“Thanks, Eleanor. Those people just pulled up out front, so I’m gonna…”
“Whatever you need to do, sweetheart.” The woman smiled at the half-drow until Cheyenne finally turned to head toward the front door. With a slow shake of her head, Eleanor stepped out onto the veranda to weather the unexpected storm with her closest friend.
When Cheyenne slipped out the front door, the FRoE agents were just getting out of the three black SUVs that had pulled up in front of the wide stone steps. She pulled the door firmly shut behind her and moved quickly down the stairs toward them.
Rhynehart emerged from the passenger seat of the closest SUV, already wearing a dampening vest. He wedged the helmet under one arm and shut the door before heading toward the stairs. “What the hell’s going on up here?”
“Not that way. Come on.” Cheyenne brushed past him and headed around the side of the house, noticing the bushes she’d damaged and grimacing.
With a sharp whistle and a wave, Rhynehart nodded after the halfling, and his team of agents followed with their vests and helmets and fell pistols and rifles and grenades.
The halfling didn’t slow down or stop to wait for them as she headed down the flagstone steps cut into the hillside between the house and the tree line of the thick woods. Rhynehart quickly caught up with her, and they jogged down the stairs together. “Seriously, kid. I get my door busted down at seven-thirty and have to listen to Sir’s drunken rampage about a halfling know-it-all and however many heads are gonna fly because she’s trying to do our job for us.”
“That’s seriously all he told you?”
“Yeah, before he said to load up a containment team. Said I’d hear the rest straight from the drow’s mouth.”
“New portal, Rhynehart.”
“Very funny. Try again.”
“Right. Sure. New portal.”
They reached the bottom of the stairs and walked swiftly across the grass toward the other end of the field. The other agents’ boots clomped down in quick succession behind them.
“Are you shitting me right now?”
“As much as I’d love to bring three cars of your guys all the way out here for a practical joke, no. No bullshit. This is real.”
“That’s not possible.”
Cheyenne shot him a scathing glare before she couldn’t look at him anymore. “Tell me that again when you see this thing.”
Almost all the light had disappeared from the clear sky overhead, but it was more than enough to see the dark spears of black rock jutting twenty feet in the air in front of them. The halfling clenched her fists as they approached, and she moved to the right around the first stone spire to give Rhynehart the whole view.
The agent’s eyes widened when he looked at the wall of shimmering black light shooting from between the black pillars. “This doesn’t look anything like—”
“The Border portals you know? Yeah, that’s the point. It doesn’t act like one, either.”
“How the hell did this get here?”
“Ripped a giant crack in the ground, and everything else just shot up. That’s not the most important question right now.”
Rhynehart set his helmet on the ground as the other agents fanned out behind them. Some of them whispered to each other about what the hell they were looking at, but Cheyenne ignored them. “I’m guessing you know what the most important question is, then.”
“Yeah. Can your guys handle it until I figure out how to shut it down?”
The man shot her a sidelong glance. “We can handle it. That’s what we do.”
“Okay. Minor detail. This portal isn’t just different on the outside.”
“Is that some kind of Goth code for something?”
Not gonna touch that one right now. Cheyenne closed her eyes. “You’re not keeping magicals from crossing over. Honestly, I doubt you’ll even see any other magicals come through here.”
“Then I don’t know why the fuck we made this drive.”
The halfling lifted both hands to show him her palms. “I didn’t stab myself, in case you’re still confused. You ever hear the O’gúleesh who made the crossing talk about the in-between?”
“Once or twice.”
“Yeah, that’s what makes the Border crossing so awful.”
Rhynehart glanced at the shimmering wall of light and shook his head. “Please don’t tell me you tried to go through that thing.”
“No. But the asshole things that are only supposed to exist between either side of the Border tried to come through. Right here on this little patch of grass where we’re standing.”
“You can’t be serious.”
The halfling pointed at her head. “This is my serious face, Rhynehart.”
“Like I can tell the difference between any of your faces. Do you know how crazy you sound right now?”
“Oh, yeah. I know. You’re just gonna have to believe me on this one, or we’re all seriously fucked.”
The man sniffed and pinched his nose, then gazed down the length of the portal ridge and nodded. “Fine. I’ll take your word for it, but if I find out you’re just blowing smoke up my ass—”
“You won’t. Just make sure anything that tries to break through stays on the other side of that black wall. Got it?”
“Yeah.” He started pulling on his dampening gloves and didn’t look at Cheyenne when he muttered flatly, “Anything else?”
“Uh, shooting the biggest tentacle is a great way to make the main thing angry enough to try coming through. But if you take that one down first, you might catch a little break for, like, a snack or something.”
“What the fuck are you smoking?”
Cheyenne clapped a hand on the agent’s shoulder and gave it a little shake. “Oh. They’re shapeshifters, too. So, whatever it looks like you’re fighting, don’t expect it to stay the same thing for very long. And don’t hold back.”
Rhynehart’s head wobbled on his shoulders when she gave him another shake of mock reassurance, but all he could do was stare at the black wall rising from all the black spears of stone. “Shapeshifters.”
“Thanks for making the drive. You guys can do whatever you need to do out
