Mickey looks over at one of his undead who is rushing up. “Lt. Lindsey called to say that someone from Obsian reopened the Door and is now insisting on an audience with the West Brooke Magical Interference Unit. She wants you three there immediately.”
Torin stops and cocks his head. “I guess a different Door is in order.”
Good thing he screwed around long enough that the Door hadn’t even been made yet, so instead, he makes a Door to take us to West Brooke. I turn to check on Mickey’s progress, but he’s already whipped both of Vero’s wrists into shape. It’s shocking how competent he can be when he puts his mind to it.
“Wow, was that exhausting. Will you carry me on that broad muscular back?” he asks his patient.
“Your weakness disgusts me,” Vero answers before storming over to the Door.
“I think I have a shot with him,” Mickey says to me.
“Do you?Do you?”
Mickey just smiles and trudges over to the Door. I want to be like Mickey for once and take a nap, feeling absolutely exhausted after everything that has happened, but a break is obviously not in the cards as all of us head through the Door.
We find ourselves in the room where we’d questioned Story and immediately see Special Agent Kim waiting for us.
“Lt. Lindsey informed us that the Door from Obsian has been reopened,” I explain.
“Yes… we have visitors. You… don’t look good.”
Apparently, I look as bad as I feel. “It was a bit… rough on the other side, but I’m fine,” I assure her. “May I sit in for the discussion?”
“Of course. If you’ve already interacted with them, I would be more than happy to even allow you to lead it,” she says. “Right this way.”
We’re led over to a one-way mirror that we look through to see that a woman is sitting at the table with three others standing near her. A little behind them is the Door.
“Did they open this Door?” I ask.
“No, I did,” Torin says. “I wanted a faster path back in case we needed to move quickly.”
The newcomers seem quite content to hover near the Door, likely because they fear that they’ll be smashed over the head and dragged off to a cell like I was.
“Is that Onyx?” I ask, not having seen what she looks like since I’d been without Kit. I really won’t know until she speaks. The woman in the chair just radiates the aura of a cocky leader who has made my life more difficult.
Lark steps past me to look. “It is. Why is she here?”
“I feel uneasy about this,” Story says.
Lark slowly nods. “Do not trust her. She’s manipulative and surely wants something.”
“Okay,” Kim acknowledges. “We will keep that in mind when engaging with her. She claims to be the leader of your world?”
“She is… sadly,” Lark says.
“I shall simply crush her head between my hands. Watch her brains ooze between my fingers,” Vero announces as he starts toward the door, but I hold a hand up.
“Let me see what she wants and then we’ll see about crushing her head,” I say.
“Crush first, questions later,” Vero decides.
My eyebrow lifts as I try to consider how that would go. Then I push him back and walk into the room with Special Agent Kim, Torin, and two other agents I haven’t been introduced to. It kind of feels like they’re just here to make sure shit doesn’t go south.
“Thank you so much for—” Onyx’s words cut off when she takes note of me.
“We meet again,” I say.
She just gives me a gentle smile. “We meant you no harm. You have to understand you kept so many secrets from us that we had to be cautious. We only wanted to keep you in a cell until we could better understand you.”
