There’s a look of cold rage on his face as he accepts my command. There’s no way I’m letting him do this for me. I’ve trained. I’ve fought. I’ve studied for this moment. Anita may have a sliver of the Darkness in her, but I will banish her and the vessel she resides in to hell.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sam
Click, click, click.
My camera snaps photos of the area. The pictures have a greenish-gray tint to them, but nothing unusual. Certainly nothing that looks like a gate from this world to the next.
“Come on, Bun, show yourself,” I mutter. Damien is in the magic shop talking with Tran, hoping he’s seen or heard something. Clinton walks up and down the street, scaring the locals with the scowl on his face.
Click, click, click
I sit on a cement wall outside the bodega and flip back through the photos. Bunny’s paintings implied there would be a portal here, but I’m coming up empty. Damien exits the magic shop, his frown telling me what I need to know. He walks over and says, “He came in for some of the ingredients needed to make the portals. But he must have gotten the reactive stuff from the Otherside. Tran says if Bunny is using the area as a hotspot, he hasn’t seen or felt it.”
“Would he? I know the guy is like an elder of magic or whatever but the Morrigan? That’s ancient level.”
“Got anything?” he asks me.
“Not much.”
Damien grimaces and scans the street. I point my camera in Clinton’s direction.
Click, click, click
“So look, I think this may be a dead end,” Damien says, scratching his chin. I look back down at the display screen. “There doesn’t seem—”
“Fuck.”
“What?”
“Fuck. Fuck. Shit.”
“What the hell, Sam?” he grabs the camera and looks at the screen. His eyes dart up
at Clinton. “Is that real?”
I glance at the photo I’d just taken. It’s Clinton, but he’s not in this world. At least, I don’t think so. His hands are chained. He’s shirtless with deep wounds across his back and chest. Dirt smears across his face and his knuckles are raw and bloody. I flip to the next photo, Clinton isn’t in it but I do see something that wasn’t there before. Black smoke rolls low on the street, like a tentacle.
“That’s like the smoke in the ring the other night,” Damien says. “When Dylan fought the Morrigan.”
“We need to get out of here.” I look up at Clinton, who makes eye contact with me. I jerk my head for him to walk over. “Now.”
A blast of cool air rushes down the narrow street. It’s then that I notice we’re the only ones still out here. The sidewalk is empty. The stores quiet. I glance over at Damien but he’s gone. “Dude,” I say, “Damien?”
Another blast of cold rolls over me, this time like a freight train. I spin, feeling a presence at my back. There’s nothing and no one there. I look back up for Clinton. Gone.
“Clint! Damien!”
With fumbling hands, I turn the camera around, the lens pointing at my face.
Click, click, click
The camera is still shooting when thick arms twist and coil around my legs. The last thing I hear, as I’m swept off my feet, is the crack of my camera as it hits the ground.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Morgan