“Okay, get outta here.”
Cheyenne spun and hurried across the few feet of hall between the breakfast room and the massive staircase. She ran down the center two steps at a time, grabbing the banister on the bottom to swing herself around before heading back toward her mom’s study.
“Mom?” She slowed in front of the open French doors and peered into Bianca Summerlin’s wood-and-leather-decorated private room. The chair behind the heavy executive desk at the back was empty, but her mom had left the bottle of Glenmorangie single malt out on the tray. And now she’s into the good scotch. Careful.
The halfling moved quickly down the house as the crunching of the tires grew steadily louder out front. The French doors onto the veranda were closed, but Bianca Summerlin stood at her place in front of the railing, gazing out over the steadily darkening valley. The glass of scotch in her hand was half-empty.
Cheyenne opened one door and took a tentative step outside. “They’re here.”
“Thank you, Cheyenne.” The woman raised the glass to her lips, her elbow propped on the opposite arm crossed over her midsection. “Do make it perfectly clear that no one sets foot inside this house.”
“I will.” The halfling waited in case her mom decided to turn around. It became clear that Bianca wasn’t moving from that position for a while, so her daughter withdrew into the house and quietly pulled the door shut again.
Eleanor stepped into the room from the other side of the dining table before Cheyenne made it into the opposite hall.
“Hey, Ember’s upstairs in the breakfast room, just so you know,” the halfling said, glancing at the bottom of the staircase.
“That’s fine, Cheyenne.” Eleanor nodded, focused now on how she could help Bianca through the rest of this crazy night. “I’ll go up in a bit and see if she needs anything.”
“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
