Magic at the Gate

Sure, love can make a person do crazy things. But not me. No, never me. Still, there was nothing else to explain the fact that I had ended up in a battle between magic users over the disks my father invented while a wild-magic storm tried to kill us all. There was nothing else but love that would make me turn away from my injured, possibly dying friends, and step through a gate into death with no one beside me but my undead father and my gargoyle. Nothing but love would make me leave this world to bring Zayvion Jones' soul back from death.
I suppose if I had never met Zayvion Jones, none of this would have happened. Man had a knack for messing up my life. Truth was, I liked it. He'd probably say the same about me, if he weren't in a coma.

As I took that first step off of the grass of Cathedral Park, and through the gate into death, I braced for pain. I'd never stepped into death before, but I figured it was going to sting a little.

No. A pause of breath, then cool, soothing numbness settled over me, whisking my pain away. I had never felt better.

As soon as I put my foot down into death, that sense of well-being was gone, replaced with a sense of forboding.

Death itself had seen better days. Vacant, crumbling buildings, and slick pools of black oil stretched out along the sidewalk of what I was pretty sure was supposed to be West Burnside Street. The city—and it was very clear we were in some twisted version of Portland—looked like a dump. If this was death, I wanted to meet the marketing team that had dreamed up both the fluffy-cloud golden harp thing and the eternal fires of burning hell shtick.

This place was broken and empty. Achingly so.

"Allison?" my father, who had his hand on my arm, said.

He was fully solid, no longer ghostlike. A little taller than me, gray hair, wearing a business suit with a lavender handkerchief in the pocket. Death didn't seem to bother him one bit.

And it shouldn't. He belonged here.

He squeezed