Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter
Forty-Three
Meg
I take aim and slowly squeeze the trigger. I watch as
the bullet tears through the target. Even at a distance, I know it’s a solid
hit. I bought the Ruger .357 after trying out every handgun they let me rent at
the range. Well, Dante bought the .357 with his credit card. I don’t actually
have much money of my own. I help him around the store. I’ve been doing his
nightly books for the last three weeks, but I don’t let him pay me much. I
won’t be here long enough to do the paperwork, so everything he pays me is
under the table.
I check my watch. It’s almost time to meet him. He’s picking
me up to look at another spot that might be the doorway.
It’s been the longest three weeks of my life. The computer
found an astonishing number of potential sites, and each one has been a bust.
It’s frustrating, but I have no other choice. I can’t give up.
Dante is a godsend. He quickly figured out how to use the
computer from the Vampire plane to our best advantage. He learned through trial
and error that the computer has settings to detect everything from atmospheric
content to the pH of the soil. Dante hypothesizes that the door to the Faery
plane can potentially be found by taking careful readings and comparing it to
the rest of the area. Dante’s been busy taking measurements and putting them
into his program. So far, we’ve had no luck.
“Hey, Meg.” A familiar voice pulls me out of my thoughts.
I carefully put the weapon away as I greet him. “I thought I
was meeting you outside.”
He shrugs and offers to carry my case. “It’s no big deal. I
wanted to get a chance to run by this one address I found. I think we have a
shot there.”
I study the young man. It’s odd how different he is from his
vampire counterpart. They look almost identical, but the differences in their
lives took a toll on this Dante. He didn’t grow up with the privileges of the
vampire version. He was raised middle class after his father sold his family’s
cattle ranch to a corporation. From what I learned, Dante’s parents split, with
his mom returning to her Irish home with his sister, Susan. Dante remained
behind and dropped out of college to take care of his father.
This Dante lacks the confidence his doppelganger has. He’s
still funny and bright, but there’s an aloofness to him not present in my
Dante. I get the feeling this Dante will be loyal to very few people. He keeps
his circle small.
He smiles. It’s something he rarely does. “Let’s go check it
out, and then we can get burgers.”
“Okay.” I pull one of his old jackets over my T-shirt and
jeans. Dante tries to be generous, but I only allowed him to buy me a couple of
pairs of jeans, some T-shirts, undies, and two sweaters. It’s all I need
because once I get home, I won’t wear them.
I glance down at the ring on my finger, the one Cian gave
me. My wedding ring. It reminds me that I have a job to do—to get back to my
husbands.
I climb into his beat-up SUV and buckle my seat belt. Dante
goes on about how his newest program found this spot. He says something about a
number of police reports and how often the property was sold, but I’m thinking
about other things.
I was on the refugee plane for about a month, but three
passed here. Time moves differently on different planes. How long have Beck and
Cian been wondering about me? Have they managed to stop the hag’s plans? My
hands clench with anger when I think about someone in the village pretending to
be our friend. All the while, this hag waited to pounce the instant the twins
showed vulnerability. The hag would seem like a normal villager because she can
take different forms.
I’ve been reading up on hags and know it could be any of the
females of the village. I have my suspicions, hence the .357 I intend to take
back with me. If Liadan gives me even a hint that she isn’t what she seems to
be, I’ll put a couple of rounds in her. I really hope it’s Liadan.
“That’s a scary look,” Dante says with a grimace.
“Sorry,” I apologize and school my expression into something
less bloodthirsty.
It’s hard readjusting to this plane. I thought I would
immediately fall back into patterns of working and watching TV, but something
intrinsic has changed within me. When I finish with work around the store, I
prepare for the day I will go back to my men. I spend hours and hours making
lists and gathering items I want to take with me.
I have a large duffel bag filled with things that will be
helpful. I bought my ten favorite books at a half-priced store, along with five
DVDs I love. I’m sure Vampire Dante can make them work on the computer. I have
a thumb drive filled with music I downloaded. I bought a couple of first aid
kits and essentials. My bags are packed. Now I just need my ticket home.
I didn’t completely ignore this plane. I looked up my own
name on the Internet. Pretty sad. There is only a single article on me as a
missing person. My mother commented that she believes I ran off with some man
and will get in touch when the relationship sours. It’s odd, given that I never
ran off before, but if it gives my mother comfort, I’ll go along with it.
Besides, my mother wouldn’t recognize me anymore.
I wear my hair down all the time now. I move with an ease
and grace that comes with being comfortable in one’s skin. The awkward, shy
girl is gone. In her place is a wife who has one job to do—get back to her
husbands.
“That’s it,” Dante says as he pulls into the small parking
lot.
We’re on the outer edges of downtown, and parking spaces are
more plentiful. I stare at the warehouse. It’s dilapidated and hasn’t seen
better days in years. The door hangs haphazardly from its frame and the
staircase is missing some steps.
Dante opens his door and slides out. “The last two owners
sold it at a loss. It’s had ten owners since it was built twenty years ago. It
was supposed to be a warehouse for one of the big department store chains. They
had so many accidents the company closed it down. I came out here yesterday
morning and installed a couple of cameras. I thought I would cover some of the
big spaces and see if anything came up.”
There’s something about the building that pulls at me. “I
think you may be on to something,” I say with the first real enthusiasm I felt
in weeks. “Let’s get those cameras.”
Four hours and a half-eaten burger later, I’m sure my
eyes are going to burst out of my head if I have to watch one more minute of
nothing.
It’s like watching paint peel. I’m not going through frame
by frame, but I can’t speed it up much either for fear of missing something.
Dante covered as much of the space as he could with four cameras. So far,
there’s nothing but the eerie green glow of the night vision.
“Anything?” Dante walks into the office from the store. He
strides past the long table cluttered with laptops and desktops, their inner
workings open to the air.
“The place has rats. Other than that, nothing except a few
pigeons that flew by the camera. This is the second camera I’ve sat through.”
“Whoa, what the fuck was that?” There’s real alarm in
Dante’s eyes. He goes a little pale.
“What?” I move the mouse to back up the feed. And then my
heart seizes with joy at the sight of a long, thin man gliding past the camera.
His body is swathed in a hooded cape, but there’s the briefest glimpse of his
eyes. I want to jump and shout my happiness to the world but settle for
announcing triumphantly, “That’s a Planeswalker demon.”
Dante slumps into the seat beside me. “You aren’t crazy.”
I slide him a bemused glance. “I thought we settled that a
few weeks back.”
“Nope,” he says, shaking his head. “I was still certain you
were either trying to scam me or had some real problems.”
“Then why have you been helping me?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, sweetheart, but you have
fabulous tits,” Dante says with a sigh. “I figured once you gave up on the
whole idea of being queen of the faery world, you might consider sleeping with
me. Now I see that demons are real. I’m going to church tomorrow.”
I’m not going to talk religion with him. I need to
concentrate on the question at hand. “What was the time? Did you see which way
he came from?”
Dante backs up the tape and checks the time log. “It was
three minutes after midnight last night.”
“That makes sense. It’s an in-between time. I read about it.
The veil between worlds is thinnest then. That’s when the door opens.” I look
at the clock. It isn’t even ten yet. There’s still time. “We can make it.”
Dante takes a moment and shoves his hair back, running his
long fingers over his scalp. “You’re really leaving.”
I turn to him. He doesn’t have a lot of friends. He seems
content to spend his free time working on computers or helping me. “I have to
go back. On my plane, I’m married to your cousins. I love them very much, and
they need me. I hope you understand.”
He smiles slightly. “And I’m a vampire? What am I like
there, Meggie? Am I lonely?”
I laugh at the thought. “As if. Dante Dellacourt doesn’t
lack for anything except tact.”
“Tact is overrated,” Dante points out.
“Spoken like your vampire self.” I let my hand drift over
his. “The Dante Dellacourt I know doesn’t let anything stop him. He once told
me that if he was going to do something, he would do it big. There was no point
in anything less. Of course, he was discussing lying through his fangs at the
time.”
“I sound like a character there.”
“You could come with me, you know,” I offer. He reminds me a
little of myself before fate changed my life completely.
Dante shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.
One of me is probably more than any plane should have to handle. I think I’ll
have to try to make a go of it here. Besides, I have my shop, you know.”
He’s scared, and I don’t blame him. I might spend more time
trying to convince him, but I only have two hours before that door opens. “If
you change your mind, you know where the gate is.”
As I move toward the stairs that lead to the apartment, I
see Dante sitting very still, obviously deep in thought.