Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Riley
Everyone quiets down as we stand around the body of water we’d fallen into.
It’s somewhere I’ve never been before, but I can tell we’re in Torin’s realm.
Silence has settled over us, and I notice the newcomers looking around curiously, probably at the stark difference between the beautiful water that glistens, caused by the colorful rock beneath it, and the barren wasteland beyond it.
For some reason, I find myself wanting to assure them that Torin’s world is beautiful, but I guess it’s hard to claim that out here where his power still hasn’t reached.
“Where are we?” Vero asks.
“Shaarune… my world. It was taken by the horseman,” Torin says. “If Riley wants to work with you, then I will grudgingly do so. But I will never forgive you for hurting him.”
Vero barks out a laugh as he waves his hand around. “This is what’s happened to your realm and you’re still protecting him?”
“I am. Riley is not the problem,” Torin states, even though I’m literally the reason his land looks like this.
“Riley helped stop Conquest and saved our world from ending,” Mickey says. “Now saddle up, big boy, and help us stop Famine before he destroys their world too.”
“She,” I correct.
Mickey’s eyes practically sparkle. “Oh? Interesting. Is she the one documented in the book, then? How fascinating. I need to go read it again.”
“Torin, can you open a Door straight back into Obsian now that you’ve been there?” I ask.
“I can.”
“Somewhere safe where they’re not going to immediately grab us?”
“That’s the plan,” he says.
“Before we go, can I retrieve the bow that belonged to Conquest? Or are we too far from home?”
“At a run, Quill and I could be back within half an hour, but at your speed…” Torin hesitates then grimaces.
I glare at the man. “Just go. And bring a first aid kit back with you.”
Torin immediately shakes his head. “I’m not leaving you alone with that brute.”
I grab his face in my hands. “Please, just go. I’ll be fine. I’ve been with him for at least a day at this point. I was locked in a cell with him and all he’s done is spit evil things at me.”
Mickey looks over at us. “I can have Joy ride Quill back and get the stuff while Torin rebuilds the Door.”
“Oh yeah, I’m totally up for a wild ride on this strange creature’s back,” Joy says.
Torin shakes his head. “Quill is very finicky about who is on his back. I… doubt it’d go well.” I wonder why he lets me on his back, then. Is it just because of Torin?
“Fine, I’ll summon her a mount,” Mickey says before rapidly doing so. And with that, Joy is off. I notice Vero staring at Mickey, eyes narrowed as he contemplates his ability.
“You want me to summon you up something?” Mickey asks.
“You’ve desecrated the bodies of the dead that should be in their final resting place,” Vero announces.
“Tommy, do you feel desecrated?” Mickey asks as Tommy uses his shirt to dry Mickey’s hair since everyone ended up in the pond when they came through the Door.
“No, sir. I feel quite pleased to be alive,” Tommy says while he begins styling Mickey’s hair.
“You sure do,” Mickey agrees. “I have a knot right here from having to hold Riley, can you rub it out?”
I gawk at him. “Hold me? You literally just let me slide down your body and onto the ground.”
“Ooh yes, right there,” Mickey says, practically purring as he gets massaged.
Vero looks less than impressed while Torin ignores them to check me over. I assure him I’m perfectly fine, but only once he’s examined every wound and has determined that none are life-threatening does he seem able to move on.
He heads over to a flat area to start remaking the Door he’d just destroyed. I walk up behind him and wrap my arms around him in a hug. “Are you sure you have the power to do this? You’re not draining yourself too much?”
“I’m more worried about you,” he says as he pauses what he’s doing to glance at me. “You look exhausted.”
“They took away the hourglass… it was just… a bit much for me. But I’m okay now, I promise.”
Torin tilts my head back before sneaking a small kiss. With a smile, he kneels on the ground. “Will you please stay here?”
“You know that’s the last thing I’d ever do.”
He bites his lip and slowly nods, like he’s lost in thought. “I was extremely anxious. I was terrified something had happened to you. I’d never felt that way in my life.”
“I’m really sorry. I would have felt the same way. I’m glad you had Mickey and Mickey’s cute little friend to keep you company.”
At the mention of Mickey’s bat, Torin cringes. “That thing just… it haunts my nightmares, Riley.”
“Are you badmouthing Toast again? He is just a sweet little boy!” Mickey protests as Toast crawls up a little higher on Mickey’s shirt. Torin recoils when he sees it.
“Did you bring that back from the dead too?” Vero barks.
“It’s like he’s really sexy but everything that comes out of his mouth is so sassy—and not sexy sassy,” Mickey says.
Vero scowls for a bit, and I give Torin’s cheek a kiss. “I’ll stop disrupting you so you can focus.” I walk over to Vero. “Can I check on your wrists?”
He glowers and stands stoically while I have to practically pry his arm up to undo the bandage. He’s already bled through it and is showing very little sign of healing.
Mickey leans over to get a look. “Ouch, that looks like it hurts. Do you want Tommy to give you a backrub? It won’t help your wrists at all, but it feels really good. He was a medical examiner in a past life, so he understands all the many parts of the body.”
“I would like to send your dead off on a flaming pyre so he can join his ancestors,” Vero says.
Tommy’s face scrunches up, and I have to question if it’s the first time I’ve seen him look disgruntled by something. “I am very happy here.” And then he hurries off so Vero can’t suddenly light him on fire.
“You scared Tommy off! No one’s ever scared Tommy off!” Mickey says as Joy returns. She tosses me the bow and tosses Mickey the first aid kit.
“I have returned. You may all praise me,” she instructs.
“Thanks, Joy,” Mickey says.
“That was terrible praise,” she mutters. “I deserve better.”
Deciding that everyone can just be fussy, I set my bow down before popping open the first aid kit Mickey placed on the ground.
Mickey grabs Vero’s hand and pulls it forward to inspect his wrist, reminding me that even if Mickey acts like an absolute fool sometimes, he did require a medical degree to become a medical examiner and graduated at the top of his class.
Though he earned his degree through the Magical Interference Unit, which followed a slightly different path, he still knows way more about this stuff than I do.
So I watch while he sets to work examining it, cleaning it, then going, “If I stitch it up, will it heal faster? Don’t quite know how you gods work. ”
Vero scoffs like he’s offended Mickey would even bother asking for ways to heal him. “I don’t need your help.”
“Yes, but the idea of stabbing you with a needle sounds thrilling,” Mickey says.
Vero narrows his eyes as Mickey brandishes the needle.
“I can’t numb you, though… does anything like that even work on gods? I generally don’t have to numb the people I’m working on.”
“I need nothing to numb the pain. I am not weak.”
“Splendid,” Mickey says, sliding the needle in while I grimace. Vero doesn’t grimace, though, he simply looks disgusted that this man has chosen to touch him.
It’s all going quite well.
“I also brought everyone clean clothes since you all look a bit rough,” Joy says, but before she can hand them out, I hear someone shout, “Mickey!”
Mickey looks over at one of his undead who is rushing up. “Lt. Lindsey called to say that someone from Obsian reopened the Door and is now insisting on an audience with the West Brooke Magical Interference Unit. She wants you three there immediately.”
Torin stops and cocks his head. “I guess a different Door is in order.”
Good thing he screwed around long enough that the Door hadn’t even been made yet, so instead, he makes a Door to take us to West Brooke.
I turn to check on Mickey’s progress, but he’s already whipped both of Vero’s wrists into shape.
It’s shocking how competent he can be when he puts his mind to it.
“Wow, was that exhausting. Will you carry me on that broad muscular back?” he asks his patient.
“Your weakness disgusts me,” Vero answers before storming over to the Door.
“I think I have a shot with him,” Mickey says to me.
“Do you? Do you?”
Mickey just smiles and trudges over to the Door. I want to be like Mickey for once and take a nap, feeling absolutely exhausted after everything that has happened, but a break is obviously not in the cards as all of us head through the Door.
We find ourselves in the room where we’d questioned Story and immediately see Special Agent Kim waiting for us.
“Lt. Lindsey informed us that the Door from Obsian has been reopened,” I explain.
“Yes… we have visitors. You… don’t look good.”
Apparently, I look as bad as I feel. “It was a bit… rough on the other side, but I’m fine,” I assure her. “May I sit in for the discussion?”
“Of course. If you’ve already interacted with them, I would be more than happy to even allow you to lead it,” she says. “Right this way.”
We’re led over to a one-way mirror that we look through to see that a woman is sitting at the table with three others standing near her. A little behind them is the Door.
“Did they open this Door?” I ask.
“No, I did,” Torin says. “I wanted a faster path back in case we needed to move quickly.”
The newcomers seem quite content to hover near the Door, likely because they fear that they’ll be smashed over the head and dragged off to a cell like I was.
“Is that Onyx?” I ask, not having seen what she looks like since I’d been without Kit. I really won’t know until she speaks. The woman in the chair just radiates the aura of a cocky leader who has made my life more difficult.
Lark steps past me to look. “It is. Why is she here?”
“I feel uneasy about this,” Story says.