A falling rock slid almost to my feet, and I cut a sharp left, betting that there would be an open street after the broken building in front of me that would lead right to the basilica. I didn't think we were being corralled. God, I hoped we weren't.
Trent followed very close, and our progress slowed as we slipped through a narrow passage. His breathing was loud, and my shoulders eased when we emerged from the broken alley onto a clear street. Chunks of adjacent buildings littered the way, but little else. At Trent's nervous nod, we started forward, skirting the larger debris that might hide a skinny surface demon.
My gaze rose up the broken spires as we approached. There were only carved gargoyles perched on the lower ledges, not real ones. Whether they'd abandoned the ever-after along with the witches and elves or they had never existed here, I didn't know. Apart from the missing gargoyles, the building looked relatively untouched, much like their version of Fountain Square. I wondered if it was because it was holy, or because they had a vested interest in keeping it intact. Trent halted beside me as I looked appraisingly at the door, then he turned to watch our backs.
"You think a front door is open?" I said, wanting to be inside. Though if it was like the one in reality, the only holy ground was limited to the expanse where the altar was.
A rock slid behind us. Head jerking like a startled deer's, Trent took the stairs two at a time and tried all the doors. None of them opened, and seeing that there were no locks on the outside, I started for the side door. "This way," I whispered.
He nodded, moving fast as he joined me. I couldn't help the flash of memory of me cold-cocking one of his fianc??e's bodyguards on the front steps to get in to arrest Trent. I still thought Trent owed me a thank-you for breaking the wedding up. Him being a drug lord and murderer notwithstanding, being married to that cold fish of a woman would have been cruel and unusual punishment.
Trent took the lead, and I followed at a slower pace, watching the street when another slide of rock echoed through the ruined city. The sickly moon had risen over the buildings, the red glare making holes where there were none and disguising the real ones. My fingers itched. I wanted to unroll the ever-after in my thoughts and flash enough light to send all the surface demons running, but I had to reserve my spindle to do Ceri's charm. That is, if I didn't need it between then and now to save my skin.
The familiar sight of the twin stairways to the side door was a shock. It was exactly the same, and the untouched state of the cathedral made the rest of the city look twice as broken. "Trent," I whispered, my knees weak. "Why do you think everything is sort of parallel? I've heard Minias say 'When the two worlds collide.' Is the ever-after a mirror of our reality?"
Trent slowed as his eyes fell from the moon to land upon the expanse of trees growing where the side parking lot would have been. "Maybe. And it's ruined because of the demons?"
I jumped at a sharp click of stone. "Maybe their Turn didn't go very well."
"No," he said, easing forward silently. "The trees where we crossed were more than forty years old. If things went bad at the Turn, then they would be only that old. Elves left two thousand years ago, and witches five. If the ever-after is a reflection of reality, the similarities should have ended when we diverged, and they seem to mirror each other up to almost today, perhaps. It doesn't make sense."
He took the nearest of the concrete stairs carefully, and I followed, watching behind me instead of my footing. "Like anything makes sense here?"
Trent tried the door. It was locked. My lips pressed tight, I set my satchel down to find Jenks's lock-picking kit. The sound of sliding rock quickened my cold fingers, and Trent's gaze flicked everywhere as he waited. I wanted to get off the street like yesterday.
I found the kit, and after tucking it under my arm, I zipped my bag closed. A branch in the nearby trees waved wildly, and a black something hit the earth. Shit. Trent put his back to the door, watching. "Do you think that maybe more than the buildings are parallel?" he asked as I crouched before the lock. God, I'd give just about anything for Jenks.
"You mean like people?" I wiggled my fingers for his special light and he handed it to me.
"Yes."
I shined the light on the lock, sighing at its corroded state. Maybe I could kick the door in? But then we couldn't shut it. My thoughts went to Trent's question, trying not to imagine a demon with the morals of Trent. "I hope not." I stood, and his attention jerked to me. "I'm going to try to pick the lock," I said. "Watch my back, okay?"
Damn it. I didn't like where I was, but I had no choice.
Trent hesitated as if hearing more than I was asking, then faced the trees.
I took a slow breath and tried to ignore the soughing of the wind and the grit that was making my eyes ache. The case Jenks had bought to hold his tools was soft on my cold-numbed fingertips, and I fumbled at the ties holding it closed. Nice quiet ties instead of a noisy zipper. The man was a thief at heart and had thought of everything.
The kit came silently open, and in a flash of light that rocked me back, Jenks darted out.
"Holy crap, Rachel!" the small pixy swore, shaking himself so the glowing dust lit my knees. "I thought I was going to be sick. You bounce around like a grasshopper when you run. Are we there yet?"
I stared slack jawed, slowly losing my balance and falling to sit on my butt.
"The basilica?" Jenks questioned, seeing Trent standing speechless over us. "Damn, that's more freaky than a fairy's third birthday party. Oh, hey, nice jumpsuit, Trent. Didn't anyone ever tell you the guy in the jumpsuit always gets eaten first?"
"Jenks!" I finally managed. "You shouldn't be here!"
The pixy flexed his wings, landing on my knee and running a careful hand over one of the lower ones to straighten it out. The light from him was clean and pure, the only thing here that was really white. "Like you should?" he said dryly.
I glanced at Trent, seeing by his tight features that he had already figured out the problem. "Jenks...Trent only bought four trips. With you along, we only have one left."
Trent turned from the forest, clearly angry. "That last remaining trip is mine. I'm not responsible for your backup's stupidity."
Oh, God. I was stuck in the ever-after.
"Hey, you stupid-ass elf," Jenks exclaimed, rising up in a burst of gold glitter.
There was a collective rustle from the shadowed trees, and I got to my feet. Neither Jenks nor Trent noticed, seeing as Jenks currently had a drawn sword pointed at Trent's eyeball.
"I am Rachel's backup," he continued, the glow from him making a spot of normal color on the scratched side door to the church. "I come with her and am included with her trip as much as her shoes and her hair scrunchy. Human law doesn't count our existence, so neither should demon. I'm an accessory, Mr. Elven Magic," he said bitterly. "So don't get your dancing tights in a twist. You think I'd endanger Rache's life by using her pass to get here if I wasn't sure we both had a way out?"
Please, please let him be right.
Jenks saw my fear, and his wings increased their pitch. "I don't count, damn it! I didn't use up one of your trips!"
Trent leaned forward to say something nasty, but a huge chunk of rock slid into the nearby street, interrupting him. All three of us froze, and Jenks dampened his glow.
"Back off, Jenks," I said, cursing myself. "If there's only one trip left, Trent gets it."
"Rache, he can bargain for more! He should have included me anyway - "
"I'm not going to ask Trent to bargain with anyone else. He gets it!" I said, fear bubbling through me, black and thick. "He made the deal. You changed it."
"Rache..." He was scared, and I held out a hand for him to land on it. Damn it all to hell and back.
"I'm glad you're here," I said softly, stifling a jerk at a rock plinking down. "Trent can have his lousy trip. He got us here, we can get ourselves back. That's what we do. And that's even if we need to. If Minias doesn't know you hitched a ride, we probably still have two jumps out."
Jenks's wings had turned a dismal blue. "Pixies don't count, Rachel. We never do."
But he counted to me.
"Can you get the lock?" I said to change the subject. "We have to get off the street."
The pixy made a smug noise and dropped to the corroded lock. "Tink's tampons!" he swore as he dug through the rust and slowly vanished inside, leaving a faint glow. "This is like crawling through a sand hill. Crap, Matalina's gonna kill me. The only thing worse than blood is rust."
I really hoped I'd get the chance to hear Matalina ream him out. I really did.
Worried, I put my back to the door and sent out a silent prayer that the surface demons would hold off a little longer. I couldn't set a circle or draw on a line, though I felt a strong one nearby, from across the dry river where Eden Park would be. If I tapped it, a demon would come to investigate. My gaze slid to Trent. I wasn't going to ask him to renegotiate for more trips out of here. But fear clenched my stomach. Damn it, Jenks.
Trent's hands twitched, and he looked worried. Why am I doing this again? "How's it coming, Jenks?" I muttered.
"Gimmie a minute," came a faint call back. "There's a lot of corrosion. And don't worry about the trip home, Rache. I saw how Minias did it."
Hope was a surge of adrenaline, and I met Trent's startled gaze. "Can you teach me?"
Jenks emerged from the lock, landing on the handle to shake the rust from himself in a burst of wing movement. "I don't know," he said, his voice stronger. "Maybe if elf-boy let me use the charm to go back and I could compare it to coming here."
"No," Trent said grimly. "I'm not renegotiating because your sidekick tagged along."
Anger made my face burn. "Jenks is not a sidekick!"
Jenks rose up to land on my shoulder. "Let it go, Rache. Trent couldn't buy a clue if he had a million bucks in a dollar store. I saw what happened when Minias shoved us through the lines. The ever-after is like a drop of time that got knocked out, sitting alone by itself with no past behind it to push it forward and no future to pull it along. It's hanging to us by the ley lines, sort of. Your circles aren't made up of differing realities, they're made up of the stretchy stuff that's holding us and the ever-after together, keeping the ever-after from vanishing like it should. But, ah, I hear things coming, so why don't we go in?"
A drop of time? I thought, pushing the door open to see a smothering blackness. The scent of dry paste met me, and when a guttural cry broke the wind's hush, fear slid all the way to the bottom of my soul and wrung every breath of courage from me. It had been distant, but there had been a definite echo of movement from all around us.
"Go," I hissed at Trent, and the elf dove in. I snatched up my pack and followed, moving as if the monster under the bed was ready to reach out and grab my ankle. Trent stopped in the middle of the doorway, and I plowed into him. We fell in the dim light coming through the door, and as Jenks swore and told us to shut it, I breathed in a heavy dust and tried to get up.