Chapter 10

November 25th, 1963

8:30 AM

Dallas, Texas

“It cannot be closed, it connects to the Alpine Mountains at the heart of the Iberian Imperium, and they intended the attack to make some... err... first impressions. Does that answer your questions?” Domitia asked quietly, staring dully at him as if trying to remain awake and gauge the expression behind his aviators not that he particularly cared.

Trent Colbert kept his gaze level with the strange wolf-girl. Would it be an understatement to say he’d never seen anything quite like her? The girl was a biological mystery after all. Maybe some doctor or astronomer had shown him some kind of discovery once that could be considered as abnormal if not more so. But as it was, this had to take the cake.

The wolf ears could almost easily have passed as a prop from a movie studio. Same for her occasionally moving tail hidden under the covers. But as she passed a hand through her dark hair, revealing a distinct lack of human ears, and the report on the desk beside him showed, without question, that the tail was connected to her body, just above the waist. The idea that this girl in front of him was the real deal had become not just apparent, but undeniable. The fact she lay behind a sheet of protective plastic to guard both of them against illness only confirmed the new reality further.

She was human, yet different. If not for the ears and tail she would easily pass as any other patient in the hospital. There was no added fur in her arms or legs, no major deviations that could be seen as a telltale sign that she was of another species. The girl’s hospital gown was loose on her petite frame, but he wouldn’t let that distract him as he closed the document on the desk and walked over to get a closer look, adjusting his face mask just in case.

He turned to the priest in the room and spoke.

“Her English is pretty good.”

The priest only nodded.

Domitia said, “Thank you very much.”

Trent then said “Still... How’d you learn it?”

The girl appeared unsure, so she turned to the priest.

The man spoke in Latin, slowly, repeating what Trent had said so she could more clearly understand it.

Domitia said, “Ahh... windows.”

As if that answered everything.

At Trent’s silence, she began to speak in the otherworldly tongue that was eerily similar to the priest’s Ecclesiastical Latin, but he could just faintly notice small differences. The way a vowel was enunciated, the sharpness with which she spoke, the speed, and how it felt almost natural when she uttered her words, yet clumsy coming from the Catholic priest.

After a moment, the priest turned to Trent and spoke.

“It seems she is or... was... able to see into our world from across that portal. It’s a little muddy, but the way she tells it, it’s as if they were using her ability to scout ahead.”

Trent nodded again, then asked “So then this was planned? These... Romans...”

“Roma city. Iberia Imperium.” the girl corrected.

Trent ignored her, saying “They scouted ahead... using you... so they could attack us, right?”

The priest translated.

The girl nodded, then comfortably said “Certe!”

Now Trent nodded.

“And... you opened that portal?”

Translate.

“Y-yes...” she replied slowly, switching back to English, as if afraid of what the consequences of doing so might be, and wanted to garner sympathy.

Trent shook his head.

In a strange way, nothing had changed, and yet everything had.

The United States was still in an arms race with the Soviet Union, both nations trying to undermine the other, the CIA trying desperately to keep up with communist insurgencies as well as possible threats to American interests, foreign and domestic.

And now that includes a whole other world...

And yet this other world had decided to attack them without doing proper research, it seemed. He stood up, glancing out the hospital room’s window. Outside, he could see the surrounding buildings of Dallas. Old Glory at half-mast. Plumes of black smoke could still be seen in the direction of the Dealey Plaza, emphasized by the blue sky and white clouds.

He turned to the girl.

“So, in a way, this is all your fault.” He mumbled.

The priest objected instead of translating.

“Sir, with all due respect, this girl has been-”

“No, with all due respect, father, that’s not a girl, that’s an animal. She’s the reason a hundred people, our people, our women, and children are dead.”

“She was a slave. She had no choice in the matter!”

Trent didn’t reply to that.

It didn’t matter what he thought, of course.

“U-um...”

The two men turned to the girl.

“I... I can... um...” the girl tried, struggling for words.

The priest stepped closer to her bed, asking her a question in his clumsy Latin.

The girl replied with her more natural-sounding Latin.

The priest smiled before turning back to Trent.

“She says she’ll help you if it means she can stay and live here.”

Trent huffed.

Of course...

“Not up to me. But I’ll pass it along.”

Domitia eyed him, though exactly what she was thinking wasn’t something he could tell. Without another word, he exited the room. The priest turned to her, and, lowering his facemask, attempted to give her a reassuring smile.

Domitia returned it.

“Press that if you need me, alright?” he told her in the Imperial Language as he got up and left.

Domitia’s smile remained unbroken until the man left.

Then her features darkened, and she frowned in frustration.

Slow... too slow.

She sunk into the sheets, her body aching all over despite the medicine. The consequences of opening that doorway and what it meant to live with what she had done were already clear to her, yet it made it no easier to bear.

She glanced down at her legs, barely able to move them.

She looked away and shut her eyes, focusing on the warmth and comfort of the bed in spite of the large plastic sheet used to keep her from possible diseases. She doubted it mattered much, but what did she really know? She was a slave at the end of the day.

Oh well...

Her mind went back, briefly, to the men that encouraged her to look further through the windows she could open. How excited they had all been.

They never noticed all she hid from them.

Fools.

And now, in a way, she was paying the price for her actions. At the very least, even if she lived for a short time, it would be a far more comfortable experience than any of the people that enslaved her could dream of.

She grinned then, fondly remembering the image of the imperial corpses as she began drifting away to a restful sleep.