The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series)

by Heather Blackwood

  At the bottom of the cargo hold steps, Neil turned to her and stopped abruptly, causing her to bump into him in the dark. Her eyes had not adjusted to the lack of light, but she could see him looking down at her.

  “What? What’s the matter?” she asked, stepping back so she didn’t have to crane her neck to look at him.

  “I need to ask you something.” He paused and looked over her shoulder, at the steps.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “Is it something with the crew?”

  She saw him shake his head in the dark, and now that her eyes were adjusting, she could see that he was watching her.

  “Remember back at the safe house? When you first came to this time?” he said.

  She did. She remembered the first meeting of the Time Corps, five years ago by her personal timeline. She and Neil had eaten vanilla ice cream and Neil had kissed her. Then he had taken her for a driving lesson. It had been a disaster, albeit an exciting one. Then Neil had gone his way and she had gone hers, spending five years meeting him in various times and doing jobs for the Time Corps. Once she learned that Elliot had disappeared, she and this older version of Neil had joined up.

  She wondered why he came now in his timeline, in his forties, instead of earlier, but knew better than to ask. Since that kiss, he had been distant, as if he knew something she didn’t. Undoubtedly, he did. That was the way of asynchronous friendships. He never made another romantic overture again. She accepted that the kiss was a lapse on his part and that they would remain as close friends. The thought still stung though, even after all this time.

  “How—” then he spun around toward the cargo hold and Hazel saw what he must have heard. It was a man, emerging from the darkness. The entire crew was made up of capuchin monkeys, so there was no mistaking an intruder. They were still miles from shore, which meant this person was a stowaway. How long had he been on board?

  “My Emmett,” said the man to Neil, and came closer. He was dark-haired with grey at the temples and his eyes were a pale gray blue. He couldn’t be a stowaway, as they had been at sea for days and his slacks were crisply creased and she could detect the fresh tang of his cologne.

  Neil was motionless, and Hazel wondered why this man was calling him by a strange name.

  “I’m Captain Dubois,” she said, inserting herself between the man and Neil. “Who are you and why are you on my ship?”

  The man ignored her, his gaze fixed on Neil. “You failed me,” he said, so quietly that Hazel almost missed it. Neil would have heard it clearly, as his senses were far more keen than her own.

  She heard rather than saw Neil’s physical struggle. It started with him taking a breath, and as the man approached, she knew that she had never heard the sound before. It wasn’t that he didn’t breathe, but he was such a silent person, moving about the world without drawing the slightest attention. The next moment, as she heard him exhale a ragged breath, she knew what was happening. Neil was resisting the man.

  “You leave him alone!” she cried. The man reached for Neil, who stood immobilized, and Hazel drew her pistol. It was an older weapon, an antique in this time, though by its own timeline it was only a few years old. Neil had taught her to shoot with it during the Civil War, and she was more comfortable with it than with newer weapons. She pulled back the hammer.

  “Stop there, or I’ll kill you again,” she said. She had not recognized him, but now there was no mistaking who he was. This was Mr. March, formerly Neil’s boss, and a being who could control Neil’s actions, when he so chose.

  March looked at her from his new face, handsome, yet severe. The light from the overhead hatch let her see a tiny scar bisecting his cheek. The last time she had seen him, he was lying dead at her feet, a thin, older man with very fair skin and light hair. Mr. March was one of the Twelve, and now she understood why his siblings, September Wilde and Julius, had not been too upset about March’s death. He could return from the dead.

  “The bullet will not reach me, you understand,” said March, never taking his eyes off Neil.

  What he said was true. March had the ability to create warrens in space and time, some of them just large enough to redirect a bullet. She had seen it happen before.

  “Why are you here?” she asked. “Leave Neil alone. He hasn’t done a thing to you.”

  Mr. March placed his hands on either side of Neil’s face, as gentle as a father caressing an infant. Neil opened his mouth, and Mr. March murmured, “I love you.” He kissed his forehead.

  Before Hazel could do anything else, Mr. March rubbed his thumb along the roof of Neil’s mouth three times and turned away. He blinked once, and Hazel saw tears shining in his eyes. He took a step away, and then was gone, vanishing through one of his warrens.

  Neil hadn’t moved, and Hazel holstered her weapon and grasped his hand, but his skin turned rough and cold.

  “Neil!” she cried and touched his face. Why hadn’t he started to move again? Why was he simply staring into space? His face became coarse under her palm and she grabbed his shoulder, which was hardened beneath his shirt.

  What had Mr. March done to him? His eyes lost their luster, and as she watched, his features crumbled inward, just slightly, becoming rough and as still as death. Only his clothing remained soft.

  He teetered sideways, and she threw her arms around him to hold him up, planting her feet and leveraging her weight to keep him upright. But his bulk was too much and he fell backward and to one side, crashing to the floorboards with a sickening explosion of dust, pulling Hazel to the ground with him. She blinked through the dust, her mouth filling with the ashlike grit as she knelt and tried to make sense of the shape before her.

  The light from the hatch illuminated him completely now, his face a frozen mask of death, his mouth slightly open, exposing teeth like tiny headstones. His nose was nothing more than a nub, his eyeballs blank stone globes in their sockets, sightless, his entire body transformed into hardened earth.

  Chapter 10

  “There’s a man in our backyard,” Pangur Ban said. The cat sat on the bedroom windowsill, and Astrid stroked her as she looked down into the yard. No one else ever petted Pangur Ban, but the cat had been Astrid’s friend and wordless companion through much of her childhood. And as the cat had never objected to being touched, Astrid had continued their old familiar practice, even after discovering that her pet cat was a sentient being.

  “That was quick,” Astrid said. “That’s Jeff, the head psychopomp.”

  “Interesting,” said Pangur Ban, but did not elaborate.

  Astrid headed downstairs and out back, passing the living room where Pangur Ban’s kittens, Frieda and Diego, watched a children’s movie. As close as she could tell, they seemed to be about the equivalent of preschoolers in their understanding and verbal abilities. Sister sat to one side, looking through a children’s book. Huggin perched on the back of her chair, teaching her to read. His memory might be shot, but his intelligence never failed him.

  “I’ll be out for a few hours,” Astrid called, and Sister raised a hand, one thumb up, in acknowledgment.

  “Ready to go?” asked Jeff when she emerged.

  Without waiting for a reply, he created a Door, one tall enough for both of them to step through comfortably. In the center, she saw a middle-class living room with cream carpet and high, bright windows.

  “We need to go quickly,” said Jeff. “I want to be able to grab lunch before I go back to the shop.”

  Astrid stepped through the Door after him into the living room of an American tract home. Bland paintings of flowers hung on the ecru walls beside antiqued wooden wall hangings with the words “Love” and “Laugh.” Framed family pictures, some of them in black and white, crowded for space on the mantle and the cinnamon scent of store-bought air freshener hung in the air. The place was both cloyingly artificial and homey at
the same time.

  “I’d like to start you on an easier one, some elderly person,” said Jeff. “But this looks like a young couple’s home.”

  “Is the person already dead?” Astrid whispered.

  “You don’t have to be quiet. Even if there are people here, they won’t see or hear us. We don’t even leave DNA evidence, which is darn handy when there’s a murder. When we’re on the job, most of the time, we’re undetectable.”

  “Most of the time?”

  “If we want to be seen, we can. And animals and very young children sometimes see us. That’s where Gopan has an advantage, because he’s little and cute. And to answer your question, the person will be dead or dying within a few minutes. We try to get here quickly, or the soul lingers and gets frightened.”

  They entered the kitchen and Astrid stopped. “They have a high chair. It’s not the baby, is it?”

  “I hope not,” said Jeff and, after making a quick circuit of the deserted downstairs area, they climbed the stairs.

  Jeff looked through the master bedroom door before Astrid did, and he put his body in between her and the doorway.

  “This might be rough for you,” he said. “But we’ll do it together, okay?”

  “Oh God, it’s the baby.”

  “No. It’s the mother.”

  Astrid looked into the room where a woman was lying down on the blue and white floral bedspread. She was in her late twenties with a brown ponytail and nicely pedicured bare feet.

  “Is she dead?”

  “She will be soon.”

  “But she looks healthy. How will she die?”

  “No way to tell. Heart attack, aneurysm, stroke, the ceiling could collapse, a poisonous spider could crawl across her pillow.”

  “Can’t we help her?” she asked.

  “There’s nothing we can do. She can’t see us yet, and if we tried to grab her or talk to her, she’d be frightened. Also, she’d die either way.”

  An instant later, the woman rose and stood beside the bed, watching them. Astrid suddenly felt very much like an intruder, standing in this woman’s home, watching her as she lay on the bed and simultaneously stood beside herself. Then she saw it, the Door. Fog swirled and then parted in front of the master bathroom entrance, leaving the mirrorlike Doorway in the center. Astrid knew she had made that Door, and now she had to convince the soul to go through it.

  Jeff stepped just behind her, close enough to speak quietly into her ear. “She sees the body,” he whispered. The woman looked at herself on the bed. “Notice how her spirit looks younger than the body. That’s valuable information for you. But also see how she’s not as pretty as her real version. Perhaps that’s also useful.”

  Astrid didn’t see how this could be important.

  “Now look around the room,” he said. “See the photos? Also, did you notice the family photos downstairs? She’s connected to her family.”

  A baby cried from a room nearby and the woman raised her head and rushed out of the room, brushing past Astrid and Jeff with a gust of icy air.

  “Why doesn’t she see us?”

  “She does and doesn’t, it seems. She saw us clearly that first moment, but now she doesn’t. That’s also a useful piece of information. It means she’s reluctant to go, not acknowledging that death has come for her. All of these pieces of information let us help the soul, they’re threads in a tapestry, making a picture for us.”

  They followed the woman into the baby’s room, a confection of pink and lace, with bins full of blocks and stuffed toys. A little girl, about a year and a half old, stood in the crib, holding her arms up to her mother.

  “The baby sees her,” said Astrid. “She can see her mommy.”

  She felt Jeff’s hand on her shoulder, giving her a reassuring squeeze. “This is a tough one. I’d have rather taken you to escort an old, sick person. But by definition, none of the souls we encounter want to go. An old person can hang onto life just as tightly as a young one.”

  The mother tried to lift her child, only to have her arms pass through the little girl’s body. The baby wailed and shook the crib railing.

  “First, move the Door in here,” said Jeff.

  Astrid had moved Doors before, but she had been in fear for her life at the time. This time, she found it easier, and the Door materialized in front of the child’s closet door.

  “Do Doors always form in front of other doors? The last one was in front of the master bathroom.”

  “Good observation. They don’t have to, but like attracts like, and since you envision them similarly, it’s not surprising. You can move them any time you want. But look, the woman sees us again.”

  She spun toward them so quickly that Astrid felt a stab of terror as the woman’s eyes met hers. She was looking into the eyes of a ghost, a dead person, while her corpse lay in the other room.

  “What are you doing in my house?” The woman came toward them. “You get out of here!” Astrid leapt back, banging into Jeff, who pulled her aside as the woman charged forward.

  “She can’t hurt you,” he said. “But she’s a mother and we’re in her territory.”

  “Wait!” Astrid said, as the woman glared at her, looking like she wanted to do violence. “We’re here to help you. Your arms went though the baby. You saw your body. Remember that.”

  The woman looked down at her hands, which, to Astrid, appeared solid. The baby watched from the crib, eyes round.

  “I’m sorry, but you’re dead,” Astrid said.

  “Not the most poetic, but effective,” muttered Jeff.

  “Oh, come on,” Astrid muttered. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  “Now comes the tricky part,” said Jeff. “Think about her mind, see it as a series of strings, all woven together, and see if you can touch one.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re going to convince her to go through the Door by using her own thoughts. Remember the pictures? She is a family-oriented person. That makes her a pretty easy case. It means she has loved ones who are dead, and she feels attachment to them. Use that.”

  Astrid reached out, imagining the woman’s mind. It wasn’t as hard as she would have guessed. She felt the woman’s interior landscape.

  “I’m dead?” said the woman.

  “Yes,” said Astrid. “And now you have to go to ... to the next place.”

  She hesitated to use the word “heaven,” worrying that it might be a lie.

  “No,” said the woman. “No, I have things to do here. I have Krystal and Mike and tomorrow is my Zumba class.”

  Astrid took a step toward her, slowly, as if approaching a feral animal. “See that Door?” she said, indicating the swirling fog and gently undulating mirror, reflecting the pink and white of the room back at them. “That’s where your family is. They’re waiting. You can’t stay here.”

  “But Krystal,” she said, looking at the baby.

  “You can’t be with her any more. Your body is dead.”

  “I can still stay! She can see me!” the woman cried, and Astrid considered touching her, to try to ease her pain, but she did not. The woman approached the crib and looked down at her little girl.

  “She won’t see you forever,” said Astrid. “When she’s older, she won’t see you at all.”

  “I’m not going! She needs me.”

  When her mother drew near, Krystal raised her arms again, making a little sound.

  “Reach into her mind,” Jeff said. “It won’t be a specific memory. It’ll just feel like a certain thread is stronger than the others. That’s the one you’re going for. The powerful one.”

  Astrid obeyed, feeling gently until she detected a stronger thought. Then she pulled and the woman turned toward the Door.

  “Mom?” she said
.

  Astrid looked, but saw no one.

  “She heard her mother’s voice,” said Jeff.

  “She’s waiting for you,” said Astrid. “She’s waited a long time to see you.”

  She had no idea if this last bit was true, but Gopan had said something similar to the man on the boardwalk. The woman looked from the Door to the baby. Astrid reached in and pulled the thread in her mind again, then searched and found two other strong ones and pulled those as well.

  The woman moved toward the Door, listening to whatever voices from her past beckoned. Little Krystal’s face crumpled into a scowl and she looked like she was about to cry. Jeff slipped over to her and distracted her by making his hand into a makeshift puppet and talking softly to her while Astrid pulled another thread in the woman’s mind.

  Slowly, the woman moved toward the Door, and at the last instant, her face grew joyful, and the years fell away from her, leaving her a young woman of about twenty, her face radiant with absolute joy. She stepped through the Door, which then contracted and vanished.

  “Not bad,” said Jeff. “I typically pull one thread at a time, but your method is effective too, if a bit crude.”

  “You make it sound like I’m a big brute. I tried to be gentle.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We all have different approaches, and as long as the soul goes through the Door unharmed, we’ve done our job. Oh, and if you ever need to know, you can physically force a soul through. Hopefully none of your early jobs will involve that. But you can do it. You’re strong enough and they can’t hurt you.”

  Krystal looked from Jeff to Astrid and back again, then screwed up her face and screamed.

  “Let’s be on our way. No need to leave any weird memories with the child.” He headed down the hall.

  “We can’t leave her home alone. Who will take care of her?”

  “The woman is married, and I’m sure the man will be home in a few hours. The baby might get hungry, but she’ll be all right.”