Chapter Five #6
We go past the guards in the entranceway and out onto the street, and I’m suddenly very aware of how exposed we are.
The street is lined with buildings, all of them looking to be residential homes with lights in the windows.
“Did any humans see?” I whisper to David.
There was a portal in the middle of this street, in full view of many of these houses, and Noah threw fireballs.
Could this one incident have undone millennia of secret keeping?
“We don’t think so,” he says, also keeping his voice low.
“Garin said there was nobody on the street, and it was all over fairly quickly. Someone may have seen something through a window, but if so, they never came out of their house. Sam has the interns monitoring social media just in case, and public relations has a standard story about it being a publicity gimmick for an upcoming event that they can roll out if necessary.”
“This has happened before?”
He stops in front of the house next door and looks around.
This is the place—I can feel the portal residue very clearly.
“Well, not this exactly. We’ve never had to think about portals before, and fireballs very rarely.
But general situations that might expose us? Yes. Especially with young people.”
“The young ones are the worst,” I agree, thinking of all the chaos Dustin and his friends can cause. “Can you show me the map on your phone?”
He scrambles to pull it out of his pocket. “You know already? That’s amazing. What else can you tell?”
“It was created by someone inexperienced,” I begin as he taps the screen. “And from not too far away.”
Frowning, he holds the phone out. “How can you know that? If all portals go through the void, I mean.”
I shrug. “I just can.” I look down at the screen, which shows an odd-shaped landmass surrounded by blue.
“I figured we’d start with the US and scroll around the globe if we needed to, but if it’s close, it should be on that map anyway.”
“It’s there,” I say, putting my finger on the screen. “But the map is so small, I can’t pinpoint— Ohhhhh.” I watch excitedly as David slides two fingers in opposite directions over the screen and the map enlarges. “That’s very clever!”
“Noah didn’t show you that. Although I guess there wasn’t a need, since you can’t read the map yet anyway. Use one finger to slide it in the direction you want,” he instructs, demonstrating, and I eagerly pull it away from him and practice.
“Okay,” I say finally, focusing on what I’m actually supposed to be doing instead of playing, “the origin point for the portal was here.” I zoom in as far as I can, until the area I’m looking at is just a gray bar across the screen. David takes the phone back and zooms slowly out.
“When you said close, you weren’t kidding.” He turns around and points. “That house, maybe? Will you be able to sense it if we get closer?”
“Yes. Wait—they were across the street?” And wasted energy opening a portal and staging a frontal attack when they already had numbers on their side? They would have been better served using their power to create a distraction and then striking from behind.
It’s embarrassing to know that such poorly trained insurgents have been two steps ahead of us for so long.
“Looks like,” he confirms. We stroll over, trying to seem casual in case humans are watching. Which reminds me…
“Do we know who lives there? Are they human?”
“No idea. Sam might know. Let me call him real quick.”
We stand right in front of the house, which has lights on in two windows, while David talks to Sam.
“It’s fine,” he reports, ending the call.
“Sam says the people who live here are on vacation right now. The lights are on a timer. They actually asked Sam to keep an eye on the house. He’s freaking out now that there might have been a break-in and he somehow didn’t notice. ”
That’s not likely—one of the shifters in our group would have smelled unknown elves that close—but sure enough, the front door to Sam and Gideon’s house opens and Sam comes rushing out, followed a moment later by Gideon—who I suspect is more worried about Sam racing into potential danger than about his neighbor’s home.
“Well?” Sam demands, stopping beside us.
“We haven’t checked yet. Let’s go. Gideon, do you want the front or the back?”
“Front,” he says grimly. “Although if there’s anyone still there, they’ll have seen you and be ready.”
“I doubt there’s anyone still there,” David says, but I feel him drawing forth his power.
It’s so sexy.
Pushing that thought aside, I ready my own power and follow him down the narrow alley between the houses.
It doesn’t take long before I can feel the tingle of the portal residue up ahead.
I tap David’s arm and gesture forward. He nods, and we proceed cautiously.
About halfway down the alley, with the lights from the next street glowing up ahead, the house ends and a fence begins.
I stop him and point to the gate… which is ajar, the lock broken.
A low whistle gets our attention, and we look back up the alley. Gideon and Sam are coming toward us. We step back from the gate and wait.
“Front locked,” Gideon says so softly, I almost can’t hear him.
David nods, points to the gate, then holds up three fingers… two… one…
We burst through. David and Gideon have clearly done this before, going in separate directions to check the small courtyard. I go directly to the back door and test it. It’s securely locked.
David comes to stand beside me. “Are they in there?”
“I don’t think so. The portal was created here in the courtyard, and the lock on the door is intact.” I jiggle the handle again, just to be sure.
“Sam?” David asks, and I turn to see where the felid shifter has gone. He’s walking around the courtyard, breathing deeply, and I remember that shifters possess a keen sense of smell.
“Only four,” Sam reports. “I didn’t smell any of them by the door, but they’re all over the alley.”
“I think it’s safe to say one or more of them followed you to the house from the hotel, then went back for the others. They watched from the alley, then… what? Decided that was too exposed for a portal?” Gideon sounds doubtful.
“We can ask the prisoners,” David suggests. “I think the priority is knowing this house is secure for now and stationing a guard here so it can’t be used like this again.”
“Agreed,” Sam says. “And I’ll get someone to repair the gate. They didn’t happen to portal in as well as out, did they?”
I shake my head. “Just one portal, and it’s an origin point.”
“Wow, you can tell that? Awesome.” He sniffs. “I’m going to go smell where the portal opened and see if there’s a difference.”
“After that, can you see if you can track these guys back to where they came from? Or get Alistair to do it if you’ve got too much else on your plate.
We’re going to the vault,” David says. “Hopefully they used a more direct portal to get there, and I want to check in with the team on guard anyway.”
“Stay in touch,” Gideon says. “We’ll see you back soon?”
“An hour, max,” David promises, and even though I already knew it would be the case, I mentally farewell any hope I had of crawling back into bed with him tonight.
That’s okay. We have a lot of time for that.