Page 159 of Almost Midnight

Nick’s eyes turned towards the portal, which stood only twenty or so feet away from where they stood.

He’d thought they’d have more time.

To talk about it, at least. To say their goodbyes.

But it wasn’t going to be like that going this way, either.

He turned to look at his wife.

“We have to go,” he said simply.

She looked at him, blinked, then looked at the portal herself.

Another heavy blast hit into the organic pane, and it made the whole thing shudder and groan. The glass hadn’t finished vibrating before Nick was moving. In less than a second, he had his arm around Wynter on his good side, and he was bringing her with him in the direction of that glowing green and gold rift.

He didn’t look back.

Again, he didn’t need to.

He knew the others were right behind him.

He heard voices on the other side of the glass by the time he’d crossed those twenty or so steps. His feet brought him right up to the mouth of that light-filled doorway.

He heard shouts, threats.

He fleetingly wished he could have done something to close the rift behind them once they were gone. Blow it up, make the cave collapse, something.

But in the end, it was too late for all of that.

It was too late to even flip those H.R.A. pricks the bird.

Nick walked right up to the portal and into that shocking gold-green light without hesitating so much as a single second. He left that world the way he’d come into it, without so much as a single goodbye, not even to whatever remained of Dalejem or Brick, or even to the still-living Zoe and her continuing crusade to crush any one of the humanoid races that dared to fuck with vampires, much less try to enslave them.

Nick had no idea if he’d see his friends on the other side.

He had no idea of anything, really.

But he hoped.

He hoped an awful lot.

CHAPTER36

THE PROMISE

It felt instantaneous.

Unlike his memories of the first time, there were no vortices, no tunnels, no flashing lights. He didn’t have Brick with him this time, so there was no being torn away with the person he’d entered the open door with, and no separate path while he watched another’s light go streaking away from his.

Nick walked through the lit opening.

Everything went dark.

His body felt strangely compressed.

And then, abruptly, there was light.

Not a lot of light.

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