The Arrivals

Chapter 38

For a moment Jack wasn’t sure he could resist shooting. Edgar was dead on the floor; Katherine’s hands were wet with her lover’s blood. Chloe was staring at Ajani with horror plain in her expression. Somewhere in the house, Melody was dead—by Hector’s hand—and in the darkened library, Ajani had the temerity to sip his brandy in silence.

The bullets in Jack’s pistol would stop Ajani from rising again, and Jack wanted almost nothing more than to use the toxin that Garuda had provided. The one thing that mattered more to him was his sister, and she would be devastated if Edgar’s death were permanent. If his death could be undone, Jack would still his hand.

Still, he felt it only right to point out to Ajani that they weren’t powerless. He had his pistol trained on Ajani as he said, “The bullets are filled with poison. I can kill you permanently this time.”

Ignoring Jack, Ajani held out a glass to Kitty. “Since your brother seems otherwise occupied . . .”

She shook her head. “He’s not joking about the poison, Ajani.”

“I realize that.” Ajani watched them with a bemused expression. “I wonder, though, are you willing to gamble? What if I told you that I could send one of you back?”

“You can’t be serious—”

“To open the portal, I require a sacrifice,” Ajani said in an obviously falsely saddened voice. “That’s the cost of the opening. I’ve tried deaths from here, shed the blood of every species of beast and being in the Wasteland, but it appears that only someone from our world will do.”

“Our world?” Chloe echoed.

“Yes,” Ajani answered her, but his attention remained fixedly on Katherine. The extent of his obsession with her became frighteningly clear. There was no way Jack was walking out of this house without Ajani dead on the ground.

Quietly, Jack told Chloe, “The bullets in Edgar’s gun are filled with the same poison.”

She smiled in a way that was eerily reminiscent of Melody in a good mood, but she said nothing.

Ajani didn’t even glance at them.

“I’d hoped it wouldn’t ever come to this,” he said. He paused and smiled, clearly drawing out the tension for his own amusement. “I’ll give you a choice. Would you like to go home, Katherine? I can send you or Jackson back.”

Katherine stayed silent, but Jack saw her hesitate, an expression of incredulity on her face that matched what he felt. Of all the things he had expected Ajani to offer, that was nowhere on the list. After far too many years in the Wasteland, they were being offered a chance to return to the lives they should’ve led.

“Go home?” Kitty echoed. “Like you could—”

“I was the first,” Ajani interrupted. “I have the spell that opens what people at home have come to call a wormhole—peculiar name, isn’t it? The spell simply calls it a portal.” He lifted his hands in a wide what-can-you-do gesture. “I can’t guarantee the year, but I have experimented a bit, so I’m fairly certain that it would be near the time you originated.”

At Katherine’s silence, Ajani lifted one shoulder in a delicate shrug. “Fine. I am willing to even send two of you back, alive.”

“To the same time?” she asked.

“You can’t go to a time earlier than your own.” Ajani gave her a small smile. “Cordova would arrive dead if I tried to send him back to a time before he was born. I can send him and Jack to their rightful years, or I can send you and Cordova to your rightful years, or I can send you and Jack.”

“So no matter what, I give up Edgar? Why?” Katherine’s temper flared and her hand went to her own gun.

Ajani smiled, his gaze on the gun in her hand. “Call it a lesson. It takes a death to move between worlds. That’s the cost I’ve had to pay each time.”

Jack had watched his sister, knowing her decision before she even made it. “Right. If you can really open the wormhole”—Jack drew the word out, finding it even more ridiculous as he said it—“does that mean all the people here are here because of you?”

“Not the natives,” Ajani replied drolly.

“Us, though? The ones from home. Did we all end up here because of you?” Jack prompted in what he considered a reasonable tone.

Ajani sipped his brandy in silence for a moment before answering. “Yes, I brought you here. All of you.”

Chloe pulled the hammer back, the sound loud in the room. Jack glanced at her, but only Katherine moved, stepping in front of her, placing her back to Ajani in the process.

“Send Chloe home,” Jack said quietly.

Katherine looked at him in shock.

“I’m not leaving you here, and Edgar would rather die than be apart from you.” Jack shook his head. “But there’s no way you’re going to let him stay dead. Send Chloe back.”

“Bravo, Jackson,” Ajani said. “If you want to stay here—and I’m assuming Katherine wants Edgar to live—let’s send Chloe back. She’s of no use to me.” He walked to the desk and lifted a piece of paper. “If you’re able to do this, Katherine, in time I’ll also send Cordova and Jackson back.”

Kitty swallowed audibly. “What do you want me to do?”

He held out the paper. “Read it, Katherine. Show me that you’re every bit as rare as I believe. I kept hoping another would come, but they all fail. No one else is like me. They can’t do spellwork. Only you.”

Jack watched his sister try not to shudder at the zealotry in Ajani’s voice. Silently, she took the paper Ajani held out. Her voice was shaking, but she began to read clearly: “I am lord of eternity in the crossing of the sky. I am not afraid in my limbs . . .”

The air in the room felt wrong, as if it were growing too thin.

She paused, and Ajani aimed his gun at Jack. “Don’t disregard our accord, Katherine.”

Jack gave his sister a comforting smile, and she resumed: “I shall open the light-land, I shall enter and dwell in it . . . Make way for me . . . I am he who passes by the guards . . . I am equipped and effective in opening his portal!”

The air in the room was visibly swirling, as if a vortex was being created.

Shakily, Katherine read the rest. “With the speaking of this spell, I am like Re in the eastern sky, like Osiris in the netherworld. I will go through the circle of darkness, without the breath stilling within me ever!”

The portal opened, looking like a fire opal grown large, and Ajani beamed at Kitty. “I knew you could do it.”

He walked toward the strange swirl of darkness and color, and as soon as he was directly in front of it, he glanced over his shoulder at Chloe. “Go ahead.”

Chloe took several steps toward him and stopped. “It takes the death of someone from there. How do you know which death will stick? Could it be Melody or Edgar who lives?”

Ajani hesitated, and Jack saw the truth on his face before he opened his mouth to answer. Ajani had said that a death of one of them was necessary to open the portal. Logically, that meant it could be Edgar, Melody, or even Daniel who stayed dead. Ajani didn’t say how or even if there was any way to determine which Arrival stayed dead. All Ajani managed to get out was, “Chloe . . .”

“Someone from home has to stay dead,” Chloe said, and then she shot him. She fired bullet after bullet into his body, and he jerked and jumped like a puppet in a storm.

Neither Jack nor Katherine moved.

Chloe glanced at Katherine. “He was from our world, too. If it’s last killed that doesn’t wake, that’s him now. If it’s just random, Edgar’s odds just improved. Twenty-five percent is better than thirty-three.”

“Thank you,” Katherine choked out around the sobs that were coming over her.

The darkness swirled, and Katherine stared at it and then at Jack. She looked like the weight of Edgar’s death was too much to process, like she needed to be protected or, at the very least, given space to mourn. She dropped to her knees. Her hand covered her mouth, but it didn’t muffle her loud sob.

Chloe lowered the gun. “Will Ajani stay dead with that poison?”

“Garuda thinks so,” Jack said. “If not, you’ll be safer once you go back to your time. If you’re not here, he can’t reach you if he does wake.”

Chloe looked at Katherine, and then at Edgar, and finally back at Jack. “If he doesn’t stay dead, he’s going to come after her . . . and you. All of you.” Carefully, she placed her pistol on the floor and grabbed Ajani’s feet. She stood and looked at Jack. “I’ll stay here,” Chloe whispered. “Ajani should go . . . just in case.”

Jack wasn’t sure he was any less overwhelmed than his sister. Ajani was defeated, but at what cost? Edgar, Melody, and Daniel were all dead; Hector had betrayed them. Katherine was crying louder by the moment.

Chloe stared at Jack. “Help me get rid of him so he can’t hurt either of you again.”

He nodded, and together, they hauled Ajani’s lifeless body to the wormhole and tossed it in.

As the darkness closed in on itself, Chloe leaned against Jack, and they watched the darkness vanish.