by W. J. May
It had started innocently enough, as these things tended to do...
“Wait a second,” Rae tried to make herself heard. “What exactly is the plan here?”
“Seriously, you guys.” Julian sounded nervous. “What are you going to do?”
It was like they hadn’t even spoken.
The two siblings walked boldly out into the bustling market, completely oblivious to the cluster of friends trailing confusedly in their wake. They were muttering softly to one another, speaking in what sounded like Basque. Rae’s hearing might have been a bit rusty, but fortunately she still had Sarah’s universal language tatù. Unfortunately, nothing they were saying made any sense.
“What about Two Days in Savannah?” Angel was asking, looking around excitedly as they passed a storefront selling lockets and shells. “It’s been ages since we’ve done that one!”
Gabriel shook his head patiently, steering her away from the jewelry. “We’re two hundred and fifty years before Gone with the Wind. They don’t have the American deep South.”
“Okay then, what about Florence Nightingale?” She spun around on her heel, grinning up at him from beneath a giant floppy hat. “You know, I always thought I’d have made a great nurse.”
“And where are we supposed to get a ferret on such short notice?” He put the hat back on the rack without even looking, eyes lighting up as they fell upon a wealthy-looking gentleman headed their way. “Nah...we’ll go with a classic. Blind Man’s Swap.”
Blind Man’s... what?!
What happened next was like a dance. A dance so subtle and quick, no one knew it was happening until it was already too late.
The way the siblings shifted forward at the same time, closing in like lions on the hunt. The way Gabriel’s hand slipped unnoticed into the man’s waistcoat. The way he tossed the pocketbook to Angel with a casual flick of his wrist. The way they both melted back into the crowd, perfectly prepared to disappear forever, until—
“I SAW THAT!”
Rae’s heart froze in her chest as the accusation rang out loudly over the crowd. For a split second, she turned to look like everyone else. But the man who’d shouted wasn’t a stranger. In fact, it was the last person in the world she would ever expect.
“She stole your wallet!” Gabriel strode forward with all the indignation of a virgin martyr, pointing an accusatory finger straight at his sister’s chest. “I saw her, sir! With my very own eyes!”
Rae and the others looked on in shock, but no one looked more surprised than Angel. Her face paled and she fell back a step, looking at Gabriel like he’d gone completely mad.
“What are you doing?” she hissed, casting a nervous glance over her shoulder to where a small crowd had already begun to gather. “I thought—”
“Silence, witch!” Gabriel’s eyes flashed with a twinkling rage as he came to stand beside the man he’d just robbed, still pointing a condemning finger at her chest. “Check your pockets,” he breathed, looking like the devil himself. “I swear to you... she has it.”
The crowd looked on, breathless and riveted, as the man fumbled clumsily through his waistcoat. Only to come up empty. His eyes bulged as his mouth fell open in surprise. Only a second later he, too, was pointing a hooked finger at the lovely girl in the silver dress.
“Who is she?” he asked in astonishment, slightly baffled by her strange garb.
“She’s a whore,” Gabriel answered bluntly. “She followed me home from the brothel last night. I assumed she was looking for more work, but she had a slightly different... agenda.” As if this wasn’t enough, he lowered his voice to a theatrical whisper. “I believe narcotics are involved...”
The crowd gasped in unison, soaking up every word. And unless Rae was mistaken, she could have sworn she saw Angel roll her eyes.
“I have NO IDEA what this man is talking about!” she declared, tossing her hair back with a vindictive glare. “He’s clearly a menace to himself and society. I suggest a hanging.”
Molly’s teeth clamped down on her lip as Devon placed a hand over his mouth. Julian was torn both ways. Desperately protective of his wife, but steadfast in the knowledge that her older brother would never let a breath of harm come to her.
At least, that was the theory...
“Search her!” Gabriel demanded, his voice booming over the crowd. “I’m sure she has it stashed somewhere in that ridiculous dress.”
A bit rich, considering the guy was in a tux, but the people seemed to eat it up.
For the second time Angel shot him a bit of a look before throwing the pocketbook back at the man’s feet. “Fine. You caught me. Congratulations, you’re an asshole.”
At this point, even Julian glanced down with a bit of a grin. Whatever game the two of them were playing, it was clear her heart was no longer in it.
“But this... you...” The gentleman spluttered and stammered, unsure what to do. Then he cast a sideways glance at Gabriel and began mimicking his rage. “THIEF!”
This time, Angel rolled her eyes for real. “Yeah, we already established that.”
“Punish her!” someone shouted from the back of the crowd.
Gabriel turned with an appreciative glance before his lips curved up into a grin. “That’s an excellent idea.” He tipped his head towards the gentleman. “I’ll leave it to you, good sir.”
Thrust into a sudden spotlight, the man blanched. He looked first at Angel’s plaintive eyes before turning uncertainly to her brother. “What...what would you suggest?”
“I think beheading is the most practical,” Gabriel answered reasonably.
At this, Julian’s grin faded and he took a compulsive step forward—only to be pulled back by no less than four different sets of hands.
“It’s okay,” Rae assured him quietly. “They know what they’re doing.” The crowd started closing in around Angel and she gulped. “...I think.”
“Beheading,” the man repeated uncertainly, finding himself drawn once more into the gaze of Angel’s bewitching eyes. “But it’s just a pocketbook. Surely we can show a little leniency...”
Gabriel raised his eyebrows, taunting while still remaining aloof. “Perhaps you’d like her to make it up to you in other ways.” It was said rhetorically, but when the man actually considered a muscle twitched in the back of his jaw. “We need an impartial judge,” he declared, much to the delight of his ever-so-willing audience. “Someone to condemn this wretched woman as the filth that she is. And to settle the score with the pocketbook, of course,” he added graciously.
At once the crowd was alive with volunteers, all eager to judge the beautiful but guilty woman standing in their midst. More were flooding in every minute, and their noise had reached a critical peak. It was a madhouse, but after just a quick rotation Gabriel pointed to a solitary man.
“You, good sir!” He waved his hand, gesturing across the courtyard. “You seem a man of justice. Would you do us the honor of settling this dispute?”
A man of justice?
This time it was Rae’s turn to roll her eyes. She was fairly sure that exact phrase had turned up in a game of Trivial Pursuit the group of them had played just a few nights before.
The man of the hour, the owner of a nearby produce stand, swelled with pride, stepping forward to do the honors. Rather than letting Julian see his beloved wife get sentenced by an angry pre-industrial mob the others had led him to a creek that fed into the Thames, and there they all sat.
“They should have been back by now,” Julian said for the twelfth time, pacing manically back and forth over a slatted wooden bridge. “This is taking too long.”
“It’s going to be fine,” Devon reassured him, rubbing Rae’s ankles as the two of them reclined casually on the grassy bank. “They obviously know what they’re doing.”
A rather massive understatement. And one that an overexcited Molly couldn’t let go.
“Yeah, what was up with that?” she exclaimed, still bouncing in place from the thrill of the
spectacle. If Rae didn’t know better, she’d think the little redhead was ready to render Angel’s verdict herself. “At first, I thought that maybe Gabriel had just lost it. But then—”
“Too long,” Julian muttered, ignoring everything else around him. “It’s taking too long.”
“It was definitely not the first time they’d done something like that.” Luke grinned at his wife’s enthusiasm, his first genuine smile since they’d gone rocketing back through time. “But, to be fair, I’m not sure Angel was really into it there at the end...”
Rae listened for as long as she could before her mind drifted away to other things. Yes, she’d been as spellbound as the others. But the only reason Gabriel and Angel were doing their little dance in the first place was because she had accidently gotten them all trapped back in time.
It was up to her to fix that now. Whatever the cost.
How am I supposed to send us to the future if I can’t see that future for myself? she asked herself, leaning back against Devon’s chest as the others talked casually amongst themselves. It was a simple enough question, with a thousand impossible ramifications tagged along. But all of a sudden, even as she considered it, a far more obvious question took its place. She sat up in surprise, amazed that she hadn’t thought of it before. How am I supposed to send us to the future if I can’t visualize that future myself?
The weight of the question hit her like a ton of bricks, and for the first time in longer than she could remember Rae found herself searching through her ink to attempt the impossible.
Julian’s clairvoyance.
Okay, this will be fine, she told herself, closing her eyes as she leaned back into her husband’s shirt. Just relax your mind, don’t let yourself get sucked in, and—
Rae’s lips fell open with a silent scream as she found herself tumbling blindly through the walls of time and space. Her eyes snapped shut, her breath caught in her chest, and her fingers dug into the grass beside her, bracing against the onslaught.
How does Julian do this?! How does he not go mad?!
A thousand futures from a thousand different people danced before her eyes. Twisting and changing. Churning around with increasing pressure, until all at once the world went black.
It was like screeching to a stop in the middle of a roller-coaster. Dropping out of a hundred-story building and landing on your head. Although her body never moved, although she was still technically lounging in the sun with her oblivious friends, Rae tried to mentally pick herself up.
Panting. Spinning. Trying desperately to see where or, more accurately, when she was.
Um... hello?
She called out into the void, well aware that no one could hear her.
Sure enough, a deafening silence echoed in her ears. A not-so-subtle reminder of the mighty void she’d stumbled into on a whim. A wave of panic bubbled up in her stomach, and after the fifth time she tried and failed to open her eyes her body broke into a cold sweat.
What the heck was I thinking?! There’s no way I can handle something like this!
There was a reason she never used Julian’s power. There was a reason he’d struggled with it so much in the beginning himself. This wasn’t like other gifts. No flaming hands, or metallic skin, or the ability to walk on water. This was a cosmic wonderland. Peering into the future itself.
And the cosmos were rarely forgiving.
Julian! She cried out into the void. She had gotten trapped like this once or twice before, and she knew from experience there was only one person who could help her. Jules, can you hear me?
She tried reaching out with telepathy, but to no avail. Maria’s power apparently hadn’t been created yet and she was left stranded on her own. Silently hyperventilating she tried reaching out with Julian’s own psychic connection, but that level of talent was far beyond her control.
Come on, Jules. Get me out of here!
In the end, it was a matter of chance. With thoughts of Gabriel and the staged spectacle still running through her head, Rae’s mind wandered automatically to his girlfriend. A talented ballerina with a penchant for memory retrieval. Complete with the ability to fuse with someone else’s mind.
It was a difficult set of ink. One she’d been unable thus far to master, though not for lack of trying. She’d actually been practicing on Devon—to their extreme delight and embarrassment.
On the one hand they’d had the time of their lives, going back and reliving some of their earliest memories. But the ability wasn’t always so easy control. On more than one occasion, Rae had stumbled into something in Devon’s teenage mind they both would rather forget.
Either way, the ink did the trick. As Rae lay unmoving in her oblivious husband’s arms, her mind reached out to her unsuspecting friend. Struggling to forge a bond.
Julian was crossing the bridge when it happened. Still muttering under his breath and worrying about his wife. There was a pause in his step, unnoticed by everyone around him, as the connection was made. His body froze and his face lightened with a look of surprise. Then dismay.
“No, not again—”
Then he lost consciousness and fell over backwards. Straight off the bridge.
Chapter 4
“Julian!”
Rae’s eyes fluttered open just as Devon was hauling Julian’s body back to shore, fishing him out of the freezing river and pulling him back to dry land. The psychic’s body hung limp in his arms, over six feet tall in a drenched tuxedo, but he woke up the second he was laid upon the soft grass.
There was a sharp gasp. Another as he tried to get his bearings. Then he coughed up what looked like half of the river and fixed Rae with a watery glare. “You couldn’t have waited until I was off the bridge?”
The others whirled around in shock. They hadn’t realized she was involved. But, judging by their expressions, it looked as though they should have guessed.
“Sweetheart,” Devon began tentatively, “what did you do?”
“I’ll tell you what she did.” Julian stripped off his soaked jacket, tossing it resentfully onto the shore. “She got herself stuck between the present and the future, and needed me to come and bail her out. Again.”
There were few things Devon liked less than to be caught between his wife and his best friend. Especially when one had been recently dunked in a river. Especially when the other was half-hiding behind a clump of cattails, a cartoonish portrait of guilt.
“Rae, is that true?”
Like a tennis match, all eyes shot back to her.
No point in denying it—the guy did fall off a bridge. Best to mitigate damages.
“Yes. But at least you weren’t in the shower this time,” she said hopefully, remembering her last ill-fated adventure. “You can’t deny that’s progress.”
On second thought, maybe he could. Never, in all her years of knowing him, had she seen that particular expression on Julian’s face. Devon apparently had. He was quick to cool tempers.
“Okay,” he started reasonably, “so it sounds like this is just another—”
“—honest mistake?” Luke finished, his eyes twinkling. “Tell me the truth, Dev—was that line actually written into your vows? ‘On occasion will need to save me from myself?’”
“You can either help or shut the hell up,” Devon replied, but beneath it all it looked like he didn’t entirely disagree. His wife was certainly getting into more than her share of mischief as of late.
“Look, I’m sorry!” Rae wailed, avoiding her husband’s eyes as Molly laughed shamelessly in the background. “I was trying to get us back home! I was only trying to help!”
On most days, that would be enough. Today was not one of those days.
“Leave my power alone,” Julian said irritably, taking off a shoe and pouring a stream of river water onto the ground. “It’s mine.”
“Come on, you don’t mean that.” Devon looked like it was taking everything he had just to keep from smiling. “You’re always encouraging Rae to branch out and test
her clairvoyance.”
Julian was unmoved. Methodically wringing brackish water out of his clothes. “Filthy little thief...”
Rae was about to re-apologize. Offer to let him push her into the river as well. But fortunately, at that moment, they were interrupted—thankfully to Rae—by a welcoming voice.
“Did someone say my name?”
The gang whirled around as Angel walked into the clearing, followed closely by her older brother. Both triumphant and grinning. Both dropping an armful of food onto the grassy shore.
“Not a bad haul, if I do say so myself...”
The near-drowning and psychic abduction were forgotten as the others clustered around.
Rae couldn’t understand it. The last time they’d seen them Angel was about to be tarred and feathered, whilst Gabriel was channeling some sort of Shakespearean play. But this? How in the world did a carefully orchestrated street riot translate into something like this?
There were apples and oranges, berries and pears. Clusters of grapes and a trio of sweet potatoes. A flask of wine had been hastily stuffed into the mix, along with an actual melon. Though, by that point, Rae couldn’t help but suspect the siblings were just showing off.
“How did you get all this stuff?” Luke asked in astonishment, holding up a cantaloupe that seemed comically large, considering their fitted clothes. “And how the heck did you smuggle it out?”
Angel tossed back her hair with a smirk, looking rather pleased with her efforts. “Just used what the good Lord gave me.”
Julian glanced over sharply and she was quick to backpedal.
“...I used my wits.”
“But I thought...” Molly trailed off, staring down in confusion. “I thought you were after the guy’s money. Why do you have all this?”
Gabriel scoffed with amusement, throwing a grape high in the air and catching it in his mouth. Beside him, Angel pulled a roll of seventeenth-century pounds from her dainty shoe. “Oh, we took his money,” he said dismissively. “But money’s easy to come by. We needed food. The wallet was just a distraction.”