Page 85 of Bound

“Let me turn it on.” I flip a switch and the menu comes up.The menu in this case is a holographic female. As she was programmed by Dante,she’s gorgeous and wears very little clothing.

“How may I help you, Dante love?” She also has a sexy voice.

“Holy shit,” Human Dante swears. “Where the hell did you getthis?”

I smile as hope surges. Now I have him.

ChapterForty-One

Dante—the human one

I shove a hand through my hair. It’s long, hangingpast my earlobes. Normally it doesn’t bother me, but I’m pretty sure it makesme look grungy in front of the pretty woman sitting in my store. Not thatperfectly combed hair would help since I’m dressed like the nerd I am. I smoothmy hands over my slightly wrinkled Lex Luthor for President T-shirt.Why did I put off the laundry? And why does it matter? The chick hasn’t come totry to date me.

I’m listening to the craziest story I’ve heard. She’s beentalking for the last hour and a half. The redhead is hot but completely insane.

She thinks vampires are real. She also believes in faeriesand demons and hags. She’s sure she spent the last couple of weeks on anotherplane of existence. According to her, there are many planes, some easilyaccessible, some not.

She’s bonkers.

Except I played around with the computer she showed me. It’sfar more advanced than anything I’ve seen before. No one in the industry iseven talking about a system that can do the things this one can. We’re decadesaway from this kind of tech. What I hold in my hands is a supercomputer. Itstores so much information that I can’t even think of a name for the capacity.It blows past terabytes. It has a connection to an Internet but claims there’sno connectivity here. I played around and got the system to acknowledge mywireless connection. The superhot hostess was unimpressed. She asked me why Iwanted her to connect to such a primitive system and promptly downloaded thewhole of the global Internet.

The whole fucking thing, and it didn’t slow down for asecond.

“Where did you get this?” I ask.

The woman named Meg rolls her eyes. “I told you. Yourvampire counterpart gave it to me.”

Yes, how could I forget that part. There are many planes ofexistence and one of them is a Vampire plane. I’m a royal there. I work forDellacorp, and it’s a huge corporation that my family owns. My vampirecounterpart obviously has it better than I do. I run this shitty two-bit storeI inherited from my father and is going nowhere fast.

The other Dante sounds like a guy who gets an enormousamount of tail. He pulls, if you know what I mean.

“As far as I can tell, this thing is nuclear powered,” Ipoint out in amazement. “How can that be possible? And I think it took my blooda couple of minutes ago. It thinks I’m not edible. What’s up with that?”

“Dante, well, the other Dante, he goes to a lot of differentplanes.” Meg sips the coffee I made and continues. “The computer is set to testpotential food sources. I’m afraid it’s decided you’re toxic.” She looks at thescreen. “Too much pollution, and wow, apparently you have a lot of sugar inyour system.”

Without much thought, I eat the second half of the TwinkieI’ve been downing. Does it bother me that vampires don’t consider me properfood? Nope. It’s a plus. If those bloodsuckers are real and deeply concernedwith blood sugar, pass me a cupcake, please.

“The vamps here would probably love you, though,” Meg sayswith a bright smile. “According to what I’ve read, they’re not as picky.”

“Good to know.” So the Dr Pepper I’m enjoying won’t save mehere. I still drink it. “So, let’s say I buy this whole crazy story of yours.”This is the time when I look around again for the hidden cameras. If I had anyfriends, I would think they are punking me. “What exactly is it you want me todo?”

She chews on her lower lip, her nervousness apparent. “Ineed you to help me get back.”

“And how am I supposed to do that, sweetheart?” I ask. “I’mnot exactly a…Planeswalker demon.” That’s what she called them. Yes, shebelieves in demons, too. “How am I supposed to find this door you’re lookingfor?”

Her hazel eyes fill with tears. She really believes thestory. “I don’t know. I only know that you’re here, and you’re going to helpme. I believe it. It wasn’t random coincidence that I found myself here. It wasfate.”

I’m not so sure about that, but there’s no denying thetechnology she showed me. I want it. If I have to do some Internet searches toplacate the girl, I’ll do it. Besides, she’s hot. Maybe when she realizesthere’s nowhere else to go, she’ll turn to me. I can comfort her. It’s a niceprospect. My brain starts working overtime. I’m going to look at it as aproblem to solve, like I’m taking the whole doorway to another plane shitseriously. After all, she dropped this piece of future tech into my lap. I kindof owe her.

“Okay, so no one knows where these doors are, right?”

Her pretty hair shakes around her shoulders. “No, most ofthem are well-defined. People move easily through them. The door to this planeis hard to find, and I think there’s more than one. I don’t know why. Andthere’s a whole supernatural world apparently. If we could find the vampirecouncil here, that would be very helpful. Maybe they have a president orsomething we could talk to. Or a king.”

“Nice. Yeah, I don’t know where that is,” I reply. She’staking surrealism to a whole different place. I respect it. “The door might bemore helpful. So we have to suspect that this door is here in the city. Is itopen all the time?”

“More than likely not,” Meg explains. “The other doorsaren’t always open. I read that some people can open them at will, but othershave to wait. The door from my village’s plane to the Vampire plane opens twicea day. I think we can assume the door here is something like that. It’ssomewhere in the city. I don’t think I was out very long.”

“So there’s a door to a different plane right here in FortWorth,” I muse. “It can’t be in an office building. Someone would probablynotice a door opening to a faery world a couple of times a day. I bet weirdstuff happens around it. It’s a long shot, but this baby is pretty cool.” Ipush the button that brings up the menu. “I need to run a search.”