Carter didn’t make it far before the perception of a presence, a life, many lives, slammed him like a fist to the face. He found himself standing in the middle of the roadway, breathing heavily. Sweat broke out on his temples. He looked this way and that, turned his head every direction possible. Turned actual circles in place. There—there, in the edge of his vision he thought he caught a glimpse of someone. No, that was nuts. When he looked again, he saw nobody. But it happened again. And again. And again. All around him, never anything he could directly see with his physical senses, but something he detected just the same. Presences. Life.
He clapped a hand to his face, covering it, trying to block out the overwhelming impression. The noises started next, and he heard himself groan aloud.
What the hell was happening here?
A whisper here or there. That was how it started. But soon the whispers were a soft roar, then a cacophony of sound, the spaces between voices filled in with the sounds of animals and movement, of creaking carts and wagons. Of the wind sighing between buildings, down alleyways, around eaves. The sum of the noises, the sounds, was of the city either waking back up or thriving around him.
Only…when he studied the scene before him with physical eyes, Carter saw nothing in the weak, flickering lamplight and the pale glow of the moon except emptiness. Desertion. There was nobody here. No one but Ellie and himself.
“This place is haunted,” he muttered to himself. The apparent tranquility forbade speaking aloud. Maybe it would wake the ghosts.
He snorted.
Ghosts.
On the surface, it was a ridiculous idea. However, the ever-loudening dissonance proved that it actually wasn’t ridiculous. Something was going on.
As if to challenge the ghosts, or the vision, or the hallucination brought on by a possible unknown head injury, Carter spoke again. Out loud. Loudly.
“There’s no one here,” he said. His voice rang in the stillness, against the pavement. “No one,” he repeated.
When he spoke, the sounds swirling around him hushed a bit and the blurs at the edge of his vision slowed.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he said, even louder now, defying whatever forces controlled this freaky place, “but I’m not some puppet whose strings you can pull. Leave me alone. Take your damned prophecies and predictions and find somebody else. I don’t believe in this crap anyway,” he added, as if whoever, whatever was there, cared.
“Perhaps you don’t, but the prophecies and predictions believe in you.”
The voice came from behind him. It wasn’t Ellie’s, and she should be the only person speaking to him. Carter whirled, his hand automatically reaching for his gun. The gun he didn’t have.
Someone stood there. A creature, taller than himself. Pretty ordinary looking, except for the wings. Some sort of shifter he hadn’t seen before. Not that that meant much. The world was full of shifters he hadn’t encountered. They were as broad and varied as the Earth itself.
“You are unarmed,” the visitor observed. How had it snuck up on him like that? Normally, his senses were on better alert. Nobody snuck up on him back home. Either this place had seriously thrown him off, or the shifter was that good. “Where is your sword?” he went on. “You should not be without it.”
This irritated Carter.
“What am I supposed to do with a damn sword?” he growled. “I’m no swordsman. Why don’t you give me a weapon I can use? Like a SIG?”
The newcomer didn’t flinch.
“Some weapons are useless in the face of peculiar conflicts,” he answered mysteriously. “Carry the sword, Repairer of the Breach. You know not when you’ll need it.”
The title irritated Carter further. In fact, it made him angry.
“Stop calling me that,” he growled. “It’s idiotic. I don’t know what breach you’re talking about or what I’m supposed to repair.”
“But you will.” The winged shifter’s equanimity never faded. “You sense them, do you not?” it went on smoothly. “They have lives. They live. You do not see them, but what does that matter? You know they are there. It is your task to join the life you once lived with the life you live now.”
Mute, Carter stared at the other shifter, jaw clamped as he tried to think of something to say. Something besides “Piss off” or “go back to wherever you came from” or “mind your own damned business.” Something that might actually be useful instead of livid, which was how he felt. Carter hated nonsense. And this was nothing but sheer nonsense.
Finally, he was able to grind out, “And how, exactly, am I supposed to do that?”
The creature’s eyes bore deep into his. “You will know,” was all he said. More mysteries. More riddles. “You will know,” he repeated. “There was a purpose to your being chosen.”
Before Carter could frame a response, the other shifter went on to say, “Collect your wife, Repairer. It is time for you to return to your current home. Take her with you. She does not belong here.”
“Big surprise,” he retorted drily. “She doesn’t, and neither do I.”
The unknown shifter stared at him. “Do you not? She is human. A mere human should not be capable of passing between times and worlds, as she has done. It was permitted because you brought her.”
“Not to hear her tell it,” Carter objected. “She pushed me through the portal trying to save my life.”
“Yes…” the creature intoned. “She did save your life. Which is why she has been accepted, even helped. However, her time here is at an end, and you must go with her.”
“Go where?” Carter snapped. “Where are we supposed to go?”
“Back to your time,” replied the stranger. “To the time of your human form. Your celestial side
