Hell Away from Home (The Devil's Daughter Book 5) Page 14
A wave from the river crashed along the levee from the Crescent City Connection bridge. The height of the white mist thrown into the air dipped down at the tower, as if bowing to its power, then shot back up at the ferry terminal. She sat cross-legged, watching the water breach the levee wall. Over and over, each time a wave hit the landing, its energy seemed to be sapped at the World Trade Center. Without taking her eyes off the event, she pulled out her headband to contact Dooly. “Why would a wave diminish in the same spot each time?”
Dooly took off her fedora and rubbed the headband like she was about to pull it off. “How the hell am I supposed to know?”
“Look, this is important. Get off whatever milk crate you’re sitting on and go ask the professor. I need to know if it might indicate a way into the building. Do it now, Dooly.”
Doodlebug could feel the gutter punk struggle to her feet. “I didn’t think you wanted their input.”
“I don’t need to be told what to do, but neither of us are much good at science. I’m going to need more than magic to get into that building.”
Dooly looked up into the bright light. “Lucky for you, I’m not too far away. They weren’t crazy about your plan, by the way.”
Doodlebug could just imagine their criticisms. “Like they ever have a better idea. Sere was the only one who knew anything about hell. Without her, the others are just busybodies huddling in the offices and waiting for the apocalypse.”
“Maybe if you ever gave them a chance, they might surprise you,” Dooly snapped. “Once you’ve gotten what you want, you rip off the headband before they can offer any suggestions.”
Doodlebug didn’t really want to fight with her real again. “Sorry.” Though lying wasn’t something she did, being unfamiliar with the apologetic term meant all she was really doing was making the sound without any meaning attached.
Dooly pushed open the professor’s door without knocking. “She’s got a question about wave physics.”
“It’s about time she checked in,” the professor said.
Without Sere in the offices, Doodlebug was even less inclined to listen to the ramblings of the old man. “Tell him I’m not looking for advice or validation. I’m going to break into the World Trade Center and free Sanguine. I’m pretty sure she’s on the roof in that old restaurant. It’ll be hell getting up there, but right now I don’t even know how to get inside.” She told them what she’d seen from the levee.
As was often the case while talking to Sere’s support staff, Doodlebug had to wait until the message was relayed and an answer formulated. Fortunately, she could hear what Dooly heard so she didn’t need to rely on the message being garbled by the gutter punk.
“Sounds like a basement wall might have collapsed,” the professor said. “Though the levee should stand between the river and under the tower, a hurricane raging for that long against a weakened section would eventually wash away the ground. Once the void was created, each time a wave hits that spot on the river bank, water would shoot up into the tower instead of crashing into the levee. If you could swim under the dock, you should be able to get into the structure from below.”
“Got it,” she said to Dooly. “Do those geniuses have any thoughts on how the tower’s energy might affect Sanguine, assuming of course that I can find the vault and open the door?”
She watched another wave succumb to the tower’s influence as she waited for a response.
“Don’t open it,” Kendell said. “If you’re right about Sanguine shooting lightning bolts from the vault, opening the door could release a wave of energy that could rip through dimensions. You’d be releasing a paranormal feedback loop similar to what caused the meltdown in the first place.”
Doodlebug would have been frustrated by the response had it not been something similar to what she had already assumed. “So I have to move the damn thing.” Any action she came up with in hell seemed to invariably lead to another impossible task. “One problem at a time. I’ll probably be smashed to mud just jumping into the river. And if I do somehow get inside, climbing up the thirty-three floors of horrors should accomplish what the river couldn’t.” She stared at the tower, realizing the suicide mission couldn’t be avoided. “Don’t relay that information, Dooly. They might want to call in Chloe, though. According to her, I need to keep the headband on while I’m inside the tower, so don’t be surprised if your thoughts get jumbled from the strange energy.”
“What’s going to happen to me if Doodlebug wears our headband while in the Trade Center?” Dooly asked the people in the room.
“You probably won’t be able to talk to each other,” the professor said. “She’ll still be able to draw on your energy, though. Hopefully, the connection will hold her to hell’s dimension, though I wouldn’t count on it.”
Doodlebug had heard more than enough. “Until I get into the building, I’m giving us both a break.” She ripped off the headband and stood up from the asphalt path.
A four-foot-tall chrome railing separated the raging river from the brick-tiled promenade that stretched along the convention center to the ferry terminal. Halfway along the path, the World Trade Center stood out like a giant dead thumb. Doodlebug stood at the edge of the river and timed the crashing waves. “This is it. Either I end up as fish food, or I’m swimming into the deep fryer.” She pulled on the headband like a diver adjusting her swim cap and took off at a full sprint before her self-doubt had a chance to fully set in. The wave at her back sent up a mist that ruffled her hair. When the force of the crest felt like the hand of death, she jumped the railing.
The trough between the waves ahead and behind her made the drop farther than she’d anticipated. Hitting the water felt like falling from a window onto a concrete sidewalk. I’m not dead, and I’ve got work to do.
She rolled toward the overhanging quay that supported the promenade. Creosote-coated posts loomed in the dark water like sentinels, each as unyielding as an anvil that the water was pounding against. She put the soles of her Keds against the nearest wooden trunk and jetted toward the gaping hole under the dock just as the wave caught up with her. Protecting her face with her arms, she shot from the tumult of the river into the enclosed pool of the World Trade Center’s basement.
She struggled toward the surface but was overwhelmed by the rush of water that carried her. The relief of fresh air seemed to be diminishing with each stroke. Just hang in there.
A steel beam pointed toward light above. More out of instinct than planning, she grabbed hold just as the river receded back out the hole. She desperately hung on as the water threatened to take her with it. Finally free from a watery grave, she gasped for air, but her reprieve would only last until the next wave struck. She searched the half-filled room for some escape. A red exit sign glowed against the far wall. I have to time this just right. As the water gets to me, I’ll need to push off and swim as hard as I can toward the stairwell.
As the water returned and pushed her off the beam, she flailed her arms and legs, trying to get across the room. Though she had never had the luxury of learning how to swim, the emotional and physical desperation brought forth early memories from Dooly of a calm pool and lots of children. Doodlebug’s muscles latched on to the early learning. Before the water started to recede again, she made it to the stairs’ railing and hung on tightly. Once the water had left, she scampered up the short flight before the river again tried to claim her.
She was so relieved to be at the top of the stairs that she opened the door without considering what might be lurking on the other side. A whirlwind of flames sucked her into the stairwell. Though there was no one to fight, she pulled her katana from her back out of habit. The cyclone of fire whipped and tugged at her hair, threating to pull the sword from her hands. Holding the middle of the blade, she turned the weapon sideways, so the flat slat lined up with her palm, and thrust the sword above her head. Like a toy helicopter, the blade spun her around in time with the maelstrom. Within the flames, she made out the indiv
idual fire wraiths as they lifted her off the floor. “Ghosts and goblins… As dead goblins, I can’t hurt you, and all you can do is scare me. I’m going up to the top of this building whether you like it or not.”
The column of flame twisted from the empty shaft between flights to explode against the stair treads. Doodlebug bashed headfirst into the metal steps and fell to the concrete landing. “This is not going well at all.” Encountering whatever ghosts haunted the building’s floors had to be better than dealing with their fiery stairwell cousins. While holding her head, she shouldered her way through the door to the fourteenth floor.
Though she was relieved to be out of the fire and water, Doodlebug had trouble figuring out what her eyes were seeing. Like having stepped into a theater halfway through a movie, nothing about the colonial town square made sense. She looked down at her feet, hoping to start with something familiar, but the black leather shoes with the garish brass buckles didn’t help with her feelings of having landed in an alien dimension. She kicked at the dusty street to make sure it was really her foot she was staring at. The billowy black dress and ludicrous head bonnet that blocked her peripheral vision had her turning back for the door that was no longer there. “What the hell?”
She let her surroundings come into focus. “It’s like I stepped into another time.”
The dust she’d kicked up swirled into the shape of a man holding a large journal under his arm. “You’re in the archives. This floor is dedicated to the late 1600s in Salem, Massachusetts.”
“Are you a ghost?”
His shrug sent orange-brown dust into the dry air. “More like a caretaker-librarian. When the devil unleashed the vaults that held our collections of magical artifacts, a search was begun to find what was lost.”
She ran her hand over the circularly laid bricks of a blacksmith’s forge. “It seems so real.”
“Oh, it is real. We are standing in Salem, Massachusetts in 1694—one year after the last witch trial.” The more he talked, the solider he became. “By walking through the door, you changed dimensions.”
“I don’t understand. I’m in hell, and though time doesn’t move, I know it’s not the 1600s.”
“You’re in the World Trade Center’s collection of magical artifacts. Time is far more complex than you think.” He waved around the town square. “Left on their own, these people will become even more puritanical, superstitious, and paranoid than they are now. That path leads to a very ugly future. Violent deaths like those suffered by the men and women convicted of witchcraft leave an energy imprint on the items they held close, so my associates are rounding up all of the magical possessions they can find. If the objects are left out here among these people, magic will become the dominant religion. The now you know depends on our efforts.”
“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.”
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.