“If you think I’m going anywhere tethered to one of you, you’re sadly mistaken,” Eudoxia said with a fair amount of malice. “I will go on my own.” Since the intake of my blood, her ears had become a bit pointed, forcing her to change her hairstyle to cover them. It was strange to see her pale locks hanging down around her shoulders.
“Fine,” I said. “You can go alone, but once we all make it back, we meet up and strategize.”
“That’s not happening,” she retorted. “I agree we will come together… eventually, as the necessity of our position dictates, but I have pertinent business of my own to attend to once I get home. I am Queen of a Sect, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“The witches will be our first order of business,” I said pointedly, my head arched at her. “We have to figure out what happened to Tally. They did us a favor by sending us here and we owe them our help.”
“I owe no one. Tallulah Talbot was simply doing her job. The witches are not my first order of anything.” The Vamp Queen challenged me, her arms crossing. “My flock has been without my guidance for far too long. I will go to them first and oversee building a new rule. Then, when that is finished… I will have other business to attend to. There is no way you can mandate my participation in your games. If the Hags descend, you have my permission to call upon me, but otherwise I will be dealing with things in my own world and will not be forced to deal in yours.”
Arguing at this point would be fruitless. The Queen’s stubborn mind was made up. “I shouldn’t have to remind you that our new job descriptions require us to keep peace in the supernatural world. If something major has happened to the witches, that means we must step in.”
“You are ahead of yourself as usual, little wolf girl,” Eudoxia snipped, leaning forward, her eyes flickering silver. “You are not the master of the supernatural universe and it’s best you remember that. We have not been anointed into the Coalition yet. These things take time. There must be a ceremony, oaths given, promises made—but until then we are on our own, to do what we please. And as you’ve pointed out already, this was not supposed to happen for a century.” The rest was left unsaid, because I was the one who had screwed it up and I would be the one to try to pick up the pieces. And it seemed I would be doing that without the Vampire Queen’s support.
I shook my head as the vision of chaos shown to me by the Hags surfaced once again. Rourke’s hand tightened possessively around me, tugging me closer as he sensed my distress.
“Eudoxia,” he said. “It’s no surprise to me that you would choose to let us fight this battle ourselves. We will be in touch when necessary, and we will expect you to reply in good time to a summons, if one is needed.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s your job to do the fighting, right? You are the most feral—the animals of the supernatural world.” Her eyes were as fierce as I’d ever seen them. “And it’s my job to be the most cunning. And that’s precisely what I will continue to do. When the time arises for the new Coalition to be called upon, I will be ready. And when I arrive, I will bring the best arsenal of information I can arm myself with. Until then, my life is my own.”
“Those are lofty words, Eudoxia. My life hasn’t been my own since the night I first shifted,” I said. I’d been pulled in every direction imaginable since that fateful day. But if Tally needed my help, I would help her, just as she had done for me. There was no question. “We’ll have to agree to disagree For now. If there’s an uprising we will see each other shortly, if not, we won’t.”
I was done arguing and anxious to get home. I hoped not too much time had passed in our absence. I turned my attention to the Princess, who had been standing by, waiting for us to finish this. “We’re ready to go.”
“I have sent a runner for the torep lahy,” the Princess said. “When he returns we will go. The nearest portal is a long walk, so prepare yourselves.”
“That’s the bloody portal?” Danny sputtered once we’d finally arrived at our destination, which had indeed been a long hike. “It looks like a broken advertisement board.” He bent over to investigate an old, weathered piece of what looked to be a billboard—from when billboards were actually made of wood and hand-painted. “Is that a clown’s face?”
“It is an old billboard,” I said. I could indeed make out a clown, as well as a faint outline of a circus ringmaster and some yellow stars on another end of the panel. The boards were chunked together at a haphazard angle to the ground. This was obliviously an abandoned place outside of She’ol. There was nothing but a wasteland for miles around. Once we had gotten through the creepy yellow worm-grass, we carefully made our way along a demon-made path through another enormous field, this one with brown, wilted grass, that seemed to go on forever, then there’d been nothing but rocks and dust for the rest of the journey.
Kind of like how I pictured Mars.
The Princess had doubled her guards for the journey, each of them carrying the bizarre-looking weapons that resembled bazookas. It was night, but the winged devils, and anything else that went bump in the night, stayed well away from us. I was certain the demon bazookas could vaporize anything that dared to bother us, or the demons wouldn’t have ventured here with us.
“I have not heard the word ‘billboard’ before, but yes, I’ve been told this was used as an advertisement in your world,” the Princess said. “It was the first portal ever into our world, and it was created from the town you refer to as New York City. The witches spelled this”—she gestured to the broken pile of wood barely resembling a billboard—“for some reason. Half of it lies here and half remains on your plane. But as I stated before, the exit location constantly changes. The portal is spelled to go where there will be no witnesses, never in the same place twice. I’ve been told these kinds of boards are common in your world and will not be considered suspicious. Is that correct?”
I glanced at the sign. “Technically it’s correct. This is an old billboard, likely made circa the eighteen hundreds. If it pops up in rural America, it may be overlooked, but if it lands in the Arctic Circle it may drum up some questions. But the witches chose well. If it did happen to show up in an odd place, people would be curious, but it wouldn’t cause alarm.” Witches were crafty and my mind raced to Tally and I hoped she was all right. I knew whatever had happened to her was tied to what I had done here, and it was hard not to feel responsible.