Entanglements (15 page)

Nuzzling Franky’s nape, the prince sniffed. Franky’s eyes widened and he began to tremble visibly. “Perhaps it is time for another sip,” the prince said. He leaned his head against Juliette’s before turning to run his tongue in a licentious lick along her creamy neck. Two small holes marred her otherwise perfect skin. My stepsister cried out and jerked but Prince Leopold held her down with his grasp on her shoulder. The prince opened his mouth and the incisors gleamed with reflected light from the fireplace’s flames.

Frantically, I searched for something to say or do to stop him. My eyes lit on a game table set nearby.

“That is a magnificent chess set. Is it ivory?” I asked attempting to keep desperation from my tone. The last thing needed was for this predator to smell fear. But I was plenty afraid.

“Carved bone." The prince paused, glanced up and then chuckled. "Human bone.” He eyed me through the mirror as if judging my reaction.

I swallowed hard. “Are you a player, your Highness?” I strove for a nonchalant tone.

“Of many games, my dear.” The prince rose to a standing position.

“Perhaps we'll play sometime,” I said.

“That would please me greatly.” He sauntered toward the mirror until he was close enough for me to see the heartbeat, or lack thereof, at the base of his neck. “You, Kizzy, are most cordially invited to visit the royal court. In fact, I must insist on it.” The last bit, although said with the same charming tone he’d used during the entire conversation, had an ominous feel.

“Stop this.” Rom marched forward until he was next to me. “This is not real. What we see is nothing more than a magician’s trick.”

Just then a fog appeared in the mirror of the psychomanteum, blotting out Prince Leopold, Juliette and Franky. The fog swirled and then parted to reveal a landscape under a blue sky, devoid of clouds. The intense sunshine blazed down over the scene: a metropolitan city at the edge of a green sea. Initially, it seemed a happy contrast to the sinister palace room of a few moments ago until I saw the giant mountain of water moving in a great wave relentlessly toward the shore. The people in the streets tried to run. But when the wall of water struck, it decimated the buildings and swept up the panicked people, washing them away. Tsunami.

Rom stared at the image as if mesmerized.

Zen glanced from the scene of devastation to Rom’s horror-struck expression.

“This is your vision,” Zen said looking at Rom.

Rom backed away from the mirror, his eyes darting from Zen to me. When his back bumped against the door, he reached behind him and fumbled with the knob. Finally, the door opened and Rom tripped over his own feet to get out. I heard the sounds of his boots rumbling down the stairs, the front door opening and then slamming before I could move to follow him.

“Ask him why he was able to operate the psychomanteum,” Zen called to me as I ran down.

At first I didn’t see Rom outside, then I spotted him with his back to me as he leaned against a tree on the other side of the driveway. Going to him, I placed a hand on his shoulder. He tensed at my touch. I tried to pull him around but he resisted. If he wouldn’t turn to face me then I would be the one to move.

“What is it?” I stepped in front of him. I had just a brief glimpse of the tears before Rom turned away and presented me with his back again.

“Rom,” I said. “Are you crying?”

“No,” he answered wiping at his face. “Warriors do not cry as babes.”

“Please,” I rubbed the flat of my hand caressingly on his shoulder. “Let me help.”

“You can do nothing to aid me.”

My chuckle held a tinge of bitterness. “I'm supposed to allow you to help me but you won’t let me help you?”

He didn't answer.

“What was that city in the mirror?” I asked. “Come on. Tell me.”

He spoke in a barely audible voice. “New Rome.”

Rom’s home in Augustinia. But if such a metropolis had been destroyed by natural disaster, why hadn't I heard about it on the news?

“Why did the psychomanteum work for you Rom?”

“Because like you I am a Clavis. But I am not of this world. I come from another dimension."

"But you don't come from Dorcha, do you?" I asked in confusion.

"No." He shook his head sadly," I come from a world in which a country called the United Provinces of Augustinia exists and the United States of America does not.”

* * * * *

“I knew it,” Zen declared, pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace in his parlor. “I knew there was a reason I didn’t find any record of you.”

“What's a Clavis?” Petra said from her seat on a wing back chair with faded paisley fabric.

Yeah, what am I? My mind raced with confusion. I wanted to know the answer but dreaded knowing at the same time.

“A Clavis is one with ability to open a portal to another dimension. A human key," Rom answered.

“That makes no sense,” Chase said. “How can a person be a key?”

“Our scientia believe it is the DNA and thus our blood which carries the formula.” Rom's eyes never left me as if he feared my reaction.

I remembered that each time I’d opened the vortex in the tunnel I’d been bleeding. I’d been bleeding another time too. On the bridge. And there was that gap in my memory of falling from the Talmadge.

“So can you open a portal at any time?” Zen asked.

“No," Rom replied. "Only during times of permeability."

“I don’t understand,” I piped in. “What makes it permeable?”

“Permeability follows astrological progression. The world of the Dorcha and the world of Augustinia each seem to intersect with your world on the equinox and solstice."

“So Dorcha and Augustinia are in two separate dimensions?" I summarized. "And when the stars align a certain way the door can open between our dimension and each of them?” I struggled to take it all in.

“In simplistic terms, yes," Rom said. "For seven days leading to an astronomical event, a portal becomes ever more permeable before achieving a zenith on the day of the event. For seven days following, permeability wanes until the door seals and becomes impassable, awaiting the next event.“

“So basically a fourteen day window…or doorway,” Zen said.

Rom nodded.

I recalled my father’s last visitation with Adam and I—and the incident on the bridge—had occurred the weekend of the solstice. I had wanted to go to a festival with Petra and had to go visit Dad instead.

“That first night.” I hesitated. “How did you reclose the vortex with that paint?”

“Salt was added.” Rom said. "Salt closes the vortex before the effect of the blood wears away.” He shook his head. “But ask me not for further detail. As a warrior, I have but little technical information.” Rom turned his gaze to mine. His dark navy blue eyes and my average blue ones. Navy blue eyes I had gazed into long before I knew his name.

Rom's tone became robotic. “Once ordered, my duty is but to obey.”

At his words, memories rushed into my mind of a time when he'd said something similar. The sensation of falling and hitting water—water that wasn't water—flooded me. I remembered waking to Rom kneeling over me. There were memories of Rom's father. Of his mother. Of their words about Adam. “The boy’s death is already here,” he’d said.

“You son of a bitch.” I rammed Rom with my body, swinging my fist and connecting with his jaw. He staggered back at the blow. “You and your family killed Adam.” Continuing to flail, punch and kick him, Rom stood and allowed my fury to punish him without attempting to move away.

When I had exhausted myself, his arms came around me, holding me up when I would have slumped to the wood floor.

“No, Kizzy. I am at fault for much but not for Adam.”

“But I heard what you said.” Jerking out of his hold I stood on my own, arms wrapping around myself.

Petra came to my side and put an arm around my shoulder.

“I don’t know what this is about. But if you hurt Kizzy, you won’t get out of here in one piece mister.” Petra hugged me to her.

“What I said was deceptive, but not intentionally so,” Rom said. “My mother is a medico. She said your brother had instant death from a bullet fired in your world. When he passed into ours with you, he had already gone.

”I didn’t know whether to believe him. Somehow, even as I grieved I couldn’t believe Adam was actually dead. Since they hadn’t found the body, I’d held on to that small possibility that he might have survived the fall and was alive somewhere.

Why are you here? Wait a minute,” I said. “When we first met you asked about the Dorcha. You knew they would come through?”

“My mission was to stop the Dorcha from entering your world.” Rom's lips twisted into a grimace. “But the oracle had uncertainty as to the date of entry. Time between the dimensions is inexact.”

“Today is September 27th so the equinox was four days ago on the 23rd, Zen observed.

“At 5:05 a.m. to be precise,” Senji said, examining the face of his cell phone. Obviously, he'd done a quick Internet search.

“Basically we have a little less than three days until the portal between your world and the Dorcha world becomes impermeable,” Zen said. “At 5:05 am on September 30th.”

“After that we would have to wait until the solstice in December, right?” Senji piped in.

“No.” Rom shook his head. “Another Dorcha portal may open at the solstice. Yet without aid of my world's oracle, I lack ability to divine its location.” Rom reached out a hand to me and I backed away. He smiled sadly and turned to Zen. “The tunnel vortex depends not only upon the solstice or equinox but also upon Saturn. Saturn will not return to a satisfactory position for the next 29.46 earth years.”

“Great,” I said. “We have less than thirty-six hours until Juliette and Franky are trapped in Dorcha for the next twenty-nine plus years.”

Chapter Ten

Rom drove us back to my house.

The car ride was as silent as a night in a tomb. Of course we all had a lot of information to process, including the "plan" we'd devised with Zen to get Juliette and Franky back.

Once we arrived, we all exited the car. Petra wrapped me in a tight hug before she, Chase and Senji piled into her Buick and drove away. Rom and I were left on the sidewalk to stare at one another.

Was Rom still keeping something from me? Had he been completely honest...finally?

“When did that tsunami hit your city?” I asked, breaking the silence.

“I know not,” Rom said. “The psychomanteum's images were the first I had seen of such a wave.”

“Oh no.” Despite all the questions between us I couldn’t help but encircle him around the waist with my arms. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled into his chest. “I was so wrapped in my own grief, I didn’t think about your family and how worried you must be.”

“Mayhap the vision reflected merely my fears and not a true happening,” Rom said. His arms came around me in an embrace. “Neither I nor my family harmed your brother. I vow it.”

“I believe you,” I whispered a few moments later. After squeezing hard for emphasis, I released him. I truly did believe him. Rom wouldn't kill an innocent child.

Stepping back, I cast him one last glance before walking into the house.