The Rabbit and the Raven: Book Two in the Solas Beir Trilogy (28 page)

The royal guard passed through the portal in New
castle Beach first, sent to thoroughly search the old estate for rogue Shadows. Satisfied that the Solas Beir would not be ambushed, Phelan and his soldiers crossed back to assure the queen that all was well.

Then, optimistic about the journey ahead, David, Abby, Cael, Jon, and Marisol said their goodbyes to family and friends and passed through the portal. It was just the five of them again, but their experiences in the rainforest proved that they worked well together. And, as far as being able to slip unnoticed into the city of the Eastern Oracle, a small party would have the advantage over an army. A small party fit better in the Browns’ minivan as well. It was a short drive to the Santa Linda airport.

Marisol had been a bit concerned the pilot would object to transporting an heiress who had been missing for weeks, but she need not have worried.

After many years of working for Marcus Cassidy and Esperanza Garcia, Nick Connor knew how to mind his own business.

Nick barely raised an eyebrow when his employers’ daughter showed up with a group of sword-wielding kids and an older guy who looked the worse for wear, dressed in some kind of fancy armor, as if they’d just come from Comic Con.

So Miss Cassidy was sowing some wild oats and wanted to party in Vegas superhero-style. At least they weren’t wearing tights and capes. And even if they had been, Nick had learned not to ask questions.

Mr. Cassidy would probably be steamed the pilot
had flown the girl out of state rather than deny her request and drive her straight home, but Nick wouldn’t lose his job over it.

Cassidy and his ex had been pretty busy jet-setting all through the kid’s growing-up years. The girl hadn’t been abandoned exactly, but quality time had been at a minimum. Anyone who worked for them knew that—it wasn’t a big secret. And it wasn’t a big surprise that the girl was rebelling now.

Maybe she was making up for lost time, trying to get some parental attention she’d missed in her early years. Still, rebel or not, Marisol had turned out all right. She was polite at least—she’d shown him the respect of addressing him as Mr. Connor. She’d even thrown in a please and a thank you. And surprisingly, her friends had behaved themselves on the flight; not the rowdy bunch he’d expected. These were small things, but they meant something to him.

“What are you writing?” Jon had asked as they flew over the California border.

“It’s a letter to my dad,” Marisol answered.

Writing to her father was hard. The rest of her incredible adventure since she had left Newcastle Beach had been a cake walk compared to this.

Funny how easy it had been to let go of her
life in her old world—how she now thought of Caislucis as her home. The lamia might have been lying when she was pretending to be Esperanza Garcia, but still, Marisol was certain her parents were worried about her. They probably
did
think she was dead. For that she felt tremendously guilty.

But up until now, there hadn’t been an opportunity for her to communicate with them. It wasn’t as if she could have gone back to New
castle Beach immediately, not if the Shadow who had chased her was still waiting on the other side of the portal. Now, after the passing of so many weeks, and with signs that Tierney and his foul band of nightmare goblins were back in Cai Terenmare, it seemed safe to cross over, and she could finally let her parents know she was alive and well.

In the end, Marisol decided to keep her letter simple. She told her father that she was sorry for worrying him, and that she loved him and her mother, even if she couldn’t say where she had been, where she was, or where she was going. She told him that she hoped to return home when she could.

As Marisol left the plane, she handed the letter to the pilot. “Thank you, Mr. Connor. Could you please give this to my father?”

Nick
Conner nodded, and Marisol felt a weight lift from her shoulders. She knew he would make sure her dad got the letter.

Chapter Ten

ANTIQUITY

“
Y
ou can’t bring those in here.” The burly security guard blocked Cael’s entrance to the Antiquity casino. “Weapons are strictly prohibited.” He pointed to the large sign posted at the casino’s front doors, where the same statement had been spelled out in capital letters.

Jon watched as a puzzled-looking Cael studied the guard as if he did not understand a word the man was saying. For a warrior who
always
had weapons close at hand, this was truly a foreign concept.

Frowning, the guard pointed at the sheathed sword hanging from Cael’s belt. “No swords allowed.
¿Comprende?
”

Jon intervened. He pulled at the hilt of his own sword. “It’s fake, see? But don’t tell anyone—we want people to think it’s real. We’re the entertainment.”

The guard scratched his head, his thick eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. “What’re yuh, sword-swallowing circus freaks?”

Jon concluded the guard was a few cards shy of a full deck, and gave him a diplomatic smile. “Yeah. Something like that.” Then he grabbed Cael’s arm and steered him away, into the noisy depths of the busy casino.

As they entered the chaos, bells began to ring. Lights were flashing and people were shouting excitedly—someone had just won a lot of money. Jon glanced back and saw the guard look toward the noise. David, Abby, and Marisol took the distraction as their cue to follow Jon and Cael.

“So, where’s Thoth’s door?” David asked, catching up. The group paused, and Marisol looked around.

“Follow me,” she said, leading the group through the rows of slot machines and zigzagging around card tables.

Cael
looked around the casino, bewildered. They passed a table where a bedazzeled Elvis, a lime-green alien, and a woman wearing a perilously low-cut red sequined dress were playing poker.

“Welcome to the weirdest city in America, man,” Jon said to Cael. “You can wear anything, do anything, and it’s all part of the show.”

Cael nodded. He looked horrified.

“I’m not saying that’s a good thing,” Jon clarified.

“It’s not just the patrons that are scary,” Abby added. “Just look at that thing. It looks like it’s going to eat that guy’s soul.”

“What thing?” Jon asked, looking around the casino.

“See the guy in the suit? The one who looks like he’s a short elevator trip from jumping off the roof?” Abby asked.

Sure enough, there was a man holding his head in his hands, staring at the cards he had laid on the table. He looked like he’d just lost a fortune.

“Yeah. What about him?” Jon asked.

“Look at the woman standing next to him. She looks human, but her face…the look on her face…” Abby shuddered in revulsion.

“Abby,” Jon said slowly, “there
is
no woman. Just the guy playing blackjack with the dealer.”

“You can’t see her? She’s right there,” Abby insisted, pointing. Jon stared at Abby like she had lost her mind.

“She’s right,” David said. “There
is
something there. I don’t see a woman, but there’s
something
—like some kind of shadow, but it has density—it’s like a dark space that moves on its own.”

“They are all around us,” Cael confirmed, his jaw clenched.

“What are they?” Marisol asked, whispering. Wide-eyed, she stepped closer to Jon and slipped her hand into his.

“They are much like the Shadows. They feed,” Cael explained, “but not until after the victim is dead. She will feed on him, but first she will drive him to kill himself.”

“Shouldn’t we do something?” David asked.

“There is nothing we
can
do,” Cael answered. “He has already given himself to her will, whether he knows it or not.”

“Maybe it’s better not to know,” Abby
said.

“I would not wish for his fate,” Cael
replied. “But we must not tarry, lest they sink their hooks into us as well.”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Marisol agreed. “I’m getting a little freaked out.”

Marisol led them away from the casino floor and down a corridor that curved slightly, bordered by a bank of elevators on one side, and by a series of small boutique shops on the other. She pointed to a sign with a sepia-toned photograph of hieroglyphics etched in stone. “This way,” she said, turning down a second corridor.

Ahead was an archway flanked by plaster pillars painted to look as though they too were covered in hieroglyphics.

Entering the museum, they were greeted by a ten-foot tall, garishly painted plaster sphinx.

“Classy,” Jon said. Then, on the other side of the exhibit room he spotted what they had come for. “There it is. Let’s do this.”

Abby watched as David paused to remove something from around his neck. The silver nautilus shell, once halved, was whole again, and hung from a long silver chain that had been hidden under the fabric of his shirt. “You brought it?”

Taking Abby’s hand, David pressed the Sign of the Throne into it, closing her fingers over the sigil. “Yes,” he replied. “We may not need it to open the portal, but I brought it just in case. Keep it safe for me, okay?”

“Of course,” Abby promised.

David approached the stone door. It looked exactly as it had in Abby’s dream, except that it was firmly closed in the freestanding stone doorframe. Behind it were some other exhibits.

“Last time they opened a portal, it was quite a show,” Jon explained to Marisol. He nodded to the guards standing near the plaster pillars. “If that happens, those guards will be coming our way pretty darn quick.”

Marisol and Cael exchanged a glance and wordlessly moved in front of David and Abby to shield them from view. Jon took a quick look around to make sure there were no other guards in the immediate vicinity. Then he took his place by Marisol’s side.

“I believe the guards will be the least of our worries,” Cael said. He was staring out into the hallway between the pillars, his hand clenched on the hilt of his sword.

Abby followed his gaze. The hallway had grown dark. Even though she could see the glow of the hallway’s ceiling-mounted light fixtures, a dense, impenetrable fog seemed to have settled at the museum’s entrance, masking the light.

“Those things…they’re coming, aren’t they?” Marisol looked around frantically. “I can’t see them, but I can feel them—it’s like the air is heavy
, and the temperature has dropped.”

Abby too could feel the change in the air. Similar to what she had experienced at the Blood Altar, the air in this room pressed down on her shoulders and the back of her neck. It was almost as though the weight of the air would force her to her knees. She thought it might if it got any heavier.

The cold air was accompanied by a smell—a mixture of smoke and sulfur. It made her want to retch. She placed a hand over her stomach, as if she could hold in the bile creeping up her throat.

“Yes, they are coming.” Silently Cael unsheathed his sword and positioned his feet, ready to fight. “I cannot see them as clearly as Abby can, but I can feel them.”

Marisol stiffened, her fear apparent on her face. Then the tightness in her expression softened as she composed herself. She followed Cael’s example, planting her feet and holding her sword out in front of her. Jon did the same.

Abby stared at the museum’s entrance as the fog shifted, solidifying. They were coming all right.

The first entity to make an appearance was the woman from the blackjack table. Abby froze in horror as she felt the creature probing at her mind and realized she had an awareness of this thing’s sentience as well. Abby wondered if the thing knew she could sense its thoughts. Then she got an answer, more as a wave of feelings than a thought articulated, but Abby understood just the same.

Oh yes, the creature was well aware of Abby’s uninvited psychic presence, but it didn’t mind the intrusion at all. It was not threatened by the fact that Abby was gaining knowledge about its methods; rather, it took pleasure from her fear as she came to understand its intentions.

Blackjack Lady had left its prey unattended for the promise of something—
someone
—a bit more tasty. Not that it wouldn’t go back for seconds later. It had the man’s scent now, and it didn’t really matter if he stayed at the table or left the casino. It didn’t matter if he ran away to Timbuktu. It would find him.

The entity’s tight-fitting dress leaned toward sleazy, and should it choose to become visible to those it hunted, it would blend in perfectly with the average tourist out for a wild night on the Las Vegas strip. Though the creature appeared female, Abby somehow knew this was just an illusion as well, and that, depending on the prey, its gender might well change. Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t male and it wasn’t female. It simply
was
, and the thing’s true form would stay hidden until it began to feed.