The sound slapped her back to reality; she heard Steven’s voice again. Nerak is the most powerful and destructive force any world has ever seen, and he is on his way to this spot right now – because we opened the portal.
‘Oh shit, Steven, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!’ She stared at the portal, then whispered, ‘Close the goddamned thing. Move!’ She used the fire-shovel Steven had taken from the fireplace to fold one corner over and as she did so, the waves of energy in the room subsided. Jennifer guessed that with the disappearance of the mystical fireflies, it was safe for her to move the tapestry by hand, then escape to wherever it was she was going. She reached out her fingers, then stopped and retreated to the relative safety of the couch. She didn’t consider herself a brave woman – her behaviour earlier in the day had truly shocked and appalled her – and she was glad no one was there now to watch as she scurried back and forth across her living room like a frightened rabbit.
‘Enough,’ she finally told herself, and steeled herself to touch the tapestry. Once she’d started it was easier than she’d expected, and she folded it into a surprisingly small lump, which she stuffed into a canvas bag. Then she rushed about her house, not really certain what essentials she would require. She grabbed her wallet and collected together a pile of clean underwear and socks and her favourite sweater. She unearthed the small fireproof strongbox she kept hidden in the space above the electric fuse panel. Now she could smell the pungent aroma of burning oil and melting plastic; people were crying for help and someone – or two, she couldn’t tell – was screaming in agony.
He was here; he – it – whatever, Nerak was out there, less than two blocks away.
Jennifer rushed through the foyer, slipped one set of keys into her pocket, then without even a final look around her house stepped outside, locked the door behind her and hustled down the steps towards her car.
Nerak drove like a madman, with the window rolled down so he could drink in the bellow of the Mustang’s racing engine. These automobiles are fascinating, he thought, picturing himself careening through the streets of Pellia – or, even better, Orindale or Estrad – maybe even in one of the colourful giants, one of those trucks, Myrna’s memory supplied. Moving a plug of Confederate Son from one side of Myrna’s mouth to the other, Nerak tried to spit brown juice out the window, but his current mouth was not yet trained and instead it dribbled down the inside of the door.
Traffic had been light, and the raging forest fire still flickering at the edges of the highway had discouraged all but the most intrepid of travellers from risking the journey east, but Nerak was becoming angry. The girl’s memories told him that progress would be slower, but he had no idea how congested the road would be. There were hundreds – thousands – of clumsy, colourful roaring monsters lining the road, an endless caravan. Where were all these people going? He growled.
Home. Myrna’s mind answered him. They are going home.
‘Well, they are in the way,’ Nerak said, and considered his options. He had used most of the bullets on his trip across the country – and a few more in Idaho Springs, just when people had tried to keep him from climbing the concrete ramp to the highway. But it hadn’t taken many bullets to clear that path; Nerak had become quite a skilled marksman. He leaned out the window and spat another mouthful of tobacco juice onto the highway. This was too much; the gun was just a toy, anyway, nothing powerful enough to move all these people. He needed something more, another fire perhaps, or maybe a sand storm – just killing them all as he had in Port Denis wouldn’t get their cars out of his way.
He searched Myrna’s memories; all her thoughts, interactions, ideas and fears were neatly organised and it took only a moment for Nerak to find what he needed. ‘Just to get through this traffic,’ he said, Myrna’s lips splitting to reveal teeth coated in brown fluid, bits of tobacco leaf stuck between her molars. He wiped the sticky open sore on the back of her wrist against one thigh, leaving a trail of blood and rotting flesh on her skirt. His eyes fluttered as he whispered a spell.
With Mantegna’s new siren wailing and red lights flashing, Nerak drove with abandon, dodging parked cars and ignoring pedestrians scattering before him as he careened between cars and over sidewalks. Soon he spotted the row of antiques shops that ran along South Broadway Avenue. Meyers Antiques: Steven might be inside right now – perhaps that was where he planned to open the portal and take Lessek’s key back to Fantus and the rest of the Ronan partisans.
‘Not today, Steven,’ Nerak growled, and pushed the accelerator to the floor. ‘I might keep you alive just long enough for you to watch me eat your heart. That will make for a fitting end to an otherwise thrilling day.’
Perhaps he would crash through the front windows of the store: draw a crowd to witness Steven’s pain. He was in a fine mood, for though he had temporarily lost Lessek’s key, he was confident he would soon have it back – nearly a thousand Twinmoons later, he would reclaim what was rightly his. Lessek’s key? Lessek had not suffered and struggled to earn that key – he may have chipped it from the granite slab that had eventually become the Larion spell table, but Nerak was the one who had earned its knowledge, its power. If it had not been for Pikan and that milksop, Kantu- He paused. He could barely control his rage: how close had he been that night?
Nerak felt a strange but familiar sensation; a tickle in his throat, along the left side of his face, but intent on Meyers Antiques, now only two blocks away, he ignored it – until, suddenly, its significance sank in.
‘The portal!’ he shouted, the power of his voice throwing a young man riding a bicycle into the wrought-iron gate of an upscale cafe. The portal was open, right now – and it wasn’t inside Meyers Antiques. Steven Taylor was nearby; Nerak could smell him, could taste his foul foreign blood, but he wasn’t inside the antiques store; Myrna had been wrong.
He searched her memories again: Hannah Sorenson. Meyers Antiques. South Broadway Avenue, Denver, Colorado. Interstate 70 east to 1-25 south to Broadway.
‘Where is he?’ Nerak cried, shattering the car’s windshield.
Hannah’s home. Her parents. Her apartment.
Nerak cursed his own poor judgment, then shook his head. ‘No matter. The portal will guide me now.’ He honed in on the Larion magic, as loud now and resonant in this curious world as a thunderclap, gripped the wheel and turned left across the busy lanes of South Broadway Avenue.
He didn’t make it. A large yellow moving van clipped the tail end of the Mustang, sending it into a spin. Nerak struggled for control, eventually giving up on the steering wheel and taking over with his mind, but it was too late and he slammed headlong through the wide plate-glass windows of a rare books store. The ensuing explosion as the gas tank erupted beneath him cast the Eldarni dictator out of Myrna Kessler’s burning body.
Gilmour rolled over with a groan. The sun had not yet climbed high enough to bring any light to the fjord, but above he could see the earliest hues of dawn heralding another day. ‘What time is it?’ he asked in a hoarse whisper. Garec, sleeping soundly beside the remains of their campfire, didn’t stir.
Pain flared in his chest and, wincing, Gilmour pulled his legs up tightly against his stomach. There were broken ribs, at least three, and maybe a bit of internal bleeding. With his fingertips, he felt the swelling beneath his armpits and grimaced. Was there any greater pain in life than broken ribs? And not just one, but three, great rutting lords. The damp mud of the shoreline provided a comfortable, if chilly bed, and Gilmour felt his head settle back into the concave dent where it had spent much of the previous night.