And just like that, every person took a unified, jerky step to one side, leaving a perfect, narrow passageway.
“Creepy,” I said. “But good.”
I turned the jog into a run, Bathin and Than keeping pace.
The crowd was still talking, not worried, not afraid. Not even aware that they had all done half a hokey-pokey for the god of Death.
They were excited about the day, the event, the light in the sky.
I swung my bag across my body and it bumped against my hip as I ran. I wanted it at the ready as soon as we reached the vortex. Not that I knew what to do or how to close it.
“Myra?” Jean’s voice came through my shoulder radio loud and clear.
“Copy. Where are you?”
“South side of the river, just hit the parking lot. Headed to the beach.”
“I’m north side, almost to the river. It’s a vortex.”
“I know.”
“I have Bathin with me. And Than.”
“Good.”
There were no more questions because there wasn’t any time left. I burst out of the crowd and into the soft sand. The river was one of the smallest in the world, running from the freshwater lake just four hundred yards away until it spilled into the ocean.
Between the river and the ocean, about three hundred yards away, stood the vortex.
“Holy shit.” That was the last thing I spared a breath to say. I needed all the oxygen I could get to fuel my headlong sprint down to the mammoth gate.
The vortex was a huge, gothic doorway carved out of twisted iron and polished silver, simultaneously sucking in all light, and reflecting it back in painful, eye-stabbing shafts of light.
It was vertical, a doorway, a gate, tall enough I could drive a semi-truck through it if I wanted, wide enough, two city buses could rumble through side by side.
It was positioned so I should be able to see the ocean behind it, but instead all I saw was swirling darkness sparking with gold and shattered-green lightning.
Bathin’s long legs outpaced mine, and just like the frog situation, he was going to reach the gate before me.
Dammit.
I put on all the speed I had, soft sand slowing me, kicking out from under my boots, rocks and bits of broken driftwood littering the way, hard sand making a crust that only slowed me more before it became harder and wetter so I could run faster, surer.
I dug in and got it going. Jean plowed across the knee-deep water of the river to my left, splashing out on my side of the river in quick order. She had something clutched in her left hand, not a gun, but something that looked like a long knife.
I didn’t know why all the people just stood back there near the river and weren’t coming toward the gate. The other two gates, both much smaller, had drawn people in like bees to buttercups.
This one was bigger, more powerful. It radiated energy like a storm ready to break.
It wasn’t fear that held the crowd back, though it should have been. It was more like thrall.
They weren’t rushing the vortex because they were waiting.
Waiting for whatever was on the other side to show itself.
“Oh, shit!” Jean shouted.
The swirling mass of lightning and fire inside the vortex drew together, funneling into something solid and tall. Much taller than Bathin who had come to a stop just feet away from the vortex, every line of his body poised to fight, to strike, to attack.
