Paranormal Realities Box Set (27 page)

“Are you ready?” I asked.

Zen looked around at all that had been
assembled and arched an eyebrow.

“Yes. And so are you two.” He shot a
meaningful glance at the duffle bags we carried. “Except you need one more
thing.” Zen stepped forward pulling an item from his pocket. “Hold out your
arm.” When I did as he asked, Zen slipped a watch over my hand. He pushed the
watch up to my wrist and secured the metal clasp with a click.

 
“The mechanism is waterproof,” Zen continued. “It’s an
automatic mechanical watch, so it won’t need winding. Also, it shouldn't be
affected by any kind of electromagnetic field in the vortex.”

“Thanks, Zen,” I said.

“We have twenty-two hours, thirty-two
minutes and twenty seconds until the portal seals.” Rom peered over my shoulder
at the watch.

Our eyes met and I saw my own thought
reflected in his face: Not much time. I turned back to Zen.

“Now you’re ready.” Zen clapped me on the
shoulder.

I turned to Senji and Chase.

“Senji and I have talked it over,” Chase
said. “We promise no more fighting between us.”

“At least until you get back.” Senji
turned to Chase. “Oh, and buddy? This is your ass.” He smacked Chase’s
posterior hard.

“Ow,” Chase rubbed the spot. “What was
that for?”

“A hole in the ground is about to open,”
Senji replied. “I just wanted you to know the difference.”

“Very clever,” Chase said.

“I thought you two weren’t going to fight
'til we got back?”

“You’re not gone yet and I needed one to
tide me over.” Senji grinned.

Petra crossed to me and I hoped she
wasn’t going to make me cry.

“Just make sure you come back.” She gave
me a sassy smirk. ”I don’t want to have to start all over with someone else as
my best friend.”

“Oh okay.” My laugh was chocked. “After
all, it’s totally about you.”

“Like, yeah,” she said. “Besides, I’ve
gotten used to your 28 days a month of PMS.”

“Slut.”

“That’s the bitch I know and love,” Petra
said sarcastically. She hugged me and planted a kiss on my cheek before pushing
me roughly back. “I love you, Kiz. Don’t get hurt.”

“You be careful too.” I brushed a tear before
it could get to my cheek. “I’ve gotten sorta used to your dramatics.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I forgot to tell
you how I might as well be living in Darfur.”

“I’ll listen to your reasoning when I get
back.”

With tears in my eyes, I opened the
portal. As the whirlwind swirled and the circling of the vortex expanded, Rom
and I joined hands. His grip crushed my fingers, but I didn't complain. We
glanced at one another. On a silent count of three we simultaneously began a
running start, before leaping into the abyss.

Our leap sent Rom and me into the mouth
and quickly down the esophagus of the portal. Again, I had the strange
sensation of a gelatinous substance around me. My ears were plugged with it.
Trying to shout to Rom was useless. I could hear my voice in my head, like when
I’d been diving or snorkeling, but Rom couldn’t seem to hear me.

This time there was a freedom and
rapidness in our movement I hadn’t experienced before, probably due to the fact
that I wasn’t resisting the pull but going with the flow.

Almost immediately, I saw two figures
coming upward toward Rom and me. I recognized one as the raven-haired
woman—probable ghoul—I’d seen the last time I’d been inside the
vortex. She floated beside a male figure. Young—a teen?—and
beautiful, almost angelic in appearance with his close-cropped blond hair,
green eyes and delicate features. The male hand reached out to me as we passed
with long blunt edged fingers that would have been perfect for a concert
pianist. This must be the entity entangled with Rom. Could this one be human or
something we hadn’t seen before? I hoped Zen and company would be able to
handle it, whatever it was.

As we reached the other end, a
cloud-filled sky became visible. I had just time enough to wonder what that
would mean before the vortex spit Rom and me out. We landed on a hard surface
in Dorcha.

We slowed our running steps to a stop and
I had a chance to take in my surroundings. The initial sensory images made me
think I was in the middle of the sky. Realization came that much of the “sky”
was actually wisps of fog and I stood on a semi-enclosed walkway spanning two
towers of a bridge. To the right was a separate walkway. Glancing over my
shoulder, I saw that we’d emerged through a door that led into one of the
towers.

Rom walked me to the handrail and we
gazed down at the roadway of the bridge and the river probably about one
hundred and fifty feet below us. Fighting off the nausea that came with my fear
of heights, I forced myself to continue surveying the area. I didn't want to
flashback to that other bridge...with Adam.

“Look there.” Rom pointed to a structure
on shore, a structure I recognized as the Tower of London. With that came the
knowledge of where we were. The Tower Bridge, with its two robust towers, was more
like a medieval drawbridge than a suspension bridge. Suddenly, I recognized
that the rook chess pieces on Prince Leopold’s board had been carved based on
the design of these towers.

Scanning the cityscape brought more
confusion. I’d visited London two years ago with my family before the divorce,
and much of what I was seeing was familiar but twisted somehow. For one thing
the walkway I was on had appeared enclosed when I’d seen it in my world, but
the one Rom and I stood on was precariously open to the elements. For another
thing, the city I saw before me was not a modern version of London with its
skyscrapers, but more like the Victorian era I’d seen portrayed in movies and
on television. But there were also some oddities that met my eye. So much of what
was laid out before us seemed overgrown with vegetation as if it hadn't been in
use for some time.

I gazed at the horizon. The huge
population of the city and crowds of tourists were missing from this London.
Right at this moment, I couldn’t identify one living—or
un-living—creature moving below. I had no idea of the local time, but
whatever the hour, it wasn’t rush hour.

 
Rom took the map from his duffle and unfolded it.

“We’re here.” I placed the tip of my
index finder on the line over the Thames drawn on the map. “That building over
there is the Tower of London and I see St. Paul’s cathedral in the distance.” I
gazed up at him with a smile. “We’re in London. At least the Dorcha version.”

“Thus, north has that direction.” Rom
pointed into the distance.

“Yes. And if the rest of this map is
accurate, we should cross to the north side of the bridge and make our way west
along the river bank to head for Buckingham Palace.”

A dark something caught my eye.

“What’s that?” I said, squinting to focus
better on the dark something perched on top of one of jagged tooth-like castle
keep walls of the Tower of London.

Rom followed my gaze and held a hand over
his eyes. “I know not.”

Unfortunately, the “something” turned out
to be alive and capable of seeing us too. Giant black wings unfolded from
around it and stretched wide. The creature took flight and soared in great
arching and swooping movements as it flew closer to us. Only in statuary and
carved into architectural elements had I seen this creature before: a gryphon.

For a few moments I could only stand in
awe of its magnificence. The golden brown creature’s wingspan was at least
twenty feet in length. It had the head and wings of an eagle. The body was that
of a lion apart from its eagle-like front talons. I’d always thought a gryphon
was a mythological creature. Yet here it was...flying

“Run,” Rom yelled and seized my hand.

As we sprinted, heading for the cover of
the north tower, the gryphon headed for us. Its screeching yell reverberated
through me. The fear provoked by that call tripped me up and I stumbled. Rom
dragged me forward again which earned him my eternal gratitude. Getting caught
in that enormous beak would really blow.

The gryphon flew to a perch on the edge
of the walkway between the tower and us. Rom skidded to a stop and pulled me up
short. The gimlet eyes of the gryphon took us in—no doubt it was eyeing
its prey—as the head twitched. Rom began to back slowly away pushing me
behind him.

At that moment, two more winged creatures
swooped down from the sky. As they came closer, I saw they were not as large as
the gryphon; each of them was probably not more than about five feet in length.
Amazingly, these beings had the heads of women and the bodies of birds. Their
claws were even longer and sharper than the gryphon’s talons. Fantastic.

Initially, it seemed they’d come to our
rescue because they dove at the gryphon. Their long, wavy hair whipped in the
wind like flags. I could have cheered, until one of them spoke.

“Nasty bird,” one of the flying bird-women
screamed as she clawed at the gryphon’s head. “This food belongs to us.”

Rom and I clearly qualified as the food.

“Harpies.” Rom shouted over his shoulder.

The other bird-woman landed on the
gryphon’s back. The gryphon screeched and tried to fly upward but couldn’t
achieve lift off.

I continued to scuttle backwards
sheltered by Rom. As he moved he unzipped his duffle. My own duffle lay about
two feet behind me on the walkway where I’d dropped it in the haste of our
initial run from the gryphon.

One of the harpies spotted our movement
and abandoned clawing at the gryphon to dart in our direction. Rom rummaged in
his bag not taking his eye off the harpy descending on us fast. He pulled at
something inside but it caught on the material of the bag.

Finally, tugging free the super soaker
water gun, he trained it on the harpy. We stopped moving backwards and Rom
fumbled inside the bag again for a few long moments as the harpy closed in on
us. When she was about six feet away, he drew out a lighter, squeezed the trigger,
and the smell of WD-40 permeated the air.

Rom ignited the lighter beneath the
stream and a twenty-four inch length of flame burst from the muzzle in an arc.
The fire fell just short of striking the harpy, although I did smell singed
feathers.

“Aghhhhhhh,” the harpy yelled as her
wings widened and flapped backward. She trod air to stall her forward movement.
“Damn you!”

“Run,” Rom yelled to me. “South tower.”

The fuel supply in the super soaker was
dwindling fast. The arc of the flame had decreased in length by at least six
inches. Turning his body, but keeping his arm outstretched behind him so the
muzzle remained pointed in the general direction of the harpy, Rom ran, pushing
me ahead of him.

I grabbed up my duffle as we passed it.

The harpy kept pace with us, clearly
seeing that our makeshift flamethrower wouldn’t last for much longer.

Once at the tower, I clutched at the iron
handle of the huge oak door and pulled it open just wide enough for me to enter
and for Rom to follow me in. The flame from the super soaker had shrunk to a
few inches so Rom threw it at the harpy as he slid into the opening.

We both used our bodies to slam the door
shut and immediately felt the impact of the harpy and her furious attempts to
force it open. A heavy brass bolt about three quarters of the way up the door
caught my attention and I pushed it into the locked position.

Slowly, hesitantly, I backed away from
the door. The lock held despite the continued rattling from the harpy’s
pounding.

Not wanting to take a chance on the
ancient elevator system, Rom and I ran down about three hundred stairs to the
bottom to reach the roadway level. We passed through the archway leading us
outside.

“Does the wristwatch yet work?” Rom
panted.

Holding up my arm for inspection, I saw
the mechanism clicking and moving as the seconds slipped by. Twenty-one hours,
fifty-six minutes, fifteen seconds to zero hour. Fourteen seconds. Thirteen
seconds.

I reported the time left and I’m certain
there was more than a hint of panic in my face. Just as certainly, that look of
panic increased when a group of soldiers emerged from behind the tower and
surrounded us.

“Halt!” A soldier—probably an
officer from his medals—ordered us.

He stood at the center of ten other
soldiers all of whom were dressed in antiquated uniforms consisting of red
tunics over khaki pants. More significantly, with his yellow eyes, sharp teeth
and claws, this officer was clearly a ghoul. My scrutiny of the rest of the
soldiers confirmed they were ghoul-like also.

“I believe I have the pleasure of
addressing Kizzy Taylor?” The officer eyed me with a sly smirk. “And her friend
Rom?”

“Who wants to know?” I asked.

“Colonel William Crowder.” He introduced
himself with a slight bow. “As you are to be the honored guests at the court,
His Royal Highness, the Prince Leopold, sent us to meet and convey you safely
to him."