Meg walked for what felt like an hour in a daze. She had nothing. She had no way to get home. She didn’t even have a coat, and while she’d been gone, it had gotten cold on the Earth plane.
She walked until the crowds were gone. She walked through the quiet streets of downtown in abject misery. She would have to accept the fact that there was no way to get home. She couldn’t find the door to the Faery plane. Even if she could, how would she open it?
A great wave of sadness rolled over her as she finally had to face the fact that Beck and Cian were gone. They were separated from her by that door as surely as death could ever force them apart.
Would they think she’d run? Meg couldn’t stand that. She loved them.
Meg stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and leaned against the brick of the building. The tears would be held off no longer, and she sobbed into her hands. How could she be here, so far from them? She still felt them. They were in her heart. How could the distance be so great? The demon had been right. She was a nothing on this plane. She had been someone on the Faery plane, and not because she had been queen. It wasn’t that Beck and Cian had loved her, either. Their love hadn’t made her into the woman she had become. Her love had.
Loving them had made her a better person. Love had made her heart into a huge thing with the capacity to forgive even herself.
She would hold on to it. She would hold on to the love she had for them. If there was any way to get back to them, she would find it. There were vampires on this plane. She would find them. The vampires would help her, if they didn’t eat her first.
Meg felt better now that she had a plan. It was an insane plan, but it was a plan. She felt the satchel on her hip and sighed in relief. The vampire computer was still in it. Its shape and weight were a joy to her. She wouldn’t be able to connect to the vampire version of the internet, but there were thousands of DLs on every subject imaginable that she could read. Dante had shown her some anthropological articles from a scientist who had spent years on the Earth plane studying the vampires here before his contract with the demon had come up and he’d been dragged to hell.
Vampires were serious about science.
She stood. It was getting really late. She had to deal with the fact that she didn’t have a home anymore. She needed to find a place to stay. Where had the lady said the homeless shelter was?
Turning back to the sidewalk, a neon sign caught Meg’s eye. Her mouth dropped open as she realized that her salvation might not lie with a bunch of vamps.
She stood before a small store. The neon sign proudly proclaimed its name.
Dellacourt Electronics
If it’s broke, we’ll fix it
And it looked like someone was still home. There was a light on in back of the store, and someone was moving around.
Meg banged on the door with all her might. She pounded and pounded, not caring that she sounded completely insane.
“Dante!” she yelled with a mad sort of glee. “Open the door, Dante!”
After a long moment, she saw a very familiar face peek out the window. His eyes were narrow with suspicion.
“We’re closed, crazy lady,” Dante said. He pointed to the little sign in the window that had been turned to “closed.” He obviously thought she was insane, but he was still Dante. His eyes had moved straight to her chest, and he was boldly checking her out.
“I’m here for sex, Dante,” Meg said plainly.
Dante opened the door immediately.
“Really?” he asked. He was slightly thinner than his vampire counterpart and was dressed like a nerd, but he was Dante all the same.
“No, idiot,” Meg said with a tearful smile as she pushed her way in. She couldn’t help it. She threw her arms around him. “But I am so glad to see you.”
He hesitated only a second before letting his hands find her waist. “I’m glad to see you, too. How do we know each other? If I owe you money, I’m really sorry. I don’t have any. Did my sister send you?”
“No, Susan didn’t send me,” Meg said. “You don’t owe me money, and get your hand off my ass, Dante. I’m a married lady. And you’re going to help me get home.”
Dante stepped back. “You want me to call you a cab?”
“If only it were that easy. I need a hell of a lot more from you, but I know you’re up to the task. It’s fate, Dante. Do you believe in fate?”
“Not for a minute,” he said with a shrug. “Although, if it gets me something, I’ll believe in fate, sweetheart. I can believe in anything you like.”
Meg grinned as she reached into her satchel and pulled out the unassuming computer Vampire Dante had given her. “How about vampires?”
Human Dante made a couple of vomiting sounds. “Oh god, no. Not one of those. Please go away, Twihard. Do you know how many comments I’ve gotten since Twilight came out? I know I look a little like him, but seriously, not even for tits like yours will I put in plastic fangs and act like I can sparkle.”
Meg snorted and rolled her eyes. “First, you do not look like him. Not even close. Second, I told you, I’m married. Third, please sparkle for me. I think it would be funny. Now, shut up and listen. I think you’ll find this very interesting.” She handed the computer to him.
Dante took the tablet. “This is an iPad. I think it’s nice that you have one. Can I go to bed now?”
Meg saw her mistake. “Let me turn it on.” She flipped a switch and the menu came up. The menu in this case was a holographic female. As she’d been programmed by Dante, she was gorgeous and wore very little clothing.
“How may I help you, Dante love?” She also had a very sexy voice.
“Holy shit,” Human Dante swore. “Where the hell did you get this?”
Meg smiled. Now she had him.
Dante Dellacourt shoved a hand through his red-gold hair. It was long, hanging past his earlobes. Normally it didn’t bother him, but he was pretty sure it made him look grungy in front of the pretty woman sitting in his store. Not that perfectly combed hair would have helped. He smoothed his hands over his slightly wrinkled Lex Luthor for President T-shirt. Why couldn’t he have done some laundry? And why did it matter? The chick hadn’t come to try to date him.
He’d been listening to the craziest story he’d ever heard for the last hour and a half. The redhead was hot, but completely insane.
She thought vampires were real. She also believed in faeries and demons and hags, though Dante was getting that this wasn’t the kind of hag who dressed up nice to hang around gay bars. She was sure she’d been to another plane of existence. According to her, there were many planes, some easily accessible, some not. She was bonkers.
Except he’d been playing around with the computer she’d given him. It was far more advanced than anything he’d ever seen before. No one in the industry was even talking about a system that could do the things this one could. It was a supercomputer. It held so much information that Dante couldn’t even think of a name for the storage capacity. It blew past terabytes. It had a connection to an internet but claimed there was no connectivity here. Dante had played around and gotten the system to acknowledge his wireless connection. The superhot hostess had been unimpressed. She’d asked him why he’d connected her to such a primitive system and promptly downloaded the whole of the global internet. The whole fucking thing.