The Devil's Daughter Complete Box Set, page 90
part #1 of The Devil's Daughter Series
“I don’t know a now. I’m a doppelgänger in hell.”
He turned his dusty brown eyes to her. “You’re in the Malveaux dimension? No one from that realm is supposed to be able to enter this building. If you would have stepped directly through the door, you’d be standing in the middle of a paranormal meltdown. Do you understand? Only by changing dimensions are you still in one piece. Doppelgängers can’t change dimensions.”
“I do not care about your paranormal science fair project.” Explaining her situation seemed pointless, plus she honestly didn’t give a rat’s ass about what had happened in another time and dimension. “I have to get to the roof and free someone locked in one of your vaults. Can you help?”
“No.” At least he was honest. “I’m not in your dimension, which means we’re in different versions of the World Trade Center. I’m afraid you’re going to have to find your way on your own.”
“Fine, then just show me the door, and I’ll leave you to your history lesson.”
“Only someone from your reality can open the door. Once it’s closed, you’re stuck in this in-between realm. Didn’t anyone warn you before you stepped onto this floor?”
If she’d had her sword, she would have turned the researcher into a ghost. “I was escaping a fire tornado. None of the wraiths I encountered were much into talking.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.” He opened his journal and started making notes.
She wondered how similar it was to the diary she shared with Dooly. “What about that ledger? Someone must read it beyond this dimension.”
He continued scribbling. “It’s for correspondence about preventing the apocalypse, not for sending personal letters to lovers.”
“So rip me out a piece of paper, and I’ll mail a letter to someone in the future to let them know to come find me.”
His eyes blazed at her. “Did you not understand that we’re dealing with the witch trials here? Mail isn’t as private as you think it is in the future. We may not be fully in this dimension, but they had one thing right—fire is universal, and it destroys. Even as a doppelgänger, if they tie you to the stake and set you ablaze, you won’t be returning to your dimension.”
She leaned in close to his ear. “You don’t know everything. I was forged from hell’s fires.” She turned away from the guy and stormed off in the direction she’d come. “The door has to be around here somewhere.” People avoided looking at her as if whatever malady had her talking to herself might be contagious. At a wooden bench, she sat to think. What have I gotten myself into?
The hand that touched her shoulder kicked her combat training into high gear. She had the guy flipped onto his back with her old-fashioned leather shoe at his throat in one smooth motion.
“Don’t kill me, Doodlebug. It’s me, Smoke.” He yanked at his cloak to uncover his face.
She pulled on his arm while pressing harder against his chin with her boot. “Smoke’s a dragon.” Her words were soft enough not to be heard by the superstitious villagers.
“Look behind my ear.”
She twisted her foot to bend his head to the side. When she saw the rune, she let go of his hand. “How are you here?”
He got up and rubbed his neck. “If you’d have talked to me instead of running off halfcocked from the swamp, this would have been a whole lot easier. Chloe knew I wouldn’t be able to fly to the tower, so she held back her dragon’s breath cocktail. That meant I resorted to human form. We both figured I would be more useful to you this way.”
She looked around, expecting to see an open hatch to the flaming stairwell. “But now we’re both stuck.”
“You must think I’m really stupid. I didn’t leave the portal out in the open for everyone to see, and I left a sword in the doorframe to hold it open. It’s behind that pile of sackcloth. So long as I’m the one that opened it—and it remains open—I don’t fully transition to the in-between dimension the way you did. Using this cloak Chloe whipped up for me from hell’s plants, I can see both the hell dimension and this in-between world.”
She didn’t want to admit that she’d let the door close behind her without making sure she had kept the escape route available. “All right, smarty pants, what plan did you come up with once we’re back in that fire tornado?”
His smarmy smile reminded her of how obnoxious he could be at times. “I’m a dragon. Fire is kind of my thing.”
“There’s more in that whirlwind than flames.”
82
Chapter 13
Doodlebug stood guard while Smoke pulled the piles of burlap away from the wall. Though the danger of being caught demanded she keep her eyes on the street, she couldn’t resist taking a not-so-quick glance at his muscular bottom. Even from under the cape, she could see his muscles ripple as he worked. Far from being the skinny, nerdy, goth boy she’d imagined, Smoke—or rather Bernie, his real—was a man in his twenties who was far too handsome to be hanging out in the swamp with an antisocial witch. “Why are you working with Chloe?”
He kept his legs spread wide while stretching out his back from the physical exertion. “You mean why isn’t Bernie doing something important with his life instead of hanging out in the swamp, learning magic?” Even in luscious human form, he could still play the annoying older brother figure.
“Something like that. I mean, I get why you would want to be a dragon.”
He turned his baby-blue eyes on her. “I have to admit, being a dragon is fucking cool. As for Bernie, he got tired of living up to others’ expectations for him. Being smart, athletic, and popular isn’t much good if there’s no drive behind it.” He tossed the last of the bundles away from the stack of boards leaning against the wall. “It all just came too easy for him.”
The sound of villagers made her turn back to the street. “We’d better get moving.”
He shouldered the boards out of the way. “This way, my lady.” Flames leapt through the open iron door.
Though the village was far from inviting, she wasn’t in a hurry to face the fire wraiths again. “You’re the dragon. I’ll follow you.” With the villagers quickly approaching, Doodlebug stuck close to Smoke as they rushed through the door and slammed it closed on 1694 Salem.
The faces of all manner of goblins manifested in the stairwell’s flames, each intent on doing battle with the corporeal intruders. The smell of burning sulfur, irritation of rapidly drying eyes and mouth, and electric tingling of flames dancing on her skin indicated the wraiths were getting closer to figuring out how to combat her. “Would it be too much to hope that Chloe endowed you with some magical dragon firefighting ability?”
Smoke turned away from the spiral column of flames and spread his cape to the fire. “Just this cloak, but I’m not sure it will protect us for nineteen floors.” He pressed her to the wall. Synchronizing their steps to keep the protective garment over them both, they took one step at a time.
She put her hands on his waist to keep from falling. “You never answered about how you found me.”
“It wasn’t all that hard. There’s a flock of birds squawking and flapping just outside this wing of the building.”
Being crushed between Smoke and the wall while trying not to step on his cape made each step an ordeal. “Great. So the Cormorant knows I’m here. If we’re going to get to the vault before she moves it, we can’t take forever getting up these stairs.”
“You’re right.” He stepped back, pulled off his cape, and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Get to the restaurant as fast as you can. I’ll try and distract these wraiths. My bet is they’re the ones the birds are focusing on, so if I can keep them occupied, you might be able to sneak past the Cormorant.”
Leaving him to face the fire demons alone didn’t sound like the safest move, but he had a point about distracting the Cormorant. “Don’t get singed, magic dragon. You’re all I’ve got to move that vault. Without you, this whole mission will go down in flames.” She swung the cloak over her head and scampered up the stairs.
After climbing three flights as fast as she could, Doodlebug lowered the hood of the cape so she could get a look at the in-between dimension. Far below, the screams from the wraiths and the heat from the flames still reached up to her, but she was clear of the conflict. “I need to see if it’s just the guardian ghostly goblins that Smoke is keeping occupied or if the Cormorant is focusing on him as well. If not, I’ll be climbing into a trap.”
She pressed against the door to the twenty-first floor and pulled a sickle from her belt. “Let’s see if Smoke’s as smart as he thinks he is.” She slipped the blade through the crack and edged the iron hatch open. Whatever strange world the in-between dimension held, it stayed on its side of the entrance. She quickly opened the door wide enough to slip through then positioned the blade to hold it open.
Stepping away from the landing with the hood lowered put her deep underwater. She held what little breath she had left and struggled toward the surface as the cloak and swords dragged her down. I really need swimming lessons.
At the surface, she swung her arms toward dry land. She feared her splashing would call forth whatever magical entity the in-between dimension had been designed to contact, but she made it to shore without encountering any mythical mermaids or leviathans of the deep.
Once out of the water, she noticed the cloak hadn’t even gotten wet. “I have to remember to pull the cloak over my head next time.”
From the tall trees and lush hillsides, she guessed she hadn’t dropped in on any of New Orleans’s pasts. “I don’t need to get distracted by this damn magical realm. I need to find a window in the World Trade Center.” She pulled the cloak completely over her head and walked toward where the edge of the building should have been. So long as she had the fabric shading her face, the in-between dimension appeared as a translucent hologram projected along the tall, narrow room of the World Trade Center. She rushed to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked down toward the river. Three stories below, the birds were still fixated on what was happening inside. “So far, so good. Keep it up, my faithful dragon.”
In her haste to be back on the mission, she spun toward the lake so fast that the cape fell open. A man in deerskins blocked her path. “My Lady of the Lake!” He fell to one knee. “I saw you emerge from Dozmary Pool and have followed you hence.”
You have got to be kidding me. Though she hadn’t spent time studying history, hearing some mythological stories—like how Arthur had come to possess Excalibur—were unavoidable. “I don’t have time for this nonsense. If you’re not already king, you’re about to be.” She pulled the katana from her back. “Here. Take this. Use it in good health.”
The lad accepted the gleaming blade with both hands. “As you command, I vow to use this sword only for good.”
Whatever. With him kneeling in adoration, she slipped past him. Holding the cloak tightly around her head, she didn’t stop running, even when she encountered the water. At the bottom of the projected lake, the iron hatch loomed like an abandoned submarine. As she busted through the door, she pulled the sickle from the frame.
Doodlebug hated losing the katana that Sere had given her, but a sword was only a sword. Getting attached to possessions was as dangerous as befriending doppelgängers. One day, there would be a parting, and she didn’t need an emotional anchor holding her to the past. “There are a lot more swords in hell. At least that one became a legend.”
She hoped it was only her imagination that the fighting below was growing louder. “I can only expect Smoke to hold them off for so long—dang that Pendragon kid.” Bolting up the stairs two at a time, she glared at each floor’s door, hoping not to encounter whatever chaotic magic lay behind it.
At the thirty-third floor, she hunched over, hands on knees, and gasped for air. Sere had taught her how to control her body’s reactions, but nowhere in that training had she run up so many stairs in such a short time. “I have to get it together. Whatever’s past that door isn’t going to give me a pass just because I’m out of breath.” She forced her muscles into a standing position before willing her heart and lungs into a more dignified rhythm. The noise from below seemed to follow her all the way up the tower. “No time for dillydallying.” She busted through the door, remembering to stick a sword in the jam just in case.
She didn’t know if she should be relieved or concerned that the restaurant on top of the World Trade Center looked exactly like it should in the in-between dimension. Singed walls from a long-ago firefight, overturned voodoo totems and tables, and the smell of melted carpet filled the circular room that once rotated around the tower. But much to Doodlebug’s dismay, she didn’t see an eight-foot square iron vault. “Damn it!” She pulled the hood of the cloak over her head in frustration.
The room turned noticeably brighter with her head covered. As with the ghosts in the cemetery, the building’s randomly dispersed energy made every nerve ending in her body vibrate. She hit the floor just as bolts of lightning wider than her waist blasted out from the center of the room, through the upturned totems, and out into the storm.
With the room lit up from the pyrotechnics, she eased the hood off her head. “Nothing. The lightning inside the room only happens in hell’s dimension.” She turned toward the windows. Even though the strikes weren’t inside the room, they did manifest once outside the windows. “So even though I’m not in some mythical realm, this room is an in-between dimension.” She turned back to the center of the room, shielded her eyes, and eased the hood back up. In the center of the electrical discharges stood a glowing orange iron vault.
She felt a bit like a hellhound who’d chased down a battering-ram vehicle and didn’t know what to do with it. One of the dozens of lightning bolts erupted straight at her, but when it encountered the magical cloak, it arced around her body. “Well, that nixes my next idea of taking the cloak off and throwing it over the vault. Dammit, Smoke. I really need your advice.”
A screeching from outside made her turn toward the window. Between discharges of lightning, the giant dragon was doing battle with the Cormorant. “I guess you’ve got your hands full. I hope you downed a lot of Chloe’s concoction before leaving the stairwell wraiths. I’m going to need you in full dragon form to drag that iron box out of this room.”
The flock of birds circled behind their mistress as if ready to dive into the restaurant and take the vault at the first opportunity.
“What am I supposed to do now?” Instinctively, Doodlebug reached up for the headband under the cape’s hood. “Time to check in with the professor. If he doesn’t have an idea of what to do with this magic box, at least my failure to save Sanguine will be on his shoulders.” To make contact, however, she had to actually be in hell and not some weird in-between world. She looked back at the vault. “I’ll be right back.” Pulling the last sickle from her belt, she headed for the door to the observation deck.
83
Chapter 14
“This is without a doubt the dumbest thing I have ever done.” Beyond the hurricane, randomly discharged lightning bolts, flying warrior birds, and the dragon-and-Cormorant battle, heading outside to stand unprotected while thirty-three stories off the ground wasn’t Doodlebug’s idea of a good time. “Maybe it’s a result of jumping to my demise too many times, but I really hate heights.”
She pushed open the double glass doors and stepped into the storm. The wind whipped the hood off her head, forcing her to grab the headband to prevent it from flying off. Don’t drop the damn thing. Setting the sickle under her foot for safe keeping, she used both hands to secure the fabric farther down her head. “Dooly, I need help.”
“I figured as much when Kendell took away my beer. You know—”
“Shut up!” While struggling for her life, Doodlebug wasn’t in the mood for Dooly’s ramblings. “I’m upstairs with the vault. What do I do now?”
“How would I know?”
Doodlebug really wanted to strangle the girl. “Ask the others.”
Kendell sat in front of Dooly and stared hard into the girl’s eyes as if she were trying to see right down the connection to Doodlebug. “Have you had any indication that Sanguine knows you’re there?”
“Only if throwing bolts of lightning at me is her way of saying hello.”
“You’re going to have to move the vault, and not just physically,” the professor said. “It has to be completely in the hell dimension.”
“Tell him he’s not helping. It is in hell’s dimension. I can only see it while I’m wearing Chloe’s magical cape. When I take the hood off, the room looks like a firefight just ended. My current problem is approaching it without getting zapped by a bolt of lightning.” Doodlebug wondered if anyone in life had a clue as to what she was facing. Smoke made a banking turn, shielding her from the Cormorant’s sight.
But the birdwoman’s flock of followers wasn’t as easily distracted. A black bird that looked to be all beak dove at Doodlebug like a lawn dart. As much out of frustration with the living as with the threat of being skewered, she stepped out from her hunched position against the glass wall and swung at the bird with her sickle. With a loud screech and spray of blood, the creature plummeted from sight.
“Somebody tell me something useful, or I’m heading back into the restaurant. I’ll just start throwing beer bottles at the vault until Sanguine hears me.”
“You’re going to need to cut the power supply to it,” Kendell said. “It’s the only way to get a message to Sanguine.”
Doodlebug couldn’t imagine where the control room might be in the tower, or if it was even inside the building. “You have to be kidding me. Isn’t there some way to make contact with those computers?” She was seriously beginning to wonder if the professor’s equipment was good for anything at all.
