Page 4 of City of Love

Still, he shook his head. “I started my evening with this.” He pulled the parchment from his pocket and slapped it down on the table.

She smoothed it open and read, her head dropping to the side with a sigh. “Oh dear. And here I wasn’t even going to bother showing you these.” She opened a leather folio and pulled out a stack of flyers, fanning them onto the oak surface. More of the same type of thing that had been in front of his home. “They were tacked to the club doors when I opened this evening.”

“Shit,” he mumbled as he stared at the offending papers. He pulled over a chair and sank into it, gesturing for her to do the same. “I’ve heard rumblings in recent weeks. Even before these damn posters. I didn’t realize it had gone this far.” He tipped his head back against the chair, staring up at the ceiling. “My father wouldn’t have wanted this either, Alana. He’d have me close the portal. I made a promise to him.” He looked back at her. “What the hell have I done?”

The never-ending ache in his chest blossomed with renewed pain. Pain that, if he were honest, had cut through him day and night for years, bisecting his soul. His desire for knowledge and new ways to benefit his world on the one hand, his desire to protect their beloved way of life—a way of life he and his parents had gone to war to protect—on the other.

“You’ve done an amazing thing, Gideon. You took a decades-long unstable situation—where people had confusing and dangerous glimpses into another realm, where citizens of our world accidently slipped through the veil and couldn’t get back—and found a way to stabilize it. You found a way to keep people safe. More than that, you turned it into something marvelous.”

He couldn’t argue that stabilizing the openings between the two dimensions had been an essential achievement. One he could be proud of. Organizing regular crossings between the worlds had the same effect as a controlled forest fire or intentionally setting off an avalanche. Operating the stable portals seemed to have halted the random, and sometimes deadly, accidental openings. But the decision to take it a step further and form an actual, albeit highly limited, relationship with the other world was now causing a problem of a different sort.

“The black market is spreading.” He shook his head, the image of the carved jet airplane in his mind. “There have always been, and always will be, those who are enticed by shiny things, no matter the cost of the making. If we’re not careful, we could end up with another rebellion on our hands.”

Alana crossed her arms on the tabletop, leaning forward. “Then let’s close the portal. If it’s not worth it, shut it down.”

He scrubbed a hand down his face. “If only it were still that easy. You know as well as I do the decision’s not up to me anymore. There’s now a half-dozen stable portals in regular use in the major cities of the west. It’s a world decision now.”

“But you’re Chairman of the Philadelphia Portal Committee. You have influence, Gideon. They’ll listen to you. The portal is your brainchild, after all.”

Tension tightened around his neck like a python. “In other words, if it leads to the ruin of our civilization it’ll be my fault.”

She shook her head. “No, I never said that.”

He scanned the room, feeling the sudden need to escape. But it wasn’t Alana he wanted to run from. It was the truth of the situation.

Alana gathered all the papers and tucked them back into her folder. “Have you had a chance to look over tonight’s guest list yet?”

He straightened in his chair, brushing aside the dark thoughts as he remembered his meeting with the Princeton professor, now only minutes away. “Not yet. Why don’t you just fill me in. Anyone out of the ordinary I need to know about?”

All the visitors were carefully vetted. They invited only people interested in pure academic or cultural trade, without interest in monetary gain. Moreover, they did their best to keep the governmental bodies of the other world unaware of their existence as they’d come to understand how unbelievably dangerous that would be.

Alana hesitated, reaching a hand to toy with the rose quartz-encrusted pendant resting on her chest, near her heart. A matching smaller piece lay over her “third eye” as it dangled from a head band. Like Gideon’s wrist bands, the crystals served a purpose other than mere accessories. And the way she fiddled with the pendant sent a warning up his spine.

“No. Everything looks in order.” She cast her usually straightforward gaze down to the table.

“Right. Then why are you suddenly avoiding my eyes.”

Alana was rarely one to hold off speaking her mind, something was agitating her. Probably the same thing that had been pulling at the edges of her mouth earlier.

She took a deep breath and exhaled. “I didn’t see anyone unusual on the list for tonight. But… I do think we need to be extra attentive for a while.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“I hate to aggravate an already stressful evening, Gideon, but I’ve been having feelings about Matthew recently, and they were particularly strong earlier today when I crossed over and met with him to go over tonight’s guest list.”

He raked his hands through his hair, stifling a sudden need to get up and pace. “Tell me.”

Alana didn’t need to explain to him what she meant by feelings. She was a powerful empath, and he took her words seriously. “Something’s going on with him. He’s preoccupied and nervous.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I don’t know. It’s just…” She shook her head, turning her palms up.

“…a feeling. Yeah, I get it.” He stared back at her.

“I wouldn’t get too worked up about it. For all we know it’s just a personal matter. Maybe some woman broke his heart recently. It could be nothing.”

He shook his head, his jaw clenching. “He’s our security chief, Alana. In charge of almost everything on the other side. He’s supposed to be the one preventing any concern, not the one causing it.”

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