Between (13 page)

Her first impression was of dust. Inches of it, softly blanketing everything in sight. She sneezed, once, twice, thrice. A fly buzzed on the sill of a window so dirty nothing was visible through it and only a dim and dreary light was able to filter through. Inside the small room stood one small, round table. On it, an envelope, furred, like all things else, with the dust of years.

An odd dream for her grandfather to leave her, she thought at first. With all that was at stake, surely he could have given her more than a dusty and nearly empty room. She stepped across the threshold, careful to leave the door wide open. Her feet sank into the dust, sending it swirling around her. When her hand groped for the pendant, it was gone, but she had expected this. Six steps brought her to the table. She picked up the envelope and brushed it off. Her name, Vivian Maylor, was written on the front in George’s spiky black hand. It was sealed, and too heavy to hold only paper. She tore it open and a crystal sphere fell into her hand, chiming against the one she already held.

The note said only:
Beyond the living rainbow the dragons guard Forever.

A flare of anger at the old man ignited inside her. Riddles. Secrets. All of the courage it had taken for her to come this far, and this was what she had to show for it. No way forward, no way back, just a dusty dream and a meaningless message.

And another globe. Maybe this dreamsphere would take her home, or at least away somewhere safe. She looked into it and snorted in disbelief at what she saw.

A penguin. Of what use, in any world, could a penguin possibly be to her? Maybe Jehenna was right and the old man was insane.

Or maybe this was a trap.

The thought came to her unwanted. What if everything was an elaborate setup by the woman who had come to her apartment, claiming to be a friend, claiming so many things? Vivian realized that she hadn’t even verified her grandfather’s death.

As if on cue, she felt a low rumble, heard a heavy dragging sound in the distance. The fine hair on the back of her neck quivered and lifted, her flesh puckered into goose bumps. Whatever made that sound would have to be big. Clumsy, maybe, unless it had wings and could take to the air.

Dragon.

If the dragons were coming, she must not be trapped in this room with no way out. At least in the hallway she could run. She sprinted for the door, stirring up a cloud of dust that clogged her nostrils, coated her throat, made it difficult to breathe. The sound continued, echoing from down the hallway, still out of sight, approaching at a speed that was indecent for something that sounded so big and heavy.

A new cadence had been added to it, a rhythm she didn’t recognize: faster, a counterpoint in two.
Slap slap, slap slap.
Vivian had no idea what it meant and had no desire to wait around and find out.

She pushed for speed, racing down the hallway, knowing that whatever was behind her would be faster, that there was
nowhere to run, nowhere to go. Blindly, legs pumping, feet sliding a little on the marble floor, she fled the unseen menace.

A glance back over her shoulder to look for her pursuer stopped her legs in their frantic churning, momentum throwing her sideways so that she had to stumble a few steps to catch her balance.

Webbed feet awkward and slapping on the tile, wings spread for balance, beak stretched forward, agape, as though drinking in oxygen, came a small black-and-white creature. It slowed as it approached her, changed its trajectory, and came to a halt no more than a foot in front of her.

A penguin. Three-dimensional and in the flesh, the reality of a tiny image suspended in the center of a crystal globe clutched in her fist. The bird fixed her with an unblinking gaze out of black obsidian eyes, then gave a sad little squawk and pressed itself against her legs, trembling.

In the distance, the dragging sound came again, and with it a cry that chilled her blood.

Vivian tried to take a step forward, but the penguin moved with her, one flipper hugging her leg.

Another cry rent the air, and with it a clear sound of claws scrabbling and scratching on marble, the dragging scrape of a heavy body. Far away in the distance but growing ever closer, she saw an ungainly body, sinuous and lizardlike, an angular head on the end of a serpentine neck.

Beside her the penguin panted, beak open, trembling.

Damn it.

Vivian bent and grasped the feathery body around the middle, hoisting the penguin into her arms. It was an awkward shape to carry, heavier than expected. Feet and beak scratched against her bare skin.

Down the corridor came the dragon, faster now, wings unfurled. There wasn’t space for them to fully extend and allow the creature to fly, but they seemed to provide balance, the ability to move with greater ease.

Vivian ran. Stumbled. The dragon was gaining.

I am the Dreamshifter,
she reminded herself.
I need a
door.
Staggering with fear and exhaustion and the weight of the penguin, she approached the nearest door, put her hand on the knob.

It was locked.

“Open,” she murmured, “please open.”

Flame burst from the dragon’s open mouth, rushed down the hallway in a fireball that was going to incinerate her. She was going to die in the Between, naked, carrying a penguin.

“Open!” she said, a command now, a necessity.

A small click. The knob turned, and Vivian dove through the door and slammed and bolted it behind her.

Z
ee twisted sideways on the seat to stretch his cramped legs and ease the kink in his back. Nearly midnight, which meant he’d been sitting here in the cab of his pickup for going on eight hours, watching the apartment building across the street, number twenty-seven in particular.

An hour ago the bedroom light had gone out. No movement, no lights, anywhere in the apartment or the street, which left him nothing to do but think. He would have given a great deal to avoid this. His thoughts were conflicted and clashing, all sharp angles and opposing beliefs, and he could find no way to reconcile them.

George’s only message to him had been bizarre and meaningless:
Seek Excalibur.

After ten years of patient waiting, this was the sole explanation he was to receive—a cryptic reference to a mythical sword. And with that, any hope he’d ever had of a relationship with his dream girl blown out the window by that scandalous book cover. Zee could only imagine what she was thinking, to have had a stranger paint her so.

He found himself considering the possibility that Jehenna’s accusation was true, that George Maylor had used him all these years as part of a dark and malevolent scheme. Whatever words had been written in that note had driven
the blood from Vivian’s face, made the gray eyes wide with dread. Zee had wanted to take it from her shaking hands and read it for himself, had hoped she might be moved to trust him enough to confide. Maybe he would have done better to read it himself and see what it contained before deciding to put it in her hands. But he had promised the old man. Promises meant something; breaking faith was not a thing to be lightly done.

And it was still possible that the old man had been acting in good faith. Jehenna was a dangerous woman who would lie as casually as she pushed back that dazzling cloud of hair. Zee had absolutely no doubts about that.

All of the years of discipline and peace had not turned him into a virtuous man. The sight of blood welling along the edge of a hungry blade had waked a hunger he had only suppressed. If he joined Jehenna in the offer she made him, she would give him this in abundance. An adventure, an adrenaline rush, as long as he served her purposes and her needs; no illusions on this point—if he joined her, eventually she would kill him.

He thought he understood her, and George as well. What was unclear was how Vivian played in this twisted game of power the two of them had manufactured between them. Both of them wanted something from her, each claiming that the other was dangerous and of evil intent. He didn’t know which of them he should trust.

The solution, when it came to him, was simple.

It didn’t matter. Whether Jehenna spoke truth, or George, the outcome remained the same. Zee owed no loyalty to either of them. He had made Jehenna no promises, and his commitment to George was over. He had delivered the message and the book, done what he had said he would do. Fuck both of them. Vivian was in trouble and must be protected.

Acting on instinct, he had followed her earlier when she walked out of the store, had walked her safely home and watched her go into her apartment. She’d made it easy for him, walking fast, head down, hands stuffed into her
pockets, not paying attention to her surroundings. Which was also a confirmation of his fears: She was no match for a creature like Jehenna.

He hadn’t wanted to leave her unguarded for a minute, but loitering for hours on the street corner in a town like this was not really an option. People would notice. Some busybody would call the cops. And so he had retraced his steps back to the store and prepared for a lengthy sur-veillance.

The knives were already in their holsters, the M1911 at his hip, extra ammo in his coat pocket. A thermos of coffee, a couple of sandwiches, and he was set. Walking out the back door, locking it carefully, he felt a tug of regret for the life he had lived here, a presentiment that he would not be back. He loved the profusion of books, had painted his soul into the pictures upstairs. Still, he strode out to his decrepit old Ford without a backward look.

He’d been watching ever since. People had come and gone, in and out of the other apartments. A dog had chased a cat up a tree and set up vigil beneath, until a child came and coaxed it away.

Nothing remotely out of the ordinary. Nothing to fear. In the last hour, nothing had moved. Not so much as a random car driving by. All of the lights were out. It was cold. It was tempting to run the truck for a while, create some heat, listen to the radio, but the street was too quiet for that; he couldn’t risk drawing attention.

He could find no reason for the unease that intensified as the clock ticked closer to midnight. Reason or not, he felt his body changing, the adrenaline surge creating a heat that drove off the chill, a new wakefulness sharpening his vision.

Not that there was anything to see.

Another hour he watched, two. His windows fogged with his breath, and he rolled down the passenger side so he could see.

At last he could bear it no longer. Knowing he was most likely jeopardizing the last tiny shred of hope that she would
ever willingly speak to him again, he got out of the truck, careful not to slam the door, and crossed the street to her apartment.

His foot kicked a loose stone, and it skittered off across the pavement. Then he was on grass, crisp with frost, crunching under his feet. He paused on her porch, all senses on high alert. The fist-sized dent in the battered green door looked old. There were no other signs of violence or trouble.

He knocked, a thundering intrusion into silence, and waited for what seemed an eternity, but there was no answer. No sound of television or music. No footsteps. She’d been tired, he told himself. She must be sleeping.

Again he knocked, louder this time. Only a vast and enduring silence in response.

Walk away,
he told himself.
There is no evidence here of anything out of line.

He’d never been good at caution. It was an easy lock. Old skills came back to him, and with the aid of his credit card he had the door open as quickly as if he’d had a key, and he stood staring at another thing that was simply not possible.

No one had gone in or come out in the time he’d been watching. And there had been enough daylight left for him to see Vivian moving about her apartment.

And yet he stood looking at a scene of disaster. In the kitchen, drawers lay smashed and splintered on the floor amid their contents. The refrigerator door hung open. A broken plastic jug lay in a pool of milk. Flattened yogurt containers. Sandwich meat, bread. Fragments of dishes shattered on top of the mess. In the living area, couch cushions littered the floor, slashed, stuffing extruding from gaping holes. Books lay bent and broken, spines split, covers twisted.

Zee drew his handgun, jacked a round into the chamber, and pulled the door closed behind him. He crossed the room, avoiding stepping on books, picking his way through the rubble.

The bedroom was empty, bedding dumped on the floor,
the mattress slashed open. Dresser drawers were staggered across the floor, clothing draped over them in clumps. The bathroom, also empty, more drawers pulled over and smashed on the floor with their contents.

Vivian was nowhere to be seen.

The one thing left intact in the apartment was her computer, and he wondered at this, but it made a kind of sense. The destruction was excessive but indicated a search. Somebody had been looking for something.

And he had recently met somebody who was looking for something directly connected to Vivian. If anybody could get in without being seen, Jehenna was the one who could do it.
Not human,
he thought with a shiver. Who knew what she was capable of? And a not-human might not even know what a computer was, might not know that it could hold valuable information.