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The hell gate swirled faster, silvery tendrils of smoke rising and dissipating as they hit the air. Not dissimilar to the vape smoke Shirley generated.
“Right.” Eddie got her broom handle ready for the final push over the edge. Who the hell knew what would happen to the bucket. “One, two…” Eddie shoved the bucket into the hell gate. “Three!”
The hell gate emitted a loud sucking noise, then a guttural burp.
The bucket came flying back, smacking into the wall behind Eddie. The plywood seemed to be now fueling the fires of hell.
Whelp! That was that.
Rodney was standing in the workshop when she emerged from the basement.
“Edme.” He gave her a tight smile. “About this morning’s incident.” He stroked his mustache by splitting his forefinger and thumb over the two sides in a neat, practiced movement. “We cannot have vermin in the theatre.” His gaze took on a portentous cast, and he lowered his voice. “Particularly with the…er…financial difficulties we are facing and our need to attract donations.”
Eddie gritted her teeth. “I’m dealing with it, Rodney.”
“Excellent.” He clicked his heels together. “I know I can rely on you to ensure future donors do not see a repeat of this morning.”
Chapter
Four
“Eddie.” Jean-Claude sounded even happier than the last time she’d called to hear from her that night. “Bonjour.”
Callbacks had gone without another hitch. The app showed the hell gate as stable. For whatever that was worth, because the damn thing hadn’t flickered when the toad had appeared. “Hi, Jean-Claude. Is Dee there?”
“Dee?” He sounded as if the idea of Dee being at the end of her phone was an unusual request. “Dee is at dinner now.” The phone crackled, and background noise changed to the gentle chatter of numerous voices. “Dee, she is eating now, and I will join her.”
Eddie sank on her bed and pressed a hand to the headache threatening between her eyes. She could not have this conversation in a ship’s dining room. “No, that’s fine Jean-Claude. Could you please tell her I called and that it’s urgent she call me back?”
“Everything is all right?” Jean-Claude’s voice clouded with concern.
No, it wasn’t but she couldn’t get into it with him. “If you could just tell her to call me as soon as she can.”
“But of course.” Jean-Claude’s cheery chirp was back.
She hung up and sent Dee their codeword text: WHAT THE HELL!!!
Dee had been the last official hell gate guardian, a position that Dee’s grandmother’s grandmother had first taken. When Dee retired, Rosebella, as the next woman in the family line, should have taken over. However, Eddie’s mom had envisioned an entirely different future for herself and disappeared with her boyfriend du jour—Eddie did a quick mental calculation—six years ago now. Not that she’d been a constant presence in Eddie’s life before that. Her mother believed in fly-by check-ins generally around the time she ran out of money or male companionship. The two events often coincided. Eddie had long ago given up on expecting more from Rosabella. Dee had been the constant presence in her life, her de facto mother as it were.
To be honest, the biggest issue with Rosabella not being around was the guardianship. Rosabella had been trained for the job, disappearing each summer of her childhood to a special camp for young guardians. Dee had never let Eddie go, for reasons that now that she really examined them seemed sketchy. Eddie was firstly too young, and then not following the chain of inheritance, and finally, too old to start now. In fact, Dee had been annoyingly vague about the guardianship, and it begged the question as to why. For as long as the hell gate lay dormant, which had been most of her life, she’d never bothered to ask. But she was asking now. Or she would as soon as Dee answered her damned phone.
The guardians had no idea Dee had passed the baton to Eddie and not Rosabella, and the only thing Dee had been forthcoming about was that the guardians would have very strong opinions on the matter. Probably life or death status issues that had a lot to do with Eddie not having been trained to take on what—and Eddie had to face it—was a serious job. Guarding a gate to the underworld did seem to be important.
All her life, and long before that even, the hell gate had been in the theatre basement. She’d grown up knowing it was there, and she was not to go near it and not tell anyone about it. In fact, she’d been five or six before she realized not everyone had a hell gate in their basement. And the thing had been a silent, trouble-free presence. Most days she didn’t even know it was there. Dee had been away before, and nothing like this had happened. Then Bianca had suggested Macbeth, and now all hell was breaking lose in her theatre.
After a dinner of a peanut butter sandwich and a bowl of popcorn—made the old-fashioned stovetop way, thank you very much—Eddie indulged in a long, relaxing bath before climbing into bed.
She read until her eyes were crossing, and she was in peril of braining herself with her e-reader. She was stalling going to sleep. The last dream had disturbed her, and she was less than keen to visit another war zone. After a last check on the app and another trip to the basement to make sure the hell gate hadn’t spit out another unwelcome guest, she took the chance on sleep.
When she connected with him, Shade was running through a mist shrouded jungle. Yips, howls, and grunts pursued him as he wove through the trees. Sweat and blood smeared his face, his jaw set in a grimly determined line. Around him, shadowy figures kept pace with him, but whether they were with him or pursuing him, Eddie couldn’t tell.
Her heart rate accelerated to match the pumping of his strong legs.
He burst out of the jungle into a meadow lush with wildflowers.
“Shade!” A deep bass voice resonated behind him.
Increasing his pace, Shade gathered his muscles and leapt. Giant wings burst out of his back and swept him into a murky sky. Light played across the midnight black of his wings and caught iridescent bolts of gold and blue buried in the silky feathers.
