Mona Livelong Page 6

  Burr narrated the events that had led up to Isis’ appearance. “Wonderful!” McIntyre’s green eyes were all but dancing with delight. “She’s a sorceress! I felt this immediately. Her power, no doubt, helped create the door. “She was sent to us—”

  “To me,” Burr said coldly. “She was sent to me.”

  “She was sent to you, so we could use her. Her power will ensure the success of our plans.”

  At this Henry Burr shifted in his chair. Maybe I shouldn’t leave her here?

  “I’ll be able to channel her power through my own,” McIntyre went on, “once I break her.”

  Burr frowned. “Break her? She’s just a little girl, non?

  “She is a darkie and a witch.”

  Henry’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You will not harm her—dis you promise me—or I take her back.”

  The D.A, smiled, his green eyes glittering dangerously. “You can try.”

  Henry heard a low rumbling growl. Moments later, he realized it was coming from his own throat. His hands were tingling. He looked down ...Black talons were pushing through the tips of his fingers.

  McIntyre’s eyes widened. “Oh my! So, I see!” He clapped his hands together like a delighted child. “Alright, I won’t harm her. You have my word. Later, we’ll talk more about your newfound talents.”

  ——

  Henry Burr stood before the doorway, as he’d done more than half a dozen times since it appeared. Could he go through? Of course he could. And he must. The entities wouldn’t have created the door if they didn’t intend for him to use it. But he was terrified. What if he couldn’t get back?

  Yet he was excited too. What was on the other side? He had to know. Henry Burr took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway.

  Into another world.

  Henry gazed up at the black and gray buildings towering over him. Under streetlamps, vehicles rode past him, belching fumes from their tailpipes. To his right, an entire block had been flattened into debris, and the air had a foul stench. In the distance, a bridge stretched from one end of the city to the other. Topaz ... oui dat’s where I am

  Although he had left Monterrey in the morning, dusk had fallen here. Above him, twin moons nestled side-by-side in the night sky. Does time stop here?

  Folks of myriad races stood in groups along the streets. Racial relations in Topaz appeared to be as relaxed as in North America. Just ahead, he saw five citizens, openly staring at him. Henry realized that his clothes—a cap, stove-pipe pants with suspenders and string tie— were very different from theirs.

  The men and women wore trousers flared at the bottom and shirts; some of the other women wore short dresses made of clinging material. His eyes were drawn to one slender, light-brown woman. Glasses framed her face, and she had thick lips, and shoulder-length black hair.

  Watching them in the twilight, a memory from long ago suffused his mind. He was playing with the black and Latina children who lived at the edge of his borough. His father, Frederick, had stumbled upon him and run the children off. Later, he gave Henry the worst beating of his life with his mother, Sarah, looking on. We don’ mix with dem! We white!

  Henry never played with the children again. He threw rocks at them whenever they came near. But in private he grieved for the loss of his friends, sobbing into the crook of his arm, careful not to let his parents hear.

  Suddenly another painful memory surfaced, this one of an elderly black man who turned pages to create moving images on street corners for coins. In his mind’s eye, he saw the man’s wrinkled brown skin, his kind eyes, his smile. His father had beaten the man to death in an alleyway. The man had been disrespectful to him, so Frederick said. Yet perhaps Frederick had murdered the old man because he was black. Or maybe just because he enjoyed hurting people. Henry had liked the old man, who’d given candy to the children.

  He’d cried when his father murdered him. And Frederick had beaten Henry for his compassion. “Dey

  “Dey deserve to die!” he’d said. “Darkies, spics — all of ‘em! Dey deserve to die—!”

  Where is dis coming from? What had this world unearthed?

  A buzzing sound exploded above him … growing steadily louder. Henry looked up. Dark gray oval-shaped crafts were hovering in the night sky. Everyone screamed and scattered, Henry ran behind them, snatching quick glances up at night sky. They headed for an abandoned building. In the next moment, pellets from their underbelly dropped to the ground—exploding on impact.

  The ground shook, throwing the little group into one another. There was another explosion, and the ground shook again and again. It seemed to go on forever. Finally, it stopped.

  Henry struggled to his feet. Dis place is dangerous, non?

  The young woman he’d seen earlier was right next to him, straightening her dress. Henry gazed at her longingly. Dare he speak to her? What would his voice sound like in this strange world?

  “Are you alright?” he said.

  “Yeah, but I sure could use a drink.”

  “I could use one myself, cher.”

  She surprised him by smiling. “Come on, I know a nightspot that’s open after curfew.”

  Nightspot? Curfew? He returned her smile. “I’m Henry.”

  “Tonia.”

  He followed her to a building at the end of the block. Inside, folks sat side by side at a bar. Others stood talking or crammed together at the small tables. In the back of the nightspot, four musicians were tuning instruments.

  Henry and Tonia found a spot at the bar. “Order what you want cher and order the same for me s’il vous plait— er please.” He didn’t trust himself to even order liquor in this strange world.

  Tonia held up a hand and waved the bartender, a muscular white man, over. “Two whiskeys, please.” The bartender nodded and stood waiting. Tonia looked at Henry expectantly.

  Henry dug in his pocket ... and found his gold coins had been transformed into paper bills. Trying not to look shocked, he pulled them from his pocket, fumbling with the unfamiliar currency. Tonia reached over and plucked a bill from his hands. She handed it to the bartender, looked back at him, and smiled.

  Henry returned her smile. “Merci bien, cher.”

  “I guess that means thank you.”

  He chuckled. “Oui, I mean, yes.”

  Tonia laughed right along with him. “I love your accent—you got to be from another province. Sorre, I bet?”

  “Um, that’s right. Say, what was all dat earlier. Dem airships and such?”

  “Aren’t the world wars going on in Sorre?” Henry shook his head. “Well, it happens every week. The Council says they’re gonna put a stop to it.”

  The band began to play, and they chatted for another hour, Henry asking as many questions as he dared, though they had to shout over the music. Then Tonia stood and said she had to go.

  Henry followed her outside. “So soon? Let me walk you home.”

  “I’m going to work.”

  “At dis hour?” Henry’s heart sank. She’s selling herself.

  “I work for Topaz Hospice.”

  Hospice. Now here was word he recognized! Henry brightened. “You’re a doctor?”

  “A nurse; well sort of. They’re short on healers, so they’re training me.”

  Don’t let her get away! “I— can I see you again?”

  After the briefest hesitation Tonia said, “Alright, I live on Mulberry Ave. You know where that is?” Henry shook his head. “That’s alright. Meet me here tomorrow evening. Say about eight’o clock?”

  “Oui, yes ...” Henry said. His mind was racing. How would he know when eight pm was this world? He stared down at her. He would wait all night if he had to. “We’ll have dinner.”

  “I’d like that.” Tonia smiled her beautiful smile once more. “See you tomorrow, then.” She turned to go. Henry watched her walk away until she vanished from sight.

  A fierce cramp made him double over. He moaned —then growled. Hair was crawling along the length of his
body. He could feel it pushing through his pores. In minutes, a beast—a growling wolf— stood where a man had stood, his clothes hanging in tatters from his body. People screamed and scattered. Henry dropped to all fours; loping through Topaz’s streets back to the doorway, he leapt inside and his transformation reversed, from wolf to man.

  In minutes, a beast—a growling wolf— stood where a man had stood, his clothes hanging in tatters from his body. People screamed and scattered. Henry dropped to all fours,

  A booming voice spoke inside his head. “Fool! Do you think we opened this door so that you could consort with females? DO YOU?” These last words were so loud that Henry fell to the floor, clapping his hands over his ears, and curled into a fetal ball on the floor.

  “You belong to us now. Do as we command, or you will spend the rest of your life as a beast. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

  “Yes, yes!” Henry sobbed.

  “This is what you must do ...”

  _____

  Chapter 11: The Gift

  Monterrey’s only train station, transversed the middle of the city. Stretching outward over cobblestone streets was a city of wooden buildings with decorative turrets and more functional chimneys, many edifices built so that they shared a wall with their neighbors.

  Steam-autos and horse-drawn buggies provided transportation. On the Eastern side of Monterrey, the construction of a bridge was underway. When it was finished, it would connect the West and East boroughs. On the edge of Downtown, a clock tower had been recently erected. At night, gas streetlamps kept the city lit. Outside of the metropolis, houses were spread out, trees lined the streets, and at the furthest edge of Monterrey were the airship landings.

  Junebug stepped down onto the platform, holding Mona’s suitcase and his duffle bag in one hand, and the birdcage in the other. Inside the cage, Mona’s raven eyes were alert and watchful. Just ahead, a Latina woman with shoulder-length hair stood, flanked by two men, one Indigenous and the other black. A small crowd had gathered around her. Behind her, two young white men held painted signs with, “NO JUSTICE! NO PEACE!” painted across them.

  “North America is peaceful!” she said. “It has been since The Grand Experiment! But the murders of unarmed citizens threaten this peace! This violence is spreading like a disease across our nation! Join us to save Monterrey! To save North America!”

  “Them folks that was killed had it coming!” a heckler shouted. “If you obey the law, you got nothing to fear!”

  “Constables are not judge and jury—!” She broke off, staring upward. The sky had grown dark with hundreds of ravens.

  The birds soared down in a maelstrom around Junebug and Mona. People scrambled to take cover. They streamed across the sky, carrying the two with them, into a cluster of apartments—scattering folks. A door to one building opened and they flew inside. The ravens left Junebug and Mona and flew out the door—back to the skies above.

  Mona’s cage shook violently in Junebug’s hand, and the door popped open. She fluttered down the hallway. And her metamorphosis, from raven to woman, began. Black feathers fell from her nude body to the floor.

  “Turn away!” she cried.

  Junebug turned his back and dropped the bags. He hunkered down and pushed Mona’s suitcase behind him. He heard it click open and her rifle through it.

  “You can turn around now.”

  Junebug spun about, smiling widely.

  “What you grinning at?” Mona said peevishly.

  The ghost ran over and lifted her from the floor in a tight embrace. “‘Cause I’m so glad to see you!”

  Junebug set her on her feet. He stared down at her with a mixture of relief and gratitude on his face. They held onto each other’s forearms.

  “Girl, you scared the hell out of me! Don’t you never do nothing like that again! You hear me? How’d you turn back?”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Then how?”

  A pinpoint light appeared above them. Myriad-colored lights streamed from it, flooding the hallway. Junebug froze, staring blankly. A woman stepped out of the prism, growing larger with each step. She had cinnamon-colored skin, and her hair was braided into an upsweep. She was clothed in a sleeveless, ruffled wine-colored dress. She wore a choker centered with a black pearl, and her bejeweled feet were bare. On both hands, she wore rings that were intertwined with bracelets. The stones of the rings were tiny clocks.

  Her voluptuous form and smooth skin were those of a young woman, but her eyes ... her eyes held an ancient wisdom.

  “It’s you!” Mona cried. “I dreamed of you!”

  The woman extended her hand, drawing Mona closer and, at the same time, encasing Junebug in an oval of light. The walls spun, and a vortex of wind swallowed them. Moments later, the vortex dissipated. Mona looked around. The woman was nowhere to be seen. But she’d been transported to city of towering buildings, alongside crumbling debris. In the distance, a bridge stretched across the city.

  I dreamed about this city too!

  Then she saw it. A yard away, a thick cherrywood door was centered in what should have been a building.

  Except there was no building.

  The door stood erect, attached to nothing.

  Buildings stood on both sides of the door and three feet behind it. Beyond the doorway, Mona glimpsed a dark room. Mona blinked, wondering if she was seeing some type of illusion, conjured perhaps by a daemon. She walked slowly to the door, peering inside ... she could see a chair and a half-circle drawn beneath it on the floor. Against the left wall on the floor was thick, closed book, but she couldn’t see the cover. Mona walked around the door. The back of it was just as ordinary as the front. She walked back around, staring inside for a moment longer.

  Fuck it.

  Mona stepped inside. In a breath, she was on the street again facing the door. What the—?

  “The same thing happened to me.”

  Mona whirled about to find the strange woman who’d transported her here. “Who are you? What is this place?”

  “I am Opal, one of your Guardians. I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I just told about the door. That’s why I brought you here. You’re in Topaz, on the planet Tundra. Beyond that doorway is your Earth city of Monterrey.”

  Mona said nothing. Instead, she read the woman, searching for evil intentions. But found none. She relaxed; there was no need to fear Opal, no need for defensive sorcery. It would be useless against her anyway. She’d sensed this too. Supernatural power was coming off of Opal in waves.

  “I dreamed about this place and Others ... werewolves.” An epiphany blossomed in Mona’s mind. “You changed me back!”

  Opal smiled, her old-young eyes gazed into Mona’s brown ones. “Yes.”

  “You did all of this—the ravens, bringing me here?” She was beginning to like this woman. This entity, Mona corrected herself. No way a human could do what she did. But she reminds me of Mama Laconia. Her vibe is like Mama’s, loving and protective.

  In a sudden panic she remembered Junebug. I left him in the hallway! “Where’s Junebug?”

  “He’s sleeping. Don’t worry, no one will harm him; I’ve seen to that. He’ll be waiting for you when you return.”

  Mona turned and stared at door, and Opal walked over to stand beside her. They stood together, gazing at the door. “It can’t be much different from the Realms in my world. Except no Realm I visited ever kicked me out.”