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I shook my head. “I don’t want to risk getting trapped. Juniper is still stuck, so something is going on with this shit. Come on, I know a place.” That was a lie, but I just wanted us to get moving. I’d think of something.
That something was the alley behind a line of shops. We rescued a young woman from a bubble dimension and moved before she could tell the police about us. We went from location to location, saving one or two locals before fleeing again.
Moe insisted on stopping to buy supplies. As people exited the portals, he greeted them with, “Welcome back to the real world!” and insisted they take a care package of Gatorade, granola bars, basic medications, and toiletries.
“I worked for the Red Cross in disaster response,” he explained as we set up on the roof of an apartment building.
I wasn’t surprised by his many jobs anymore. “Did you like it?”
He crouched, lining up his care packages on the asphalt. “Yeah, I like helping people! But I rescued a puppy from floodwaters—I called her Floody. I couldn’t travel the world anymore because I had to look after her.”
I smoothed out the pages of our magical circle. “Aww. Where is Floody now?”
“She’s in doggy heaven after a fight with cancer,” Moe said, staring at his tote bags of goods. “Do you think a portal can open there?”
I leaned over to hug him. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I doubted portals could go to animal heaven, so I lied. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“It’s okay,” he said, as though he suspected I wasn’t telling the truth. “Floody is a good dog. She’ll wait for me no matter how I get there or how long it takes.”
I squeezed him tighter, as much for my sake as his.
“Look at this,” Elliot said, showing me my phone—he was in charge of tracking down the profiles of missing people.
On the screen was a blurry photo of a man with long, dark hair blowing around his shoulders. He stood before a portal with his hands outstretched and purple magic on his fingertips.
A dark witch.
“What’s he doing?”
“People claim he’s closing rogue portals before they can suck anyone in,” Elliot said.
Ram dashed to my side. “Who? How?”
He never could resist powerful or unique magic. And this witch was one of the rarest: someone who could cast portal magic without a relic or magical circle.
“Nobody knows who he is,” Elliot said, “or they aren’t posting his identity. There are no stories about him rescuing anyone from a bubble dimension. He’s just preventing more people from being grabbed.”
I nodded. “We’ll have to track him down and combine forces to stop the portals. See if you can find out who he is. Until then, let’s keep rescuing everyone we can find.”
Once I had saved the hapless locals, Juniper should stop redirecting our portal spell and I could finally free her and the Eclipses. I had no idea how she knew who was lost or where they were. But it wouldn’t be the first time her abilities and decisions confounded me.
By the time the sun set, we had hidden in a dozen places and had recovered all the missing persons we could find mentioned on Screech.
We settled in a garden shed behind a massive house with no lights on. The residents of Mansion McRichFace were probably on vacation.
I sat on the floor with the others, and we passed around the last of the food potion. I felt grungy and stinky and bone-tired, like I could sleep for fourteen days straight. Fuck, I wanted a drink. It was like there was a section of my brain that could only light up and be happy once alcohol touched my tongue. Nothing else would do it.
I ignored it and sipped the food potion before handing it to Jag. “You helped save lives, and no chainsaw arms were needed.”
“I’m surprised too,” he said with a grin.
I sighed. “We have one portal left. Juniper and my friends in Free Jinx.”
Ram pulled the magic circle from our basket. “Let’s do this.” His voice was more strained and colder than it had been all day.
I guess he wasn’t too keen on seeing Juniper after he had tried to kill her and she had bested him in battle before leaving him in captivity—that he kept escaping from. I shot him a warning glare.
His shoulders rose and fell in a sigh. “You know, I cared about Juniper once too. Why did you think I let her go after our first fight?”
