by Gary Jonas
“Oh, do shut up,” he said in a clipped British accent.
“He knows about you,” Sharon said.
“I do believe I'd managed to work that out all on my own.”
“You can let go of me now,” Sharon said.
“I don't think so.” I pushed her closer to Chronos, and he took a step back, keeping himself out of my range.
“How may I be of service?” he asked.
“You can send us home,” I said.
“My dear boy, you're dead. The delightful Miss Chan is already living her life in your time.” He looked over at Rayna. “Do I know you?”
“Rayna Noble,” she said.
“Oh dear,” he said.
I took a chance and launched myself from Sharon to Chronos. Kelly felt my muscles bunch, so she grabbed Sharon as soon as I pushed off.
Chronos didn't expect it, and I caught hold of his wrist. He tried to pull away, but I yanked him to me and twisted him around so I could get a good solid grip with my arm wrapped around his neck. I leaned close. “You didn't give us a link back home,” I said.
He said something in another language.
“Yeah, I don't have the translation earrings anymore. Don't have the clip in my mouth to translate for me either, but I think you can understand English well enough.”
“You're not speaking proper English, but your words convey their meaning well enough.”
“Jolly good,” I said, mimicking his accent. “Are your bosses listening?”
“Whatever makes you think I work for anyone other than myself?”
“Oh, come on, Chronos. The Men of Anubis are pulling your strings. They've either put you in power or they took away your autonomy.”
“How did you--?”
“No, no, no,” I said. “You don't get to ask questions. You can freeze Kelly and Rayna with your spells should you so choose, but you can't do that to me, and if you don't help me, I will cut off your head.”
“You can't do that.”
“Try me.”
“Dear boy, you would have to release me to cut off my head, and I would simply close this watch and disappear.”
“Fine. Aren't you tired of being a lapdog for the Jackasses of the Universe?”
“The Men of Anubis are not to be trifled with.”
“They tried to kill me,” I said, “and yet here I am.”
“Quite so. But if I release you back into your time, they will learn of it.”
“Oh, come on, Chronos. I just traipsed through history from ancient Egypt to now, and I'm nothing if not resilient. If the Men of Anubis learn about me, I'll find a way to stop them. But I can't do that from this void.”
“Unhand me, young man.”
I slowly unwrapped my arm from around his neck, but I kept hold of his wrist with my other hand. I reached out for Kelly, and she took my hand. Only then did I let go of Chronos. It was a calculated risk. He could close that watch and disappear, but I knew he was a slave to the Men of Anubis, and he wasn't happy about it.
“I can't help you if I'm trapped here,” I said.
“You can't help me anyway.”
“I made it this far,” I said. “I faced off with them and I'm still standing.”
“They must believe you're dead.”
“They do.”
“Which means they won't be looking for you.”
“Exactly.”
“They may keep an eye on Miss Chan.”
“Dude, you said it yourself. Kelly Chan is alive and kicking in 2014. This Kelly can stay with me, and we won't have anything to do with the other Kelly.”
“They know about Miss Noble.”
“But she's dead in this 2014 too. So they won't be looking for her. We'll keep a low profile.”
“Allow me a moment to consider what you've said.”
“You have all the time in the world.”
“If only that were true. Very well. It costs me nothing to send you back. If they kill you, I lose nothing. Should you find a way to kill them, however . . .”
“Feel free to point me in the right direction.”
He nodded. “I'll send you to New York City but not in 2014. They may be watching to cover their bases. I do not recommend returning to Colorado. At some point, I may send you a message through an intermediary. Until then, don't do anything to attract their notice.”
He fiddled with his pocket watch, and a portal opened. Car horns sounded, and a jackhammer pounded away in the distance. A wave of heat flowed through the portal, and the sunlight glinted off the skyscrapers. The portal spun and aligned itself with a window. It pushed in and through the glass.
Chronos took his fingers away from the watch and looked up at me. “I'll send you a helper in a moment,” he said.
I stepped into a vacant office. A desk sat in the center of the room with a leather chair behind it. A desktop computer perched on the desk with a flat-panel monitor. Kelly and Rayna stepped through. I turned to say something else, but Chronos snapped his pocket watch closed, and the portal disappeared. Sharon remained with him.
Kelly moved to the window and looked out. “Looks like New York to me,” she said.
I joined her by the window and scanned the horizon. We were in a large skyscraper, and the view included the Statue of Liberty in the distance. “The Twin Towers aren't here, so we're definitely post 9/11.”
Rayna walked over to the desk and jiggled the mouse to bring up the computer. She tapped the mouse and shrugged. “June 11th, 2015,” she said. “I'll pull up the news.”
I joined her at the desk and read a headline. “Damn it,” I said. “Christopher Lee died.”
“Guess who else got bumped off?” a familiar voice said.
I spun around. “Esther!”
She stood there in her flapper dress with her short hair and a big smile on her face. “In the spirit,” she said.
“But I don't have a typewriter key.”
“Typewriters are so 1929,” she said. “How did you get so young?”
“Long story. I'll fill you in later.”
Kelly turned and gave me an odd look.
I laughed. “You met Esther in the flesh, Kelly.”
“And?”
“She's here as a ghost.”
“I don't see anything.”
Esther popped over to where Kelly stood. She furrowed her brow and clenched her fists. “How about now?”
Kelly jumped back, assuming a fighting stance. “What the hell?”
“I don't need a typewriter key,” she said. “If I want someone to see me, they can. If I don't want them to see me, they can't. Well, except for Jonathan. And if you want berries, watch this.”
She popped out of sight and reappeared hovering in the air outside the building a good twenty-five feet away. She popped back to the office. “I can go anywhere I want.”
“How long have you been back?”
“When I faded out in front of you a few minutes ago, I faded in and saw Chronos. He told me I should help you, and that since my ghost went back in time and disappeared when I was born, and the me who was born died a natural death, I was completely free. That Esther was a completely different person. So here I am.”
I rushed forward and tried to embrace her, but my arms passed through. Some things never change. “All right,” I said, “who here's ready for a new adventure?”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gary Jonas grew up in a military family, so he moved a lot as a child. His original plan was to be a comic book artist, but in college things changed. He took a creative writing class for the easy A, and found that when he wrote stories, people were affected emotionally by them in ways they weren’t by his artwork. He switched from art to writing without ever looking back. Well, he might have looked back a few times, but by then it was too late. He sold his first short story to Marion Zimmer Bradley for the anthology Sw
ord and Sorceress VII. Many short story sales followed to various magazines and anthologies including Robert Bloch’s Psychos, It Came from the Drive-In, 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories, Prom Night, and many more.
His first novel, One-Way Ticket to Midnight, was published in 2002, It made the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Award. While the novel was well-reviewed, it didn’t sell diddly squat, so Gary turned to writing screenplays for a few years. A couple of Hollywood options led to nothing, and the notes from producers, while sometimes spot-on, were also sometimes way out in left field (if they were even in the ballpark). Gary returned to novel writing with Modern Sorcery. You can visit him online, and sign up for his mailing list on his rarely updated blog.
Books by Gary Jonas
The Jonathan Shade series:
Modern Sorcery
Acheron Highway
Dragon Gate
Anubis Nights
Sunset Specters
Wizard’s Nocturne
Razor Dreams (coming soon)
The UFO Conspiracy Files series:
Guardians of the Sky (coming soon)
Stand-alone novels:
One-Way Ticket to Midnight
Pirates of the Outrigger Rift (w/Bill D. Allen)
Novella:
Night Marshal: A Tale of the Undead West
also available in Night Marshal Box Set (the first three Night Marshal tales in one bundle--includes Night Marshal by Gary Jonas, High Plains Moon by Glenn R. Sixbury, and This Dance, These Bones by Rebecca Hodgkins). The set kicks ass.
Collection:
Quick Shots
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Wizard’s Nocturne © 2015 by Gary Jonas
Edited by Andrea Howe, Blue Falcon Editing
Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc., http://www.gobookcoverdesign.com/