Vampires and Sexy Romance (43 page)

The little diner was utterly silent for a moment.  Katarina’s eyes went from determined to hopeless again for a beat, but she shook that off.  “So how are you going to do that?  Did you specialize in trans-dimensional studies while I was asleep?”

Min felt her brows knit in on themselves.  “No.  But you know a few things about opening portals…and you were in cahoots with the Summer Queen.  Didn’t she teach you anything?”

“Sure.  She taught me how to lie to my daughters and to myself.  And she helped build up the wards on our home.  But no fae is going to show a mortal, even if there is fae blood running in their veins, how to cross over into faerie.”

“But I’ve seen you open a portal to freaking Iceland.” Min said, not believing what was coming out of her mother’s mouth.

“That was a doorway to just another place on the same plane of existence…and it took me three weeks of prep work and over four hours of spell casting.”

“But—” 

“It would possibly take years of research and weeks of gathering power just to attempt to open a door into the quaintest, friendliest part of Faerie.  But we’re talking about The Otherealm, and Winter’s Keep as well.  I don’t think there’s a witch on the planet with that kind of power.”

The steely intent Min had built up inside her faded away as her nerves started shaking again.  She could plan a raid all she wanted.  She could push and push until she broke, but if there wasn’t a way into where they needed to go…

“But let’s say,” Luca said, leaning against the side of the booth closest to Min.  “Hypothetically.  If a witch powerful enough to open such a door was to try, where might they begin?”

Min shook her head.  Dimensional magicks were not her forte. 

She looked to her mother and saw a glimmer in her eyes.  That meant she was onto something.

“Well,” Katarina said.  “First you’d need to know where you were going.  And know where that part of that world lined up with this one.”

Luca gestured with a wave of his hand to the open space between two booths.  There was nothing special about it, just grungy wallpaper and a simple black and white clock. 

“That’s where the Winter Queen opened her portal.  Maybe that’s where we’d need to open ours.”

Katarina shook her head.  “She could call up a portal to her home from just about anywhere.  The laws of physics, even of magic, wouldn’t mean much to her, especially when she’s so connected to a place.”

“So what else would we need?”  Luca said, as if he’d already received all the answer he needed to question number one.

Katarina patted her face with a hand and scrunched up her eyes.  “Well, after that we’d need something connected to The Otherealm…to the fae in particular.  Having something from there would…” 

The instant Katarina’s eyes snapped open and her expression flashed with excitement, Min felt something vibrate like a tuning fork in the breast pocket of her coat.  The two women traded glances, and then Min reached into her pocket and pulled out the short silver dagger she’d found on her mother’s desk only weeks after she’d fallen into a comma.  The dagger that had cut her.  She hadn’t seen it since that day…but here it was, exactly when she most needed it. 

It glinted in the brightly lit diner, and for a moment she could have sworn she saw the greenest eyes reflecting out from the blade.

Katarina crossed to her, and Min held the dagger out.  “This is of faerie construct, isn’t it?”

Katarina bit her lower lip.  “Better than that, daughter mine.  This was given to me by Arianna herself.  It was forged in the deepest part of Summer.”  She whirled around and held her hands to her mouth.  “But that would only get us to the heart of Summer, presuming we’d gather enough power to do the job.”

A thought sparked in her mind, and Min licked her lips.  “When I first picked up the dagger, it cut me.”

Katarina stared at her.  “It was only supposed to call an emissary to help you.  It wasn’t supposed to harm you.  Are you sure?”

Min glared at her mother.  “I’m quite sure it cut me when I touched it.”

“No, I mean, are you sure
it
cut
you
?  Are you certain you just didn’t cut yourself on it?”

Min thought back to that night.  She’d been careful when she’d handled the blade, and she remembered that it hummed with a power the moment she picked it up.  And then it had cut her. 

“I’m certain of it.” 

“Well then, it would seem the blade took payment in blood for its service, and took part of you into itself.  That’s…interesting.”

Min reached out and took hold of her mother’s hand.  “It’s more than that…it’s a freaking revelation!”

Her mother looked askance of her.

Min took a deep breath and pushed back the excitement that was building inside her.  “You said that Arianna used you and me to shape Andy, right?  Like a blueprint.  That makes her connected to us in blood and every other way a family member would be.  And that dagger is connected to Faerie.”  She let go of her mother and strode over to the wall the Winter Queen had used to escape through.  “That means the dagger is connected to both Faerie and me…” she turned and smiled at her mother.  “And that means we can use it to get to Andy.”

Just then the dagger in Katarina’s hand started humming again, this time loud enough it was practically singing.  She stared at it, as if it was speaking to her, and then she turned and walked over to the wall.  Katarina held one hand out to the stained wallpapered wall and hissed out an oath in a language Min couldn’t place.  The surface of the wall seemed to ripple, like a still pond when a rock is thrown into it. 

Katarina took the silver dagger and slashed at the wall.  A long line of darkness gleamed evil and cruel from the wall. Katarina stepped back and more sibilant words fell from her lips, not a one of them sounded human.  She held the dagger in one hand, and with the other she reached out and made a grabbing motion, then wrenched her arm down and the wall under the dark cut the dagger had made fell away, leaving a gapping, howling hole into darkness and cold.  There was nothing to see but pitch black night, a silver moon that hung too low and too large, and treacherous looking snow.  In the distance Min could see a mountain, one darker black than the night it was settled against.

Min gasped, something primal and scared as hell quaking within her.  Staring at the tableau in front of her, she knew she should just turn around and run away.  There was something overwhelmingly horrific about it.  It was the same feeling she’d gotten when she’d gone to the museum as a child and stared up at the bones of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  It was just something that was imprinted on her from millions of years of evolution, something instinctual, the mechanism that told mankind what to stay away from if they wanted to live. 

Min’s mother turned, and her eyes were no longer brown.  They were the most striking green she had ever seen.  At once Min knew that it was not her mother she was looking to.  Something else was in control, and somehow she knew instinctively that it was the Summer Queen.  Anger flared inside Min.  She didn’t care what the faerie queen wanted.   She would kill it if it harmed her mother.

Then one of those green eyes winked at her.  “Child, I’m but borrowing your mother’s body.  No harm will come to her.  It’s just that you both needed…a little help to get the portal open.  And truth be told, you haven’t a lot of time to waste.”

“What do you mean?”  Fear clawed at her stomach.

“What I mean is that your sister is in great peril, and she needs to know you are trying to rescue her.”

“We’re not just going to try!”  Min shouted defensively.

“In this case, my dear moppet, the thought is all that really matters.  She needs to see you, to know you would and have risked your life to save her.  That is what she needs to know.”

“You’re as crazy as the other one!”  Min seethed.  “Can’t you all, just once, not speak in riddles?”

“Of course not, my dear.  It’s our gift and our curse.  Now—” and she held the dagger out to Min, “This will help you once you’re in Faerie.  Don’t let it out of your grasp.”  She gestured with a wave of her arm to the howling darkness that waited on the other side of the portal.  “It’s time to go.  Your mother must stay here.  That is the only way to keep the portal open.” 

She waved her other arm and three very large creatures, all huge, slathering gray hounds with burning red eyes, crept out from nowhere to surround Katarina.  “My pets will protect her while you are gone.” 

She stared down at the dagger in her hand and waited for Min to take it.

Fear welled up in Min’s chest, cold and painful.  But she pushed it back and reached out to take the blade.

The moment Min took it, it vibrated and she felt something powerful and white hot surge into her. 

Katarina blinked, and shook her head, and when she looked to Min again, her eyes were once more brown.  She looked confused for a moment, but then she seemed to remember something.  “You have to go now.  I won’t be able to hold this opening forever.”

Min turned and looked to Luca, and then back to her mother.  The huge hounds were there one moment, and invisible the next.  But Min could feel them, their feral, powerful presence both disturbing and comforting.  She knew without a doubt that almost nothing would get to her mother while they protected her.

She looked down to the dagger in her grasp, half expecting to see those green eyes again, but only the reflection of her own brown irises looked back at her.

Luca moved to her side.  Blood stained his clothes and his flesh, but he stood there whole and strong.  Already perfectly healed.  He held out his hand to her, and she took it.  She needed him, in every way she could imagine.  And just the touch of his flesh to hers filled her aching body with strength, and soothed her troubled soul.  He was a part of her, and her of him.  She didn’t understand it, but made it no less true.  They held hands for a few beats, and then let go at the exact same time. 

“Miles to go,” she whispered to him.

“And a faerie queen to kill.”  He raised his sword. 

Min held out the hellfire Bellini to him.  Something inside her told her she wouldn’t need it, she’d be too busy to use it, but that he’d need to use as he fought beside her.  He sheathed the iron sword and reached out and took the shotgun.  It glinted wickedly in his hands, and his eyes flashed fiercely with green light.

“Ready?”  he asked.

Not even a little
.  Min closed her eyes, forced back all the fear that was clamoring around the periphery of her mind, and then cracked her neck.  “As I’ll ever be.  Let’s go.”

~*~

At first it was just like walking through a door.  There was only a slight difference in air pressure.  But then the bitter, corrupting cold blew against them and stripped them of their strength.  It was bone crushing, soul draining cold.  Luca staggered.  Min felt the life literally ripped out of her.  Her head started spinning, and before she knew it she was on her knees, gasping for breath. 

Just then the silver dagger in her grasp began to not only hum, it sang.  The heat of a summer day flowed out of that dagger and into her, filling her instantly with more power than she had ever felt before.  The freezing winter wind felt like no more than a warm tropical breeze.  Immediately she knew this power was hers to command.  It didn’t matter that it was borrowed, this was the Otherealm, Faeerie, and this magic was strong here.

Somehow Min knew, as if she’d known it forever, that this power wasn’t enough to overcome Winter—certainly not the queen of all winter, in her enter of power.

But it was power enough that she knew she was going to charge on up to that foreboding dark mountain and blow a wrecking ball sized whole in it.

Luca gasped, and Min jerked her attention to him.  He leaned against the lee of a great boulder, his face distended in pain, a crack had formed on his cheek.  He was freezing solid. 

Min rushed over and laid her bare hand against his face.  As their flesh touched, she felt that endless warmth flow into him.  Instantly his eyes blazed back to life, and he exhaled a heavy breath he must have been holding.  Not that the vampire needed to breath, but Min felt herself relax when he did.

He looked down to the dagger, and then back to her, the crack in his cheek had healed already.  “Hell of an ace she gave you.”

Min smiled at him and leaned in to kiss him.  A short, though satisfying kiss.  “We’ll see how much good it does us when we try and break into…” she shook her head as she realized she wasn’t standing before the great mountain of Winter’s Keep.

“Where the hell are we?”  Luca said. 

Where the hell indeed? 

It looked to be a wilderness of old growth and redwood staggeringly large trees.  Yet they were all dead.  There wasn’t a living thing insight, only the tall, brittle corpses of what was once a great forest.  And even with there being no foliage on the trees, she couldn’t see out to gauge where they might be.  She let her witch sense stretch out from her, to feel for anything that might help, but this place had been void of life for so long it was empty.

Min let go of Luca’s hand.  Somehow she knew that the dagger would keep him warm against the wicked cold simply because of their link.  “I don’t know.  I’ve never been to faerie before.”  She stroked her hand absently down the blade of the dagger, in a strangely familiar gesture.