Kissed by Eternity (15 page)

With all four flames burning and the brazier smoking away, they began to chant in unison. Unlike the other times I'd seen Emory cast a spell, they spoke English.

"By the night in his soul, I call darkness to guide me so Alister Jones must be found. By beat of his heart, I call instinct to guide me so Alister must be found. By the voice of his spirit, I call knowledge to guide me so Alister must be found. By the gods he hath angered, I call you to guide me so Alister must be found. By the portals of time, I call you to guide me so Alister will be found."

As they spoke the last word, the contents of the bowl began to change color. The dark muck morphed into a shimmering silver reminiscent of the portal entrances I'd seen. I stared into the bowl, surprised. Was I supposed to see something? Because there was nothing there but my reflection staring back at me from the silver.

"Look into the bowl and ask your question," Emory ordered.

I felt weird doing it, but I stared into that strange liquid and asked my question. "Where is Alister Jones?"

Nothing happened. I glanced up at Emory, who shook her head. "You must be more specific. It can't show you what it can't see."

I guess that meant Alister wasn't currently in the portal system. "Show me where Alister Jones has been."

The silver muck shifted, and within it shapes began to coalesce. First, there was a clear picture of Alister Jones striding into a portal opening. Behind him was what looked like Brent Darroch's room at Area 51. Clearly, this was where Alister had entered the actual portal system rather than the queen's Otherworld portal.

He strode through tunnel after tunnel of the system. The tunnel walls were a sort of cloudy bluish-white. They shifted and stirred like one would expect clouds to do. Sometimes it seemed lightning flashed along the walls. It was eerie to say the least. Alister seemed surprisingly comfortable, as if he'd walked these tunnels before.

He approached a branch and went right. In front of him another portal opened, and he stepped out. Before the portal closed behind him, cutting off my view, I caught a glimpse of the landscape. Tall trees, waving grasses, and water so vast it looked like an ocean. I opened my eyes. It was the lake from my dreams. Alister was in Michigan.

# # #

I tried calling Tommy once again before Emory opened the portal for me. I needed to know about Michigan before I left, but I had to move quickly. Gods only knew what Alister was up to. Whatever it was, it could only spell disaster.

I couldn't get a hold of Tommy, but I managed to reach Trevor. He sounded out of breath.

"Make it quick," he snapped. "The ice has cracked completely. Chunks of the dome are down, and I'm not sure how much longer we can hold them."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I snapped. "I told you to let me know if anything happened. I might have been able to repair it."

"Too late. There goes another section."

"Okay, I'm on my way," I said grimly.

"You'll never get here in time."

He was right, of course. By car, even driving like a bat out of hell, it would take nearly three hours to get to Tommy's. "I've got something special in mind."

"Make it snappy." He disconnected.

"Emory, forget Michigan. I need you to open a portal to djinn lands. Can you do it?"

"I can open the portal system. That's easy enough. But once you're in, you're the one who has to navigate. Without the coordinates, you could be lost forever."

Freaking fantastic. "How do we get coordinates? Can you find them on a map? What?"

"It would help if there was a witch at the other end."

"Well, there isn't." A thought struck me. "But there's Tommy. He's a shaman. Would that work?"

She mulled it over. "It might. Veri?"

Veri nodded. "I need a map."

I pulled out my smartphone and opened the map application. "This work?"

"Sure. Can you show me where djinn lands are approximately?"

I zoomed into Central Oregon and the Warm Springs Reservation. "About here."

"And this Tommy is a shaman? One to whom you have a personal connection?"

I nodded. "Yeah. He's sort of my mentor."

"Even better. Give me your hand."

I frowned but held up my hand. She took it, and with my phone in one hand and my hand in the other, she closed her eyes and made a humming sound. I gazed over her head at Emory, who nodded encouragingly. I shrugged and stayed where I was though it felt awkward as hell.

Finally Emory stopped humming. "Got it. There's a portal not far from where the shaman is. I need a pencil and some paper."

Lene appeared at her side with an old envelope and a stub of a pencil. Veri finally let go of my hand and gave me back my cell phone. She quickly sketched a map on the envelope. "Follow this exactly. Deviate even a little, and we might not get you back. Understand?"

"Got it." I took the envelope and stared at it. It looked simple enough.

"All right, let's open this portal," Emory said. "Everyone stand back."

Unlike the Otherworld portal, she didn't draw a circle, use herbs, or even chant. She just muttered a couple words, raised her hands, palm outward, and a portal shimmered into existence.

"Remember," Veri said, grabbing my arm. "Follow the directions exactly."

I nodded and stepped through the portal, Kabita hot on my heels. The portal sealed shut behind us.

We were inside a tunnel which was about a foot taller than me, with sides far enough apart to give us room to walk side by side. The walls swirled in blues and whites like clouds shifting through the summer sky. Lightning jagged across ceiling and floor accompanied not by the crash of thunder, but by an odd sizzling sound. Otherwise the tunnels were eerily silent. We walked straight ahead. There was nowhere else to go.

"Now where?" Kabita whispered. We'd come to a three-way branch. I studied the map carefully.

"Keep going straight," I answered in the same hushed tone. There was something about the silence that made me feel like I was inside a library or something. The need to whisper was too compelling to ignore. Inside me, my powers writhed in discomfort. They were clearly not fans of the portal system.

We kept going until we came to another branch, and another. Each time we carefully followed Veri's directions. I hoped like hell she could be trusted, and we wouldn't end up lost in the tunnels, or worse, come out in a Hel dimension.

Finally we arrived at the portal Veri had marked on the map. "Now or never," I whispered, stepping out into nothing.

Chapter 19

The wind blew my hair wildly about my face as I tumbled and tumbled down, down. And then things seemed to right themselves. I rolled out onto the hard ground of the high desert. I lay there panting, staring up at the sky until Kabita crashed into me with a grunt.

"It would have been nice if she'd warned us about the drop," Kabita panted.

"She probably did it on purpose," I said with a groan as I sat up. "I don't think she likes me."

Kabita snorted as she clambered to her feet. "More like she knows you don't like her."

I stood as well, stretching out muscles that were a little touchy, thanks to a solid landing. "Well, I didn't dislike her until she got all weird on me."

Kabita shook her head. "Whatever. Where are we?"

I didn't recognize anything, and yet I recognized everything. Lots of places in the High Desert look the same to an untrained eye, and mine was definitely untrained. I listened carefully and was pretty sure I could hear, very faintly, the sounds of battle.

"This way." I tromped off across the desert to the west.

"You sure?"

"Pretty sure."

Kabita snorted again. "How reassuring."

Ten minutes later the battle came into view. The dome was all but gone and the combatants were everywhere, spilling across the plain. SRA agents were desperately wielding their special weapons, trying fruitlessly to keep the war restricted to djinn lands. They were fighting a losing battle. Literally.

"What do we do?" Kabita asked. "Reactivating the wards isn't going to work. Too many of them are outside the area."

I thought it over. "Is there any way you can temporarily trap or confuse only one side?"

"You mean the djinn," Kabita said dryly.

"Yeah."

She stared at the battle. "Maybe. With a lot of help."

"Can I be of service?"

We turned to stare at the newcomer. Tommy leaned casually on his walking stick for all the world like it was a nice summer day, and he was out for a stroll.

"The barrier the djinn erected to keep humans off their lands," I said. "Can it be altered to keep djinn on the land, at least temporarily?"

He mulled that over. "Sure. Take some doing, though."

"But I imagine a shaman and a natural-born witch could manage."

He nodded. "I imagine."

"Good, because here's the plan…"

# # #

Trevor had pulled his men back behind the djinn curtain. I had no idea how the Sidhe had breached it, but they were tricky that way. The curtain had been designed as a barrier to keep everything out of djinn territory, and it had worked a treat for thousands of years in conjunction with giant Mongolian death worms. Until I came along and killed the worms. Yeah, not my brightest moment.

"All right, now!" I shouted.

Kabita and Tommy started doing their thing. I had no idea what exactly; I was too busy focusing on my task. I reached down to pull out my Earth power, but instead of letting it shimmer out through my skin as usual, I forced it into a tight channel through my amulet. The amulet stone glowed hot, bright blue, amplifying the Earth magic a thousandfold. Why hadn't I thought of this before?

Focus, Morgan.

I let it pour out of me in one continuous wave, building and building. And then I called them. I beckoned the Sidhe with all the power of Earth and ancient Atlantean magic. At first nothing happened. And then, one by one, the Sidhe turned and stared for a moment with surprise. Then they left whatever djinn they were fighting and walked straight toward the curtain.

As they passed through it, the djinn stormed after them. I knew they weren't going to stop. They were going to slaughter every one of the Sidhe they could get their hands on. And then the first djinn smacked face-first into the barrier. He paused, shook his head in confusion, and tried again with exactly zero success.

"Hurry it up, Morgan," Kabita snapped. "We can't hold this all day."

I poured more energy through the amulet.
Go
, I ordered them through the magic,
leave this place and go back to the Otherworld. You will not leave it again to fight the djinn.

A greenish silver portal shimmered into existence in the middle of the High Desert. The Sidhe began to pass through two by two as the djinn continued to slam against the curtain, unable to leave their lands.

"What is the meaning of this?" Morgana suddenly appeared in front of me. Her face was twisted in an ugly snarl.

"You told me to end the war, Morgana. I'm ending it."

"This is not what I meant," she spat.

"Then you should have been more specific."

With an angry shriek, she stormed to the front of the line where Sidhe after Sidhe dove headlong into the portal. "Stop this at once. I command it!"

They ignored her, still caught in the thrall of my magic. She tried closing the portal, but it wasn't hers to command. She let out another angry shriek and stomped her feet like a petulant child.

"Morgan Bailey, you will suffer for this."

"Not if you want to accomplish whatever it is you and Alister Jones are planning. You need me, and you know it."

With a final blood curdling scream, she shoved aside the next warrior and stomped through the portal. The few remaining Sidhe warriors followed her, and the portal closed.

"Clear!" I shouted.

Tommy and Kabita let the curtain fall. Djinn warriors stormed out, bristling for a fight, but there was no one left. All the Sidhe were gone, and the SRA agents were back far enough they posed no threat.

"What is the meaning of this, Hunter?" The Marid bellowed, shoving his way through the crowd of warriors. "Have you chosen the side of the Sidhe?"

"I have chosen no sides, Marid. I have chosen to end a pointless war. There will be no more fighting."

"She started it."

I crossed my arms. "I finished it. At least for now. The High Priest did not send you here so you could destroy this planet with your ridiculous fighting."

I could have sworn he blushed, though it was hard to tell what with his red skin. "You assume much, little girl."

"And you need to learn to keep your shit together, big man."

We stared at each other for several heartbeats. "Fair enough," he finally said. "But if the Sidhe encroach on our lands again, there will be war, so you'd best be finding a way to keep them in the Otherworld."

"Working on it."

He nodded and beckoned his warriors to follow him. They all disappeared onto djinn lands. Just like that, the battle was over. For now.

"Holy…." Kabita shook her head. "Holy…."

"Shit?" I supplied.

"Yeah, that."

"That was quite the experience," Tommy agreed.

"Kalen, you can come out now," I said, barely raising my voice.

Kalen shimmered into visibility. I'd had no idea Sidhe could make themselves invisible. It was both cool and freaky, but Kalen had assured me it was a rare gift.

"It worked," he said with a grin.

"Thank goodness you can open portals as well as the queen."

He shrugged. "All royals can. Another nail in my coffin."

"Or jewel in your future crown. Your people will know the queen didn't open the portal, and they'll wonder who did. They'll know it was someone with royal blood."

"There is that." He glanced behind him to see Trevor approaching. "Better go. My lady." He sketched a bow and disappeared again.

"Explain." Trevor's words were sharp as he strode toward us. He was in full-on agent mode.

"Easy peasy," I said. "I had Kabita and Tommy hold off the djinn long enough so I could force the Sidhe out of djinn lands and through a portal back to the Otherworld. For now, the war is over, but it's probably a good idea to keep agents here, just in case."