CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
There are good and bad things about being a magical hero stuck in the real world. The good thing is that we’re immune to modern threats—no guns, no radar guns, no radio. The bad thing is . . . we’re immune to modern conveniences as well. No phones, no cars, no microwave ovens. Appliances break around us. Cars usually stall out when we try to ride them. None of us have tried to get on an airplane, for pretty obvious reasons. I’ve completely forgotten how the Internet works, though I do remember there being trolls online, so maybe we have some kind of back door? I don’t miss it.
That’s why we have Mundane Actual. They deal with all the dull, modern, technological aspects of running a worldwide magical strike force. We’re usually able to get around by arcane means, either the Naglfr or various magical portals, leylines, shadow roads, or more obscure methods. MA itself has a fleet of augmented vehicles that are marginally magical, normal enough to not draw attention on the road, fey enough to keep running when Chesa or I sit in the back seat.
This is how we ended up in the bed of a ramshackle pickup truck with no engine, no seats, and apparently no suspension. Chesa, Matthew, and I huddled on the runners, while Tembo lay in the middle of the bed, resting on a mattress of hay. Tem looked rough, and spent most of the trip muttering feverishly and trying to pull away the bandages that Matthew had strapped across his chest. It was grim. Which is why we really hoped the truck could go faster. Unfortunately, fast was not in the cards. A team of tired horses dragged the vehicle along the side of the road at a breakneck shamble, urged on by a member of MA who sat on top of the cab. His name was Jeff. His uniform hung loosely over thin shoulders and thinner arms, and the collar of his coat nearly covered his head. Most MA operatives looked like they could bench-press a small bus, and usually carried enough firepower to face off against a small country. Not Jeff. Jeff had a flintlock strapped to his thigh, a tricorn hat pressed tight to his forehead, and a pinched look in his eyes. Jeff was not terribly talkative. After a great deal of prying and the sort of incessant rambling that she specialized at, Chesa got him to engage.
“Can’t you go any faster? This isn’t much better than walking,” Chesa said.
“Then walk,” Jeff said.
“But, I mean, at this rate we won’t get back to HQ before the end of the world,” she answered.
“Well, that would certainly solve most of my problems,” Jeff said. “Don’t have to clock in if the world ends.”
“But you’ll be dead.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Everyone would be dead.”
Jeff answered with a long and protracted sigh, then settled deeper into his coat. We exchanged a look. Chesa was about to speak again, but Matthew held up a hand.
“The sooner we’re home, the sooner you can get back to . . . whatever you would rather be doing. Did Esther give specific instructions on when and how we should be getting back to HQ?” he asked.
“There’s a shadow road about five minutes away,” Jeff said. “Ten minutes, if you keep talking. Horses don’t like talking.”
“Not just the horses, I imagine,” I muttered. Jeff apparently heard me, because he gave the reins a little tug and slowed us even more.
The shadow gate, when we finally arrived, was a simple stone fence in a cornfield in the middle of nowhere. Jeff drove the horse-truck straight through the field, battering stalks of corn aside with the slow persistence of a glacier. The fence formed a circle about twenty feet in diameter, with a rickety iron gate on the near side. Inside the fence, the ground was gray and silty, like the surface of the moon. Jeff dropped us off and then trundled away, much faster than he had ever gone while we were with him.
“So, do you know how to operate this thing?” Chesa asked as she peered uncertainly at the fence. “Are there runes or something? A necessary sacrifice?”
“If I understand correctly, we just walk through the gate, our minds firmly fixed on our destination,” Matthew answered. “But to be honest, this kind of thing is Tembo’s territory.”
“Well, Tem’s not answering questions at the moment,” I said. “Let’s just walk through. We all know what HQ looks like.”
“But do we need to focus on HQ in general? Or the shadow gate at HQ?” Chesa asked. “Because I have no idea what that looks like.”
“We’re overthinking this,” I said. “Through the gate! Matthew, grab Tem’s feet. We can carry him through.”
“Maybe I should go through first?” Chesa asked. “In case it’s dangerous?”
“Overthinking!” I declared once again. Then, with Tembo’s shoulders supported by my shield, and his feet in Matthew’s hands, we sidestepped through the gate.
Nothing happened. Chesa stood outside the circle, staring at us in disappointment.
“Maybe there are words,” she said. “Have you tried saying magical words?”
“I don’t know any magic words!” I shouted. “I just want to go hom—”
Everything happened.
I’ve mentioned falling before. In fact, sometimes I think there’s too much falling in my life. I need to work on that. But at that moment, the only proper description was falling. Through the world. Without the world getting out of the way. Thick gravel slid past my head and forced its way into my armor, while more substantial rocks battered my legs and feet. I curled into a ball, but that just sped my descent without lessening the impact of my passage. I passed through an underground river thick with silt and strange grasping creatures, then there was a flash of heat and steam. For a brief moment I thought I was about to be flash-fried at the center of the earth, but just then I popped out into open air. I fell about eight feet and landed with a thud on a shelf of hard material. I lay in a fetal position for three long, shuddering breaths before I moved at all.
A shell of slimy grit cracked and fell away from my eyes. I coughed, and a stream of gray water splashed out onto the floor. I stood slowly, armor grinding as an avalanche of gravel slithered free and rattled into a pile at my feet. My shield had fallen out of my hands, but lay in a mound of rubble nearby, half-buried in grime and dirt. Tembo was gone. Matthew was gone. Presumably Chesa was still standing in a field somewhere, staring at an empty spot on the ground. But I wasn’t dead. So I had that going for me.
I looked around. I was in the strangest place; there was a pair of stuffed chairs arranged in front of a raging fireplace, and a table that looked like it had been used for sword practice by an enthusiastic berserker, and a pair of doors . . . Wait a second. Shield over the hearth, the smell of stew in the air, the general patter of rain on the window, the sound of someone softly humming and clattering around the kitchen . . .
I was in my own sitting room. In my domain. And there was someone in the kitchen.
Drawing my sword, I crept across the room to the narrow door that led to the kitchen. My sneakiness was hampered by the crunch of gravel underfoot, and the fact that I was wearing steel full plate mixed with a three bags of landscape pebbles, and also I’m not very sneaky in the best of circumstances, nevermind when I just fell through half the world and my own roof after nearly dying in a fire. But I got to the door, and the sound of gentle humming did not abate, so I steeled myself for battle and then kicked open the door and charged forward.
Percival the wayward garden zombie stood at the sink, cheerfully washing a bowl. When I came through the door he shrieked, then dropped the bowl and grabbed the ladle out of the pot of stew simmering away on the stove. We yelled at each other in bestial tones for a few heartbeats, then scorching hot soup drooled down the handle of the ladle and poured over Percy’s pale white hand.
“God’s grocery list, that’s hot!” he screamed, throwing the ladle into the sink and shaking his hand like a party favor. “You scared the ichor out of me, Rast!”
“You! You abandoned us, you two-timing, weasley little runt! I ought to run you through and see what comes out of that cold heart of yours!”
“It would be blood,” he said. “Kind of old blood, and yes, cold as tar, but still my blood and I’m kind of attached to it. Plus then I’d go to that damned field and they would have their hooks in me again.”
“Where did you go? How did you get here?” I shouted. Then, because two questions are never enough, “Are you on their side?”
“The valkyries? Gods, no. I just . . .” He looked exasperated, then stopped rubbing his hand and picked up the ladle to wash it. “I was out in the garden, and I could feel them pressing in. Feel them getting closer. And the last thing . . .” He took a moment to collect himself before continuing. “I’m not going to let them take me again. I don’t care what it costs, and I’m sorry if I let you down, but the last thing I’m going to do is stick around and fall under their sway again. For any reason.”
I lowered the tip of my sword. He looked miserable, even a little pathetic, but he certainly didn’t look threatening. Still, I had a mighty fury in my heart.
“You very much did let us down, Percy. Greg and Bee are gone now, their bodies swallowed whole by the ground, and Hildr’s dead. All that, plus we lost the Tears. So I’m sorry, but sorry isn’t going to cut it.”
“I understand,” he said, tossing the rag he’d been using to clean the ladle onto the counter, his shoulders slumping. “I’ll go. The garden gnomes have probably run rampant in my absence.”
“Like hell you’ll go. I don’t even understand how you got here in the first place! This is my domain, Percy! It’s supposed to be a secure place, a place that no one else can get to! In fact, the last time something got in here, it was to try to kill me! So I’m going to need—”
There was a sharp knock on the door. Percival and I both froze. He raised one bushy, zombified eyebrow.
“For a place no one else can get to, it’s getting kind of crowded in here,” he said.
“Stay here,” I ordered. “Don’t move.”
The knock came again, commanding and clear. I dug my shield out of its pile of rubble, slipping it over my forearm as I approached the door. The window shutters were closed, so I couldn’t see outside, but I knew that beyond that door was an entire magical domain of murderous monsters, hungry hobgoblins, and a dog the size of three school buses. But none of those things had ever knocked on the door. Carefully, I slid back the bolt and eased the thick wooden door open an inch.
A battering ram wrapped in floral print shot past me, spraying rain water and indignation across the room. It bowled me aside, not stopping until it reached the center of the room, and the piles of gravel that my recent transportation had deposited on the floor.
“Land of Goshen, John! How long were you going to keep us waiting in that rain! It’s hardly civilized.” My mother stood in the center of the room, her dress spotted with rain, face creased with disappointment. She looked around, her steely gaze eventually settling on the gravel underfoot. “And it’s a complete mess, of course. Can’t leave you alone for a week without the place falling into the Middle Ages, can I? And such dreary furniture. This place needs a woman’s touch, it does.”
“Mom . . . how did you . . . how are you . . . ?” I swallowed and tried again. “How did you get here?”
“You paying to heat the outside?” Dad asked as he trundled past me. He walked straight to the largest of the stuffed chairs and, with a great deal of complaining and oofing and general drama, settled into the cushions.
“How did we get here?” Mom asked. She had somehow found a broom and apron, and was already herding the rubble into a tidy pile. “We drove, obviously. Have you forgotten about cars?” She looked up at me, then made a tsking sound at the sword in my hand. “Gracious, John. It’s no wonder no one comes to visit, if you’re answering the door in costume. I thought this move would be good for you. Might straighten you out.”
“I don’t understand . . .” I said. “Anything that is happening. At all.”
“Well, close the door before the horses get out. You don’t actually have a horse in here, do you? It smells like you might.”
Dumbfounded, but trained from youth to simply do what my mother said, especially when it came to opening and closing doors, I turned and put my hand on the bolt. That’s when I froze in place.
Beyond the doorstep was a nicely manicured lawn, and a concrete sidewalk, and a road lined with majestic oaks and midrange cars and at least one person walking a dog that was not the size of three school buses. None of this was the realm of nightmare that was supposed to be outside my door. Everything here was perfectly . . . mundane.
It was terrifying.