“This isn’t bad,” I said around a mouthful of tender meat. “I probably don’t want to know what it is, do I?”
Justice slid me a sideways glance. “Probably not.” He held out a tin cup that may or may not have been washed in hot soapy water…ever. “You sure you don’t want to try the coffee?”
I grimaced, but the flagging adrenaline load had left me tired and a little shaky. “It smells like a skunk’s butt.”
He nodded. “It does at that.” I watched him take a sip, his sexy eyes closing with pleasure. “But it tastes amazing.”
I stared at the mug. “Tell me what it’s made of.”
“Mostly a plant called skunk bean. For obvious reasons. But there’s a woody-stemmed flower whose roots are ground up and added to the blend too.”
“Like chicory?”
He took another sip. “I believe so. But this flower isn’t known in the dimension you come from.”
I frowned, his words bringing forth an issue I’d been wondering about. “Speaking of that…”
He shook his head. “I’ve told you, Rae. I can’t take you back.”
“Not that,” although I wasn’t happy with the knowledge. “I was going to ask why that traveler woman tagged me. Why pick someone from…well Earth, I guess? Why not pick someone from this place?”
He shrugged. “There are few traveler candidates in this dimension. Mostly monsters and beasts.”
Yeah, that didn’t give me the warm fuzzies. “Monsters?” Maybe his description of monsters was different from mine.
Justice threw another hunk of the delicious meat to Elvo. The big dog snagged it out of the air and dropped it to the ground, clutching the tender meal between his paws, and happily tearing off chunks. “Giants and Chickara, and those that walk the night.”
I let that one slide through my brain, assessing the heft of it and telling myself he couldn’t mean what it sounded like he meant. “Those that walk through the night?”
Justice refilled his mug, handing it to me without comment. “The fanged ones. You know of them. Your books are full of the things.”
A memory of being unconscious for many hours suddenly filled me with horror. Justice had had unmonitored access to all my stuff while I was recuperating from the Chickara bite. He’d clearly looked through my paperbacks.
Oh, the humiliation.
I had dozens of well-worn paranormal romances on those shelves.
I took a sip of the coffee without thinking and went very still as a smooth, rich brew slid over my tongue. “Mother of all that’s holy,” I breathed out as I swallowed. “This is amazing.”
Justice looked pleased with himself. “I did tell you.” He reached for the mug and I slapped his hand. “Get your own.”
He blinked, frowned, and then said, “But that is my own.”
“Not anymore,” I said, taking another drink of the heated nectar.
His eyes sparkled with mirth as he shook his head. “The fanged ones are called vampires in your culture, I believe. They are a big part of the reason travelers and guides exist.”
I finished off the coffee and handed him the mug. He refilled it from the bullet-shaped canaster and handed it back to me.
“Okay, treat me like I know nothing, because I don’t, and give me the Travelers for Dummies pitch. I’ll probably do less damage if I have a clue what we’re supposed to be doing.”
Justice sat back against a smooth rock. “It is very simple, really…”
I doubted that.
“Travelers find interdimensional fugitives and guides help them address the problem.”
“Address the problem?”
Justice turned to me, narrowing those startling blue eyes. “Are you aware that you have a tendency to repeat statements and frame them as questions?”
“Repeat statements?” I fought to keep my lips from curving upward.
He snorted, shaking his head. “There are twelve principal dimensions. Our work is in large part focused on three of them. Your dimension, known as Terro, though you know it as Earth; my dimension, which is called Aere; and this land of monsters called Igne.”
I thought about that for a minute. “Earth, air and fire?” It had been a while since I’d taken Latin, but I’d been interested in it so some of it had stuck with me. “No Aqua?”
“The water dimension is too unique to create much in the way of problems for us, so we’ll rarely deal with it.”
I thought about that for a beat. “Okay, so we work with these three dimensions. Exactly what do we do, and why?”
“The easiest way to explain it is that travel between dimensions is illegal. There are laws against it in every dimension. Still, predators are always searching for new victims, which makes a monster-heavy dimension a prime target for breaking the IDT laws.” When I gave him a blank look, he clarified. “Interdimensional travel. The problem was, until the Travel Bureau was founded, there was no way to police the crime. Cops from one dimension have no jurisdiction in another dimension. So, the Bureau created a new type of cop. Us. Travelers and guides are legally allowed to conduct interdimensional travel. Once we were engaged, the next problem was reporting. Dimensions don’t have physical borders like a land mass would have. Dimensional borders flex and grow in reaction to each other. So, the question becomes, how do we locate IDT fugitives when they cross over? What traditional form of policing can find and stop them? The answer is, none. What we needed was a non-traditional method.”
“Visions?” I asked.
“Yes. Travelers are imbued with the ability to foresee illegal crossings. When a crossing occurs in your assigned area, you experience a vision in warning. Travelers and guides are psychically attuned on a specific level, so your vision tells me where we need to go.”
“We’re, huh?”
“I can’t explain how that works. It just does.”
“You can’t read my mind, or anything, right?”
“Heaven forbid. After seeing what you like to read, I’d probably be horrified by your assessment of my tight buttocks and muscular physique.”
“In your dreams,” I said, grinning. I held up a hand. “But, hold on. You were already here fighting when I had my vision. In fact, my vision was of you and Elvo.” I glanced over at the big canine, who was stretched out in the sun, enjoying the heat on his full belly.
“That’s because you bounced over another traveler’s vision.” He frowned. “We need to go to the Bureau and see what happened to Kimmie.”
“Kimmie?”
His lips flattened. “The traveler you bounced over. As far as I know, that’s never happened before. I don’t know what the effects would be on her. I need to make sure she’s okay.”
“You work with Kimmie too?” A strange and unwelcome jealousy tightened my chest. It was stupid. Justice and I barely knew each other. And many of our interactions had been confrontational. There was zero reason for me to be jealous.
“Yes. There are a dozen travelers, ideally, but only six guides. Therefore, each guide works with up to two travelers.”
“Tell me what you do.” I leaned against the tree at my back, setting the empty mug on the ground beside me. “Besides fight off monsters.”
He shrugged. “That’s nearly all I do, really. When a dimensional border crosser is identified, I find and stop them any way that’s necessary. Sometimes I need to save their victims in the process. Other than that, I do whatever it takes to support my travelers.”
“Support, how?”
“Whatever’s required. I perform med service, as you discovered.” His smile made my insides jump with glee. “Most of us are trained multi-dimensional medics.”
“I want to patent that stuff you put on my wound. It was magic.”
“Exactly. It is magic. Which is why you can’t patent it.”
“So, you’re not going to tell me what’s in it?”
He lifted a finger and shook it as if scolding me, then continued explaining what he did as a guide. “We serve as an interface between the travelers and the Bureau. It was discovered long ago that the magic that makes you good travelers also makes you poor at politics and paperwork.”
I thought back to my years as a cop. I’d started on the street, of course, and had nobody to foist my mountain of reports on. Which was possibly the greatest motivator for me in moving up the ladder. As a detective, I still had to do some case-related reporting and documenting myself. But whenever possible I pushed the grunt work off on the uniforms. “So, this is magic? This ability to see and feel cross-dimensional breaches?”
He nodded.
“And, somehow, this Mira passed it to me?”
He nodded again. “Upon death, a traveler must touch another candidate and proclaim their Travelership to pass the ability on.”
I frowned. “But, why me?”
“Why not you? You’re a smart, capable woman who’s spent her life protecting others in the human police. You’re perfect.”
I shook my head. “In my twenties or thirties, maybe. But I’m fifty-seven years old. Surely you could have found a younger candidate to do the job.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “Are you yanking my chain right now?”
His inflection, the way he said ‘yanking my chain’ made me grin. It was clear the colloquialism wasn’t native to his environment. He must have learned it from someone on Earth…Terro.
“Not at all. You wouldn’t understand because you’re…” I waved a hand over his fineness.
“I’m what?”
“Young and strong,” I finally said, unhappy about it. But it was the truth. Despite my trying to act as though he and I were contemporaries, the truth was I was probably old enough to be his mother. That thought stung like a hive of wasps.
He stared at me for another beat and then shook his head. “I’m three-hundred-and-sixty-five years old, Rae.”
I flapped my lips like a landed fish and then barked out a laugh. “Hilarious. Try again.”
“No. It’s the truth. That’s how old I am. In my world, you’re a baby.”
A loud snore brought my gaze around to Elvo. “And the dog?”
“I’m not sure. He and I have been together about fifty years. But he was full grown when I got him. His breed generally lives around a thousand years.”
It was my turn to stare at him. “You guys are older than dirt.”
He laughed.
“No, really, you fart dust.”
“I what?” His smile dimmed, and I could tell he was dying to glance at his backside to make sure he hadn’t passed something nasty and missed it.
I grinned. “I’m just teasing. I guess I’m basking in the glory of being the youngest one in the room for once.”
“But you are young. Why would that make you feel surprised?”
“In my world, my age edges up against being thought of as old. Starting in our sixties, people on Earth are considered elderly and frail. It’s hard not to let that color your opinion of yourself.”
Rather than dismiss the concept out-of-hand, Justice gave my statement some thought. I mentally ticked up another point in his favor. Finally, he said. “Sometimes I don’t understand the people in your world.”
“Ha,” I said. “I never understand them.” As a cop, I’d seen the worst of the worst and watched the good and the gentle be victimized over and over again. I knew it had made me jaded in some respects. But it was hard not to become cynical when it seemed that everyone you encountered was on the take or the hunt.
“Well, that is no concern of yours now,” Justice said in a dismissive tone. “You are an Interdimensional Cop now. As an IC, you will live for hundreds of years. Unless, of course, one of the monsters gets you.”
I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or horrified. Given what we’d seen so far and the monsters I’d yet to meet, I couldn’t imagine living very long. But, what the heck? I’d make the most of the years I had. And, thinking about it, I felt different. I didn’t feel the aches and pains I’d grown accustomed to after years of hard living as a cop.
My body felt strong and fit. Was that part of the magic? Granted, I still had a bit of a soft belly. My hips were still rounder than I’d like. And I was sure that chin hairs would still be an issue. But I felt pretty good for a woman who was tapping on the door to sixty.
Magic or imagination? I didn’t know. Whatever it was, I was going with it. Suddenly, my world of possibilities was wide open. Vampires were real! Maybe shifters were too? If so, I’d get to meet them. It would be amazing and terrifying and…well…on some level, it would be fun.
I was at the beginning of my journey, rather than at the end as I’d begun to think.
Excitement made me long to jump up and start the adventure. I knew there’d be bad with the good. Heartache with the joy. But I had the best of both worlds. Experience and relative youth. How bad could my new gig be?
Then a vision slammed into me. And I realized it could be very bad indeed.