As they stepped through the shattered remains of what had once been a display window, an unmarked black van pulled up to a screeching stop in front of the store.

“Get in,” ordered Ms. Dinardi.

“Wait, shouldn’t we wait for the police and fire department? I’ll have to file a report on behalf of the store and I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to the other guys at the firehouse…”

“By the time anyone else gets here, they’ll have things other than reports to worry about,” she said, pointing to the corner of the street. Around the block stepped a creature that Marcus could only describe as a dinosaur dog, bigger than a city bus and looking cranky as hell. Its massive collar was connected to a collection of leashes being pulled by an agitated crowd of strange looking little people yelling and hopping about like crickets. The dinosaur monster jerked its head to the side and chomped one of the hopping little ones right out of the air. There had to be at least fifty of them—minus one—poking the creature with spears, yelling and tugging it right toward the Office Shack.

“Oh, okay,” Marcus nodded with the remnants of his rational mind. He followed Ms. Dinardi in a dash for the van holding his shoulder. The side door slid open and a collection of hands reached out to help him inside.

Ms. Dinardi updated the driver as she got in the passenger seat, “Single ogre scout, ugly one; neutralized. Now that they’ve found him we can expect the full force of their first wave. We should have started all this months ago. Goblin horde with a tinzlor beast at our six.”

“As you’ve said before,” replied the driver checking the rearview mirror. “But even now, he still isn’t ready.”

“Mother Superior Geduldig?!” Marcus yelped at the driver in the habit. He hadn’t seen her since the orphanage.

“Hello, Marcus,” replied the mother superior. “First, know that we’re all here for you, we love you, and now it’s time for you to kick some ass, darling. Buckle your seatbelt. You other bitches hang on.” The tires screamed and spewed smoke as the van whipped out of the parking lot, away from the horde and their beast.

“What the hell’s going on?!” Marcus whimpered, trying to get a view out the window. “My shoulder; I can’t move my arm.”

Heather Williams sat across from him. She reached out and felt his tender left arm, “Try to stay calm now, honey. We have a lot to talk about. But first—” She pulled his arm out straight to the side with a powerful jerk and it popped back into place.

Marcus reeled in pain and then his tunnel vision started to widen, “Heather what are you…” His girlfriend wasn’t the only one he recognized in the special ops van: Brenda Meeks who worked for him at the Office Shack’s customer service desk; Pamela Horton who taught his cardio kung-fu class; Asha Patni who coordinated his volunteer fireman schedule; that new girl from the corner coffee shop by his apartment, Tiffany something—or The Mayor of Super Rack City, as his buddy Roger had called her. They were all there—and they all wore faces in various states of controlled panic.

Heather cleared her throat, “In the middle of the eleventh century, two powerful wizards were at war, Callineous Urthisolt and Grynot Vitroddin. Grynot wanted to rule over the entire Earth and Callineous fought to keep him from enslaving planet.”

“I never heard about anything like that,” Marcus balked.

“That’s because it never actually happened in our current reality,” Brenda cut in, slamming a clip into her Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine gun and loading the first round into the chamber. “Go on, Heather.”

Asha looked up from the glow of her tablet, “I think we’ve got a tail.”

“I’m on it,” Pamela declared, jumping over her seat into the back of the van as Brenda tossed her the MP7. “What are we looking at?” she continued, opening the back window.

“I’m not sure, keeps changing shape. Could be some sort of swarm,” Asha replied analyzing her screen.

“Imps,” the mother superior cut in. “Let’s see if we can lose the little bastards in the tunnel.”

The van made a dramatically sharp right turn from the center lane, wheels screeching around the corner and cutting off the car in the right lane. There was a chorus of screaming rubber, crashing steel and glass behind them as the intersection exploded into chaos.

Tiffany joined Pamela at the back windows, loading explosive rounds into her grenade launcher. “You better continue, Heather,” Tiffany huffed. “We don’t have much time and he needs to know.”

Marcus was having trouble following with everything happening so quickly. “Imps?”

“They’re sorta like crossing a mosquito with a monkey… from hell,” Brenda explained, lighting the pilot on her flamethrower. “Ready with the bug spray!”

“Right here, Marcus,” Heather grabbed him by the shoulders and he winced. “I need you to focus. Originally, the wizards, Callineous and Grynot, were working together. They were trying to collect all the most powerful magics so that they couldn’t fall into the wrong hands and potentially decimate the planet—much like the governments of the global superpowers do with nuclear bombs. Are you following me, Marcus?”

“I guess?” he shrugged painfully, shaking his head and trying to make sense of what he was hearing.

“They’ve entered the tunnel!” Pamela yelled from the back.

“Waste’em!” Ms. Dinardi shouted back.

Pamela started shooting into the swarm coming up on the van before Brenda starting spraying fire out the back window.

“What Callineous didn’t know at the time,” Heather did her best to continue, “was that Grynot was the wrong hands. He planned to use all the magics to bend the entire world to his rule. At this time the Earth was still widely populated with all the magical mythical creatures you’ve ever heard about—dragons, elves… Santa Claus. You remember that book I got you when you were home with the flu?”

“Yeah, the, uh. . . The Encyclopedia of the Supernatural?” Marcus replied over the sudden explosion of a grenade behind the van.

“How you like me now!?” Tiffany yelled in celebration.

Heather spoke through the distraction, “Right! All that, and more. They rarely interfered with the affairs of men, for the most part. Mortals were a pretty insignificant blip on the world’s radar for a long time. But as centuries passed, mankind kept growing and venturing out into the darkest forests and further seas. There were some that took issue with this, fearing that mankind was becoming a nuisance, a disease that needed to be done away with. They divided into two courts, the Seely, who felt there was enough room on the Earth for all of us, and the Unseely, who were ready to wipe humans off the planet.”

“We’re about to exit the tunnel,” mother superior declared. “It would be great if we didn’t have a damn entourage.”

“Tiffany, pump out two of those gas grenades and I’ll light up the cloud as soon as they fly into it,” Brenda commanded as she readied her flamethrower.

With two pops, Tiffany’s grenades became a thick cloud of poison gas, full of choking imps. Brenda quickly kissed the cloud with her flamethrower and it blossomed into a blazing inferno, dropping burning imps like a rain of sizzling meat. As the van shot out of the tunnel, Brenda turned, face beaming, “Who wants barbeque?!”

“I think we’re clear, mother superior,” Tiffany added looking around.

Suddenly, a very angry looking imp, charred, smoking and still flaming in places, popped up gripping the window. It pointed a fiery finger at Marcus and screamed. The Glock from Pamela’s holster was instantly at the little beasty’s head and she point-blanked it out of the van and back into the night in a green mist of its own blood. “Missed one,” she delivered dryly.

Before Marcus knew what he was seeing, out of the corner of his eye, what he thought was just an ornamental gargoyle on the eave of one of the buildings outside the tunnel, leapt free and dove down.

“Just trying to leave you a little action, Pam,” Brenda said boastfully, right as she was torn out the back window and into the night sky, in the clutches of the swooping gargoyle. She left a trail of screams and fire as she disappeared into the dark.

A stunned silence gripped the van. “Nothing we can do for her now,” Ms. Dinardi announced. “Keep your heads in the game. Heather, we’re almost there.”

Heather turned back to Marcus, a sense of duty clearly trying to suppress her panic, “The Unseely court didn’t have to think twice and easily sided with Grynot, although they wouldn’t clean humans from the planet, at least the humans would be kept in check and be put into service of the court. The war was brutal and raged quietly for centuries, nearly destroying both courts and wiping out many races. Finally, at the recommendation of Callineous in the middle of the eleventh century, the two wizards agreed that they would both appoint a champion to finish the battle between them—that the victory of that fight would decide the war once and for all. The selection of the champion on both sides was very meticulous. But Grynot was just stalling—with the theft of an ancient scroll, he now had all the magics he needed to claim supreme power—he was preparing the ultimate spell that would give him dominion over all the Earth.”

“Bravo team reports that the location is secure,” Asha updated from the glow of her tablet, with a hand to her ear, “but I’m getting hits all over the city. We won’t have long.”

“Five minutes out, you trollops,” mother superior shot back.

“Callineous arrived at Grynot’s castle with his champion and a handful of loyal druid priestesses,” Heather continued, “but it was too late, the spell was already underway—Callineous couldn’t stop it. A fight broke out between the two forces. A few of the priestesses guarded Callineous as he proceeded to do the only thing that he could think of—he split the world.”

“What do you mean?” Marcus asked, trying to follow.

“He took mankind and placed them in a protective pocket dimension, locked away from the rest of the world,” Heather explained.

“But we can go anywhere we want on the whole planet. We go to the moon!”

Heather cleared her throat, “This is a shadow Earth; a shadow universe. Just a flicker of what’s actually around us. Scientists are only just now starting to detect that most of what fills the universe we can’t see. They call it dark matter, dark energy—and it makes up over ninety percent of the universe; we just can’t perceive it. You know how people are only using a fraction of their brains’ total potential?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that.”

“Same thing. It’s our innate human magical capabilities that we’ve been cut off from. We’ve been locked away from the real world, the real universe, all these centuries. We’re still living on the same Earth but are only able to perceive a fraction of it. We always knew we should be able to travel faster, so we built trains and automobiles. We always knew we should be able to fly, so we built planes and rockets. We always knew we should be able to communicate instantly anywhere, so we built telephones and the Internet. We developed technology to make up for what we’d lost. Science is just another word for magic, and magic is just science we don’t understand yet.”

Marcus shook his head, “Heather, how do you know all of this?”

“When the world was violently ripped apart and this dimension was broken off, there was only one survivor from the fight on this side of the Earth with the rest of the humans; one of the priestesses, Oalla Foreswilth. She founded a secret order of women warriors sworn to protect humanity from anything that made it through the cracks between worlds. We are sisters of that order. We are the Sentinels.”

“All of you? But what are the chances that I should meet so many of you? You must be everywhere.”

“It’s actually the other way around. There are very few of us left. You are a changeling, Marcus. You were sent from the other side at birth to be our champion, our Paladin. We’ve been grooming you for your destiny your entire life.”

“With firefighting and cardio kung-fu?!”

“And leadership as manager at the Office Shack,” Heather tried to smile.

“Remember the landlady from your first apartment?” Pamela chimed in.

“Mrs. Webber? Yeah, her place always smelled like strange incense—figured she was just an old stoner,” Marcus replied.

“She died two months ago, cleaning out a nest of vampires in Helsinki,” Pamela concluded.

“While you were on vacation, skiing in Colorado?” Marcus tried to remember.

“Yeah,” Pamela spat back. “Vacation. Right.”

“So those gashes on your neck weren’t from running into a tree?”

“Nope.”

“Mrs. Rafiqzada, your college science teacher who led your class trip to the Amazon?” Ms. Dinardi chimed in.

“Yeah?” Marcus turned.

“Dead; three years ago in the mountains of Afghanistan fighting a rogue genie.”

“So my whole life has been a set up?!” Marcus stammered, trying to hold on to what was left of his sanity. He turned to Heather, “Are you even really my girlfriend?!”

“Of course I am, Marcus! But, I was assigned to you. I had to get you to ask me out at that bar or I would have been reassigned and, I really wanted you to ask me out.”

Marcus pulled back, “Why? Why am I being set up like this?”

“Because, the veil between worlds is collapsing and Grynot still wants to rule all the Earth. The final battle still has to take place and you have to save us, Marcus Fay. You have to save us all. Because, you’re humanity’s only hope. You are the Paladin.”

The van screeched to stop in front of the city cultural museum. Marcus stepped out on the sidewalk where another group of women was waiting.

“Has he been debriefed?” asked a woman in glasses and a skirt suit.

“He’s got the Cliff Notes, Carol,” Ms. Dinardi replied stepping from the van.

“We should’ve done this months ago,” Carol pointed out.

“Lisa?!” Marcus recognized his ex-girlfriend standing with the group.

“Thanks for getting me reassigned, douche,” she acknowledged him. “Hope you got your shit together, while I’ve spent the last three years up to my eyeballs with zombie guts in Haiti because of you.”

Marcus’ bank teller, Trisha, was also there. She walked up to Ms. Dinardi, “I wired the ten million into his account this afternoon after I got the order. Were you able to get the equipment?”

“Back of the van,” Ms. Dinardi replied. “Gear up, ladies. Let’s give them one to remember, because I dare say, tonight is lady’s night.”

“You better be worth it,” Lisa muttered as she walked past Marcus.

“I’m picking something up,” Asha blurted out, struggling with her tablet. “Something big.”

Marcus followed her, Heather and Ms. Dinardi back to Mother Superior Geduldig, still in the driver’s seat of the van. Asha showed her the tablet, “Could be a dragon.”

Mother superior sighed, “Okay, gather these hussies and get him inside. And one of you twits, wrap that wound on his head; he keeps getting blood on me. You can’t fail, not when we’re this damn close. Everyone now is expendable except him.”

“No, but you. . .” Heather started.

“Don’t argue! Make it happen!” mother superior commanded. “Marcus, darling, I want you to pee in the van.”

“What?!”

“Pee in the van,” she repeated flatly. “Urine is like a signature with the Unseely.”

“Guess that explains the ogre,” Marcus mused.

“Indeed.”

The inside of the museum foyer was beautiful marble everywhere; floors, pillars, ceiling. The echoes of their hurried footsteps sounded almost ethereal. “We’re surrounded,” Asha declared suddenly, examining her tablet. “They’re all over the building.”

“I put the museum under a warding spell,” declared Carol, the woman in glasses and the skirt suit, who must’ve been the museum curator; or a tour guide. “But it won’t last long. We have to get to the back of the cultural heritage wing. This way.”

Mother Superior Geduldig sat calmly in the driver’s seat of the van with the side door slid wide open, waiting for her moment. She could see the building crawling with all manner of dark creatures, most she’d only read about—but this was not her moment. She took a pack of smokes from the glove compartment and lit one up, feeling the rush of it for the first time in thirty years. A goblin crept in behind her and raised a wicked looking blade, gibbering wildly. Without turning, she reached back and shot it in the head.

“You’re harshing my mellow, ass-hat,” she exhaled. “And, you talk too much.”

There was a great rush of air around the van and it was bumped, rocking it a bit. She nestled her cigarette between two fingers and reached up for the oxygen mask above the visor. She pulled it down past the brim of her habit and held it over her nose and mouth. Just then the van was engulfed in flames, sucking out all the air. The blast stopped, leaving only little flames to lick across the surface of the vehicle and the surrounding pavement.

“Showtime,” she muttered, dropping the oxygen mask, replacing the cigarette in her lips and moving into the back of the van. She kicked the corpse of the goblin off to the side and grabbed two spray guns attached by hoses to a tank, which she sat on. She took an extra-long pull off her smoke and tossed it out of the open door. A great shadow fell across where the butt had come to rest and the earth shook gently, rocking the van once again. She could hear a low rumbling, and a contained crackling sound like one of those old wood furnaces. These sounds were followed by a huffing and puffing, like the sound of a huge dog nose sniffing around. She bit her lip. The scaly muzzle she’d been waiting for presented itself at the open door.

“How ‘bout a little personal lubricant, you harlot?” mother superior grumbled, spraying a shiny clear goo into each of its nostrils as it inhaled.

The dragon recoiled from the van, gagging and sneezing simultaneously. She leapt out onto the street. “A damn weak-ass brown dragon?!” she yelled into the night. “What?—the anointing of the Paladin isn’t a significant enough event for your master?! This ultimate showdown’s going to be easier than I thought!”

The dragon hacked and shot lubricant from its nostrils.

“What’s the matter, sneezy? A little too much foreplay? You not hot for mama anymore?”

The dragon turned away from her toward the museum.

“Hey, I’m talking to you, skank!” mother superior yelled, pulling a Desert Eagle from her black robes and pumping a few rounds into the dragon’s hide. “Eat me!”

The great beast roared in anger and turned on her.

Mother Superior Geduldig closed her eyes as the jaws of immense teeth closed in on her. This was her moment. The moment she had been waiting for. She pushed the button.

“Lick my gash, bitch.”

“Hey, has anyone seen my vest of explosive charges?” Pamela asked as they rushed through the halls of the museum.

A huge explosion in the street shook the whole building to the foundation.

“I think mother superior borrowed it,” Heather replied solemnly.

“The wing is through here,” Carol, the spectacled skirt suit announced, walking backwards like a tour guide as she led the team. “At the other end of the exhibit is a door with a combination lock. I’ve kept it safe and no one has the combination but me. It’s. . .” There was a sharp crack as she entered the exhibit hall and she looked down curiously to see a gory blade protruding from her chest. “The warding spell has been broken,” she observed dryly, before the blade was pulled from her back with a horrible sucking sound by the stealthy orc who had ended her.

“CAROL!” Asha screamed, dropping her tablet and releasing her gun from its shoulder holster to deliver two bullets into the growling orc’s head. She ran to Carol’s crumpled form, bleeding on the marble, but Carol was already gone.

Sounds were echoing from all over the museum now, and a lot of them sounded like grunting, running and clanging.

“Shit,” Ms. Dinardi declared. “Defensive positions! You three, secure the exhibit hall. You two, protect the package; make sure they don’t get anywhere near him. Marcus.”

“Yes?” Marcus answered, head bandaged and pointing his gun into the dark corners of the museum.

“Your safety’s on.”

“Damn, thanks,” he replied nervously, as he examined his gun and clicked the safety off.

Lisa stepped to his side, “Marcus, it’s time for you to man up. Remember all the times I took you to the shooting range. Use the sights. Squeeze, don’t pull the trigger—and breathe.”

“Tiffany,” Ms. Dinardi barked, as the sounds grew closer in the dark, “give them the gas—up and down the court. Asha, we could all really use a little more Asha right about now.”

Tiffany pulled the pins on two gas grenades and tossed them into the dark in opposite directions. Each clattered against the marble until delivering their distinctive pops that filled the shadows with foggy poison. Asha was whimpering and still cradling Carol’s body. A few shots rang out behind them in the exhibit hall. “The hall is secure!” came the call; as did the hordes—from both sides, bursting through the foggy dark.

Arrows, real arrows that smelled of the woods, zipped past faces. One buried itself snugly in the chest of the familiar looking girl with the striped dress. Otherworldly howls and growls interlaced with the yells and shouts of the women around Marcus. Towering forms emerged over the foggy dark; gaunt figures that were forced to hunch over to walk through the cavernous building. Three, four, maybe five times the size of the ogre. “Take out those trolls!” Marcus was just able to make out Ms. Dinardi’s command over the clash of the melee.

Lisa had taken a position near the front of the squad; with a machine gun in either hand, she was mowing down row after row of the approaching beasts. Tiffany wore two utility belts of various grenades, but was doing well with her semi-automatic shotgun; tearing through orcs and taking down full-size ogres. She paused her onslaught to toss a grenade at one of the approaching trolls, who caught it with just enough time to examine it before everything above its towering hips was shredded in a ball of fire. Heather pulled the two swords from her criss-crossing sheaths now strapped to her back and commenced slicing through the air all around her with amazing speed, and in such a dazzling fashion. As she slithered through the horde, the monsters didn’t even realize they’d been cut down until she’d already moved on and they fell in twain. Pamela wielded two semi-automatic Glocks, but liked to get in close; breaking necks, kicking through ribs or dispatching monsters point blank whenever she could.

They were a well oiled machine, these warriors, these sisters. Marcus was clearly the odd man out; except he wasn’t. Each one of them had given him a piece of themselves, and the pieces clicked into place perfectly. Marcus felt like a puzzle that had finally been assembled. Doubt became a distant memory. Before he knew what he was doing, the ground around him was littered with the monsters he’d slain. Marcus Fey was slaying monsters and it felt natural. Even if his introduction to the real world should have happened months ago, it didn’t matter now—his caretakers, the Sentinels, had done their job well. He was ready—ready to save the world.

Asha had pulled herself together and was back at her tablet, “We’ve got more incoming all around the building!”

“Welcome back, Asha,” Ms. Dinardi didn’t bother looking over her shoulder as she was busy guarding Trisha who was kneeling on the floor in front of her. Trisha was pouring the contents of various vials into a small ceremonial bowl.

“Running low on ammo!” Lisa shouted back from the front line.

Trisha muttered something over the bowl and dribbled it around the doors to the exhibit hall in a wide semi-circle as Ms. Dinardi covered her from all sides. “Everyone pull back!” Trisha called out. She paused just long enough to give everyone time to retreat and then yelled, “Close your eyes! Ego vocare a defensiva vis agro!” A shimmering bubble popped into existence with a flash all around them. A few monsters that hadn’t recoiled from the flash banged against it but couldn’t get through. Pamela picked off the two goblins that had ended up trapped inside with them. And that’s when they saw her—Cheryl hadn’t pulled back in time. Marcus recognized her, the nice lady who worked at the grocery store, who was always recommending the healthiest foods, who was always smiling. Even now she wore a smile, but it was longing, sad, apologetic, as she pressed against the force field from the other side. The horde of monsters had shaken off the dazzle of the flash and would be swarming her in seconds. Cheryl raised her hand softly in a gentle wave to her sisters; her fingers were adorned with the rings of the pins she’d just pulled from the grenades around her belt. Instantly, the beasts were upon her and ripped her back, pulling her into the center of the throng. She never screamed. The chorus of explosions seemed somehow muted, almost like thuds, but the raining viscera of dark creatures turned inside out against the protective bubble left no doubt—she’d gotten the job done.

The museum then became much quieter; just a few shellshocked goblins and orcs mortally wounded and stumbling aimlessly.

“Let’s rally now and make Cheryl’s sacrifice count,” Ms. Dinardi declared. “This protective field won’t last long and Asha’s detecting more hostiles in play.”

“They’re already inside the building,” Asha updated.

“Heather, take Asha, Tiffany and Lisa and get Marcus to the end zone,” Ms. Dinardi ordered. “The rest of us will hold them off here as long as we can to buy you time. Block these doors behind you, best you can.”

Pamela stepped up to Marcus. She was splattered here and there with blood; red, green and black. She put her hands on his shoulders, “I believe in you, Marcus. Even though it was called cardio kung-fu not to raise suspicion, I was teaching you real combat, and you always took it seriously. I know you can do this. You are the Paladin. I’ve dedicated my life to you—we all have. Make us proud, Marcus Fey.” She hugged him firmly with tears in her eyes.

All the sisters who were staying behind came up to give him their regards. He recognized them all, even if he couldn’t place some of them. “I’m Bonnie. I was going to interview with you next week at the Office Shack for that sales clerk position,” said the one with the auburn hair and the shy smile.

“I would’ve hired you,” Marcus smiled back.

Trisha, his bank teller, stepped up and ruffled his hair. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” she smiled. “Looks better that way. Good luck.”

“Keep your eye on the prize and your head in the game,” Ms. Dinardi gave him a firm handshake and leaned in for a quick hug with her other arm. “Whatever happens just remember to walk it off—but don’t you dare play fair, not this time. You take every advantage you can. Play to win, there is no second place. Good luck, my boy.”

Distant clanging and growling started growing in the museum once again. “Everyone knows the drill! Sentinels, you have your orders! Let’s move, ladies!” shouted Ms. Dinardi.

Upon entering, they closed the doors to the exhibit hall behind them and used Carol’s keys to lock the rest of their sisters out, at the mercy of the next wave of gruesome creatures. They further barricaded it using heavy pedestals from the displays. They made their way through the center of the cultural heritage exhibit hall, Tiffany and Lisa flanking while Asha led the way.

“Heather, I’m sure you realize that this is a lot to take in all at once,” Marcus began, “so I hope you’ll forgive me if it’s only now occurred to me to ask what we’re doing here.”

“We’re retrieving the first artifact of Callineous,” Heather replied. “With it, the Paladin can recover the rest of the artifacts to be used in the final battle.”

“And, I’m the Paladin,” he nodded, mulling over his predicament. “But, you guys, the Sentinels, are going to help me, right?”

“Traveling as a group will draw too much attention. Marcus, you’ll have to make the journey as the Paladin alone. Oalla Foreswilth hid the artifacts all over the world for their protection centuries ago, the sisterhood was only charged with keeping the first one safe and delivering it to the Paladin when the time came. We’ve prepared some things to help you on your way,” she said, handing Marcus a backpack. “I put together a scrapbook for you of all the creatures that we know about, Seely and Unseely; their strengths and their weaknesses.”

“Wait, your scrapbooking nights; they were spent with the sisterhood weren’t they?!” Marcus spoke as it dawned on him. “I always thought scrapbooking was just an excuse to drink with other women and rag on us men. Like poker night is for guys.”

“Oh, I gave reports about you, sure. But yes, we used the time to plan for your future,” Heather replied, and then stopped walking to cock her head at Marcus. “Wait, did you complain about me to your poker buddies?”

“Nope,” Marcus replied, looking around and shaking his head.

Heather took a deep breath, sighed and they fell back in step with the group. “Trisha has set you up with ten million dollars in an untraceable off-shore bank account. The details of the bank are in here but you’ll have to remember your account number—it’s your social security number followed by your cell number. The pin is seven seventy seven, but I recommend you change it as soon as you’re able. Can you remember that?”

“Yeah,” he replied, a little frightened of this new reality setting in.

Machine gun bursts, clanging and explosions could now be heard through the doors behind them. “Let’s keep it moving, people,” Lisa ordered, stepping over the bodies of two orcs taken out when the room had been cleared earlier.

“By the way, can I see your phone?” Heather continued.

“Sure,” he said, handing it to her. “I always put important account numbers and stuff like that in the little note pad app, but I really think I should be able to remember—”

Heather shattered the screen on the corner of a marble pedestal and then dropped it into a glass vase of flowers to pop and sizzle in the water. “There are a few burner phones in the bag. Use one for a few days and then toss it and get a new one. Do not contact anyone you’ve known—friends, colleagues, anyone—you’ll only be putting them in danger now. If you ever need help, call your old office line at the Office Shack, we’ll be monitoring that line and we’ll be sure that it remains active. Mention the word ‘calypso’ and stay on the line with whoever picks up for thirty seconds and we’ll trace your location. You can also put a personal ad in any newspaper requesting ‘a dance partner for calypso’ if phone lines get compromised. Only ever make contact if it’s an absolute emergency. Asha has prepared several identities for you including passports, credit cards, everything you’ll need to stay underground and out of the system anywhere in the world. You can never go back to using Marcus Fey now. Are you getting all this, Marcus?”

“Yeah, but how will I know where I’m going, what I’m supposed to do?”

“The artifacts will guide you. They’re magical and they want to be brought back together. At a certain point in your search you will be approached by a druid priestess from the other side named Alora Oakshade. She is a half-elf who will help you cross over and serve as your guide through the real reality. Like us, she is sworn to serve and protect the Paladin on his quest.”

“What about us, Heather?” Marcus asked, wide-eyed. “What about you and me? Will I ever see you again?”

Just then a loud banging and great cracking sounds started at the doors they’d left behind. “Sounds like they’ve gotten past Dinardi and the others,” Lisa spun on her heels.

“Tiffany, take Asha and Marcus and get that artifact,” Heather ordered, pushing the backpack into Marcus’ hands and stopping to stand with Lisa.

“You’re not coming with us?!” Marcus panicked. “How will I know what to do with this artifact?! How do we get out of here once we have it?!”

Lisa slapped him, “You man up, douche. That’s how.” Then she smiled, “Good luck.”

Heather grabbed him tightly and kissed him hard, “I love you. Now go.”

Tiffany grabbed Marcus by the arm and pulled him. He ran, following her and Asha to the end of the exhibit hall, around the corner behind the last display and to the door at the end of a small service hallway.

“What now? We don’t have the combination; only Carol knew it, right?” Marcus asked.

Tiffany pulled him back from the door, “Let’s give Asha a little space to work her magic.”

Bangs, the sound of machine gun fire and explosions erupted in the exhibit hall. Heather and Lisa had engaged the enemy.

Marcus scanned his surroundings trying to figure out how they would get out of here after they got the artifact but was finding nothing.

Tiffany finished loading the last two cartridges into her semi-automatic shotgun and trained it at the entrance to the hallway.

“I don’t see how we’re going to be able to get out of here,” Marcus confessed.

“I’ve heard that the first artifact might allow you to phase through things; like stepping through the other dimension and back. I’m not sure,” offered Tiffany.

“Oh, well that would be helpful. That would do it.”

“It’s magical, you know.”

“Well, one would hope.”

“Got it,” announced Asha. “We’re in.”

“Wow,” Marcus was impressed. “You must’ve actually worked magic.”

“No, Carol and I met at our training convent and fell in love,” Asha clarified somberly, hurrying them through the door. “When her birth date didn’t work I tried mine, and we’re in—but I think this door’s been forced before we got here. So, be careful of—” were the last words Asha spoke before being hit in the head by an ornate and heavy bottle-shaped exhibit piece that was turned into a bottle-shaped missile attack by a couple of approaching orcs. She crumpled to the floor.

“I’ll drag her in, you get the door!” Marcus commanded.

Tiffany swung the door closed after Marcus had Asha inside, but not before getting pierced by a vicious arrow.

“Marcus, I…” Tiffany began, before dropping to her knees.

“Tiffany!” Marcus called, looking up from Asha. He rested Asha’s body gently and rushed to Tiffany’s side. She collapsed in his arms.

“Marcus, I don’t think I feel so good.”

Marcus looked down to examine her lethal wound and then back to her face, doing his best to smile. “You’re fine.”

She wasn’t.

“You can walk this off.”

She couldn’t.

“Heck, you’ll probably be able to run circles around me in a few days.”

She wouldn’t. The monsters were pounding on the metal door; hacking at it with their blades.

“I read this article about cats,” Tiffany coughed. “I wanted to tell you about it the next time you came to the shop for coffee. They can infect you with love and devotion.”

“Yeah? Interesting stuff?” Marcus asked, trying to figure out what to do.

“Can I tell you something?” she said weakly.

“Anything.”

She spoke slow and choppy, wincing and shuddering in pain. “I always wanted to be your girlfriend. I wanted that assignment; because I thought you were cute. Right off. But, they said I couldn’t. They said I wasn’t your type; that I was too young and we wouldn’t have enough in common. Do you think cats are neat? Could I have been your girlfriend?”

“Absolutely,” Marcus declared, concentrating on trying to keep her head propped up. “In a heartbeat.”

“Could you have loved me the way you love Heather?”

“Well, that’s… we…,” he breathed. She was dying. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“The Paladin, Marcus Fey’s girlfriend,” she sighed wistfully. “Thank you. I think it tastes like pennies in here,” she muttered faintly and then faded away.

“Tiffany?” Marcus jostled her gently, but she was limp.

The pounding at the door was becoming more rhythmic, unified. He could hear the metal creaking. There was only one way to save them now, to save everyone—or at least, honor them. He had to find the artifact. Looking around, it was a small meagerly lit room. It looked like a storage room for exhibit pieces not on display, with glass cases to keep them in—except the glass cases were noticeably empty, and most were sitting on their bases awkwardly, like they’d been opened and closed in a hurry. In the back corner of the room he found a small table with a little wooden box on it. The box looked so old, like it had seen ten thousand seasons. This was it. Inside this box he would find the first artifact of Callineous. He opened it. Inside was a pillow of old blue velvet, crushed softly in the center with a centuries old indentation just the right shape and size for the glimmering Ring of Callineous—but there was no ring. Except for the velvet pillow, the box was empty. Nothing under the velvet, and nothing inside the fragile pillow for Marcus to discover after ripping it to shreds.

“This sucks,” he declared, as the door finally busted open and the room filled with furious violent orcs. True to the training he never knew he was receiving his entire life, Marcus Fey made a truly valiant effort before he was finally overcome.