The Gossamer Gate by Wendy L. Callahan

have done in the past few weeks, heard every conversation, and felt every reaction you’ve had.”
    Now that Khiara looked back at the past two weeks, she recalled seeing fleeting glimpses of a black-clad figure, not just in her dreams, but out of the corner of her eye wherever she went. Her lashes swept over her eyes as a tear streaked down her cheek.
    “It is a part of me, split off to do my bidding. You felt him.” The statement was insistent.
    “I did feel him,” Khiara acknowledged. “And I heard you.”
    “You knew that I was coming for you.”
    She nodded reluctantly, her eyes still shut to the reality before her.
    “It is time for you to come home now.”
    “That isn’t my home. It’s your home and I don’t belong there.”
    “But I want you there with me. I always did,” he said. “ Even if we are beyond redemption, I still want you. You belong to me, Khiara.”
    “No, I can’t and I won’t go with you. I always wanted to exist in this world. This is where I belong. I will not go to yours, no matter what you think or say.”
    “You have very little choice in this matter. You owe me a blood debt. A life for a life,” he whispered, and the fetch now reached both hands toward her.
    Khiara tried not to think back to that night, but there was no preventing it. It had been one of the only things on her mind for the past two weeks.
    “When you tried to kill me, you said that you wished things could have been different.”
    She shook her head as she finally look ed, wide-eyed, at the shadow figure. “I didn’t mean it like that! I meant that I didn’t want you to be what you are! I meant that I wished that you had never come into my life in the first place!”
    “But I am this thing, I did come into your life, and you will come with me to repay your debt. You will be mine forever.”
    “No!” Khiara backed away again, but the fetch was standing so much closer to her now. She was not sure which was more frightening – the figure or the voice. The shade was a part of him. It looked just like him, yet it lacked a face beneath the shadowy brim of its hat. It was more like a creature from a horror film than a true, living being. She felt herself shrink back into herself, away from the dusky segment of his being.
    At the same time, she could not bear for the man himself to touch her, now that she knew he was waiting for her. His touch, which had once attested to their friendship and trust in one another, now reminded her of his dual nature and treachery. She remembered the avariciousness in his heart and the fact that no law but his own bound him, and those laws were meant to work against humans. He would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.
    “It is time to go,” he said, and she felt arms – his arms – wrap around her shoulders from behind her.
    “Khiara?”
    She looked up with a start in the direction of the familiar voice.
    The last thing she knew of that world was that she had been standing in front of Sean’s house, and he was staring at her in shock from across the street, as she faded from sight.
     
     

Chapter 6
    As Khiara regained her sense of equilibrium, the arms her loosened, but did not fall. She shoved at them and turned to face him with a glare, her fists clenched.
    “Nine is the number of a completion of a cycle,” Felisa had said .  Well, let’s bring this cycle to an end here and now , Khiara thought
    “ You’re finally here. I loved you from the moment I met you,” he said, reaching for her.
    “That wasn’t love, Ronan. That was lust,” she retorted, slapping his hand away and stepping back from him. “Send me home.”
    “I could have any mortal woman except you. Why is that?” He stood there in the strangely silent, desolate gray forest, facing her. He did not look exactly like his fetch, which had unified with his physical form, but the resemblance was close enough. Ronan wore the black pants and shoes, the long black coat, and the tall black hat. His black