“Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said curtly. He reached for her arm. His long, pale fingers closed around her wrist and—
It was like when he had taken her heart.
There was ayank.
There was the sensation she was falling, falling through the floor, gravity pulling her downward—
Her feet slammed into pavement and she wobbled, blinking at the sudden darkness and the cold night air.
She stood alone on a dark stretch of pavement.
TWENTY
Dee’s stomach rolled, and she felt as if she had just stepped off a particularly turbulent roller coaster. She fell to her knees, found herself crouching on oil-stained pavement.
She forced herself to look around, to take in where the Daemon had brought her.
A parking lot. It was huge, and in the distance she thought she saw the dim lights of a strip mall. A cold wind cut through her clothing and she shivered. The sounds of distant cars meant she was not in the middle of nowhere, but she was not in Portland, either. She turned in a circle and cried out in shock.
A figure sat on the pavement. A figure that had not been there a moment ago. She fumbled for her cell phone, fingers clumsy with panic, and when she managed to find the flashlight app, the sudden illumination spilled over—
“Cal,” Dee gasped.
Cal was cross-legged, sitting beside a large duffel bag. “Deirdre,” he said with a grin. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“W-what are we doing out here?” snapped Dee. Her voice was sharp with fear. “How did you—”
“He must have grabbed me after he dropped you off,” said Cal, shrugging. “The Daemon did his little ‘folding reality’ trick.”
Her stomach was still in knots. “That was—what the hell just happened?”
“Did the Daemon grab you from your dorm?” asked Cal.
She shook her head. “Women’s restroom in an art gallery.”
“Ah.” Cal nodded knowingly. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I was at the gym. Coming out of the showers. Wearing nothing but a towel. Luckily I’m a fast talker or I’d still be dressed like that.”
A little laugh escaped her. Cal looked pleased at this, as if making her more comfortable had been his goal. He was a nice guy. A bundle of contradictions—a genius who looked like a beefy jock—but nice.
“So you were at an art gallery?” he said. “I don’t suppose… Lancer took you there?”
She nodded.
“Ah.” Cal appeared impressed. “Well, good for you. Haven’t ever really been able to get past his defenses. You know how it is—he’s all smiles until someone asks a personal question, then he clams right up.”
Perhaps Cal and James weren’t as close as she assumed. When she’d seen them in the hospital basement, they had been joking and comfortably insulting each other, but perhaps they weren’t truly friends. Half friends. Dee had plenty of those herself.
She took a moment to look around the parking lot. “The Daemon,” she said, then hesitated. She still remembered the stark, pale lines of his face. “Did you notice—was he…?”
Cal glanced at her, then looked away. “More curt than usual? Yes. I assume it means there’s a void that’s further gone than it should be.” He pushed himself upright, brushing the dirt from his jeans. “I hope this doesn’t take too long. I promised a buddy that I’d lend him my telescope later tonight. There’s some supernova he wanted to chart.”
She studied him—of all the heartless, Cal seemed the most level-headed. “So demons can just pop in and out of places?” she asked him. “I mean—if they can do that, why doesn’t he magic us to every void?”
Cal shook his head. “It isn’t magic. It’s… some kind of quantum entanglement, I think.”
She gaped. He grinned.
