FINAL GATE (#3 GHOST PORTAL series)

THIRTY

Weeks had passed since they departed the haunted forest, yet Avery couldn't forget their visit with Louise on their way home.

She'd been waiting for them at her doorstep, a thick shawl wrapped around her figure, her skin washed out, her eyes wary. When she sighted them, she nodded once. She'd known they were coming.

She knew something terrible had happened, and she filled Avery and Jessamine in on all the atrocities she'd felt while the world warred with other dimensions. Watching the news, petrified of seeing Avery's corpse, or Jamie's wounded self being transported to a hospital. She never expected to see Jessamine, because she'd sensed she wasn't on this plane of existence.

"Of course chasms were created," she'd said, handing hot mugs of herbal tea to Avery and Jessamine, after forcing them to sit on her sofa. She wouldn't accept a quick hello-goodbye visit; she wanted them seated, giving her details of their end of the story. "Thousands of beings crossed into our realm, then sent back in, while still inside their host. It makes sense that everything would go awry after that."

The existence of dimensions hadn't fazed Louise; she'd known for years that there was more to the world than one plane, one sphere of life.

The only thing Louise hadn't predicted, hadn't been aware of, was Jamie's death. "I assumed he'd been smart and went home," she'd said, wiping a tear from her eye. Jamie was close to her, like Avery was, and she'd cared for him almost like a nephew, a member of her family. To learn he'd been massacred—and by Jessamine's demonic form, no less—was a blow to the chest. Telling the tale was no easier for Avery, who still choked up at the notion of Jamie being gone. At the flashes of memories of Jamie's slit throat, his blood decorating the ground, staining Jessamine's fang-like teeth.

Jessamine was quiet during most of the visit, Avery recalled. He knew she still struggled with guilt, still blamed herself for the majority of traumatic events they'd been through. Louise, wonderfully intuitive as she was, had detected Jessamine's discomfort within minutes, and had reached forward to take her hands. "You're forgiven. And," she'd flinched, squeezing Jessamine's hands tighter in her own, "I'm happy to say you're cured. Whatever was troubling you before, capturing your soul, is gone. Thank goodness."

Once their teas were drunk—Louise refused to take their cups away unless they were empty—Avery got to the point of why he'd come. He wanted blessings for Jamie's and Amy's souls. Louise had methods; supernatural, magical, whatever she wanted to call them, she had certain powers, though she never referred to them as such. Avery hadn't witnessed what she could do, but she'd spoken of situations from time to time, and whenever he was near her, he felt her, her energy, her strength.

She consented, and disappeared into her room to say the special prayers she reserved for souls, to help them be at peace. She wouldn't recite them in front of an audience; Avery remembered she was private about her rituals and gave her the space she needed.

"I'm sorry for your losses," Louise had said as she showed them out. She'd cupped Avery's chin, placed a peck on his forehead, and gave Jessamine a long, warm hug. "Both of you. Move on, move forward, and if you need me, you know where I am."

He did worry about her proximity to the ghost portal, but she'd lived there for so many years without disturbance, he assumed she'd be okay. Her house was away from the delimitation; or it must have been, because otherwise, the Guides would have said something. Or killed her.

Her well-wishes still rang inside him as he and Jessamine loaded his car with boxes. The last trip, he hoped, to bring all of Jessamine's things to his apartment in San Francisco. It was a joint decision—for her to be in his sight at all times, for them to be apart as little as possible. Not only because Avery loved her—and he'd told her as much—but because he worried about her. The open-ended threats of both the demons and the Guides would forever loom over them. But if they were together, they could face the storms head-on.