Samuel pulled his sword from the wall, the familiar feel of the grip a comfort in what had become an increasingly bizarre situation. “We’re on Second?” Merl nodded and took a slow drag on his cigarette, squinting, savoring. “Yeah, you can fold it anywhere you want. I don’t have shields up. Haven’t needed them. Of course your arrival, as well as Vela’s,” he offered her a smile as he sipped his martini, then finished his thought.

“Anyway, your arrival will force me to rethink my strategy.” He’d called Vela by name and smiled at her.

Good ol’ Merl was starting to piss him off.

Samuel thought-the-thought and got rid of his sword. He returned to Vela, and as he passed by Merl again, he made eye- contact and let him feel just what he thought about this Third ascender, with a power similar to his own.

Merl’s lips quirked as he once more raised his martini glass and his cigarette in surrender. What a prick.

When Samuel reached Vela, she sent, What’s the matter? You’re all pissy and from what I can tell, Merl just saved our lives.

I had something to do with that.

Her expression softened. Yeah, you did and it cost you.

“Okay, you two. Enough with the telepathic chit-chat. It’s kinda rude.” The last word came out with a stretched ‘u’ sound. This man was one piece-of-work.

The weird thing was, Merl was warrior-sized and matched Samuel pound- for-pound. He wore black silk bottoms, but the terry robe, open to the waist, exposed muscled pecs.

Samuel slipped his arm around Vela.

“Who are you?” he asked, not trusting much about this stranger.

“Merl Tuttle, escapee from Third Earth, former warrior, including stretches inside the darkening grid. Got sick of the chaos on Third and found a way to get out.

Question is, how did you find me? I haven’t had visitors from Third since I got here.”

“We’re not from Third,” he said.

“Why, Vela, you didn’t tell me that.” He’d caressed her name. Hell, he’d poured oil over every single one of those words, the bastard, and now a lovely red hue covered Samuel’s vision as his dark power rose in a sudden smoky stream.

He launched at Merl before he had time to think or before he could respond to Vela calling out, “Don’t, Samuel. He’s a friend!” He caught bare arms, because somewhere in Samuel flying at Merl, the Third ascender had lost his robe and dropped into a fighting stance.

Samuel grappled with him, wrestling him to the ground, then letting his fists fly.

Merl folded out of his hold, levitated.

Samuel’s dark power recognized his foe and responded with similar levitation and folding, until once more he made contact.

But Merl had more power and the next thing Samuel knew, he lay face down on the carpet, a knee in his back, and one arm pulled back and upright to the breaking point.

“You done throwing a fit?”

“Don’t talk to my woman that way.” The words sounded slurred since they were half-spoken into a thick carpet.

“Fine.”

“Fine.” Merl let him go. Samuel rose to his feet, breathing hard, sweating, mad. He glared at Merl. “Just leave Vela alone.

She’s mine.” Merl opened his mouth to speak then closed it. “Hold the phone. Are we talking that breh-hedden shit here? I mean I heard rumors that Thorne had been laid waste.

It’s the breh-hedden, isn’t it?” But Samuel stepped into him and got about an inch away from his nose “Breh- hedden or not, stay the fuck away from my woman. We clear?” Merl narrowed his eyes and though he said nothing, he stared back, nostrils flaring.

But suddenly the air above them was full of light, then little pin-pricks of fiery pain hit his bare shoulders, arms and back.

He waved his hands, as Merl did, batting away the annoying bites of fire.

“What the hell is that? Another trick Merl?”

“I didn’t do that.”

“Are you two Neanderthals finished?” The sound of Vela’s voice, as well as the cessation of sparks falling all around him, caused Samuel to turn and stare at her. “What was that?” She turned a palm up and a small firework appeared, which she then launched toward the ceiling. When it floated down, it winked out in a succession of small bursts of flames.

“Why did you do that?” Samuel asked.

“Because you’re both being ridiculous, especially you!”

“Why, me?” He jerked his thumb toward Merl.

“This asshole was disrespecting you.”

“And you were treating him like a moron. Knock it off.” Her criticism rankled.

Merl pulled at the sides of his bottoms. “I have little holes in my pjs.” Vela rolled her eyes but walked toward the entry wall. “Sorry, Merl, but I don’t give a rat’s ass about your pajamas.” She planted a hand on the wall, her blond hair falling almost to her waist.

He decided he loved her hair. “I need to know about this. What it is, how we got through, and what those explosions were.

You said something earlier about wreckers.”

“Yeah, Merl,” Samuel said, without affection, “Tell us about the wreckers.” Merl held out his hand and a lit cigarette appeared between his fingers.

He took a puff, once more squinting slightly, glaring. The bastard.

After he’d released a puff of smoke in Samuel’s direction, he said, “Look, I don’t know who either of you are, but clearly you’ve got a lot of power between you. Which one of you saw the gate?” Vela turned slightly toward the wall.

“I did. We’d reached the end of the tunnel and I saw a glowing archway here, in this location. Samuel couldn’t see it, but he used his sword to break through.” He narrowed his eyes at Samuel.

“Only a powerful warrior can use his sword to make a breach in a gate.” Then back to Vela. “But it’s the rare ascender who can locate gates like mine.” Vela turned toward him. “So then you had enough power to find this gate in the first place?” Merl took another drag, another sip.

He glanced at her. “Hell, no. I paid a fortune, a life’s fortune, to have the gate made then erased from all the grid documents.” His eyes grew cloudy.

Samuel tried to figure out what would have caused a vampire like Merl to have given up his fortune, his occupation, the life he’d built on Third Earth, to come here and live, literally, off the grid. He wanted to think the worst of Merl, that he was some kind of psychotic outlaw, but he sensed that Merl possessed a warrior’s honorable core, despite his interest in Vela.

Merl sat down in a low-chair angled from the corner of the room. “All right you two, have a seat and I’ll tell you what’s going on, or what I think is going on.” He sighed heavily. “Well, it was a nice five- decade run. Fuck.” Vela crossed to the couch opposite the entry wall. She sat down, shoving the left mass of her hair over her right shoulder. Somewhere along the way, she’d set her martini glass down.

Samuel remained where he was. “I’ll stand.” He reached down near Merl’s chair, picked up the terry robe and threw it at Merl’s bare, muscled chest.

Merl laughed, waved the hand with the cigarette, and the terry was once more wrapped around him. But he smirked.

“Probably a good idea you don’t sit down,” Merl said. “You’d mess up my furniture, with that black smoke that leaks out of you. It’s called grayle, by the way.” He even spelled it. “And rare on Third.

Not the grayle, just the color of it.”

“How so?”

“Those gifted with this kind of power, like me, can release just about any shade of grayle from light gray to white.

But not that charcoal shit. You’ve got tremendous latent power because of it.” Recalling the way his power had streamed and killed those men, Samuel had to agree. He quickly repressed the guilt that was always about an inch away.

Merl glanced between the two of them and frowned. He didn’t speak right away, but the line of his lips tightened.

Finally, he said, “All right, I want to hear this from the beginning then I’ll answer your questions. How the hell did you end up in the darkening grid that connects Second and Third Earth?”

Chapter Four

Vela reeled from the recent scrapping match between the men. She’d never seen anything like it, or at least not to this degree. She’d witnessed similar antics when her husband and other Militia Warriors would gather in a knot around the BBQ and do some proverbial chest- thumping.

In this case, however, Samuel had looked ready to tear Merl apart.

Fortunately, the Third ascender out- powered Samuel with his own Third ability, otherwise the men would probably have battled for hours.

She’d therefore done the only thing she could think of, which had actually worked, when she’d rained a series of about twenty fireworks down from the ceiling until each stopped his caveman posturing.

Of course, it would have helped more if she’d actually disliked that Samuel had gone caveman on her. At the very least, the breh-hedden had a strong sexual component and watching the warrior exhibit all that possessive behavior had worked her libido like throwing a match on a gasoline-soaked campfire.

Poof, instant blaze.

She knew what had been going on and that Merl had been putting out his own feelers, though she thought his intentions ranged on the side of riling Samuel up.

The discussion had turned, just as it should, to their current predicament, and since her power had led her here, straight to Merl, who lived in some kind of reclusive state on Second, she told him all that she knew, including what she’d seen of Duncan’s horrific imprisonment.

Merl had started out intrigued by what had brought them into his house, but by the end of her narrative, he’d slumped in his chair, took the last drag of his cigarette before folding it away, then released a heavy sigh.

“Well, fuck,” he said succinctly.

Samuel crossed his arms over his chest. “Not helping. But damn if I don’t think you know exactly what’s going on.” Merl slid his gaze in Samuel’s direction and the men exchanged a long look until Merl finally dipped his chin. “In part. But I’ll begin here. The fact that the two of you were able to engage the darkening grid, and travel between dimensions, tells me that certain warring factions of Third Earth have begun an infiltration of this dimension. Someone’s on the prowl, looking to utilize whatever power Second has to offer, maybe even to take over, who the hell knows.”