Page 4

“Aww, come on, Grath. Ulrik.” I pout like a child. “I’ve been cooped up in my office all day. You wouldn’t deny a colleague a little leg-stretch, would you?”

Grath crosses his massive arms, the metal of his gauntlets screeching against his chest plates. “Fuck off, Malachi.”

“Just a peek?” I ask, tilting my head. “I’ve heard the desperation is lovely this time of year. I just want to see the view.”

“No. You know the protocols for the Forbidden Zone,” Ulrik grunts through his tusks—they’re so overgrown they’ve punched through his upper lip, giving him the look of a perpetually confused walrus in a breastplate. “No unescorted entry without written consent forms.”

I sigh dramatically, looking at my nails. “Alright, alright. You drive a hard bargain. I’m not here to start a war, boys. I just need a walk.”

I fish around in my pocket until my fingers close around smooth, cold bone. I pull out two pale, pristine teeth and flip them between my fingers like coins. “Wisdoms. Extracted them myself last night. Mass murderer, heavy on the cannibalism, excellent enamel.”

Their gazes follow their favorite form of currency hungrily.

“Go on,” I coax. “Buy yourselves something nice. Maybe get a polish on those tusks, boys. You’re starting to look like you chew gravel for breakfast.”

Grath hesitates for a second before his massive hand darts out, snatching both teeth from my palm with a snarl.

“Official warning,” he mutters, his voice dropping into a rehearsed monotone as they open the gates. “You don’t cross the lines. No contacting the subjects. No physical manifestations. You touch the Veil; you face the shit. And we did not let you in. Understand?”

“Crystal clear,” I lie smoothly.

They both step aside, their heavy boots grinding against the floor. I stroll through, tossing them a lazy, two-finger salute as the iron bars groan shut behind me with a final, heavy thud. “Appreciate it, gentlemen. Don’t work too hard.”

Assholes. If I had hands that big, I’d find a better hobby than standing in a drafty hallway reciting the employee handbook.

The air buzzes with static the deeper I go into the corridor. I look up, eyes panning over the cosmic call center for idiots who think they can outsmart death or summon things that will make their pathetic lives just that little bit better.

Electric residue hums across my skin as I wander between the portals at a leisurely pace. Each one yawns open onto another slice of mortal desperation—bedrooms buzzing with panic, basements moldering in secrets, churches sweating fear through polished pews. All unique, yet all steeped in the same intoxicating mix of fear and wishful delusion.

In one archway, a girl is huddled on a bedroom floor, drowning in a sea of guttering candles. She’s chanting something—a string of warped syllables that have clearly been ripped from some half-assed tutorial on a ‘hex-your-ex’ blog.

Before I can even find a comfortable place to lean, the portal gives a single, irritated ripple and dissolves into a smudge of grey smoke, leaving the space empty.

Three gates down, things are slightly more promising.

A priest is in the middle of a full-blown meltdown. He’s hunched over a kid strapped to a bed, scripture pouring from his mouth in hoarse, ragged bursts. His collar’s askew, sweat dripping off his jaw and onto the boy’s heaving ribs. Holy water drips from his hand, splattering across the mattress.

Ah, an exorcism. Very retro.

I linger for a second, waiting for the head-spin or the projectile vomit, but the priest’s faith is as shaky as his hands. The connection is too weak to hold. It collapses inward with a sharp, dismissive snap, cutting the holy man off mid-shout, blinking the entire bedroom back into the void.

By all the fire’s below, is this impromptu break going to give me anything worthwhile? Or am I doomed to watch a highlight reel of mortal incompetence?

I rub a hand over my jaw and keep on walking, the static of the Forbidden Zone pressing against my eardrums. I’m dying for a spark—one thing interesting enough to justify the paperwork I’m going to have to forge to explain my absence.

I’ve made it exactly three steps when sudden, sharp draft whips through the stagnant heat, slapping against my skin.

There.

A portal, pulsing, leaking in mortal atmosphere like a burst pipe.

My feet are moving before I can think on it, gravitating toward the tear. I reach the fracture and lean closer, my shadow stretching across the shimmering boundary. My eyes roll back, lashes fluttering shut at the sensation of the sweet, grief-laced air brushing against my nerves, teasing and stroking me in ways I haven’t felt in too long.

Now this is more like it. This is prime, front-row entertainment.

I suck in a deep, hungry breath.

Fuck.