by Hunter Blain
“I’ve never had…this,” he admitted, lightly squeezing her shoulders while lifting his chin to point at their son, who was in the middle of breakfast-meat Heaven.
“You do now,” Meli said softly, lifting a hand to cup Depweg’s face.
“But…what…what if…time—”
“It doesn’t matter because there’s nothing you can do about it. So why worry? Right?” Meli tried to reassure him. “You’ve been here, what, six years? Don’t you think if the vampire was going to come get you, he would have already?”
Depweg shrugged his shoulders in answer, knowing she was right but unable to help his own nagging concern.
“Do you know what worrying does?”
Depweg looked between Meli’s eyes, basking in their warmth and love.
“It makes you suffer twice.” Meli’s other hand rose to join the first, cupping both sides of Depweg’s face. “Be with us, here and now.”
Another tear slipped down his cheek, which Meli wiped away with her thumb.
“I’m scared,” Depweg admitted. “I’m scared of losing you.” Though he was looking at his mate whenever he said the word you, both weres knew he meant his family.
“Look,” Meli began, dropping her hands from Depweg’s face. “Let’s say that things repeat exactly as they did before. Doesn’t that mean you know where to avoid because your past self will already be there?”
“Maybe I could help them,” Depweg said without any real conviction. He was home, and would fight to keep what he now had.
“Wasn’t it you who said your past self shouldn’t interfere with your present self because you might blow up the universe or something?”
“Well,” Depweg chuckled as he explained, “that was mostly made up by movies to keep the tension high.”
“What if they aren’t wrong? It’s not worth it. And not only that; you already know how the story plays out, right? If anything, you might make matters worse somehow.”
“I suppose neither John nor me would believe it if a time-traveling me all of a sudden showed up claiming to be from the future.” Depweg knew what he was saying wasn’t the truth. He’d be able to easily convince himself by sharing thoughts and experiences that only he could know. And John would probably be too enamored with the idea of having two best friends, especially if one was from the future. Depweg could almost hear the flurry of questions John would ask about movies and TV.
Meli smiled at realizing Depweg had built a straw man with which to hold up his argument of not interfering. They both knew why he didn’t want to leave, and it made Meli love him even more.
“Want me to fix you a plate?” she asked as Depweg leaned down to kiss her forehead.
“Grab what you want. I’ll take what’s left.”
Depweg watched as his mate and son ate their food, excitedly talking about all the fun things JD wanted to do that day.
At that moment, Depweg’s heart was warm and full, each happy beat pushing his lips into a smile as if his mouth were an inflatable toy.
Picking up a crispy piece of bacon, Depweg took a crunchy bite as he leaned against the counter, listening to his family discussing taking the car to a state park and hiking through the woods.
This was the life he had never known he was missing. He understood then he could never go back. Would never go back.
25
John - 1960-1990
After so many jumps that my body was basically operating on autopilot, I let half of my conscious brain lounge inside the theater of my mind and watch movies. One of the many perks of having an eidetic memory was that I could recreate each movie with unparalleled accuracy as if I were watching the real thing. I even included the old FBI warning that VHS tapes used to display.
Jose opted to stay focused on the task at hand and forgo conversation with the most interesting person to have ever lived: cough me cough.
He slept for a few hours here and there once it became unbearable to keep his eyes open any longer, further suggesting the length of time we had been jumping had to be the equivalent to weeks, if not months. I couldn’t really be sure, as time and I had never really gotten along. I mean, if anyone ever found out the story of how I’d discovered Ulric had been lying to me for, like, two hundred years, then I would be ridiculed beyond belief.
I could almost hear the complaints now: “How did he not know?! Is he an idiot?!”And to this I say…shuddup, why don’t cha? Hindsight is twenty-twenty and all that. Oh, wait, we don’t say that anymore. Um…well, you know how you realize a friend’s birthday is coming up and you’re all like, but they just had one! Yeah, it’s a lot like that kind of loss of time, only I’m freakin’ immortal, ’kay?
Plus—and I’m being completely honest here—I can’t be 100 percent sure that Ulric didn’t somehow mind-fuck me into sleeping for a few decades every now and again. I mean, we all know that dude’s propensity for long naps, right?
Or—and now I’m being really honest here—maybe I had lost focus of the goal and lived moment to moment. Imagine being in the passenger seat on a long road trip, with someone else doing the lame part of the journey: driving. You’re just looking out the window, letting your mind wander, and enjoying all the little stops at the various gas stations to get junk food and use bathrooms that made you want to scrub the bottom of your shoes with bleach after walking through them.
Once you arrive at your destination, you look back and go, Wow! Did we really just drive sixteen hours?
Admittedly, blood had kept me docile as Ulric and I traveled. It was like chasing the best orgasm of your life, but over your entire body and mind. What was better was that every time you did it, the high was the same, unlike mortals with their drugs and alcohol, always needing more and more to reach the same buzz.
I hadn’t lost sight of avenging my parents. I had simply trusted Ulric to drive us to the destination, enjoying the sights as we went. It was only now I realized how naive I had been, and it was so clear to me at this moment how Ulric had manipulated me by using my addiction to blood.
As I thought about Ulric, I bared my teeth and focused all my ample hate on the man. While my nostrils flared and mind played back my entire existence with the psychopath that was my maker, I was unaware that both of my hands had clutched into shaking fists while holding the Time Sphere, sending us hurtling through time.
My entire focus was inside the theater of my mind, watching Ulric as he lied to and manipulated me, using my addiction to blood as an effective tool to blind me to what was now so evident.
Joke was on him, though. That same addiction had made me leaps and bounds stronger than my maker, allowing me to—
An alarm went off in my mind, and I zipped back into my body to see Jose trying to get my attention.
The sky around us was blurring so fast that it looked like the world was cloaked in darkness while simultaneously being bathed in light. Stars twinkled in a sky that shifted from black to blue like a pulsing heartbeat. The trees dropped browning leaves right as new, green ones formed. Snow as faint as a thin layer of cotton caked the lush grass before fading from view again. The sun and moon slowly chased one another, and I had to look down at the position of the Time Sphere to understand they were moving faster than even my preternatural eyes could see.
“Shit!” I barked before slamming both of my hands back into the neutral position.
Time around us stopped with the sun about to disappear behind the horizon.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I rambled while pulling us out of the In-Between.
“He’s here!” Jose exploded as if he were on the verge of losing his sanity.
“Wher—” I began to ask when Jose summoned an obsidian portal and disappeared through it before I could even finish a single word.
I was alone, slowly blinking while looking at the spot where my companion had just been moments before.
A light wind came from behind and tried to push my coat flaps in front of me while the grass waved like an ocean of green.
“Oh…sh-shit…” I mouthed as I understood what Jose was. “Were-pire…”
My mind reeled as a nagging thought countered the cacophony of panic in my mind: sunlight. How had he survived the sun in both time lines?
That didn’t matter right then. Jose had a fix on Depweg and was heading straight to him.
“But why, Lilith damnit?!” I shouted as I paced back and forth.
Not knowing what else to do, I clenched my jaw, grabbed the scene, and shifted to Houston.
Outside of the cemetery I had called home for so many years, I sprinted with heaving breaths caused by panic rather than exertion.
I wasn’t even remotely sure what year or even decade it was, but knew I had to act, and fast.
Skidding to a halt in front of the familiar mausoleum, I looked for the hidden keypad Locke had set up. Stumbling fingers tripped over nothing as I attempted to access the pad by any means necessary.
A portion of my mind showed me a scene of making my way to my underground home ala B.L., or Before Locke.
Placing my palms on the huge slab of marble that was my door, I intentionally tried not to destroy the stone before a thought suggested that this was not my time line, so what did it matter?
Rearing back a fist, I punched through the door, sending an avalanche of white stone crashing to the floor with a thunderous bang.
Once inside, I slammed my shoulder into the coffin, destroying a good third of it, before haphazardly running down the steps. I was moving so fast that once I was halfway down, I heard the pieces of broken coffin finally hit the floor above me with another bang.
I wanted to pay attention to the old torches I had set up as feelings of nostalgia tried to take over, but Depweg was in trouble.
Coming to the front door, I hesitated for the briefest moment, wondering if I would see myself waiting in the living room.
Shaking the notion off, I threw open the door and entered to see a full-size angel decked out in celestial armor and a flaming gladius.
It dashed forward, ready to strike, when I uttered the only word that could slip past the lump in my throat.
“Da?”
The edge of the blade halted maybe a millimeter from the tip of my nose, but that didn’t stop the flames…which didn’t burn me as they lapped at my skin and beard.
Yanking back and standing with the blade pointed toward the ground behind him, the angel Raziel inspected me with calculating eyes.
“Da…it-it’s me…” I breathed out, overcome with a surge of emotion I didn’t know I had been suppressing.
I took a lumbering step forward with my arms outstretched to embrace my friend of so many years, and was saddened to see him step backward with his free hand up in a stop gesture.
“Where did you get that armor?” Da asked in his British accent, though it was as cold as steel plunged in liquid nitrogen.
My hands instinctively patted my chest, but the armor did not appear, and I knew why.
“Da…it…it’s a long story, man. And right now, I…I need your help to save Depweg.”
“Da?” the voice of someone waking from a deep slumber and still on the verge of sleep called from my old room. “You watching Batman without me again? I swear to Lilith…”
My eyes went wide as I recognized the voice.
“No, John. Just trying out a new set of speakers for the TV,” Da called over his shoulder using his usual calm-and-collected voice that I so dearly missed.
“Well, keep it down, will ya? Wake the dead with that racket.”
The muffled thump of the pneumatic bed sounded, and I knew he…I mean I…had gone back to sleep.
“How are you here during the day?” Da asked softly, switching back to his professional tone, which felt alien to me.
“Yo…this armor does all sorts of cool shit, man.” I wiped away tears that were welling of their own volition.
Da noticed, his gaze flicking between the armor, my tears, and the spot on my hip where Mjolnir sat.
“I imagine you have quite the story to tell,” Da said, letting his armor and gladius vanish, but staying his full angel size. “And why aren’t you fat?”
“Can I,” I began, wiping snot from my nose, “Can I tell you on the way to save Depweg?”
26
John - Houston, 1990
“I think you had better talk while I prepare,” Da said as he waved for me to follow him into his room. Once inside, he gently closed the door so as not to wake, um, me, and made his way to the far wall where a normal dresser stood.
Waving his hand, the entire wall shifted into a workstation.
“Whoa,” I drawled out before mentally smacking myself on the forehead for missing a great time to use my Keanu impression.
“When are you from?” Da asked as he pulled out a large, folded map that showed the entire United States. It stretched from end to end of the table. The top layer of states that bordered Canada were squished to accommodate all of Texas.
“Um, Ireland?”
“Not where, John. When? You are from sometime in the future, yes?”
“Oh, um…yeah. I think it’s like 2034 or something?”
Turning his head to look at me over his shoulder, Da asked, “You don’t remember what year it is?”
“You know, me and time management,” I answered with a chuckle.
“Hmph,” Da responded while reaching for a small chest that looked like something royalty might use to house their jewelry.
Opening it, he selected a smaller drawer and pulled out a pinch of white powder which seemed to have a metallic sheen to it.
“I need something personal of his.”
“Oh, um…” I stalled while my hands patted my pockets in search of a driver’s license or maybe a lock of hair belonging to my friend. I’m not sure what I expected to find, but time was running out.
My fingers grazed over something, and I instantly knew what it was.
Pulling out the letter I had given to Taylor to give to Depweg, I held it up and replayed the scene in my mind of when I had found it sealed in his clothes.
“This is his,” I said somberly as my heart broke at the knowledge that he had never read it.
“Give it to me,” Da instructed as he held out the palm of his free hand. “Quickly, please.”
Taking a few steps forward to cross the width of the shipping crate, I placed the letter in his palm.
Da sprinkled the white metallic dust over it, and I could see him mouthing words that I couldn’t decipher.
The paper began to glow a faint yellow as he finished the incantation and moved his hand over the map.
To my horror, the letter began curling in like a dying spider.
“N—” I began to protest before slamming my mouth shut. It was more important that I found Depweg before Jose could get to him. I could tell him all about the letter in person.
With a crack that sounded like dry leaves underfoot, the paper split into two glowing pieces that began to hover in Da’s palm.
One of the glowing pieces began zipping through the air over the Midwest, zeroing in on Nebraska.
The other piece drifted lazily toward Lufkin, Texas, while the first landed with a small crash on Grand Island, Nebraska.
“Why are there two?” I asked, my eyes bouncing back and forth.
“Perhaps you are best suited to answer that question, John,” Da said as he turned to face me, crossing his arms and shrugging his shoulders in a gesture that suggested it was time to talk.
“We don’t have time for this!” I protested before an obvious idea came to me.
Grabbing the scene around me, I mimed pulling the air and shifted us to the In-Between.
“Very clever,” Da said approvingly. “Now, please.” As he finished, he let one of his hands uncross, and a palm was waved in front of him, suggesting that
I spill the beans.
“What year is it?” I asked, trying to find a place to begin the tale.
“1990.”
“Have I met Father Thomes yet? We’ve been working together since the ’90s.”
“No, you have not,” Da said, narrowing his eyes as his face tilted up.
“You, ah, sure?”
“I’m quite sure that you have not been working with a priest. I feel like you would have told me.”
“Oh, for sure, man. After I saved this one girl, Anna, from a rapist, I disposed of the body in my usual spot…the rapist, I mean. Not…not Anna.”
“Mm-hmm?” Da urged me to continue.
“Anyway. Father Thomes was waiting for me, and we’ve been working together ever since.”
“Perhaps we should fast-forward to why you are here?”
“Oh, heh, heh, right.”
Taking a deep breath, I collected my thoughts and prepared to drop an epic story that would make a seriously badass Hu-Flix series, maybe HBO.
“So that’s why there are two Depwegs?” Da said as he turned to look at the markings on the map.
“Yeah. But which one is my Depweg?” I asked, my eyes flicking back and forth between the two.
An idea came to me, and I pointed at the burnt paper near Lufkin, Texas. “When did Depweg build his doggy sanctuary here?”
“I do not know the answer to that question,” Da admitted while giving me a look that seemed disappointed.
“Well, can you google it or something?”
“Goo…gal? What’s a googal?”
“Ah shit. That was invented closer to 2000, wasn’t it?” I said to myself. I saw Da arch an eyebrow at me, and I quickly threw in, “Make sure to invest in that…and Apple…and everything you can spare into Bitcoin.”
Da continued to stare at me.
“Hmm,” I thought out loud. “If you don’t know about his sanctuary in 1990…then that means he probably hasn’t built it yet. Virgo, he’s probably there now, wait’n on me!”
“Ergo.”
“Huh?”
“It’s ergo, dear boy.”