Priceless

from when he’d been snatched. Tall socks, cleated shoes and bright green shorts were his uniform. He looked as if he was just sleeping, with a tousled head of blonde hair. Crouching down, I took a deep breath, ignored the smells, and reached out for him with my ability, hoping that maybe there was a flicker of life in him still.
    Pain shot through me and I fell over on my ass, shocked. He was still alive!
    Scrambling, I rushed to his side, gently feeling for a pulse. Nearly a minute passed and then . . . there . . . a beat of his heart. Wrapping him up in the blanket, I stood and headed toward the door, my heart soaring. Little Jake was alive and we were going to keep him that way.
    A shuffle of cloth and a flicker of movement to my left made me spin and crouch, peering into the darkness. Body thumping with adrenaline, I stared into the darkness. Nothing. O’Shea’s words had put me on edge; I was hearing things, though now I wished I’d taken him up on his offer.
    Tension filled the air and I faced the area the noise had come from, backing toward the crossing point.
    I reached the doorway leading into the New Mexico desert and stepped through. “Jake’s alive!”
    Milly and O’Shea ran toward me. Milly would be able to keep the boy alive until we got to a hospital. She couldn’t heal him, but she could buy him some time.
    “Go, get him in the Hummer!” I stepped away from the cave’s entrance and shoved the boy into Milly’s arms.
    Alex sat next to the Hummer, his eyes snapping wide as he stared over my shoulder, teeth bared. I spun, trying to dodge whatever it was behind me, but couldn’t evade the hands that grabbed my waist and jerked me back across the veil.

~25~
    S liding back through the veil, I fought hard against the hands, kicking out, striking with my elbows and fists, but what I hit was so solid there didn’t seem to be any response to my blows.
    As my body was once more fully on the other side of the veil, I was flung deep into the dungeon, well over twenty feet. The stone floor was not forgiving when I slammed into it, landing on my right hip. Rolling, I scrambled to my feet to face the one who’d pulled me through.
    Or should I say, what pulled me through. A hulking shape stood between me and the entry point to the cave. It was over eight feet tall and while it had arms, legs and a body, it was not human. Too big, too strange of a shape. Like a puzzle that had its pieces jammed together, despite not really fitting. I couldn’t even tell what kind of supernatural it was. Like some sort of supernatural mutt, it didn’t fit in anywhere.
    Milly’s voice echoed through to me. “Rylee?”
    “Stay there, it’s between us.” What ‘it’” was, I wasn’t sure exactly. But it was big enough that it filled the space up from floor to ceiling, and its long arms dangled to the floor with thick muscled hands. In the shadows, it was hard to see just what the skin colour was, or any distinguishing marks, other than the fact that it was dark, stunk, and had a menace to it that I could feel vibrating between the two of us. I pulled my sword and advanced on the creature.
    “Come on, big boy, you don’t really want to stop me from crossing the veil, do you?” My voice was as sugary sweet as I could manage.
    It leaned forward, its face coming into a slant of light from the single flickering wall sconce. There were no eyes, no nose, just a mouth—one that dripped with slime and had very sharp teeth. I steadied myself for a charge, prepped to dodge around the hulking beast and duck back through the veil. But it just held its ground and didn’t move, though at least it didn’t advance, either.
    I shifted my grip on my sword, prepping for a fight, and in that split second, it attacked.
    I’d heard the term greased lightning, but had never truly seen it. The beast, as big as it was, slid past my guard and slammed me into the wall. Thick hands pinned my arms to the stone. My head clunked backwards, and no matter how I struggled, I couldn’t loosen the grip. The last of the stitches in my arm ripped out and blood trickled down my arm.
    “Come on.” This was it? The end of Rylee Adamson would come at the mouth of some unknown, unnamed beast? But it didn’t end my life, didn’t even try to bite me. Just held me tight against the wall.
    Light bloomed over its shoulder and the now familiar cloaked figure stepped out of the shadows. Icy blue eyes perused me with leisure.
    “You and your friends