Chapter 7

All hell broke loose. Between the buzzing in my head, the people screaming, and my people shrieking my name, I wasn’t sure where to concentrate my focus. Did I really just get thrown through a window? Like I was in some old-timey western movie? Kicked out of the saloon for cheatin’ on cards or some shit?

“Jette girl, get up. We must move!” Bishop darted through the people trying to avoid us on the street. Visors forgotten about, they stared at us in terror, like we’d just appeared from thin air. I guess it wasn’t every day they saw someone come busting through a window. Not in real time anyway. So much for being inconspicuous.

Bish reached me as I sat up. Grabbing my arm, he yanked me to my feet, ignoring my howl of pain. I swayed, the street moving underneath said feet totally throwing off my balance.

“She’s bleeding, Bishop.” Zoe was staring at me in concern, but I was too confused to panic.

“Just a little. She will be fine.”

Just a little?

Glad to see Bish was so worried about me.

I looked at Zoe, stupefied. “I just busted through a window.”

“Yeah, I saw that.” She threw my arm over her shoulder, helping Bish carry my weight.

“And the asshole that did it is going to do far worse if he catches up to us. So, you, earth elemental, if you don’t want to be the next one flying through glass, you’ll get us out of here now.”

Sash stared back at her looking as stupefied as I felt.

“My attack won’t keep him down for long, Sash. We need a safe place.” Kara shook the big guy’s arm, jarring him from his trance.

“Was that… what the hell just happened in there?” Sash looked gob smacked. I got that. Seeing magic up close and personal had that effect when you didn’t believe.

“Sash,” she warned again. “We need to hide from him.”

“Right, yeah.” He ran a hand over his short-cropped hair. “Um, this way. I know the exact place to get lost in a crowd.”

We followed him through the throng of people, trying to lose ourselves in the masses and stay upright on this damn moving street. Wouldn’t take Starke long to be on our tail.

“I’m fine guys.” I shook off Bish and Zoe, knowing I was slowing us down. Still wasn’t quite sure where I was bleeding from. I didn’t feel any pain, but I’m guessing that was due to the adrenaline shooting through my body. We needed to hide and fast. I’d worry about the injury later.

“Kara,” I called after the tiny sprite. “The deflection spell we used in the forest to stay hidden from Asha. What was it again? It won’t take Starke long to break through it, but it may afford us enough time to hide.”

“Already on it.” She threw back as the whispered foliagh cocooned us in its protective embrace.

Sash finally got us off the moving street and onto the solid sidewalk. As we slunk along the surface of one of the round pods toward another back alley, I glanced over my shoulder. Starke was outside the restaurant standing in the middle of the broken glass. Kara was right. It didn’t take him long to recoup at all. His head was on a swivel, searching the crawling mass of people, trying to find us. I couldn’t see it from here, but I knew those malevolent wisps of magic were radiating from him, trying to track where we’d gone. Come on foliagh spell, don’t let us down.

We kept moving, running like the hounds of hell were on our heels, through the alleyways and back streets, losing all track of time. Not sure how long we ran. Could have been ten or fifty minutes, but Sash made one more right turn, making the rest of us pull up short. Even with knowing there was an angry Fae on our asses, all of us new to this world couldn’t help but stop in wonder. Whereas the cityscape we had just escaped from was the quintessential modern jungle of innovation that gave scientists boners, this street? This was like stepping back in time. The moving asphalt and concrete walkways were superseded by medieval cobblestone. The harsh, glass structures were replaced with tall buildings that glowed in a myriad of colors, mixed with warm creams and golds. All topped with antique copper roofs and Gothic steeples guarded by an army of gargoyles.

“What the hell just happened?” I whispered, awed by the beauty of it all. “Did we just go through a time warp?”

“What? No. Don’t be so crazy. This is Victorian Gardens. The party area. Underneath this street is a massive, subterranean underworld. We could get lost for days down there, and that weirdo would never find us.”

I knew he meant Starke, but to hear him called weirdo annoyed me to no end. I bit back the anger. Not the time to defend Starke’s merits since even I wasn’t a fan right now.

“Great in theory, but will our magic work underground?” Zoe asked.

I blinked at her. “Good question. Bish?”

“No idea, but we don’t need to find out. Starke is nowhere to be seen. It’s obvious we open the portal now and jump.”

Really though. I can’t believe that even had to be said out loud. Good thing one of us was thinking straight.

“Right. Okay, get ready. I’ll open the portal. We will have to hurry. We can’t have Starke hijacking and following us through on this jump.”

I pulled my sai, ready to do just that, but Sash interrupted.

“Wait one damn minute. What do you mean by jump? Jumping where?”

I rolled my eyes. “Dude, we already went over this. We don’t have time to argue anymore, but you have to come with us. We can’t do this without you.”

“And I already told you I’m not going anywhere. You people are trouble with a capitol T.” He began backing away, and I knew what he was about to do. Panic invaded my chest.

“Don’t you dare run,” I shouted at him. “You either come with us or face Starke alone. Your decision.”

“Yeah, the way I see it? That weirdo is after you guys, not me. Good luck and all that, but I want nothing to do with this bizarre scenario. Sayonara, freaks.” He waved his fingers at us in a flippant gesture, turned his back, and ran before any of us could stop him.

“Wait,” Jill screamed just as I raised my sai. Kara beat me to it. Her magic zipped across the cobblestones aimed at Sash’s back. Not sure what she tried to do. We didn’t find out since Sash zigzagged, careening around a lamp pole, taking a sharp left and changing his trajectory. Kara’s magic collided with the pole, and we watched it fall over in slow motion, smashing into the ground with a horrendous crash.

“Dammit,” I growled as Sash, unaffected by the magic, leaped down what looked to be a set of subway stairs situated in the middle of the street and disappeared from view. Great. What had he said this place lead to? A massive underground that you could get lost in for days.

“Go after him,” I yelled to the others as I jumped into motion. “We can’t lose him down there. Or worse, have Starke find him before we do.”

“What an idiot,” Zoe snarled as she shot past me. “We need to find him fast just so I can kick that dumb ass of his.”

“Yeah, well, I have first dibs on that.”

# ##

The stairs lead to a dark alley that looked like it had no other purpose than gathering trash. We walked over mounds of it, so at contrast to the beauty above us. Stepping around an overflowing dumpster, I kicked an empty wine bottle out of the way. It echoed down the stone, bouncing off the rotten brick wall that lined the alley. The darkness was interspersed with doors that all looked alike. Buzzing, neon lights above the doors highlighted the rusting signs hanging on each one but gave no indication as to what lay beyond. They were just symbols. Symbols that meant nothing to me.

“Any idea which door he used, Jill?”

My voice carried loudly on the thick air. She had been the one to pick up on his aura when we first arrived, so I truly hoped her luck would hold out since I sensed sweet dick all other than the nasty smell of urine wafting from the alley.

We waited in silence as her brow wrinkled in concentration. Finally, she nodded and opened her eyes.

“That one.” She pointed to a rusted door with a fairly new painted sign which simply said, ‘The Underground’. Obviously, a lot of thought went into the naming of this place.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, his aura is strongest there.”

“Okay. Here goes nothing.” I pushed open the door and entered, the others following me inside.

It was another passageway, narrower than the one we had just come through, but the deep, pulsating thrum humming through our bones foreshadowed what we were about to find.

Music thrummed around me, shaking inside my chest and against my eardrums as we crossed the threshold to the large balcony on the top level of… wherever we were. The balcony stretched all the way around the massive room, filled with bodies of all shapes and sizes. More people scuttled around the massive room beneath us, a DJ booth set up in the middle of the room and lit up like a giant Christmas tree.

Bodies squirmed and pulsed in time to the rhythm, hips twisting and arms flailing. At first, I thought they were all wearing some kind of weird white hats or hoods before realizing they were wigs. Massive amounts of synthetic hair decorated with an array of ribbons and baubles. Some of the women were dressed in what looked like old Victorian lingerie. Like seriously, they were dressed in white frilly bloomers or petticoats, whatever they were called. But they were the modest ones since most were barely dressed at all, especially the men in the crowd. Bare flesh flashed white and brown in the bright lights. I didn’t blame them at all really. It was hot enough in here without the dancing. Throw in gyrating to that fast beat and it must have been intolerable.

“A Victorian nudist rave,” I muttered under my breath. “Now, I’ve seen it all.”

“Which way, Jill?” I yelled at her over the pounding beat. She pointed to the freakshow below, and I sighed in resignation. Of course he was down there.

We moved through the tight press of bodies and down the rickety staircase, me praying the whole way down they wouldn’t collapse under our weight.

Down here, the music pumped even louder, drowning out any iota of conversation. I gave up on asking, but as if Jill knew, she just kept pointing. I had no idea how she was following his aura. My senses were so messed up from the flashing lights and thumping music I could barely think, let alone track the earth elemental. Jill was showing her true talents.

Movement caught the corner of my eye, and I spun in fear, expecting to find Starke on our heels. Instead, I saw Bish being pulled into a circle of scantily dressed ladies with their white bouffants, nipples peeking through the tons of beads hanging about their necks, and very little else. They all had the same glassy-eyed look of wonder as their hands ran over Bishop like he was a gift sent from the gods. I recognized their slack-jawed looks. They were all as high as proverbial kites. I guess not everyone on this world took their pleasure from the virtual reality glasses. Some still preferred their kicks the old-fashioned way.

I pulled my sai threateningly. “Back off, bitches. Get your own sensei. This one’s mine.”

I yanked Bish from their grasp, not sure if they even heard my threat over the music, but the weapon they understood. They released him without a peep, but I swear a look of disappointment flashed across Bish’s face at my intervention. Most likely a trick of the light.

Jill kept moving through the crowd. We followed her, making our way across the floor of writhing dancers and down a maze of halls hidden at the back of the massive room. The volume of the music faded the farther into the labyrinth we ventured. The quiet was nice, even as spooky as the surroundings were.

This hall led us to another big, but much quieter room than earlier. The cavern was just as packed, but not with dancers. In here, cubicles filled with people lined the entire length of the room right to the massive stone wall at the back. Each cubicle was sparsely furnished with just highbacked chairs, their occupants reclined back for comfort. Wires and nodules were attached to their temples, like they were all undergoing some sort of brain scan. As we passed one guy, I watched in fascination as his eyes flickered crazily under the closed lids, like he was having the most wicked dream. What the bloody hell?

Sounds punctuated the silence. The occasional laugh, shouts, and moans of pleasure. My cheeks heated at the cloistered sounds. Even though each of these people were alone in their cubicles, it was obvious they weren’t alone in their heads. It suddenly dawned on me what this place was. It was a virtual fantasy room. These people were living out scenarios provided by the attached nodules and wires. They were all in the cyber worlds of their choosing. A shiver of revulsion washed over me, followed by shame. It seemed wrong to be observing them in their private moments. Then again, if they were crazy enough to do this in public, they deserved the judgement.

“Excuse me.” The voice was calm and serene and seemed to fit this environment perfectly. “Can I help you? If you’re looking for the group simulators, you’re in the wrong area.”

The man who spoke appeared out of nowhere. Dressed in what looked like white hospital scrubs, his pleasant smile did not match the look of suspicion glimmering in his dark eyes.

“We’re looking for someone.” My tone was sharp. And loud. “A big, muscle-bound dude, dark hair, wearing a crazy chicken shirt. Have you seen him?”

“Please, keep your voice down.” The man glanced around at the weirdos in their chairs. “We pride ourselves on never interrupting our clients during a session. We also never give away clientele information.”

Which meant even if Sash was here, Dr. Strange wasn’t about to say so.

“Sash,” I yelled, ignoring the dude’s frantic shushing motions. “Come out. We don’t have time for this bullshit.”

“What is going on here?” Another scrubs-dressed lady appeared from one of the cubicles, followed by a few more. “Philip, is everything okay?”

“Sash,” I yelled again, ignoring the glares of the ‘docs’. “If we don’t go now, he will find you. And if he does, you will be in for a world of pain.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you people,” the voice came from ahead. “Leave me alone.”

“There.” Bish pointed with his chin.

Our surge ahead to find Sash was impeded by the docs, aka staff. They stepped in front of us, arms crossed.

“Leave now, before we call security.”

I sighed. “Look, we don’t want any trouble. We just need that guy, and we’ll leave.”

“They’re lying.” Sash’s big head poked out from one of the cubicles. “Call security. They’re trying to kidnap me.”

“Really?” I threw at the big guy. “That’s how this is going to go down? We’re trying to save you, idiot.”

“You can call it what you want. All I know is you’re trying to force me to do something I don’t want to do.”

“Leave now.” Dr. Strange took a threatening step toward me, and I pulled my sai.

“Look—”

“Uh, Jette?” Zoe interrupted anything I was about to say. Her worried gaze bounced from me to the back wall. A wall that appeared to be glowing from the inside, red and hot like a piece of metal pulled from the blacksmith’s forge.

I saw it the same moment his magic encased me. Starke was on the other side of that wall. And he was angry.

“Jill, open the portal,” I demanded, my voice laced with fear. “We’re out of time.”

She knew better than to hesitate.

“Sash,” I yelled again. “He’s here. Look at that damn wall. You have one minute to choose. Us or him, ‘cause you aren’t getting out of this room any other way.”

I felt the energy of the portal open at my back. Heard the exclamations of amazement from the room’s staff. Seeing this would probably scar them for life, but I paid no attention. I focused on Sash, willing him to see reason.

His head emerged from one of the cubicles just as the back wall exploded in a shower of stone and mortar. Any screams were swallowed up by the morqual’s angry shriek as it smashed through the hole it had just created. Oh great. Just what we needed. Starke had one of his mother’s damn pets with him.

“Sash, come on,” I screamed, not bothering to try and hide my fear. Sash didn’t either. He took one look at the approaching creature and shrieked in terror before scuttling towards us.

“Go!” I yelled at the others. “I got him.”

There was no time for arguing. My people began disappearing through the blue flame.

“Sash, just jump in.” I shoved him toward the flame, me on his heels. I almost cried in relief as he didn’t even hesitate. He vanished through the portal as I leaped.

“There is no escape,” the voice growled in my ear as I was pulled into a vise-like grip.

“No,” I yelled, unable to shake him off me or stop my momentum. It was too late. We both flew headfirst into the flames, him stuck to me like a damn tick.