Paranormal Realities Box Set (36 page)

I plucked at the young man’s arm,
attempting to get a hold on his garment. He didn’t even put up a fight but
merely gave me a sad smile and swam off down the tunnel. Grabbing the rope, I
tried to get Rom moving in the right direction. His head turned toward me. He
pinned me with furious eyes until he recognized me. His gaze turned tender and
he stopped resisting.

Using the rope as if Rom were a boat I
had to bring to shore, I towed him upward. The sludge of the vortex had
thickened significantly and now it felt like I was moving through setting
concrete. I kept swimming and pulling. Just when I doubted we would ever make
it, I saw a pinpoint of light above.

Rom’s movement slowed and then stopped.
By pulling myself around his weight, I wedged my body behind him and pushed. I
pushed again and again. Finally, I felt Rom’s weight lift from me and saw him
pass through the end of the vortex. As my head emerged, I saw Zen pulling Rom
out of the moving floor and to safety.

Petra reached her hand to me. I extracted
my arm from the muck that was trapping it and grasped her fingers. Petra tugged
on my arm until I had emerged to the waist, then the thighs. Finally, my feet
were out. Beneath me, the floor solidified.

Bringing myself into a sitting position,
I glanced at the watch. 5:04:50 a.m. Ten seconds left. Just then a long hiss
echoed around us accompanied by the sound of a pop like a giant Rubbermaid
container closing.

The portal had sealed.

I’d been dreading this moment for so
long, my initial reaction was a zing of fear zipping through me, zapping my
heart like a defibrillator. Seconds later, however, relief spread through me.
We’d made it. The portal had sealed but we were all out and on the home side.

Petra kneeled down behind me and wrapped
me in a hug. She rocked me while babbling in excited incoherence. I only
understood about every third word and each seemed to be something about
happiness or a synonym thereof.

Juliette and Billy clutched at each other
a few feet away with Billy sobbing into my stepsister's shoulder. Chase and
Senji stood awkwardly in the corner glancing at one another. They gave each
other a partial embrace with a shoulder pound that seemed to constitute a bro
hug.

To my right side, Zen was unwrapping the
ropes knotted around Rom. The bandage had torn away from Rom's arm somewhere in
the vortex and I saw the skin around the bite was no longer red and the wound
itself had knit shut. The plants were doing their job.

As he worked, Zen spoke. “The one who
came through the vortex in your place was human.”

“His name was Cameron,” Petra said with a
wisp of sadness in her voice.

“What a wimp.” Chase huffed.

“He wasn’t a wimp. He was a resistance
fighter,” Petra shouted back.

“Well, he certainly complained a lot,”
Senji stated.

“He didn’t complain. He just didn’t want
to go back to Dorcha,” Petra said. “And I don’t blame him. Who would want to
live in such a horrible place?”

“Gratitude that you traded him for me.”
Rom's lips quirked into a sardonic smile.

“How about Namia and that other ghoul?” I
asked.

“Handling the monsters wasn’t hard,” Zen replied.
“What was hard was dealing with the busload of tourists who came down here to
see what was going on.”

They must have been the people entangled
with the monsters and resistance fighters who’d converged on the entrance to
the portal.

“No tourist died?” Rom asked obviously
thinking the same thing.

“Of course not,” Zen answered. “Tourists
are annoying but I wouldn’t kill one.”

Apparently, death only occurred when each
of the entangled pair was in another dimension. Good to know. I didn’t want to
think my life or death depended on the fate of that ghoul.

“Senji told the tourists we were shooting
a film and they were interrupting.” Zen shook his head and returned to his rope
rescue.

“They finally left.” Senji laughed. “None
of them even asked why we didn’t have a video camera or sound equipment.”

Once Zen had cut and untied the last of
the ropes, Rom rose and strode toward me. Seizing my hands, he pulled me up and
into his arms in one motion.

“Kizzy, you anger me.” He shook me, but
all the while he grinned.

“What?” I asked. “What can you possibly
be angry about?”

“Terrible chances taken. You gave your
blood, your very life to that vampire.”

“It was the only way to get him to ingest
the Downy Woundwort.”

“I cannot believe how you did it.” He
shook his head, before dropping a quick kiss on my lips. He hugged me to him.
“But you have saved us all.”

“Not all of us,” a voice screamed inside
my head. A little boy’s voice. Adam’s voice.

A thought occurred.

“My messenger bag.” Pulling away from him
I scoured the floor, frantic that it might not have made it through the vortex,
until I saw it lying near the base of one of the construction lights.
Scrambling over to it, I grabbed it up, opened the flap and saw the plants
safely nestled inside.

“You brought some back,” Zen said.

 
“Yes.” I handed the bag to Zen before I stood again. “Rom
needs two more treatments. You should use the rest to try to grow a supply for
us in this dimension. Just in case.”

 
“There are plenty here for that.” Zen rummaged in the bag
counting. “More than enough, I think.”

More than enough.

“In that case, I’m going to need three of
the plants,” I said to Zen “And a ride in your car immediately.”

“No,” Rom roared. “You cannot be thinking
to take more chances.”

“Don’t you see I have to?” I crossed to
Rom and placed my hand on his cheek. “You were wrong. I didn’t save all of us.”

“I’m not following any of this.” Zen
scratched his head. “Where do you want me to drive you?”

“To the wormhole.”

“This is insanity.” Zen stood with Rom
and I at the head of the stairs peering down the wormhole hall. “The passage
has deteriorated so much, I doubt the wormhole still works. You shouldn’t go.”

“Yeah,” Petra said from a step below us.
“This place looks like my bedroom and you know what a dump that is.”

“I’m with Petra.” Chase put an arm over
her shoulder. “Petra's bedroom is a dump.”

“I’ve been doing some research on
wormholes,” Senji said from the step below Petra and Chase. “No one knows much
for sure, but there is a theory that the greater the quantity of positive
energy that passes through a wormhole, the more quickly it is degraded.”

“So the more times and people we pass
through this one, the faster it collapses?” I wiped at the dirt, grime and
blood on me with wet wipes from Zen’s van. Apparently, the entire package
wasn't going to be enough to keep me from resembling a mugging victim.

“Maybe, it collapses,” Senji replied.
“I'm not sure. The information I'm finding is about wormholes in space.”

“Let us abandon this.” Rom's navy blue
eyes implored me. They squeezed at my heart with their intensity. How had he
become so important to me in such a short time?

“Not us.” I threw down the last used
wipe. “Me. I’m the only one going this time.”

“Kizzy. You could be trapped in a void if
you go in there,” Zen said.

“Come on. You took a chance on the
wormhole just for a stock portfolio. I have a much better reason.”

“I think you know I lied about that. I
went looking for Devon.”

“Then you know exactly why I have to do
this.”

“Yes but, Kizzy, let me go instead,” Zen
suggested and I knew how much that cost him due to his PTSD.

Placing my hand on his arm, I shook my
head. “No. I have to do this alone. But thank you.”

“And me? You order that I not go. Do you
not trust me to help you?” Rom asked.

“Of course I trust you.” I went on
tiptoes to press a kiss on his cheek. “It’s because I trust you that I need you
here waiting for me. I’m just going to nip through and then I'll come right
back. I’ll be fast, I promise. But you know I have to do this. I have to try.”
I kissed him quickly. “You heard what Senji said. The more people who go
through the wormhole the worse it deteriorates.”

“Theory only,” he said.

“Please be here with Zen and the others
to make sure I come out.” I clutched his arm.

He stared at his feet. I knew that was
all the agreement I would get.

Turning to the hall I adjusted the
messenger bag over my shoulder and squared myself.

“Keep to the center of the hall, if
possible,” Zen directed as he fastened a climbing rope around my waist with two
carabiner clips.

“Okay. But don’t let Rom follow me,
please,” I whispered.

Zen nodded. “Secure this rope on the
other end.” He tugged the rope to make certain the tie would hold, “It may help
you get back.”

Glancing back over my shoulder, I took in
Zen, Petra and Rom, meeting each of their eyes for a few seconds. Then I
adjusted my messenger bag and walked into the hall.

After only two steps it was just as
before. The passage whined and groaned around me with the walls rising and
falling as the floor pitched and rolled. This time, rather than a funhouse
mirror, the hall was more like a roller coaster ride. I crawled over the rubble
pile that had tripped us up the last time through. Another pile lay just beyond
that required a climb to surmount.

When the hall began to shake as if an
earthquake was happening, I just kept moving. There was no way of knowing what
was going on around me until I reached the bedroom.

At one point I gave up trying to walk
and, instead, adopted a crawl through the hall. Finally, I reached the door to
the bedroom and the end of the wormhole. On hands and knees I crossed over.

The sudden absence of movement
disoriented me for a moment. Eventually, I took in the sunshine streaming
through the window and the sounds of birds singing outside. After getting to my
feet, I stumbled to the window and saw that indeed the city did exist out there
and not some black void. The square laid out before me was a welcome sight.
Even more welcome was the sight of my dad’s car parked just where Rom and I had
left it.

I made my way out the window to the
veranda. After unfastening the rope from my waist, I clipped it to the wrought
iron balustrade. Everything seemed to be going well as I went down the spiral staircase
and out to my dad’s car. The sooner I could get this done and be back to the
wormhole the better. Every second made it less possible I’d make it in—or
worse out of—the wormhole again.

The keys to Dad's car were under the mat.
From the position of the sun, I guessed it was probably about noon and wondered
if it was possible that I’d arrived back in time only a few minutes after Rom
and I had gone through the wormhole with Namia. If the car was still here,
surely not much time could have passed.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, I felt
weird. I’d only driven on only a handful of occasions and I hoped I could do it
without getting into any accidents. I had no choice really. The car was the
only way to get to my dad’s house in a hurry. After firing the engine, I put
the car carefully in gear and moved slowly forward.

The drive to Dad’s house, a few blocks
away, seemed to stretch to a million miles. I couldn’t quite get the hang of
the brakes. Each time I touched them with my foot, the car jerked violently to
a stop. A touch on the gas made an equally violent start. The front end of the
Camry appeared longer than a football field through the windshield as I tried
to wield it around corners.

Finally, with Dad’s house in sight, I
drew a relieved breath that is until I saw the blue lights flashing in the
rearview mirror. The police.

I pulled the car to the curb and stopped
directly in front of Dad’s house. Switching off the engine, I rolled down the
window and waited. Now I’d be taken to jail, I’d be locked up and I’d never get
back through the wormhole. Worse, I’d probably meet myself at some point and
bring about the end of the world or something.

All of the anxiety of the last few days
boiled up and a sob burbled out of my lips. Before I knew it, another sob and
then another escaped until I was heaving in and gulping out horrible cries as
tears streamed down my face. Laying my head on the steering wheel, I gave into
it.

“Are you all right, Miss?” a voice, I
assumed the officer, asked through the window but I couldn’t answer.

“Kizzy. What are you doing out here?” I
heard my Dad ask. “And in my car?”

“You know this young woman?”

“Yes, officer. This is my daughter.”

“She was driving erratically,” the
officer stated. “But since she seems to be in some emotional distress I’ll just
make this a warning.”