[10] And Then! Upotte!

In a dark place, there was a horse.

It had not been in this dark place very long but already it—or he, because it was a male horse—was happy to be here. The place was comfortable, secure, quiet, with hay piled up to the side and water in a trough.

The horse was happy. Or almost happy. The horse had a broken leg.

The broken leg hurt. It hurt to walk, although the horse found that by lifting the broken leg and walking on the three unbroken legs he could move just fine if he wanted to eat some hay or drink some water. He would like his leg to not be broken but he was a horse and was used to things not always going his way.

The horse decided he might want some more hay because he last ate hay five minutes ago. He shifted around on his three mobile legs and lowered his neck to eat and that's when his ears twitched.

He heard something. In this dark and quiet place, he heard something.

It didn't sound like a predator, at least none of the ones instinctual to him. It didn't smell like a predator either, although it did have a smell he didn't care for. Burnt. No smoke, and no light of flames, so he wasn't particularly concerned, but he remained alert as the sound drew closer, slowly. It sounded like a scrape. Like something dragging itself across the ground on its belly. It groaned with each scrape.

The sound became a rhythmic pattern. The pattern broke only so often, followed usually by heavy breathing. After a minute of this pattern, the horse grew used to it. No immediate threat. He bent down and ate more hay.

Into what small light there was scraped a skull.

The horse paused mid-bite.

The skull scraped forward again. It was actually only half a skull. The rest had a face. The horse resumed eating.

The half-skull, half-face reached out its arms. Its palms pressed against the ground because the digits on each hand were mangled in all sorts of directions.

As the horse ate, the ruined thing lifted its arms and wrapped them around his neck. The horse wasn't worried. The touch was kind. It was reassuring. It was friendly. More friendly even than his master, the human boy who wore such heavy armor. This thing didn't seem heavy, at least. It was small for a human, although it was human-shaped.

The hands caressed. The horse liked the feeling. It distracted him from the hurt of his own broken leg.

Then the thing lifted its face to the horse's ear. It whispered something the horse couldn't understand, something that didn't sound like the human speech his master used, a whistle pressed through the parsed lips of the half-face that still had them.

What the words were, if even words at all, didn't matter. In those whistling notes the horse heard something delicate, something unlike the gruesome thing that uttered them. The horse understood. He stopped eating. Careful of his broken leg, he lowered himself to a lying position.

The half-melted creature, with extreme effort, crawled onto his back.

Then, it fell off.

—

Perfidia Bal Berith took Shannon and Dalt to the parking garage under her office. In her own personal parking space, past her Porsche (another extravagance unaccounted for by her claimed lack of income), was a large stone archway.

The archway spanned the entire space and even intruded on adjacent spaces, which annoyed at least one of Perfidia's neighbors, because someone had left a taped note to one leg of the arch that read: PLEASE MOVE THIS. Perfidia pointed to the note, laughed in a way that suggested an invitation for Shannon and Dalt to laugh too, and when she received no response took the note and crammed it into her pocket.

"So this is, supposedly, a portal to another world," said Shannon.

"Yeah. Yeah. Obviously don't take my word for it. Lemme move my car and I'll open it up for you."

"Give me the keys. I'll move it," said Shannon.

After Perfidia spent several minutes carefully explaining Shannon what she described as particular quirks of the Porsche, Shannon backed up, drove to the side, and parked without incident. Dalt kept close to Perfidia the whole time. They'd tied Perfidia's sharp tail with a zip tie and it looked like a bound extension cord bouncing against her back. Who knew if she'd pull another stunt. She wouldn't as long as Dalt kept patting her shoulder with his massive hand.

Once the Porsche was out of the way, Perfidia took her keys, sorted through them, and pulled a large one off the ring that had a classic, old-fashioned look. Not a modern key with its mathematical jagged edge but the kind of key that belongs in fantasy castles. If this portal went where Perfidia claimed it did, Shannon supposed it appropriate.

Under watchful eyes, Perfidia toed her way to the arch, hand raised in a nonthreatening gesture, beaming a foolish smile. She tapped a segment of the arch, caused a compartment to open, and revealed a keyhole.

"Now what you see me do may challenge your notions of what's possible in this world—"

"Do it," said Shannon.

Perfidia shrugged, shoved the key into the hole, and turned. "Voila!"

The space under the arch bubbled a translucent shimmer. Not opaque enough to block the industrial parking lot wall behind it with its pipes and brutalist lettering, but it was hard to write off as merely a trick of the light. Hard, but not impossible.

"A cute trick, Miss Bal Berith. However, you'll need to—"

"Holy shit," said Dalt. "Christ, she really did it."

"Dalt, shut up and let me do the talking. Miss Bal Berith, this doesn't prove your outlandish claims of another world."

"Oh totally. Totally right Shannon. And skepticism's perfectly understandable, this world's got rules and all that, I know how it is—believe me. But if you want your proof all you gotta do is step inside. Your brother went through there."

"Well then let's take a looksee," said Dalt.

"Dalt, do not take another step," said Shannon. "Do you even think, Sherlock? She says it's a portal. Perhaps that surface—I don't know—liquefies whatever touches it. We're not dealing with an honest person here, Dalt."

Dalt shot her a look. A look Shannon cared little for, a look she knew well from the ghosts of boyfriends past, a look she hadn't—until now—seen on Dalt. The look of condescension. The look of "I know best." It was an easy look for certain men to wear, men used to being unchallenged, at the prime of their game physically and mentally, men self-confident and self-assured, the kind of men Shannon preferred, even if they came with the rather annoying drawback of extending that condescension to her.

She braced herself for him to open his mouth and say something of absolute idiocy that would soon get her shouting—she'd certainly been there before. Instead he shrugged. "Alright, let's see if that's true."

He seized Perfidia by the collar and before Perfidia could even protest lifted her up and shoved her head into the portal. The head disappeared, although the rest of the body thrashed in Dalt's grasp. For several seconds he held her there. Then, he yanked her back.

"Oh come on!" said a Perfidia still possessed of a head. "If you wanted me to demonstrate you could just ask. I'm more than willing to help, y'know."

"There ya go," said Dalt. "Not a liquefication surface or whatever. Reading science fiction lately Shannon? That'd be new."

"When faced with the unknown," said Shannon, "with something unaccountable by known rules, the first thing you must do is establish new rules. Empiric testing is how you do that. Now, say it really is a portal. We still don't know if it goes where she claims it does. It could take us straight to Hell, for instance. Let's find a stick or a string or something, tie one of our phones to the end, set it to record, and—"

Dalt shoved his head into the portal.

"Dalt. Dalt, Dalt!" Shannon rushed to him and pulled him back. "Dalt, what the fuck are you thinking?"

"Empiric testing." Dalt grinned, looking awfully pleased with himself, and Shannon could've punched him if she wasn't certain her fist would bounce harmlessly off his body. "And guess what I saw? A big graveyard. Full of statues of kings or knights or something. Swords and horses. Exactly like Bal Berith said—a fantasy world. A fantasy world, Shannon."

Shannon glared. Like her hypothetical fist, the glare bounced off him; he glowed exultant. Quickly, before he could do something even stupider, she went to the arch, turned the key to deactivate the portal, and put the key into her pocket. Although Perfidia kept a close eye on where she put the key, Shannon didn't worry about her. Dalt's expression ballooned her annoyance—until she realized he wasn't proud about him being correct and her being incorrect, but something else entirely.

"You understand what this means, Shannon? I mean, this isn't just anything we've got here. This is a real, bona fide portal to another world. Another freaking world, yo."

"Yes, another world my brother has blundered into."

Giddily, Dalt fanned his arms to the sky. "This is huge, Shannon. Monolithic even. It's so huge I had to say it was monolithic instead of just really, really huge. This changes things, for like, for humanity. This discovery could revolutionize mankind."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," said Perfidia. "This is about Jay Waringcrane, nothing else."

"No. No. Shannon, you can't—I mean obviously we're still gonna go in there and get your brother. But Shannon, you have to realize. I know you haven't seen it yet, but—Shannon why not stick your head in there, I swear. Just look at it."

"That's not the arrangement here. Shannon, you're smart, gimme a hand." Perfidia sent Shannon a can-you-believe-this-guy look that Shannon ignored.

"Dalt, what are you talking about," said Shannon.

Dalt gripped his tie and rubbed the back of his neck with it. He shook his head, staring at the open portal. "There's mountains there. Huge fertile-looking fields. I saw a lake. We're talking resources, Shannon. Natural resources. We work for the US government Shannon, don't you think America has a right to know about this?"

Natural resources. Mining, agriculture, water. That was the grand idea that got Dalt so excited all of a sudden, and Shannon could only attempt to smile sadly (it probably looked like a frown) and shake her head. "Dalt. This is above your level of expertise. We stick to what we know—"

"Dammit Shannon!"

Dalt slammed his palm against the stone surface of the arch. A thunderous clap erupted, one that echoed in the subterranean enclosure of the parking garage, so loud it surprised even Dalt and he flinched. But he recovered quickly and threw up his hands in exasperation.

"Why do you gotta put me down like that Shannon? Why do you gotta say it's over my head. I get enough of that shit from my dad, I don't need it from you. Why are you such an idiot Dalt, why are you always fucking up Dalt? Huh? Is that what you think I am? Just some moron? I know I'm not a genius like you Shannon but I, but I have"—he paused, fumbled his tongue, gesticulated for the right word—"I have sense Shannon. Enough to know this is big. This is the kind of big that'd shut my dad up once and for all if he saw it. This is pioneer shit Shannon, never-before-seen-by-man shit. This will put our name in lights Shannon, in lights. This is glory. The kind I never thought I'd see again."

His impromptu speech tapered off and he looked from her to Perfidia. Sudden self-consciousness crept over his face and his hands fell to his sides.

"Ya know, if it's glory you're after, I can give it to you with just a signature on a dotted line—"

"Shut the fuck up," said Shannon. Then, having expunged her venom on a more appropriate target, she was able to turn to her partner and say more softly: "First, we bring back my brother. After that we discuss any potential next steps. That's the plan that makes the most sense right now."

Her comforting words failed to comfort. They never did, Shannon didn't even know why she tried. But if Dalt didn't look exactly pleased, at least he was able to regroup. "I guess that's workable."

"Great!" said Perfidia. "So why don't we get to it. Let's head through the portal and I'll lead you to where Jay went—"

"But we are gonna do one thing my way," said Dalt. "And I think, Shannon, you'll agree with me here. This devil bitch? She's obviously planning to lead us into a trap or get us eaten by a, by a dragon or something."

"A reasonable assumption," said Shannon, "but she can't do anything too drastic, because she'll be in danger too."

Dalt shook his head. He considered the portal, or rather the archway that spanned Perfidia's parking space. He extended his hands, as though measuring the archway's size with his mind. "To be safe—you're fine with being safe right Shannon?—To be safe, let's increase our security. We can make ourselves safer with one quick phone call."

"What, the police? They already don't care about Jay." Besides, the more Shannon thought about her 911 call and how suspiciously they dismissed Jay's case, the more she wondered if Perfidia might have strings tied around the local law enforcement.

"Not the police." Dalt reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He paused, dramatically, way too long, to the point that Shannon thought he expected her to guess. Maybe he did. When she said nothing, with a sly smile he revealed it: "We call Wendell."

"Who?" said Shannon.

—

It turned out Shannon had met Wendell Noh six or seven times before. He was Dalt's best friend. To her credit, she recognized him when she saw him. He was standing on the curb in front of his flat suburban house, chewing a toothpick, wearing a rumpled beige coat with gigantic rimless glasses. He kicked a clump of dirt between his feet and didn't look up until after Dalt parked and burst out of the door with a gregarious "Yo what's up bro?"

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

As Shannon undid her seatbelt, Perfidia—who sat hidden within the cavernous back half of the SUV—said: "So not to rush you or anything. But your brother could be in danger right now. You really wanna waste time like this?"

That let Shannon know it was absolutely fine to waste some time. Not that she enjoyed wasting time in general. She got the sinking suspicion Dalt only wanted to bring his friend in on their little adventure to outvote Shannon 2-to-1 if it came to it, but at the same time, more muscle made it easier to keep close watch on Perfidia.

Speaking of. "Get out," Shannon said.

Perfidia had sunken so low in her seat that she looked about to fall off. She gritted her teeth and tilted her head. "Get out? Do you not realize what I look like? It's one thing for customers to see me in my office like this, but if I go walking around outside—"

"Then change your appearance."

"I can't just—"

"I read Paradise Lost for a GE in college, I know what you can do."

Perfidia leaned forward and whispered, as though she didn't want someone to hear: "There's a cost to stuff like that."

"Pay it. We're not leaving you here alone. Do it or I call Dalt back to get you out by force."

A labored exhalation. "You know Shannon, there's a simpler way of doing this. Bringing your brother back I mean. You've got a lotta Humanity. And we can talk about what Humanity means and you can ask me any question you want but what I'm willing to offer is in exchange for only a third—a quarter of that Humanity, I'll bring your brother back, no questions asked. Easy, like snapping my fingers. And sure you don't trust me. I get it. But you'd trust a contract right? We put it in writing, notarized, all the works, you can read through every word and change whatever you don't like. Then I just shake your hand and it's done and you don't even notice a change, ever. I'm only gonna offer this once."

"You can bring my brother back with a snap of your fingers?"

"No I can't, not unless you sign with me, because I need your Humanity to make it happen. Now if you want we can—"

"Change your appearance and get out of the car."

They finally exited the vehicle after Perfidia made Shannon close her eyes for a second—a second Shannon spent with her hand gripping the key to the portal in her pocket—and transformed into an ordinary human version of herself, no horns or red skin or barb tail or yellow sclera. Still a redhead though, like Mother, of course. Dalt and Wendell remained puttering on the curb, Dalt strongarming the conversion which lined up with what Shannon remembered of Wendell during the various occasions she met him.

"Shannon," Wendell said with a nod, gnawing his toothpick.

"Wendell," Shannon said back. She didn't introduce Perfidia and Wendell didn't ask.

"As I was saying." Dalt spread his arms wide. "We discovered this portal. To a fantasy world. Not exactly sure what's in it yet but it's probably got all kinds of insane shit, goblins and orcs or whatever, like Lord of the Rings. Remember those fucking movies? That shit kicked ass, yo."

"Mm," said Wendell.

"But then we got this problem. Because of course I'm not like a knight or anything, I don't have a sword. So if an orc shows up and starts doing orc shit in front of me, what am I supposed to do? That's when I figured I'd get you in on this. I mean, you've got that collection of yours and all."

Wendell's eyes, riveted to the cracked asphalt of a culdesac road, showed nothing at all. Maybe he thought Dalt was pulling a prank.

The front door of Wendell's house opened. A narrow woman in an apron stood in it. "Wendell! Wendell, you aren't smoking out there are you?"

Without looking, without any urgency whatsoever, Wendell removed the toothpick from his mouth and held it up for her to see.

Dalt waved at the woman. "Hey Da-rae. How's it hanging? You met my girlfriend Shannon yet?"

His question offered an invitation to join the curbside party but the woman remained standing in the door. She lifted onto tiptoe and squinted, as though she couldn't tell Dalt was Dalt by his general bearlike shape. "Wendell! Wendell this is not a good time for friends you know! Wendell!"

"I know, Da-rae," Wendell intoned.

"You are not making a good impression on my parents Wendell!"

"I'm sorry, Da-rae."

Da-rae shouted something that started "This is" that transformed into a mangle when the ear-piercing shriek of a baby cut from inside the house. After a moment's hesitation, Da-rae waved her hands in exasperation at Wendell's back before retreating inside and slamming the door behind her.

Outside, on this suburban street, under an overcast sky, all was quiet save the slight shuffle of tree leaves in the gentle breeze.

"So uh," said Dalt, "guess it's a bad time. I know tomorrow's Thanksgiving..."

"Nah." Wendell stuck his toothpick back in his mouth, shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, and slouched back toward the house. "Lemme show you what I got."

He led them up a station wagon-infested driveway, to a wooden side gate with a rusty latch and then a corridor of trash cans and a small dog that ran up yapping particularly at Perfidia.

"Ah, wow, dogs." Perfidia shook a pinstripe pant leg and wagged the dog latched to it by the teeth. "Love dogs. Wow."

Wendell stopped only to pry the dog away and then held it in his arms like a baby, rocking it a few times before plopping it back down and nudging it in the ass to go yap somewhere else. He flicked out a ring of keys and opened a side door embedded between hard water-stained windows.

Through a cramped laundry room they filed into the house proper, abuzz with the sounds of baby sobs, Korean conversation, and a television show also in Korean. Soon a kitchen timer went off and added to the amalgam of noise and the baby screeched louder to compete.

They wandered down a corridor where a giant framed wedding photo of Wendell and Da-rae at what Shannon immediately recognized as the Shaker Heights Country Club jockeyed for wall space with a gigantic cross covered by a gnarled and bloodied Jesus.

An old man stooped over a cane wandered into the end of the hallway, stopped and noticed Wendell, and pointed to him while saying something rapidly in Korean, to which Wendell responded with a vague statement also in Korean as he shepherded his guests into a third bedroom repurposed into storage.

This storage room, laden with the musky odor of yellowed paper, was an exercise in organized chaos. Wendell shut the door behind them and there was barely enough room for them all to stand, especially Dalt. They tiptoed across the room, gray in the gray light that filtered through the curtains, feet searching and then coming down upon sparse patches of carpet amid geometrically-arranged clear plastic boxes that nonetheless encompassed nearly everything.

Shannon's astute eyes caught the distinct layout of a 1095-C form in one box, a W-2 form, several other tax-related documents collated into folders with neat labels, such fastidiousness expected of a fellow accountant (Wendell working freelance; Shannon remembered dimly Dalt once telling her Wendell was the one who recommended him to the IRS), although Shannon personally kept such documents under lock and key in a secure safe. Other boxes, though, deviated from financials: textbooks, photo albums, linens, porcelain collectibles, silverware, chinaware, Christmas decorations. One large plastic container held a record player and a music box. Another contained a bowtie-sporting teddy bear that looked quarantined within its translucent confines. There were framed photos, framed landscape paintings, a stuffed deer head with a wall mount whose antlers necessitated the plastic lid to rest at a tilt atop them. Most of it looked ancient, although Wendell went to college with Dalt and was ostensibly around the same age.

A photo, on the wall instead of in the box, showed Wendell posing with what might have been the same deer whose severed head was now in storage. Wendell knelt in an orange vest and a camouflage hat with a rifle in one hand while his other shoulder propped up part of the deer's corpse. He wore the same expression as he did in his wedding photo. The same expression he wore now as he made viscous progress across the room to the two tall and broad safes that took up an entire wall.

"As I was saying," said Dalt, although he hadn't spoken the entire walk until the door to the storage room was safely closed and the wailing baby and Korean TV drama and blaring kitchen alarm became a muted muffle, "Shannon's little brother's only got a day's head start on us and by all indications he's going by foot. So we expect to drive in there, catch up in a few hours, and be back before bedtime. We really just wanna make sure we got protection just in case, you dig bro? Shooting at orcs or dragons or whatever."

"Mm." Wendell swung his keys around his finger in a lazy, languid loop. Then the keyring plopped into his palm and he stuck the exact right key into the first safe and opened it.

Inside was an arsenal. Too many guns all clean and polished for Shannon to count quickly; she estimated between twenty and thirty. Wendell pulled one, a rifle, from the rack.

"Henry All-Weather Lever Action 45-70. Side load, extended rail for optic mounting, good in bad weather." He pulled a lever at the bottom of the gun, opened the... chamber (Shannon didn't know about guns), confirmed there were no bullets in the gun, and handed it to Dalt.

"Holy shit." Dalt handled the rifle reverentially. "Nice fucking gun bro."

"We being maybe a little extreme here?" said Perfidia. "This isn't a world that's meant to know about guns, guys."

Wendell already had the next gun out. "Mossberg 590 Tactical Pump-Action Shotgun. Eight-plus-one round capacity, dual extractors, adjustable rear sight. Military. Good if you have to shoot"—he blandly glanced at some of the faces—"orcs."

"Right on," said Dalt.

After confirming the shotgun was unloaded, he handed it to Dalt while taking back and replacing the rifle in the gun safe. "For handguns we got a selection. Smith & Wesson 629 with .44 Magnum, if you like your sidearms as heavy as your real arms—Not recommended. I prefer the Glock 17 right here, that's seventeen rounds normally, but I got an extended mag that's thirty-three if you think you need it. Plus it's lightweight, low recoil, only thing you lose is power. But power's what the rifles are for. I got three of the 17s. Now for the women, if you want something especially lightweight, there's the SIG P365, I try to get Da-rae to carry one but she—"

"The women won't be handling any guns," said Shannon.

"More-or-less what Da-rae says too." Wendell put down the tiny pistol he'd picked up with a trace of disappointment.

"Jesus Wendell this is super," said Dalt. "Like, dude, we're not gonna run into any trouble with cannons like these. Jesus I almost wish we do run into something just to see them in action. Bet you didn't think of that, didja Miss Bal Berith?"

He shot a smug look at Perfidia and Perfidia struggled not to make obvious how much she stewed. Which made Shannon wonder if seeming to stew was putting on an act or not, because Shannon herself could easily have reacted with a face of stone and she always assumed anything she could do anyone else could do.

"I haven't even started really," Wendell said with tax accountant enthusiasm, snowballing slowly out of the depths of Hell, detectable only in the increased pace of the staccato delivery. "Here we got an M1 Garand, here a Faxon Ion. The crown jewel of course I keep in the other safe."

The other safe was narrower than the first, to the point that it looked more like an appendix than a distinct entity. Shannon checked her watch. The gun talk was starting to drag, especially since she doubted Dalt understood the distinctions between all these makes and models any better than her.

The rifle Wendell removed from the second safe looked mostly like the other rifles he showed them, although its wooden stock gave it a more old-fashioned look. It was also nearly as tall as Wendell himself and he hefted it with slight unevenness due to its weight.

"I understand," Wendell said, the boredom dissolving out of his tone if not his pace, his high-resolution eyes widening behind his big glasses, "I knocked the .44 Magnum earlier for being impractical, and what I'm holding here has so much kick it'll dislocate your shoulder after four or five shots, but if you want power there's no substitute. This is the .700 Nitro Express. Elephant rifle."

"You shoot a lot of elephants?" Shannon said.

Wendell, rather than respond, turned his attention solely to Dalt, as if eradicating Shannon from his mind. "You mentioned dragons. If there's a gun a man can carry that'll take down a dragon, it's this."

He shouldered the rifle, slid open an adjacent closet door, and removed from a perfect grid stack of similar boxes a box that he opened to reveal bullets. The bullet he removed from the box was longer and thicker than his index finger as he held it up to show. "You don't get a bigger round. Just one of these costs one hundred dollars. Thousand grain soft point—"

The door to the storage room opened and everyone wheeled around to face Da-rae in the doorway with a somewhat-pacified baby in one arm. "Wendell!" she said, followed by a string in Korean.

Wendell dropped the gigantic round back into the ammo box, although he kept the rifle shouldered. "My friends wanted to see my collection, Da-rae," he said in English. "I'm showing it to them."

Da-rae's eyes shifted from face to face. Dalt waved, Perfidia tried to grin, Shannon remained steadfast with her arms crossed and one foot tapping.

"That's very nice Wendell, but my parents—"

"Your parents' opinion of me isn't going to change over this, Da-rae." Wendell's voice fell back to its ordinary ordinariness, dry and desiccated. "Speaking of which, I'm going to be stepping out of the house for a few hours. I'll be back before"—he glanced to Dalt for time, Dalt waved his hands in complete lack of expression, and Wendell understood him anyway—"before midnight."

"Midnight? Wendell, tomorrow is Thanksgiving!"

"And I'll be here tomorrow Da-rae. My friend Dalt has a little issue and he needs my help."

Da-rae bounced the baby to keep it satisfied. "Wendell, can we talk in private for a second? And put that gun away!"

Rather than put it away, Wendell cracked it open to confirm it was empty and handed it to Dalt to hold. He shrugged, motioned for Shannon and Perfidia to move out of the way, and toed his way across the room to Da-rae before they both disappeared into the bedroom on the other side of the hall. Immediately after the door closed behind them, Da-rae started shouting.

They stood awkwardly trying not to listen before Shannon flicked her wrist at Dalt to pull his attention away from the elephant gun and said: "What was he saying? He won't be back until midnight? He's coming too?"

"Well yeah of course. What'd you expect Shannon? He's not gonna lend us his guns and let us drive across town with them. I don't even think that's legal. Of course it's not legal actually."

"I guarantee you won't need a gun that big," said Perfidia. "All the dragons in that world got killed by the last guy who went there. It's a dragon-free zone."

"Which means there are totally dragons there and we totally need to be ready to defend ourselves," said Dalt. "Look. Shannon. Wendell has all these guns and knows how to use them. I've been to the shooting range with him, he's a crack shot."

"We already expect Perfidia will trick us somehow—"

"Exactly why we need him."

"We'll be putting him in danger Dalt."

"Why do you think he wants to come Shannon?"

"Dalt, this isn't some fun adventure for you and your buddy to go on. This is serious. We have a serious mission."

"And don't I look serious right now?" Dalt said, cracking the biggest and broadest grin he possibly could, seemingly unaware he was even doing it.

The bedroom door opened. Da-rae, cradling her baby, hurried down the hall averting her face from them before she vanished. Wendell, hands in his pocket, toothpick jutting from his lips, meandered back to the entrance of the storage room.

"So," he said, "let's load up."

—

They returned to the parking garage under Perfidia's office with the following items:

* Dalt's 2016 Land Rover Range Rover

* Wendell's 2014 Jeep Wrangler

* Five rifles (including the elephant gun), four handguns, and twelve boxes of ammunition

* A cooler filled with bottled water and sports drinks (Shannon vetoed any beer)

* A cooler filled with deli sandwiches from the local grocery

* Various snacks

* Two large red cans of extra gasoline

* An extra tire for each vehicle

* Two walkie-talkies for inter-vehicle communication

* A first aid kit

* Two powerful flashlights with extra batteries

* A combat knife (from Wendell's collection of course)

* A hatchet

* A tent

* A megaphone, in case they needed to yell at Jay loudly

Wendell kept most of these things on hand so it didn't take too long to gather it together, but after driving around town all afternoon the sun had already started to set. But Shannon figured Jay couldn't be more than twenty or thirty miles away—no more than an hour's drive. The true issue was whether Perfidia directed them to him or to somewhere else entirely, but to make sure she harbored absolutely no delusions about escape Dalt and Wendell zip-tied her wrists and ankles before pushing her into the backseat of the Range Rover and slamming the door shut.

"Where we're going," Dalt told Perfidia, "there's no police. There's no law. There's no regulation. We have all the power. Think about that before you try something stupid."

"Of course. Of course. I'd never dream of it. You got me once, I learned my lesson, we're gonna do this by the book from here on out."

Shannon doubted that. But for Shannon's misgivings about bringing Wendell along, Perfidia had not looked at the second vehicle and the cold-blooded Korean and his giant rifles with particular enthusiasm. If Perfidia had any plans, his inclusion threw a wrench into them one way or another.

After Shannon stuck the key into the arch, activated the portal, and took the key out to pocket it, when she was walking back to Dalt's SUV, her phone rang. By reflex she checked it and by the time she realized who was calling it was too late to simply ignore.

"Yes, Mother?"

"Shan-bear? Oh Shan-bear, what's happening? It's been hours since you left. Have you found Jay yet?"

"We know where he is." Shannon kept her voice calm but authoritative. She attempted to exude control over the situation in a way even Mother would register. "We're driving to pick him up now. It should only be a couple more hours."

"Oh, oh my God, a couple more hours? How far away is he? Where did he go? Shan-bear, you have to tell me."

Wendell and Dalt leaned out their respective windows, watching her. Instead of a toothpick, in Wendell's mouth flared a cigarette.

"I'll tell you later, Mother. Everything's under control."

"At least tell me where you're going. Shan-bear I'm scared. I'm scared to be in this house alone right now. You're not—you're not going to disappear too are you?"

"Mother. Mother. Calm down Mother. You're being paranoid." Shannon looked up at the pipes running along the ceiling and prayed for whatever concrete box structure comprised this parking garage to break up the cell signal. "Everything will be fine. Jay—"

"Is he involved in something illegal? Oh Shan-bear. Oh no."

"He's not involved in anything illegal. Everything's fine."

"You have to tell me where he is. You have to. You said a couple of hours. Where could he possibly have gone that's a couple hours away? Oh. Oh, oh, oh."

While submerged in Mother's moans Shannon responded to Dalt's upraised arm with a look. "Mother. Trust me. Everything will be fine."

"I need to know something. Anything. You won't disappear too will you Shan-bear? Will you?"

"Of course I won't disappear. I'm not like Jay. I'm the responsible one, remember? I'm the one who's never done a bad thing in my life. Remember?"

A pause. Static. Shannon thought maybe the call really did drop. But then:

"If you're responsible," said Mother, "then tell me exactly where you're going. Jay didn't. You have to."

It was Shannon's turn to fall silent. She stared blankly at a sign that said 14 FT until she realized the length of her pause and shook herself back together.

"Alright," said Shannon.

Immediately she decided to tell her Mother a fake address, a fake place—Columbus, she'd say he went down to Columbus, that'd explain the length of the drive—but then the full meaning of Mother's words hit her. Jay didn't tell her where he went. Shannon had to be responsible where Jay was not.

She said the address of Perfidia's office building.

"What was that?" said Mother.

Shannon said it again.

"Is that—is that downtown? But he—you said—a couple hours?"

"That's right. We'll be back before midnight," said Shannon. "Don't come here yourself. Trust me. I told you where I am, so trust me."

"Oh, Shan-bear..."

"Mother. I will bring Jay back. I promise you that. I promise you, he'll be home for Thanksgiving."

For several seconds Mother said nothing. Then:

"I love you, Shannon."

"I—I—Goodbye, Mother. I'll see you soon."

Shannon hung up.

"Ready?" asked Dalt.

Ready. Shannon pocketed her phone and climbed into the SUV. Dalt switched gears and the SUV rolled forward, slowly inching until it touched the portal.

Shannon, Dalt, Wendell, and Perfidia Bal Berith entered another world.