At least, that was where the door normally went. But being a priestess of the DFZ wasn’t all downsides. There were definitely a few perks to the job, and one of those was getting to travel as the DFZ did. All I had to do was turn the doorknob while picturing where I wanted to go. When the back door from Dr. Kowalski’s cozy kitchen opened this time, it was no longer into her sunny garden, but a small one-bedroom apartment that had been recently refurbished.
“Take care!” the doctor called, waving at me from the cluttered table. Shifting the heavy crate to one arm, I waved back and stepped through into my apartment, shutting the door behind me. The moment the latch clicked, the sounds of Dr. Kowalski’s house in the woods—the wind in the trees, the drone of insects, the casual rustles of another person going about their day—vanished, leaving me in the deep, unnatural silence of a place lost in time and space.
I let go of the door with a wince. It didn’t matter how many times I did this, I was never going to get used to coming back here. Technically, it was still my apartment. All the tacky furniture my mom had bought was long gone, but I’d managed to scavenge enough replacements to make the place livable again, including a couch, a vintage wicker peacock chair, and a super-cool coffee table made from recycled hammered-tin ceiling tiles. They were all solid vintage pieces that matched my admittedly eclectic aesthetic. My stuff, in other words, which should have made this my home. But no matter how many quirky pillows I piled on my sofa or how many curtains I hung over the terrifying chaos that existed outside my windows, I couldn’t make the place feel like anything other than what it was: a detached set of rooms floating like bubbles in the void. If I focused hard enough, I could actually feel the floor moving under my feet, which was why I didn’t do that anymore. If it wasn’t for my dad, I wouldn’t come here at all.
And speaking of.
I set the crate of liquor down and walked to my bedroom. Unlike the living room, I hadn’t replaced the furniture in here yet. I’d cleaned up the blood as best I could, but otherwise the small room still looked exactly as it had when the DFZ had brought us here after the fight with White Snake, right down to my dad’s body on the floor. He was still naked under the blankets, his body lying on what had once been my mattress on the floor. I knew I should have gotten him clothes and a real bed, but other than cleaning the blood off his skin, I hadn’t done a thing. It wasn’t that I didn’t care—the last two months were proof of that—it was just that touching my dad felt wrong on a level I couldn’t describe. He wasn’t deathly cold or anything obvious like that, but his face was the color of ash and his skin just felt…empty. Like tapping on a hollow shell.
It was insanely creepy. He hadn’t moved since we’d arrived. There’d been no fluids in or out, no bed sores or soiled linens or any of the biological unpleasantness I’d braced myself to deal with as caregiver to someone in a coma. I supposed I should have been happy we’d both been spared the indignity, but I would have far preferred emptying a bedpan to this unnatural stillness. He barely even breathed anymore.
“Hey, Dad,” I whispered, crouching down beside him. “How are you doing?”
He showed no sign he’d heard me. He never did, but I still spoke to him every time I came in because talking made the situation feel less scary. I was pretty sure I’d said more words to my dad in the past eight weeks than I had in all the years since I’d turned thirteen. I just wish I knew if he’d heard them. I’d even welcome a growl at this point, anything to let me know he wasn’t actually gone.
“I think I’ve finally got a lead on something that might help you,” I said, carefully avoiding looking at how sunken his cheeks had become. “I’m just going to shower first and then I’ll be back. Don’t move.”
I used that same joke every time I talked to him. It made me feel more in control, a necessity since seeing him like this always threatened to send me right back into the despairing panic I’d felt the night this happened. Neither of us had time for that, though, so I forced myself to chin up and slipped into the bathroom to wash off. It felt like stalling, but if I really did manage to summon the Spirit of Dragons, I at least wanted to greet her without dirt on my nose.
Since the DFZ had already warned me about punctuality and I only had forty minutes left in my lunch break, I cleaned up as fast as possible, resisting the urge to soak my aching body under the detached apartment’s miraculously never-ending hot water. When I’d gotten all the mud I could see off my skin, I grabbed a fresh set of clean work clothes from the small set of plastic drawers I’d moved into the bathroom since there was no way in hell I was changing in front of my dad. Unconscious or not, there were some lines that should not be crossed.
Thankfully, the DFZ handled my laundry in the same mysterious way she handled my plumbing. Stacks of fresh clothes appeared every morning, while my dirties from the hamper were whisked away. I didn’t even know if I’d worn the same clothes twice since they all looked the same, a never-ending parade of mom jeans, thick white T-shirts, and work boots. It was boring as hell and definitely not my usual style,
