Keir by Pippa Jay Page A

his past, but she was terrified of meeting the monster that had destroyed hers.
    Quin stretched out a hand to the wall and opened her fist, palm outward. The vast psychic force she was using to create and open the gateway echoed through him. He felt a surge as though caught in a sudden tempest as she twisted the dimensions in order to forge a pathway through time and space. The hand gesture seemed so simple, yet it was only a pale symbolism of the powers she manipulated. Energy poured through her from an unknown source and, for a moment, he thought he glimpsed a spark of bright-blue flame in her eyes, before dismissing it as illusion. She turned to smile at him, aware of his presence in her thoughts.
    “Do you feel that?”
    He nodded, sharing the trace of euphoria.
    Her smile broadened and she opened her mind further, letting him feel the gateway through her, like gentle flames on his skin. He shivered as the sense of pressure built. Strands of fire shot across the surface of the wall in front of them and the gateway unlocked, easing the lines of tension that had bound him.
    Without hesitation, she stepped inside and pulled him through. His first voyage through a gateway had been taken on the verge of unconsciousness. This time, he was awake and sensitive to the mechanics involved. There was a pause on the threshold, a moment of absolute stillness in which he could see the universe laid out at his feet, the pathway a corridor made up of thin, silvery threads that seemed completely insubstantial. Then a blaze of white light swallowed him up and all physical sensation ceased.
    Reality slammed into him with a painful thump less than a heartbeat later and he stepped out, unable to resist glancing back. Stars and galaxies filled a black rectangle standing in the middle of nowhere, without connection to anything around it.
    In front of him, in stark contrast, lay a dark and narrow street full of shadows and small, shuttered buildings. A scorched, smoky smell hung in the air and a dull-orange light reflected off the heavy clouds blocking the stars. The city was eerily silent, held in the grip of plague and curfew.
    According to the historical records the compound archivist had managed to reconstruct, a third of the population had already succumbed and General Corizi had imposed martial law. Fires raged in the Western Quarter where soldiers burned bodies and property alike to try to control the disease. Behind locked doors and stone walls, the ailing denizens of Adalucien cowered in fear, no doubt waiting to see which of their family or neighbors would be felled next. And somewhere, close by, was the being that had destroyed Quin’s past and cursed him to a life as the Blue Demon of Adalucien.
    * * * *
    Quin hesitated as she took in their surroundings, as unsure of her bearings in the city as she had been in the wilderness beyond its walls. Together with Keir and Surei, she had spent the past few days examining holographic maps of the city, marking those areas riddled with plague with red symbols and making a calculated guess at Rulk’s location. The final choice rested on a stack of shaky estimations and a quick prayer to good luck. A single mistake and they could be hopping backward and forward in time for the next few decades.
    She sighed and took out her tracker. Schematics wove bright lines across the flat black screen, assembling into a three-dimensional overview of the city. Impatience had her biting her lip as she waited for it to finish its scan cycle, with Keir hovering at her shoulder. At last a blue icon blinked inside a line of buildings to the west of their position.
    She exhaled silently in relief. “This way.”
    They edged through the dark streets, the unnatural silence dragging on her nerves. Quin heard a woman sobbing as they passed, and her heart clenched in sympathy. So many would die tonight, and so many more in the days still to come.
    Keir hesitated as they reached a junction. “I hear something.”
    Quin