Chapter 29

One by one, the doorway dumped us out topside into the clearing, in the middle of the night?—

—And in the middle of a standoff between Malcolm and four Guardians.

Purely by chance, I emerged first, just in time to hear Malcolm shout, "For the last time , you are not closing this damn door!"

With Esme in my arms, I landed on the grass and rolled aside just in time to avoid Ronan's arrival. Lucy fell out next, and Daisy last. Dazed and still tied together by Ronan's shiny magical rope, we lay more or less where we'd landed.

The Broken World magic grated on my skin. Given how uncertain I'd been that we'd return from the Underworld, the sensation was weirdly welcome.

"Okay, now you jerks can close the door," Malcolm said.

He floated above me, looking worried, relieved, and furious all at once. "Alice?" His eyes went to my middle and widened at the sight of the terrible knot of death magic. "Oh, no," he breathed.

"Lucy?" One of the male Guardians approached us cautiously. "Good Lord, what happened to you?"

"It wasn't a good lord who did this," Lucy muttered as Ronan untied us. "Other than some blood loss and one hell of a headache, I'm fine, guys. Had to pop down there with some friends and take care of business so we could shut this door."

"Captain Ellis is going to shit bricks," a tall blonde female Guardian ground out through clenched teeth. "Stone, can't you ever do anything according to regulations?"

"Doesn't appear that way." Lucy got to her feet and rolled her neck and shoulders, which popped audibly. She glanced down at the doorway. "Time to shut this for good. Alice, you want to do the honors?"

"I'll do it," Malcolm said quickly, glancing again at the knot in my abdomen. "It's safer for me to do it anyway."

"Did you release the ghost Mariela had staked to the doorway?" I asked.

"First chance I got," Malcolm told me. "I anchored the spellwork myself—and good thing I did, since I had to defend it."

While he picked apart the spellwork that kept the door open, I got to my feet with help from Daisy.

"Who are these people?" the male Guardian who'd addressed Lucy earlier demanded. "And why the hell would you go through a door to the Underworld, leaving it open behind you, without informing your commanding officer or even your partner?"

"It's…complicated," Lucy said. "I'll file a complete report with Ellis."

A familiar man in Guardian officer's uniform stormed into the clearing. "You'll have to do a hell of a lot better than that, Stone," he snapped.

Lucy straightened automatically. "Captain Ellis. You're looking well."

"Stop." He raised his finger in warning as he approached. "You are under arrest."

I took a step forward, but Lucy held me back. "On what charges?" She sounded more curious than angry or afraid.

"A very long list." Ellis put his fists on his hips. "I'll figure out which ones on the way to the nearest Guardian outpost." His flinty gaze raked over the rest of us. "Who the hell are these people?"

Lucy gestured. "This is Alice. She and her guardian wolf assisted me by tracking the location of the door." Daisy sat on her haunches and grinned at Ellis with her tongue lolling like a large dog. Lucy hooked her thumb at our silent companion. "And this is Ronan Smith, bounty hunter, who happened to be down there collecting a bounty and came back with us."

"And what is that?" Ellis demanded, pointing at Esme in my arms, who blinked sleepily at him.

"My cat," I said, as if taking one's cat to the Underworld was a perfectly natural thing to do.

Behind us, the doorway snapped closed with a flare of broken spellwork and blood magic. "It's closed," Malcolm said for the benefit of anyone who couldn't sense the magic. "No more doorway to the Underworld."

"Thanks," I told him. "You're the best."

"I know," he said, but there was no hint of humor in his tone. He stared at my middle, then looked away.

Ellis's face reddened. "You have been missing for two weeks, Stone. We thought you were dead. I had to divert valuable resources to search for you."

She blinked. "Two weeks? It's only been a day or two at most."

Malcolm floated back and forth. "It's been two weeks," he told me, his voice quiet. "Thankfully, your wards held and nothing's come up out of the door since you went down. Everything was fine until earlier today, when these guys found Lucy's jeep and the door, and then it all went sideways." He glared at the Guardians. "It's been all I could do to keep them from discorporating me and closing that door on you. You got back just in time. They were about to call in a necromancer to try to deal with me."

My stomach contracted, and it had nothing to do with the knot of death magic. The Guardians had tried to discorporate Malcolm and shut the door on us when they knew we were still down there, and apparently we'd been gone a hell of a lot longer than I'd thought. "We've been down there for two weeks? " I asked finally.

"Time sometimes slips in the Underworld," Ronan explained. "I thought we would gain time on the way back to the door. We did, but not enough to make up the difference. I'm sorry, Alice."

Two weeks. That meant I'd been gone from Sean and the rest of our pack for nearly three weeks. They probably thought I was dead. The thought made me sicker than the damn death magic. I needed to get to the mirror-door and get home.

"I have to go," I said.

Ellis's expression darkened. "No one's going anywhere until I get a full explanation for this. You're all coming to the outpost." He gestured at the other Guardians. "Arrest them."

Silver-blue magic flared, searing my eyes. When my vision cleared, all five of the Guardians, including Captain Ellis, were sprawled unconscious on the ground.

Lucy glared at Ronan. "What the hell did you do?"

He shrugged. "Put them to sleep and muddled their memories so we can get out of here."

"How did you do that?" Malcolm demanded.

"He's a fallen angel," I said.

"Oh yeah? How fallen?" Malcolm asked with interest.

"All the way," Ronan told him.

Malcolm's eyebrows went up. "You don't say."

" Stoooo-oooop ," I groaned.

Ronan shouldered his pack. "When they come to, you can tell them the doorway flared when you came through and knocked them out. Tell them you hunted down Mariela yourself and brought her to justice for leaving this door open."

"We can't just leave Lucy here to face the music alone," Malcolm protested.

"Sure you can." Lucy grinned. "You have any idea how many times Captain Ellis has threatened to arrest me? Half the time, he ends up giving me a medal instead. I've got a drawer full of 'em back home."

"Where's home?" I asked.

"Millville, Texas—whenever I can get back there for a visit, which isn't very often these days." Her smile faded. "Go home, Alice. You've got a hot werewolf waiting for you, and I've got to fill out a literal mountain of paperwork on this mess. I'll be writing reports until the trolls come home."

"Until the trolls…" I frowned. "Wait, how do you know Sean's hot?"

"I looked through your backpack when you were in the shower at Hawthorne's and saw his picture." And she didn't look the least bit repentant about it. "I'll miss you, woman. Even though I didn't meet you at your best, you're a damn good deputy. Plus, it was nice having a partner who laughed at my jokes and didn't argue with me about every damn thing for a change."

I rubbed Daisy's head. "I wondered why you and your partner were working separately. If you don't get along, why not ask for a different partner?"

She grinned again. "Oh, we get along just fine, as long as we take a break from each other from time to time. The stick up his ass has a stick up its ass, but he's a hell of a Guardian. Not that I'd ever tell him that. He's insufferable enough as it is."

I sensed she wanted to say goodbye quickly rather than draw this out. That was probably for the best, but my heart hurt. Despite how she'd pushed me to get in her jeep to begin with, I liked Lucy, and I'd miss her. She hadn't done it to hurt me, or to make me hurt someone else, and I supposed that counted for something.

I hugged her. She hugged me back, then released me. "You take care of yourself, Malcolm," she told my ghost.

"You too, Lucy," he said. "You're pretty good with that sword, for a girl."

She flipped him off. They hugged.

When she and Malcolm let go of each other, Lucy eyed Ronan. "You get them safely to where they're going, you hear me?"

"Absolutely, Lieutenant. Keep your blade sharp." He offered his hand.

She shook it. "You too, Wings."

He made a rumbly sound. She laughed and headed in the direction of where she'd left her jeep in the forest.

We went in the opposite direction, where I presumed Ronan had hidden his motorcycle. Esme climbed onto my shoulder and yawned, her eyes half-lidded. Daisy trotted at my side. Malcolm floated along behind us. Having him near me again made the obstacles we still faced seem a little less impossible.

"I don't see how we're going to ride with you," I said as we followed Ronan through the trees and undergrowth. "Malcolm can make the trip in my arm cuff and I might be able to coax Esme into my backpack, but it's not like Daisy's going to fit in one of your saddlebags."

"Daisy can run, remember?" He led us directly to his Harley, which was parked under a tree. Despite being outside for two weeks, it was shiny and clean. "She's a wolf, and wolves love to run."

Daisy showed us all of her teeth.

I worried about her, but I also knew my wolf could take care of herself. "Okay," I said finally. "Let's roll, then. Malcolm, ready to go for a ride?"

My ghost eyed me. "So, we're not going to talk about that?" He pointed at my abdomen.

I covered my stomach, not that my hand hid the death magic from him. "Not right this minute."

He floated back and forth, clearly unhappy. "All right. See you back at our Northbourne, then." He turned to Ronan. "You turned out to be an okay guy after all, Easy Rider." He held out his fist. Ronan bumped it with his own.

" Contain, " I said. Malcolm vanished. His crystal in my cuff buzzed.

After some initial resistance, I talked Esme into getting in my backpack, leaving it unzipped enough for her to poke her head out if she wanted to. I didn't dare tell her how cute she looked peeking out. Cats had their pride, and I imagined that went double for cat-dragons.

Ronan took a black helmet from one of his saddlebags and handed it to me.

"You ever ride on a motorcycle before?" he asked, swinging his leg over the bike and settling into the seat.

"No."

He put on leather gloves and tightened them. "A virgin. Mmm, my favorite."

I scoffed. "Liar."

He grinned. "It's true—I prefer a woman who knows what she likes. I don't mind showing one who's inexperienced how good it can be, though."

"Ass," I muttered. He chuckled.

I put on the helmet, secured my battered backpack, and climbed onto the Harley behind him, my thighs around his hips. It would have been sexy as hell if it didn't make me miss Sean so much.

He put on his own helmet and started the bike. Its throaty rumble sent a little thrill through me, despite my worry about the knot in my stomach and how long I'd been gone.

Ready? Ronan asked in my head.

I wrapped my arms around his waist. Ready.

With a happy growl, Daisy took off through the trees in a golden blur. I smiled.

The motorcycle wove slowly through the forest until we got to the road. As we passed Lucy and her jeep, she waved us to stop and ran over with my half-empty bottle of Charles's finest moonshine. Ronan wrapped it in a T-shirt and stored it in one of his saddlebags. I blew Lucy a kiss. She winked.

As soon as the Harley was on the road, Ronan accelerated with a roar of horsepower and headed north, toward the mirror-door and home.