A Dagger through Dimensions Chapter 58

Take down a kidnapper!

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Chapter 58

As I drove over to Duquesne Steel Works, I tried to contact Cora with my thoughts, but she did not respond. Even though she sat next to me, it appeared her weakening power meant she could not read my thoughts all the time. Her image appeared to diminish at times as we drove to the outskirts of town. Even though the abandoned building was outside city limits, I knew my blood tears would not return while I had Cora in the car.

“Do you have enough energy to get us in and out of this place?”

Cora nodded when I glanced over. I knew she remained pissed at sudden change in leaders. However, she seemed to accept she had no other choice but to follow my plan.

“Don’t worry, you’ll have playtime after this,” I smirked. “It slipped my mind to say thanks for guiding me to this place.”

“Yeah, right. What about Lees? I want to hear your plan.” Cora snapped.

“One thing at a time. We get Adele and take care of Hamm, then I explain the next steps. It’s not like you have to worry about me going somewhere. Remember, the guy in your house has people looking to kill me so I recommend you stay close and watch my back.”

She crossed her arms in a huff, and I chuckled.

“By the way, you’ll need your demon friends to work with us as well so make sure you have all the power you can get. We’ll probably only have one shot when the time comes.”

She stared at me for a moment, no doubt trying to figure out what I planned to do. However, I remained stone faced.

Talk to me now and I’ll give you some hints!

When she looked away, apparently lost in her thoughts, a smile came to my face. My small experiment gave me confidence that she wasn’t eavesdropping on my thoughts.

Of course, the crazy scheme coming into my head was risky and barely planned. Some of the stuff I told Cora and Alice was pure bullshit made up in a moment of rage. However, a rudimentary truth came out of my conversations with them since I arrived in this dimension. There was a way to remove Lees.

Yeah, I know killing is a good option and he probably needed it. However, there’s no guarantee the I can get close enough to do it and I’m definitely not convinced that leaving Cora in this place is the best option. The cold, hard fact was the truth of her death. The other item I distilled from Alice’s information was a ghost trying to live on by using the bodies of the familiars isn’t going to cut it for the long term. When I thought about the balance that Alice kept mentioning, it appears she was hinting that Cora continued presence threw the dimension out of whack. At the end of the day, it would hurt Adele and Sally, which was something I couldn’t allow.

One thing that struck me with Alice’s description of the elementals gave me confidence in my ideas to get rid of Lees. Her statement of atoms immediately made me think of the similarities of so-called magic to create this place. Discoveries like quantum field theory and multidimensional universe theory are magical to those who lack the knowledge to completely understand the physics and mathematics behind them. Obviously, I’m not going to understand such things, but I felt I could deal with this realm on those terms. Because, if the magic and those theories were the same or carried a synchroneity, I could remove Lees and the other outsiders. It only took a hellish lot of energy.

As we got closer to the foreboding structure in the partial moonlight, I noticed the tall fence along the side of the road. Immediately I turned off my headlights as I stopped the car. After observing the area through the darkness, I noticed a dull overhead ahead. My eyes gradually saw the faint outline of a structure by the side of the road.

“I’m guessing that’s the target.” I nodded as I backed up the car.

Finally, I turned onto mostly hidden old dirt that appeared occasionally used by a tractor. Following the badly rutted path as it ran next to the rusty fence, I pulled the car under a tree out of sight of the road.

“Why aren’t you getting closer?”

“Because he expects me to drive in the front door. I plan on going in the side,” I said confidently.

Cora frowned as I slid out of the driver’s side door. What Miss Wonderful didn’t realize is my plan required her to take me to the location of Adele. I asked Alice to trace the call from Hamm before I left. A few minutes later, she told me that the kidnapper called from the steel works. Of course, I thought it was a stupid move by an abductor to call from his location. Hamm probably decided I would not get police help and he did not consider me a threat.

Alice gave enough information for me to conclude the kidnapper called from the security office. I came up with that from Cora’s memories which made this realm. Alice explained the factory never produced anything since it, like the town came from a memory Cora carried when she was alive. Cora mentioned her memory of walking by an old industrial site in Chicago where a guard in a small shack waved to her every time she passed the location. It gave me a good starting point since I assumed the security shack held the phone.

While Cora expressed her displeasure, she followed me as we looked for a way through the fence. It didn’t take long to find an open spot in the rusty fence. While Cora could probably show up after I went to the shack, I was adamant she would be around me every minute since I didn’t trust her.

We pushed through the fence with Cora whispering her complaints. I led her along the fence. After pulling my .45 auto from my holster, I came to a stop only a few yards away from the guard shack. The gate was closed, and no one appeared near the structure.

With a frown, I looked over at large buildings across from us, along with their imposing smokestacks. The croaking of nearby frogs suddenly started as I scanned the area. A few moments later, I noticed a single car parked in front of a two-story building behind it. It was Sally’s car.

Behind it, the low-slung structure held two rows of dark windows. The entire front looked over the main entrance and parking area. My guess was Hamm waited in one of the offices. Any cars entering the parking lot would reveal themselves with their headlights.

“Well?” Cora’s whisper reached me.

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