“Wait, hell, as in Hell-Hell?” I said, falling into the back of the elevator.
The sight that greeted me on the other side of the elevator certainly looked like Hell, though. It was the interior of the Lyon’s Den, except everything was on fire while terrible flaming dogs were scattered through the room, all looking at me like I was their next meal. The heat was intense and the smell was utterly foul. Thankfully, there was no sign of the customers as I didn’t think I could stand the whole ‘tortured for all eternity’ thing without trying to help them.
“No. Not really, but close enough,” Alex said, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a handful of white powder he blew in front of him. It formed into a circle with a lot of strange marks on it as well as a Seal of Solomon. “There, that should buy us some time.”
“Why am I here?” I asked, trying to figure out what the hell (literally!) was going on. “Breaking and entering can’t be a damnation worthy offense! I don’t even believe in eternal damnation.”
“It’s a reality wrinkle,” Alex said, his voice quivering only just a bit. It was really impressive since I was terrified out of my mind.
“Assume I’m really awful at being a shaman and explain that in dumbass,” I said, actually kind of jealous of Alex’s displayed powers. I’d seen my mom do some equivalent things but this was one of the few times I’d seen someone actually use big, epic magic. Most of the time it worked in the form of coincidences.
This was not that kind of magic.
“You’re not even close to being a dumbass, Jane. But in laymen’s terms it means someone has pressed a section of the Spirit World in on this section of the material plane and we’ve wandered into it,” Alex said, taking a deep breath. “This is some pretty impressive magic.”
“You think?” I snapped. I was already starting to sweat and my makeup was starting to run. I was actually glad I wasn’t wearing much in that moment, since Agent Timmons was sweating heavily as well. It had to be scorching under that trench coat and suit.
“It’s also a sign the Lodge is being harnessed,” Alex said, blinking. “The killer or one of their associates would need a holy spot where the veil between the worlds was weak to make this kind of summoning.”
“Who cares!” I shouted, raising my hands in front of me. “Just get us out of here!”
Alex grimaced. “I actually have no idea how to do that.”
“What?!”
“It’s not my area of expertise!” Alex said, finally showing a fearful look. “I’m more into knowledge and defense than altering reality.”
“Screw being a Jedi!” I said, closing my eyes and wishing to any god who was listening for a way out.
Much to my surprise, I heard a ripping sound and looked over to the stage where I saw an actual crack in reality about six feet in height. On the other side of the rift, I saw Lucien Lyons and Sheriff Clara. Beyond them, I saw Emma and Jeanine too. All of them looked terrified looking through the portal.
“It appears our prayers have been answered,” Alex said, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a standard-issue Glock 23 (I learned that from the internet). It, too, had a number of symbols on the side that I believed to be Hebrew. I imagined it said, “This Machine Kills Demons.” He then unexpectedly handed it to me.
“Uh,” I said, taking the gun. “Alex, what are you doing?”
“Do you how to use this?” Alex asked.
“I’m a country girl from Michigan, so yes,” I said, blinking. “I’m more used to using a rifle than a pistol, though. Dad often took us out hunting to scare off deer poachers.”
Wow, those trips were fun. We only used rock salt, though.
Alex looked like he was going to comment on that then shook his head. “I’m going to lower the barrier I’ve put up and try to keep us surrounded in a spell to hold off the demons and flames. Some covering fire would be very helpful.”
I suddenly regretted my desire for a more interesting life. “I’ve got your back, Alex. I’m your deputy…which sounds really weird and kind of sexualized. Please ignore that last part.”
Alex grinned then raised his hands and started chanting something I briefly thought to be the language of magic before recognizing it as Quenya from The Lord of the Rings. Deer Christ on a pogo stick, this guy might actually be a bigger geek than Jeremy. His hands started to glow a blue light that surrounded us both in a nimbus. It felt like a distilled concentration of love and peace. Not a good feeling for shooting.
“Don’t let the flames touch you,” Alex said, his voice low. “They’ll do worse than burn you.”
“Right,” I said, not sure how to respond to that.
The two of us then passed through the Seal of Solomon and I was almost immediately buffeted by a terrible wind that came from the walls rather than the rift. I heard the sound of Victoria’s taunts echoing through the air along with my mother’s frustrations about my inability to do even the slightest spell.
“You’re not special because you’re a deer. You’re just a weirdo hipster.”
“You have the Gift and a chance to build on it, Jane. I don’t know why you can’t do this.”
I heard the sound of my cousin Jenny screaming as she was pulled down into Lake Darkwater. “Help! Help, Jane!”
“No,” I muttered, taking a deep breath. “They don’t get to bring up that. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t.”
That was when I saw one of the hellhounds leap for my throat and I ended up shooting it in the throat, sending it spiraling back into the flames where it detonated.
“Do not mess with me,” I snapped without bravado. “Deer actually eat meat, you know! We’re not herbivores! We’re omnivores.”
I aimed throughout the club, shooting hellhound after hellhound. I didn’t always get them, but even the wounds seemed to cause the others to back off. It made me feel stronger and tougher even as I just wanted to get out of here.
We were about halfway through the nightclub when Alex stopped and once more repeated the earlier spell, looking exhausted. His elvish was garbled and he didn’t finish before falling to one knee.
“Alex, you okay?” I said, wondering just how many bullets I had left.
“No,” Alex said, struggling to get up. “I am most certainly not.”
The sounds of my cousin’s laughter filled the air as water started dripping down the sides of the nightclub, causing steam to rise. I heard the sounds of my cousin screaming for help even as I couldn’t help but remember being frozen in place, unable to move.
“I’m going in,” Lucien shouted from the crack.
“No!” Clara said. “Stay where you are!”
That was when I saw the image of a faceless man in a trench coat and dressed in an FBI uniform similar to Alex’s standing in the middle of the nightclub. I heard the sound of a boy screaming and felt waves of nausea as well as shame.
“Alex, who is that?” I asked.
“Don’t look at him,” Alex said. “It’s just an image of my father. Drawn from my worst fears.”
The figure started advancing.
“I looked at him, Alex,” I said. “How bad is that?”
“Bad!”
A second faceless demon appeared, this time resembling a ten-year-old little girl in a black one-piece bathing suit. Her black hair and pigtail showed her not to be my poor drowned cousin, though, but me.
Stupid, cowardly me.
“I was a kid!” I shouted, shooting at the demons repeatedly until I ran out of ammunition. “Oh hell.”
“Are you scared to go in the water, Jenny?” a little distorted version of my voice as a child spoke. “Don’t be stupid. It’s just a lake. There’s no monsters here.”
“Go!” Alex said, his voice rasping out. He was on both knees now. “I’ll cover you.”
“Get on top of me!” I shouted.
“What?” Alex said.
“Not that way, jackass!” I said, hoping this didn’t get us all killed. “Just do it.”
I couldn’t feel the moon in this place to aid in my transformation. Instead, I focused every bit of my anger and guilt to provide the necessary fuel for the Change. It wasn’t like in the movies where my body physically transformed in some excruciating body horror. Instead, it was like I changed places with a deer in some other serene place. One minute, I was Jane the Human, and the next minute I was Jane the Deer.
Jane the Deer was someone a lot more majestic than Jane the Human. I had snow-white fur and there was a power inside me that felt far stronger than anything a mere human could possess. Sometimes, I wanted to just go off into the forest and live like this. That wasn’t important right now, though, and I needed to focus on getting my FBI agent to safety.
When I felt his arms wrap around me, I turned around and started jumping toward the rift in reality. A normal deer wouldn’t have been able to support Alex’s weight, but every shifter had not just the strength of their animal but a few more besides. The flames licked at my legs and whenever they did, I didn’t feel burns but something much more painful. I remembered how I’d failed Jenny, how my brother was currently rotting in prison, and a how I was probably going to die in this town having accomplished nothing in my life.
“I am going to accomplish something now!” I said, sounding just like random deer noises to anyone else.
The two demons teleported in front of the rift while I trotted through the flames. I leapt into the air, refusing to let them block my way. I didn’t actually get over them so much as smash into them. I half expected to experience a hundred thousand horrible things when I did so, but instead, both demons shattered like glass before the hellish landscape around me disappeared.
I found myself running past Clara and ended up coming to a stop right in the middle of the nightclub’s back lot. It was night now, the sun having just set with a light rain pouring down from the sky. The rift to Hell behind me sealed up and I felt an end to the horrible flames and terrible guilt the place carried memories of.
It was quite the sight outside of the rift. There was Lucien, I think, looking like some kind of human-Velociraptor raptor hybrid with crocodile skin and a long, thick tail standing over the bodies of several burning dog skeletons as well as an octopus-looking thing with eyes instead of suction cups. Clara was holding a shotgun while Jeanine was standing next to Emma. I also saw Deana next to a hideous steaming stag corpse that I assumed she’d managed to put out. A closer look revealed it had a human torso and a spear for an arm. Apparently, the group had spent their time fighting demons coming through the rift in order to keep the door open for us. I wasn’t sure how to thank someone for that.
“Thank you,” Alex said, his voice exhausted and quivering. “I owe you my life.”
“Hey, no problem,” I said, still in deer form as the rain poured down on me. “It’s not every day I get ridden hard and left wet.”
“I can understand you, you realize that, right?” Alex said, sliding off my side.
“Oh crap!” I said. “Forget I mentioned that!”
Alex burst out laughing.
I turned back into my human form, collapsing on the ground with most of my makeup ruined and half of my press-on nails having fallen off. “Kill me now.”
“Are you all right?” Lucien said, reverting back to his human form and walking over to offer his hand to me.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, taking his hand. “I’m just peachy. What’s a little Hell between friends?”
As my hand touched Lucien’s, I found myself having a vision of us kissing passionately underneath a set of silk covers as I felt waves of pleasure pass through my body. We were in a hotel room of some kind and I wasn’t that much older. My eyes practically bulged out as I contemplated this in addition to the other vision I’d had about Alex.
Oh my God, I was going to be with both. What was wrong with me? I mean, aside from the fact that if a man was doing this no one would care. Wait, dammit, don’t make this a gender thing! Lucien is a drug dealer and Alex is an FBI agent. Both are incredibly inappropriate hot guys to sleep with! Okay, what was my argument again?
“Jane?” Lucien said, obviously not picking up on what I was thinking.
“Ah!” I said, staring. “Nothing!’
My visions weren’t always a 100% accurate, I had to remind myself. They showed me potential futures, but it was entirely within my power to act upon them in order to guarantee they did or did not happen. Besides, I hated Lucien? Right?
Lucien looked at me sideways then helped me to my feet. “Right. Well, you owe your sister a great deal. She was the one who figured out there was a reality bubble and opened a portal to it. We’ve been working on this for almost six hours.”
Six hours? Whoa. Turning to Jeanine, I stared at her. “You can open portals into other realities?”
Jeanine shrugged. “Mom told me how. Just because I don’t like doing magic doesn’t mean I don’t know how.”
“Where is Mom, anyway?” I asked, trying to wrap my head on the fact that a few minutes in there was hours outside.
“Traveling upstate,” Clara said, frowning. “For some reason, Agent Timmons thought your brother might be in danger as long as he’s in this town.”
“Shocking,” Alex said, coughing as he looked barely able to stand on his own two feet. “Whoever would believe there might be a party willing to use violence against those who appear to be threatening their plan?”
Clara didn’t respond but just narrowed her eyes. “Well, they failed to kill you both. I think we need to put Jane under twenty-four-hour protection along with anyone else associated with this case. It’s clearly much bigger than a few dead shapeshifters.”
“One of which is our sister!” Emma said, sounding shocked by Clara’s description of the case.
Clara looked over at Emma. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Emma’s glare continued.
Alex took several breaths before stretching out his arms in a yoga-like pose and rolling his head around in circles. “I’m afraid, despite the attempt on Ms. Doe’s and my life, that we cannot stop our investigation. Recent events have led me to believe the heart of this case is going to be decided in Darkwater Preserve at the Old Lodge.”
“The Lodge hasn’t been used in decades,” Clara said, sounding more defensive than expected. “It also moves around depending on who is doing the seeking. The old shamans and witches did a lot of spells to hide it from humans. Spells that haven’t been maintained.”
“Nevertheless,” Alex said, pulling out a flashlight. “Look we must. Jane, would you do me a favor and meet me there?”
“What?” Jeanine said. “You can’t take my sister there! Darkwater Preserve is dangerous! My cousin drowned there.”
I clenched both of my hands and tried not to feel like I’d been punched in the gut. What had happened wasn’t my fault. Even though I’d dared her to swim in the part of the lake that was fenced off.
Even though I’d lied after.
Not my fault.
“I’ll do it,” I said, my mouth dry. “No one else should die.”
I had another reason to want to solve this case now.
Redemption.