two husbands who’d just come into their legendary powers and were
now at risk because a fucking demon had carted her off the plane,
again.
Meg walked for what felt like an hour in a daze. She had nothing.
She had no way to get home. She didn’t even have a coat, and while
she’d been gone, it had gotten cold on the Earth plane.
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She walked until the crowds were gone. She walked through the
quiet streets of downtown in abject misery. She would have to accept
the fact that there was no way to get home. She couldn’t find the door
to the Faery plane. Even if she could, how would she open it?
A great wave of sadness rolled over her as she finally had to face
the fact that Beck and Cian were gone. They were separated from her
by that door as surely as death could ever force them apart.
Would they think she’d run? Meg couldn’t stand that. She loved
them.
Meg stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and leaned against the
brick of the building. The tears would be held off no longer, and she
sobbed into her hands. How could she be here, so far from them? She
still felt them. They were in her heart. How could the distance be so
great? The demon had been right. She was a nothing on this plane.
She had been someone on the Faery plane, and not because she had
been queen. It wasn’t that Beck and Cian had loved her, either. Their
love hadn’t made her into the woman she had become. Her love had.
Loving them had made her a better person. Love had made her
heart into a huge thing with the capacity to forgive even herself.
She would hold on to it. She would hold on to the love she had for
them. If there was any way to get back to them, she would find it.
There were vampires on this plane. She would find them. The
vampires would help her, if they didn’t eat her first.
Meg felt better now that she had a plan. It was an insane plan, but
it was a plan. She felt the satchel on her hip and sighed in relief. The
vampire computer was still in it. Its shape and weight were a joy to
her. She wouldn’t be able to connect to the vampire version of the
internet, but there were thousands of DLs on every subject imaginable
that she could read. Dante had shown her some anthropological
articles from a scientist who had spent years on the Earth plane
studying the vampires here before his contract with the demon had
come up and he’d been dragged to hell.
Vampires were serious about science.
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She stood. It was getting really late. She had to deal with the fact
that she didn’t have a home anymore. She needed to find a place to
stay. Where had the lady said the homeless shelter was?
Turning back to the sidewalk, a neon sign caught Meg’s eye. Her
mouth dropped open as she realized that her salvation might not lie
with a bunch of vamps.
She stood before a small store. The neon sign proudly proclaimed
its name.
Dellacourt Electronics
If it’s broke, we’ll fix it
And it looked like someone was still home. There was a light on
in back of the store, and someone was moving around.
Meg banged on the door with all her might. She pounded and
pounded, not caring that she sounded completely insane.
“Dante!” she yelled with a mad sort of glee. “Open the door,
Dante!”
After a long moment, she saw a very familiar face peek out the
window. His eyes were narrow with suspicion.
“We’re closed, crazy lady,” Dante said. He pointed to the little
sign in the window that had been turned to “closed.” He obviously
thought she was insane, but he was still Dante. His eyes had moved
straight to her chest, and he was boldly checking her out.
“I’m here for sex, Dante,” Meg said plainly.
Dante opened the door immediately.
“Really?” he asked. He was slightly thinner than his vampire
counterpart and was dressed like a nerd, but he was Dante all the
same.
“No, idiot,” Meg said with a tearful smile as she pushed her way
in. She couldn’t help it. She threw her arms around him. “But I am so
glad to see you.”
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He hesitated only a second before letting his hands find her waist.
“I’m glad to see you, too. How do we know each other? If I owe you
money, I’m really sorry. I don’t have any. Did my sister send you?”
“No, Susan didn’t send me,” Meg said. “You don’t owe me
money, and get your hand off my ass, Dante. I’m a married lady. And
you’re going to help me get home.”
Dante stepped back. “You want me to call you a cab?”
“If only it were that easy. I need a hell of a lot more from you, but
I know you’re up to the task. It’s fate, Dante. Do you believe in fate?”
“Not for a minute,” he said with a shrug. “Although, if it gets me
something, I’ll believe in fate, sweetheart. I can believe in anything
you like.”
Meg grinned as she reached into her satchel and pulled out the
unassuming computer Vampire Dante had given her. “How about
vampires?”
Human Dante made a couple of vomiting sounds. “Oh god, no.
Not one of those. Please go away, Twihard. Do you know how many
comments I’ve gotten since Twilight came out? I know I look a little like him, but seriously, not even for tits like yours will I put in plastic fangs and act like I can sparkle.”
Meg snorted and rolled her eyes. “First, you do not look like him.
Not even close. Second, I told you, I’m married. Third, please sparkle
for me. I think it would be funny. Now, shut up and listen. I think
you’ll find this very interesting.” She handed the computer to him.
Dante took the tablet. “This is an iPad. I think it’s nice that you
have one. Can I go to bed now?”
Meg saw her mistake. “Let me turn it on.” She flipped a switch
and the menu came up. The menu in this case was a holographic
female. As she’d been programmed by Dante, she was gorgeous and
wore very little clothing.
“How may I help you, Dante love?” She also had a very sexy
voice.
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“Holy shit,” Human Dante swore. “Where the hell did you get
this?”
Meg smiled. Now she had him.
* * * *
Dante Dellacourt shoved a hand through his red-gold hair. It was
long, hanging past his earlobes. Normally it didn’t bother him, but he
was pretty sure it made him look grungy in front of the pretty woman
sitting in his store. Not that perfectly combed hair would have helped.
He smoothed his hands over his slightly wrinkled Lex Luthor for
President T-shirt. Why couldn’t he have done some laundry? And
why did it matter? The chick hadn’t come to try to date him.
He’d been listening to the craziest story he’d ever heard for the
last hour and a half. The redhead was hot, but completely insane.
She thought vampires were real. She also believed in faeries and
dem
ons and hags, though Dante was getting that this wasn’t the kind
of hag who dressed up nice to hang around gay bars. She was sure
she’d been to another plane of existence. According to her, there were
many planes, some easily accessible, some not. She was bonkers.
Except he’d been playing around with the computer she’d given
him. It was far more advanced than anything he’d ever seen before.
No one in the industry was even talking about a system that could do
the things this one could. It was a supercomputer. It held so much
information that Dante couldn’t even think of a name for the storage
capacity. It blew past terabytes. It had a connection to an internet but
claimed there was no connectivity here. Dante had played around and
gotten the system to acknowledge his wireless connection. The
superhot hostess had been unimpressed. She’d asked him why he’d
connected her to such a primitive system and promptly downloaded
the whole of the global internet. The whole fucking thing.
“Where did you get this?” Dante asked.
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The girl named Meg rolled her eyes. “I told you. Your vampire
counterpart gave it to me.”
Dante remembered that part. There was a Vampire plane. He was
a royal there. He worked for Dellacorp, and it was huge corporation.
His vampire counterpart obviously had it better than he did. He ran
this shitty two-bit store and was going nowhere fast. The other Dante
sounded like a guy who got an enormous amount of tail.
“As far as I can tell, this thing is nuclear powered,” Dante said in
amazement. “How can that be possible? And I think it took my blood
a couple of minutes ago. It thinks I’m not edible. What’s up with
that?”
“Dante, well, the other Dante, he goes to a lot of different planes.”
Meg sipped the coffee he’d made and continued. “The computer is set
to test potential food sources. I’m afraid it’s decided you’re toxic.”
She looked at the screen. “Too much pollution, and wow, apparently
you have a lot of sugar in your system.”
Dante unselfconsciously ate the second half of the Twinkie he’d
been downing. It didn’t bother him that vampires wouldn’t consider
him proper food. In his mind, it was a plus.
“The vamps here would probably love you, though,” Meg said
with a bright smile. “According to what I’ve read, they’re not as picky
here.”
“Good to know,” Dante said, chugging a Dr Pepper. “So, let’s say
I buy this whole crazy story of yours.” He looked around again for the
hidden cameras. If he had any friends, he’d think they were punking
him. “What exactly is it you want me to do?”
She chewed on her lower lip nervously. “I need you to help me
get back.”
“And how am I supposed to do that, sweetheart?” Dante asked.
“I’m not exactly a Planeswalker demon.” That was what she’d called
them. “How am I supposed to find this door?”
Her hazel eyes filled with tears. She really believed the story. “I
don’t know. I just know that you’re here, and you’re going to help
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me. I believe it. It wasn’t random coincidence that I found myself
here. It was fate.”
Dante wasn’t so sure about that, but there was no denying that
technology. He wanted it. If he had to do some internet searches to
placate the girl, he would do it. Besides, she really was hot. Maybe
when she realized there was nowhere else to go, she would turn to
him. He could comfort her. It was a nice prospect. His brain started
working overtime.
“Okay, so no one knows where these doors are, right?”
Her pretty hair shook around her shoulders. “No, most of them are
well-defined. People move easily through them. The door to this
plane is hard to find, and I think there’s more than one. I don’t know
why. Some people have gotten through. That’s why we have vampires
on this plane. And, according to the computer, werewolves and
shapeshifters and the Loch Ness monster. She comes from a
waterworld. It’s very sad.”
“Nice,” Dante said. She was taking loony to a whole different
place. “So we have to suspect that this door is here in the city. Is it
open all the time?”
“More than likely not,” Meg explained. “The other doors aren’t
always open. I read that some people can open them at will, but others
have to wait. The door from my village’s plane to the Vampire plane
opens three times a day. I think we can assume the door here is
something like that. It’s somewhere in the city. I don’t think I was out
very long.”
“So there’s a door to a different plane right here in Fort Worth,”
Dante mused. “It can’t be in an office building. Someone would
probably notice something like that. I bet weird stuff happens around
it. It’s a long shot, but this baby is pretty cool.” He pushed the button
that brought up the menu. “I need to run a search.”
“Of course, master,” the computer said with an inviting smile.
“Which pornographic material should I seek out today?”
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“Nothing like that. I want you to run a search on all strange
happenings in the city of Fort Worth, Texas. Use the human internet,
the primitive, sucky one. Check things like police reports and news
articles and even blogs. I need a list of locations around the city where
strange things happen.”
The hostess bowed her head and winked out of existence to start
her search.
“There,” Dante said to Meg. She was looking at a photograph he
kept on his desk. “We’ll have someplace to start soon.”
Meg’s face had gone soft as she looked at the picture of four men
in tuxedoes. They were all smiling, with their arms around each
others’ shoulders. Dante knew the photograph well. He’d taken it
himself. “The twins are my cousins. They’re from Ireland.”
Meg nodded and almost reverently touched the picture. “Their
hair is short. It looks good, though. Why are they wearing tuxedoes?
And who are the other men? Do they have other brothers here?”
Dante was used to women drooling over his very attractive
cousins. No one paid him a bit of attention when Beck and Ci were
around. It gave him great pleasure to tell her where the picture had
been taken. “Nope. Just a sister. Those men are Beck and Cian’s
husbands. I took that picture at their commitment ceremony.”
Meg’s eyes widened, and she dragged him forward by the neck of
his T-shirt. Her teeth were clenched and she shook him lightly. “You
have to get me out of here. This isn’t my home. I don’t like it here.
Everything is wrong here.”
“Jeez,” Dante said, holding his hands up in submission. “I’m
working on it, babe. Why don’t you go upstairs? I have an apartment
up there. You can take the bed. I’m going to stay up and play with this
a little more. I don’t sleep much at night, anyway.”
Meg nodded. She looked exhausted. Crazy or not, she’d obviously
had an emotional day. “Thank you, Dante. I really appreciate this. I
know it will work. It has to.”
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Meg started up the stairs. He wasn’t so sure it would work, but he
was starting to believe her story. He knew one thing, though, as he
stared at the magnificent machine in front of him. His life had just
changed forever.
* * * *
The forest was filled with her laughter.
“You can run, Cian,” the hag’s voice said. It seemed to echo
through the trees. “But you can’t hide.”
She was wrong, Cian realized as he struggled along the river. He
could hide. The trees themselves would aid him. He just had to get
deep enough into the forest. It was hard because he carried his
brother’s weight as well as his own. Only the traps he’d been able to
set as he ran had saved him from suffering Beck’s fate so far.
In the distance, he could hear the hag’s frustration at another wall
of green she couldn’t get around.
They should have known, Cian cursed himself. They should never
have left Megan alone. One of them should have been with her at all
times. Now she was gone. The thought made Cian’s heart hurt. If
what the hag had told them was true, Meg was lost to them.
Trying to find Meg was what had led them to Liadan. When he
and Beck had discovered their wife missing, they panicked. She
wouldn’t have left them, so they knew something had happened.
Finding Niall’s body had been a terrifying moment, but they knew she
wasn’t dead. They would have felt her death deep in their souls. One
thing was certain, though. She was very far away.
It had been rumored in the village that Liadan used to know a little
something of witchcraft. Cian and Beck had been desperate enough to
ask if she knew of any way to seek out their wife. Cian had been wary
of the woman, but he was so desperate to find Meg that he’d allowed
himself and Beck to walk into a trap.
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She’d been smart to strike at Beck first. The arrow had slammed