “Even after all of it. What does that make me?”
He’s quiet for a beat, then he sighs. “I suppose it makes you a starry-eyed optimist. You didn’t fall for a man who turned out cold—you fell for the cold one and bet you could move him.”
“That’s not—” I stop, because it kind of is. “Okay. Maybe.”
“It’s not a bad bet,” he says on a sigh.
“He truly loves you, too. That’s the part of him that doesn’t match the rest, and it’s the only crack you’ve got.
” He goes to the fridge and comes out with a fresh egg that he sets on the counter.
“So push on it, he says, crossing to me.
“Make him look at all the world the way he looks at you.”
He pulls me in, his chin coming to rest on the top of my head, and for a second neither of us says anything.
“For what it’s worth,” he says into my hair, “you’re not wrong to still love him. Loving the best of somebody isn’t the same as forgiving the worst. You’re allowed to do one and keep working on the other.”
I close my eyes. It’s the first thing anybody’s said in two days that actually helps.
“I love you,” I say into his chest.
“I know.”
“Even though you’re being weirdly calm about your brother trying to recruit you.”
“I’m not calm. I’m being strategic. There’s a difference.”
“There’s no difference.”
“There’s a small difference,” he says, right as someone knocks.
It’s Tia, because of course it is, and she doesn’t wait to be let in. She comes through the door with a paper bag in one hand and her laptop bag in the other. Riley’s behind her, carrying two coffees and wearing a harried expression.
Tia takes in my proximity to Chase, flashes a very big grin, then drops her bag onto the floor.
“So,” she says, “how bad is it?”
I grimace. “Pretty bad.”
“On a scale.” She starts pulling bagels out and lining them up on the table. “One being a normal school day, and ten being the man you’re marrying wants to end the world.”
“Ten,” I say. “Definitely a ten.”
“Really? Well, that’s a bummer.” She gestures to the spread. “But bagels should help.”
“Can’t make it worse,” Riley says as Tia looks hard at me. “Seriously,” she says. “How are you?”
I shrug. “Tired. Sad. In love with a guy who can’t juggle an egg, and another who thinks my whole world is an acceptable loss.” I take a bagel because I need it. “So, peachy with a side of keen.”
She narrows her eyes at Chase. “What kind of immortal being are you that you can’t juggle an egg?”
“A harassed one,” he says without missing a beat.
Riley drops into a chair and opens her laptop.
And just like that, the banter stops. “Okay,” she says, and when she turns the laptop so we can see the screen, I gasp because the dead zone has grown a lot in the short time I was with Adric.
Like a lot a lot. Plus, there’s a fresh bloom near the path to the food court that wasn’t there two days ago.
“The rate of spread’s doubled,” Riley says. “It was eating inches a day. Now it’s feet.” She clicks. “And check out these video clips from last night.”
We all lean in to see the horror play out on her screen.
A low four-legged shape crossing dead grass and folding back into the trunk.
Something taller, for half a second, at the edge of the frame, that doesn’t read as any animal I know.
And a third clip where nothing crosses at all—the camera just glitches hard for nine full seconds, the picture tearing into bands of static, then settles on a patch of grass that’s dead now and wasn’t before.
I look at the dark fingers reaching for Hamilton Hall and the dead plants that surround the Widow Maker, and I shiver. “It’s a freaking Hellmouth.”
“Pretty much,” Cora says.
“How many crossings in all?” Chase asks.
“Six in two nights. All small, all gone again by dawn.” She closes the computer.
“And here’s the part I hate. They’re getting braver about when.
First crossings were three, four in the morning.
Last night’s late one was five-forty. Sunrise was six-fifteen.
They’re walking right up to the edge of daylight. ”
“Soon they’re going to come through in the day,” I say.
“Oh, yeah,” Riley agrees. “On the quad. With a zillion undergrads walking between classes. And it’s gonna be soon.”
Chase sets his mug down. “How’s the admin delay holding?”
She shrugs. “Your guy moves like lightning. He’s already got the area fenced as a soil-contamination study, and I think he seeded the rumor that it’s a chemical leak from the old groundskeeping shed.
And while all that’s great to keep students off the freaky dead spots, it doesn’t stop the critters from coming. ”
“No,” Chase says. “It doesn’t.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to sound optimistic. “Let’s make a plan.”
So we do. A tossed-together, very thin plan wherein Chase watches the Widow Maker overnight and trades off with Whistler the second Whistler can manage a watch. That, however, is still days away.
Riley will keep the cameras live, and since she’s already got an alarm set to notify her if there’s motion, she’ll ping everyone if any critter comes through during the day.
Since our biggest problem is the now urgent possibility of the barriers collapsing, Tia’s digging into the older Guardian material, like lore about how the barriers got built in the first place and what force holds them up.
Because if there’s a way to slow the fall, it’ll be in the bones of how the barrier was made in the first place.
As for my job…
“Class,” Tia says. “You need to park your ass in a classroom.”
“What? No. Give me real work.”
“You go to class,” Tia says.
I stare at her.
“Don’t even try. You’ve got a psych test on Thursday, you’ve missed two seminars, and if you flunk out, the king wins by default, because you lose the version of you that’s in the Real. And that’s what we’re trying to save, right? The buildings and the lawn and the dining hall and all our classes.”
And the worst part is she’s right.
“Fine. I’ll go to class.”
“Good,” Tia says. “And don’t worry. The Widow Maker will still be ending the world when you get back. It’s reliable that way.”