out of it. Juvie, maybe ten feet long. Lavender and purple wings and charcoal body.”
Soul was silent for a little too long for my comfort level and I was afraid she was going to hang up. She was breathing too fast, her voice strained, when she said, “You know where a rift is? A new rift? And active rift?”
“Yes.”
“In return for its location, you want help, under your command.”
Relief made me sag against the sofa. “Anything you can swing my way. I also want to know everything you have on liminal lines and liminal thresholds.” No one knew much about how they worked or even what they were. No one except arcenciels and maybe the Anzu.
“Most of what I know is what your kind refers to as theoretical physics. However, my kind came through a rift. We were worshipped as gods for eons by the primitive humans. We taught them mathematics, the positions of the stars, geometry, farming, and how to build with wattle and daub and then with mud bricks. Later with rough stone. How to use hydrodynamics for farming, plumbing. How to build canals. The art of stonemasonry and lapidary.”
“The People of the Straight Ways,” I said. “Canal builders, long before the pyramids were even conceived of.”
“Yes. Then the climate changed very suddenly and floods were massive, accompanied by earthquakes and the loss of human civilizations all over this world.”
“I got that part. The indigenous people who survived said the bones were piled so high that when the wind blew, it was the sound of bones dancing.”
“The portals between worlds were lost in the tectonic shifts. We need access to a new rift.”
I said nothing, waiting, enjoying my new talent of forcing people to talk while ticking them off, all at once.
Soul ground out, “My people are trapped here. Jane. Don’t play stupid games that could get people killed, yours or mine. You know where a rift is?”
“Yes. There’s a new rift. Or it looks new. And it’s definitely an interdimensional opening.”
Soul hesitated. I had learned to bargain and she had figured that out. As if saying the words hurt her, she asked, “If I try to get you military help, you’ll take me there?”
“No. Not just try. I need guaranteed help fighting the Flayer and help finding the witch time circle so we can shut it down. This is to be under the command, or with shared command, of the Dark Queen. Quid pro quo. And I also want clarification and info.”
I could almost feel Soul grinding her teeth. Her dragon-of-rainbows teeth—big pearly fangs. The tension on the cell connection ached with potential violence. “Clarification on what?” she nearly whispered, as if to keep from shouting. And I knew I had won.
“Back last fall, I freed an arcenciel and destroyed the geode she was trapped in. In return, you and the other arcenciels pledged to help Leo and the city against the Europeans.” I stopped. Soul said nothing. “In the Sangre Duello, your people waited to help until Leo was dead. Even after I gave you a spell to keep your people from slavery, forever.” Carefully, I added, “I want to know why the arcenciels didn’t help keep Leo alive.”
Soul laughed, bitter humor. Arcenciel laughter was usually like bells and gongs and woodwinds playing, but not this time. Now there was nothing but discordant notes. “I’ll play your little game. I fought my own people to keep the vampires alive, you stupid cat. I’m still fighting them to keep them from going back and destroying the Sons of Darkness before any vampires were ever made. It’s battle in the skies, three of us and the little bird against all the others.”
I remembered the arcenciel war I had glimpsed in the water droplets in my soul home, and fought to keep goose bumps from rising along my neck. Was I on the cusp of everything deadly I had seen in the future? “Because the human timeline would alter drastically if the first vampires are destroyed before they can achieve undeath,” I stated, seeking the clarification I needed.
“Yes. I fought them into stalemate. In return for them allowing you the time to destroy the Sons of Darkness, I had to let Leo die. I had no choice. I did the best I could to honor both commitments.”
She had changed history just enough for Leo’s head to not fly off into the distance, as I had seen in one timeline, but to be still attached by a remnant of flesh