“I could pilot this tub through the Bermuda Triangle and out the other side,” said Honey. “She’s sound. Nothing to it. Easy peasy.”
Walker sank into a battered old leather chair, which creaked noisily with his every movement. “Then let us get under weigh, Captain.”
“I’m still waiting for Peter. Peter! Where are you?”
“I’m here, I’m here!” He slouched into the cabin, peered about him, and sniffed miserably. “I hate boats and I hate the water. In particular, I hate the way boats go up and down when they travel across the water. I just know I’m going to be unwell. I really enjoyed my dinner, and I was hoping not to see it again anytime soon.”
“The water is perfectly calm,” Honey said patiently. “And there’s not a cloud in the sky. If the surface was any flatter, you could Roller Derby on it.”
“It just looks that way,” Peter said darkly. “It’s planning something. I can tell.”
“Don’t worry,” said Walker. “I know an infallible cure for seasick-ness.”
“Really?” said Peter.
“Of course. Sit under a tree.” He chuckled at the look on Peter’s face. “Ah, the old jokes are always the best.”
We left the Philadelphia docks at a steady rate of knots, heading out to the middle of the river. The Hope Street chugged along cheerfully, the engines reassuringly loud and steady. Peter clung grimly to the arms of his chair, but the water remained calm. Honey stood happily at the wheel, whistling a sea shanty, her captain’s hat pushed back on her head. I did my best to give her a proper heading, but really all I could do was point her in the direction where I’d seen the Eldridge disappear into the green mists, back in 1943. It was entirely possible the soft spot had . . . drifted since then. Still, Honey aimed the Hope Street in the right direction, and we all mentally crossed our fingers.
We hadn’t been out on the water long when dark clouds appeared in the sky out of nowhere. The wind whipped up, and the waters became distinctly choppy. Honey glared at the instruments before her.
“Weather reports didn’t say anything about a storm. Supposed to be calm and sunny all day. Well, that’s weather for you. Brace yourselves, everyone. We’re in for a bumpy ride.”
“Told you,” said Peter miserably.
“It’s you, Peter,” Walker said calmly from his chair. “All your fault. You’re a jinx. Or maybe a Jonah. If I see a whale, you’re going overboard.”
I used my Sight, without my armour. This close, I didn’t need it. The soft spot was hanging on the air dead ahead, strange magical forces churning around it like a vortex. Something in our approach had activated it; perhaps my torc, or the changes Blue had added to his torc. The doorway was forming, becoming more solid, sucking us in. Just its presence in our world was enough to disrupt the weather patterns. The closer we got, the more I could See, and the less I liked. This wasn’t just a soft spot or a natural opening; someone had fashioned a proper door here and wedged it open just a crack against all the powers of this world to heal itself. Someone intended this door to be used.
A growing tension filled the Hope Street’s cabin as we drew steadily closer. We could all feel it: a basic wrongness in the warp and weft of the world that raised ancient atavistic instincts and grated on our souls. The tension grew worse, like an ax hanging over our heads, like a danger we could point at but not identify. It felt like walking the last mile to our own execution. Give Honey credit; she never flinched, never changed course, never even slowed our approach.
I could See the gateway hanging on the air ahead, waiting for us, drawing us in with bad intent. A convoluted spectrum of forces, as though someone had taken hold of space and time with a giant hand and . . . twisted them. And the closer I got, the more I realised it wasn’t an actual door, as such; more a potential door. That’s why my family had never suspected its existence. It wasn’t . . . certain enough to set off our alarms and defences. As though the elves had set this up and then walked away . . . waiting for just the right person to come along and activate it . . . and walk into their trap.
Had to be a trap. It’s always a trap, with the elves.
Wisps of green mist appeared around the Hope Street, materialising out of nowhere; long green streamers twisting and turning on the air as the boat rose and fell on increasingly violent swells. The mists thickened steadily; elf magic, summoned into being by our proximity to the doorway. The thick green fog was cutting us off from our world, bending the rules of our reality to make easier the transition to the Land Beneath the Hill. Walker and Peter scrambled up out of their chairs and hurried over to join Honey and me at the wheel. We all felt the need for simple human contact.
The boat was thrown all over the place; the fog was all around us. Honey struggled to hold the Hope Street on course. It felt like . . . leaving all certainty behind us, losing everything we’d learned to depend on. As though the ship itself might fall apart and disappear into the green mists . . .
“We’re almost there,” said Walker. “I can feel the doorway right ahead. Feels like staring down a gun barrel.”
“I don’t feel that,” said Honey. “I don’t feel anything. Except that it’s really cold in here, all of a sudden. And my skin’s prickling, like the feeling you get right before a lightning strike. And I’m not sure I’m steering this boat anymore. The wheel’s stopped fighting me, but it’s not answering me, either. I think . . . this boat knows where it needs to go.” She took her hands off the wheel, and nothing happened. The Hope Street was still on course.
“The storm’s getting worse!” yelled Peter above the howl of the rising winds outside. “Listen to it!”
“I don’t think that’s the storm,” I said. “The door is opening.”
“So we’ll be safe once we’re through the door?”
“Well,” I said. “I wouldn’t go that far . . .”
“I want to go home,” Peter said miserably.
The green fog was boiling all around us now, thick bottle green mists that isolated and insulated us from the outside world. Strange lights flared and sputtered inside the cabin. They smarted where they touched my bare skin, making it crawl with revulsion. There was something basically unclean about the green fog. It smelled of sulphur and blood and strange animal musks. It was getting hard to see anything, even inside the cabin. The Hope Street pressed on, not bucking or heaving nearly so much now but travelling faster and faster, like a runaway train.
“One problem,” I said.
“Only one?” Honey said immediately. “I can think of hundreds!”
“Getting through the door isn’t going to be a problem,” I said. “I think it recognises my torc. But getting back again . . . might prove a little tricky.”
“Terrific,” said Peter. “Why don’t we all just throw ourselves overboard and swim back?”
“I wouldn’t,” said Walker. “I’m pretty sure we’re no longer in our world, as such. No water, no sky; just green mists. We’re in the soft place now, the in-between place. And it smells really bad.”
“Throw yourself overboard here,” I said, “and there’s no saying where you might end up.”
“I may cry a little, if that wouldn’t upset anyone,” said Peter.
“Stand tall, man,” said Walker. “You show weakness in front of the elves, and you’ll be carrying your testicles home in a goody bag.”
“You’re really not helping,” said Peter.
“It’s not as if we’re going in there alone,” said Honey. “I’m CIA, remember? I can call on serious backup and resources and dirty tricks even elves have never thought of.”
“They won’t care,” said Walker. “I speak for the Nightside. I have powerful friends, and enemies, who’ll come if I call or who would avenge my death. But the elves will still kill us if they have reason to, or even if they don’t. They are creatures of whim and malice and have no care at all for consequences.”