Entanglements (40 page)

Nothing happened.

I glanced at my watch. Zero hours, four minutes, thirty-two seconds.

“Open it,” Billy screeched. “Hurry up!”

“Shush it,” Rom yelled at Billy. “Can you not see she tries?”

A bullet ripped into the door just above Rom’s head, the wood splintering. Behind us, resistance soldiers poured onto the walkway from the north tower door. Hand-to-hand fighting began.

“She’s not trying hard enough,” Billy jeered. “You’re a loser, Taylor. Loser. You hear me. You—”

“Quit being a douchebag,” Juliette yelled—The first time I’d ever heard her raise her voice. “Shut up and let her work.”

Thinking for a moment back to when I’d opened the vortex before, I remembered the whirl was counter-clockwise. My great grandmother’s disc was counter clockwise. Perhaps since we were on the opposite side of the portal…

In the bottom of the messenger bag I found the spade, its edge sharp.

“Cut my hand,” I said, pushing it at Billy. “Just don’t cut it off.”

Billy didn’t hesitate, he scraped the edge on my palm and a line of blood welled. Pressing my newly bloodied hand to the wood, I swirled a clockwise circle design with the blood.

Almost immediately, a boom sounded. A glow emerged and pulsed. The wood finally began to move. At first the movement creaked and jerked but soon turned smoothly. The velocity of the turning increased and broadened in area from a quarter size to a dinner plate.

“It’s happening,” Billy said, his eyes wide.

Yes, but would it be fast enough for us to get through?

The fighting came closer and closer to us. Glancing back, I saw the resistance had surrounded the vampire elite and were systematically staking them. Eugene, with a furious expression on his face, stomped toward Gethin at the edge of the walkway. The wizard seemed incapable of resisting as Eugene hoisted him onto the top of the barrier.

Feeling the vortex sucking at me, I turned my attention back and saw the circling area had further expanded and now was at least the size of a washer drum.

Juliette turned to me with an excited smile and a light in her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak but, before any words came out, she was sucked into the quickening vortex and disappeared from sight.

Billy jumped in after her. Almost immediately Namia, still wrapped in her blanket bundle, came flying through and almost knocked Rom and me over. We were forced back several feet to avoid being struck. When she’d rolled to a stop, I pushed Rom forward. He resisted me.

“Go.” I pushed at him again.

“Not without you.”

I couldn’t help myself; my gaze was drawn back to Eugene and Gethin. I saw Eugene pushing at Gethin. The wizard tumbled over the side where he hung with one arm hooked through the rail. Eugene jabbed at the wizard’s arm, trying to make him to let go.

My gaze went to the vortex. I should go. I should jump through now before it was too late. I owed no debt to the wizard. Gethin had done me no favors. His actions were for himself. Besides, hadn't Prince Leopold said the wizard was immortal?

“I’m coming too,” I screamed at Rom. “Go.” This time when I pushed him, the combination of my efforts and the sucking power of the vortex swept him in. But somehow I couldn’t follow him. The prince had also said there were ways to extinguish the life force of immortals. Perhaps Gethin could be “extinguished” by water.

For some reason, I just couldn’t let Gethin hang there only to possibly die in the river beneath this bridge.
It's the damn bridge
, I thought. Letting someone —anyone—fall reminded me too much of Adam.

Turning away from the vortex, I picked up a fallen sword and dashed toward the edge of the walkway.

“Get away from him,” I yelled.

Eugene glanced at me but continued to pound away at the wizard’s hold on the rail. Just before the tip of the sword in my hand struck Eugene, he looked at me. The blade nicked his side and he screamed like a baby. When I waved the sword threateningly again, Eugene ran off, scurrying over to where Prince Leopold lay. He grasped the prince’s inert body under the arms and began dragging his monarch along the walkway toward the north tower. He disappeared behind a group of ghoul soldiers.

 
I grabbed at Gethin’s arm, gripping it with both hands. My fingers were slick with blood and the weight of the wizard pulled me forward. I soon found myself with my belly pressed to the barrier and the top half of me hanging over. I clung to Gethin as he dangled above the Thames' water.

“Please.” The wizard's eyes were wide and pleading as he stared up at me. “Let me go.” His arm slipped away from me but I managed to hang onto his hand.

“No,” I cried. “Hold onto me and I can pull you up.”

“I want to be encased by the water for all eternity.” He opened his hand and tugged it. “You would do me a kindness to let me go. I will be at peace.”

“No,” I screamed, but it was too late and his hand slipped out of mine.

As he fell, Gethin continued to stare up at me, smiling...until he disappeared into the darkness.

The vortex had already decreased in size.
It was closing
, I thought with panic. No time to lose. I ran, preparing to jump through. As my lead foot hit the swirling middle, hands came from nowhere and grabbed me from behind, stopping me with a jerk. Swinging me by the arm, they brought me around to face Sergeant Amy.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Soot covered almost every inch of her face, but I knew her nevertheless.

“Amy,” I screamed tugging hard against her grip. “Let me go. I have to get back through the portal right now. It's about to seal.”

“I know.” She smirked. “I only wanted to thank you for setting up the prince and his minions.” She inclined her head back toward the fighting. “It’s a slaughter.” She grinned and released my arm.

Only Amy would get me killed to thank me.

“The general wants to thank you, too.” Amy saluted me.

“Yeah, whatever.” I backed toward the dwindling vortex. “Good luck.”

The vortex had lost much of its sucking power and was now the size of a basketball hoop. Stretching out my arms, I inserted them into the center of the whirl and then dove in. The power of the vortex had diminished to such an extent that my movement inside felt like running up a mountain through sludge. The electric sparks that had been a familiar sight in my previous experiences weren’t so vivid. Just a few random flashes here and there. As a result, the inside of the portal tunnel was significantly darker.

Would I be able to get through this thing before it sealed me inside? Would I be trapped in a cosmic esophagus forever? My heart leaped into my throat so hard, I could have easily coughed it up.

The end was nowhere in sight. I hadn’t even spotted the ghoul who’d crossed in my place. Had something happened to her? If so…

Thankfully, at the moment I contemplated my own demise and the possibility of purgatory in a throat muscle, I spotted her. Above and ahead of me, the female ghoul floated along with the young man who’d crossed in Rom’s place.

Why was that guy still in the vortex? Hadn’t Rom passed through? He’d entered the vortex well ahead of me.

Realization struck when I saw the young man and the ghoul had sandwiched Rom between them. The long trailing end of the rope the prince had ordered to bind Rom’s hands was now being wrapped around his body by the ghoul with the help of the human.

With some veering and wiggling and what amounted to swimming, I managed to reach the ghoul. But with the “sludge” or Jell-O or whatever it was around me, the punch I threw at her head moved in extreme slow motion. Fortunately, so did she and the punch connected with the side of her head. Grabbing her by the hair, I dragged her away from Rom and tried to thrust her toward the Dorcha end of the vortex. Her mouth opened in a silent screech and she floated away.

I plucked at the young man’s arm, attempting to get a hold on his garment. He didn’t even put up a fight but merely gave me a sad smile and swam off down the tunnel. Grabbing the rope, I tried to get Rom moving in the right direction. His head turned toward me. He pinned me with furious eyes until he recognized me. His gaze turned tender and he stopped resisting.

Using the rope as if Rom were a boat I had to bring to shore, I towed him upward. The sludge of the vortex had thickened significantly and now it felt like I was moving through setting concrete. I kept swimming and pulling. Just when I doubted we would ever make it, I saw a pinpoint of light above.

Rom’s movement slowed and then stopped. By pulling myself around his weight, I wedged my body behind him and pushed. I pushed again and again. Finally, I felt Rom’s weight lift from me and saw him pass through the end of the vortex. As my head emerged, I saw Zen pulling Rom out of the moving floor and to safety.

Petra reached her hand to me. I extracted my arm from the muck that was trapping it and grasped her fingers. Petra tugged on my arm until I had emerged to the waist, then the thighs. Finally, my feet were out. Beneath me, the floor solidified.

Bringing myself into a sitting position, I glanced at the watch. 5:04:50 a.m. Ten seconds left. Just then a long hiss echoed around us accompanied by the sound of a pop like a giant Rubbermaid container closing.

The portal had sealed.

I’d been dreading this moment for so long, my initial reaction was a zing of fear zipping through me, zapping my heart like a defibrillator. Seconds later, however, relief spread through me. We’d made it. The portal had sealed but we were all out and on the home side.

Petra kneeled down behind me and wrapped me in a hug. She rocked me while babbling in excited incoherence. I only understood about every third word and each seemed to be something about happiness or a synonym thereof.

Juliette and Billy clutched at each other a few feet away with Billy sobbing into my stepsister's shoulder. Chase and Senji stood awkwardly in the corner glancing at one another. They gave each other a partial embrace with a shoulder pound that seemed to constitute a bro hug.

To my right side, Zen was unwrapping the ropes knotted around Rom. The bandage had torn away from Rom's arm somewhere in the vortex and I saw the skin around the bite was no longer red and the wound itself had knit shut. The plants were doing their job.

As he worked, Zen spoke. “The one who came through the vortex in your place was human.”

“His name was Cameron,” Petra said with a wisp of sadness in her voice.

“What a wimp.” Chase huffed.

“He wasn’t a wimp. He was a resistance fighter,” Petra shouted back.

“Well, he certainly complained a lot,” Senji stated.

“He didn’t complain. He just didn’t want to go back to Dorcha,” Petra said. “And I don’t blame him. Who would want to live in such a horrible place?”

“Gratitude that you traded him for me.” Rom's lips quirked into a sardonic smile.

“How about Namia and that other ghoul?” I asked.

“Handling the monsters wasn’t hard,” Zen replied. “What was hard was dealing with the busload of tourists who came down here to see what was going on.”

They must have been the people entangled with the monsters and resistance fighters who’d converged on the entrance to the portal.

“No tourist died?” Rom asked obviously thinking the same thing.

“Of course not,” Zen answered. “Tourists are annoying but I wouldn’t kill one.”

Apparently, death only occurred when each of the entangled pair was in another dimension. Good to know. I didn’t want to think my life or death depended on the fate of that ghoul.