“Jesus, Mary and . . .” Dennis started. But he stopped. Eliza had gotten up and run headlong back into her bedroom. She went to the orb. Normally it was glowing, blue when being used and red when not. It had gone black. Eliza started to scream at it.
“Father! Father, answer me! Mother? Anyone? Is anyone there?” She felt a huge hand on her shoulder. It was Thug. She looked the huge troll in the face. “Thug . . . they’re gone. I can’t get a hold of anyone. We’re trapped here!” She collapsed onto the floor. The she felt herself being picked up by her powerful friend and placed on the bed. “I’m sorry Father,” she whispered. She wished she hadn’t been so harsh with him. She wished they had parted on better terms. “Parted,” she whispered. It was then that she realized that unless someone found a way of breaching the dimensions again, she would never see her father, her family or her homeland again. Eliza began to weep like she had never done before. She felt scared and alone. Thug picked her up as gently as a person might hold a young child and placed her on the bed, and he stayed with her until she cried herself to sleep.
—————— ————-
That evening . . .
—————— ————-
Eliza awoke again with a splitting headache. Her head and thoughts still felt as thick as proverbial pea soup. Dennis was sitting in the chair next to her bed, and noticed she was awake.
“Eliza, I’m sorry.”
“Has anyone had any luck . . . contacting Terra?” Eliza tried to compose herself.
“No, not yet. Patrols have been sent out with other vampires that are trapped on this side. They’re trying to maybe find some of the smaller cracks that people have slipped through in ages gone by.”
Eliza looked around. “Where’s Thug? How is he doing?” She felt more than a little selfish. Thug was trapped here, the same as her, but she had only been thinking of herself.
“He’s fine. He’s sleeping now. He watched over you for hours before we convinced him to go take a nap. My understanding of the troll language is a bit poor, but he seemed to be under the impression he was never leaving the plane of existence anyway. He assumed you wouldn’t want to leave, and he promised your parents he’d look after you.”
The mention of her parents almost started her crying again, but she walled up the tears.
Dennis tried to find something comforting to say. “Listen, if this ‘Purity’ was expected a public uprising in their favor, they failed. There are humans trapped on the other side as well, and the interaction between the two worlds had been really beneficial. So you don’t have to worry about an angry mob coming to the door with torches and pitchforks.” He had meant that as a joke, but Eliza wasn’t laughing. “Speaking of coming to the door, you’ve got a visitor in the living room. We would have turned her away, but she seems to know you.”
Eliza wandered out into the next room. Pamela Ryder was sitting there in her civilian clothes. The police officer jumped up and held Eliza tightly. The rest of the crew quickly found somewhere else to be.
“What are you doing here?” Eliza asked quietly. “I thought . . . you weren’t supposed to be seen here,” she added.
“To hell with appearances,” Pamela said vehemently. “I needed to see you. I needed to make sure you’re okay. I’m so sorry about this!”
“Why? It’s not your fault and it’s not your problem. I’ve got to find a way home. Those bastards in the Purity figured out how to close the dimensional crack, so they might know how to open it again. All I have to do is find them!”
“Don’t do that,” Pamela said with concern. “These people are religious nuts and well funded ones at that! All Terrans are being told to keep a low profile until the World Council figures out how to deal with these guys.”
“I can’t do that,” Eliza returned. “I can’t just wait.”
“You have to,” Pamela said, holding the sides of Eliza’s face and ‘forcing’ the vampire to look at her. “I know perfectly well you’ve got a guy spying on all the official channels, so you know that no one has any information about their whereabouts right now. So . . . please, just let the officials handle this for now. You guys do protection, not acquisition. Please? Promise me?” Pamela looked at Eliza’s face. In all the time their affair had been going on, she had learned to read the vampire’s eyes well. She knew that Eliza would never make that promise. Pamela gave up. “Do you . . . want me to stay tonight?”
Eliza stepped back and let Pamela’s hands fall from her face. Eliza turned away from her lover. “Go home,” she said hoarsely. “Go home to your husband and daughter.”
“But why . . .?”
“Because you still can,” Eliza finished. For a moment, there was no noise. She heard Pamela breathing heavily, and Eliza hoped the human woman would just leave. She didn’t know if she had the strength of will to say ‘no’ again. She heard footsteps moving toward the door and then the door opened.
“I’m not giving up on you,” Pamela said from the door before closing it behind her.
In a corner of the room, Eliza saw the air shimmer, and Thug was standing there. Apparently his camouflage still worked, probably because it was a natural ability rather than being magical.
|| I’M SORRY, || came that thick, guttural voice. She was glad that even though no one could speak the troll’s language that everyone in the crew understood it.
“I wish people would stop saying that. I feel like such a baby. I haven’t cried like that since . . .” Eliza couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d cried.
|| SINCE YOU WERE FORTY YEARS OLD. IT WAS YOUR FIRST YEAR AT THE ACADEMY, AND YOU WERE STRESSED ABOUT YOUR EXAMS. ||
Eliza looked Thug over. “You seem to be handling this better than I am.”
|| WE ARE BY NATURE A SOLITARY AND PATIENT RACE, || he said. || I’M WASN’T SAYING ‘I’M SORRY’ BECAUSE OF THE ACTIONS OF THE PURITY. I’M SORRY ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED WITH YOUR LADY FRIEND. I WISH YOU COULD FIND SOMEONE TO CALL YOUR OWN. ||
“I should have known better than to become involved with a married woman, however attracted I was to her. I don’t even WANT her to break things off with her husband, so why did . . . Never mind. I don’t have time for romance right now anyway.” Eliza was flustered.
|| FIND TIME. IF NOT WITH THIS POLICE OFFICER, THEN FIND IT WITH SOMEONE ELSE. YOU ARE A PASSIONATE YOUNG LADY, ELIZA. WITHOUT AN OUTLET FOR THAT PASSION, YOU WILL MOST ASSUREDLY GO MAD. ||
Eliza was mulling that over as she went looking for Wyrm. She wanted to know if the World Council or any local governments had found anything.
————– ——————–
Several weeks later . . .
————– ——————–
“How can there still be nothing?” Eliza shouted. Her entire security team was sitting in their conference room, and the news hadn’t been good. No one had been able to locate the Purity, which meant that they were hiding somewhere in unexplored jungles somewhere or that they had more resources than anyone had anticipated.
“I don’t . . .” Dennis was cut off by a really loud, annoying buzz. It was the ringer down at the front gate. “Who the hell is that?”
Wyrm flipped down his headset’s viewing screen and used his VR gloves to navigate his computer menu and access the compounds security camera footage. “It looks official,” he said. “U. S. flags on the transport and a full police escort.”
“If they’re that important, why didn’t they phone ahead?” Eliza asked. No one had an answer. “Okay, this seems fishy. Dennis, Allyson . . . get your night vision goggles and do a quick scout of the perimeter. We’ve got good security, but we all know that even the best security can be breached. Wyrm, give me two minutes and kill the lights and active the temperature dampers. If these people have infrared capability, I want to limit its effectiveness. Thug, back me up. I’m going down to the gate.”
“Isn’t this a bit overkill?” Wyrm asked. “It could be a legitimate U. S. envoy.”
“If it is, they won’t mind the precautions. If they DO mind the precautions, I don’t want to be caught with my pants down. Everybody, go!”
Eliza and Thug armed themselves with KFS’s (Kinetic Force Shields) and their weapons of choice, which for Eliza was a fully automatic shotgun and a diamond-edged broadsword, while Thug grabbed his six-foot scimitar and his “boom stick.” Thug had a single-shot rail-cannon that no human could even lift unaided, but the troll could wield it in one hand. As the two of them approached the gate, Eliza saw a familiar face looking between the bars. It was Pamela, but this was obviously not a social call.
“Officer Ryder. What can I do for you at this hour?”
“Official government business,” Pamela said shortly. “Might I ask the reason for the precautions?”
“Usually when we receive official visitors, we get some advanced notice.”
“There are reasons for the secrecy, I assure you,” the officer said.
Eliza listened as she got a report from Dennis through her headset. They weren’t seeing anyone else on the property. “Very well,” Eliza said. Pull your vehicles up to the main house. We’ll . . .”
“We will have to meet outside,” Pamela said. “We need to remain clear of any electronic listening devices, even yours. We will have to insist that this entire conversation not be recorded, so please try and reel in your hacker for the time being.”
“Very well,” Eliza said. This was becoming more intriguing by the minute. Then she noticed that Pamela’s face briefly shifted from its official sternness to one that displayed longing. Eliza almost gave in to that look, but she knew things had to end. And Pamela knew it too. She wanted Eliza, but knew she had to give her up. Eliza turned and walked up drive.