“It was an emergency this time.”
“I lost a lot of dignity today,” Vinny whispers.
“Let us get back on task,” Imani says as she clears her throat, and I point down at her shirt. She discovers she’d also undone a few buttons, exposing the edges of her bra. She hurriedly rebuttons them and then proceeds to act like nothing happened. “Can you describe everything that happened?”
“Sure. When I walked up, my two closest friends started to disrobe and said things they wanted to do to me, which made me feel weird inside.”
“Not that, dammit,” Imani says, so I go through everything that happened while Torin stands beside me.
Around the time I’m done talking, he sighs loudly and then sets his head on my shoulder. I immediately look over at him. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
I turn to see what caused such a reaction from him when he seemed perfectly fine minutes ago. “What’s wrong?”
He lifts his head and shakes it. “Nothing.Can you ask them where the Door was that I came in through?”
I turn to Imani. “Where is the Door that Torin came in through?”
“I know the area, but Mickey is the one who found him. I think he was out looking for dead people. I’d ask him for specifics if you’re wanting to know more than just a general location. Why? Is he planning on going back?”
“I… don’t know,” I say before answering Torin in his language. “She said we would have to ask the person who found you for more specifics. Do you want to know the exact spot?”
He just makes some noncommittal noise before wandering off. I stare after him, not quite sure what any of that was about.
“Are you okay?” Imani asks me.
“Yeah… I was a bit… surprised when I was nearly pulled through the Door. The last thing I want to do is end up in some realm I can’t get back from. Have you figured out anything about who is trying to cross over?”
Imani sighs. “We can’t share information… with those outside of the unit. But if you wanted to rejoin…?”
I pretend like that doesn’t bother me as much as it does. “I’m going to go find my ward and see what he’s up to.”
“You mean when he’s not protecting you from our advances. I saw the way he shielded you from us,” Imani says with a smirk.
“Because you guys were being creepy,” I retort before leaving them to it and walking away, feeling kind of shitty about the whole thing. It’s been years since I’ve worked with them, and while it was extremely hard at first, it’s become more tolerable over time. It helps that I rarely interact with them while they’re working, so I don’t get that pang when I see them in uniform doing a job that was once my whole world.
At first, they tried to do stuff with me every weekend, but with how busy they are, it dropped to every other weekend, and now we’re lucky if it’s once a month.
“Has anyoneseenthe god?” I ask.
“He went downstairs,” Vinny says, so I head down, assuming I’ll find him in the room the Door was opened in—which is where everyone else is going—but he’s not there. So I wander a bit until I find him in a room filled with ancient texts. It’s a restricted room that not just anyone is allowed to waltz into, but there he is, perusing the texts containing ancient and possibly dangerous magic.
I mean… we are putting a lot of faith in a god we know very little about.
“How’d you get in here?” I ask curiously.
“Ms. Percy gave me a temporary pass to let me in.”
“This is where you two…” I grimace. “I hope you didn’t get all nasty on the ancient texts.”
“Had sex? No. I believe she thought this is where we’d have sex, but I’m busy right now. No time for sex.”
“What are you looking for?” I ask. For all we know, he’s tricking us so he can take over the world. So then why am I so trusting when it comes to him? Has my life really become so damn useless that I’ll latch on to anything?
“How are your hands?” he asks, completely dismissing my question as his finger hooks under my glove and pulls it down. The darkness has spread nearly to my wrists.
“I wonder if I’ll lose the ability to use my hands if it reaches my wrists? That’d be my luck for sure,” I say with a laugh. “I wonder what it’ll take next? My arms? My legs? My hearing?”
