Jasper said, “So we’d need to replace it with the target of the familiars’ Home world. Except I don’t know how we’d describe that with enough clarity.”
“Grim?” Silas asked.
Grim shook his furry head. “I could describe it a thousand ways, but I don’t know that I could build a rune picture clear enough to safely open a gate.”
Darien said, “Could Kii do it? Since she feels the pull of her Home?”
Kii hopped close to the portal and cocked her head, her transparent eyelids flashing across her eyes. “Not from here. The pull is very faint. Maybe on the other side.”
Jasper smiled widely, eyes bright. “Yes! That might work. If we take photographs of this gate, then go through and build a new one on the other side, and aim for your Home.”
“Whoa, slow down.” Silas sucked a deep breath through his nose against a moment of dizziness. “Aren’t we getting way ahead of ourselves? This isn’t like taking a hike in the woods. We’re talking about humans traveling to another world.”
Grim stood up against Silas’s leg, front paws reaching to his hip, green eyes wide. “Say that again.”
The resonance in Grim’s voice made Silas freeze. Grim’s Foresight came unexpectedly, but had saved them more than once. Even though Grim spoke acidly of seeing possibilities and not counting on it in a pinch, Silas always took that hollow tone seriously. So he said, “We’re talking about humans traveling to another world.”
“Yes.” Grim kept his gaze fixed on Silas’s eyes. “The answers are out there, on another world.” His voice echoed off the stone walls of the little room. For a moment, nothing moved, no one seemed to breathe. Then Grim shook his head and dropped down to all fours, clearing his throat. “And if you put too much faith in that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.”
“Wasn’t that a Foresight?” Pip asked. “Aren’t those serious?”
“Just remember, the future is always changing, puppy.” Grim twisted his neck in a cat contortion and licked at his shoulder vigorously, slicking down his tabby fur, then glanced around. “Well, what are you all looking at?”
Jasper’s grin had, if anything, gotten wider. “We’re going to see a place no man has seen before.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Silas said, his stomach churning because yeah, if Grim said it, they’d end up going, but trusting Darien’s life, or even Jasper’s, to anything those two old men had cooked up sat badly. “There’s a good chance we’re second, and Coldwell or Norlington went through it first.”
“Or maybe they didn’t dare. In any case, what an adventure!”
“Planning,” Silas pointed out. “We need some serious discussion about this little jaunt.”
“Mrs. Vaughn has that new Polaroid camera we could use for the photographs,” Darien said. “She showed it to me. Otherwise we’ll have to wait days to get the film developed or find someone with a darkroom.”
“I wouldn’t want a photo of that kind of magic to be kicking around some developing center,” Silas noted. “Anyway, I think contacting Mrs. Vaughn is wise. If we go, we should have someone here on this end who knows where we’ve gone and can protect this portal. And I doubt any of the three of us is willing to stay behind?”
Jasper glanced at Darien and laughed. “Not a chance.”
“Darien?” Say yes. Stay safe. Be our anchor here.
“No way.”
Silas kept his resigned sigh silent. “So we’ll ask Mrs. Vaughn to consult, and Magda to be our defense again.” Mrs. Vaughn’s apprentice had done a great job during their trip to Seattle, and he trusted both women implicitly now. It made him feel a bit better to know he could lay this out at Mrs. Vaughn’s feet and see what she said.
Jasper said, “I must bring a notebook and plenty of pencils. Perhaps Mrs. Vaughn would let me bring her camera along. We must keep meticulous records.”
Darien laughed. “She said it cost almost a hundred and fifty dollars. But you can ask her to let you haul it off through a portal to the land of rats if you want to.”
“I shall.” Jasper’s tone was totally serious. “I’m sure she’ll see the value of scientific research.”
Chapter 5
Darien pulled the covers down on their bed and groaned in sweet anticipation. Comfy mattress, clean sheets, here I come. The day had felt a year long. “Mmmmm.”
Silas said, “I’m not sure I like the fact that my bed gets better sex noises from you than I do.”
“You could try to compete.” Darien flopped down on his back and then winced. “Although not today. That goddamned demonfire scorched every bit of my skin, including under my clothes.”
“Oh dear.” There was a hint of amusement in Silas’s voice. “Should I do an inspection?”
“Only if you have Granny Abels’ ointment on your hands.”
Silas’s smile became more genuine. “Guess what?” He held up a blue glass flask with a white stopper. A flick of his thumb popped the cork out, and the scent of grassy hint-of-onion reached Darien’s nose.
“Where did you get that? When?”
Silas said, “I had Spry run by Granny Abels’ and check on things there. And asked her to see if Granny would sell some of the lotion. You’ve been wincing all day. She said Granny is grumpy but seems to be doing well, no hint of demon energy now, and she was charging an arm and a leg for the lotion, till she heard it was for you.” He smiled softly. “Then she changed the price to just a leg.”
“You’re a prince among men.” Darien pulled off his pajamas and stretched out naked on the sheet. “Lay it on me.”
Silas quirked an eyebrow but brought the flask over to the bedside.
Darien held up a hand. “You know what would make it feel even better? The lotion being applied by a naked masseur.”
“I’m not sure I can pull that off.”
“I’ll settle for the naked part.”
Silas unbuttoned the top of his hideous striped pajamas and shrugged it off his shoulders, hesitated, then slid the pants down over his hips and stepped out of them. His cock stood at attention, the tip ruddy and aimed at Darien. Silas shifted his feet. “Just ignore that bit.”
“Not a chance. Bring it here. The one part of me that didn’t get scalded was the inside of my mouth.”
“Let me make you feel better first.” Silas bent over Darien’s feet, tipping some of the lotion from the flask onto his palm, and smoothing it around Darien’s toes.
Darien hadn’t realized how much the tight heat of the hellburn had annoyed him until it faded under Silas’s touch. “Aaah. Oh Jesus, that’s good.”
“Yeah?” Silas stroked the lotion higher, kneading Darien’s calves and running slow fingers up the inside of his thighs. “Can I get some of those sexy noises for myself now?”
“Any time you want.” Darien let his thighs fall wide, as Silas’s touch slid around his hips and stroked over his stomach. “You’re missing some bits.”
“Saving the best for last.” Silas smoothed the lotion into Darien’s skin from stomach and chest to shoulders and arms, focusing for a while on the old burn scar on his forearm, then across his cheekbones and over his forehead with little fingertip circles that were the best thing Darien had felt in years. Well, other than sex with Silas. Second best thing. He was getting hard, when he’d have believed that was impossible right now. He turned his face to kiss Silas’s fingers, then rubbed his lips with the back of one hand. “Feels a lot better than it tastes.”