by Gary Jonas
“Are you all right?” Thaddeus asked.
“Doing fine,” I said. “Go back to whatever you were doing.”
They obeyed.
I went to my office and placed a call to Carlton. When I got him on the phone, I told him to get to the temple right away. And I made sure to update him in my office here so Winslow would hear the conversation from the basement. I needed to shore up my defensive position and try to make sure both Winslow and Carlton thought I was on their side. It seemed to work with Carlton. He knew I didn't like him, but every action I'd made in his presence did seem to be on behalf of Henry.
I had one worry. The Vanguard had lost the initial battle, but a vanguard in general is simply the forefront of an attack. At some point they would know it failed. While the four innocent people had died--more blood on my hands--the spirits were not destroyed. Winslow handled them so easily, I worried that if the spirits escaped, they'd call in reinforcements. And if the spirits did not escape, the Vanguard might send more troops to recover their fallen comrades in arms.
I placed a call to the same number I'd used before.
“You've reached the Vanguard. Please state your name and purpose.”
“Jon Easton. Please cancel the Code Red on the reanimated corpse.”
The line went dead.
I knew from Giovanni that the Vanguard used a recording device invented by Valdemar Poulsen known as a telegraphone to tape their messages.
I called back.
“You've reached the Vanguard. Please state your name and purpose.”
“Jon Easton again. Do not, I repeat, do not send reinforcements. I'll handle the corpse on my end. Thank you.”
The line went dead.
I wanted to call back again. I knew if they sent reinforcements, it could be on a massive scale. That army would possess the men and women they needed to mount a larger assault, and all those innocent people would die.
I couldn't have even more people die for my mistake. There had to be another way. But Winslow was too powerful. The bastard had been biding his time, playing possum, pretending to be sleeping and weak, when in reality he was already a major bad-ass capable of handling four spirit warriors at once without even bothering to stand up and flex a muscle.
What little hope I had withered on the vine as I sat down and stared at the telephone. There was no one to call for help. There was no way to stop him.
All I could do was sit tight, let the months roll past, and wait for him to perform the immortality ritual. But if he was already invincible, and he was going to get even stronger, it was time for the world to bend over and kiss its ass good-bye.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Four members of Alpha et Omega working in shifts kept an eye on Rayna for me. For her part, Rayna steered clear of the temple. She spent a lot of time at the library reading up on the occult, and she made a morning ritual out of going to Central Park to exercise. In our original time, she owned and managed a health spa called The Steam Room, so she kept herself in excellent shape.
I wasn't worried about her. She was waiting for Kelly and Brand to show up, but the Kelly and Brand she expected would never arrive as they'd both died in 1877, and she'd already met me without knowing it. She knew it could be months or longer before anything would change, so she created a routine and stuck to it. After a time, I had the team go on to do other things and let one guy check in on her every now and then.
I put Ralph in charge of the Carlton J. Penick patrol. The fact that Carlton had upgraded himself from dick to murderer bothered me, but he lived a mostly quiet life.
Carlton spent most of his time trying to translate the Emerald Tablets of Thoth with the assistance of a team at the temple. He didn't know I'd told them to stall him and lead him down the wrong path as much as they could, so he wasn't making much progress, and it was really pissing him off. He was good for months of study as long as he could partake in the fertility rituals several times a week with different women. He spent a lot of time talking to Winslow in the basement, and that didn't concern me because unless they were whispering, I could listen in on the conversations through the vent whenever I wanted.
Winslow didn't trust Carlton, so I wasn't too worried if I missed the occasional meeting.
My biggest concern was about the Vanguard. What would they do when those four spirits did not return? How long would they wait? Would they return with a full army of spirits? It was difficult to research them. Not that the Internet would have helped as the results would still be nearly impossible to quantify. Were they at the Battle of Shiloh? Were they at the Battle of Thermopylae? How would I know? It's not like they advertised, and there was no way of knowing how long they'd been around. Would they send a bunch of spirits to deal with one body when they had battles they could have been fighting in Mexico's Cristero War, which so far had been just skirmishes but were leading to greater violence, or in China for the Northern Expedition or the civil war raging in Nicaragua?
Maybe they got my messages and chose not to send more spirits and hadn't noticed that they were short four ghosts. I had no way of knowing.
Christmas came and went, and all remained quiet. We moved into January, and I spent my time reading, writing, and trying to do a little exercise to keep the arthritis at bay. My joints hurt, and my hands sometimes cramped up. Too many broken bones, and too many injuries in my younger days. And it was worse when the weather changed.
The days crept past, and before I knew it, February 1927 arrived.
My time was nearly over, and I was okay with that.
***
Kelly Chan came to see me at my apartment one night. I kept a brownstone facing Central Park, which was easy walking distance from the office Henry and I had shared, though I let that office go after the first encounter with Kelly because I worried that Shade might come to see me on his own.
I returned home from a meeting at the temple and found Kelly sitting in my reading chair, meditating. She rose gracefully when I walked in the door.
“I would have called,” she said, “but I felt a personal visit was in order.”
“Why now?” I asked.
“It's been months,” she said. “Jonathan is furious about Sharon not coming back. Naomi thinks we've been abandoned. They're running out of patience.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing,” Kelly said. “How can I tell them it will be three years?”
“I trust you went to Henry's funeral.”
“I did. You weren't there.”
I smiled and shook my head as I hung up my coat. “That's right. Your Jonathan was there.”
“No. He didn't even want to go by your office. His feeling was that only amateurs would go back to the scene of the crime. He just wants to go home.”
I relaxed because that meant he wouldn't have seen Esther again. I'd worried about that for months, but didn't want to risk sending anyone to check on her. She should be safe, so at least that was going according to my plan. Naomi, too, was still alive, so I was batting in the three hundreds. I had to take my victories where I could find them. I moved into the kitchen. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“I'm not staying.”
“Why did you come here?”
“The mission.”
I leaned against the sink and studied her. “Your mission is complete. Shade killed Henry. You just have to wait to go home.”
“I got bored. I haven't killed anyone in ages.”
“Congratulations,” I said.
“I like killing,” Kelly said. “I prefer not killing innocent people, but I don't think it would be wise to go killing gangsters because it could change history. Then it occurred to me that your mission is to stop Henry Winslow. Killing him won't change history, and if his body is destroyed here, he won't have a body to inhabit when his avatars come forward. Correct?”
“Yes, but Henry can't be killed.”
“Anything can be killed or destroyed.”
“It's not that sim
ple.”
“But it's still your mission. Right?”
“Yes, but it's a mission that can't be completed.”
“Back in September, you asked for my help.”
“I did.”
“And you've changed your mind since then?”
“Not exactly.”
Kelly tilted her head. “Then what is it exactly?”
“I abandoned all hope,” I said.
“I'm not sure I follow.”
“There's no way to win.”
“I don't believe that,” Kelly said. “Walk me through this.”
“What's the point?”
“Maybe I'll see something you don't.”
“Not likely. I've pondered this for half a century, and my plan didn't work. I'm just hoping to keep a few people alive. If I can do that, they can live their lives and I can die knowing I gave it my best shot.”
Kelly shook her head. “My Jonathan would never give up.”
“Your Jonathan hasn't seen what I have.”
“I don't care. Bring me up to speed. It can't hurt.”
“It won't help either.” I held up my hands when she started to object. “Fine. You sure you don't some tea?”
“Just talk.”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Then I sighed and started talking. “All right. The first avatar in ancient Egypt must have moved forward to the second in 1877 by now, but I'm not sure exactly how long all of it took when you add it up. The avatars could arrive here any day now.”
“Relative time passage,” Kelly said. “Sharon told us we'd be returned to our time, but we'd lose the time we lived in the past. Not a big deal when you're talking about a week, but three years?”
“I wasn't aware of that aspect,” I said, wondering what life might be like if I were sent forward to the 2060s because in relative time, I’d lived an extra fifty years.
“I think it's another lie,” she said. “If they can send us to a specific date here, they should be able to return us to a specific date back home. Hell, no one should even know we were gone. It's time travel. Right?”
“If it's done with links, it's relative. I can speak to that from experience.”
She nodded. “I interrupted. Please continue. The first avatar should be in 1877 for a particular stretch of time and then come forward to here?”
“Yes. Six weeks after arriving in 1877, those two will rejoin with the third avatar currently animating Henry's body. The current avatar gets little things from the others, but he doesn't have the full story. He doesn't have direct memories. Just the bleed-through.”
“The bleed-through?”
“The lines of magic connecting them let a little information seep through in both directions. So Henry knew I was sent after him and that I had a team. He knew there were at least two people other than me and you--well, my Kelly. The thing is that I tried to have Winslow's body cut up and destroyed, but it didn't work. He's just too powerful.”
“And you're an old man with nothing, so you've given up.”
“I wouldn't say I have nothing, but I'm certainly no match for him.”
“And you don't think I stand a chance?”
“No. He could kill you with a snap of his fingers.”
“Comforting to know.”
“I was hoping I could have made a difference. I raised Henry like a son. I was his surrogate father through the years, and I tried to guide him to do the right things. I was hoping that when the other two avatars arrived, my Henry would be in control and he could bind them inside him, use their power for good, and make a difference for the world in a positive way.”
“You used the past tense,” Kelly said.
“My Henry was no match for the Henry your Shade originally killed.”
“I don't understand.”
“Layered time.”
She shook her head.
I sighed. “Time has been changed here. In the first go-round, Henry lived out his normal life doing whatever he did, but that obviously didn't go well for whoever has Sharon doing their bidding for them.”
“Sharon is working for someone?” Kelly asked.
“She must be. Why else would she be involved? She was Charon. She ferried souls across the Acheron. She had no reason to help send anyone through time, but something changed all that, and who or whatever is using her wanted me.”
“You?”
“The whole 'magic being ineffective against me' bit.”
“Ah, I get it. You think someone or some group--”
“Probably a group but I can't say for sure. I've been trying to research it, but without Google, it requires finding and translating old books and journals, and--”
“Whatever,” she said. “You think they wanted you to stop Henry from doing something that messed with their plans?”
“Yes. Something didn't go right, so they waited until I was killed or maybe even arranged for me to be killed.”
“The gunman a few years ago who shot you in the head.”
“That's right. When my spirit went to the Underworld, Charon offered me my life in exchange for one favor to be named later.”
“Yes, Jonathan told me. And we later learned the favor was for him to kill a wizard in 1926.”
“In your reality, that's true.”
“But it's different in yours?”
“Yes. When Sharon called in her favor, it wasn't to go kill Winslow once; it was to stop him in three time periods.”
“He's like the Hydra,” Kelly said. “Cut off one head, three more replace it.”
“And we're up to the third avatar, which will be at full strength soon, if he isn’t already. The problem is that the ghost of the Henry your Jonathan just killed was a ghost who didn't go to the Underworld.”
“Really?”
“We knew it was coming, so Henry worked up a spell to stay here, bound to the Emerald Tablets. As I lived through the years, leading Henry down a better path, the Henry your Jonathan killed in September wasn't the same as the Henry he originally killed. That original spirit went to the Underworld, and he is the one currently possessing the body of Henry Winslow.”
“So it's the original who divided himself into three?” Kelly asked. “Sorry, I'm confused.”
“Tell me about it. Layered time is a pain in my ass. But yes, the original Henry stole the spell and divided himself to go get the Emerald Tablets, the crook and flail of Osiris, and the life energy of his mother and father. I thought he'd divided himself equally, so the Henry here would be like the one I dealt with in Egypt, which would mean the Henry I helped raise would be able to overpower him. Unfortunately the original Henry sent minor avatars to retrieve what he needed and kept the bulk of his power situated right here. When my Henry tried to step in, he was no match for the avatar, and he was . . . absorbed.”
“So he's gone?”
“And I was left trying to figure out a way to dispatch a demigod.”
“I've killed a demigod before,” Kelly said.
“Really?”
She nodded. “Persephone.”
I started to disagree but caught myself.
“You look surprised,” Kelly said.
“Yeah. In my reality, I killed Persephone.”
“I'd love to compare notes, but it seems Winslow is going to be a bigger threat soon.”
“He is.”
“So let's go dispatch him now.”
“Impossible.”
“Why?”
“He's not alive right now.”
“He's animated, though, correct?”
“Yes, but you can't kill a dead man.”
“We don't have to kill him,” Kelly said. “We simply have to destroy his body.”
“I told you I already tried that. Didn't work.”
“What did you try?”
“In my travels I learned about an army of spirit warriors called the Vanguard. They tried to blow Winslow's body to smithereens. He remained intact.”
“I'd simply c
ut him into pieces and bury the limbs in different spots around the world.”
“They tried to dismember him first, but he has a magical field surrounding him, so they tried to blast him.”
“That magical field won't stop you,” Kelly said.
“I know that but I can't get a sword or axe through the field.”
“You haven't tried?”
“I tried shooting Winslow at point-blank range back in 1877 and even with the gun right against his chest, the bullets didn't get through. He's even stronger here, so I don't see the value in risking everything on a shot that is unlikely to work.”
“My Jonathan can do it. Or you can attack him in tandem. If one of you keeps him busy with a weapon, the other can get through with bare hands. Cross your middle finger over your index finger and drive them right through the eye and into the brain.”
“You haven't lost your charm,” I said.
“And as you're the slower Jonathan, you should use the weapon. You'll be sacrificing yourself, but it's for the greater good. My Jonathan is young and strong. He can win.”
“I might argue that as I've lived longer and studied more, my knowledge could make the difference. Regardless, Winslow knows that indirect magic works against me, so he can do like he did to me before and pin me to the ceiling with a chair. Or he can take a sword and have it cut me to pieces.”
“I can see the dilemma,” Kelly said, “but by the same token, you could have killed Henry Winslow at any point in the past fifty years, and you let him live. If he died years ago, he wouldn't have a body to possess here. Right?”
I nodded. “But I couldn't bring myself to kill anymore.”
“And how many people have died or will die because you were too weak to do your job? You simply lacked the guts.”
“You don't know me, Kelly.”
“I know who you should be. I know your potential. And looking at what you've become, I'd say you're a shadow of your former self. You could have ended this.”
“I wanted to try a peaceful solution.”
“How's that working out for you?”
“Five more dead,” I said, thinking of the four bodies the Vanguard used and Lincoln Parker.
“So far.”
“Well, I certainly appreciate the pep talk.”