Two Years Ago
Swift Waters Casino, United States
Someone in the audience held up a lighter, soon followed by others until the auditorium became a reflection of a nighttime sky. Joram laughed, releasing her hold on Naomi as she dug a lighter from her pocket and struck it. The flame wavered as she held her hand high. “Isn’t it a little late for this?” she asked the audience. “Song’s over.”
“It’s never over!” someone yelled back, receiving whistles and a roar of approval.
Joram waved her lighter back and forth in a slow arc as the crowd followed suit.
Naomi squinted up into the VIP balcony. She saw her roommate, lighter in hand, waving furiously at her. Giddy with adrenaline and the overwhelming relief that the world had continued onward, Naomi waved back.
She stared out at the sea of faces and lighters. The stage lights brightened. Her exhilaration faded as the crowd’s lighters extinguished and their facial expressions morphed from happiness into confusion and surprise. The light grew stronger until the people squinted and raised hands to shelter their eyes. She watched her shadow lengthen, a dark exclamation point that reached across the crowd, solid and unwavering. Foreboding washed over her as she turned back toward the stage.
Invocation’s set backdrop once held a huge projection screen that displayed images during the concert. Now a harsh radiant light blocked it from view, the texture similar to the flash that had taken Inanna and Anders from the stage minutes earlier. Is that Mama returning? Or him? A vertical black line bisected the sheet of light. The blackness thickened, widened with a ripping, creaking sound that echoed throughout the theater.
The crowd’s panic rubbed raw against Naomi’s nerves, spiking her anxiety to unmanageable levels. Conflicting messages raced across her nervous system. Fight, relief, love, lust, awe, fear - an internal vortex created by Joram when she’d fused the audience together. A verbal hubbub deafened her as thousands of people cried out in panic and turned to flee.
Joram held up a hand and shouted into the microphone. “Hold!” Having already given over control to her during the concert, the audience paused. They fought their animal instincts to obey her command. Onstage the creaking grew louder as the blackness stretched wider. Naomi tore her gaze away from the sight.
Calm and smiling, Joram supplicated the terrified audience. “Nuh vex yuh! Truss me!” She gestured at the strangeness behind her. “I don’t know what’s on the other side, but we’re stronger together. Please stay with me! Stay with me.”
Still enthralled, the audience shuffled back to their places, a mixture of fear and enchantment upon their expressions.
“That’s better.” Joram turned to face the oncoming storm and glanced at Naomi. “Time to get back to work.” She placed the microphone in its stand and retrieved the piccolo from her back pocket.
Taking a deep breath, she began a new song, a different one that rollicked through the now shimmering air. The tune held hints of Naomi’s ballad in its notes as well as influences from any number of indigenous cultures. With little effort, she weaved each distinct form into a cohesive whole as she played to the massive phenomenon on stage.
Shards of green light shot from the center of the widening black strip, piercing the air with the thick scents of spring. Naomi was reminded of her home in early May when the air crackled with a chill at dawn and warmed as the day grew longer. The rich aromas of fertile loam, coniferous trees and water filled her nostrils. She heard the burble of a fast-moving creek beneath Joram’s music. Despite uncertainty, Naomi smiled as Joram blended the additional sounds into her impromptu composition.
The vast door widened, the dappled green light casting eerie shadows across the stage. The rift between the dimensions stood majestic, the top disappearing into the rafters. This wasn’t a door so much as an ever-broadening gap between existences. Hundreds of the butterflies streamed past overhead, gratefully fluttering into the dense forest canopy beyond, though many remained in the auditorium to dance around Joram, Naomi and the audience.
Six tall figures dashed from the verdancy, three to either side of the stage, their lanky height overshadowed by the still opening door. Each wore varying colored robes in an odd style with bits of silver chain mail flashing from beneath the layers of cloth. Though armored, they didn’t appear armed as they stood in a half circle with their palms out toward the crowd.
Eastern Europe
Dace shook her head. The pain and ringing in her ears did nothing to chase away her grogginess. What the fuck just happened? She rolled over and sharp pain stabbed her right upper arm. Gunshot wound. Just a graze, but deep enough to burn like hell. How many attackers had there been? Three? Did she get them all?
Juris!
She pushed to her knees, searching the hazy room for the boy. Before she could locate her charge, she saw movement at the warehouse door. Without thought, she raised her left arm and fired, the report of her weapon muffled after the flash-bang grenade that had dropped her seconds ago.
A man fell into the room, business-suited and wearing a balaclava to conceal his identity. She gave no quarter, immediately placing a round into his skull. He was the third one. Though she’d accounted for the original kidnappers, they could have had backup. Until she knew otherwise, the danger remained.
She reached for another magazine, not finding one in her jacket. Shit. How many rounds did she have left? Would it be enough to get Juris out of here? Again she scanned the room, her gaze alighting on the small form crumpled nearby. “Juris!”
Dace stumbled to the child, dismayed at the amount of blood pumping from his body. She fell to the floor beside him, frantic. His school uniform was soaked, he must have caught one of the attackers’ rounds in the initial firefight. Her fingers found no pulse at his pale throat. She ripped open his shirt.
An ugly bullet wound blossomed below his sternum. With care, she eased his limp form onto one side and groaned. The exit wound in his back was seven centimeters across, centered on his spine. She gently laid him back and checked again for a pulse. Nothing. “No! You can’t die! I forbid it!”
Sirens wailed in the distance. At least someone had overheard the battle and called the authorities. But unless there was a miracle, they wouldn’t arrive in time.
Dace prepared to begin chest compressions, but paused. The bullet wound was almost beneath her palm. Its location made an attempt at CPR folly; the damage to his body was too great. She would simply pump the boy’s blood out the exit wound and onto the concrete floor. Even if he survived, the internal damage would still kill him..
She had to do something!
The air thickened around her, and she smelled rich loam and new growth, the aroma so strong and true that she barely registered the disappearance of cordite and blood. Without thought, she physically gathered the welcome essence toward her, ignoring the pain of her wounds. A golden glow developed between her bloodied hands, sparkling and swirling. The ethereal maelstrom looked like a distant galaxy brought to Earth in her hands.
The substance grew and fused in her hands as she shaped it into a ball. Instinctively, she knew when she held enough of the essence. She pressed the golden light down upon the boy, forcing it into his chest wound. As the ethereal stuff seeped into him, it turned to burnished copper and raced along his veins, turning his graying skin to gold. He gasped aloud, and opened eyes filled with golden light.
The Fae Lands
Gillie pushed through reeds that stood as tall as her, ankle deep in cool water, ever on the lookout for korrigans and fairies. The former may or may not be offended at her transgression; the latter were a flock of pestiferous beings who spent a sizable portion of their time generating umbrage, elicitation or no. But there were ways to avoid the gits if given half a mind, and Gillie was more than half focused on this endeavor.
In the distance behind, she heard the merriment of her people. Queen Joan the Wad had put on a fine party for her folk. Food and drink strained the tables to breaking; games of chance drew the gullible; contagious music called the festive to dance. A right knees-up all around. Gillie couldn’t recall the reason for the celebration, as if her kind needed provocation. No pixie in their right mind passed up an invite from Queen Joan once given, and the jubilations were always legendary extravaganzas.
Despite the sounds of excitement back the way she’d come, Gillie waded along the edge of this pond, alone and alert for danger. She eased reeds aside and took another careful step.
For the most part, pixies preferred tending their gardens, but not Gillie. Though she enjoyed coaxing plants to grow as much as the next, her eyes always sought the horizon, her mind filled to the brim with tales of adventure. Such was her way. Her da always said she’d had itchy feet as a babe, and the itch had only grown stronger as the years had passed. As the youngest, her idea of a fine afternoon was to explore as far as possible - preferably without upsetting the locals, which was a fine trick.
Even Queen Joan thought Gillie a bit daft. Despite her young age, Gillie had already required the intervention of her family and the queen to get out of a number of sticky spots. Queen Joan had told her the last time that she’d had enough of Gillie’s shenanigans, that there’d be no more rescues from her next cock up.
But this afternoon dazzled with possibilities, and the siren’s call drew Gillie away from the celebration. Without doubt something hovered on the horizon. She could feel it! She’d heeded many of these calls before, but none as strong as this. Whatever lay before her tugged at her passion and enthusiasm, the air thick with promise!
Water burbled into the pond from a spring. She placed a bit of fruit from her supper on a rock to appease the spring’s spirit. For the smaller nature spirits, acknowledgment and a gift was all that was required for safe passage. Niceties observed, she continued past.
Whatever called her was directly ahead. She smelled it. The scent was of green growing things but too dry, with a hint of wilt and a foreign stench beneath the surface. Her nostrils widened as she tried to capture all of it. Whatever grew there was in dire need of tending and, though Gillie wasn’t that much for the task, the yearning of her people still called for her to assist.
The ground beneath her feet grew firm, the reeds receding as she reached a gentle embankment. She scrambled up the embankment.
Beyond was a rare and unfamiliar clearing. No circles of mushroom warned her away, no indication that the opening before her was claimed by others. Clearings usually belonged to some korrigon or other. To avoid offense, she remained still, her nose filled by the odd odor as she scanned for danger.
A moment passed, eternally brief as the smell became stronger. A light grew in the middle of the clearing rather than originating from sunlight above. Puzzled, Gillie chewed her lower lip.
Behind her she heard a call. Other voices followed as her absence from the celebration had been noted. She glanced over her shoulder and muttered, “Bugger.” They’d come to drag her home again, and just when something interesting started to happen. When she returned her focus to the clearing, she gasped.
The light was a pale greenish brown. It was bright, too bright. For the first time worry and doubt tickled her spine. Whatever this was, it had nothing to do with fairies and their ilk. She’d stake her life upon it.
“Gillie! Damn it, lass! Where are ye?”
She recognized her father’s voice. “Over here, Da!” She took a step backward, raising her hand to protect her eyes from the brilliance. Was that a split running down the center? She wracked her brain for anything to explain the oddity.
Multiple footsteps splashed through the reeds as the search party closed the distance. The black strip creaked loud as it widened, a greenish-yellow line bisecting the dark. Her people sped up at the sound with shouts of alarm.
Warm hands landed on Gillie’s shoulder. “What have ye gone and done now, lass?”
“Nothing, Da!” Gillie couldn’t take her eyes from the development. She sensed others of her family and clan joining them on the embankment, but no one entered the clearing. “I swear! I didn’t touch anything this time!”
The center light widened, the colors melding into a view of another forest. As the image cleared and widened, Gillie realized what they observed. The trees on the other side were smaller in stature, meager and sparse. Small wonder considering the stench wafting across from wherever that was. Whoever lived there obviously didn’t know how to properly care for their woods. But that wasn’t the opposite side of the clearing… The memory of a tale coalesced in her mind, one told on cold winter evenings in the barrow.
Long before her birth, the Great War with Humans had resulted in the Gates between the worlds being closed for all eternity. She recalled rousing tales of battle and the sacrifice of the Elf King who’d been trapped on the other side.
“That’s a portal. A Gate!” Her heart soared in excitement at the possibilities. Forever certainly hadn’t lasted long!
Her father’s fingers dug into her shoulders and pulled her back from her unconscious step forward. “Oh, no, ye don’t!”
“But, Da…!”
Ignoring his youngest’s enthusiasm, he turned to the others. “Quick, run and tell Queen Joan! We must protect ourselves!”
A couple of the pixies hared away on their mission.
Gillie stared at the gate as her father pulled her away. “I think we need to go through. Those trees are in need of serious work.”
His chuckle was grim, but he kept her moving until they were clear of the embankment and back in the water. “While that’s a nice argument, you’ll not be crossing that barrier yet, youngster.”
Yet. Gillie smiled past her immediate disappointment. “Yet” implied there’d be a chance in the future. She could wait. Some thought her capricious nature meant she never deeply thought over her choices. Little did they know that she had patience to spare when the reward was great enough.
She allowed herself to be guided away. For now she’d wait.
The Middle East
Had Talia known that so much of Army deployment equated to the ‘hurry up and wait’ school of thought, she might not have been so quick to swear her constitutional oath. Would it have been better to suffer boredom behind the counter of a McDonald’s than out here in a foreign desert? Amused with the thought, she adjusted her binoculars. Better to suffer boredom with cool military equipment and exotic travel. At least she didn’t have to stare at a cash register for forty-plus numbing hours every week.
“Still nothing, Sarge.”
She glanced at her corporal, a grin quirking one side of her mouth. Though only a couple of years younger, his baby face gave the impression that he’d barely graduated high school. “No shit?”
Henderson snorted with a faint shake of his head. “I know, I know. But I thought there’d be at least a little action around here.”
Here consisted of a mock training village in Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. Talia and the Second squad from First Platoon had taken an overwatch position on the western edge of the village, scattered along a rocky berm. “No action is good action, Corporal.” She ignored his grunt of dissatisfaction and returned her attention to the village.
Today’s training objective was for Third squad to locate a terrorist cell in the village with Fourth squad as support. First and Second squads had been relegated to guard duty as a reward for successfully completing the same training objective the day before. The ‘terrorists’ were from Second Platoon. Talia had a bet with Staff Sergeant Roberts that her platoon would wipe his off the board. Roberts would owe her dinner at Chili’s if successful.
She debated whether or not baking in the hot sun was truly a reward as she squinted at the sun hovering high in the east. Though almost ten in the morning, it blazed and boiled, raising the temperature into the mid-nineties. At least yesterday they’d been distracted from the overbearing heat. Next week was forecasted into the triple digits.
A McDonald’s career looked better and better.
At least none of the ‘terrorists’ had attempted escape at dawn when her squad’s visibility was low. Still, even knowing of the cat and mouse game below, the silence held a note of dread. “I didn’t think it would take them so long to find Jack’s platoon. Weren’t we finished by this time yesterday?”
“Yup.” Henderson shifted his prone position, tossing a pebble aside. “That’s because we’re the best.”
“Wow. Arrogant much?” Talia chuckled. A light in the center of the village distracted her from the conversation.
Henderson smirked. “Nope. Just honest.”
The earbud crackled. “Red One, Red Six. You seeing this? I’m seeing some weird activity.”
Both Talia and Henderson focused their attention on the village. The village jumped into close focus, seeming to shimmer in the heat rising from the sand. The light she’d seen brightened, a bolt of steady white. What would cause that? As she watched, it widened and shot upward.
“What the hell?” Henderson shifted again, pressing forward against the embankment he used for cover as if a fraction of an inch improved his view. “Did Roberts plant ground lights last night?”
A black streak bisected the sheet of light, fast and sharp as it stabbed the heavens. The brightness was impossible to look at directly. Instead, Talia scanned as close as possible, watering eyes picking up shadows of third and forth squads running for cover.
She cued her mic. “Red Team, Red One going to channel six. Hang tight here.” When she switched to the main comm channel of the exercise, she heard shouts of dismay and rapid-fire chatter in the confusion.
“What is it?”
“Blue Team, fall back!”
“Where’s Green Three? Where’s Green Three?”
“I can’t see anything!”
“Fall back!”
The blackness had widened and an ominous red-gold line grew in its center. Talia followed it up and up into the sky as the burnished red widened. The whole thing looked like a door, an impossibly large and tall door that reached into the azure sky. The upper edge seemed to fade in the distance without stopping.
Radio chatter was going crazy now.
“Do you see that? What the hell is that?”
“Blue Five, maintain radio etiquette.”
“Holy…!
“Bogies! I’ve got bogies!”
“Multiple targets! I repeat, multiple targets!”
Talia’s gaze shot back to ground level. Heat mirages interfered with her vision. The reddish gold center seemed to swirl with flame and smoke. Did Jack’s team light a fire as distraction? Talk about changing things up.
“Second Platoon, lock and load! This is not a drill!”
Blinking at the sound of Captain Barrett’s order, Talia switched back to her channel. “Red Team, Red One. Lock and load. Live ammo, semi-auto. This is not a drill! Switch to Channel Six!”
She waited for acknowledgement from her squad as they transferred to the primary channel. The dusty air echoed with the metallic click of magazines slamming into place and weapons priming. Other than the chaos on the radio, the air stilled as her team drilled down on whatever the hell was happening below.
Her vision was still obscured by heat. Fire. There was definitely fire down there, a wall of it that stretched higher than the buildings. She searched the sky for the thick black smoke of a live burn, but saw no evidence. Did that mean the fire she saw was…inside the door? Portal?
In answer, a giant ball of flame burst forth from inside, the roar of it loud even here on the outskirts. The fireball impacted a building, exploding. The action was met with gunfire as screams and shouts filled the radio.
Talia didn’t need the comms to hear the agonized shrieks of soldiers dying.
“Shit!” Henderson said. “What the fuck?” His boyish complexion had faded to better reveal the freckles on his cheeks.
Rather than yell over the radio and not be understood in the chaos, Talia called aloud, “Red Team! Prepare to engage!”
Captain Barrett growled over the radio, “All military forces, fire at will!”
“You heard him, Red Team!” Talia dropped the binoculars beside her and aimed her weapon. “Fire at will! Let’s get these motherfuckers!”
She expected troops with flamethrowers to exit from the maelstrom as gunfire poured into it. Instead unarmed men emerged from the shimmering reddish gold, bare chested, flowing cloth belted about their waists and wearing headdresses. The firefight stuttered as soldiers regarded this strange vision. They looked like ancient Arabians from a story. Smoke and flames flickered around them, as if they were made of the flame they held in their hands.
One literally threw a fireball into a building, and Talia heard the screams over the radio. “Fire! Fire! Fire!” She took her own advice and opened fire on the strange men pouring from the doorway.
Though bullets seemed to impact their targets, the strange men shrugged off their wounds, ignoring what would kill others. Wisps of smoke and flame licked at their skin, seeming to caress and heal their injuries as they laid waste to her platoon.
The gunfire from her team deafened Talia She proceeded to unload her clip into one attacker. He paid her little attention to the physical damage as he continued his assault on those soldiers still fighting in the village.
She dropped her spent magazine and slammed the next into place. By the time her weapon was primed, more of the men had stepped through the huge portal. There had to be at least three dozen, with the newest arrivals scanning farther afield for targets.
Talia picked one opponent as he emerged from the portal and squeezed the trigger. He snarled and searched for his attacker, rubbing at his chest as if he’d been stung. She continued to pump rounds into him, trying to overcome whatever protections he carried.
“Red One! Red Five! We’ve been spotted!”
Beside her, Henderson muttered, “Fuck.”
She stared at her opponent through her sights.
He glared directly at her, mouth open in a roar she could almost hear over the cacophony of battle. And then he flew toward her.
Talia’s last memory was the face of a handsome man made of smoke and fire filling her vision, teeth sharp and glittering. Excruciating pain spiked through her head. She had the vague sensation of being shaken like a rag doll before sleeping into peaceful unconsciousness.