Chapter 12 #3
Feck—hours and days would almost have to be different in his dimension.
Do we need to count out time for him and then explain how many seconds go into a minute, hour, and day?
I open my mouth to ask, feeling a little overwhelmed by the thought—teaching is not my strong point—but then he starts counting on his fingers and muttering.
“Okay,” he says dubiously. “I believe I have converted your time correctly. Five hours is still a considerable portion of the day.” He turns to look at me. “Isn’t it?”
“Yes. There are twenty-four hours in a day here.”
“I think I remember learning that. It was a long time ago. So five hours to travel from here to where your workmates are will take a substantial part of the day.”
“Yes,” I agree. “But it’s our only option.”
He hesitates, and like a ton of bricks, it hits me what he’s so worried about saying. In my defense, I’ve only had about three hours of sleep and my brain has been busy with other things.
“Would it be rude,” I say slowly, again choosing my words with care, “if we were to ask you how your portals work?”
He smiles, his relief obvious. “Not rude at all. We channel the life force to open a gateway into the void and from there another to the place we want to go.”
That explains… absolutely nothing.
“I don’t understand,” Alistair says. “What’s the void? Noah didn’t mention anything about a void.”
Caolan tips his head in question. “Noah?”
“A friend of ours was taken by Tish and one of your people who’s working with him,” I explain. “They took him through a portal to your world.” I look at Alistair. “Maybe he didn’t notice? It all happened pretty fast, and just the existence of a portal is pretty shocking… for us.”
“He likely didn’t notice,” Caolan agrees.
“With practice and experience, we are able to position the two gateways in such proximity that crossing from one place to another takes a single step, thus creating a portal. There is nothing in the void, and it is too easy to become lost there. It’s safer to minimize our time in it. ”
“Can all of your people use portals?” I’m glad I can keep calling them portals. For a second, when Caolan called them gateways, I thought I’d have to change terminology.
Caolan shakes his head. “No. Only a very small percentage of the population.” He seems sad. “This is why éibhear wishes to invade here.”
“That sounds like something we all need to hear,” Gideon says, and I startle slightly. I forgot he was still on the line. “Would you be willing to bring Aidan and Alistair here via portal? We can finish this conversation in person, and you can meet the lucifer—our leader.”
A nervous thrill shoots through me at the idea of traveling by portal. I can smell Alistair’s rising excitement and know he feels the same.
“It would be my honor,” Caolan says. “I need an image of the place we are going, if that’s possible. I can do without, but it increases the risk.”
“I’ll text a photo,” Gideon says. “We’ll do this at Sam’s and my place. There’s too much chance of someone else seeing Caolan at the office. We would be honored to host you, Caolan.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Caolan says but looks at me uncertainly. I look at Alistair, since he’s the one who’s actually been to Gideon and Sam’s house and has a home of his own in the area. I’ll be staying in a hotel.
“If you’re not commuting back to your dimension, that’s a great idea,” he confirms. “Their guest suite is fantastic, and my apartment is only a short distance from there. I’d offer for you to stay with me, but there’s no bed in my extra bedroom.
Believe me, you want the king-size bed instead of my couch. ”
Caolan grins, and the magic settles around me in a way that makes me think it’s happy with how things are going.
“That’s settled, then,” Gideon affirms. “Get your things together while I run home and take that picture, and we’ll see you soon.”
Alistair ends the call, and we get out of the car and slam the doors.
“We can go through doors to get back, right?” I ask. As much as my cat would love the challenge of scaling walls and creeping over rooftops again, my tired body is cringing at the thought.
“Yep,” Alistair declares. “But Caolan needs to keep his head down, just in case any humans are looking out their windows. People will start getting up for work soon.”
We go back into the main part of the condo, out the front door, and then down the street to the condo we’ve been living in. The door has been pulled closed, but it doesn’t latch anymore. “That’s gonna cost us,” I grumble. Sure, I’m not personally paying for it, but it still chafes my thrifty soul.
“Sam will take care of it,” Alistair says confidently, then grins. “And it’s not my fault this time, so he can’t even yell at me for it.”
He’s positively gleeful about that, and once again, I feel a rush of affection.
He can be so adorable when he’s not being dangerously competent.
Is it wrong that I find the two sides of him sexy?
Like… he’s a complete badass, but also so playful.
It allows me to be the mature adult but also feel secure in the knowledge that he can look after me.
I pinch the bridge of my nose as I head up the stairs. That might be a little deep, seeing as we’ve only had two nights together and I’m running on minimal sleep.
But maybe I’ll find a place over here in the States—for a while at least. It’s not like there isn’t a lot of shit happening right now that I want to keep an eye on. And I’m strangely reluctant to leave Alistair—it can’t hurt to see how things go, right?
If he even wants that.
Pushing those thoughts aside before they give me a headache, I pack up all my stuff, then jog downstairs again to help Alistair clear out the kitchen. There’s not much left there—
“Oh, fuck! Weren’t we getting a grocery delivery this morning?”
Alistair looks at his watch. “I’ll call Sam.”
It takes literally fifteen seconds to ascertain that Sam’s already fixed it. I don’t know how, since it’s not even six in the morning here, but he assures Alistair it’s been taken care of.
No sooner does that call end than Alistair’s phone beeps with a text. “It’s Gideon,” he says, then looks over at Caolan, who’s been sitting patiently on the couch while we dithered over the potential grocery delivery. “Are you ready?”
He gets up and smiles. “You have the picture?”
Alistair hands over his phone, and Caolan studies the screen carefully. After a moment, he begins to glow a deep emerald green.
“Feck me!” I take an involuntary step back, then shake my head when he and Alistair look at me.
“Apologies. I was just startled.” Noah said the elf he encountered had glowed—although it was purple, if I remember right.
So the color depends on the individual? Or the family?
It could be anything, really—I add it to my mental list of things to ask Caolan.
I also need to apologize to Noah for doubting him.
This is no trick of the light —Caolan’s glow is bright enough to read by, as long as you don’t mind the green.
“I have it,” he says confidently, and a second later a motherfeckin’ portal opens in front of us.
I knew it was going to happen, but part of me still didn’t really believe it.
“I must go last,” Caolan says. “It’s too difficult to maintain from the other side.”
Before I even get my wits together enough to step forward, Alistair is there, sticking his head through the portal .
I’ve never had a heart attack before, but I imagine it feels somewhat like the way my chest does now as I watch my… whatever he is (I am not saying lover) poke his head through a portal created by elf magic as though it’s a window.
He pulls back and smiles. “All good. You first, Aidan.”
Huh? Why didn’t he just go—
He flicks a glance at Caolan, and I resist the urge to roll my eyes as I get it. He doesn’t want to leave me here alone with an elf. Damn overprotective hellhound.
This does not make me feel special and cared for. Not at all. Really, it doesn’t.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” I say, grabbing my overnight bag and stepping forward. I’m not going to lie; I hesitate before walking through. I can’t help it. Just wait until you’re faced with a portal that will take you across the country in a single step and see how you react.
Actually going through, though? No problem. I was expecting to feel something, but there’s nothing. No resistance. No tingle. It’s just another step, and then I’m in what looks like an entranceway in a private home.
Gideon’s there, and he grabs my arm and pulls me away from the portal before I can get a word out. “Into the living room.” He gives me a little push in that direction. That’s the Gideon we all know and tolerate.
I go through to the living room, nearly staggering as I cross through some ridiculously strong wards, and find David waiting for me.
“Aidan—you’re all right?” He looks me up and down somewhat anxiously.
“I’m fine,” I assure him and gesture behind me. “Did you put that ward up?”
“Yes. The entranceway is now warded off from the rest of the house. Just a temporary precaution. We trust your and Alistair’s assessment of Caolan, but we still don’t know his story.”
Well, I can’t blame any of them for that.
“Are the others on their way?”
“They will be in a moment. I need to ask you—how much do you trust your assistant?”
I frown. “Manoj? Very much. He has access to almost everything. In fact, before this current situation, I can’t even remember the last time I kept something from him. Why?”
“He arrived at the office this morning, demanding to know exactly where you are.”
That can’t be right. “But he knew I was in Portland.” I pull my phone out of my pocket and check the call register, my messages, and my emails. “He hasn’t tried to contact me.”
David makes a face, then as the sound of voices drifts in from the entranceway, he lowers his voice and says, “But you didn’t give him the exact location you were at. I’m not sure why he hasn’t called you, but he seems pretty frantic. Is he trustworthy?”
“Yes,” I say automatically, then take a second to really think about it and reach out to the magic. “Yes,” I repeat with more confidence. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I trust him.”
“Enough to bring him into the loop on this?” David waves toward the door behind me.
I hesitate, and the magic surges around me. “The magic says yes,” I tell him dryly, and he rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, that’s what Percy said. I guess I’m just being paranoid.” He pulls out his phone and sends a text. “Percy told him they’d bring him to see you—which freaked him out, by the way, since he thought you were in Portland still—”
“Well, I was a minute ago.” I can’t quite get my head wrapped around that still. One step took me across the breadth of the country.
“—but the rest of us wanted to be sure, so Andrew’s had the drivers circling the block while I checked with you.”
I don’t even have time to laugh at that image before I hear the sound of a door banging open and Manoj shouting my name. I turn toward the doorway as he rushes in and grabs me in a tight hug.