by Rysa Walker
“Stay still. You’re lucky this isn’t worse than it is, Kate.”
I shuddered as my mind flashed back to the image of the Doberman flying toward me. Connor didn’t realize exactly how lucky I was, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to give him the gory details. He didn’t speak again, just finished cleaning the cuts and applying the ointment and bandage.
When he was done wiping the blood from the floor, he pulled up a chair and stared at me for several seconds. “So?”
I gave him a brief overview of my past few hours. When I was finished, I pushed the book toward him. “The book isn’t why I went. I just had the opportunity to take it, so I did. I went to see Charlayne. I’m all on board with changing this timeline—I want my parents back—but, as far as the rest of it goes… well, the Cyrists have been around forever based on my memories. I guess I wanted to know if the Cyrists are really as… I don’t know, diabolical… as you and Katherine seem to think.”
“And are they?”
“Probably.” I shrugged. “Fine, yes, they are. I think they’re planning something big—or rather, Saul is. I don’t suppose you can really pin it on the rank and file who think this is all predestined. You know the Creed, right? ‘We choose The Way, so… ’”
He nodded, and I continued. “Well, they take it a lot more seriously and more literally than I would have thought.”
“Not surprising,” he said. “The few Cyrists I’ve encountered, even in previous timelines, clearly drank the full cup of Kool-Aid.”
“This one guy,” I said, “he was an Acolyte, one of their youth members, and he was talking about the Chosen being saved. Not from punishment in the afterlife, but from some sort of disaster. He said that the Chosen would live, when everyone else died. That the Chosen would be the future…”
Connor was silent for a moment, staring down at the cover of the book, and then looked back up. “So—you jumped back here. Where’s Trey?”
“Right this minute, he’s asleep at home, with his alarm set so that he can pick me up at seven, at the Lincoln Memorial.” I took in a deep breath. “But if you’re asking about this afternoon, I think he got out. I don’t know for sure. I told him to run, that I was going to jump back here—there was no way we could have made it otherwise. But when he heard me scream, when the dog bit me, he was running back toward me.”
My lip was shaking and then tears started. “I made a mistake, a big one. We shouldn’t have gone. And Connor—they know who I am. For one thing, I’m almost a carbon copy of Prudence. There are pictures of her—stained-glass windows—everywhere. And… I think they’re watching the house.” I thought back to what Trey’s dad had said about Cyrists having friends in high places. “If they know we’re here, that Katherine is training me, then I don’t understand why they haven’t just stormed the place. The Cyrist Templars clearly do whatever Saul and Prudence tell them to do, and we’re just…”
He nodded. “I’ve wondered that myself. We have a security system, and it’s not a cheap one. Daphne’s also pretty good at warning about intruders, at least for people coming and going in the conventional fashion,” he added, narrowing his eyes at me. “But it would be child’s play for someone who was determined, who had money and skill on his side, to get in here.”
I crossed my arms on the table and laid my head down for a moment, overwhelmed by the enormity of what we were facing and how little we knew. And there was a huge gnawing sensation in my stomach, fear that Trey might be in trouble and I wasn’t—or rather, wouldn’t be—there to help him.
“Connor, should I go back and fix it? Stop myself from going? Tell Trey not to meet me? I know what Katherine said about trying to juggle two different realities, but maybe…”
“No. We can’t risk that, Kate. First, it wouldn’t just be you juggling two sets of memories. It would be anyone in contact with a medallion during this time. Katherine would be okay, since she’s been sleeping, but Daphne and I have both been here for what, fifteen or twenty minutes? And how long would it be for you—five hours? Six?”
His expression was still stern, but he squeezed my hand. “No. I know it’s tough, but you’re just going to have to wait. If you call him, it could change something—especially if he can tell you’re upset or that you’re hurt. He’s a big guy and you say he was near the door—he’ll be okay.”
Connor stood up and walked over to the cabinet where Katherine kept most of her medicines. He hunted about for a few minutes, finally opening a prescription bottle. He filled a glass with water from the fridge and then handed it to me, along with a small red capsule. “Take this. It will help with the pain in your leg and should help you sleep. And,” he added, “I’m not inclined to tell Katherine unless we have to… I don’t want to worry her. So you’re going to need to come up with some logical excuse for that injury.”
I hadn’t looked forward to telling Katherine that I’d been stupid enough to waltz right in to the lion’s den just to assuage my curiosity about the Cyrists, so I was very happy that Connor was willing to keep my secret.
“That should be easy enough,” I said. “Slipped in the shower, cut myself with the razor. It’s all bandaged up now, so she won’t be able to tell the difference. But…” I nodded toward the Book of Prophecy. “She will need to know about this, won’t she?”
“I’ll remove the cover and stash it with the other diaries we’ve collected, after I download the contents to our computers.”
“But won’t she wonder how you got the information?” I asked. “I know you’ve been trying to get this for a while…”
“It’s just amazing what you can find at WikiLeaks,” he said, with a totally straight face. “I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me to look there earlier. She’ll believe me, Kate—I’ll make it convincing. And once we’re finished analyzing all of this data”—he grinned—“WikiLeaks may well be where this little book winds up.”
Connor went upstairs to the library, presumably to work his magic on the Book of Prophecy. I took the little red pill he had given me and then I went up the other staircase to my room, carrying the rest of the bandages.
The pain medicine did begin to numb the throbbing in my leg after about half an hour—in fact, I felt a bit numb all over—but it was still a while before I could sleep. I kept hearing Trey’s voice calling my name and seeing sharp white teeth flying toward me. And the chair hitting Eve’s head, in slo-mo and vivid color. Despite her generally nasty attitude, I felt a bit guilty about that and hoped she was okay.
I woke a bit before ten and ran a hot bath, easing myself into it in deference to the wounds on my leg. The area around the cuts was beginning to turn blue from the impact of the dog’s muzzle, and it was annoying to think that the mongrel was probably relaxing in the sun right now in that little garden, several blissful hours away from our encounter. I consoled myself with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be feeling all that good by this afternoon—I was pretty sure that the one kick I’d landed to his chest would leave a much bigger bruise than the one he left on my leg.
It was hard to comprehend that Trey and I were, this very minute, chatting with his dad and Estella. Despite the rumbling in this version of my stomach, which hadn’t eaten for about ten hours, the other version of me was being stuffed to the gills with huevos divorciados, tortillas, and buñuelos. That thought made me even hungrier, so I reluctantly pulled myself out of the tub, rebandaged my leg, and dressed to go in search of breakfast.
I let Daphne in from the yard, happy to have some company while I ate my Cheerios. Judging from the dishes in the sink and the fact that I had to reheat the last bit of coffee in the pot, Katherine and Connor had eaten several hours ago.
They were probably already poring over the documents that Connor had miraculously located online, and I didn’t look forward to joining them in the library. My ability to lie convincingly was already taxed to the limit; pretending to be surprised at Connor’s discovery while simultaneously pretending not to be worried sick a
bout Trey seemed a rather gargantuan task. The alternative, however—sitting by myself and thinking about Trey and this totally screwed-up day for the next two or three hours—was even less appealing.
As I had expected, they were both in the library. Katherine rose from a chair by the windows when I entered. She had one of the diaries in her hand, and I strongly suspected that it had, until last night, borne a cover reading Book of Prophecy. “Happy birthday, Kate! Connor has a—oh my goodness, Kate! Whatever did you do to your leg?”
I gave her my cover story and explained that it really wasn’t that bad—and, to be honest, the big bandage did make it look worse than it really was.
She gave me a sympathetic smile. “You should be more careful, dear. I was lucky—I had all unsightly hair zapped away long before I was your age—but I do remember Deborah slicing her shin something awful when she was a bit younger than you.
“Anyway,” Katherine continued, leading me toward the computers, “Connor has a wonderful birthday present for you—well, it’s for all of us, actually.”
I pretended to be surprised as Connor unveiled the Book of Prophecy, now downloaded into the hard drive for easy searching and installed on two of the CHRONOS diaries, just in case we wanted to do a bit of armchair reading. After glancing through the first few pages, however, I seriously doubted that I would be using the book to fill my light-reading needs.
The Book was barely organized—just odd bits of political and social “prophecy” juxtaposed with investment tips, aphorisms, and platitudes. And then, every ten pages or so, you’d get a nice long sales pitch about how those who followed the Cyrist Way would be rewarded beyond their wildest dreams. The Book of Cyrus might have been repetitive and plagiarized from every religious text out there, but at least there was some sense of poetry and it was reasonably coherent.
The Book of Prophecy, on the other hand, reminded me more of the infomercials that come on TV around 2 A.M.—when they know you’re so loopy that almost anything will seem to make sense. It was hard to see why Connor had thought it would be important.
Reading it was diverting, however, in the same way that clicking links online, in a train-of-thought fashion, is diverting—those times when you end up so far from your original topic it’s hard to remember what you were looking for in the first place. Still, I kept glancing at the clock every ten minutes or so, trying to think where the other version of myself was right that minute, and what Trey was doing.
At twelve-forty, I couldn’t take it any longer. I left the library and headed back to my room. The disposable cell phone that Connor had bought a few weeks back was sitting on the desk next to my laptop.
I knew that Trey had turned off his phone during the service—or maybe he’d put it on vibrate? I just hoped that he had remembered to turn it back on after we went to the gym with the Acolytes. I sent him a short text, which seemed vague enough not to alarm him too much—“Run when I say run. Don’t look back. I made it home OK”—and then stuck the phone in the pocket of my shorts.
Even if what Connor and Katherine had said about the problems caused by trying to reconcile conflicting versions of reality was true, I was already in the office with Eve or headed in that direction. I’d see Trey for only a couple of minutes before I made the jump, and surely that couldn’t screw things up too much?
When I returned to the library, Katherine had gone downstairs, probably to scavenge about for some lunch. I sat down again in my chair by the window but couldn’t bring myself to continue reading.
“I didn’t know people literally chewed their knuckles,” Connor said. “I thought it was just a figure of speech. Is the book really so suspenseful?”
I glanced down at my hands and saw that he was right. I’d lapsed into an old habit—my first two knuckles on my left hand were bright red.
“Obviously not,” I responded. “You know why I’m nervous.”
He gave me a little smile. “He’ll make it out, Kate.”
“I think so, too—now,” I said defiantly. “I decided to buy a little insurance.”
“What do you mean, insurance?” he asked.
“I sent him a text. About two minutes ago. Telling him to run, and that I made it back okay. It can’t change much, I barely even see him between now and then, but I just hope he turned his phone back on after the service was over.”
Connor chuckled softly, shaking his head. “It won’t matter whether he turned his phone on or not.”
“And why is that?”
“I left him a message before I went to bed, about four this morning. I told him to stay near the door of the gym and run when you said to run, and I promised him that you were safe here at the house. And I said not to let you know that I had texted him, under any circumstances.”
“So that’s why he was there, at the door! I was scared I’d have to hunt him down. But you said we shouldn’t…”
“I said you shouldn’t,” he corrected. “But the more I thought about it, there wasn’t all that much risk if I called him.”
“You couldn’t have told me? I’ve been chewing my damned knuckles off!”
He shrugged. “What was I supposed to do? Pass you a note? Katherine has been in here all morning. And speaking of…”
As he trailed off, I could hear Katherine’s footsteps on the stairs. I picked up the diary and pretended to focus, while Katherine and Connor argued about the significance of some bit of “prophecy.”
When the phone in my pocket rang about twenty minutes later, I jumped up so quickly that my copy of the book fell to the floor. Katherine muttered something about how I should be careful with sophisticated CHRONOS equipment, but I was already out the door.
As soon as I reached the bedroom, I answered the phone. I knew it had to be Trey, since the only other possibility was a wrong number, but I was still tremendously relieved to see his name pop up on the screen. And then it occurred to me—it might be Eve or some Cyrist security guard calling to say that they were holding Trey or that—
“Trey?” My voice was shaking. “Is it you? Are you okay? Where are you?”
There was a brief pause, but it was his voice that answered. “Yes, I’m okay. I’m a few blocks from the Beltway.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled in a long breath. “I was so scared, Trey. I heard you running toward me and I didn’t know if you turned around in time—or if Eve had called security. Did you get my text?”
“No, but I see I’ve got one waiting. I called as soon as I could. I got Connor’s message this morning, but he said not to tell you. I’m not sure I would have agreed if I’d known what you were walking into. Are you okay? That dog was huge, and he looked like he was going straight for your throat.”
“He was. He only got me the once, in the leg—not very deep because I kicked him pretty hard. I’m just glad you kept running.”
He gave a wry laugh. “I don’t think it would have mattered even if I’d waited. He hit the floor pretty hard and he was, uh—let’s just say I don’t think either of them had much experience with their prey vanishing into midair. I didn’t hear them start barking again until I was almost to the parking garage—and they were behind the door, so…”
“Are you sure you’re not being followed or anything?”
There was a pause, and I suspected he was checking the rearview mirrors. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, I’m not hanging up until you get here.”
There was a long silence on the other end and my mind immediately kicked back into panic mode. Was someone else in the car with him? Was he still in danger?
“Trey? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Really, Kate, I’m fine. I’ll stay on the phone if it makes you feel better—but don’t tell Katherine, okay? I promised I’d make a stop on the way over and pick up your birthday cake, and I think she was counting on it being a surprise.”
The birthday party was fun, despite the occasional lump in my throat when I remembered that t
his was the only birthday that my mom or dad had missed. We had pizza—I couldn’t tell Katherine that Trey and I had eaten it just a few hours before—and Katherine opened a bottle of wine for a toast. She hesitated before pouring for Trey, although he assured her that his family had a very European view of wine consumption. Then she shrugged. “Given the fact that I’m not technically alive in this timeline, I doubt the authorities are going to be concerned about my corrupting a minor.”
The cake was sinfully decadent, dripping with chocolate, exactly the way a birthday cake should be. Trey gave me several T-shirts with funny sayings and a gold chain made of delicate little interlocked hearts. Katherine and Connor’s present was a small video camera, which we used to record the rest of the party, including some silly footage of Daphne trying to pull the little cardboard birthday crown off my head.
I still felt horribly guilty that I’d put Trey in danger. It was hard to shake the panicked feeling I’d had before he arrived. I think he was feeling the same—we both kept finding little reasons to touch and reassure ourselves that we were both really there.
Once we’d eaten and finished our celebration, Connor showed Trey the Book of Prophecy. At least Trey didn’t have to fake his surprised reaction—he hadn’t realized that I’d actually managed to get something substantive out of our adventure.
After a few minutes, we left Katherine and Connor to their analysis and headed up to my room. Trey pulled me close as soon as the door clicked shut behind us. After a very long kiss, he held me out at arm’s length. “You scared the hell out of me, Kate. What happened in there? I mean, I knew something was going to happen, because of Connor’s message, but…”
“She knew who I was. The only reason we got out of there at all is because Eve likes to impress her daddy. She wanted to surprise him by catching me all by herself.”
“Her daddy?” Trey asked.
“Conwell,” I said. He sat down on the couch and I snuggled up next to him. “It didn’t hit me until we were in the office together—same eyes, same nose. She said that temple security detected the CHRONOS key when we arrived and sent a message up to Conwell’s office. She was there when it came in. She didn’t want to disturb Conwell before the service, and security had their hands a bit full with the executive meeting, so…”