Thorssen mumbled something but I couldn’t make it out clearly. I disregarded it for now. There’d be time for figuring things out later. “How do I get started?”

  “Lie down,” said Thorssen.

  “Right here? On the floor?”

  “The Veil doesn’t care where you are,” said Thorssen. “Just do as I say. The only thing you need to worry about is the intent in your heart. Remember what we said?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” I squatted and then laid on my back. “Close my eyes?”

  Thorssen shrugged. “If you need to, do it. But there are people who can cross over and still look completely awake on this side. Still, it being your first time and all, you might want to take every advantage you can.”

  I frowned, but closed my eyes, already starting to deepen my breathing. “Now what?”

  Charade leaned close. “I will attempt a portal spell that should open a spot for you to cross over. Remember the goal is simply to prove you can do it now, not to get lost over there. The Veil is the barrier. Think of it like you’re poking your head through the hedges of a neighbor’s yard. The Demimonde itself is another realm comprised of various lands. You do not want to get lost over there or you’ll never find your way back.”

  Thorssen cleared his throat. “You’d never last an hour over there anyway. You’d be hunted down and killed. Die over there and your soul loses its freedom.”

  Charade sighed. “That’s just a myth.”

  “Myth or not,” I said, “the prospect of losing my soul doesn’t sit well with me. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  “Concentrate on the center of your mind’s eye,” said Thorssen.

  “What does that even mean?” I asked.

  “You’ll know it when you see it,” he said. “Now breathe and don’t make a sound while we attempt the portal spell.”

  I slowed my inhalations and thought about the task before me. I concentrated on the idea of crossing the Veil. Far off in the distance, I heard Charade mumbling. The air in the room grew warmer. I could feel my heart rate tick up a notch and I willed it back to a better resting pace. The Veil.

  Even with my eyes closed, I could still see brightness. At first, I thought it might be the lights in the room coming through my eyelids. But then I realized the illumination was coming from within my mind. This must have been what Thorssen meant when he’d told me to concentrate on that.

  I did. And I as I did, it grew larger. Opening before me like a tear in a piece of fabric. I walked toward it, unaware if I was actually moving or seeing myself move. Beyond the tear, I could see swirling foggy tendrils that reached up from the ground and wrapped themselves around my body. They were cool and wet, like being outside in the Pacific Northwest on a stormy day. I was partially chilled and partially sweating.

  I kept my concentration fixed on the Veil. This had to be it. I kept moving forward, steadily. Resolutely. My focus never wavered. I needed to cross the Veil. I needed to see the other side.

  As I approached, the clouds increased, obscuring my vision. I felt like I was atop a mountain, where any step might send me careening down the rocky slopes to my death. I didn’t want to take another step. I didn’t want to risk it.

  But I had to.

  I had to cross the Veil.

  I lifted my foot and took the step, entering the barrier of the Veil itself. Not yet into the Demimonde and not still in my world. I was straddling realms.

  And that was when the images started rushing at me. I saw the faces of people I’d wronged in the past. Their names, their voices, their sadness, their elation...all of it came at me in waves, rolling over me and threatening to pull me under and drown me in a sea of uncertainty and regret.

  But I kept my eyes focused on the Veil. I kept moving forward.

  Now figures emerged before me. Whereas before it had been just random images, now there were actual people in front of me. Including the suburban housewife I’d been attracted to recently.

  “Why did you do it?” she asked then. “Why did you ruin everything?”

  I wanted to tell her that it was her fault, too. I wanted to tell her that if she’d treated me better, I never would have hacked her email. That she never took responsibility for anything. She never did anything wrong. And so her life would be spent in denial, alone in her misery. I could have elevated her to a better place if only she’d let me help.

  But she didn’t. Fear kept her from taking that step.

  Fear.

  I walked right through her and kept moving through the Veil. My intent was set. I wasn’t going to let my mistakes hold me back. I was human. I failed. I screwed up. I hurt people that I cared about.

  I would be judged for my misdeeds by those with nothing better to do than pick apart my faults instead of examining their own. The drama of what I had done would no doubt fuel their fantasies for crisis and conflict because they had nothing else going on in their pathetic lives. All they had was the strife they could create.

  There would be some - precious few - who would remember me for the good I had done, the support and love I’d given freely. And while they might think I’d fucked up pretty bad, they wouldn’t let my mistakes define me.

  And neither would I.

  I kept moving toward the edge of the Veil. I could see it now. The clouds and fog or whatever the hell it was were beginning to thin. With each step I took, I came closer to the edge - closer to the hedges where I could peek my head through and get a quick look at the Demimonde itself.

  I felt the hands next, sets of hands physically reaching up from the mist around me, trying desperately to pull me down into their embrace. Their voices were a discordant mix of names I knew. Men, women...they were all there. Friends long lost. Enemies. Lovers. Family even.

  “Why did you forsake me?”

  “Why did you betray me?”

  “What happened to us? I thought you loved me…”

  And on and on it went. The physical and verbal assault triggered another wave of images rushing at me in my mind. The Veil was doing its best to break my concentration and stop me from crossing over.

  If it succeeded, I would be dead.

  I shut out the images first, keeping my mind’s eye focused on the Veil. I managed to turn down the volume on the voices by making my breathing louder. I huffed and puffed as I moved, deliberately creating noise that would drown them all out.

  And finally, I kept moving, striding further ahead, breaking the grips of the hands until they fell back into the mist.

  Away from me.

  The images in my head ceased.

  The voices died away.

  I saw the edge of the Veil.

  And the darkness beyond it.

  Did time exist here? Was it also night in the Demimonde? I had no way of knowing. I just kept moving forward. I still wasn’t sure if I was really at the edge of the barrier or if this was yet another trick by the Veil to get me to let my guard down.

  Keep moving, Fury, I told myself.

  One step after another.

  And another.

  And then I felt a cool breeze on my face as I broke through.

  The Demimonde.

  I stood with the Veil behind me, alone in a wide open grassy field that seemed to stretch for miles in any direction. A brisk breeze blew the tall strands of grass like an undulating wave that first went in one direction and then another.

  Far off in the distance, I could hear the howl of a wolf. I hoped it wasn’t a werewolf. Thorssen had said they existed over here. I didn’t need to run into one on my first trip to the Demimonde.

  Above me, the sky - if that’s what it actually was - was pure darkness. There was no illumination anywhere in the sky above me, and yet I was still able to see the world around me. I had no idea where the light came from, but then as I looked, I saw tiny bits of light scampering about in the grass. Perhaps they were lightning bugs, perhaps something far more sinister. In any event, their activity lent just enough light so I could make out field before me.

  Another howl sounded in the night. It was closer than the last one. A moment later, another howl broke the landscape, this time to my left.

  They were communicating.

  I started to turn around to go back through the Veil to my world. But part of me wanted to stay. Part of me wanted to see what was making those howls.

  Were they really werewolves? Or just regular wolves?

  The howls grew closer now. Much closer.

  They were hunting in a pack. Triangulating in on their prey.

  I realized with a start that it was me they were after. And then I saw the motion in the swaying grass.

  It was out of time with the breeze. If I hadn’t had the tactical awareness that my job with the CIA gave me, I might have missed it. It was so subtle.

  But it was there.

  One of them was close.

  Too close.

  And when I heard the next howl, it couldn’t have been more than twenty yards away. A full-grown wolf could cover that distance in a single bound.

  I had no idea what a werewolf could do.

  More rustling in the grass. There had to be at least three of them. I wanted to stay and see them.

  But it was time to go.

  I turned-

  Just as one of them charged right at me. I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye as I turned. It was huge. Bigger than I’d expected.

  Thankfully, my body took over and plunged me back into the Veil.

  And instead of thinking about the werewolf, I focused only on the Veil, moving with deliberate precision, brushing through the sea of hands, the memories, and the voices as if they no longer existed,

  Because they didn’t.

  All that mattered was getting back. I had to cross the Veil.

  I kept moving and then was through the mist.

  I jerked awake with a sudden gasp, sucking air into my lungs, which suddenly felt starved for oxygen.

  I tried to sit up but Thorssen and Charade held me down.

  “Give it a minute,” said Charade. “How do you feel?”

  “Like I damn near got eaten by a werewolf.”

  Thorssen leaned over me. “Congratulations. You’ve crossed the Veil and made it back in one piece.”

  10

  “There were werewolves,” I said simply.

  Charade helped me sit up and handed me a glass of water. “How do you know?”

  “Because if I’d stayed another second, I would have been torn apart, I think.” I sipped the water and handed her back the glass. I looked at Thorssen. “Are you satisfied now? I did what you asked.”

  He nodded. “You did. And you’ve seen the Demimonde. Tell me what you thought of it.”

  “I only saw a wide open field at night, but there were no stars in the sky, just small bugs that looked like fireflies or something. It was colder there. The grass was long and moved back and forth but it was tall enough to conceal the werewolves, creatures, or whatever the hell they were.”

  “What you saw was but one part of the Demimonde. Each realm within it might appear drastically different. One can never say for certain what you will find when you venture into it.”

  “If that’s true, then how the hell can you know where you’re even going? How do you navigate it?”

  Thorssen smiled and reached into his pocket, pulling out what looked like an old stopwatch. “Everyone has a different technique, of course. What works for some may not work for others. It really depends.”

  “You use a watch?”

  He shook his head. “No. I use a compass. But it looks like a watch because I’m old and people expect to see it, so that’s what they see.”

  He held it out to me and I took it in my hands. The face looked exactly like a watch. But I turned it around and instantly the face changed to a weird sort of compass. But rather than letters, I saw strange sigils and an arrow pointing as if to true north. I handed it back to Thorssen.

  “That’s great, except I have no idea what any of it means.”

  “She does,” said Thorssen pointing at Charade. “She can read the directions and take you where you need to go.”

  I glanced at Charade who merely nodded.

  “And where do we need to go?”

  “Castine.”

  I eyed him. “Is that the name of one of the realms within the Demimonde?”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s a town on the coast of Maine.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Thorssen looked nonplussed. “What?”

  “I thought you said we had to go into the Demimonde to find the jacket. That’s why I just narrowly avoided getting devoured by werewolves. Remember?”

  Thorssen shrugged. “The jacket isn’t in the Demimonde. That would be a silly place to hide it. The forces of evil would have gotten their hands on it there. I just needed to see what sort of man you are before I told you how to find it.”

  I wanted to strangle him. I think Charade guessed as much because I felt her cool hand on the back of my neck. “Don’t,” she said quietly.

  “I did all that just to prove I was capable of doing so?” I frowned. “It’s a good thing Birk is dead otherwise I’d bring him around and let him rough you up some more.”

  “If you hadn’t gone through, there would be no point trying to locate the jacket,” said Thorssen.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it doesn’t allow itself to be worn by cowards. It would have rejected all your attempts to find it. Only a brave man with a true heart can ever possess it. No doubt that is the reason you have been tasked with finding it, because others do not possess the same heart as you.”

  I shook my head. “Look, I’m not some saint here. I’m a screw-up in a lot of ways. I make mistakes. People get hurt. I’m about as far from perfect as you can get.”

  Thorssen smiled. “Yes, but you realize your faults and you work on them. That makes you more than qualified to go after the jacket. Just remember that while you can be a force for good, the jacket can also be possessed by the forces of evil.”

  “How so?”

  “The jacket doesn’t necessarily see things in terms of good and evil, just in terms of pure focus. So while you operate from a good standpoint, someone with the same demeanor operating from an evil standpoint would also be able to possess it.”

  “Great.” I thought about the town. “Where exactly is that place? I’ve never even heard of it.”

  “About an hour south of Bar Harbor,” said Thorssen. “The Maine Maritime Academy is based there.”

  “Don’t tell me the jacket is hidden on a boat.”

  “It’s not. But you’ll find clues to its resting place on an island just off the coast of the town.”

  “An island?”

  “On the drive up, research the area. Charade has the compass and she can guide you close to where you need to go. The jacket has its own inherent properties and one of those will be to mask its presence. It can confuse those who search for it. In order to find its exact location, you will need a special charm that is buried on the island. Find the charm, and let Charade recite it. The jacket’s location will make itself known. From there, it should be a simple matter to find it.”

  “Simple matter,” I chuckled. “I’ll bet.”

  Charade stood. “We should get going. If Maleagant gets wind that his men have been ambushed, he’ll send reinforcements.”

  Thorssen helped me to my feet. “Good luck.”

  “We could have been halfway there by now if you hadn’t made me go through that hazing of yours.”

  “And you might still be skeptical,” said Thorssen. “Tell me, what do you think of magic now?”

  “I think there isn’t enough magic in this world or the next to keep me from kicking your ass if you’re sending us on a wild goose chase. How about that?”

  He frowned. “You’ll thank me later.”

  “Doubt it. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  “Isn’t that what she said?”

  I looked into his eyes. “What?”

  “The woman whose email you hacked. Isn’t that what she said about you? That she never wanted to see you again? How did that make you feel? Especially after all the time you spent supporting her and being friends and more and giving her so much of your attention. How did it feel hearing her say that to you?”

  “Like shit. How do you think it felt?”

  “You’re not entirely to blame,” said Thorssen. “She is culpable in the matter as well.”

  I laughed. “Try telling her that, would you? She doesn’t go a whole long way on accepting personal responsibility for her actions. According to her, she’s never done anything wrong.”

  “Sounds like the majority of people walking this planet,” said Thorssen. “But trust me, one day, she’ll look back with deep regret. You might well have been the best thing that ever happened to her.”

  I shook my head. “How is it that everyone seems to know my business? Did you take a peek in my skull while I was in the Veil?”

  “It’s not that difficult once you get used to it,” said Thorssen. “Who knows? Maybe one day even an old dog like you could learn a new trick or two.”

  “Right about the time that chick admits she treated me like shit,” I said. “Which is to say, probably never.”

  “You need to have faith,” said Thorssen. “The world needs more believers in the basic goodness of humanity.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe I don’t have much faith because the so-called faithful are routinely full of shit. Hypocrites who cast judgment over others even while they proclaim what God-loving folks they are. Excuse me if I don’t buy into that whole line of bullshit.”

  “Hypocrites and judgment are to be expected. You know very well that it’s always easier to judge another than to try to understand the why of an event.”

  “They’ve made me out to be a monster,” I said. “Suffice it to say, I’m not feeling very charitable when it comes to those assholes.”

  “Faith,” said Thorssen putting his hand on my arm. “Keep it within you always. You never know when you might need it.”

  “I need it now,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s going to show up.” I looked at Charade. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17