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“This is so nuts,” I announced.
“It won’t hold long. I could only manage it at all because you share blood, and there’s room to move around in here.” She tapped my forehead. His forehead.
My dad was so crazy that his lost mind was actually a benefit to us here. Silver lining, I guess.
“He’ll push you out soon though, so pay attention.”
I looked right at her. She pressed her palm to my forehead and closed her eyes. I did the same, even though she hadn’t instructed me to. The moment I did, we were surrounded by the darkness of night, and cold, damp grass kissed my bare feet. The two of us were standing in an open field, and I immediately knew where we were.
The Great Lawn.
“Why is it always the stupid Great Lawn,” I groaned. “These guys need to work on their originality.”
It was an obvious choice, though. They needed a lot of room for their gate, and in a city where open space was at a premium, it was a pretty ingenious place to draw a big-ass portal.
“Pay attention,” she said again.
“You could have just told me it was the Great Lawn,” I replied with annoyance. “This didn’t require body snatching. Though it is good to see you.”
Cal sighed and grabbed my face by the chin, holding it firmly. “I said, pay attention.”
In the grass was a sword. My sword. And swirling around it in white light was the strangest pattern I’d ever seen. It was a circle, with loops and squiggles, and that stupid upside-down seagull I knew now was the mark of Belphegor.
“I don’t understand.”
I stared at the markings, but they shifted and moved, and no matter how hard I focused, the more the markings seemed to change. It was like trying to memorize a poem made of magnetic words that someone kept rearranging.
“What is—?”
As suddenly as I’d arrived, I was yanked back. Back through the darkness of the park, back through Calliope’s waiting room, back through the bright whiteness, until I sat bolt upright, gasping for air, on the New York sidewalk.
A few strangers were standing near my friends, cell phones poised either to photograph the possible dead body or to call an ambulance to come to my aid. I wasn’t sure which was more likely.
I stared down at my hands. Their chipped burgundy polish was my own, my shirt was my own. I tugged at my ponytail to confirm the frizzy hair was also mine.
“Jesus, McQueen, I thought we lost you for a second there.” Emilio was still crouched nearby, and though his words indicated a level of concern, his face showed nothing of his true feelings.
“I went inside,” I said, though this obviously couldn’t explain what had just occurred. Telling them what had happened would require more time and detail than I had.
“All right, all right, guys, she’s okay.” Ingrid started to usher the strangers away. As they moved down the sidewalk or into the store, still craning to see if I would either get up or die, Holden and Sutherland came out of the café and rejoined us. Sutherland looked down at me as if I were the strange one here for being on the sidewalk.
“That’s very dirty, you know.”
Did he remember any of what had just happened? Was he even aware I’d been inside his body?
“Are you okay?” I asked him, hoping that what we’d done hadn’t messed him up any worse.
“I’m not the one sitting on the sidewalk,” he reminded me, and I could not dispute his flawless logic.
“Did you figure out where we’re going?” Ingrid asked the vampires, her voice betraying how desperate she was to have answers.
“Central Park,” I replied, not waiting for them. I wasn’t sure Sutherland would have known what I’d seen, and Holden hadn’t been with Calliope and me inside the vision. “The Great Lawn.”
“Well that’s deeply unoriginal,” Emilio grumbled.
“That’s what I said.” I let him help me up.
Ingrid looked baffled. “If you knew that, why did we send them in?”
