2. CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 2
S tepping out his front door onto the cobbled street, a piece of yellow parchment crunched under Gideon’s boot. He picked it up, brushing off the dust left by his shoe. A hand-drawn image of his own face stared back—not a bad likeness, the artist had a good hand—but the words written in bold lettering above and below his portrait were much more affecting. “Gideon Ashe. Traitor!” The last word he’d ever thought could be applied to him.
Ever.
And the idea wounded him worse than any battle blade ever had.
He shoved the parchment into his pocket and scanned the street for any sign of whoever might have left the statement, but nothing unusual caught his eye. All he saw was the normal activity of an early spring evening. Lamplighters moved down the sidewalks, reaching with their long poles and filling the streets of Philadelphia with a golden glow from the gas lamps. Shop owners lit torches at their doorways, welcoming customers with warmth and light.
Beautiful weekend nights brought a celebratory mood, the townsfolk out for dinner and drinks or strolls along Market Street with good friends.
Gideon, in particular, should have felt celebratory this evening.
Little chance of that now.
Picking up his pace, he crossed the street to Club Deux Mondes. Not so much a bar as a true think tank like the salons of Paris in the eighteenth century, he’d created Deux Mondes as a meeting place for academics, artists, and writers to eat, drink, study, and debate ideas. Often, when coupled with enough booze, enthusiastically so.
Over the last three years, however, it had become something much more than that—on Friday nights the club shut its doors to the public and hosted a very private gathering for some of the best minds from both worlds.
This particular Friday night should’ve had his adrenaline racing. He’d finally have a chance to place his hands on an ancient Egyptian papyrus—one that had been lost to time in his own world but remained intact in the other. A papyrus that might just open up an entire new area of study for him in the field of physics.
It had taken a year to convince the professor from the other Princeton to bring the valuable document through the portal for the evening. Academics on the other side remained skeptical that running one’s hands over an object, being in its presence, and measuring the energy vibrations it gave off could garner information unobtainable by merely reading a copy of the text. He’d have a few short hours with the relic and should have been energized to make use of every minute.
In recent weeks, however, a growing concern about the portal had been wiggling its way into his awareness, like a shadow from the corner of his eye. He’d tried his best to pretend the doubt wasn’t there. This was, after all, an amazing moment in history—scientific and cultural trade with another universe. Surely that couldn’t be a bad thing, could it? The Egyptian relic, for example, might one day enhance the lives of people in both worlds by combining knowledge from the two realms.
But now, he could no longer deny that concern over the gateway was becoming an open dialogue. Albeit one currently based on anonymous notes left in the night .
He stepped to the club doors, trying in vain to work up some renewed excitement about the papyrus, when the laughter of two young boys caught his attention. He paused to watch as they played, the hint of a smile tugging at his lips.
Around eight or nine years old, the boys sailed a small wooden plane on the breeze, the child in control weaving his hands through the air in graceful circular motions, fingers flexing and extending as he directed the toy in a zigzag pattern down the street. Pedestrians laughed and darted out of its path as the young pilot chased his friend with the craft while the friend ducked around trees and street vendors, and leap-frogged over a stray dog.
Gideon chuckled and pulled open the door when a loud yelp pierced the air behind him. A woman darted away from the oncoming airborne toy and stumbled into the dog who’d begun chasing the flying object. When she stepped back the other way she tripped into the street, arms wheeling, right into the path of a two-horse carriage. The child who’d been flying the plane ran towards her, his wooden toy dropping to the ground with his sudden inattention to it. The carriage driver shouted, yanking back on the reins. The horses reared up, hooves pawing at the air as the child pushed the woman out of the way, but only had time to cover his own head and crouch down, screaming as the horses hovered above him in what seemed a stilling of time.
Moving faster than thought, Gideon thrust both hands forward, palms flat and pushing toward the horses, forcing them to hold their reared-up position, hooves still pawing at the air.
“Move!” he shouted, and the boy snapped out of his crouch, running back onto the sidewalk, eyes huge and staring as Gideon lowered his hands and the horses returned their front legs to the ground, huffing and shaking their confused heads .
A crowd rushed in to encircle the woman and the frightened child, voices and shouts filling the scene. Thank you’s were directed to Gideon, and he lifted a hand in response, his own heart racing from the sudden burst of adrenaline as he made his way to the two boys. They pulled away from the crowd and came to him, their eyes huge with panic.
Gideon knelt in front of them. “Hey, it’s okay. Everyone’s fine.”
Tears welled from the eyes of the child who’d been flying the toy plane. “But I… we almost…”
“Accidents happen, but teasing people like that wasn’t particularly safe, right?”
“I didn’t mean to tease them. I’m just not very good with my powers. I couldn’t control it.” His bottom lip quivered, and Gideon placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not like you yet. You’re really strong.”
He held the boy’s gaze and smiled. “You’ll get there. I’ve got more than a few years on you. I’m also wearing these tonight for a little extra firepower.” Gideon lifted his palms, showing off the twin wristbands he’d put on before leaving his house. The leather straps were encrusted with an intricate pattern of garnets, moonstones, and tourmaline, crystals that enhanced his telekinetic power. Acting like prisms, they magnified and focused the beam of his energy, aiding in both direction and strength. He wore them whenever the otherworlders visited. Just in case. “But until you get more skilled, maybe practice in an open meadow?”
The boy nodded, and Gideon reached for the toy lying nearby. Not a model of their own glider planes, but a hand-carved replica of a jet engine plane from the other world.
His jaw muscles clamped tight as he stood and shook his head. “Where did you get this?”
The boy lifted his face to Gideon, who now towered over him. “I carved it myself. I heard about the planes on the other side. Someone brought over pictures of them, so I made one. Will we ever have them here? They go so high and so fast.”
He did his best not to scowl. The child wasn’t at fault for his enthusiasm over, what to him, must’ve seemed a magical technology. Traitor indeed. “Their planes are very loud, and therefore too painful for us to bear. And the way they are made and powered is bad for the earth. It’s not what we do.” He handed the toy back to the youngster. “Work hard on your own gifts, and one day you’ll fly our gliders higher and faster than anyone before.”
The child’s face lit with a grin, and Gideon gave him a wink as he stepped off, though the gesture certainly didn’t match the bleak feeling settling over him. The last trace of his enthusiasm for the evening faded, like the tide rolling out to sea, and he wished for nothing more than to get it over with.
He strode back to the club and stepped inside. The main parlor was already filling with locals and humming with excitement. Two men—one Gideon knew to be a composer and the other a sculptor—sat at the bar to his left. They spoke intensely over their dinner and drinks. Other groupings of men and women clustered on chairs and settees in front of the blazing hearth, or wove in and out of the library and study rooms that branched off the main salon.
He nodded at familiar faces as he passed, but didn’t stop to talk as he beelined to his office at the back of the main lounge, having no idea if he’d ever be able to close the Pandora’s Box he’d opened. The excitement on the faces around him proved that for every person who wanted the portal closed, another would fight for it to remain open. But he saw now that this marvelous moment in history came with a price. And that price—the peace and beauty of his civilization—was far too high.
Tonight, though, the portal would open, and a glance at the grandfather clock in the far corner told him he had only minutes to go over the night’s special guest list, familiarizing himself with the bios of anyone new before they arrived .
Opening the door to his office, his shoulders relaxed some as he stepped into his sanctuary, a quiet pocket in the otherwise bustling salon. In contrast to the art nouveau style of the main lounge, his private area was more contemporary, with cleaner lines and subdued colors. Dotted with leather furnishings and warm candlelit sconces, it was the grand piano at the far end that made this his signature space.
“Good evening, Gideon,” said his manager as she stepped into the room behind him, laying out the evening’s guest list on a large oak table.
Rather than startling him upon her quiet arrival, his tension almost immediately dissipated as her natural calm softened his jangled nerves.
He nodded in welcome. “Alana.”
“How are you tonight, G?”
Tall and thin, with long, straight red hair, Alana Knight had an almost ethereal look, which suited her nature well, and she offered her usual warm smile. Though, this evening, a hint of tension played at the edges of her mouth.
“Vikkras and I wondered if you’d join us for a late dinner tonight, once the visitors are gone,” she said. “It’s been a while since the three of us just spent a pleasurable evening together. Good conversation, business-free. You know, like friends do?” Her lips finally relaxed into a full grin.
She wasn’t wrong. He’d been working almost non-stop for what seemed like forever, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d merely sat and laughed over a beer with his best friends. Hell, the last time he’d laughed, period.
Still, he shook his head. “I started my evening with this.” He pulled the parchment from his pocket and slapped it down on the table .
She smoothed it open and read, her head dropping to the side with a sigh. “Oh dear. And here I wasn’t even going to bother showing you these.” She opened a leather folio and pulled out a stack of flyers, fanning them onto the oak surface. More of the same type of thing that had been in front of his home. “They were tacked to the club doors when I opened this evening.”
“Shit,” he mumbled as he stared at the offending papers. He pulled over a chair and sank into it, gesturing for her to do the same. “I’ve heard rumblings in recent weeks. Even before these damn posters. I didn’t realize it had gone this far.” He tipped his head back against the chair, staring up at the ceiling. “My father wouldn’t have wanted this either, Alana. He’d have me close the portal. I made a promise to him.” He looked back at her. “What the hell have I done?”
The never-ending ache in his chest blossomed with renewed pain. Pain that, if he were honest, had cut through him day and night for years, bisecting his soul. His desire for knowledge and new ways to benefit his world on the one hand, his desire to protect their beloved way of life—a way of life he and his parents had gone to war to protect—on the other.
“You’ve done an amazing thing, Gideon. You took a decades-long unstable situation—where people had confusing and dangerous glimpses into another realm, where citizens of our world accidently slipped through the veil and couldn’t get back—and found a way to stabilize it. You found a way to keep people safe. More than that, you turned it into something marvelous.”
He couldn’t argue that stabilizing the openings between the two dimensions had been an essential achievement. One he could be proud of. Organizing regular crossings between the worlds had the same effect as a controlled forest fire or intentionally setting off an avalanche. Operating the stable portals seemed to have halted the random, and sometimes deadly, accidental openings. But the decision to take it a step further and form an actual, albeit highly limited, relationship with the other world was now causing a problem of a different sort.
“The black market is spreading.” He shook his head, the image of the carved jet airplane in his mind. “There have always been, and always will be, those who are enticed by shiny things, no matter the cost of the making. If we’re not careful, we could end up with another rebellion on our hands.”
Alana crossed her arms on the tabletop, leaning forward. “Then let’s close the portal. If it’s not worth it, shut it down.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “If only it were still that easy. You know as well as I do the decision’s not up to me anymore. There’s now a half-dozen stable portals in regular use in the major cities of the west. It’s a world decision now.”
“But you’re Chairman of the Philadelphia Portal Committee. You have influence, Gideon. They’ll listen to you. The portal is your brainchild, after all.”
Tension tightened around his neck like a python. “In other words, if it leads to the ruin of our civilization it’ll be my fault.”
She shook her head. “No, I never said that.”
He scanned the room, feeling the sudden need to escape. But it wasn’t Alana he wanted to run from. It was the truth of the situation.
Alana gathered all the papers and tucked them back into her folder. “Have you had a chance to look over tonight’s guest list yet?”
He straightened in his chair, brushing aside the dark thoughts as he remembered his meeting with the Princeton professor, now only minutes away. “Not yet. Why don’t you just fill me in. Anyone out of the ordinary I need to know about?”
All the visitors were carefully vetted. They invited only people interested in pure academic or cultural trade, without interest in monetary gain. Moreover, they did their best to keep the governmental bodies of the other world unaware of their existence as they’d come to understand how unbelievably dangerous that would be.
Alana hesitated, reaching a hand to toy with the rose quartz-encrusted pendant resting on her chest, near her heart. A matching smaller piece lay over her “third eye” as it dangled from a head band. Like Gideon’s wrist bands, the crystals served a purpose other than mere accessories. And the way she fiddled with the pendant sent a warning up his spine.
“No. Everything looks in order.” She cast her usually straightforward gaze down to the table.
“Right. Then why are you suddenly avoiding my eyes.”
Alana was rarely one to hold off speaking her mind, something was agitating her. Probably the same thing that had been pulling at the edges of her mouth earlier.
She took a deep breath and exhaled. “I didn’t see anyone unusual on the list for tonight. But… I do think we need to be extra attentive for a while.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I hate to aggravate an already stressful evening, Gideon, but I’ve been having feelings about Matthew recently, and they were particularly strong earlier today when I crossed over and met with him to go over tonight’s guest list.”
He raked his hands through his hair, stifling a sudden need to get up and pace. “Tell me.”
Alana didn’t need to explain to him what she meant by feelings . She was a powerful empath, and he took her words seriously. “Something’s going on with him. He’s preoccupied and nervous.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“I don’t know. It’s just…” She shook her head, turning her palms up.
“…a feeling . Yeah, I get it.” He stared back at her .
“I wouldn’t get too worked up about it. For all we know it’s just a personal matter. Maybe some woman broke his heart recently. It could be nothing.”
He shook his head, his jaw clenching. “He’s our security chief, Alana. In charge of almost everything on the other side. He’s supposed to be the one preventing any concern, not the one causing it.”
She dipped her chin to her chest for a moment before looking back up. “No, you’re right. But I honestly don’t know anything further.”
He massaged the tension in his forehead. The fact that he couldn’t control both ends of the portal had always made him uneasy. He never trusted anyone to protect the things he loved as much as he trusted himself. But like Schubert’s Fantasy in D Minor, which required four hands playing on one piano at the same time, the portal needed Matthew McCabe on the other side.
Gideon pushed back from the chair and stood. “There are too many signs. No guests tonight, Alana. We’ll close the portal for this evening at least, and we can meet with the Portal Committee this week to discuss it further.” He took a deep breath, his hands clenching at the lost opportunity to work on the papyrus. But his decision was the correct one.
Alana stood too, glancing at the clock on the bureau behind him. “I don’t know if there’s still time to—”
He missed the rest of her sentence as a dizzying rush of images obscured his vision. Bright pink electrified lights stabbed his eyes, and the sounds of motorized automobiles and honking horns punched at his sensitive ears. Feelings of excitement tinged with a hint of anxiety washed over him, but they weren’t his own. Not my emotions. Not my world.
He clenched his eyes shut against the sensory onslaught. When he finally opened them, he found himself gripping the table .
“Gideon?” Alana crossed to his side of the desk, touching his shoulder with concern.
He shook his head to clear it. He was neither a telepath nor an empath. Telekinesis was his only psychic skill. He’d never had visions before, and they made no sense. “I don’t…”
The sound of a bell chiming three times in succession announced to everyone in the salon that it was time to be aware.
The visitors were arriving.