Page 39 of Rifted Hearts
“I get to ride on a Harley. That’s awesome.” Remi plastered on his best fake smile. He could cling, cursing, to his cousin’s back as they drove out of town, deal with his father’sfury that he hadn’t followed the game plan, and leave Moon Star Ranch behind forever.
Or he could try something spectacularly dangerous and likely get killed in the process.
He sucked in a deep breath, focused on his inner self, and transformed.
As Zale spun in a circle trying to figure out where the hell his cousin had gone, Remi raced away on four paws, leaving his clothes behind.
17
Remi transformed back as he approached the stables. As awful as the creepy living armor was, he had to admit that it was preferable to nudity, especially since he was planning to ride to the monstertown.
He ran into Javier, who thought Remi’s all-leather outfit was hysterically funny—until Remi hit him with the full force of his compulsion. He exerted his powers, convincing the man that saddling an unstable horse known for her violent tendencies so Remi could take a midnight ride was a reasonable idea. Then he asked the wrangler to strip off his clothes and hand them over, which proved not at all difficult.
Of course, if he knew how to saddle Amanita, he could have saved himself time and energy. Kaveh would be happy to teach him how to do it.
No, Kaveh wasn’t going to teach him about horses, and Remi wasn’t going to be Kaveh’s dating instructor anymore either. If he could get up enough courage to free Kat and survive the experience, the best he could hope for wasgetting away without seeing Kaveh’s revulsion when he understood the depth of Remi’s betrayal.
Twenty minutes later, he sat on Amanita, who had been let out of the stall and tacked up by a compliant Javier. Remi hadn’t done any nighttime riding, but after a mental exchange with Amanita that included images of Kat holding assorted horse treats, he felt confident the half repoequus would get him to the monstertown safely.
Anything after that wouldn’t be safe at all.
As he rode, he tried to put together a plan in his head. A SWOT analysis, perhaps. That was corporate and impersonal. It didn’t include emotions, like worry over what had happened to Kat, dread over what Arimanius might do to Remi for disobeying orders, or his hopeless longing for more time with Kaveh. He kept thinking of the warm afterglow of lying next to one another, sated, happy and together in a way he had never felt before.
No, no, back to cold-blooded business plans.
S was for strengths. He still had a few of those. Once he crossed the rift boundary, he would be riding on a half-alien horse with poison fangs. The Pouch Twins wouldn’t expect him in the monstertown, so he had the element of surprise.
Weaknesses. Well, he had a lot of those. To start with, he had no idea if Kat was in the monstertown or how to free him if he was. Mabel and Fable knew all about Remi’s psychic powers, and it wasn’t like he could go head-to-head with Lyall and live to tell the tale.
Opportunities? If he could rescue Kat, there were people in the monstertown who could protect the vet assistant, like the guardians. Remi could hightail it out of there and come up with some bullshit story that blamed everything on Lyall. Since the hellhound must have plans to return to his home-sweet-hellmouth in Oregon, he would make the perfectscapegoat. Kat and Kaveh would live unhappily ever after, and Remi would go back to his lonely Boston brownstone and try to forget Kaveh even existed.
Threats. Remi didn’t want to think about those. There were too many of them. Lyall and/or the Pouch Twins could figure out what he was doing and eat him (Lyall) or seriously maim him (the twins). Zale had more brawn than brains, but he could figure out that Remi had headed to the monstertown and was bound to come after him soon.
Then there was the biggest threat of all—Remi’s feelings toward Kaveh. He didn’t want to leave and never see him again. But it wasn’t like he could tell the vet the truth. At best, he would hate Remi for lying to him or, at worst, turn him over to his drakone family.
Between the full moon and his enhanced night vision this close to the rift, the trip wasn’t difficult, only slow. He was sure Amanita could go faster, but whether that was safe for the repoequus and whether he could stay on her back at a canter weren’t questions he could answer.
He paused as he approached the entrance to the monstertown. Both guardians sat motionless at the entrance as before. In the distance, the indistinct bulk of the abandoned base was barely visible in the low light.
Remi pulled on the reins, and Amanita stopped. She tossed her now-horned head as he dismounted, and he staggered as images flooded his brain. A giant jellyfish mon drifted through the air, its glowing body floating through metal doors ripped off their hinges then passing through debris-strewn corridors. The skeletal remains of a dead soldier lay rotting against a wall, and the monster sent a questing tentacle toward the corpse. It moved on at a languid pace, its translucent frills giving it the appearance of a possessed bridal veil.
“Why are you doing this?” Remi fell to his knees, the horror and fear reverberating through his brain and wiping out any possible lustful counterattack to Amanita’s assault.
The images faded, and Amanita regarded him with her beetle-black eyes before tilting her graceful neck in the direction of the base.
Not an attack, a warning.
“That’s a phantom, then.” He stood up, his legs shaky. “There’s one of them inside in the base trying to get out?”
The repoequus gave an angry huff, and Remi was inundated with images of dozens of the floating ghost brides from hell swarming through the half-destroyed remains of a building interior.
He held up a hand to forestall any more information from Amanita. “Lots of monster jellies at the base. Do not stop to take the tour. Got it.”
Her form rippled, and her tack disappeared, somehow incorporated into her scaly hide. She tossed her head and trotted off into the saguaros.
“Enjoy the jackrabbits.” Remi gave her a quick salute and took off on foot to the monstertown entrance.
He bowed to both of the lions, who gave no sign they were anything except solid stone. The gate swung open for him, and he walked down Main Street. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, if that word could be used to describe the town on any occasion. Shroom lights lit up the streets, but most of the inhabitants were inside, perhaps deciding that might be safer given that their interzone community had become part of a riftland.
