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The gate flared bright enough to sear her retinas and then returned to its normal gray-black slumberous spiral.
Desire drained from her as fast as it had risen. Clammy sweat coated her skin and made it prickle. Her damp panties clung uncomfortably, and her breasts felt achy and sore.
With shaking hands, Eddie located the app, opened the door, and threw herself into the cool, quiet basement. The steady hum of mechanics was reassuring in its familiarity. She stumbled up the stairs to the main part of the theatre. Only once the comforting dark surrounded her, did she whisper, “What the fuck was that?”
Perched in one of her favorite places in the theatre, Eddie let her legs hang over the edge of the catwalk. Concealed by the dark above the auditorium, she finally allowed herself to think about what had happened this morning. On stage, Peter was fumbling his way through choreographing a sword fight.
The hell gate was not closed, and that was problem number one. In the dream, the other flying man had called him Shade. Perhaps Yesterday could tell her who he was. Then again, she was thinking about asking the same being for information who’d had her put salt on a bite that was even bigger today than before, and who’d also told her they’d shut the hell gate.
Yesterday popped up beside her. She hadn’t seen him since she’d encountered naked Shade in the basement. Part of her had been hoping he’d hopped through the hell gate with dream man. Except, not so much dream man anymore. He was an asshole. An extremely hot asshole, but also scary and a dickhead.
“Where did you go?” Eddie had no idea how she would explain an imp running around the theatre. Beasties that looked like toads and grasshoppers she could explain away, but Yesterday—not so much.
“Dave!” Peter bellowed from the stage. “It’s a sword not a bloody baseball bat. Swing it like you mean to do some harm.”
“Um…Peter?” Barrie lowered his sword. “Do we really think it’s right for Dave’s character?”
“He’s playing Macduff,” Peter thundered with the kind of projection actors dreamed off.
Dave took the opportunity to practice a couple of thrusts and parries. “En garde,” he yelled and lunged at the drapery.
“What are they doing?” Yesterday took a seat beside her, his stubby legs sticking straight out in the air.
“Acting.” Reliable or not, Yesterday was her only source of information, and until Dee contacted her, he was the best resource she had. “Where did you go?”
“Acting.” Yesterday tested the word out as if sampling it for the first time. “What is that?”
Eddie didn’t have time or energy to go into the explanation. What had happened in the basement had shaken her to her core. She had a normal sex life—current dry spell aside—and liked to think of herself as having a normal sex drive, but what she’d felt this morning had been beyond her experience. “Acting is like a game of pretend.”
“Hmm.” Yesterday wrapped his arms around the safety bar on the catwalk banister. “Are they warriors?”
Eddie had to chuckle at that one. “No, but they’re pretending to be.”
“Not very well.” Yesterday snorted.
“I understand that, Peter.” Barrie jammed his hands on his hips. “And correct me if I’m wrong, but it always struck me that Macduff was more cerebral than Macbeth.”
“Where did you go this morning?” Eddie asked. Yesterday had disappeared faster than ice on a summer day.
Yesterday kept his focus on what was happening onstage. “They do not know how to fight.”
“When you left me in the basement.” Eddie spent her life around people who dodged answering questions. “Where did you go?”
“Macduff defeats Macbeth.” Peter threw his hands up. “He kills him.” Getting nose to nose with Barrie, Peter yelled. “He cuts his head off.”
“I realize that, Peter.” Barrie got snippy. “I’ve read the script. In fact, I’ve done Macbeth at least five times.”
Dave got tired of swishing his sword around. “Are we going to, like, choreograph this fight or what?”
“Dave!” Barrie and Peter yelled at once.
“We are discussing your character.” Barrie sniffed.
“Those swords do not look real.” Yesterday inched away from her, ears twitching in all directions and looking shifty as hell.
Eddie pinned him with a stare. “You left very quickly. And you left me alone with Shade.”
“Of course I left.” Yesterday looked at her as if she’d lost the plot.
