CHAPTER 100

"What on earth happened to you?" he asked.

"Well, to start, nothing happened to me on Earth." She spat dust out of her mouth and then shape changed into Dana. However, she was still covered in soot. "Oh, for fuck's sake, hold up a second."

She transformed into a little girl, and then into Sofia. The sudden shift in size caused quite a bit of the soot to fall off of her, and she repeated this process a few more times, then noticed a pitcher of water next to the wash basin near Mike's bed. She picked up the pitcher, turned into the little girl, then poured it over her head. As the water fell over her, she transformed into her original form, and most of the soot was now gone.

"That's much better. I can probably take a dunk in the fountain, if the nymph doesn't...wait, where are we?" She looked around the yurt in astonishment. "Please tell me we aren't too far from home."

"I'm with the centaurs. They're treating my head injury." He frowned. "By the way, seeing you turn into a kid freaks me out a little."

"It's how I hunt these days. Sit on a park swing and wait for the pervs to come out of the woodwork. What did you do to your head?"

He gave her a brief version of the events that transpired. When finished, he fixed her with a look. "Wait a sec. How is it that you didn't know about any of this? I thought you were keeping an eye on my dreams."

"Ugh. Change in plans." She coiled up her tail and sat on it like a stool. "The whole purpose of monitoring your dreams was to watch for your shadow buddy. I decided it would be even better to watch the shadow himself, and when I caught him skulking around your subconscious, I went after him."

"So you've been following the shadow this whole time?" He looked at her with interest.

"Mmm-hmm. And let me say, it wasn't my idea of a fun date. That piece of shit led me on quite the wild goose chase."

"To where, though? If you've been gone for days, where have you been?"

"Ugh, days?" Lily scowled. "Damn. I lost track of time trying to pin that fucker down. Remember when he tossed me around so easily in the Dreamscape? He's just as nasty outside of it, a real piece of work. He eventually lured me into a trap and sent me to Hell. I can always teleport straight to my master, which is why I'm here." She coughed, and a fair amount of ash came out of her lungs.

"You were in Hell?"

"Only for a few minutes. The trip is always disorienting and the demons running the place don't exactly provide a warm welcome." She crossed her arms. "So anyway, let's talk about this shadow of yours. He seems to be linked to your mind, but I couldn't figure out why, and I remember you first ran into him in that tower on the other side of the wardrobe."

"Yes, that's right." The shadow had found him when he was trapped in another world, trying to find his way home.

"He can jump from the tower to you, which didn't make a lot of sense. While I was tracking him, I discovered that he hangs out somewhere else as well."

"And where would that be?"

She lowered her head. "We demons call it purgatory, which isn't actually a place at all. It's the in-between of practically everywhere, kind of like a crossroads."

"You mean like between here and the Underworld?" He sat up, his voice rising in excitement.

"Oh, I see where you're going with this. Yes, technically that's true, but let's ignore your obsession with the screamer for now. Purgatory, or limbo, whatever you want to call it, is primarily accessed by dying and refusing to move on. In this place, spirits have physical form, and your shadow buddy is very powerful there. He passes through it on his way from the tower to your mind."

"He lives in the tower?"

"Almost there, Romeo. You see, limbo is a lot like the living world, and you can find places in limbo that existed here. He lives in the purgatory version of that tower, which is far larger and much more impressive." She shook her head. "The tower used to be part of a giant castle, which meant I ran across some stray spirits there that died in some giant war I've never heard of. I was able to talk to a few of them, and once he found out I was digging up intel, that's when he caught me in a devil's trap and sent me to Hell."

"And what did you learn?"

Lily's eyes narrowed, glowing blood red. "I've often wondered where your friend came from and how he found you. Especially when it came to the Dreamscape. You told me he was able to find you during one of your house visions, right? Well, it turns out there's actually a simple answer that complicates everything and you aren't going to like it."

He frowned. "I have a feeling anything I learn about this guy is bad news."

"Well buckle up, because I'm about to break it to you. The shadow is a former Caretaker. He's trapped on the other side of the veil, feeding off the energy of all those souls."

"I don't understand, that's imposs—" he started, but the more he thought about it, the quicker it sank in. There had been hints of other places like his home, and it made sense that other humans must have been involved like he was. But to what purpose?

The succubus smirked. "I can actually watch the news sinking in to that broken head of yours. They call him a bunch of different names over there, the dead are so hard to talk to. But the gist of it was that he was in charge of that castle and it was full of magic and strange beings, and he used to be in charge of taking care of the place. There was some kind of battle, and the dead don't really know that they lost, so imagine talking to a bunch of disoriented spirits. Lot of conflicting information, but the final result of this battle was that the shadow somehow avoided moving on to the other side when he died."