Chapter 5

CHAPTER

FIVE

"Hell no," I told Dex, refusing to budge. "No fucking way."

Dex rolled her eyes like I was being the unreasonable one.

"What do you think is going to happen, Wilde? It's going to give your phone a virus?"

"Best case scenario it gives my phone a virus," I argued, like a reasonable, not crazy person. "Worst case, I drop my phone and it causes a void tear to open up and eat me!"

Beside the grumpy oni popping bubble gum in my direction, sat a confused jinn woman wearing a beanie pulled over her long hair. The light from her silver eyes made her nose ring shine.

"Does he not know how apps work?" she whispered to Dex, not quiet enough to hide what she was saying.

"I know how apps work," I barked, lying through my teeth. "But Dex said she'd need to install a chip into my phone to go with it."

"It's no less safe than any of the other shit I've made for you in the past, dumbass." Dex snapped another bubble. "If you want to be able to find the tears in real time, you need the app and the chip."

"Fine." I whipped my phone from my pocket and slapped it down into Dex's palm. "But if your app rips open a void tear, I'm coming back here to throw you into it."

"If my app causes a void tear, I'm going to be rich," the jinn woman said. "So, please let me know if that happens. I'll give you a cut for your beta testing."

I side-eyed Dex as she pried open the back of my phone and started stabbing around in its sensitive parts.

"Who are you again?" I asked the stranger while I watched my phone get mutilated.

"Kimi." She tucked her legs up into the office chair she was perched in and wrapped her arms around them. "You're the weird necromancer guy who like, makes fish dance or something, right?"

"I train them."

"To dance?"

"No," I shot back, then had to admit, "Yeah, sometimes, but that's not all I can teach them to do."

Kimi gave me a slow nod. "Cool."

"He's really sensitive about the fish stuff," Dex said while she continued to violate my phone.

"You're damn right I am. I take pride in my work."

Kimi tilted her head. "In fish aerobics?"

"Fish dancing! I mean training!"

Dex snorted a laugh and Kimi grinned with all of her teeth. I was being tag teamed by two nerds.

"Alright." I narrowed my eyes at Kimi. "I like you."

"Gross," Dex chimed in, holding my phone out. "I put a shortcut to Kimi's app on your phone. If you open it up, the app uses the tech I installed to ping for tears."

"No shit?" I took the phone back, angling the screen so I could see the new, non-negotiable app. The layout was very similar to a popular GPS app most people used to navigate around the city, with the exception of a drop-down menu, which allowed the user to check for open noodle places nearby. A little dot radiated a little wave every few seconds, and some digital numbers stagnated a reading of zeros above it.

"When it catches something, it'll give you a coordinate and a direction." Dex pointed at the numbers. "Pay attention to those. It should also give you a path to get there. Kimi has it programed to pull from WayMaps data for real time traffic and stuff."

"What's the range?" Sias asked, peering over my shoulder. "How close do we need to be for it to pick up a signal?"

"In theory, it should pick up anything within ten to fifteen miles."

"What do you mean ‘In theory'?" I lifted my gaze from the app. "You don't know if this works?"

"This is the first time we've ever made anything like this, Wilde. We can't exactly beta test it safely," Dex parried. "Did you expect us to try and find a void tear?"

"I mean…yeah."

"This is fine, Dex. Thank you," Sias stepped in as Dex's oni magic started making her look a little threatening. Her fear magic made it seem like her tusks were curving out to stab me, her eyes fogging over with inky swirls of anger.

Her pissed off aura faded as Sias sent her payment through his non-death-magic-altered phone, and she tossed him a smile.

"Always a pleasure doing business with you. If you don't get any readings tonight but you hear back that there were tears, bring it back and we'll try and run some calibrations."

"Noted."

"I'm still coming back here if this eats my hand or something," I warned, but Dex had already swiveled her chair back to the tangle of tech she had been working on.

"Yeah, okay, bye," she said without looking up.

"Bye, fish guy." Kimi waved. "Have fun jazzercising your clients."

I thought about flipping her off, but decided to wave instead. I liked Kimi, even if her officemate was a grumpy bucket of butts.

And I was totally going to teach Kevin to jazzercise.

"Where should we start?" I mused as we walked out of the cyber-topia that was Dex's lab. The sun had been set for about an hour, the air cooling into a crisp reminder of spring's reluctance to let go of winter's hand. I pulled Zane's jacket closed and zipped it up while Sias buttoned his long coat beside me.

"I think the most logical step would be to case the areas we know tears have occurred." Sias nodded ahead. "Midtown will be swarming with DHAP officers. The Swallows would be better."

"Yeah, let's not run into cops while I have a phone loaded with illegal magic. They get especially snippy when it's death magic." I pocketed my phone and fell into step with him, trying to mentally tell the wind to stop biting at my ears. "You have those life magic blessed bullets for your ridiculous gun, right?"

"They're already loaded." He cut his eyes my direction. "It's killing you that you're not mocking it right now, isn't it?"

"It's so ugly, Sias! Why a gold gun? Are you an eccentric prince from an action movie? Are you color blind to gold specifically? Like, do you think the gun is gray somehow?"

Fog bellowed from Sias's lips as he chuckled, a velvety sound I very rarely had the pleasure to enjoy.

"I'm just saying," I continued, my own laugh shaking free to join the fun. "You have money to have really nice pieces and you got bamboozled into a slab of melted jewelry that fires bullets."

"It was a gift," he relented, eyes dancing into a minty color I'd never seen before.

"Someone gifted you a golden gun?" I jabbed, grinning so wide my cheeks were starting to hurt. "Who?"

"An old flame."

"Was he a war lord? A tomb raider? Did he find a lost sarcophagus and fashion a gun from it?"

Minty green turned into a stunning sea foam and the most magical thing happened. So magical, so unexpected, so unbelievable, that I stopped in my tracks to stare with unbridled amazement.

Sias fucking blushed .

"Oh my God," I exhaled.

"I am not loving how you're handling this."

"You're blushing. Are you…are you embarrassed ?" When his eyes started to trend into an acid color, tinting angry, I surrendered. "Okay, okay! Not embarrassed. It's not that big a deal that you're fucking blushing right now."

"Are you done?"

"Yes. I'm done. I'm done." I chewed my lip to keep from grinning. "It was a war lord, wasn't it?"

Sias inhaled deeply and turned away from me, continuing the march toward the Swallows.

"Mob boss," he admitted when I trotted back over to his side.

"Like the mob mob? Like whack a guy and throw him over the bridge with bricks tied to his feet?"

"I was freshly divorced," he defended himself. "He was a rebound and a lack of better judgment." The acid splash to his vision cooled back to a hazel. "When we ended things, he gave me this gun because he said it reminded him of my horns. Sharp, beautiful and deadly."

"Aw. What kept you from being Mr. Mob Boss? Not into organized crime?"

"It was never meant to be serious," he reminded me. "When the passion started to wane, we parted ways. Simple as that."

I tucked my hands into Zane's jacket and curled it around myself, the cold especially biting with my heart caving in.

"Speaking of passion," I segued terribly. "I haven't seen Vix around."

I tried not to notice when his eyes shifted from his fun shades of embarrassed mint to somber blues.

"Vix left to join an exclusive harem about a month ago."

This took me by surprise, not because any harem wouldn't be blessed to have her, but because I didn't think she was scouting for one. She was a staple at all of Sias's parties, both the sexy kind and the casual ones. While she and I had never engaged in any bedroom antics together, I did adore her.

It broke my heart a little that she wasn't coming back.

"Seriously?" The wind was able to sneak under my collar and gave me a pinch. "Damn. I should have sent a gift or something. I didn't know."

"She sends her love." He gave a weak smile. "That's how these things go, darling. I'm very happy for her."

"Me too, but still…" I balled my hands in the pockets of the jacket and held on to my resolve, my chest doing nothing to warm me even though my heart was starting to pound. "I noticed the vials. In the arcade."

"What about them?"

My hands started to sweat, so I had to air them out in the biting cold.

"I know you're not eating well with Vix gone and me being uh… distracted ."

"I eat fine," he answered cooly, but the icy current present just beneath the words made me shiver. "You don't need to fret about my sexual energy intake, Dallas."

I could feel he was annoyed, but my curiosity was too strong to change topics just yet.

"Are they as good as the real thing? Or is it like comparing ice cream to the freeze-dried crap?"

Sias's eyes flared into a shock of pink, a lightning strike of hunger before fading into calm seas.

"Nothing beats absorbing energy from your companion in real time as they writhe in pleasure, darling. The vials are a good stopgap, and I pay for the purest essence available, but they do pale in comparison to the exquisite taste of the real, raw thing."

The combination of my anxieties and his colorful explanation had caused me to start fidgeting, and I about wore out the cuff of Zane's jacket.

"Do you have a favorite flavor? They come in flavors, right? I saw the colors," I rambled, like a nervous idiot.

Sias exhaled through his nose, a bull lazily announcing his frustration.

"No. They're all…fine. Bland. There's a reason I call you, Vix and Bastian my favorites. I'm rather picky."

I'm a fucking dumbass.

"Right. That makes sense. Can you live off those? I mean, I know Barnaby does, but he doesn't like sex. He just needs a drop and he's set for days."

I knew better than to have asked, but I was the reigning champ of asking stupid questions I didn't want the honest answer to.

"I can make do for a while, but I'll need something more tangible soon."

Guilt was a sharp, evil thing when it wedged itself under the ribs like his words did.

I didn't know if I had it in me to carry the burden of letting both of the men I had feelings for down so spectacularly.

Zane's death had been so sudden and shattering, I hadn't realized the small, quiet one happening between Sias and me. How long would it be before I was handing over a trinket so he didn't forget me?

"I'm sorry," I finally admitted, chest on fire from the acidic slashes to my heart. "You've been helping us so much and I've been such an asshole about everything."

"What?" More annoyance, a touch of anger.

I was somehow making it worse.

"I'm just—fuck. I'm so bad at this. I'm sorry, Sias, for not being available. The least I could do is fuck you for helping us like you have, and I've shut all that down."

My elbow was caught in Sias's grip, our progress into the Swallows halted. The sting of my anxieties transformed into an itchy scrape along my hairline and down my neck, and I rubbed at my old scars to keep the sensation from spidering out into something painful. I was busy glaring at a crack in the cement, envious of the stony surface and its resolve against the assault it was able to bare.

"Dallas."

I forced my eyes up. Yellow, I thought. Yellow and orange would be nice to see. Goddamn him if they're blue, because his pity would hurt more than anything in that moment.

I wasn't sure what to do with his emerald gaze.

"I need you listen to me very carefully." He was speaking with a calm firmness I would have melted for in bed. I held my breath in anticipation, my heart thundered, and my mind started falling into the static numbness that I reserved for when I needed to get ready to file it away into my "this is too fucked up to remember for a while" vault.

That vault sucked, by the way. It often got leaky and made for shitty nightmares.

Emerald peered into my eyes, gold flecks rimmed the center, framed by brows falling into a creased furrow.

"You don't owe me sex," he told me quietly, fingers warm against Zane's leather. "Not now. Not ever. I'm helping you because I want to, not because I expect anything in return."

The static around my brain was getting slippery, the input not what I was expecting. I was starting to see little dots floating around the edges of my vision, and I quickly exhaled the first thing I could think of.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." His brows deepened their crease. "I'm sure."

"What about the…something tangible?"

When did I forget how to speak?

I continued, unable to stop my rambling.

"I don't want you to starve, and I like sex with you. A lot. It's one of my favorite things. It's just hard for me to get in the mood because of how shitty I feel, and I can't even really get my own engine going, if you know what I mean. Why am I telling you this? I'm just kidding about that last part. That was a lie. Everything works great! Haha! Oh my fucking God, can you just toss me into traffic, please?"

Sias inhaled slowly and put a finger to my lips, commanding me to stop talking, bless him.

"I want you at your best," he told me. "I won't accept anything less than perfection. You're mourning. You're hurting. That won't do. Until we can remedy this, I won't take even a sip. Do you understand me?"

The lumpy mess that had once been heart shaped had been thrown around in my ribs like a rattling marble, but now it settled into a little nest of hesitant comfort. The static fog had cleared, and in its place, I felt a horrible feeling of vulnerability I didn't care for. Sias had peeled away layers of callous armor and given my soul a little squeeze.

"Sounds like a lot of trouble for something to eat." I had been going for teasing, but my throat was a little too tight.

"Like I said," he said with a grin and a blooming rose in an emerald field. "I'm very picky."

I was right in the middle of swooning when my phone interrupted everything.

The buzz in my pocket hummed in a pattern I wasn't familiar with and I fished it out to check the notification screen. A little bubble had surfaced to the top, announcing that the app had located a tear nearby.

"We got one." I unlocked the screen and tapped on the notification, summoning the app to life. An unnecessarily cartoonish grim reaper was pointing ahead in the direction the tear was being pinged, a soft ripple floating out to indicate how strong of a presence it was radiating.

"I hope this means it's small," I mumbled, showing Sias the screen.

"Let's hope so." He followed me as I pursued the animated grim reaper in the direction of the void tear. "What's the plan when we find it?"

"I want to see it before we seal it." I tossed him a quick glance, hoping he couldn't read my excitement. "I want to see if I can learn anything about what's causing it before we shut it down."

Sias gave a nod, his eyes washing over with lilacs touched by orange flame. He was ready for a fight, steeling himself for something awful.

I was practically giddy.

A real tear, a peek into the void that wasn't reliant on me holding it open, was a damn good shot at trying to yank a dead vampire back into existence.

Or at least to try and see if he could hear me.

He should be able to find me. He promised he could.

You better be listening for me, asshole.

The ping from the app intensified as we drew closer, the happy reaper dancing near a stretch of apartments.

"Fuck," I hissed, worry seeping its way into my good time. Why the hell did this tear have to pick a populated area to make its appearance? A damn apartment complex? With grandmas and kids?

Diabolical. And really inconvenient for me.

We followed the ping around the aged brick building, windowsills spilling over with potted plants and wind chimes. A bike with pink tassels was dropped near a front door with a faded number, the tire looked a little flat. Their neighbor had a doormat that said, "wipe your paws." Through a cracked window, we could hear someone yelling that dinner was ready, and commanding everyone to wash their hands.

The tear was a blight hovering near a small sandpit in the shape of a turtle, black veins growing out to touch the discarded sandcastle buckets.

It looked like a nightmare had punched through into the waking world, scarring reality with a gash of emptiness. The darkness within the rip made me dizzy as I stared at it, a bone deep fear stopping me from inching too close. Even the weeds peeking out from under the concrete seemed to lean away from its presence.

It was only about six inches long: a slanted, vertical strike oozing black vapor like evil dry ice with veins crawling in multiple directions like a fungus.

"Whatever you want to learn from this thing, do it quickly," Sias warned, glancing at the apartment building that was too close for comfort. "I don't want anyone getting swallowed by this thing like they did at Marthas's club."

I had to force myself to travel closer, my feet practically glued down from the primal fear I had of the floating doorway to death. Knots of hesitation formed in my gut, my heart crawling its way through my throat. The life essence in my pocket warmed my thigh as I drew closer, reacting strongly to the pulsing death. The only silver lining to losing my necromancy powers was that I could hold the thing without bursting into cinders, and I was damn thankful to have it with me then.

In hindsight, I should have known better than to have felt relieved.

And I should have brought way more fucking weapons.

I inched over to the monstrous affront to the realm of the living, the scars on my neck itching from the presence of the Goddess, and stared into the abyss.

Cold recognition split me down the middle as I peered into the void, or more importantly, the way the void was peeking through. I had seen a tear like that before.

I had caused a tear like that before.

This was caused by my scythe.

I remembered the way the tree had split when the blade had crashed into it, the way the void looked staring back at me through the hole. The slash was the same, but somehow much, much angrier than before.

How was this happening and why?

But more importantly, at least to me, if this was made with my scythe, was it just a window or a true door into the void?

I had no choice. I had to knock and see.

I forced myself to exhale, my lungs shaking from how hard my heart was beating. My vision blurred as I stared down the darkness.

You said you could always find me.

My fingers were trembling as I lifted my hand.

"Dallas," Sias warned from behind me as I stepped closer to the tear. "It looks like it's growing."

You promised you'd always find me.

"Dallas!"

I whispered to him, through the gateway between realms, into death and darkness and nothingness:

"Find me now."

The invitation was sent. Signed and sealed with intent and loss.

I just wished it had landed in the correct vampire's hands.