I heard a growl from Beast. “Rafe, we’re being followed.”
All four of us turned to study the area behind us.
I saw countless lights on the ground and at least a dozen in the air between us and the mountains. “I don’t see anything,” I said.
“Me either,” Ashley said.
“There,” Aunt Emily said. “About our five o’clock, front to back, and about two o’clock high.”
It took me a second, but then I deciphered what she meant and looked for what she had noticed. I saw it. A flashing light at least a mile or more behind and above us.
“Do you think we showed up on radar and someone is checking us out?” Ashley asked.
“People don’t show up on radar, at least not easily,” Emily said. “It takes metal or rigid materials to reflect radiation.”
“She’s right,” Rafe said. “That’s some kind of helicopter. Who do we know with helicopters?”
I figured his question was rhetorical, so I didn’t answer, but I was thinking about the woman we released two nights ago.
“What do you think we should do?” I asked.
“We certainly can’t go back to your aunts’ house while we’re being tailed. We’ll have to either ditch them or persuade them to go elsewhere,” Rafe replied.
“I don’t want to fight while we have my Aunts with us,” I said.
I was watching the helicopter, waiting for Rafe’s reply, when there was a flash of light beneath the helicopter.
“They’re firing on us!” I shouted.
Rafe turned to watch the fiery streak that was cutting the distance between the helicopter and us.
“You’d think they’d have learned a lesson the other night,” Rafe said.
“What are you going to do?” asked Ashley.
“Well, we can’t take down that helicopter over the middle of the city. There’s too great a chance of innocents being in the way. The missile is another matter,” Rafe replied. He raised an arm, and his left fist glowed golden against the night sky. Lightning flashed down from a cloudless sky and struck the missile. It exploded in a ball of fire.
“Wow! You did that?” Emily asked.
“Don’t bother him with questions when he’s working,” I scolded, for once feeling like the adult rather than the child when dealing with my aunt, Command Sergeant Major Emily Levins.
Rafe didn’t wait for another attack. He triggered another tat that glowed beneath his leathers. “Okay, here we go.”
A moment later, I felt a shift as we flew through a portal.
In an instant, we were somewhere else. Rafe closed the portal behind us and said, “Beast, head more northerly.”
“What was that?” Aunt Emily asked.
“A gateway,” I said. “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”
“Oh, my God,” Ashley said as she pointed downwards.
We were flying a thousand feet over a river valley mostly covered by a dark forest and a scattering of lights that could have been campfires.
“Where is this place?” Emily asked.
“I have no idea. Rafe?” I said.
“It’s a peaceful world. We should be safe here. We’ll cross back over as soon as we’re far enough away from the helicopter to be sure they can’t track us.”
“Do we have to go back right away? I’ve never been to another world,” Aunt Ashley said.
“We can’t stay away too long. We have business in our world, and this could just be another attempt to distract us from our mission,” Rafe said.
“You didn’t say what your mission was. What brought you to the Springs and why is someone launching air-to-air missiles at you?” Aunt Emily asked.
“I can’t really explain the second question, but for the first, Verðandi sent us here to fix a problem. It’s what we do.”
“What kind of problem?” Ashley asked.
“We’re supposed to be preventing Ragnarök,” Rafe added.
“What’s he talking about?” Aunt Emily asked me quietly.
“It’s the Norse equivalent of Armageddon. The gods get together and have a bloodbath. It’s supposed to bring about the end of the world,” I answered equally softly.
Emily was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “You wouldn’t be pulling your favorite Aunt’s leg, now would you?”
“Favorite? I have two aunts now. Maybe Ashley is my favorite,” I said.
Aunt Emily released her tight grip on my waist with one hand and pinched the nerve in the top of my thigh. I squealed, drawing both Rafe’s and Ashley’s attention.
“Really, Emily, you think this is a time for horseplay?” Ashley scolded.
“Ah, I didn’t hurt her,” Emily complained in a petulant tone.
“She’s right, Aunt Ashley. She always does that when I tease her. It’s just her way of showing affection,” I said.
“What? Affection? I wasn’t showing any such thing. I was trying to get you to–”
“Sweetheart, don’t you think you could save that kind of behavior for when we’re in our own world. Look around you, dear. This is another world! Aren’t you amazed?”
Aunt Emily was quiet for a moment, and then she said, “Looks like it could be anywhere in North America.”
Rafe laughed.
“What’s so funny, junior?” Aunt Emily asked.
“If you could see who was around those campfires, you wouldn’t be so caviler about what world you are on…and don’t call me junior. I was a Wanderer before you were anything more than a twinkle in your father’s eyes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What he means, Aunt Emily is that he’s been a Wanderer for more than forty years. You are considerably younger than Raphael.”
Aunt Emily seemed to puff up. “That’s ridiculous. He can’t be much older than you.”
Aunt Ashley laughed. “Sweetheart, haven’t you been paying attention? Tess is Rafe’s apprentice. That alone implies that he’s a mature Wanderer, someone who has spent years learning a magic that I can only guess at.”
“Rafe told me I’d probably be his apprentice for twenty years,” I said.
“There, you see, sweetheart. Twenty years just to learn everything that makes a person a Wanderer. How old would you have to be to actually have an apprentice?”
Rafe laughed. “You can
