If the warlocks gave chase, she’d be safest in a crowd. She heard distant music and headed in that direction.
Yet as she ran, she kept glancing over her shoulder for Munro. How could she feel this much worry about an immortal, one she had known for only a few hours? And one who’d kidnapped her and lied to get her to leave her family to die! Why should she spare him even a thought?
Because you’re fated to him.
No. She refused this.
If the wolf escaped Quondam, she would convince him how poorly they were suited. This harridan would give him so much trouble that he’d release her vow and send her packing back to Transylvania himself! I’ll be home in a week. Two at the most.
Now that her loved ones were safe from those newlings, she and Jacob could take some time and decide what to do with their futures. She wasn’t eager to leave the Night War behind, but after tonight’s narrow escape, she wanted her husband to enjoy a full, long life. . . .
The farther she got from the portal, the more the fog dissipated. She spotted bizarre vehicles parked along the streets. Were those automobiles? Each one looked as if it’d rolled straight from the pages of her scientifiction books set in the future.
Soon houses gave way to multistory buildings, and a city unfolded before her.
Surely this wasn’t New Orleans. Maybe Ormlo had double-crossed Munro to send her to another Lorean realm where scientifiction was real.
A swooping sound above drew her attention. A machine that resembled a giant dragonfly hovered overhead. Swoop. Swoop. Swoop. She’d once read a newspaper article that predicted machines with high-speed rotors would soon grace the sky, alongside the great helium airships.
An actual helicopter flew above her! From its belly flared a spotlight. She gasped and ducked down. The thing tilted in the air, then glided away.
She whirled around at a crashing sound. A huge truck with metal arms lifted what must be a trash receptable. The thuds were murder on her ears, the smell nauseating.
Ren doggedly continued on. The streets became more congested with automobiles. Peculiar music emanated from some. Many of the drivers were female!
Before she could follow that train of thought, she turned a corner and caught sight of a multitude of glowing signs.
Sushi Bites!
CBD Gummies!
Vapes R Us!
Huh?
Along a main thoroughfare—Rue Bourbon?—crowds of people milled. Revelers of all colors drank and danced together with none of the separation she usually saw outside of the circus. Half-dressed men and women strutted by without a care.
One female bared her breasts to a cheering group on a balcony, and they tossed her beaded necklaces. Currency of some sort?
These bystanders all appeared to be human, so Ren sheathed her blade and joined the crowd, trying to blend in. Not so easily done; dried blood covered her, and she wore a torn wedding gown, hunting boots, and a knife holster.
She expected people to look at her with disdain. Instead, they appeared approving. “Cool costume!” one said. Another drunkenly asked, “Where’re y’all filming?”
If they figured out that she wasn’t filming? or in costume, would they call the constable? Exaggerating her accent, she said, “Sorry, no English,” and kept moving.
Not everyone noticed her. Many carried a glowing rectangular contraption in their hands. Appearing entranced, they would pet it with their fingers. Clearly, some kind of idolatry.
Then she saw a sign that sent her thoughts into chaos: New Orleans Seafood Company.
So Ormlo had opened a portal to New Orleans. Which meant she wasn’t trapped in some Lorean realm.
She slowed as comprehension dawned. To reach Quondam, she and Munro had crossed through a portal located in the Temple of Time. At her wedding, the wolf had said he’d fought his way back to her. At the threshold to New Orleans . . .
“What’s on the other side, wolf?”
“Our future.”
Ren no longer wondered where she was.
But when.
TWENTY
She escaped!
Munro had no chance for relief, because Jels had portaled to another spot in the temple, evading him once more. The archwarlock took aim at him, light boiling up from his palms.
“Father, no!” Ormlo yelled, his own palms glowing, his face sheening with sweat. “I can’t let you!”
The next few moments seemed to pass in slow motion.
Ormlo finally hurled a red beam, tagging his father’s shoulder, just as Jels fired a lethal beam at Munro. The impact from Ormlo’s strike severed Jels’s arm and spun the archwarlock around, at the same instant he released that black beam. It zoomed wild—straight for Ormlo.
Direct hit.
“Father!” Black light spread across Ormlo’s body. “Help me!”
Jels’s eyes went wide. “Ah, Tempus, nooo!” He portaled for his son, falling to his knees beside him.
Ormlo shrieked as his limbs crumbled to ash.
Across the temple, the gateway surged against the statue. The deepest fissure yet snaked up one leg. Munro’s ears rang from the cracking of that ancient stone.
Would it hold . . . ?
The leg toppled, crashing across the length of the temple. The second leg collapsed beside it. When the rest of the statue hit the floor, a cyclone of some kind of energy funneled upward from its chest.
The gateway was no more. One mate. One chance. Yet Kereny was alone and vulnerable in New Orleans. —Reach your female!—
Ormlo’s portal started to shrink. As Munro bolted for that rift, the entire mountain rocked. The floor buckled beneath his feet, the temple beginning to cave in. He chanced a glance back.
Jels knelt by Ormlo’s remains, now only a pile of cinders. “You killed my son!” He screamed, beating an ashy fist against his bald head. “You destroyed our god!”
Munro faced forward, skidding to a stop as Tempus’s head rolled before him. The many eyes flickered before sliding shut. Munro veered around it just as Ormlo’s portal blipped, about to disappear.
Beast in turmoil, he sprinted for his only escape as Jels’s scream carried: “I will never rest till I have my revenge! Your female is doomed!”
Munro dove through the shrinking portal. Eyes closed . . . flying on a prayer . . .
Louisiana asphalt greeted his face. He scrambled around to watch the portal seal shut into nothingness behind him.
Inhaling a breath of clean air, he staggered to his feet. He had no time to waste finding Kereny. Once Jels and his warlocks regrouped, they’d descend on this city like a robed plague.