Page 20

Neith

“F ootage?” I ask.

“Yeah, she recorded it on her phone,” Niamh explains, “You know, I wouldn’t call you if it was something that I thought I could deal with, but this is beyond what I have ever seen before. We need this sorted before the humans start talking, and it ends up on the fucking internet.”

“Alright, let me pack, and I will be with you as soon as I can,” I reply immediately. I will always go when she calls. It’s as simple as that.

“Thanks Neith,” she replies. “I imagine your house is already getting itself ready for your arrival.”

“Not my house,” I remind her.

“I don’t see anyone else willing to live in it,” she replies with a chuckle and then promptly hangs up before I can argue with her anymore.

Throwing my phone on the bed, I rush around my room, pulling on clothes and making sure I have enough layers since it’s fucking cold in Ireland at this time of year. When I open my closet, I say a thank you to past me, who actually did manage to put away all the parcels of clothes that I ordered. It makes finding a backpack and cramming it full of clothes and shit that I will need so much easier. Technically, I have some things at the house, but I don’t have much there because I have never really had much, so taking extras, especially more layers, is a definite must.

Once my bag is packed and I’m dressed and ready to go, I head back over to the bed where I threw my phone and pick it up, dialling a number and putting the phone to my ear as I pull my boots on.

“Sully,” I greet him, glad that it sounds like he’s still awake. I’m not surprised because he tends to sleep from about five am till it’s time to open the pub back up in the evening.

“Neith,” he greets me warmly. “It’s late, what’s going on?”

“I need a portal to Ireland, Niamh called me, and she’s got a problem,” I explain quickly.

“Got it,” he replies, instantly going into business mode, “I’ll get everything set up and ready to go.”

“Thanks, Sully. I’ll see you soon,” I reply, hanging up and putting my phone in my pocket.

I grab Betty and Asael and head toward my bedroom door. I’m just about to pull it open when it occurs to me that I’m not alone anymore. I briefly consider just leaving, like I usually would, but I owe the guys more than that, and even though it’s going to take me longer to get them all up and explain the situation, Niamh didn’t say that it was life or death right this moment, and I really can’t just leave without telling them where I’m okay.

Oh shit, Ty. I have a job that I actually want to keep where I respect my boss. I’m going to need to tell him that I’m going to be M.I.A for a while. I’m not going to ask him for permission to go like I probably should because if he says no, I’m still going to go, and it’s probably better to tell him once I’m there and then ask for forgiveness. I know for a fact that my dickhead boss at HID had a really big fucking problem whenever I left on these sorts of things, especially since he very suddenly couldn’t trace my whereabouts, and he didn’t know why. There was nothing that any of them could really do about it though, apart from bitch and give me really shitty jobs, but considering they always gave me really shitty jobs anyway, it never bothered me.

Pulling open my door I once again pause, how the hell am I going to wake up all of the guys? If I shout then they’re going to wake up in panic, and no one likes to be shouted awake. I could just leave them a note and explain where I’m going, but I have a feeling that the guys wouldn’t be happy at all if I did that so it’s something that they need to be told in person.

I look down the long corridor ahead of me. I guess I just start knocking on doors and hope that they don’t sleep like me and that one of them will wake up and help me wake up the others.

With that plan in mind, I move to the door closest to mine and knock loudly.

I’m surprised when it doesn’t take long until I hear shuffling inside and the door opens. A sleep rumpled Van answering it.

Shirtless and only in a pair of tight boxers.

Oh fuck.

“Neith?” he asks, completely oblivious to the fact that I am having a very heated argument with my vagina right now. “What’s going on? Why do you look like you’re leaving?” the panic that flashes through his eyes when he asks that last question effectively gets me back on track.

“I’m not leaving, leaving,” I explain, and he relaxes slightly, although his expression quickly clouds with confusion again. My eyes travel down the very well-defined dips and grooves of his chest and stomach. He’s got the fucking ‘V’ lines. Every time I see those, I just want to lick them. I sigh and forcefully pull my eyes up, “Can you please put some clothes on, and I’ll explain more? I can’t fucking concentrate.”

Van smirks, “Oh, why not?”

He thinks he’s putting me on the spot, and I’m going to get all flustered. He’s wrong.

I give him a smirk of my own, “Because you are fucking hot, and I want to lick you, and then I want to fuck you, but I really don’t have time right now, so get dressed while I wake the others up, and then I will explain.”

His eyes heat, and he chuckles, “I’ve missed the way that you always speak what’s on your mind. Give me two minutes, and I’ll come and help you wake them up.”

I nod and then head to the next door. I end up walking through the whole floor and banging on doors, grateful that everyone is at least on the same floor and not spread throughout the house. Once Van is dressed, he goes behind me and wakes up the guys that are a bit harder to wake.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take too long, and everyone is gathered in the hallway and looking at me questioningly.

“What’s going on?” Doc asks, his eyes moving over me, assessing what I’m wearing and the packed bags.

“I got a call from an old friend, and she needs my help. I didn’t want to go without telling you guys,” I explain, “I will be back, but I’m not sure when.”

“Okay,” River says, “what’s the issue?”

“She’s had a few people go missing, and now there’s footage that someone has captured that’s apparently really concerning. She needs me to figure out what’s going on before the humans realize that there’s something to be concerned about,” I explain, I figure there’s no reason not to.

“Do you want some help? We can come?” Raiden offers.

I still, it hadn’t actually occurred to me that they could come with me, and it definitely didn’t occur to me that they would want to.

“Do you want to?” I ask them.

They all nod.

“Of course we do,” Reed replies with a slight frown, like he’s confused about why I’m asking.

“It sounds like something that we can help with anyway,” Ransom points out.

“Yeah, actually, it would be really helpful to have you guys there, and I will be able to fix it a lot quicker if I’m not trying to do it by myself,” I reply.

“It’s settled then,” Griff says as he starts to turn back to his room, no doubt to go and get changed.

“Wait,” I call out, and he turns back. “Are you guys going to be able to get time off? Especially you, Doc?”

“You realize that you work for SID as well, right?” River asks with a smile.

I shrug, “I was going to ask for forgiveness and not permission.”

Evander chuckles, “Of course you were.”

“It should be okay,” Doc replies.

“We’re all just waiting for another hybrid lead anyway since Ty moved us, so we are only working on that case. It’s been suspiciously quiet,” Evander adds with a frown.

“Yeah. It has. Maybe we freaked them out when we got so close to the portal that they were using?” Raiden suggests.

“Guys, we’re on a time limit,” I remind them. It’s usually me who derails the conversation, but I have learned that they are quite capable of doing it themselves.

“Shit, yeah,” Van says. “Get dressed and grab your go bags.”

Everyone disperses as they walk back to their rooms, and I call out after them, “Make sure you’ve got enough warm clothes, it's fucking freezing in Ireland at the moment.”

They all freeze, River poking his head back out of his door and looking at me excitedly.

“Wait, Ireland?” he asks. “We’re going to Ireland?”

I nod, “Yeah, Sully’s waiting, so we need to get to his place quickly.”

“Why?” Doc asks, looking confused.

I pull a face, “I’m really not explaining anything very well, but I’m used to going by myself.” I take a breath, and explain properly, “The friend that called me lives in Ireland, Sully has a portal, it only goes to a select few places and no, I don’t have any idea how he maintains it or anything.”

“Got it,” River says as he goes back into his room.

Everyone else pauses for only a moment before they do the same. I’m impressed when they come back out of their rooms less than ten minutes later, dressed and with bags already packed and ready to go.

“We have go bags,” Griff explains.

“Smart,” I reply.

We all head down the stairs and out the front door. We, of course, head to the trusty van since Doc is here and can transport us all to Sully’s place.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Reed asks as Doc does his thing.

I shake my head, “Sorry guys, I’ve told you everything that she told me. Sully’s portal will take us straight to Niamh’s place, and hopefully, we can get some more information from her when we get there. What’s the time?”

“Two in the morning,” Griff says.

I nod, “Okay so it’s early morning over there now. We can get a start and watch the footage and then go from there.”

The guys nod as they get up and start to get out of the van.

“Sounds good,” Evander says as we get out and close the doors behind us, “Is the van going to be okay here?”

I nod, “Yeah, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be. Sully knows that it’s ours, and he will know where we are.”

Evander nods, and we quickly make our way across the lot and towards the doors. The pub is still incredibly busy, and we bypass the line, getting strange looks as we are clearly not dressed for a night out.

“Thanks, Barney,” I say as he lets us through.

“No problem, Neith. Stay safe,” he replies, clearly guessing that I’m not here for fun.

“Always,” I reply with a smirk.

We thread our way through the patrons and head straight for Sully’s office, the door opening before we reach the end of the long hallway.

“Good, you’ve brought them. I had a whole speech about how you're not alone anymore and it’s okay to rely on other people,” he pauses, “actually, I put a lot of effort into that speech, I even had Ernie help me out, do you want to hear it anyway?”

I laugh, “Sully, I would love to, but I should probably get to Niamh’s place. You know how impatient she can be.”

He sighs dramatically, “Fine. Come on, you lot.”

“How do you have a portal?” Raiden asks. His curiosity is clearly eating him alive and I’m surprised that he lasted this long before he asked.

Sully taps his nose, “Ah, now that would be telling. I’m assuming that you boys have all used one?”

They all nod.

“How come you know about portals but not the ones to other realms?” Raiden asks me.

I shrug, “I didn’t know that there were official portals.”

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” He replies.

After making sure that his office door is shut behind us, Sully moves past us and to the back of the room, his magic snaps out and the whole back wall of his office disappears leaving a swirling whirlpool of magic that is the portal.

“Whoa,” Van says.

I’m confused about his reaction until Ransom says, “That’s unlike any portal that I have seen before.”

I look at Sully questioningly. I haven’t used any other portals except for this one, so I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“This is old magic. Not many can do this anymore,” Sully replies. He carries on speaking, clearly closing the conversation. “It is already calibrated for Niamh’s pub; tell her I say hi.” His smile widens, “Watch out for the first step boys, it’s a doozy.”

“I’ll tell her, Sully,” I say as I step toward the portal and then carry on walking. I’ve done this so many times that it is as easy as simply walking through a door.

Sully is right to warn the guys though, because it can be quite disorientating the first time that you use it, and I’m assuming that Sully warned them about it because it’s different than when they go through the other portals.

“Neith,” Niamh greets me as she immediately pulls me into her arms.

Niamh’s place has a similar feel to Sully’s but it’s much older, her office has lower ceilings, with dark wood beams exposed. She has a fireplace in here and a couple in the main pub too, and there isn’t a place to dance. The only time that changes is when they have the local bands play. This place is as traditional as it gets.

I fucking love it here.

“Hey!” I say and then feel the portal buzz behind me, “I brought people with me.”

Her smile is knowing as she says, “I was hoping you would. Sully told me all about them.”

I chuckle, “Of course he has.”

I don’t get to say anything else though as Evander stumbles through, looking as white as a sheet.

“What the fuck was that?” he asks.

“Old magic,” Niamh says, looking more amused than she probably should.

All of the guys have a similar reaction to coming through the portal except for Raiden, who walks through it with no trouble. If I had to guess, I would assume that it’s because he travels through the spirit realm, so he has a higher tolerance for this kind of magic.

I may be wrong though.

He grins proudly at the others, clearly enjoying the fact that he is absolutely fine and they’re not.

“Alright, have a seat you lot. I don’t want anyone throwing up. I’ll get you something to help,” Niamh orders and the guys automatically do as she’s told them to and sit down.

She disappears out of the room and toward the pub.

“Are you guys alright?” I ask them.

River groans from where he’s sprawled out on the floor, “Sully wasn’t kidding. That really is a fucking dozy.”

“Are the realm portals not like that?” I ask.

Reed shakes his head, “Not at all. It’s like stepping into another room. Not the swirling mass of power that portal seems to be.”

“Oh,” I reply. “If it helps, you get used to it pretty quickly.”

Ransom groans, “Oh god, we’ve got to go back that way.”

“I’m flying,” Griff grouches, making me laugh.

My laughter earns me scowls from them, but I can’t help it. It really isn’t that bad.

“Here you go,” Niamh says as she walks back into the room.

It turns out that her something to help is glasses of whiskey.

“I thought whiskey was a Scottish thing?” River frowns.

“Don’t be so stereotypical,” Niamh immediately chastises, and River looks really apologetic. Niamh continues, “Everyone loves a good whiskey, and it can cure all kinds of ailments. Drink up.”

The guys waste no time in taking a sip.

“Alright, while they’re recovering, why don’t you show us that footage?” I ask her.

Her frown becomes deep, making her look closer to her actual age. As a bear shifter, she ages a lot slower than humans, so although she looks about forty, she is actually closer to two hundred and has seen all kinds of shit in her life.

“It ain’t pretty,” she tells me as she presses some buttons on her laptop and then nods her head toward the large TV screen, “there you go. It was captured by one of my barmaids. She called in sick today. I can’t say I blame her.” She hands me a whiskey of my own, “You’re going to need this.”

“Alright. Thanks,” I reply, as she passes it to me. A thread of unease goes through me at the way she’s acting, it takes a lot to make Niamh uneasy.

The video starts, as most of these do, with a shaky camera before it steadies out. When the picture finally becomes clear, I really wish it hadn’t.