The door they stood in front of was so completely different from the one that would have taken Robin and Chris back to their own time that it was almost funny. The rich wood was almost red in color, from what she could see, but most of it was covered in a thick, springy green moss. It grew in a pattern that reminded Robin of a garden maze. At any moment, she expected to see little figures trying to work their way to the center.

“You have no idea how to open it?”

“I’ve tried following the maze, I’ve tried the obvious handle, I looked at the center of the maze to see if there was anything that could help me there, but none of it works.”

Robin looked at Chris. “You know, it would be really helpful if you could brainstorm with us right now.”

“Forgive him. It’s my magic that caused the shift. Sometimes, especially for beings that have only just come into their powers, it overwhelms them.”

The wolf whined before he started sniffing all around the door.

She knew she shouldn’t be irritated, but she was. What they needed right now was all of them working together to get the door open, not someone who already felt defeated, a wolf, and a hacker. A ticking sound started.

“Go back to your door!” Tlachtga urged. The fear in her voice lit a fire under Robin.

“Was the moss always there?”

“It doesn’t matter! You’re about to be stuck here, and I don’t want that on my conscience.”

“Was it always there?” Robin asked again, her brain going a mile a minute.

“No. It grew exponentially as I tried to open the door.”

Chris scratched at the bottom and whined. Fat lot of good that did them. Robin tried to check her temper. Now was not the time to let it loose. The moss was bothering her. If it hadn’t already been there and had responded to Tlachtga’s attempts to get through, then maybe it would respond differently to her or a wolf.

Suddenly, everything clicked into place in her head. “It’s a firewall.” She turned excitedly to Tlachtga. “It won’t open for you because it has been programmed not to. It considers you a threat. If we destroy it and I try to open the door, then I bet it will work.”

“I don’t know what you just said, but I’m willing to try it.” The other woman smiled, but her eyes betrayed her fear as the ticking sound got louder.

“We need to get the moss off the door, but you can’t touch it,” she said as she began to claw at the moss. She pulled deep chunks off the door, starting where she expected a door handle to be.

Tlachtga paced behind her; Robin could almost feel the druidess thinking. As she continued her fight against the moss, Chris joined in clawing and biting at chunks of it. They were each removing thick, heavy sections of moss. It would have made wonderful carpet if it had been on the floor. It was so thick that it felt more like she was pulling bricks away than anything else.

The ticking sounded more like a rhythmic drum beat, which was coming from just outside the room they were standing in. It made Robin’s heart race as her hands scratched and grappled with the heavy moss. Her body was taut as her fingers scraped against the wood, the sound of the drum seeming to invade every particle of her body.

“Would you be willing to try something?” Tlachtga’s voice was almost drowned out by the sound.

Robin turned, nodding. At this point, the drum beat was starting to feel like it would give her a heart attack as the noise bounced around inside her head. She felt like a wild thing, wanting to scratch at her ears to make the sound stop. She could see the druidess doing some movements with her hands and her mouth moving, but it was too quiet, so it was drowned out by the drums.

“Scream!” Tlachtga yelled over the noise.

With that one command, the banshee side of her rose to the surface, taking over completely in a way that she hadn’t since Robin had gained control over her powers and the two sides of herself had learned how to coexist. The release of the noise, of the scream that she had been suppressing ever since she and Hal had left the hotel, was glorious. Cool hands touched her shoulders and angled her toward the door. Her throat already felt raw, but she knew the scream had only just begun. The freedom her banshee felt was almost intoxicating, and she hated that she kept this part of herself under such strict control, but the fact was that a scream completely depleted her. She might not even finish the scream before she passed out. It had happened before, usually for particularly unpleasant deaths.

Something was happening with the door.

Robin tried to focus past the scream, to see the world around her. She had to fight tooth and nail for every inch she gained in control, but what she discovered stunned her. The moss was melting away from the door like an ice cube in hot water. The rich red wood stood before them, and the black curved handle gleamed in the light as though it were brand new, not centuries old.

Less than a second later, before Robin had even fully extended her hand toward the handle, the door cracked and splintered like a bomb had gone off. Wood flew everywhere, and Robin expected pain to follow shortly thereafter since she was the one facing the door. It didn’t come, though. All the splinters and fragments of the door flew around their little group, hitting the stone walls that surrounded them.

Before them was a black hole. A swirling vortex of fear for Robin. When Randall had forced her to travel through portals, it usually felt like someone was trying to boil her alive and peel her skin off at the same time.

“Quickly!” Tlachtga’s voice sounded in her ear as the woman grabbed her hand and pulled her forward. In that moment, she realized two things—one was that she’d stopped screaming and hadn’t passed out. The other was that not only were the drums closer than ever, the vibrations coming up through the floor and resonating throughout her whole body, but there was also a menacing growl that rode on the sound, sending chills down her spine at the feeling of impending death. Then before she could think, she was in the portal with the druidess and the wolf.