The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series)

by Heather Blackwood

  “The mother of a rock? What the hell is wrong with you? Go to bed.”

  “No, that thing. That baby thing, right there.”

  Her mother looked straight at the dead thing, but was unfazed. She put her hand around Astrid’s upper arm and pulled.

  “Come on, sweetie. You’re sleepwalking or something. I thought you had outgrown it. Let’s just go back to bed, okay, baby?”

  Astrid stood, astonished. She glanced back at the twisted little corpse. It was still there, stinking and dripping. Was she imagining it? Was she really going crazy? Then she glanced at Cinderella. Black blood smeared the white fur around her mouth.

  “Here,” said her mother, setting the chair upright.

  “No, no. You need to leave it. There’s something there.”

  “No there’s not,” her mother said. “Here, look.”

  And before Astrid could stop her, her mother removed the cookie sheet, pulled open the door and flicked on the porch light. The back porch was empty and so was the yard.

  “But Cinderella, she killed it. Look at her mouth, there’s blood. She killed it.” But even as she looked at the body, she saw it twice. She saw the rounded gray stone and also the dead creature.

  “That cat isn’t good for you,” her mother said. “When we first got her, you would go on about weird stuff she did. Something about that cat affects your mind. Now, let’s get rid of this thing.”

  Her mother picked up the dead thing. She held it as if it were a rock and tossed it outside. Her hands had no blood on them afterward.

  “It’s bedtime. Come on,” her mother said.

  She let her mother lead her back to bed, and she crawled under the covers. Cinderella stayed in the kitchen. She was guarding the house. Astrid knew that now. Guarding her babies and maybe Astrid as well. Good kitty.

  Her mother turned off her light, closed her door and went back to bed. The moment her mother’s door closed, Astrid sprang up and grabbed her grandfather’s salt packets from her desk drawer. She tore one open as she rushed down the hall. Cinderella stood to one side as she sprinkled it along the inside of the door and on the kitchen windowsill.

  She made the rounds, making a ward. Just like in the fairy stories, she sprinkled each threshold and windowsill with salt. When she ran out, she got the salt shaker and kept at it. The bathroom window, the living room window and door, her bedroom window. She stood in the hallway outside her mother’s room. She couldn’t go in, but she sprinkled the base of the door with salt. It would have to do.

  She went back to her room and put salt around the entire perimeter, putting so much on the windowsill that her mother was sure to notice, if she looked. Then she sprinkled a rectangle around her bed.

  Cinderella watched all of this and followed Astrid into the kitchen when she put away the salt shaker. The cat stood in front of the cat door, and Astrid knew that she was about to do something she did not want to.

  “Don’t go,” she said.

  Cinderella came forward and bumped against Astrid’s legs, and she knelt down to pet her and kiss the top of her head.

  “You don’t have to go.”

  The cat gave a last nudge with her head and then jumped through the cat door. Astrid heard the jingle of her collar grow fainter until she was out of range. Maybe she would be all right. Maybe she would kill that horrid thing.

  Her mother had left the porch light on, and Astrid wasn’t about to turn it off. She made sure the back door was locked and then looked through the kitchen window into the backyard. The mother of the thing stood with her back to the window. She was bigger than a cat, about eighteen inches high, gray-skinned with a thick, powerful body. And Cinderella had already gone.

  The thing turned in a flash and made eye contact with her. The feeling was unspeakable, like looking at the things in the mirror house, but worse because this thing was in her world, outside her own house.

  And then the thing opened its toothless, wet mouth and grinned.

  Chapter 22

  Yukiko looked herself over in the motel bathroom mirror. She looked much healthier than she had when her spirit ball had first been stolen. There was more color to her cheeks and her eyes were clear and bright.

  She put on a light blue sundress and white high-heeled sandals. Thank the gods she purchased a few nice things with her casino money before losing her powers. At least she wasn’t reduced to wearing ugly souvenir tee shirts. She fixed her hair and put on a little makeup.

  She looked at the plush tail, and for a moment, she wanted to clip it on. But it looked too eccentric, and she wanted to look normal, or at least as close to normal as someone like her could manage. She hoped that the fullness of the skirt would hide her tail’s shadow. She thought she could pull it off. Maybe. And if not, then so what? She had nothing to lose.

  Now, about this Elliot. She had met him before, long, long ago, by human terms anyway. She had been surprised to see him again at the show. He had not recognized her because he had not met her yet. He had been older then.

  In the mortal world, time was roughly linear. True, it was faster at some points, slower at others. Her kind were not time-sensitive, so she did not notice these things herself. The Kitsune lived one day after the other, just as mortals did. Most of them anyway. Elliot must be an exception.

  Now, what sort of man was this Elliot? She knew little about him, but she was sure that he was young, and was from this era. She had dealt with men before, so many men. But that had been back decades ago, and male sensibilities had changed. No longer was a sweet, docile girl who would cook and be of service to her man the ideal. Modern men wanted something else, and she was not sure she could pretend to be it. With her powers, she would be able to make a man see and feel what she wished, to an extent. And though she had danced at Red Fawn’s show again, she didn’t want to use up too much of the power she had gained.

  Augustus had given her orders. They had come from Iolanthe, who reported to a governor or a duke who reported to the queen. You had to give the Seelie credit for organization. One knew exactly where one stood. It had been that way once with the Kitsune. The Nogitsune, the wild foxes, had their ways, wild and wicked. And the Myobu had theirs. They had Inari, the rice god, and they had order.

  It was all gone now. Where were her brothers and sisters? Now and then, she could feel one passing by, on a train, or a ship. She supposed some traveled by air, but the planes were so far overhead that she did not feel their presence. She had traveled back to the old temple in Japan once and had visited the old shrines, but they had fallen into disrepair. Their decay pained her. She had done her best to clear away creeping plants, to upright the statues. She had swept the hidden temple, cleared the leaves and dirt and scurrying creatures. She had burned incense and wondered if she was the only one who had done so since Inari’s death.

  Maybe her kind were almost extinct. Maybe the last one she had felt truly was the last, and she was alone in the world. And what if she was? How was that any different than her life for the last century? Where had the Myobu been when she had been forced to take a ship to a strange land or when, in desperation, she had taken work in a cabaret? Perhaps her dream of a reunion with her siblings was the silly notion of a young girl. As far as Kitsune went, she was still very young.

  Things had changed. Many of the old gods had died. The dragons mostly worked on Wall Street. For years, the Unseelie had been sealed away from the mortal world. The Seelie world was closer to the human world and they came through rarely. The humans were little troubled by the ancient things, the things of the deep water and the dark. They were safe. Mostly.

  She walked to the boardwalk. It was mid-morning, Sunday, and the crowds were still thin. By afternoon, more people would come and fill the park with their noise and smell. Mr. Augustus had told her that Elliot would be working at the mirror house with the strange
grinning head on the front of it.

  Her instructions were clear. Ask this Elliot man on a date. Go on the date. She was supposed to take him to a falafel shop in the strip mall across from the park. She had eaten at the shop once and was familiar with it.

  “What are you going to do to him?” she had asked Mr. Augustus.

  “I don’t run anything outside of the park. So I don’t know what they have planned.”

  “Will they poison him, like they did me? What do they want from him?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. I follow orders, and you will too.”

  She hated that he was right. If she disobeyed, she would be locked away for a few centuries or killed. By obeying, or giving the appearance of obedience, she bought herself time to locate her spirit ball.

  “What use is he?” she said. “The man seems perfectly human. Or is this because he’s the cousin of that Astrid girl?”

  “No, he’s a totally normal, totally unremarkable human. An underachiever and a beach bum. And for some reason, you’re supposed to get him over to the falafel shop.”

  She found Elliot at the mirror house, taking tickets. She used a little of her power to make her cheeks a little rounder and rosier. Her face was naturally long and a little angular, so softening it a bit made her prettier. She slowed her movements a tiny bit, and stood up straight. Confidence was sexy. She had read that in a modern women’s magazine.

  “Hi, Elliot.”

  “Oh, it’s you. Hey. Sorry I couldn’t make it to your performance last night. I heard you were great.”

  She wished he had come. He provided such good power for her. Then she scolded herself. It was wrong to view humans as food. Only the loss of her spirit ball had brought the thought to her mind. She was not fundamentally changed.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “There will be other opportunities. I’m going to be working at the park for a while.”

  “That’s good. Really good.”

  Now, she had to somehow get him to ask her out. But the magazine had said that men liked a woman who knew what she wanted, whatever that meant. What she wanted was her spirit ball and a plane ticket out of this hot, stinking place. Half desert, half beach, and all noise and cars and humanity. That was Los Angeles. She longed for a snowy place, where she could change into a white fox and run with the brisk, icy wind in her fur. But here she was, in the sun, trying to get a date with a man who was only two decades old.

  “I was hoping we could get to know each other better,” she said.

  Elliot’s face lit up, and then he tried to hide it. It was endearing.

  “So, what are you doing later?” he asked.

  Good! This was it. This was the lead-up to asking a girl out.

  “Nothing. Would you like to do something?”

  “Yeah. You want to hang out?”

  Hang out. That meant to spend time with someone doing an informal activity, such as watching television or playing video games. It was not a date. It would not do.

  “No. I would not.”

  “Oh, well, okay.” He turned and took tickets from some park guests. “So, how do you like working at the boardwalk?”

  This was not going well. She did not want to chitchat about work. It was also humiliating. She could make men fall down and adore her, but getting one to ask her on a date was now too difficult? She used a little more magic, and smiled sweetly.

  “You were really brave around that slaugh. Most, um, people, would be afraid.” Damn. She had almost said “humans” instead of people. But maybe it would work. Men liked admiration, even modern ones.

  “It was nothing. You and Santiago were the ones who caught it. How did you do it anyway?”

  “Oh, Santiago did most of it. I just did a little bit.”

  “Oh,” he said. He looked a little disappointed.

  Men liked to think that women were sweet and gentle, right? But the magazine had said that they liked confidence and strength. She had lived among mortals for centuries, but they were still confusing.

  “Your cousin was great,” she said. “She is very brave.”

  “Astrid’s a tough little bird.”

  There was an awkward pause. So now they were talking about the girl Astrid. She needed to take control of this situation.

  “Elliot, I would like to have dinner with you on a date.”

  “Oh, I thought … um, sure. Yeah.”

  She waited. Now he would tell her when he would pick her up.

  “Want to meet somewhere?” he said.

  “Why don’t you pick me up instead? Then we can go somewhere nearby. Do you like falafel?”

  “Sure, that’s good.”

  Excellent. They had a date. She gave him her room number at the Seaside Inn and they agreed that he would pick her up at seven. She was about to leave, when she thought of something.

  “Will you be paying for our meal?”

  His surprised look told her that she had made a social mistake, but it hardly mattered now. She had secured the date and determined the location and time. Now, she needed to know if she had to get money for it.

  “Sure, no problem,” he said.

  She said good-bye to him and walked toward Mr. Augustus’s office to report in. She hadn’t mentioned to him that she had recognized Elliot, nor would she. If Elliot was able to do something like appear in the past, perhaps he could help her. She had to play her cards right and make friends with this supposedly ordinary mortal.

  Chapter 23

  “Get in here right now!” yelled Astrid’s mother from the kitchen.

  Astrid got up from her desk where she had been working on a drawing and went to the kitchen. She found her mother scowling over a pile of something on the kitchen floor. It smelled like vomit, but with a sulfurous reek.

  “Your cat puked all over the floor,” said her mother. “You need to clean it up.”

  “Aww, jeez. It smells horrible,” she said.

  It wasn’t the reddish color of the cat kibble and it didn’t look like a white hairball. She leaned over it to get a better look. The vomit was partly liquid with many chunks of black meat. A few pieces had a thin coating of grayish skin on one side. The hunks weren’t very large, and they looked if they had been ripped off and bolted down.

  “Is Cinderella okay? Have you seen her?” she asked. She looked out the kitchen window, but the cat wasn’t outside.

  “She was well enough to come in here and barf on the floor.”

  “I need to find her. She might be hurt.”

  “Don’t you dare. You’re cleaning that up, right now.”

  “But she obviously got in a fight with something horrible. She could be dying somewhere.”

  “You’re going to do as I say. That cat isn’t good for you. And that barf stinks. You’re cleaning it up before you do anything else.”

  “Wait, you can see that? You can see the black meat?” asked Astrid.

  “Of course I can see it. Astrid, look at me.”

  Astrid did. Her mother grabbed her chin and looked into her eyes.

  “Your eyes look red. What are you on?”

  “Nothing! I just have had trouble sleeping.” She wouldn’t tell her mother that she had not slept at all.

  “Why can’t you sleep? Are you on speed or something?”

  “No, of course not.” Astrid tried to pull away from her mother’s hand, but she gripped her jaw harder.

  “You quit lying to me, damn it!” Her mother’s fingers pressed painfully into her face.

  “I’ll clean it up,” she said, and her mother released her.

  She grabbed a roll of paper towels. Her mother leaned back against the kitchen table. “Make sure you use Lysol on it afterward. I don’t want to be smelling that shit all d
ay.”

  Astrid doubled up a few sheets of paper towels and scooped up as much as she could. She dropped the sickening wad in the kitchen trash. The stench was horrible, even worse when it was close up, and she felt like she was going to vomit.

  “You’re taking that trash bag out afterwards,” said her mother. “Don’t try to get out of it.”

  “I won’t,” she choked out. The stench filled her mouth and nose, and her stomach heaved. Think of toast, she thought. It always helped her when she felt like vomiting. Eating meat made her feel the same, and her mother had gotten used to her vomiting if forced to eat it. If she thought of toast, nice, dry, plain toast, her stomach sometimes settled.

  She knelt down to get more of the vomit when she saw something. It was two long, bulbous fingers, joined by a piece of skin or tendon, she couldn’t tell which. Oh God, it was part of a hand. She heaved, and felt the vomit coming up into her mouth.

  “You get back here right now!” screamed her mother as Astrid bolted down the hall and vomited in the bathroom toilet. “Don’t you ignore me!”

  Astrid wiped her mouth with a tissue.

  “What the fuck was that?” said her mother from right behind her. She put her hand on the back of Astrid’s head, and before she could react, yanked her head up. “You are going to clean up that shit right now.”

  “I got sick. It smelled so bad.”

  “Bullshit! You did it on purpose. You’re making yourself sick.” Her mother shook Astrid’s head back and forth by the hair until Astrid reached behind her head and clawed at her hand. It was difficult and she had to wrench and claw, digging her nails in to get free. She rubbed the back of her head.

  Her mother was astonished. “How dare you attack your own mother!”