Chapter Twenty-three

A Little Bit of Experimenting

Anthony groans...

I cradle his head in my arms and lap.

“I’m okay, Ma, I swear. I’m an angel now, remember? Few things can kill me.” He grimaces while and rubs his chest. “But yeah, that hurt.”

I hug him and maybe cry a little. Okay, cry a lot.

“Sorry for scaring you.” He squeezes me with one arm. “Took me a little while to get back here.”

I open my mouth to speak but pause as the meaning of his words reaches my brain. “Back here? What do you mean?”

“I went on an astral walk or something. That amulet basically knocked my soul out of my body, even if briefly.”

“Scary.” Tammy shivers. “Glad he didn’t point it at me.”

“Wouldn’t have done anything to you.” Anthony play-punches her in the shoulder. “It worked on me only because I should have technically died when I was little.”

That makes me squeeze him harder.

“So it knocked your ghost out? Like Grandma?” asks Tammy .

“Not quite.” Ant rubs his face. “I really think she did that to herself, somehow. Or at least she did something and the result wasn’t what she wanted.” Anthony stands. “The amulet tried to throw my soul into the realm of the dead, but the angels wouldn’t allow it.”

“Nice to have angels who have your back,” I say, and can’t help but think of Ishmael.

“For sure, ma, but no one beats you having my back.”

“Aww.”

I want to tousle his hair, but resist. Instead, I find myself looking down at the headless vampire once known as Hans. It’s impossible to tell how much of that fiend was the original mortal’s personality and how much came from the dark master. No clue if ‘Hans’ was the former mortal or the dark master inside him. I’m going to assume it was the dark master, since they almost always end up taking over the host after enough time’s passed, and if that dude was old enough to have once been a legit knight, there probably wasn’t too much trace of the mortal remaining.

One thing is for sure, I can’t leave the Eye of Anubis simply lying around.

“Anyone know if touching this thing is going to be bad?” I walk over to the vampire’s remains.

“Simply touching it is safe.” Anthony nods at me. “I think you should be careful doing anything while holding it, though. In case it thinks you’re trying to invoke it.”

I pick the amulet up by the gold chain. It’s pretty simple to remove an amulet from a headless corpse. Visually, it is relatively unimpressive. Simple black stone with a gold eye pattern, like someone knocked a hieroglyph off the wall of a tomb somewhere. A subtle sense of power emanates from it. Seems on the weak side but only because it’s hiding, I think. Holding it makes me feel like I’m standing at the base of the Hoover dam by a tiny crack that’s likely to become a serious collapse at any second. The notion of ‘massive power ready to be unleashed on a whim’ is real and a bit unsettling.

“Hmm. So, what should I do with this? Give it to Max? Hide it away somewhere?” I stare at the innocent looking stone eye.

A psychic hit comes to me out of seemingly nowhere: this thing will be a key to a doorway that will lead me to Mom.

“Teleport to the Moon and leave it there,” mutters Tammy.

Anthony gives a pained laugh. “Don’t tempt her.”

I shift my gaze to the kids. “Pretty sure this amulet is also some kind of key.”

“It’s a lot more than that.” Anthony shakes his head. “We shouldn’t mess with it.”

“I have no intention to ‘mess with it.’” I walk over to them. “But if I can use a tiny bit of its power to help find Mom, I have to try. Problem is… I have no idea how to use it.”

Anthony folds his arms. “Probably not going to find instructions on Wikipedia.”

“No…” Tammy reaches out and gently takes the amulet. “But maybe there’s something on witchy- pedia.”

“Be careful, Tam.”

“Chill, Ma. I’ve had more training with magic than you had with HUD.” She holds the amulet up to her face, studying it.

I smirk. It still blows my mind to think about her having gone through an entire second childhood. Well, most of one. Maple didn’t turn her into an infant.

We stand there for a bit watching her stare at the amulet. Anthony picks his sword up and walks around the room stab-checking a handful of intact corpses to make sure they aren’t in the process of turning into exploding vampires.

A wash of iciness falls over me, as if a blast of cold energy erupted in the middle of the room.

I turn to look at Tammy. She’s standing beside a glowing violet portal with black edges. The middle swirls in an array of colors; every imaginable shade of blue and violet emerge from the edges and whirl together at the center.

“What did you do, Tam?” I ask in a half whisper while stepping toward her.

“Turns out there is an on button.” She smiles at me. “If you want to find Grandma, she’s through there somewhere.”

I brace myself. “What are the odds of us getting trapped in there, too?” I ask. Saving my mother’s soul is definitely important, but it’s not worth the cost of having my kids end up eternally trapped.

“Low. It’s not a dimensional trap, so you should be able to teleport out if I can’t reopen the door on the other side.” Tammy nods at me.

I look at Anthony as if he’d somehow know if she’s right.

He nods.

Hmm. Okay.

“All right. On three?” I ask.

“Sure.” Tammy faces the portal she opened. “One… two…”

On ‘three’, we step through together...