Dweller on the Threshold (18 page)

I was all set to bash my way through an expensive alarm system, but nearly dropped the book when I saw he had nothing more than a regular deadbolt lock on the back door. I set the book on the concrete, leaning it on the wall, and frowned at Blythe.

“You’d think someone who’d lived as long as he has would have better security.”

She cocked her head. “I think he does. Do you feel that?”

“What?”

“Magic.”

Normally, I did. Faintly alarmed that I hadn’t felt anything out of the ordinary, I narrowed my eyes and focused on separating the dimensions. Just a little peek. I was beginning the first layer when it felt like a door slammed into my face. Startled, I took a few steps back, then sucked in a deep breath, refocused and tried again. The outline of the red back door shimmered, then rippled like it was made of liquid before it snapped solid again.

Whoa.

This was new. Faintly impressed, I eyed the door for a second before shrugging. I grinned at Blythe, ran at the barrier and kicked my way in. Felt good.

Until I got zapped.

Chapter Nine

I’m not above breaking and entering—not when the situation calls for it. I’ve done it before. The zap was new.

I staggered to the book, hefted it, then put one foot carefully over the threshold. As I did, I touched some kind of invisible barrier that felt like living air—slightly thicker than regular air and tingly. It clung to my skin like plastic wrap.

Grimacing, I stopped moving and waited, but the feeling went away. Keeping my ears peeled for any unusual sounds that might prove we weren’t alone, I took a few more steps and concentrated on opening up my senses to Nikolos.

He wasn’t here.

“I feel so bad doing this,” Blythe hissed.

I rolled my eyes then nodded toward the other door in the small back room. She opened it for me. We walked farther into what was obviously the storage area. Large framed paintings rested in stacks against the wall next to a beautiful set of yellow Victorian parlor chairs. There was also a red spindle-backed bench. He had a lot of shelves back here and my fingers itched to toss the book and explore the pottery crowding their surfaces. Very, very old pottery from the looks of it.

We went out into the main area of the store and the place—like the man himself—was a sensory overload, with lots of rich, dark woods on the walls as well as part of the furniture. Colorful tapestries in brilliant, robust reds, blues and golds graced the walls between canvassed art. Silver bowls, vases and tea sets nestled in amongst upholstered cushions and odd collectibles.

The air smelled faintly of copper, vanilla and—my nose wrinkled—burnt rubber. Weird.

I’d expected his office to be near the back door, so I moved farther into the room only to realize he’d broken the whole place into several spaces. From there, I could peek into the next room and see shadowy hallways leading into two other areas.

I felt the stares before I saw them. I don’t like antique shops for a reason
.
Turning, I met the stare of the spirit of an old man and saw his expression light up when he realized I could see him.

Just then, Phro poked her head around a corner and whistled. “Old as Nikolos is, I bet a lot of this stuff is one-owner.”
 

Fred nodded as he eyed a Chippendale secretary. “Worth a small fortune, too.”

The old man’s spirit had started following Phro and I was swallowing a grin right about the time my gaze snagged on a glass case in the corner. I slowly walked toward it. “Do you guys realize what that is?” I pointed to the ivory battle horn inside, knowing my voice had risen to a high-pitch in excitement. “Do you have any idea how extraordinary this is?”

Blythe scurried to put her hands on the glass. “I’ve only read about these things or seen them in books. It’s an olyphant. Think it’s as old as we’re thinking?”

“Looks like it. Phro?”

She’d already looked and dismissed it to inspect a goddess statue that eerily resembled her with its long hair and thin, muscular body. “It’s real. You know, Bergdis, if you sold one of those, it’d be no more stinky marshes and shrimp. Ever.”

I touched the tip of my tongue to an incisor and glared at her. She merely chuckled, sneered at the statue and wandered into the next room. The spirit followed. He wasn’t the only one either. Five or six of them dogged her steps, drawn to her otherworldliness. She was in their dimension but not
like
them. Happened every single time we went into places like this one. These spirits weren’t as traumatized as the ones in hospitals, so they inevitably clung to the goddess.

“I feel so bad doing this.” Blythe still stared at the battle horn, but her small shoulders had slumped. Looked pathetic.

“If you’re gonna hang with me, you have to deal. This is the best way to learn about the man.”

“You really think he keeps anything revealing in his place of business? That wouldn’t be too smart, would it?”

I shifted the book to my other arm. Glanced at it. Smiled.

“Oh well, I never said I was smart.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I knew a man like Nikolos once.”

I walked toward the other room with the hallways. “What do you mean like him?” I skirted a round walnut table.

“Sad. He lost his whole family in a fire and tried to fill his life with magic. Only his mindset was so bad, he ended up turning to dark magic. His aura had all these icky dark colors. But the worst was when he lost control. He nearly obliterated an entire town in Nova Scotia.”

I stopped walking and she ran into me. “What does this have to do with Nikolos? Or are you blabbering because you’re nervous?”

She sighed and pushed me away. “My point is that sometimes people turn to dark forces when they’re broken inside. Sometimes they can’t help themselves. We shouldn’t be quick to judge Nikolos just because of the black around him. It’s possible that he’s so sad his aura turned that color. Have you thought about the things a man of his age would have seen? Lived through?”

Yeah, I had. I didn’t answer her, though. I was too busy paying attention to the rapidly thickening air. It was crawling again, as it had when we’d first come inside—only it was worse. I stared at the dark hallway and noticed a slight shimmer. Reaching out, I touched another barrier. Couldn’t see it, but I wouldn’t be walking through this one. “This is a ward. This place is warded.”

Blythe nodded. “The whole place is.”

“And you were going to tell me this when?” Complete and utter frustration made the urge to throttle her so strong, I curled the fingers of both hands around the book and turned the full power of my glare on her.

She shuffled a little to one side. Then the other. “I’m sorry. You said you can feel magic so I thought you knew.”

“I can feel when a person has magic. I can sometimes taste magic in the air. But this?” I hefted the book to one arm and banged my hand on the invisible thing.

“You probably shouldn’t be touching it, much less hitting it.”

Her warning came too late. Electricity zapped into my body and traveled throughout my entire nervous system with the force of a tsunami. I gasped as my knees crumbled and I dropped the book. Quickly putting my back to the closest wall, I leaned over and pulled air deep into my suddenly-bruised lungs. It took me several seconds and deep breaths to bring my body back to some semblance of order. “Shit, that hurt. Do you smell something burning?” I patted my hands over my body.

“The magic probably singed your nose hairs coming out. It had to find an opening—kind of like electricity does. Be glad it picked your nose.”

I curled my lip, pain rattling my chest and arms even as I tried to make sense of that. “Nice. Real nice.” I stood on jelly legs, still leaning against the wall. The wound in my arm started throbbing a bit more. “You’d think he would have warded the entire store. That’s a lot of expensive stuff out there.”

“He did. I’ve been dispelling them. Didn’t you feel the one when you broke down the door? You couldn’t have walked through it if I hadn’t been working to get rid of it. I have this cool spell that—”

I held up my hand. “You mean, you took care of a ward outside before we even came in?” I looked around the room. “You did magic and there are no fires?” I thought about that burnt rubber smell and started to worry.

Her jaw went taut. “I don’t always set things on fire. Besides, he’d used a fire ward so anything I did cancelled it out.”

“Jeez, Blythe, this sort of proves you’re supposed to be working with fire. You do realize that, right?”

Her eyes went suddenly wide, her head tilting. “Shh! Did you hear that?”

“Is it Nikolos?”

“No. I think the noise is coming from this ward. It isn’t the basic protection kind like he had in the rest of the store and outside. In fact, it’s a good thing you’re so strong. If you’d been a small animal, you’d be barbeque.” She sniffed, tilted her head—still listening to something I couldn’t hear. “But the bad news is that zap you got alerted whoever set the wards in the first place. I’m thinking Nikolos.”

“Ya think?” I refrained from rolling my eyes again. Barely. “Dispel this ward so we can look before his big ass storms in here.”

“I can’t. I’ve never seen one like this—didn’t even think Nikolos was capable of this kind of magic.”

“Blythe, he’s been alive for centuries. People can learn a lot when they have the time.” I faced the ward. If I squinted, I could see the faint shimmer of what looked like a wall of water. There were three doors beyond it in that hallway and I wanted to know what was behind them. I eyed the faint wall and began peeling at the layer of my reality and the next. It was harder than usual, like pulling apart pieces of duct tape. Took several tries, but finally I could see the ward in its own realm. It looked like a solid wall of metal. As I watched, it rippled, lifted and resettled. The thing was ingenious. Somehow, he’d placed it between this reality and the next.

I had the strangest feeling it was alive and watching me.

Blythe was already digging in her bag. “Sure, any person can learn basic magic spells and some can even take it further, but most don’t realize they can tap into that part of themselves. It takes people born with the skills already in place to do something like this.” She stopped digging and waved a hand in front of her nose. “I can smell your burning nose hairs.”

So could I. I couldn’t help but wonder what that zap had done to my insides. “So Nikolos knows we’re here? How?”

“He’s tied to these wards.” She paused. “I mean, metaphysically, not literally.”

Fred snorted.

She glanced at him then turned back to me. “He’s probably already on his way.”

“Then we’ll just bust our way through with something.” I looked around for something sharp and heavy.

Blythe tossed a pencil through. It clattered noisily down the hall.

I let out a heavy breath. “Uh, the wards only keep living things out then.”

She nodded. “I don’t think we want to know what’s back there. If he’s warded this heavily, it’s probably something bad. I could be wrong about his aura. That guy I told you about in Nova Scotia? His wasn’t nearly that thick or black.”

“Yeah well, remind me later to tell you about Nikolos’s aura.” I pointed to the spell book. “Think that thing might have a good ward spell?”

“I told you I’m slow with translating.” She sighed but began to unwrap the book. “Okay, I’ll try.”

I turned back to the ward, took a deep breath and tried seeing into the other realms again. Sweat broke out over my upper lip. His ward acted as glue. I yanked too hard. Crunching my eyes closed, I swore. Panting, I opened them and worked harder, realizing too late that I was peeling at more than one layer. This startled me enough to yank me out. I’d left a small hole, like I’d bent back the corner of a metal sheet. The realm beyond that tear was black. And it felt wrong. Very wrong.

Concerned, I stepped closer. This wasn’t just seeing into the next realm. This was opening up my world to one many layers out. As I stared, red eyes appeared in that gap and I slammed up a layer. It was an instinctive move—like slapping up a wet piece of wallpaper.

And I’d never done such a thing before.

Shaking, I glanced at Blythe. She was tapping her foot in an agitated rhythm while carefully turning the big sheets of yellowed paper. I crossed my arms and stared at the thin layer over that hole. All of a sudden, the hair on my neck prickled and my mouth fell open. This ward wasn’t only protecting what was down this hall—it was covering a portal. A damn portal.

I knew very well I didn’t have to cross into that farthest realm—the one with the red-eyed creature. Also knew I damn sure didn’t want to. I needed to just break through the physical ward, not peel the dimensions and cross over. I wanted to be here yet on the other side. I mentally slapped up more wallpaper until I could see what now looked like a shimmering watery doorway. My tear was still there. Lifting my shoulders, I took another deep breath and sent one fist through the hole.

It sucked my hand through like there was a vacuum on the other side, causing me to slam into the ward. Even though I’d prepared for the zap, I hadn’t realized what a full body version would feel like. Probably like wrapping myself in an electric fence. I cried out as hot tears squeezed from under my clenched eyelids. Shaking uncontrollably, I gasped, sobbed and curled my arm up until I could grasp at the top of the ward. It may have looked like liquid, but it felt more like hot, living steel.