Eventide (Meratis Trilogy Book 2) (3 page)

“Something about blackness spreading in the lovely province, although they left that rather vague. The part we understood without doubt was the reference to you.”

Blackness in
la belle province
? Why couldn’t Kay, Aya, and Lan ever have good news to share? And how could they see into his world?

“I thought I felt my ears burning the other day.” His joke fell flat with the bitterness in his tone. “They spoke of me with fondness, I hope?”

“They told us to seek out the Storychanger,” Brady replied. “That you would be our guide to stop the plague before it devours the world.”

“What plague?” Jeff asked. “Are there rats coming to Montreal?”

Jayden met his eye. “Raul is here.”

Jeff froze. A series of witty retorts fluttered through his head, and he held them all back. “That’s not funny.”

“We’re not joking.”

Jeff looked to Brady for confirmation, and the scholar nodded slowly, his eyebrows flicking upwards in a “sorry but true” expression. His face wavered in Jeff’s vision, and it took a moment to realise it wasn’t Brady moving but his own grasp on consciousness.

He forced a deep breath and leaned over to set his beer on the desk. Beer was hardly the answer. He needed something stronger.

“How?” he asked, settling back in his seat.

Jayden scratched the back of his neck. “Best we can figure, he was holding onto you when the vortex transported you home. He must have let go before it closed and ended up somewhere else.”

“That was never part of the spell,” Brady spoke up. “We didn’t know it was possible. Or even that that’s what had happened until the Sisters came to us. They saw something in a vision. About what’s going to happen if he comes home.”

“What about what happens to my world if he stays? You’re telling me he’s been in Montreal for six months?” Jeff stood up and started pacing the small space of his apartment. Four steps up, four steps down. The path was too similar to the last cell he’d paced, and he threw himself back in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “How is anything still standing?”

“Well, that’s one bit of good news at least,” said Brady.

“Is there such a thing? I was beginning to wonder.”

“He’s lost his power.”

“All right, that’s not horrible news.” Jeff perked up a little and looked between both men. “All of it? No meteor shower or spontaneous volcanic activity?”

“Not according to the Sisters. Something about the transition stripped him of his magic.”

“So what are we worried about? We leave him alone, he stays trapped here without any way to make anyone’s life miserable. On a grand scale, anyway.”

He doubted anyone would notice one more pretentious jackass in his world.

“If it were that simple, we would have left you alone,” said Brady.

Jayden grimaced. “Somehow he’s going to find his way back. The Sisters wouldn’t have seen it if it wasn’t a possibility.”

“We think,” Brady cut in, “that his followers back home might have found a way to contact him. If they can communicate, open the corridor on their end, we’ll have missed our chance. If he makes it home, there’s nothing to stop Raul from gaining his power back.”

Jeff passed a hand over his face and eyed his beer. “So what do you plan to do? Kill him before he gets back?”

“If the opportunity presents itself,” Jayden said, in a way that suggested he would create the opportunity if it didn’t.

“The first step is to find him,” said Brady firmly, as if he and Jayden had argued this point before.

Jeff nodded slowly, processing his thoughts. He focused his attention on the floor, on the glare of afternoon sunlight against the dark parquet, the angle of the light showing off every scuff mark and scratch from his years of moving furniture around. Every one of them from simpler times when a beer meant a refreshing treat after a long day of work, and not a necessity to deal with the two guests sitting across from him.

Vaguely he was aware of a knock at the door, but didn’t move to acknowledge it. The floor seemed like the best place to focus on for the time being.

A second knock.

“Jeff?” Cassie’s voice came from the other side. Jeff heard it, knew what it meant, but still didn’t have the mental capacity to stand up and answer her.

In his periphery he saw Brady and Jayden exchange a glance. Brady got to his feet and opened the door.

“Oh!” Cassie’s exclamation of astonishment. “Oh.” Recognition and uncertainty. “Oh.” The final note of acceptance. She moved between them much more quickly than Jeff had.

Edging her way into the room, she kept a slight distance from Brady, Jeff noticed, and moved to his side.

“Well, this is a surprise,” she said, actually managing to sound cheerful, raising herself another notch in Jeff’s respect. “What are you two doing in town?”

As if they were long lost friends. Distant relatives of Jeff’s come for a visit.

Jeff rose to his feet and, feeling a little frazzled, met her gaze. He didn’t want her to hear it all from Jayden and Brady. Confusion, hidden beneath a veneer of politeness, stared back at him behind her night-sky blue eyes. She smelled of coffee from her shift, the scent lingering on her green golf shirt and beige capris; a tidy ponytail hung between her shoulder blades.

“Raul is here. In Montreal.” He jumped right to the key point.

Some of the colour drained from Cassie’s cheeks, pupils dilating as fear set in. Jeff could hardly blame her. The last time she’d seen the man he had blindfolded her, tied her up, and used her for blackmail to ensure Jeff’s cooperation in writing him as a hero.

“Here,” she repeated. “In our world.”

Jeff saw her knees quiver and took her hands. “Yes. But he’s lost his power.”

“Huh.” The word slipped from her lips without thought or inflection. Jeff empathised with the mindlessness.

Brady took her elbow and the two of them guided her to his vacated chair. She sank into it and assumed Jeff’s role of staring vacantly towards the floor. Brady pulled the second chair out of the kitchen and arranged it into an awkward half-circle of seats in the room, which suddenly felt very small and crowded. Jeff cleared his throat and focused on deep breathing.

“How do you plan to find him?” he asked, keeping his eye on Cassie. “Did the Sisters give any hint on where to start?”

“They sent us to you,” Brady reminded him.

Jeff pressed his lips together and inhaled sharply through his nose. After a few seconds pause, he said, “Anything other than that?”

“Nope,” said Jayden. “We have no ideas. This is your city. This part is up to you.”

“But-what-I—” Jeff sputtered. “I’m not about to traipse about Montreal looking in every nook and cranny for a deranged psychopath. It’s not like I keep a
Where’s Rauldo
book on my shelf. Do you know how long that would take? This place isn’t exactly a half-day’s walk across the village.”

“He loves a good aesthetic,” Brady pointed out. “Is there anywhere nearby with a nice view?”

Jeff groaned. “Most of the city. Hardly a start.”

Cassie stood up, the chair squeaking against the parquet. Jeff glanced down to check for any new scuffs. Cassie scuffs. He didn’t see any.

“Sitting here isn’t going to find him,” she said.

Jeff’s eyes widened. “But—I thought—dinner?” He felt his face get hot. “Sorry, you’re right. Priorities.”

He started for the door, and Cassie grabbed his arm to stop him. “No, you’re right. Priorities,” she said. “They can’t go out dressed like that.”

As she pointed to Brady’s and Jayden’s attire, Jeff actually took a moment to see them. Brady’s ginger hair had been cut to a curl under his ears, smoothed back out of his lean face. He’d lost some weight on his lanky frame, as well, giving more intensity to his gray eyes. A white cotton shirt was tucked into brown hide pants and partially hidden beneath a leather vest.

Jayden wore a similar outfit in the colours of his House: black pants and a dark green coat with the hawk of Feldall emblazoned in gold on his breast. The coat had been redesigned to clasp at the neck and hang over his right shoulder, covering the absence of the arm underneath. As usual, he carried his sword at his right hip, a dagger in a smaller sheath next to it.

Both of them looked like they’d walked out of a Renaissance festival.

“We go shopping?” Jeff asked, unenthused with the idea.

Cassie screwed up her mouth, thinking. “The stores would be getting ready to close now, I think. They’ll have to make do with something of yours. Brady’s sort of the same size as you.”

The three men eyed each other, wondering how that would work. He and Brady were about the same height, but anything Jeff lent him would tend to the baggy. Maybe not too badly with all the stairs he’d climbed. But Jayden ….

“No way I’ll fit into anything this man wears,” Jayden said. At six-foot-four, the warrior just about loomed over Jeff, and his broad shoulders would likely tear the backs or buttons off anything he borrowed.

Cassie’s face set into a stubbornness that reminded Jeff of his mother. “Unless you brought a change of clothes, our options are limited.”

When no one else appeared ready to argue with her, she marched over to Jeff’s closet and started flipping through hangers. Jeff stood frozen, wondered when they’d entered the phase in their relationship where it was okay to go through the other’s things—and then accepted that he’d rather leave this task up to her.

She grabbed a green short-sleeved dress shirt, and then moved to the dresser for a pair of jeans and grey undershirt for Brady, and a t-shirt for Jayden.

“I think you’ll have to keep your own pants,” she said to him, scanning the length of his legs. Jeff felt squat and ungainly by comparison.

“Wonderful. Thank you,” Brady said, elbowing Jayden with a not so subtle nudge.

“Right. Thanks.” Jayden didn’t sound very convinced, eying the shirt uncertainly.

Jeff grumbled and gestured Brady towards the bathroom. Jayden apparently didn’t need the privacy, removing his coat and then tugging the white tunic up over his head. Jeff noticed Cassie’s interest pique, her gaze glued to the warrior’s chest, but had a hard time holding it against her, just as riveted himself. While he guessed her interests were more primal, Jeff couldn’t stop staring at his scar. Compared to the lines on his face, Jayden’s torso looked ravaged. The healers had focused their priorities, it seemed. Jeff remembered the way the giant bear had struck, the massive paw swiping down, the burst of blood. Jayden should have died, no question about it. Instead, three white gashes crossed from Jayden’s right shoulder, where he’d lost the arm, almost to his left hip. They were deep, and the skin moved stiffly as Jayden manoeuvred into the black t-shirt.

In spite of the damage, Jeff could understand Cassie’s fascination as well. The man had more muscles than the latest superhero actor.

Finally, after what felt like a slow-mo reverse striptease, Jayden pulled the t-shirt down over his must-be-magically toned stomach, and Jeff was forced to watch the way his favourite Black Sabbath shirt stretched over the warrior’s biceps. In the modern dress, Jayden still looked dangerous.

“So,” said Cassie, rolling on the balls of her feet as the room fell into a somewhat awkward silence. “Why did you guys come?”

Jayden frowned, and before he could repeat everything they’d already said, Cassie added, “I mean specifically you two. Why didn’t Jasmine come?”

His brow cleared. “Oh! Well that’s easy. I want to kill Raul, and Brady wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to explore your world. He would have been furious if we couldn’t remember every last detail.”

From the bathroom they heard the toilet flush three times in a row, and the taps turn on and off. Jayden stretched a hand to the closed door as if Brady had just proved his point.

“You mention killing Raul as if it were just a regular Sunday chore,” said Cassie. Jeff watched closely for signs that this disturbed her, but her face was blank, clinical. As if she wanted to use Jayden’s experiences for her thesis paper. Social Work for the Fictionally Oriented.

“I’ve been planning how I’ll do it every day for almost six years,” Jayden replied, without venom, as a matter of fact.

“How satisfied do you think you’ll be if you succeed?”

Before he had a chance to answer, Brady came out of the bathroom, awe on his face.

Jeff stared at him with a similar expression. In his clothes, Brady looked no different than anyone else off the street. He didn’t know why this surprised him. Brady was still human despite being from another world, but Jeff would have expected a lingering sense of
otherness
.

Then the scholar spoke.

“Water inside! Light that doesn’t run on oil! You said you didn’t have magic in your world.”

Cassie hid a smile behind her hand, and Jayden focused his stare on the ceiling, possibly mumbling something about promises to stay calm.

Brady flipped the nearest light switch and frowned when nothing happened. He flicked it on and off a few more times, poking his head into the kitchen and bathroom to see if anything changed there. “Why does this one do nothing?”