“No time to waste,” I said quickly. Erica nodded at Knight and me while Rachel offered us both a smile and the two simply stepped directly through the portal, and disappeared right in front of us. Three of the recruited civilians quickly followed them. Sam took a deep breath as she offered me a reassuring smile.
“I love you, Dulce,” she said softly.
“I love you too,” I whispered back and watched as she too disappeared into the Netherworld, just like that. One second she was beside me, and the next, she wasn’t. Refusing to dwell on my own emotions, I immediately turned the portal ripper upside-down and “stitched” up the opening to prevent any uninvited travelers from passing through. Once the portal was sutured together, I took a deep breath and thought whatever Sam’s fate, I’d just sent her straight into it.
Something inside me broke and all the bravado I’d put on for Sam’s benefit dissolved inside me. In no time, the rampart that held back my tears failed as an impenetrable wall and became more of an enthusiastic net.
“Dulce? You okay?” Knight asked, peering at me with concern.
My hands fisted involuntarily and my nails dug into my palms. “Yes, I’m fine,” I said, more to fortify myself than to answer him honestly. I took a deep breath and clenched my eyes shut tightly, insisting that I keep it together. I had to be strong—I couldn’t give in to my true feelings and collapse into a sobbing heap. If I did, I knew I wouldn’t be able to emerge from it. What I needed most now was a clarity of purpose that would allow me to operate like an automaton.
Get in and get out
, I told myself.
You need to be calm, cool and collected, not clouded by emotion.
I opened my eyes to find Quill and Knight staring at me. “I’m fine,” I repeated, this time with real authority and even a tinge of anger.
The surrender at the airport was currently underway. Now there were three more portals to rip and three more attacks to stage. Christina stepped forward, with Dia right behind her and one hundred of our soldiers along with one hundred fifty new recruits. They stood in rows of ten creatures across, twenty-five rows in total and looked like a marching band, minus the brass instruments. Instead, they all clutched black gas masks to protect them from the fumes of the
Bregone
swamp.
“Got your radio?” Knight asked Christina. He motioned to his black walkie-talkie, which he held up to prove his was present and accounted for.
“I do,” she answered quickly. Her huge smile suggested just how prepared she was for what was about to ensue. In her expression, I could read the weariness of all the trials and tribulations she’d endured fighting in the name of The Resistance. Everything she and Knight had prepared for was about to unfold, and no matter what the consequences, the twinkle in her eye promised that she intended to fight with sword, tooth and nail.
“Let’s do this!” she called out.
Knight chuckled and opened his arms wide. She fell into them and hugged him tightly. “Thank you for everything, Knightley,” she said softly while gazing up at him. Then pulling away, she took a deep breath before glancing over at me. “You got yourself a good one.”
I nodded with a quick smile first to her and then to Knight. “I know.”
“Girl, you be careful when you go after that excuse you have for a father,” Dia said with a great big grin and that Diva-esque thing she did with her neck. She wrapped her arms around me, suffocating me in the scent of one of Victoria’s Secret’s body lotions.
“I will, D, you be careful too,” I said softly. I could feel the frog returning to my throat as Dia released me. She smiled down at me as if she were my mom and it was my first day of school.
“Now don’t go doin’ anything heroic, you hear me? Just stay alive,” she said confidently, but I could see the trepidation looming in her eyes.
“No heroics for me.”
Dia nodded as I took in her bright red pants and purple shirt and hair that settled around her head in myriad sausage curls. With her flame-red lipstick and silvery eye shadow, she looked like she was headed to a dance club rather than an uncertain fate. I shook my head and laughed. “Always the diva.”
She nodded and offered me a raised-brow expression, rubbing her nails against her shiny shirt. “Girl, just ’cause you gotta fight, doesn’t mean you can’t do it lookin’ good.” Then she glanced down at herself and nodded. “Uh huh, an’ if it’s one thing I know how ta do, it’s lookin’ good.”
I just smiled at my friend and watched her approach Knight. She gave him the once-over while clicking her tongue against the top of her mouth. “Even when we’re headed off into some screwed-up battle, you still look like you should be warmin’ my bed,” she said with a shake of her head. “If we manage to survive this adventure, you’re rewardin’ this sistah with a kiss,” she finished. Then she inclined her head to me and added, “I’m just sayin’.”
Knight chuckled before looking at me curiously. “You’ve got my blessing on that,” I called back, honestly hopeful for Dia to get that kiss since it would mean our victory.
After everyone said their good-byes, Christina faced her soldiers and took a deep breath. “Masks on. Everyone needs to cross into the portal in formation, with all your artillery or magic at the ready.”
“That’s your go-ahead, Dulce,” Knight announced, indicating the portal ripper in my hand. I simply nodded as I strode confidently to the front of the assembled soldiers. They were busily covering their faces with the gas masks until they looked like a troop from the apocalypse. Holding the portal ripper out in front of me, I secured it in place while Christina stood off to one side of her soldiers and Dia the other. Christina nodded, her tacit permission to start ripping the opening to Squander Valley. I rotated myself around so my front was facing the gadget and I started backing up, slicing the air in front of me as I retreated. This task wasn’t as quick as the last one, since the portal had to be the width of ten men. But I prevailed, and once the portal was open, the soldiers proceeded immediately, disappearing instantly. After all of the soldiers crossed through, I watched Dia and Christina bring up the rear until they too, vanished into the ether. Without a second thought or word, I sewed up the portal just as I had after Sam’s group passed through.
“Fagan and Trey,” Knight summoned the Drow and the hobgoblin, who both stepped forward. Fagan looked like he always did—as though a permanent stick up his ass prohibited him from doing anything besides frowning. But I wasn’t concerned with Fagan. Instead, I faced Trey, someone who had been a loyal ally of mine for many years.
“You’re going to do fine, Trey,” I said softly with a smile. I clutched the portal ripper in my palm as he wrapped his pudgy arms around me.
“It’s you I’m worried about, Dulce,” he whispered against my ear. He pulled away from me, but wrapped my free hand in his own, his skin warm and clammy against mine. If not for the beads of perspiration starting along his hairline, I wouldn’t have realized how anxious he was because his hands were perpetually moist. He seemed reserved which was out of character for him. The same sense of foreboding and apprehension was taking hold of everyone.
“Whatever is going to happen will happen,” I said, and firmly believed my words, right down to the very depths of my soul. “I can’t change the outcome of the future so I’m not going to worry about it. Neither should you. Just do what you came to do. End of story.”
Trey nodded, but his eyes remained downcast and his shoulders sagged, telling me he didn’t exactly buy my derring-do. “You’re a survivor, Dulce, I know that. I’ll see you soon.” Then, turning to Knight and Quill, he simply nodded at each of them before facing forward. Fagan flanked the opposite side of the rectangular formation of the two hundred soldiers. I didn’t fail to notice that Fagan hadn’t bothered to say good-bye to anyone. Well, who knew? Maybe that was the better way to go.
Walking to the front of the soldiers, I ripped open the portal just as I’d done for Christina’s troop, and watched the rows of creatures stepping forward. They vanished through the portal that would take them to the second largest Netherworld Guard training base of Tipshaw. Once all had crossed through, I zipped up the portal opening with the ripper once again. Then I turned to face Knight, Quill and the forty-one remaining soldiers assigned on our mission to wipe out my father.
“Ready?” I asked, alternating my gaze between Knight and Quill.
“No time like the present,” Knight responded with a slight smile. Quill didn’t say anything, but simply nodded.
I reached into my jeans pocket until I felt the warm metal of Bram’s pocket watch, the navigation unit for my father. I pulled it out and held it at eye level. Then I watched the two hands begin spinning counterclockwise. The hour hand eventually started to slow until it reached the twelve o’clock position, where it stopped, indicating north. The base of the watch, which previously displayed the date, now had new numbers.
“North twenty-nine degrees,” I called out.
“What’re the coordinates?” Quill asked.
I shook my head to say that I didn’t have an answer for him as I faced the watch again. It began to spin counterclockwise again and settled on numeral nine. The numbers at the bottom of the watch’s face read eighty-nine. “Twenty-nine degrees north by eighty-nine degrees west,” I called out. I dropped the watch back into my pocket while withdrawing the portal ripper from my other pocket.
“Those are the coordinates for Willoughby House,” Quill said.
“What’s that?” I asked while turning the handle of the portal ripper clockwise to input my first coordinate as north. Then, moving the handle in a circular direction two clicks before rotating it counterclockwise for one click, I proceeded counterclockwise again for the count of nine.
“One of Melchior’s many homes. It’s located in Southern Netherworld, where the state of Louisiana sits,” Quill responded.
“Then you’ve been there?” Knight inquired. I continued programming the portal ripper with the western coordinates.
“Many times,” Quill said, without confidence in his tone.
“Then you’ll know the ins and the outs,” I said hopefully, adding a quick smile.
“Maybe,” Quill started, shaking his head. “One thing I can say for certain is that Willoughby House is the largest of all your father’s homes. It sprawls over twenty acres or more of swampland and most notably, it’s infested with all sorts of horrible creatures.”
“Then we’d better get moving,” I said, giving him a smart ass smile. “I wouldn’t want to keep my father waiting too long.”
When neither Knight nor Quill said anything more, I took their silence as approval. I tilted the portal ripper and began slicing the air in front of me. Once the hole was big enough to fit our troops, I put the device back into my pocket while double-checking my other pocket for Bram’s watch. Thankfully, both were there.
“Let the soldiers go in first,” Knight said with his hand on my arm, just in case I tried to argue. I simply nodded as Knight gave the go-ahead to a werewolf who was lined up closest to us. The man started forward, with the rest of the troops moving in kind. They started through the portal, and the sounds of their boots hitting the ground matched the thumping of my heart. Once the last one was through, I faced Quill and Knight.
“We all go in together, side-by-side, with Dulcie in the middle,” Knight said with authority.
He stepped up beside me, while Quill did the same. I already knew there wouldn’t be anyone to close up the portal on the other side once we went through, but we didn’t have any choice. We had to keep the portal ripper in case we needed it. Besides, maybe we’d make a quick getaway through the opened portal, if need be.
With Knight and Quill on either side of me, we stepped through the portal. I felt the familiar, soft mushiness of heavy, wet air just as I did every time I traveled through a portal. My dizziness soon gave way to an overwhelming sense of nausea, but I swallowed the uncomfortable feelings. I blinked a few times as I faced a scene entirely different from the one we’d just left.
All around us were miles and miles of grassland, encircled by an old, rickety, wooden fence that looked as if it had survived centuries. The grassland was enclosed by a forest of pine trees, in which we were now submerged. On the side directly opposite us was the gravelly mouth of a large lake. Looking around myself, I saw that all our soldiers were well hidden by the massive trees of the forest.
“Where’s the house?” I whispered to Quill before my feet suddenly levitated and I was rudely reminded that when in the Netherworld, I had wings. Luckily, I was prepared for my wings and wore a halter top with the back cut out. Speaking of my wings, they weren’t as cool as they might sound. Why? Because they really weren’t that useful. Instead, they seemed like a neurotic lap dog that acted up for no apparent reason, and went into bouts of mindless energy. Sometimes, they flapped maniacally, while at others, they hung as lifeless as a man’s spent appendage. At the moment, however, they were anything but languid. They batted against each other repetitively as I continued to rise into the air. I felt a hand on my arm when Knight pulled me back down again.
“Just over that rise of grass,” Quill whispered back. He motioned to a hill that was maybe one hundred feet in front of us. He put his hand on my arm to help anchor me to the ground. “There are cameras covering the grassland perimeters as well as the beach, so we can’t go that way.”
I nodded and whipped out Bram’s pocket watch, intent on locating my father. I held the thing out before my eyes and watched it immediately settle on numeral three. The matching coordinates appeared at the bottom of the watch. “Looks like Melchior’s off to our right,” I said to Quillan.
“We need to talk to the men,” Knight interrupted. I was unable to ignore the feelings of awe and admiration that hit me as soon as I allowed my eyes to feast on him. As I’ve mentioned before, Netherworld creatures, when in the Netherworld, appear differently than they do on Earth. I, for one, get wings, but the most unfortunate part for me in the Netherworld is that my magic doesn’t work. Oh, yeah … There’s also one more clincher—fairies are like sexual crack in the Netherworld—most other creatures have an irresistible sexual response to me, which, in one word, sucks.