Marradith opened the door carefully. Fiona was sitting in a chair at Rafael’s bedside, with her head against a pillow. She sat up as Marradith entered the room, and rubbed her eyes.

Marradith tried her best to walk softly, despite the squeaky noise her sneakers made against the floor. Fiona looked up and smiled vaguely, taking the cup of coffee that the girl offered.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Fiona said . “Morning already?”

“It’s just past ten,” Marradith said. “It’s my turn to sit with him now.”

“You don’t have to,” Fiona protested.

“Yes I do,” she said. “I have things to do anyway,” she gestured to the backpack slung over her arm.

“Homework?” Fi said.

“Yes,” Marradith smiled. “Might as well catch up before Rafi is loading me down with more assignments.”

Marradith regretted it the moment she said it; she’d coaxed a smile out of Fiona, but the expression soon turned. The woman was very close to tears.

“Justin wants to speak with you,” Marradith added. She felt guilty for ever worrying about having Fiona around her husband. No matter what happened before, it was very clear that she loved Rafael. With all of the fighting that she and Rafael did in those weeks before his injury, Marradith would have never guessed Fiona would grieve for her husband so much. Fiona had been temporarily relieved of her command under order of the higher ups, until Rafael recovered, or perished.

Everyone knew the situation was a grim one. Despite broken bones, bleeding, and other signs of torture, the doctors weren’t sure why Castillo hadn’t been able to wake up. With each day and each hour, the hope of him returning as a whole man diminished a little more.

“I’ll be here while you’re gone,” Marradith said gently. “I won’t leave until you get back.”

Fiona nodded. “Guess I’ll go see what he wants. Call me?”

“Yes,” Marradith assured her. “I have your cell.”

****

Fiona stared into the bathroom mirror, and barely recognized her own reflection.

She looked pale, thinner, her red hair taking on a darker sheen. She washed her face with cold water and smoothed her hair back with a wet brush. It helped her look less disheveled, if nothing else. She put on some lip gloss and smeared foundation under her eyes, trying to hide the circles that bruised her skin.

She had not been back up to her room to change, but her dress still felt clean. Maybe, she’d take a quick shower later. Whatever Justin wanted, it probably had to do with business. Otherwise, he would have come and got her himself, rather than passing the message through Marradith.

Justin was waiting in one of the upper rooms; it was a library of Sojourner history that doubled as a conference room. Fiona and Justin were the alone. Once the door closed softly behind her, the musty smell of old books and paper assaulted her nose.

“This is official, Justin?” she asked.

He shrugged. “No. Not yet. I just wanted a quiet place for us to talk, outside the infirmary. Please, sit down.”

“Am I being permanently relieved of my duties?” she asked. “Because at this point, I don’t give a damn.”

“No. And so we’re clear, Fi, that order didn’t come from Paul or I. That was Connor’s decision. And it’s temporary. No one would expect you to work under these circumstances.”

“Then what’s this about?”

Justin sighed. “I received Daria’s report today.”

“And?”

“She talked about how you spent a whole day chasing someone who dumped a dead shape shifter in the park. There were markings on the body which may have identified him as Graymoor. That was quite an intricate scheme to divert your attention.”

“Perhaps,” Fiona said. “What if it really did have something to do with the Graymoor?”

“I don’t think so,” Justin said. “I think if this was the work of a shape shifter, you would have found them.”

“Have you been talking to Evan?” Fiona asked.

“No,” Justin replied coolly. “Should I?”

“He seems to have a theory about a demon having hurt Rafael.”

“What do you think about that?” Justin prodded.

“I don’t believe it. He tried to talk to me about that yesterday, and I just don’t want to hear it. It’s nonsense.”

Justin shook his head. “I may have to talk to him about that theory after all. It would explain some things.”

“Like what?”

Justin picked up a file from the table, and passed it to her. “You’re going to want to look at this, Fi. Will found this. Proof that Rafael was in communication with Syd. Months ago, back when I was on the run with Marradith. This was why Leighton always seemed to be a step ahead of us.”

Fiona picked it up. She turned pages, her fingers lingering on the edges as her eyes skimmed through the correspondence. These were computer records, emails, all time and date stamped.

“This was very deliberately done, and if Will hadn’t been stripping the computer system down, he’d have never found it. Every time I called in, Rafael contacted Syd.”

Fiona closed the file and pushed it away. A single tear trickled down her face.

“I haven’t told anyone,” Justin said. “This is a power keg. If Paul finds out, it’s the end of Rafael, period. And if one of the Ryders doesn’t kill him, the Sojourners will have him put to death for treason. You know how things go from there. The next person they always look at is the spouse. You could end up with the same fate.”

“What do you want from me? I had nothing to do with this! I didn‘t know.”

“ I don’t think that you did, but there are things about Rafael that only you know. Help me. Tell me the truth. If Rafael was somehow forced into an allegiance with a demon- if there was any reason that this could have been beyond his control– I need to know. Let me help you.”

“Why would you even want to?” Fiona asked.

“It has nothing to do with Rafael’s welfare. Knowing what he did, I don’t care what happens to him. But it’s done now, and if this comes to light it will cause a lot of uproar for the entire family, and I don’t need it. I thought about killing Rafael myself, and I won’t pretend that I might not still do it,” he said, his eyes glowing green. “ I have to think about what will cause the least amount of damage to Marradith. And I believe the best thing that could happen is for this to go away quietly.”

“Can’t you wait? I mean, we don’t know. He could still die. Could you at least let him die with his name intact?”

“It’s not about his name, Fiona. If he’s in this state because of a demon, there’s a chance that it can be undone.”

“At what price?”

“That’s something to be figured out later,” Justin said. “Right now, you had better talk.”

__________________

©2011 Lori Titus

For more info on the author and her upcoming releases for Fall 2011, see her interview with Richard Godwin:

 http://www.richardgodwin.net/interviews/chin-wag-at-the-slaughterhouse-interview-with-lori-titus

Follow her on Twitter: Loribeth215

Standing in the dining room looking out of the sliding glass door at the hill covered with evergreens, I began to understand my late uncle’s fascination with doors. He had once told me that doors led from one thing to another, not merely room to room, but time to time, and place to place. I remember thinking at the time that my uncle Ralph was even stranger than my mother said he was. Standing in the cool dark confines of my house, looking out at the hillside, I began to see what he meant. It was months before anyone noticed his absence; mainly it took so long because he wasn’t fond of company. He lived as recluse in a small mountain town, seldom if ever visiting relatives. It was cousin Herbert who used to go up and help him care for some of his livestock that notified us.  

Herbert was standing in the drive leading to Ralph’s house waiting for us as we pulled up in front of the house. It seemed that even though he had been here numerous times before he had never set foot in Ralph’s house, like I said he liked his privacy. The front door was locked so I had to resort to breaking a window to get in. While scrambling in over the broken glass I cut my hand in the process. Holding my hand clutched against my chest, mainly because I was afraid to look at the cut, I walked over and opened the front door. What a strange place, there were doors everywhere, small doors like you would use for a pet to doors big enough to drive a car through. These doors weren’t just lying around, they were mounted in the walls, floor and ceiling. What was even stranger was the door frames themselves. They all had different kinds of electrical apparatus around them, or strange diagrams like pictographs etched into the frames in a way that complimented the apparatus that was attached. One or two were way beyond my understanding to even describe, made out of an odd material that didn’t seem to reflect light at all. In fact looking at them it seemed as if they took light away from the room, causing an odd blur to surround them. They were humming, glowing and wavering like the horizon on a hot summer day. The room was full of quiet humming, buzzing and crackling, like static electric sparks. The air had a heavy scent of ozone to it, making it hard to breathe. Some of the doors had flashes of multicolored light dancing through the tiny cracks between the frame and door.

“Herbert! Come here!” I yelled sticking my head out the window.

Herbert came running around the corner of the house, my wife and son right behind him.

“I don’t think I can find the way to the front door, it’s hard to explain. You better just climb in the window and have a look at this.”

I moved back out of the way as Herbert eased his lanky frame through the window.    My wife stuck her head in and looked around.

“What in god’s name is all of this?” she asked when she saw all the doors.

“I’m not sure. I think you better stay out there until I’m sure what we’re dealing with. Besides I already cut myself when I climbed through the window”

“Can I see? Can I see?” My son Josh was yelling as he jumped up, trying to see inside the window.

“Go ahead and let Joshua look. I don’t think looking will hurt anything.”

Walking over to Herbert, who was examining one of the glowing door frames up close I could hear Josh behind me.

“Cool! Can I come in?”

“Not Yet!”

“Herbert, do you have any idea what all of this is?”

“I don’t know.” He was gently touching one of the doors on the floor. “I don’t think that they’re real. I mean where could a door in the floor go? Except down to the basement, which if I remember Ralph didn’t have.” Saying this, he pulled the door open. I heard a sound like a strong wind, and a whoosh as air was sucked into the door. I caught a quick glimpse of a mountain before the door was sucked shut with a loud clap, and bang that vibrated throughout the house.

The door wavered, as if it were seen underwater for a minute and vanished completely, leaving just the hard wood floor, slightly discolored where it had been. Herbert reached down and ran his hand over the floor for a second. The remaining doors pulsed with a bright light, and then returned to the way they had been. In the silence we heard a faint knock at one of the doors, followed by answering knocks at other doors, until the sound became so deafening I had to cover my ears.

We looked at each other and ran for the window, fighting to be the first one out of that room. As I tumbled to the ground, out of breath, I looked back at the shattered window.

“Were there any other windows besides this one?” I asked Herbert.

“No, it seems that your uncle was fonder of doors than he was windows, that was the only one I saw. I still haven’t checked out the north side of the house though, maybe there’s something there”

Deep in thought we walked side by side around the corner and stopped stunned, in front of us was a wall full of windows of various sizes, and shapes. Some set farther out of the wall, others sunken in.

“Do we even want to know?” Herbert asked looking at my skeptically.

“I remember once he told me that doors are portals you can walk through, windows are portal you can see through. I guess he wasn’t just speaking metaphorically”

Herbert looked over at the myriad of windows scattered across the north side of the house, “Just exactly what did he do for a living?”

“Far as I knew he was a farmer, but seeing no crops anywhere I don’t think that was the truth”

“Dad, where are you?” Josh called from around the corner of the house.

“I think we should just leave things the way they are” I said turning to go back to my wife and son.

“I think you’re right, this place creeps me out” Herbart said as he followed me around the corner.

High up in the north wall, in an oddly shaped windows that looked down on what was happening silvery metallic curtains closed, and deep inside the house laughter echoed…
 

__________________________

©2011 Neil Leckman