Chapter 9 #2
“I think each of the horsemen need to claim a world for the spell to work,” Mickey says.
“When the horsemen come together and stand among the destruction, the worlds will connect. Conquest failed, so he will have to rise up and try again. I can’t imagine he’s already up to it so soon after the god stripped him of his power. ”
I notice Riley touching the hourglass almost absentmindedly.
Is he thinking about his brother, the horseman who was also stripped of his horse?
If they accomplish destroying another realm, will the god simply forgive Conquest for hesitating when it came to taking down Riley, who was protecting me, and send him to finish what he started?
“If we step through this Door, how safe will we be from those who hunt down magic users?” I ask.
“You will be in the slums where we opened the Door,” Story says. “I just want to save my sister. Please.”
“Why didn’t you bring her with you?” Mickey asks curiously.
“It all happened so fast. The woman I was with… she was going to save us. She was going to open a Door so we could seek help, but they caught on to her plan. The moment the Door opened, she sent me through.”
“What happened to her?” I ask.
“I don’t know. For some reason, she didn’t follow me through the Door. I’m not sure if they got to her.”
I look at Riley, but the man is already convinced he’s going through this Door, and I can’t help but question why.
He knows that he’s hampered by his own magic.
Any time he tries to use it, he’s stricken with pain and is weakened by it.
And I’m a god who relies on my followers for my power—which I have few of—so my power is limited.
“Excuse the three of us while we step outside for a word,” I say as I wave Riley and Mickey to the door, leaving Joy and Tommy in the room with Story. They follow me out into the hallway where I turn to them. “The risk we are taking—”
“I need to go,” Riley cuts in, looking determined.
“Why?” I ask, and I realize that weeks ago, I would have gone without a second thought. But now that I have him… now that I know I could lose him, I find myself incapable of just diving right into something like this. Especially with so much risk.
Riley refuses to look at me, and he even holds Kit facing himself so she won’t try. “You don’t have to go.”
“You think I would leave you to wander into a strange and hostile world without me?” I ask incredulously. Honestly, the shit this man spouts.
“I have to go.” Riley sounds so desperate.
“Saving this world wouldn’t change anything that happened in Torin’s,” Mickey says quietly.
“That might sound cruel, but Riley, you can’t do this because of guilt.
We aren’t some chosen ones destined to save it all.
There are other people. I know people aren’t exactly lining up to help with things that don’t involve them… ”
Riley proceeds to pretend like Mickey said absolutely nothing, acting like we don’t even exist. But my finger slips under his sleeve where I can run it down the stain on his wrist.
“What if I go alone?” I suggest.
Riley looks like he’s ready to give me a gentle strangle. “We’re not going through this again! I’m not leaving you to run off and do things alone. If you don’t want to go, that’s fine. I’ll be careful. People usually can’t tell that I even have magic since it’s so strange.”
“No, I’m going with you,” I insist.
“I’ll go too,” Mickey says.
Riley shakes his head, probably contemplating how hard it would be for Mickey to join us. “Mickey, you’ll die if you can’t use your undead to do things for you.”
“Then I will die with the people I love,” Mickey says very dramatically. Riley merely gives him a look, and I notice Kit is also giving him a look. “But before we go, if you could touch the lady who can turn into a unicorn so you could carry me around, that’d be superb.”
Grinning, I say, “I agree.”
Riley ignores both of us and heads back inside the room. “Story, we’ve agreed to go with you. But before we go, we need you to tell us everything we need to know about your world.”
I notice that in the time we’ve been gone, Story has turned even more pale, and the color in his lips has almost disappeared.
“My world is very different from this one,” he says.
“Tell us everything we need to know to blend in.”
Story seems wary but gives Riley a nod. “We will not get punished for this?”
“Punished for what?” Riley asks. “You’re free to speak here. We rely on magic in this world, and everyone in this building can use magic freely, which means we need to understand how to act in Obsian. Are you okay? You don’t look well.”
“Yes, I’m fine. Thank you,” he says. “We are tested three times in our life to tell if we have magic. At birth, at age five, and again at age fifteen. If we do have magic, we are removed from the capital immediately.”
“Even as an infant?” Mickey asks.
“Yes. We are placed outside the walls of the capital. So we rotate every night who walks the walls to check for the infants that are branded and discarded, but it’s not always possible to find them all before it’s too late.”
“Why the hell wouldn’t they alert you? Or hand them over?” Riley asks in disbelief.
“Because they want them to—” Suddenly, his eyes shift to a pale gray color as he grimaces and bows his head. He gasps and reaches for his head, like pain has set in, and quickly stands up. “I need to go back. I’ve been away from her for too long.”
“Who?” Riley asks.
“My sister… I need to go back…”
He staggers and then drops to his knees, crashing to the ground before any of us can grab him.
“What just happened to him?” Mickey asks as Tommy scoops him up.
“I don’t know,” I respond. “But did you see the way his eyes shifted colors?”
“His heartbeat is abnormal. Should we send him to a doctor?” Tommy asks.
I shake my head. “No, I think we should get him back through the Door. He seemed adamant about getting through the Door for some reason.”
“This is the third time he’s done something similar.
The first two times, though, he didn’t pass out,” Special Agent Kim, who’s joined us in the room, says.
“We’ll take you to the Door; we found its location about an hour before you arrived.
We’ll gather some supplies for you, but once through the Door, I’m not sure what you’ll face.
Should we send more from our unit to join you? ”
“I’m afraid we’ll already be conspicuous with just the three of us; if there are more of us, it might draw even more attention or make them feel overwhelmed by us.”
Kim looks thoughtful but slowly nods. “I’m hoping you can gather some information and then return so we can make a plan together.”
“I can create a Door at any point to leave,” I assure her. “And I will shut it the second I do so no one can follow.”
“Okay. If the threat they are facing is a horseman, then return at once and we will reconvene and face the threat together. I would prefer that if you do open a Door, you open it in this room so my agents can secure it.”
“Understood.” Going in as a unit would be the best way to deal with this, but in a toxic world like Story is describing, what would they do if a group of magic users invaded their lands? Would they turn on us? Decide we’re the enemy as well?
“We have another issue,” Mickey says as he pokes one of the orbs that has chosen to follow Riley. Not all of them got on the plane and went with him, but about ten did. “What do we do with these things? Can you reason with them, Riley? Bribe them maybe?”
“Yes. Tell them that if they stay here, we will allow them to watch us having sex,” I declare, positive that would make me impatiently wait.
The look Riley is giving me tells me that maybe he doesn’t feel the same way.
“Hopefully, they realize that the horseman is beyond this Door and will choose to stay behind. They didn’t want to go through the Door where the god resides, so maybe they’ll avoid this one as well because of the horseman. ”
Mickey shrugs. “We can hope. Otherwise you’re going to have to wear like a trench coat and keep them beneath it.”
I nod approvingly. “Ooh, very good, Mickey. He could use two for breasts and two for balls and two more for buns… not sure where the rest are going to go, but we’ll figure it out.”
Riley turns to Kim and points at the door. “This way, yes? I will be going alone, it seems.”
“Yes, we need to get back in the car and drive to the location,” Special Agent Kim says. She’s very professional as she ignores everything Mickey and I say.
Riley speed-walks away from us, but Kit betrays him by staring back at us like Mickey and I are intriguing… which we are.
I see a stapler sitting on a desk on the way out and snatch it up, thrilled by the fun device and prepared to add it to my collection.