Brendan launched himself out of the trailer with the other two close at his heels. Vaguely, he heard Bael’s phone ring behind him.
Bael was running through the village behind him as he spoke. “Jillian, honey, you need to send someone out to the rift site right now—yeah, I know Walt has Cordelia. OK, OK, good. We’ll meet you out there. You stay at the house. Saferoom protocols. Jillian, don’t argue. You agreed to this, elskede. Sonja! Saferoom protocols!” He ended the call and informed them. “They’ve got a team on their way out there,”
“That will take too long,” Brendan croaked. “She’ll be dead by the time they get to the trailer.”
Zed laid a hand on Brendan’s shoulder. “We’ve got a faster way, trust me.”
Bael walked out toward the town square fountain, unbuttoning his shirt.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Brendan cried.
“You might want to turn around,” Zed said as Bael dropped his pants and secured his clothes around his ankle with his belt. He rolled his neck and stretched his arms.
“We don’t have time for—” Brendan said.
Bael’s body melted away and suddenly a green and gold dragon was standing in the town square, unfurling its massive wings.
“Holy shit,” he breathed as the dragon lowered its head.
“Come on, man,” Zed called, climbing up the dragon’s neck, holding on to the spikes along its spine. Brendan scrambled to follow. As Bael took flight, Brendan couldn’t spare a thought to the fact that he was achieving a childhood dream, riding on the back of a dragon. All he wanted was for Bael to fly faster and get him to Cordelia.
14
Cordelia
Cordelia knew she’d made a mistake the moment she reached for the gun. Her hands were sweaty and slipped over the metal as she tried to smash Walt’s hand against the light table. Walt turned the force of the motion against her, cupping her head in his hand and smacking her head against the metal casing. She stumbled back. Just as he raised the gun, she heard her name being screamed and turned her head towards what she swore was Brendan’s voice. She could feel the bullet whistle past her ear.
Even as she screamed, she could feel the images she’d picked up from touching Walt’s gun. He’d killed so many people with so many faces. The horrible slimy satisfaction he felt settled over her belly, making her want to vomit.
Yelling, she slammed into his side, grabbing at the gun again and forcing his hands through the light table glass this time. A jagged shard pierced his hand, making him yowl in pain. He snatched his hand away and she grabbed the gun, slicing her fingertips in the process. She whipped the gun against his temple, returning the concussion favor, and then kicked him in the knee.
With Walt on the ground, groaning, she placed her thumb on the keypad and opened the Plexiglas box. Holding the shoebox-sized casket was like cradling fire between her hands, but she ran out of the trailer, shouldering the door. Through that icy burn, she could feel a pulse of pleasure from the casket, as if she knew it had been released. Cordelia could feel fingers combing at her mind, trying to find a weakness and a way in.
In her rush out the door, Cordelia hadn’t bothered to grab Walt’s car keys. How far could she run like this? She felt like her chest would seize up from the pain in her hands and the ringing in her ears. Her feet slipped in the slick, muddy grass and the casket tumbled out of her hands.
Behind her, Walt stumbled out of the trailer door, gun in hand. The fingers questing at her mind became claw hammers and she could feel her defenses crumbling.
“I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this right now,” Cordelia whispered as she dropped to the mud face-first.
She felt like she was tumbling through a well, all darkness and empty space, until she landed on the grass again. It was the rift clearing, but not. Cordelia was inside her own mind, sitting in the grass before a dark-haired woman. The woman’s cheekbones were razor-sharp and her eyes bright as tiny galaxies. She wore a shapeless dress of undyed linen like a queen. Walt was right, she was older than known culture. She wasn’t even a person. She was a personification of the casket. She was made for people to pass by and touch and leave their pain and sadness behind. She wasn’t evil. She was made to store evil and keep it out of the world.
The woman, Pandora, smiled at Cordelia as she showed the earliest gathering around the casket, people touching her, worshipping her because she took their pain and left them feeling lighter. But one day, others found the casket on her altar and threw her into the ocean. She’d been pushed along by currents and time until she found her way into what would eventually become Mystic Bayou.
“I don’t know how long I was under all that muck,” Pandora said bitterly. “Centuries, eons. Far too long.”
“Look, I’m really sorry about that, but I have to get out of here, there’s a man behind me and he’s going to kill me and take you—” Cordelia said.
“Don’t trouble yourself. Time moves differently here,” Pandora told her. “We’ve been together for less than a breath. We have a bit of time to talk.”
“I don’t understand,” Cordelia said.
“You’re the only one who has understood me, who’s even tried. I wasn’t made to be hidden, child. That’s why I reached out, you see. To pull shifters and all manner of creatures to me to pull me out of that mud and bring me into open. And when that didn’t work, I reached for any human I could reach so they might come to me. And then when I finally attained my release, I’m put into another little box—that awful little ‘trailer’ as you called it. Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?” Pandora asked.
“I suppose that I do,” Cordelia said. “And I’m sorry that happened to you. I really am. But you have to stop pulling the way you have been. You’re creating tears in the fabric of the universe as we know it.”
For the first time, Pandora’s expression varied from serene control. She looked genuinely distressed that she’d accidentally caused a potential cataclysm. “Really? I didn’t realize.”
“Yes. It’s causing a bit of problem,” Cordelia said.
“Oh, well, I didn’t mean to do that. I’ll stop immediately,” Pandora offered.
Somewhere in the back of her head, Cordelia could feel the pressure from the rift ease. She shook that head as if clearing her ears while breathing a sigh of relief. “Great. Thanks. Can you also stop genetically rearranging people, because that is also causing a sort of a panic?”
“Well, I suppose I can…” she trailed off, her tone heavy with an unspoken “but.”
“Is there something we can offer you in return?” Cordelia asked cautiously.
“As I said, I was made for the light. I was made to be admired. I was made to help creatures like yourself,” Pandora said, smiling gently. “I was made to see many faces pass by me every day. If you could find a way to display me somewhere—secure enough that I couldn’t be stolen —but open enough that I could have a view and sunlight and visitors again, I would be content. So content that I wouldn’t need to pull creatures to me as I have been.”