Thorn Fall (27 page)

“You do not have access to a portal, nor would we let you follow us through one,” Jakatra said.

“
Knowingly
.” Simon winked. He was irascible, but I had to admit that his unwillingness to give up, however incorrigibly, bolstered my spirit. And then there was Alek, who also seemed to believe we would continue on with the battle.

It might have been my imagination, but Eleriss appeared more thoughtful than obstinate at Simon’s line of reasoning. He hadn’t openly objected to anything yet anyway.

“Jakatra,” Temi said softly, “you’ve invested so much time into finding the sword and into my training… Wouldn’t that all have been for nothing if we have no way to continue the fight against the
jibtab
? If you
have
such a weapon, and it’s simply hanging in your home…”

“I cannot take it through the portal,” Jakatra said sturdily.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“I would be
banished
. That is not something I would suffer for a human.”

Temi accepted the response with her usual quiet stoicism, but I wondered if his words—or the harshness of his tone—stung at all. Earlier, it had seemed like they might have some kind of connection. A mentor-student relationship, if nothing else. More than I had with either of the elves anyway.

“You didn’t really answer Simon’s questions,” I said, giving up on the idea of not alerting them to our potential plans. “What if a human snuck into your world and stole your sword?”

“Wow,” Simon murmured, “that’s usually my kind of moral flexibility, not yours.”

“Maybe I should have said borrowed.” We would happily return the sword once we figured out how to stop these monsters from appearing in our world.

“Next, we’ll find salt and pepper shakers in your purse,” Simon said.

“I’m just thinking of the greater good. The sword could be used to help people here, maybe even save lives. It’s a wall decoration there.”

Jakatra turned his icy stare on me. So far, there hadn’t been much bite behind his glares, but having seen him fight, I did wonder what it would be like to have him as a true enemy. Not healthy, that was for sure.

“Even if some humans could cross into our world without being noticed and navigate their way to my home in Fellward on the Mishnarahsu River, they would have to find a portal in the first place. And we will not be letting you through.”

“No,” Eleriss agreed. “That we cannot do. Jakatra, we must go and dispose of the bait box.”

I had forgotten about that. “Wait, you still have it? If you left it here, we could place it somewhere so the
jibtab
could be lured into a trap.” I looked at my friends. “We had talked about getting it into a cave with low ceilings, so we could…” I stopped, feeling dumb. So we could what? Absolutely nothing without that sword.

“Is there no way you could help fight it?” Temi asked, looking at Jakatra more than Eleriss. “There are clearly some tools you’re allowed to bring to our world.” She touched her temple—I hadn’t seen what Eleriss had used on her, but it had been more than antibiotic ointment and bandages from the drug store.

“We have already risked enough,” Jakatra said. “There will be repercussions for our actions.” He gave Eleriss a significant look, then stalked into the woods where the darkness soon swallowed him.

“He is right.” Eleriss sighed softly. “We have been strongly advised to leave this place. But I will contemplate other possible solutions and contact you when I’m able.”

“Wait,” Temi said. “You healed me—before you go, can you do the same for the people who were taken to the hospital? Everyone who has been struck by the
jibtab
’s stingers has ended up dying.”

“Yes,” I added, wishing I had thought to ask that as well. “Naomi’s grandmother and the others. There must be dozens after today’s attack.”

Eleriss tilted his head. “You examined the blood. Have your people not discovered an antidote?”

I decided not to find it creepy that he knew we had been stealing blood samples and studying those stingers under microscopes. “Autumn said there’s not a known antidote for… that type of poison.” I found myself embarrassed to admit that the ‘poison’ was a man-made insecticide, our own weapon, in a manner of speaking, being used against us. “You’re just… not supposed to expose yourself to it to start with.”

“I will see if I may be of some use before I leave,” Eleriss said, then jogged into the trees after Jakatra.

A moment later, the sound of motorcycles roaring to life drifted down to us.

“Well,” Simon said, “we either find a way to open a portal to their world and borrow some swords, or we figure out something else. Like how to build weapons of our own that can attack things in multiple dimensions.” He scratched his jaw thoughtfully.

“I’m guessing you’d need more than benzene and polystyrene cups for that,” I said.

“Yeah. I wouldn’t know where to start. We’d need to find an expert.”

“Like the guy who’s making the monsters to start with?”

“He would probably be a good resource.”

I was about to suggest that we turn our geeky research brains toward exactly that activity—though I didn’t know how far we could get if the person engineering all of this wasn’t from Earth—but Temi stood up abruptly, her eyes widening. She turned in a full circle at the same time as she scraped at her arms, as if bugs were crawling over them.

Alek shifted. “I feel it too.”

“Feel what?” I asked.

“Nothing good, I’m betting,” Simon murmured, watching Temi’s alarmed reaction.

“I think…” Temi licked her lips. “I think someone’s opened a portal.”

“Someone opened a portal?” My first thought was that Jakatra and Eleriss had decided to leave our world without helping at the hospital after all, but the wide-eyed concern in Temi’s eyes said this was something different. Something bigger. “One of the portals here? At the vortexes?” One of the ones we had realized we didn’t
want
opened?

“I think so.”

Simon jumped off the picnic table. “Then they have our sword!”

“Are we sure?” A tingle of excitement thrummed through me—maybe it wasn’t too late to reclaim the weapon—but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. “It sounded like it had already left this world… Temi, can you tell that the sword was used to open a portal?”

“I can just tell… something’s different. It’s the feeling I had when we were at the Cow Pies, but a thousand times stronger.”

“Any chance you can lead us to the spot? Eleriss said there were six portal places here, right?”

Temi turned another half circle and pointed toward the canyon wall on the other side of the creek. “That way, I think.”

Alek nodded. “Yes, I agree.” He spoke in Greek, but he was obviously getting the gist of the conversation.

I looked at him. “If it turns out Green Eyes has that sword and is doing dastardly things with it, are you… willing to fight her to get it back? We’ll help, of course, but…” I shrugged. “You’re the warrior.” I was fairly certain Temi wouldn’t attack a person with the intent of doing more than defending herself. She had said as much on the night the elves picked her up for her training, that she didn’t have the mentality needed to stick swords in people. I wasn’t sure whether or not that would extend to attacking an elf who was causing harm to the Sedona residents.

“Gladly,” Alek said, his eyes glinting in a way that chilled me. I reminded myself that some elves, at some point in time, had done unpleasant things to him, and the desire for revenge was… human. “But you have the heart of a warrior, as well.” He waved at my whip. “Do not underestimate your abilities. They may be needed to best a
Dhekarzha
.”

The compliment made me blush. I didn’t think cracking a whip at thugs in a parking lot qualified me as a warrior, but I said, “I’ll do my best to help.”

“We may want to hurry.” Temi nodded toward the van.

I waved Simon toward the driver’s seat. “Is something coming out of the portal?”

“I can’t tell yet. I just know it’s open.”

“All right. You’re the navigator then.” I pointed Temi to the front passenger seat, while Alek and I climbed into the back.

Simon didn’t hesitate; he threw the van into gear right away, and we zipped around the curvy campground driveway, heading through the trees and up to the main highway. I eyed the darkness of the forest and the darkness of the sky above, trying to tell if I sensed any of what Alek and Temi felt. The road was empty in the aftermath of the afternoon’s chaos, and the world was quiet. Unnaturally so? I couldn’t tell. It was strange realizing there was more to the world—to the universe—than I could touch, see, or feel. I’ll admit, it made me feel a little less…
less
.

Simon’s phone rang before we hit Uptown, a head-banging song that I couldn’t name this time. He dug his phone out and cursed.

“Your brother?” I guessed. Few other people called him, and even fewer elicited curses.

“My brother.” He stuck his arm behind his seat, holding the phone out to me. “Can you text him for me? Tell him… I don’t know. Last I heard he was flying to Phoenix. Tell him to stay there, that I’ll try to come down tomorrow. If we don’t get swallowed by monsters from the fiery pits of the ninth circle of hell tonight.”

“You want me to text all that?” I noted with relief that the police barricade was gone, as were the cars that had been parked alongside the highway. We headed into town, unopposed.

“No. Tell him I’m with a girl or something.”

“I think he’d be more likely to believe the ninth circle of hell thing.”

“Ha ha. I don’t care what you tell him. Whatever keeps him from coming up here.”

His deadpan words stole my humor. Yeah, we didn’t want relatives—or anyone else—heading to Sedona if something nasty was going to be crawling out of a portal to another realm.

Hi Marcus
, I texted.
This is Delia. Simon’s driving. We’re heading back to town, been out hunting for relics.
I had met Marcus, and he knew enough about our business that he shouldn’t find that odd. No need to mention monster hunts or vortexes or portals…
Are you in Phoenix? He said he could drive down to meet you tomorrow.

There weren’t any lights on in the shops. It wasn’t that late, so they wouldn’t have normally been closed, but the whole town had shut down. Even the restaurants lacked the usual pairs of people standing outside, reading the menus. For once, parking was wide open.

“Roundabout is coming up,” Simon said. “Which way, Temi?”

“Left. We need to get… that way.” She pointed to the east, the rock formations still blocking the sky in that direction.

Hi Delia, I was hoping to see him tonight. Mother’s concerned. She wants me to have The Talk with him. (Not that Talk.)

I smirked, despite my preoccupation with watching the sky. I didn’t know what I expected to find there, something akin to the aurora borealis maybe.

You’re in Sedona still, right?
Marcus prompted.

Yes, but we’re not staying. There’s some crazy stuff going on up here.

I’ve seen the news. I want to make sure Simon gets out of there. I know he’s taking pictures for his website, but it sounds dangerous.

“I think your brother is staging an intervention,” I said.

“Not for my Mountain Dew addiction, I suppose,” Simon said.

“Your monster-hunting one, I think.”

“Just don’t let him come up here.” Simon glanced at Temi again. “Not Schnebly Road?” He waved at an option at the next roundabout.

“No,” Temi said. “It’s not the Cow Pies place.”

Where are you staying in Phoenix?
I tried.
He said he’ll head that way as soon as we’re done here.

“If we stay on this road, we’ll be taken out of town,” Simon said.

“I know.” Temi’s eyes were locked on the dark horizon, straight ahead. Lights were on in the houses dotting the hillsides, but we had only passed two other cars since leaving the campground.

“What’s in this direction?” Simon met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Vortex-wise?”

“Uh.” I ticked off the sites Naomi had mentioned in my head. Boynton Canyon was the other direction, as was the airport vortex. We had passed the turnoff for Cow Pies, and… “Oh. Hells.”

“What?”

“Bell Rock. It’s right by the damned road. If there’s something weird going on there, all of Sedona is going to know about it.”

“Yeah, I saw it on the way in,” Simon said. “It looked like a nice hiking trail.”

“Oh sure, I bet it’ll be spectacular with a giant portal shooting out bolts of lightning overhead.”

“The portal I went through was just a blue rectangle,” Temi said dryly.

“I’ll hope for something like that tucked discreetly behind a rock then,” I said, though the pictographs made me think we would run into something more akin to my vision. This wasn’t some controlled portal created by an elven garage door opener, after all. This was something weird, some natural phenomenon. Almost natural.

We drove past the last of the shops and houses and into a forested area. A passing lane opened up, and I was surprised that several cars were actually using it, drifting along slowly in the same direction as we. People leaving town until the thorn-flinging “gunman” was ferreted out? But no. I soon saw the reason for the interest. We passed a ridge of dark rock that had been blocking the view on the left side of the highway, and the light I had expected to find in the sky finally made its appearance. The Aurora Borealis wasn’t all that bad of an analogy, but it wasn’t the horizon that was lit up, but the air above the huge, lumpy bell-shaped rock, the most famous of the Sedona vortex spots.

Flashes of light danced in the air at the top of the bell. They were similar to what Temi’s sword had caused at the Cow Pies formation, except here, there were more of them and they were bigger, almost like bolts of lightning streaking about. Instead of coming from the sky, the lightning was shooting from an amorphous dark blob that hovered at the top of the rock formation, blocking out the stars behind it. For a moment, I almost thought it was our cloaked
jibtab
, but this blob was far larger, and it had dark purple edges that flexed and wavered. It seemed to be growing, as well. Thinking of the pictograph with the snakes coming out of the portal, I knelt between Simon’s and Temi’s seats, trying to tell if anything was coming out of that blob. So far, I couldn’t see anything except for the flashing lights, but as I was learning, there were more things in the universe than what I could see.