Paranormal Realities Box Set (26 page)

Rom’s use of the word douchebag produced
an involuntary smile but the effect was short lived.

“If we go back to Dorcha, I’ll just cause
more disasters, more screw-ups,” I said.

“Without trying we shall certainly fail
and I shall be dead or worse. Insanity.”

“Go alone if you want to.” I jerked away
from him and hid my face in the pillow again. “You’re better off without me.”

The growl from Rom quickly turned to a
roar. Seizing my arm, he jerked me up. His arms went roughly under my knees and
around my back as he tore me away from my grip on the bed and lifted me. Rom
carried me out of the room and into the hall past my curious friends and a
surprised Zen.

“Rom, don’t—" Zen began.

“Cease interference!”

Rom stomped his way to the psychomanteum
room and kicked the half closed door. His action sent it open wide and crashing
into the wall behind. Once inside, he practically tossed me to the floor,
although I did land on my feet. Rom slammed the door shut, closing us in. He
moved to light the candles as I crossed to the exit, intent on leaving.

“Halt.” Rom spun around. His whispered
tone was far more ominous than his previous yelling. “Control of my actions…I
cannot…You must not…”

Not knowing what Rom would do if I failed
to obey him, I returned to the center of the room. He finished lighting the
candles. Without any active meditation from me the fog swirled in the mirror.
The mist cleared revealing an image of Juliette surrounded by nothingness. No
furniture. No landscape. No nothing. She stood in front of a white background
as if she were planted in the midst of a cloud. Her mouth moved and it took a
few moments for her words to register.

“Kizzy, help me. Please. Help me,” she
pleaded, her blue eyes wide and swimming with tears. “Don’t leave me here.”

“Juliette,” I called. “I hear you. Where
is the prince keeping you?”

My stepsister had no reaction, as if she
could not see or hear me.

“Why?” she cried. ““Why haven’t you come
for me?”

Gradually, her image faded and Prince
Leopold appeared in his Palace room.

“Yes, dear Kizzy. Why have you not come
for your poor sister?” he taunted with a smirk. “Seems quite cruel of you.”

“Why can’t Juliette hear me?” I demanded.

The prince ignored my question. His smirk
widened to a grin and his eyes sparkled.

“Ah,” the prince continued. “There is
your friend Rom. Red face, rapid breathing, obvious recent fit of rage. He’s no
doubt suffering the effects of the ghoul bite.” The prince made a tisking sound
and sauntered to the flower arrangement at the room's center. “So easily
remedied.” He toyed with a leaf. “If only you would come for a visit.”

Beside me I heard Rom’s breathing
increase to angry puffing and a low growl rumbled in his throat. I felt his
energy ramping up to a rage again.

“However—” Prince Leopold's
expression changed as his lips formed a sad pout. “Perhaps it is too late. He’s
such a handsome boy. What a shame to lose him to lunacy.”

Rom went batshit. His growl turned to an
unintelligible bellow. Twisting, he turned to the table. He grasped it,
upsetting the candles and sending them crashing to the floor. With the table in
hand, Rom raised it over his head and marched toward the mirror.

“Yes.” Prince Leopold gave a chortling
laugh. “Too late.”

“Aghhhhhhhhhh,” Rom screamed as he swung
the table into the mirror, smashing the glass. Shards flew and I flung up my
hands to shield my face. Rom swung the table repeatedly hammering away at the
already broken mirror. Finally, he stopped and threw the table, now mostly
broken itself, to the floor. He stood, his breathing heaving, before collapsing
to a cross-legged sitting position on the floor. He bent over with his head in
his hands.

I went to him and knelt by his side
before placing my arms around his shoulders. He resisted me for a moment before
he sank against me and buried his face in my neck. Rocking him as his breath
calmed, I lost interest in my own misery and thought about— truly thought
about—what he faced.

“Kizzy,” he said finally, his eyes
meeting mine. “I lack strength for a journey to Dorcha alone.”

His gaze went to a spot over my shoulder.

“My duty calls for your death and also my
own. Performance of duty has always been preeminent for me. Yet you destroyed
the old me.”

“That’s me.” I gave a sad laugh and
turned my head away. “I'm a people destroyer.”

“Yet you remade me also.” Rom reached up
to turn my face back to his. “You showed me right instead of duty. Caring
instead of obligation. Devotion instead of edict.” Rom’s gaze bored into me.
“My father, my government, would say I dishonor myself. Yet I want nothing more
than life. Life to live with you.”

His lips covered mine in a gentle kiss.

“So, will you not journey with me to
Dorcha?" Rom kissed me again.

“That’s unfair,” I said between more of
his quick kisses.

“Unfair?” he asked pulling back. “What?”

“Those kisses.”

“Why?” he asked.

“They make me want to live again, too.”
In spite of my father and in spite of Adam, I wanted to live. I might feel
ashamed that I did, but I did. I wanted to live. And I wanted to go to Dorcha.

“He who fights with monsters might take
care lest he thereby become a monster.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

 
“So what do we know?” Zen asked as the group of us sat round
his dining table. “Prince Leopold seems to parallel a figure in our history who
was the son of Queen Victoria.”

“I think he was the queen’s son in the
Dorcha dimension also,” I said. “Everything he told me about himself was
similar to our history except the part where his hemophilia cure turned him
into a vampire.”

“So,” Zen acknowledged with a nod. “If
that’s true then the palace you're seeing through the psychomanteum could be
Buckingham Palace in their version of London since that was the residence of
Queen Victoria and her family."

“We don’t know that for certain.” Senji
black brows converged in a frown.

“It’s all we have to go on. “ Zen stood.
He went into the library-parlor and returned a few minutes later with a map of
London he laid out on the table.

“Juliette, Franky and even Billy all
ended up in the palace pretty quickly after going through the vortex.” I
pointed to the position of Buckingham Palace on the map. “So we could assume the
portal must dump out somewhere close by."

“Even if it is Buckingham Palace and if
the portal dumps out near it,” Senji said. “You still don’t know you’ll be able
to find it. There’s no reason to think their version of London looks anything
like the one on this map.”

“Truth.” Rom's lips quirked. “Yet I am
certain we will find the prince. Or more exactly the prince will find us as he
found Juliette and the others.”

“And if Juliette is with him we'll find
her.” I slammed my hand on the table.

“So the plan is for you go through the
vortex and wander around until the vampire prince finds you?” Senji asked.

“Pretty much,” I said.

Rom took my hand and nodded.

“Well, it’s good to be flexible,
adaptable, and spontaneous.” Petra's smile was insincere but I suppose she was
trying to be encouraging.

“There’s spontaneous and there’s
completely freakin' crazy ass wild.” Senji waved his hands. “Do you hear
yourselves? If Juliette is with the prince and if the palace is the palace, and
if London is London.... If, if, if.” His gaze sent daggers toward everyone at
the table. “Doesn’t anyone else see that this isn’t a good idea?”

“Shush it, Senji,” Petra ordered. “Kizzy
and Rom can do it.”

“Yeah, Senji,” I said. “You were geeked
about all this inter-dimensional stuff. Why are you so negative now?”

“I just don’t want any more dead
friends,” Senji yelled. “Franky was one too many.”

That shut us up.

 
After a few seconds, Zen broke the silence. “So we’ll just
have to increase the odds for you a bit. You’ll can take a shitload of weapons
with you,”

“That’ll be good.” I smiled weakly. “But
we do need a firm plan about what to do with Namia while we’re gone.” Right now
the ghoul inhabited a cage in Zen’s barn.

“I say we keep her here while you’re over
there,” Zen suggested. “I’ll hold her just outside the vortex until you reopen
it to come back.”

I appreciated his confidence in saying
when instead of if.

“When you reopen it to come back, I’ll
push her through.”

“Good idea,” I said. “We don’t want to
have to deal with her on the other side. There’s no guarantee Prince Leopold
hasn’t broken the entanglement between her and Billy just as he did with
Juliette and Stephan.”

Chase raised a hand as if he wanted to be
called on. “I’m just wondering something important."

“Everything you have to say is always
important, baby cheeks.” Petra patted his arm. “But not now.”

“No. Go ahead, Chase,” I said. “What is
it?”

“When Rom and Kizzy go through the
vortex, won’t two monsters come out?” Chase asked.

“Probably one and possibly two,” I
replied. “Maybe since Rom isn’t originally from this dimension, there’s no
entanglement with someone in Dorcha.”

 
“What do we do with whoever comes through?” Senji demanded,
still angry.

“Anything but kill them or lose them,”
Zen replied.

“Unless, that is, we don’t come back
through the vortex by the time it seals," I added. "At that point you
kill them.”

“Um. Kizzy.” Zen motioned to me. “Could I
talk to you about something in the kitchen.”

“Sure." I glanced at Rom before I
stood and followed Zen.

Once in the other room, Zen reached into
his back pocket and pulled out his wallet.

“You’re probably wondering why, as the
big special ops guy, I haven’t suggested I go with you and Rom to Dorcha,” he
began.

“No, I—”

Zen waved off my denial.

"The doctors said my problem is
related to PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," he continued.

With his disclosure I finally understood
why Zen actions had been so mercurial. Sometimes he'd been the quintessential
professional soldier, but then there were the times he'd run away like when
we'd found Franky. PTSD explained a lot.

He opened his wallet and pulled out a
photo that had been folded over in half, image side up. The photo showed a
beautiful glowing bride—her blonde hair upswept, her blue eyes sparkling,
and her smile dazzling—as she posed in a shimmering white wedding dress.

“Her name was—is—Devon.” He
stared down at the photo and ran his finger over its surface in a caress.
"I lost my nerve after…” His voice trailed away again and Zen seemed lost
in thought for a few seconds. “Anyway,” he said finally. “I should go with you
both but I just can’t.”

“Zen.” I touched his arm. “It’s all
right. You're more needed on this side of the vortex. Who else can contain
Namia and the ones who come through when we go over?”

He nodded, although still seemed
unconvinced. Zen handed the photo to me and I turned up the portion of the
photo that had been folded in order to see the groom: it was Zen in the photo,
but a happier, less damaged, Zen than the one I’d known.

“One day we were out walking and one
second Devon was there and the next she was gone.” He scrubbed a hand over his
face, reddened with unshed tears. “What I’m asking is that if you see her in
Dorcha—” He seemed at a loss as to how to finish the sentence.

“Don’t worry, Zen,” I squeezed his
forearm. “If I see her there, I’ll bring her back to you. I promise.”

“I know you will.” He grimaced. “You’re
very brave, Kizzy.”

I handed the photo back to him and he
stared down at it.

“I wish I could go with you—”

“No, Zen,” I insisted. “We need you on
this side.”

Zen nodded but it seemed more like a sad
shake of the head. He turned away to wash his face in the sink.

* * * * *

Although I was thoroughly sick of the
tunnel to the morgue, I sincerely hoped this wasn’t the last time I would see
it.

Zen had set up battery powered
construction lights to replace the ones damaged by previous vortex openings. A
cage containing Namia blocked the exit to the tunnel. Two additional empty
cages decorated with silver adornments were in place as well. Zen, Petra, Chase
and Senji were all armed with guns. Zen’s had bullets he'd made himself from
casting silver. In addition, Zen and Senji also each had a taser. Fortunately,
there had been no rain and the tunnel floor was dry.