The Touch of Twilight

shot over its center made me feel momentarily possessive of everything below me, and unreasonably proud. The city’s peace in the clear, cool night put me in mind of a snow globe at rest, all the glitter and sparkle winking up at me from the earth’s floor, as if the world’s orderliness depended only on perspective. Wind rippled in my mouth as I smiled back…and then, with only a hundred feet left between the ground and me, that bitch let go.

Fifty feet, thirty feet-the descent more dizzying than the initial blast-I felt my hair fluttering like a banner behind me as I streaked toward hard earth. I acclimated myself enough to know where we were heading-a swath of dirt outside the old rail yard’s fence-but that wasn’t my most pressing interest. As the ground rushed up at me, the speed had my once-mortal instincts recoiling. I pinwheeled in the air, anticipating the crash, wondering if bent knees, proper form, and superhuman healing was enough to get me out of this one, and so the movement spied from the corner of my eye barely registered.

It was the woman, or possibly just part of her, slipping beneath me to break my fall like a trampoline. I spotted the nucleus of a glimmering sheet of…well, something, and trying not to think too hard about what that something was, I landed as hard as I expected…right into its pillowing middle. It shot me back up, dangerously high, so I endeavored to return to its middle upon each subsequent bounce, and when I was bounding only as high as a single-story building, it disappeared entirely, so that I landed in a bone-jolting crouch on the gritty earth. When I looked up, the pale pearl of a woman, still ethereal and pretty and radiant as an opal, was standing beside me.

I opened my mouth, but she cut me off with one word. “Portal.”

So we weren’t out of danger yet. My mouth snapped shut, and I followed her back into the tight weave of city blocks, both of us canvassing the doorways and windows for a small, variable star. I watched her sail along in front of me, knowing I should think of something intelligent to ask or say, but she didn’t seem inclined to talk until we were well away from the Tulpa, and that was fine with me. My insides were still raw and bruised and burned.

Lately I’d been trying to avoid using the portals. I’d last accessed one during a training session where we were attempting to spot false entries, which we’d discovered had been set around the city like mousetraps to ensnare us until the Shadows could check them, and kill us. Although it’d been daylight on this side of the portal, the sun had flipped around on itself on the other side of that supernatural gateway, and I walked into a replica of the street I’d left, but for the darkness blanketing the earth while the heavens were spotlit by the sun. The alternate reality was colorless, with a silver-gray haze reducing everything to a shadowy line drawing. It had also been bitingly cold… unbearable to a desert rat like myself, and the whole experience had totally creeped me out.

Yet I was the one who spotted our first portal marker positioned above a planked-over window, and I veered to it. I’d already ripped the wood from the casing when I felt the woman’s cold hand on my back, causing me to jolt. It reminded me of that alternate reality, and I shuddered.

“Not this one,” she said, her phosphorescent features shifting with eerie undulations, like breath over the surface of a bubble that wouldn’t break. “Too close.”

I wasn’t sure why that mattered, as no one could follow once the portal closed behind us, but she was already moving away, so I followed. Maybe she was a part of that reality, I thought as I hurried to keep up, because her touch-never mind her look-wasn’t human. And maybe she’d been in the threshold of a nearby portal when she heard my frantic prayer, fighting boundaries and barriers to come to my rescue. I couldn’t imagine how many laws that would be breaking.

“Need to get back immediately?” she asked, whirling on me suddenly. I backed up two paces, nodding. Warren and the others would be worried. She inclined her head like she’d expected that and turned away, motioning for me to follow again. Normally I didn’t do passive, but after my rescue I was inclined to let her take the lead.

“Thank you,” I blurted out, speed walking to keep pace as the image of Vincent roiling helplessly in space replayed itself in my mind. “It’s not enough, but I don’t know what else to say. You saved me, you outplayed the Tulpa. I’ve never seen a black hole before, so I wouldn’t know how to escape it…and how’d you do that flying-?”

“Dear, you’re babbling.” Shimmering, she cut me off with a slanted look, and I took a deep breath, not caring if she could scent my relief, my shock, and my exhaustion on the exhale. One side of her gleaming mouth quirked, but she kept those sharp teeth hidden as she jerked her head to the left.

“Sorry. I’ve never been rescued by an angel before,” I said, as I sniffed at the air. Warren left a trail like a skunk…deliberately, though. He knew I’d recognize it and head in his direction, and right now it smelled like he’d moved to the nearby outlet mall where he liked to window shop after a long day of panhandling. I started that way, but paused when the woman doubled over in her tracks. Laughter caused her to literally froth at the mouth, spume also slinging from the ends of her constantly rejuvenating hair with every jerk of her tiny body.

I smiled uncertainly, then ducked my head as she motioned for me to keep heading forward, though I remained aware of her behind me-the angle of her body, the pressure of that cold palm on my back again-as we hiked along Charleston Boulevard. I thought about blowing a breath in the direction of the shops to let the troop know I was coming, but didn’t in case the Tulpa was still in the vicinity.

“Who are you?” I said, when the woman had finally sobered. She was still smiling, those teeth like dazzling white stones, her marble eyes catching the streetlights to dance.

“Do I look like a ‘who’ to you?” She glanced away as she scoffed, then did a double-take at a run-down auto shop. “Oh, look,” she said casually. “There’s our portal.”

I glanced at the dilapidated building, seeing nothing but chipped paint, rusting roll-doors, and a pile of stripped tires breeding black widows in the side lot. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Between the fence and the paint booth,” she said, nudging me closer. “Soften your gaze.”

I stared again at the auto shop, letting everything at the forefront of my visual perception blur. Then, like a lighter being flicked, a canary yellow portal popped out at me from over the glass door. After a moment, however, it slowly bled over into a deepening burgundy. The woman moved closer when I gasped in surprise. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“It’s just…I’ve never seen one turn that color before,” I said, gaze lingering on it before I turned fully to face her. “I thought they all looked like tiny stars.”

Under the spotlight of the streetlamp, I could see her hair beading, constantly re-forming at the root, sliding down the shaft in effervescent droplets, and fracturing at the tips to keep it blunted below her glistening shoulders. More surprising, however, were her eyes. They lacked irises or even a tint of color; pure orbs as white as carved out pearls, though brightly alive. She returned my intent look, almost as if drinking me in, and I drew back a bit, reminding myself that while beautiful, as well as my rescuer, she was also extremely powerful.

“It’s fine,” she said, her lips repositioning themselves on her face as she smiled at me. It wasn’t just her expression altering, I realized. It was her whole face, constantly forming and re-forming. “Come.”

I hesitated. If there was one thing I’d found in my short time with the troop, it was that limitations were placed on us for a reason. We learned of things when we were meant to, and too much knowledge could skew one’s actions in the same way going to a psychic could alter mortal behavior. I bit my lip, not wanting to offend her- owing her-but not wanting to go somewhere my troop leader couldn’t find me. She smiled, noting my reluctance.

“Just a quick peek,” she encouraged, hand again guiding my back. But this time it chilled to the spine.

I angled away from her touch. “Why would you want me to look inside there?”

“Because I want to help you.” Now she gripped my arm. “The Tulpa was right about the fallout of disjoined energy. A person cannot be divided against herself.”

And anyone who thought the Tulpa was right needed to not be touching me.

“No, thank you.” I placed my hand over hers and firmly pulled it away. She didn’t resist, just angled her head so a gossamer glob dropped from her hair. “I should get back. My troop will be worried.”

“Your troop, is it?” Her beautiful laugh turned brittle when she saw my mind was made up, and she pointed to my face with one disconcertingly honed fingernail. “My goodness, is that a mask or blinders that you’re wearing? Either way, it works brilliantly.”

But peer pressure did not. I squared on her and put some distance between us. “Why did you save me from the Tulpa?”

“Now you’re asking the right questions.” But the edge in her voice reminded me of steep cliffs, sharp rocks, and divers poised tenuously on the edge. She was going somewhere with this, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to follow there either. “Well, obviously it wasn’t out of the goodness of my heart.”