Chapter 5
Dinah grabbed her bag and stuffed whatever she had at hand in it—her laptop, her notepad, her wrist unit, her weapons, and even her paperweight. She shoved everything into the bag so hard trying to zip it up that she ripped the zipper off. She threw the bag angrily, and it flew from one end of the room to the other. Maybe she needed to cry. The grieving in Kate’s mother’s eyes had been unbearable. But it was better that the news of her daughter’s death came from her than from the police. Dinah could only hold on for so long. She really needed to cry.
A tear rolled down her face. She wiped it away.
This was pathetic. She wasn’t the crying kind. She’d promised Kate’s mother she would find answers. The detective obviously had no clue, or he wouldn’t be wasting time taking pictures of the jumper’s marks. The pattern was obvious—someone or something was killing jumpers.
The aperture of the multiverse was undetectable. To her knowledge, no one—no creature or computer system in the multiverse—could detect the pattern of its occurrence. That meant the identities of those who had stumbled upon the aperture, like herself and Kate, were virtually unknown. She couldn’t imagine the sort of intelligence one would have to possess to be able to identify the jumpers, let alone go around killing them.
Dinah had circled the room so many times, she was making herself dizzy.
Where should she start? She stopped pacing and rushed toward her computer to execute an idea she had just gotten. She placed an anonymous tip about the aperture into Detective Tanner’s inbox. Then she carefully erased all traces of the contact in her system and carried on with her research. A short while later, she stared at the computer screen, grinning. She had found an individual who had identified one cycle of the aperture. It was so unprecedented that the name of the person—a human—had been stored in the multiversal database.
It might be nothing. Identifying one cycle could be as random as stumbling upon an aperture. But at least it was a starting point. She had to get to Earth.
She checked her credit account and sighed. She had only enough money for a one-way ticket on the multiversal transport. Figuring maybe she should just get there and figure out the next step later, she ordered the ticket and then finished packing her bag.
She had a license to carry weapons on board, so she took her combat knives and her guns. How to use her weapons on Earth was another matter. But it was better to have them with her than not.
She had been to Earth before on a business trip to Japan, all expenses paid by the client. She had loaded a language program to her system via a computer chip embedded in the language section of her brain. It was still there.
The individual she would pay a visit to this time was Professor Arik Bonneville from England. Her English was good, but she needed to be sure nothing went wrong, so she updated the English language in her system.
She plugged a small chip into her computer that would identify Arik’s precise current location. From experience, she knew England as a location was much too broad.
She pulled her beloved black leather jumpsuit from the closet and put it on. She always felt in top combat form whenever she wore this suit. It wrapped her body like a second skin no matter how many weapons and how much technology she tucked inside it.
She looked into the mirror and flicked her thumb. This was her favorite function. Two gigantic wings spread out from the back of the suit. And it wasn’t just for show. She could actually fly with them. It was a tailored design a friend from Xiilok had made for her. She turned around and looked at the wings with pride. She looked like a dark angel with those wings, she thought.
She was about to put her usual chunky boots on when she saw the red high heels. She picked them up. She had to admit she liked the look and the feel of them. They were so feminine. Wondering how she would look in the tight leather jumpsuit and those red high-heeled shoes, she decided to put them on.
She recalled watching a movie called Catwoman when she was in Japan. Dressed like this, she thought she looked just like the main character.
The computer beeped an alert. She rushed toward it.
“Oh gosh. No…no. Don’t do this to me!” Because she didn’t have the money to pay for priority class, she’d had to be on standby and take whatever seat was available in the private express teleport shuttle.
And it was available now.
She collapsed her wings, grabbed her bag, and charged out the door.
She zipped into the private cabin as soon as the robot cleared her. The control board asked for her destination.
“Oh no!” she gasped as she realized she’d left the computer chip with Professor Bonneville’s address in her computer at home. There was no time to go back for it now. She punched in a general location in England. The shuttle leaped up in the air and darted into a dark tunnel. The movement was so abrupt, it made her lose her balance and skid toward the corner of the cabin on the polished floor.
Then she realized she was still wearing her red heels.
She rolled her eyes. Red heels and a tight leather jumpsuit… All she needed was the red-light district, and she’d be perfect for a business in Xiilok they called prosexitution, where creatures traded sexual activities for credits.
“Shouldn’t you verify the location before zooming into the darkness?” she asked the computer, expecting no answer. Then she saw her typo on the screen. She had typed in “Wingland,” and that was apparently where the shuttle was going. She didn’t know if it was a real location, but she was sure it wasn’t where Arik Bonneville was.
She darted toward the control panel and changed the location. The shuttle swung around suddenly, throwing her onto the floor. She scrambled up to her feet and checked the location again. England was spelled correctly now, but she had to narrow it down. She searched the temporary onboard remote system and located Oxford.
It was better, but it was still a large city. She narrowed it down even further. Each time she changed the destination, the shuttle threw her around like a rag doll. She’d adjusted the route too many times and had run out of credits. The shuttle would throw her out soon. If she had to walk, she wanted to be sure to choose a location as close in proximity to Arik as possible.
She had time to enter something she found in her search that looked like a room number before the shuttle ejected her. As she flew through the air, she promised herself that in the future, even if she had enough money to travel with dignity, she would never use the inter-universal transportation system again.
After hurtling down a short corridor, she crashed into a set of double doors, which burst open on impact. She rolled in not-so-graceful somersaults across the flat floor and then came to a stop.
Crouching on the floor, she watched as one of her red shoes flew into the air, spun around, and landed precariously on a lectern where Professor Bonneville was apparently giving a lecture. She stood up and straightened her back. One of her wings unfurled, pointing straight to the ceiling. She stood on a single high-heeled shoe and looked at Arik.
He was gorgeous. Almost as pretty as a Eudaizian. Not that she had seen a Eudaizian in the flesh nor been to that universe. But she had seen their pictures and heard about their legend. Arik was tall and lean with sandy hair and soft, gentle gray eyes. He looked authoritative as he stood there in a dark suit, his eyes focused on her. The picture she had seen on her computer system didn’t do him any justice.
She cleared her throat. “Is this Earth?”
She heard laughter from behind her on the right. She turned around and looked. It seemed that she was in a lecture theater, and at least a hundred students had seen her bumbling entrance.
Arik picked up her shoe from the lectern and approached her. As he closed the distance, her heart skipped a bit. She could smell the masculinity emanating from him. She gave herself a mental slap in the head.
“Yes, I believe it has been Earth for a very long time.” He smiled and gave her the shoe. “That was quite a stunt. A much better one than this morning’s.” He turned toward his students. “The New Theater group has been playing truth or dare all day, and I am, apparently, their chosen victim. Why don’t we give…”
“Dinah.”
“Why don’t we give Dinah a round of applause so that she can go back to her friends and tell them she has met their dare?”
The students clapped.
Dinah bowed as graciously as she could. She had no idea what truth or dare was, but when the audience in the lecture hall applauded, bowing seemed the proper etiquette.
Arik looked at her. “Thank you for the show,” he said.
She nodded and turned to leave. Then her right wing felt as if it was going to spontaneously spread. She slapped her left hand to her right shoulder to stop it from opening. As she did so, a needle shot out from beneath her sleeve and punctured Arik’s shoulder. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed to the floor.
The students panicked, and she could see a commotion beginning.
“Don’t panic. It’s just a sedative. Call for an ambulance. He’ll be fine.”
Chapter 6
The hospital’s private room was a lot better than the emergency area. When the staff had brought Arik in, followed by Dinah in her outfit that made her stick out like a sore thumb, the emergency area intimidated her. She accidentally knocked over some medical equipment. It shouldn’t have gotten in her way, she thought.
Dinah paced the room. Arik looked so peaceful when he was asleep. When she had seen him in the lecture theater, he’d seemed a little tense. She didn’t know him at all, so she wasn’t sure what it was or what to make of it. But she was sure that on that stage, she wasn’t the one who was doing the acting.
A doctor in a white lab coat came in and looked at Arik’s chart. He shook his head.
“What’s the matter?” she asked the doctor. She had no idea why doctors on Earth were making such a huge fuss about some sedative in her tiny needle.
“You’re not his next of kin.”
“No. But it’s not that serious, is it? He looks as if he’s sleeping.”
“The sedative in his system is strong enough to knock out an elephant.”
“Elephant? Do you mean the large terrestrial animals with large pinnae and a long proboscis?”
The doctor looked at her as if she had grown a second head. “Yes, but people normally refer to that animal with large ears and a trunk as an elephant.”
Dinah ignored his remark. “Can’t you just give him an antidote?”
“We can’t identify the sedative. We don’t have antidotes for drugs we don’t even have in our system. I’ll call his family in the US. We’ll figure out something to help him snap out of this. But I need the permission of his next of kin. How did you find him? How did he end up with that sedative in his system?”
“I found him at the university. I’m from the New Theater group.” She grinned, but when the charm didn’t warm the doctor any, she continued. “I don’t know how he got the sedative. He just collapsed in the lecture hall, and the students called emergency. I followed the ambulance to be sure he was okay.”
The doctor shook his head. “Well, he’s not.” He put the chart back, nodded a goodbye to Dinah, and strode out of the room.
She looked at Arik. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know the medical system on Earth was so primitive. I’ll fix you. Where I come from, this sedative wouldn’t be strong enough to induce even a regular sleep.” She shook her head. That wasn’t true. The sedative was a street med that she could purchase freely, but she had altered it with her God-given skills in chemistry, turning it into a weapon of sorts.
She glanced outside to ensure no doctors or nurses would be entering the room and then pulled out a needle with the antidote. She searched carefully for a vein on his neck and injected it. “Nice and easy. You’ll be fine,” she said as she wiped away the drop of blood that appeared on his neck when she pulled the needle out.
In a moment, he began to stir.
She smiled. “You see, I told you you’d be fine.” Then she saw he was about to vomit. She jumped out of the way but then thought better of it. She climbed onto the bed and turned him to his side just in time so that he threw up on the floor.
Afterward, she rubbed his back. “Take it easy. It will get better.” She climbed over to the other side of the bed and saw that the side of the bed had been dirtied. She pulled out the sheet on the bed to clean things up and accidentally pulled his hospital gown with it.
She had seen naked men before. But this body was the definition of beauty. Long and lean with well-toned muscles. And that…that precious body part was flawless.
She covered him up quickly and looked around for something else to clean up with. Then she spun around to face him again. Maybe she could take one more look at him. There was no harm in looking, was there? She approached the bed, lifted the fabric, and peeked under.
“What are you doing?” said a female voice from the doorway.
Dinah was startled and jumped backward. “Huh?” she said, looking up.
At the door stood a stunning woman with the beauty of a goddess. She was tall and slender with long sandy hair. The woman was so perfect that she didn’t seem real. “Who are you?” Dinah asked.
“I’m Grace, Arik’s fiancée.”
“Oh…” Dinah smiled. “I’m Dinah. I found him at the university. I’m part of the New Theater group. I mean, the students called me. No, I mean, they called the ambulance. He had an accident. But he’s fine now.”
Arik started to wake, and the system alerted the doctor. The doctor strode into the room, walking past Grace without a glance. He checked Arik’s vitals. “How is this possible?” the doctor muttered to himself.
Dinah took small steps backward toward the door, as discreetly as possible so they wouldn’t notice her leaving.
“I’m Grace Fontaine, Arik’s fiancée,” Grace said as she approached the doctor. “Can you tell me his condition?”
“As far as I can tell from the records, you’re not his next of kin. But he’s no longer critical, so I can give you a report of his condition. The lady here before—” The doctor cut himself off and turned around to look for her. That was all Dinah heard as she charged down the hallway, running outside the hospital.
Chapter 7
It was cold outside the hospital, and her skintight jumpsuit didn’t really help to keep her warm. She checked her wrist unit to see if she had enough credits for a call to Iilos. She knew that every wrong turn she had made while using the inter-universe transport had cost her a lot of credits. But she hadn’t planned on it costing almost everything in her account. She had only enough credits to make either a call to Iilos or the job bank.
The short-term solution was to call Cooper and ask him to lend her some credits. The longer term plan was to call the job bank, take a small job, and earn the credits herself. One the one hand, if she called and couldn’t reach Cooper, she would be doomed. One the other hand, the job bank wouldn’t guarantee her a job, and if she couldn’t take what was available, or there wasn’t anything appropriate for her, then she would be doomed as well.
Regardless of how charming this little town in Oxford was during the day, as she walked down a small alley, it felt too quiet—and a bit eerie. From the corner of her eye, over a little bridge in a very discreet corner of a small block of cottages, she saw a light flash.
Human eyes wouldn’t have caught it, or if they did, it might have looked like a simple camera flash. But Dinah knew what she saw had seen was the most advanced teleport in the multiverse—unlike the dumpster-like public transport she’d been forced to take. And this wouldn’t have come from Iilos.
A beautiful couple in their thirties stepped out from that dark corner. What was going on today? It seemed like she kept running into beautiful strangers.
She immediately squeezed herself into a gap between two stone fences and hid. Being small had its advantages. The couple walked right past her hiding place. The woman was tall and lean with big brown eyes and long brunette hair that hung graciously around her shoulders. She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, but there was something about her that was very compelling. The man, however, was drop-dead gorgeous—tall, muscular but slender, striking gray eyes, the face of a dark angel, and thick black hair that almost touched his shoulders.
She could tell by the way he walked that he was her protector. If the universe came raining down on them, he would scoop his woman up and fly her out of harm’s way.
“What if Arik doesn’t want to cooperate?” the woman asked.
“I’ll break his other leg.”
Dinah’s hair stood up. They were going after Arik! She darted out from her hiding place, behind their backs, raised her arm, and pumped out her sedative needles.
As quick as lightning, as if he had eyes on his back, the man pushed the woman aside, swiveled out of the needles’ path, and charged at Dinah. He pulled out two guns.
A two-hand shooter. Hell! She was a two-hand shooter, too, but by the tenacity on his face, she wouldn’t stand a chance. She turned, flipped out her wings, and took to the air.
She felt the impact of the laser beams as they hit her wings. If they had been real wings, it would have been painful. But the point was, he had shot at her wings and not her head. One beam on her left wing, and one on her right. Judging by the precision of his shots, he didn’t want to kill her.
She dropped down as she was flying over the bridge. She hung onto the concrete rail for several seconds, but before she could let go and jump into the water, the man grabbed one of her hands. She saw a flash on her wrist unit. She knew he had scanned it. In less than a second, he would have seen her Iilos credentials.
She tried to yank her hand away, but his grip was tight. He looked down at her with striking gray eyes. In one swift move, he flipped her over the rail and onto the bridge.
“You’re a private investigator from Iilos?” he asked.
She shrugged. “You scanned me, so why bother confirming? Wrist units don’t lie.”
The man turned and looked at the woman. “She’s not a Black Rock or Xiilok creature,” the woman said.
“I just need you to say something so that Madeline can judge. Black Rock and Xiilok creatures are notorious for their talent to disguise themselves, and at the moment, they’re quite advanced. Wrist units from Iilos can’t tell the difference.”
“Excuse me! We have the most advanced technology in the cosmos.”
He smiled. “We’re friends with Iilos. You needn’t worry. Why did you attack us?”
Dinah shook her head and said nothing.
“She thinks we’re going for Arik and will hurt him,” the woman said.
Bloody hell! She had just thought that. The woman was a mind reader. Dinah scowled. “Hey, you don’t have permission to peek into my head.”
The woman shrugged. “I’m sorry for the intrusion. But without my confirmation, he would have put a beam through your head.”
“He would have done it before instead of shooting my wings. I’ll take my chances. Stop looking into my mind. I don’t like it.”
The man smiled. “All right, ladies, don’t fight. We don’t have forever.” He looked at Dinah. “We’re Arik’s friends.”
“So breaking legs is a form of greeting in your universe?” Dinah asked.
Ciaran realized she must have overheard their conversation. “I didn’t break his leg, a car did. But that’s in the past. We don’t mean him any harm. You seem to be protective of Arik. What’s your relationship to him?”
Dinah shrugged. She didn’t have to answer the question, but she trusted her instincts. This couple seemed to be good people. “I’m not his friend. But I don’t mean harm to him. Someone killed my friend in Iilos. I promised her mother I’d find answers. I came across Arik’s name during my investigation, and I need his help.”
The man’s eyes darkened. “You hacked the multiversal database.”
She stepped backward. “No, I just found the information in the system.”
“That’s not possible!” the man growled. He was quite intimidating.
She took another step backward, and one of her heels caught in the uneven cobblestone path. “Ouch!” she said as her ankle twisted. She glanced around over her shoulders. Both of her wings were singed, and now she had only one good leg. She might be in trouble if these two attacked her.
Chapter 8
Arik woke, confused and disoriented. The only things that were clear to him were the eardrum-bursting beats from the heavy metal rock band Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and the fact that he had a pounding headache. Visions of monsters and alien creatures crawling on the bed messed with his head. He knew the images were side effects of the drugs, whatever they were pumping into him at the moment. But the music was loud and all too real.
As he pulled up the sheet to cover his ears, he saw Grace’s face hovering over him with a gentle smile. “There you are! How are you feeling?”
“Can you turn that music down?”
She frowned. “What music? There isn’t any music. You’re in a hospital.”
Then he was fully awake. The music vanished, and the quietness returned to the room and to his mind. He glanced around.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I should ask you that question, Arik. We were supposed to have dinner. When you didn’t show, I called your cell phone. Your friend, Peter, picked up as the phone was ringing nonstop in your office. He said you were in a lecture and hadn’t taken your cell with you. He also said he heard there was an accident there, and he had yet to find out what happened. So I checked with a nurse friend of mine and found you here—with a woman stalking you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There was a woman here. She was from some kind of theater club.”
“Oh, Dinah!” He remembered what had happened now. “Yes, she’s in a student theater group, and they’ve been playing truth or dare all day—with me as their target. The last thing I remember was her doing a stunt in the lecture theater. It was quite a spectacular entrance, really. Then something hit me. And I don’t remember anything else.”
Grace folded her arms. “A spectacular entrance?”
He smiled at her. “Come on, you’re not jealous about a student?”
“They’re around you like bees with honey. I’m not jealous of your students. If I were, I’d spend my entire life being jealous. But this girl is different.”
“You mean her rather interesting choice of outfits? I told you she was putting on a show. And she had a wing, too. It was quite funny.”
“I’m telling you, this one isn’t an ordinary student.”
“All right, the next time I see her, I’ll ask if she’s really an art student.” Then he looked at Grace and sighed. “Okay…I’ll make sure there is no next time.”
She grinned.
“Can we do dinner again some other time? I’m sorry.”
“I need to feed you something. You didn’t have dinner, and it looks as if you’ve thrown up whatever you may have had in your stomach. What do you feel like eating?”
He didn’t have an appetite at the moment but figured it might help him to send her for food so he could have some quiet time to himself. He winged it. “A sandwich will do.”
“Okay. I’ll be back soon,” she said and left the room.
He stared at the empty doorway after she’d left, and a feeling of sorrow washed over him. He shook his head. Brooding wasn’t going to get him anywhere. It had been five years, and he still hadn’t figured out what to do with Grace. She shouldn’t have suffered for his sin. People might not describe what she’d been through as suffering, but to him, it was.
He wasn’t sure how long he could drag out this relationship. He had a life to live, and five years was a large chunk of it. He left the bed to go to the window, looking down to the street. He felt a prick at the base of his neck. Feeling uneasy, he started to go back to the bed. But then, he saw his ghost.
“Damn you,” he muttered. He rushed toward the cabinet and slid into his clothes as quickly as he could. Then he darted outside the room, along the hallway, and down two flights of stairs.
On the street, the man was still standing there. He wore a long black coat and stared at Arik. Five years ago, he hadn’t been in a position to negotiate, but now he would make damn sure he took back what was his.
The man turned to walk away. Arik dashed across the street and closed the distance. The man started to run. Arik ran faster.
“Stop!” he called out.
But the man kept running.
When they turned the corner onto a quiet street just past Oxford University, the man suddenly stopped and turned around. He stood in the middle of the road, his hands in the pockets of his long black coat, waiting for Arik. His eyes sparked with an unusual yellow shade.
Arik stopped running and kept his distance.
“It’s been a long time, Arik. I have been looking forward to this meeting. As I said when we parted, one day, you will need me.”
“I don’t need you. I never will. I only want what’s mine. I want my life back.”
The man chuckled. “You’re asking for a lot, Arik. We had a deal. I hope you hold up your end of it.”
“There was no deal between us.”
“Yes, there was, and you’re a man of his word.”
“I didn’t want to take what you gave me. You can have it back.”
The man shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid. You made your decision. I couldn’t have imposed anything on you if you hadn’t accepted it.”
“All right, that was my fault. But Grace didn’t have any part in this. Let her out.”
“She has you. All her life, this is what she wanted. Why do you think you are in a position to take that away from her?”
“She didn’t consent to this!” Arik snarled.
“But she didn’t say no, either.”
“Bastard.” Arik charged at the man. He grabbed at the man’s collar, but his hands went right through the man’s body. The man vanished and then reappeared behind him.
“The only way you can tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not is to accept the gift, Arik. Many wanted to take your position—”
“Then give it to them!”
The man shook his head and smiled. “You’re very selfish.”
“You took advantage of my situation and imposed your stupid gift on me to shackle me for life, and now you call me selfish?”
“Well, I would say you took advantage of my compassion for you and made me give you the gift…without knowing you wouldn’t even appreciate it. I can’t take it back. I have one gift, and it has already been given.”
“There has to be a way!”
“Yes, indeed.” The man looked straight into Arik’s eyes. “You can get rid of my gift when you die. So you either kill yourself, or you wait until you die of old age. But as long as you live, you’ll do so with my gift in you. There are many people relying on that gift for salvation. You can live your selfish life for as long as you want—and die with it. Consider it my stupid mistake.”
The man nodded a goodbye, turned around, and vanished into thin air, leaving Arik standing alone in the empty street. Then the song by Sabbath Bloody Sabbath began to pound again in his head. He kicked and punched the brick wall until his knuckles tore open. Then he heard Grace’s shaky voice.
“Arik!”
The music vanished.
He turned and saw Grace shaking with the cold. He approached her and could see the tears in her eyes. She showed him the sandwich. “I got you some food. And I couldn’t find you in the room. I was so scared…” More tears rolled down her face.
He embraced her. “I’m sorry. I won’t scare you like that again. You’re cold. Let’s get you back inside.”
In the distance, in the misty air, Arik saw the shadow of the yellow-eyed man again. But he ignored him and took Grace back to the hospital.