He met my gaze. “I haven’t been in contact with him, or anyone connected to him, for a very long time, Myra. That is the truth.”
“Is this something he would do? Try to get into Ordinary?”
“No. He’s more the blood-and-battle-and-raining-down-pestilence kind. This takes more finesse.”
“Who can do something like this? Open a Hell vortex in Ordinary?”
“Before yesterday, I would have said no one.”
“Okay, but now? Demons? A particular demon?”
He chewed on his bottom lip and scowled, thinking. I tried not to find it attractive.
“Crossroad demon?” I suggested.
“No. This tears the fabric between the Underworld and the land chosen by gods. Maybe it’s not a demon. Maybe a god is behind it.”
“Than, do you think a god is behind this?” I asked.
“Ordinary was formed by the combined will of a thousand deities. The universal truths and laws of that making cannot be breeched by a single god.”
Yeah, that made sense. Mithra, the god of contracts, had wanted to take over the law in Ordinary, but since he wouldn’t sign the contract all gods must sign to enter our town, he’d never stepped across the border. If Ryder hadn’t offered to serve him, Mithra wouldn’t have even the smallest say on anything that happened here.
Ordinary wasn’t easily breeched, not even by gods.
I wracked my brain for other beings who could open up holes between realms. There were some interdimensional creatures, but most of them came to Ordinary like everyone else. They just walked or floated or appeared here and that was that. No tearing of the space time continuum.
“Demons,” I said. “It has to be. Dammit, I don’t have a turnip. Check in the glove box, will you?” I asked Than, “There might be a carrot in there.”
He pressed the latch and rummaged through the small space. “Would a tube of lip gloss or a container of extra crunchy peanut butter suffice?”
The tug on my chest said no. I shook my head.
“Perhaps the toilet art?” Than offered.
The tug in my chest warmed. “Yes. Bring that.”
I made a sharp turn, gunning down the side road that ran parallel to the sandy flat. This bay filled when the tide was high, and drained out to soggy sand flat when the tide was low. Several large rocks with stunted, twisted trees clinging to the tops poked up from the sand, looking like a Zen garden for giants.
The soggy sands were good clamming grounds, and when the bay was full, little flat skiffs puttered out to throw crab traps.
“Holy shit,” I breathed as I came upon Jean’s truck parked next to it. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s a Hell vortex,” Bathin said. “Demon. I’d say demons. Move.” He was out of the car with a speed that was both shocking and impressive.
I flew out of the car, across the grassy knoll, and down through loose sand and washed up driftwood logs, over smooth stones and rough stones, then I was running full out, right behind Bathin who wasn’t slacking his long stride for a second, his entire body—shoulders, chest, hips—tilted into the run.
The beat, beat, beat of his foot falls was loud in my ears, almost as loud as my own boots slapping into the soggy sand that threatened to trip me at every step.
For a second, my vision narrowed down to the man in front of me, and he was fine. Long, strong legs, inexhaustible pace, barreling full out into danger, the leather jacket open wide like leather wings, shoulders pumping.
A flash drew my attention ahead of Bathin.
This vortex wasn’t a little moonlit puddle in the park. This vortex was a door, a gate, a yawning hole in the world.
This vortex was large and growing larger by the second. Much, much bigger than the one in the park. And it wasn’t flat on the ground like a disk, it was vertical like a doorway. A doorway people were walking toward.
Every time a human hit that doorway, a burst of green light flashed and the human was gone, replaced by a…
