“What are you even doing here?” Logan asked Ajax, leading me to one of the chairs. I sat in it, wincing at the dull ache in my side.
“And where’s Rego? I need his healing balm,” Logan told Ajax. “Paige got injured pretty badly dealing with an incindia today.”
Ajax shuddered dramatically before cramming another handful of chips into his mouth.
“Nasty things. I hate dealing with them,” he said after he swallowed. “I had some updates on a situation I’ve been monitoring for Rego, so I decided to swing by and deliver them personally.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t exactly trust his new messenger.”
Ajax ate another chip and resumed speaking in a normal tone. “He’s back there in his office, just wrapping up something.”
“And now he’s done.” The stern, businesslike voice boomed through the small room, and I spun around in my chair to see the curtains get impatiently flicked aside by a tall, impressive man who strode out to greet us. Now, this guy was intimidating: Rego stood straight and confident, with flawlessly straight black hair that framed an angular face and fell just above his broad shoulders, which were draped in a long, military-style black coat. The coat reminded me of what people in 1776 might have imagined citizens of the future would wear during battle. Where Ajax’s uniform looked lived-in, like functional fatigues, Rego’s double-breasted outfit was sleek, trimmed in leather and shimmering with rows of X-shaped silver buttons. Pointed silver-toed boots splattered with some kind of dark liquid peeked out from underneath the long hem. The same liquid—blood?—was splashed on the sword slung into his low silver belt. “Hi, I’m—” I began, and Rego held a long-fingered hand aloft, cutting me off.
“I know who you are,” Rego interrupted, giving me a polite smile that didn’t meet his gray eyes. “A pleasure to meet you, Paige.”
Yeah, right, it’s a pleasure to meet me. You look like you’d enjoy a hammer to the eyeball more.
“But I must say, meeting our new friend is quite unexpected, as she shouldn’t even know I exist, let alone Ajax here.”
“Things didn’t exactly go as planned today,” Logan said, surprising me with how hesitant and unsure he sounded. “It started with the rage demon this morning—”
“And ended up with you revealing this place to the target you were supposed to protect?” Rego interrupted Logan. “What if she gets taken? She could expose us all.”
Logan’s brown eyes narrowed, and he took a step toward his uncle.
“She’s not going to get taken. And she’s injured. She got hit with a spark from the fire demon.” Logan’s fingers curled into fists at his sides, betraying his calm composure. “So, we’re going to give her something to cure her burns, and then we’re going to tell her what’s going on.”
“It’s in her best interest if we erase her memory,” Rego said, his sentence sounding more like an order than a suggestion as he took a step toward Logan. “Knowledge will make her a liability. She shouldn’t know—”
“No!” Logan shouted, and Rego stepped back in surprise. “She saved my life. And she doesn’t want her memory erased.”
“She doesn’t get to make this decision.”
“She’s also in the room,” I volunteered, and was rewarded with a venomous glare from Rego. Dial it back, Paige. Don’t poke the bear. Don’t poke the angry, warlock bear.
“I refuse to erase her memory. And, Ajax—” Logan pointed at his friend as he dug for crumbs in the bottom of the chip bag “—you’re not doing it either.”
“Are you sure you don’t want the spell?” Ajax interjected, his full lips curled in a teasing grin. “They say ignorance is bliss. Don’t you want to be blissful?”
“I think I’ll pass,” I replied, hesitantly taking my eyes off Rego and Logan’s standoff to look at Ajax, who had crumbs down the front of his shirt.
Ajax merely shrugged in reply. “Just as well, my bliss-less friend. I’m really bad at it, so I’d probably turn you into a chicken or something.”
“I’m definitely going to have to say no, then.”
“My sweet, I’m sure you’d make a lovely chicken,” Ajax replied.
“No one’s doing any spells on Paige,” Logan shouted, his voice determined. “So, Rego, unless you’ve learned how to pull off a somnorvik spell lately, this discussion is over. I owe her. And you know I always pay my debts.”
Rego arched his eyebrow as he appeared to evaluate his nephew.
“Very well.” Rego turned on his heel and disappeared behind the dark curtain. As he pulled the fabric back, I got a better look at the living room. Well, in a normal apartment, it would have been the living room. Instead, the walls in this room were lined with dusty, ancient-looking treasures and medieval-looking weapons—ornate, slightly tarnished brass and steel sharing shelves with brilliant, shiny gold.
Rego returned with a small, scratched mason jar, filled with a bright blue gelatinous cream that quivered in the glass.
“Apply this to the affected area. It should heal immediately. Your skin will be unblemished, as if you’d never been injured,” Rego said, arrogantly adding, “It’s my own brew, so it truly works wonders.”
“Thanks,” I said, opening my bag and stuffing the jar inside.
“Paige, don’t you want to take care of that now?” Logan asked me. “We’ll wait.”
“No. It barely hurts anymore,” I fibbed. My side still stung, but I was anxious to finally get some answers.
I leaned forward in my chair and folded my arms on the table. Rego sat in another chair and pulled a massive scroll off the stack on the kitchen table.
“Paige, why do you think you were attacked?” Rego asked, one black eyebrow arched as he dismissed the scroll and pulled out another one. The question felt like a test.
“I assume it was because I can...well, I can talk to ghosts,” I said, my tone very businesslike and matter-of-fact. After all, I was talking to a demonslayer, a warlock and a...whatever Ajax was. My talent, for once, didn’t make me the weirdest one in the room.
“That’s half-right. You don’t talk to ghosts exactly,” Rego corrected, “although I can understand why you’re under such a misapprehension. You can speak to spirits that are trapped in an alternate version of your world.” He spread his palms, gesturing to the apartment around him.
“There’s the world that you know. The human world, so to speak. And then there’s the other world.”
“The Dark World?” I asked, then hastily explained, “My friend calls it that—but I thought she was just stuck in purgatory or limbo or something.”
“Your blonde friend, right?”
I met Logan’s gaze as he leaned against the wall nearest me. “You can see Dottie?”
“And hear her. I told you I didn’t think you were crazy,” he reminded me.
“Can we focus, please?” Rego demanded, and I turned my attention back to him just as he was unrolling a scroll in front of me. It was an aerial map of New York City—a surprisingly vibrantly colored and accurate map, considering how ancient the parchment looked. There was even an illustration of a high-rise that was under construction near my school.
“This is the world you know. The one you live in every day.” As we studied the map, the building shimmered, growing taller, and I gasped in surprise.
“It’s an active map,” Logan explained, seeing where I was looking. “It reflects the changes in this world.”
Rego placed a piece of cloudy vellum on top of the scroll, and the map morphed. The buildings became more angular, with warped, sloping sides. The colors were darker, gloomier. A building on the East River crumbled into ash as I stared. My eyes reflexively sought out my street—West Forty-Fourth was a blazing inferno.
“May I present to you the Dark World,” Rego said, waving his hand with a dramatic flourish over the grotesqu
e distortion of New York. As he spoke, the landscape continued to undulate and change, the vibrant reds and oranges of the inferno in Hell’s Kitchen reflected in flickering tongues of flame in Rego’s gray eyes. “It’s been known by many names throughout centuries, of course, but your friend’s nickname for it is actually the English translation for the Old Demonic name for it. She was surprisingly accurate in her terminology,” Rego said, clearly reluctant in his praise.
“The Dark World is an alternate version of your world, connected to it by its very nature. What happens in one world can impact the other. If the death of someone in your world is prematurely caused by an inhabitant of the Dark World—namely, a demon—the victim spends the duration of what would have been his or her life trapped on the other side. A demon played a hand in your friend’s death, yes?”
“Actually, no. She—” I stopped short, not wanting to tell Dottie’s secrets.
“She died in the fifties. She killed herself because she was pregnant,” Logan finished.
“What does that matter?” I asked, indignant. “And her name is Dottie.”
“I had to know who she was—is,” Logan corrected himself, giving me an apologetic look. “After I realized you could hear her, I did a little research in the school archives after hours. I said I’d made that jump between buildings a thousand times,” he added, that confident smile flashing quickly across his face. Then his smile faded as he continued. “I’m positive that Dottie was the victim of a male lust demon—an incubus. The mother is unable to resist his advances.”
I mulled over what Dottie had told me about her ex. “She did call him a dreamboat.”
“More like a nightmare boat,” Ajax griped before explaining. “The mother never survives the birth. As soon as she’s pregnant, the demon disappears, returning only to take his offspring back home.” He pointed at the map, indicating the horrific home in question.
“But, wait a minute—Bobby didn’t kill her,” I pointed out, tracing a crack in the table with my finger, and it wobbled underneath my fingertips.
“A demon intervened in her life, directly bringing about her death. That’s all that matters,” Rego explained cavalierly, as if he were talking about dinner plans, not the victimization of my only friend. Seeing the aghast look on my face, he softened his tone—slightly.
“It’s not surprising, given the timing of your friend’s demise,” he explained. “The lust demons really built their numbers in the fifties, rising to prominence in the sixties. Their numbers were so great, they influenced your side, actually. I trust you’ve heard of the hippies and their belief in free love?” Rego grimaced in disgust, and I nodded, thinking about the goofy Cinderella play my dad had dragged me to. It suddenly seemed a lot more sinister.
“It happened with the greed demons, too,” Ajax interjected. “Ugh, in the eighties they were everywhere. Wasn’t that an era of greed on your side?”
“Big-time. While I can’t say I’m surprised to hear that there’s a demonic influence on Wall Street, what does all this have to do with me?” I asked. “Why would a demon attack me simply because I can talk to people like Dottie?” I stared at the map as it undulated before me.
Rego folded his hands on the table, regarding me gravely as his silver rings clacked against the marked-up surface.
“That talent is precisely why. It means you can do more than simply talk to people. It’s why the ruler of the Dark World, the Regent Queen, sent her minions to kidnap you. It’s quite arduous to cross between the worlds. Very few portals exist—and most of those are one-way passages. It’s a brutal journey full of unspeakable pain. No one can survive crossing over alone. You must travel in a group, so the energy is absorbed by multiple bodies.”
“Why is it so painful?” I asked.
“Ripping a hole in one universe to visit another? Oh, dear Bliss, that’s going to unleash some serious energy,” Ajax answered with a low whistle.
“Where are these portals?” Hopefully Antarctica, because I want to live as far away from these things as possible.
“The demons have destroyed most of them. The remaining ones are not exactly convenient. One portal to the Dark World is in the ocean, for example. There’s one that leads to this side in the demon queen’s palace, heavily guarded, of course,” Rego explained with a flick of his wrist as his iron eyes studied me. “But to have a Traveler like you at your disposal?” My skin crawled at the easy way the term Blaise had used rolled off his tongue.
“You’re connected to both worlds. Your ability to talk to Dottie is proof of that. A demon or a warlock could use you to open a portal anytime he desired, and cross back and forth as often as he wants,” Rego marveled, and my stomach turned at the way he regarded my value, like I was some supernatural bus pass.
“Why would you ever want to go there?” I asked, shuddering.
“It’s not that bad,” Ajax said, but Rego just brushed him off.
“We’re at war here, Paige.” Rego’s tone was solemn, mouth set in a serious, grim line. “Warlocks are the rightful heirs to the throne—a throne that’s been sullied by thousands of years of demonic reign. But now, we’re closer than ever to taking back control. With your help, we could travel back and forth for supplies—there are herbs in the Dark World that cure injuries. I use salt from the seawater on that side in my healing elixir.”
“And cocoa butter, because you can never underestimate the power of soft, touchable skin,” Ajax chimed in, earning another of Rego’s glares. The warlock pinned Ajax with his hard gaze until he muttered, “Ooh-kay, then,” and focused on his chips.
“But beyond that,” Rego continued, turning his attention back to me, “you could travel to a safe point in this world, cross over and find yourself standing in the queen’s chambers. If you knew the exact coordinates, it would be the perfect assassination.”
Rego studied me speculatively. “And I’m sure you’d love to help us get revenge on the demons who arranged the attack on you today.”
“No, Rego,” Logan interrupted, glaring at his uncle. “Don’t even think it.”
“What?” I asked, looking back and forth between them.
“There’s a slight potentiality that it could be something of a minor drain on your life force to cross into another dimension,” Rego begrudgingly revealed.
“Put it in English, Rego,” Logan said, before turning to me. “Paige, it could take years off your life.”
He pressed his lips together in a thin line as he thought about how to explain.
“Think of opening a door,” Logan said. “You shove, and the door opens, right?”
I nodded. “Now think of the exertion it takes to open a heavy door.” He paused. “Now imagine trying to open the steel door to a locked bank vault. Think of pushing all your strength behind that door.”
“This is like that?”
“This is a hundred times harder.”
Rego leaned back in his chair, his steely eyes appraising me as he tapped his index finger against his lips. “But that would be after making several trips. One or two wouldn’t hurt much if you were willing to help our cause.”
“Rego,” Logan warned, giving his uncle a stern look. “It could kill her.”
“We don’t know that for sure. If it’s for the greater good, she could consider it. She’s the one who didn’t want her memory erased, after all,” Rego replied, arching his eyebrow at Logan.
“So, is everyone who had a near-death experience a Traveler?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Can you tell us more about the accident?” Logan asked, crouching down next to my chair. “How you got the ability to talk to spirits trapped in the other world?”
I nodded numbly. When I was finished telling them the story of how I saved Dylan, Rego actually looked impressed. He even chimed in with, “Fascinating. It sounds like a fear demon go
t loose.”
“What? Are you saying Dylan’s a demon?” I blurted out. The kid was annoying as hell, but I couldn’t imagine him actually being from hell.
“Nothing like that,” Logan said. “It sounds like a fear demon transported Dylan to the middle of the street, since it was his mother’s greatest fear that he’d run away like that.”
“It’s kind of their thing,” Ajax chimed in, licking sour cream and onion dust from his fingertips as he swung his feet from his perch on the countertop.
“And you intervened and subsequently died—but were brought back. Had you not been resuscitated, you would have been trapped in the Dark World for the rest of your natural life, just like your friend Dottie,” Rego surmised.
I stared down at my fingers as they mashed together in my lap, the news of how I narrowly avoided being a wandering soul, lost in a nightmarish dimension, sinking in and, not surprisingly, making me nauseous. Logan plunked a generic can of lemon-lime soda down in front of me, and I jumped back in surprise.
“Sorry, but you look a little pale,” he said apologetically. “I thought you could use some sugar.” I took the can gratefully, downing a couple of huge gulps.
“One thing I don’t get is, why now? Why attack me at school and kill Travis?” I asked, my voice cracking over his name. “Why not just sneak into my bedroom and kidnap me—not that I want them to get any ideas.”
Rego stood up and placed another piece of vellum, this one with a golden hue, over the map. Tiny pinpricks of light dotted the city—several in Central Park, a few in lower Manhattan—but there was a brilliant light marking where Holy Assumption stood.
“We’ve been looking for places where the membrane between the worlds is thin—places we could use to attempt opening a portal to strike against our enemies on the other side. My spies learned the Regents were doing the same thing. See, every time you’ve pulled a spirit out of that side into ours, you’ve impacted that membrane,” Rego explained, jabbing each point of light.
“Every time you’ve talked to Dottie, you’ve kind of sent a big flare in the air.” Logan circled the bright golden light at Holy Assumption with his finger tip. “So we knew there was someone with your talent in this vicinity—and it had to be someone at the school.”