Paranormal Realities Box Set (18 page)

Was he a good boyfriend or what?
Well, except for that almost shooting me
thing.

“Wait a few seconds and do it again,” I
instructed.

After about thirty seconds I signaled Rom
to stop. “Listen to his heart.”

After spitting, Rom wiped his mouth and
put his head to the chest. I paused.

“Faint but a beat nonetheless.” Rom
lifted his head.

Scrambling to my feet, I grabbed one ogre
leg and Rom the other. We commenced dragging the thing. It felt like I was
pulling three hundred pounds myself. When we got closer to the vortex
whirlpool, we pushed at the ogre’s body. Praying his heart still beat, we
pushed until finally the ogre reached the edge of the whirling area. The floor
gave way under the body, sweeping the monster in and down as if he were water
going down a drain.

As the ogre sank, a body bubbled up,
surfacing. Franky’s body. Franky’s limp body.

At 3:15 a.m. there was no one around to see
us as we entered the park with Rom carrying Franky. Rom laid our friend on the
first park bench we reached.

“He looks like he’s sleeping.” Petra
sniffed.

“No, like a balloon version of Franky,”
Chase said. “Except with no air.”

“He looks dead,” I burst out harshly.
“Because he's dead. Franky's dead.”

A sob broke from Petra and more followed
until they came in great gulping succession. I, on the other hand felt cold,
numb, removed. I couldn’t cry. I could only relive the past half-hour when no
amount of attempts to revive him had succeeded in bringing Franky back.
Eventually, Rom had dragged me away from him.

“Let us depart,” Rom said.

“We can’t just leave him here,” Senji
moaned.

“He will be discovered.” Rom placed a
hand on Senji's arm.

"I'll alert the police from the call
box at the end of the park so he doesn't stay here long," Senji suggested.

“Then Franky may be returned to his
family," Rom said.

“A lot of good that will do,” I muttered.
“He’ll still be dead.”

Petra’s sobbing rose in volume.

"Do you think I want to leave him
here?" I screamed to drown out Petra. "But if we don't, what would we
tell the police? Franky's been in another dimension, and this vampire was
holding him hostage, and…They'd put us in an asylum."

"The police may arrive momentarily."
Rom embraced me from behind. "Even without Senji's call."

I shook off his attempt at comfort.

“Come on,” Chase said. “Rom’s right. The
police could show up at any time.”

Zen had already thought about that. He’d
taken off back in the tunnel. The big bad special ops guy ran away. What was
with that? All he'd said was for us to reconnoiter tomorrow at o-nine-hundred.
I personally wanted to reconnoiter all over his head...or the ghoul’s head, or
Rom’s head, or Billy’s head…I just basically wanted to bash someone or
something.

Franky. Oh God.

Crossing the sidewalk to a nearby
trashcan, I put my hands on either side of the opening and kicked it as hard as
I could. The pain shooting through my foot from the impact with the metal was a
relief.

Between sobs, Petra kissed Franky’s
forehead. She walked away with Chase’s arm around her shoulder.

“Bye, man” Senji touched Franky’s arm.
After nodding to me, he also walked off.

Rom came up behind me and placed a hand
on my shoulder. I shifted to face him.

“Do you also wish to perform some
ritual?” Rom led me back to the bench.

“No,” I said. “He isn’t here anymore. He
won’t see it.”

“The doing of it may help you.”

Shaking my head, I turned and ran from
the bench. I didn’t stop running until I was out of the park. Rom kept pace
with me and when I slowed to a walk so did he. For a few moments we moved
silently together.

My iPhone rang, startling me. After
amazement that the thing was still in my pocket and in working order, I pulled it
out and examined its face. I recognized the number: Billy.

“This is your fault,” Billy said after
I’d answered.

“Did you call just to tell me that?”

“I called to tell you you’re on your own.
I’m gonna get Juliette back my own way.”

“Fantastic. You do that,” I said with a
full dose of sarcasm in my voice, but he’d already hung up.

Rom’s expression told me he wondered
about the conversation.

“Billy,” I told him. “He's just spewing
nonsense.”

“I will come for you on the morrow.” Rom
spoke as we reached my house.

Nodding, I proceeded to scramble up the
tree before entering through my bedroom window. As I pulled the sash down to
close it, Rom walked away.

At the click of the switch of the bedside
table lamp, light flooded the room. I jumped and whirled at the same time.

“Have a good time tonight, Kizzy?” Mom
asked. The sarcasm in her question was sharp enough to cut glass.

* * * * *

Of course I didn’t tell my mother any of
what had actually transpired that night, but I did tell her a version of the
truth: that my friends and I had been trying to find Juliette and Franky. But I
said we didn’t have any success—What an understatement.

Mom of course noticed how grungy I was.
The stuff stuck in my hair? I didn’t even want to know.

“We were on foot and I fell,” I explained.

Mom’s eyes scanned the extent of the
damage including the cut on my hand.

“I fell more than once.”

“But why go back out?” Mom asked. “Do you
know how frantic I was when I saw you weren’t here?”

“I’m sorry.” And I was. Sorry about
everything. I couldn’t even think about all I was sorry for or I'd lie down on
my bed and never get up again. “I couldn’t sleep. It seemed more important to
get Juliette and Franky back.”

“Oh, honey.” Mom took my hand, pulled me
down to sit beside her on the bed, and put an arm around my shoulder. “You
shouldn’t feel responsible for fixing everything for everybody.”

“That’s not how I feel.” Mom had no idea
how truly responsible I actually was.

“I know you care deeply about your family
and friends.” Mom gave my shoulder a little shake. “And while I definitely
would like to see the end of that bitch-who-doesn’t-care-about-anyone act
you’ve been performing the last few months, that doesn’t mean I want you to get
hurt trying to make up for what happened to Adam either.”

Stiffening, I swallowed hard.

“Nothing can make up for Adam.”

Mom wrapped me in a tight hug and I could
tell by the way she held her body so rigidly that she was trying hard not to
sob. When she pulled back, Mom's eyes and nose were red, but no tears had
escaped.

“Okay,” she said. “Promise me you won’t
pull any more dangerous stunts like staying out until 3 a.m.”

“I promise. No more dangerous
stunts," was what I said out loud. What I meant was: I promise I'll do
anything I have to in order to get Juliette back alive. A stunt was some kind
of lark. This shit was deadly serious.

* * * * *

Fortunately, Mom gave me permission for
an excused absence from school and saved me from having to skip. However, I was
supposed to stay in the house, without guests, while she was at work and until
the court hearing this afternoon. So, naturally, I was out the door within ten
minutes after Mom left the house at 7:45 a.m. Rom waited in his parked car at
the curb.

“Did you sleep here?” I asked, bending to
gaze in at him through the driver’s side window of his Mustang.

“I had not trusted you would await me
this morn.” Rom’s eyes were a bit bleary and red. He yawned and a smile quirked
up one side of his lips.

How right he was. But I didn’t exactly
trust him either. Jump his bones. Heck yeah. Trust. No. As I thought about the
events of last night, it became obvious Rom hadn’t necessarily refrained from
killing me because he cared. He had lowered his gun when logic convinced him
opening the vortex was the best way to protect his world. But could I blame
him? I wanted to protect mine too.

My feelings were a jumble of conflict.

“I also had fear the ghoul would make an
attempt to capture you.”

Awww, how sweet. My bodyguard.

“There’s somebody I want to talk to.”
Rounding the front of his car, I opened the passenger door and hopped in.
“Let’s go to Zen’s house."

“You wish discourse with Zen?”

“Not exactly.”

We drove for a few minutes in silence
until Rom spoke.

“Do you wish discourse with me of any
matter?”

“A lot happened last night.” Like us making
out. Like you almost killing me. Like Franky dying. “Are you asking if I want
to talk about that?”

“Accord.”

“No.”

We were silent for a few more minutes
with me making a point of keeping my attention focused out the passenger
window.

“I do have a question,” I said, finally
glancing at him. “If you’re from another dimension how did you afford this neat
car, and school tuition, and all that?”

“We have seen through the oracle that
your world values gold as we do,” Rom wheeled his car around a corner. “My
father has much. Gold coins were provided to me for the journey. These will
purchase anything in your world.”

My cell phone pinged with a message from
Petra:
U@?

My thumbs flew over the touch keyboard
typing a return text:
W/Rom.
Meet@Z’s
.

“Okay, Mr. inter-dimensional traveler,” I
said as we pulled into Zen’s driveway. “How should we go about finding the
ghoul and getting Juliette back?”

“I know not.” He threw the car into park.
“Whether any good may come of opening the portal to Dorcha again is uncertain.”

“I’m not leaving Juliette there.”

“Truth.” His sad smile pulled at my
heart.

Was he agreeing with me or just
acknowledging he couldn’t change my mind?

* * * * *

“Pawn to queen’s knight four.” Prince
Leopold's elegant, pale hand picked up the piece and placed it down again two
spaces forward on the chessboard in front of him.

After surveying the board, I decided on
my move. “King’s knight to king two,” I said and the prince moved my piece to
the square I’d designated.

What I wouldn’t have given for a day at
Double Dick High. But instead of a lovely, boring day at school, I was sitting
here playing chess with a vampire through a psychomanteum.

The saddest thing about it was that the
prince had been almost childishly jubilant when I'd suggested the game. I'd
thought it would be easier to talk and find out information in a more casual
circumstance. Casual? What a laugh. Anyway, so far it'd been pretty much all
play and no talk. At least I was holding my own. But then I didn’t want to win
this game anyway. How good a loser was a vampire likely to be?

“So,” I said. “In Dorcha are all
paranormal beings like you out of the closet so to speak?”

Prince Leopold glanced up. He had
repositioned the mirror to a chair opposite him at the table, which gave our
game an intimacy I struggled not to feel uncomfortable with.

“Out of the closet?” He asked.

From this vantage point I had a close up
view of his unnaturally pale handsomeness. And he could certainly be charming
when he chose to be.

“The paranormal beings are out in the
open. No hiding from the humans,” I clarified.

“Paranormal? No, we are the normal now,”
the prince replied. “There are very few free-range humans left here and those
who still exist are in hiding.” He smiled. “Queen’s knight to queen two.”

“Is that why you want me there?” I asked.
“So I can open the door to other dimensions and give you a food supply?”

“Yes,” admitted the prince. “A few more
years without an influx of stock will render us extinct, wiped out by
starvation. As their monarch, it is my duty to save my subjects.” The prince
met my eyes again through the mirror, with an almost pleading expression. “Am I
so very different from you, Kizzy?” he asked. “You do all you can to save your
sister and your friends. I merely do all I can to save my people. I wish to
prevent them from perishing in unspeakable agony. How can that be wrong?”

Was it wrong? Maybe not for him, but
certainly for me. Apparently, even the morality of monsters feasting on human
flesh and using their bones as toothpicks was relative.

“What is your next move?” he asked.

“Huh?” I awoke from my own thoughts.

He nodded toward the board.