The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series)

by Heather Blackwood

  She stepped through the Door and it closed as the final two golems appeared on the lawn. They headed toward the front door and Neil shoved Astrid’s shoes under the coffee table before opening the door for them.

  “They just escaped,” he said.

  “To where?”

  “I don’t know. They went through a Door. They don’t seem to trust me anymore.”

  His brother looked him in the eye. “Kill him,” he said.

  It took an instant for Neil to realize that his brother was speaking to one of the other golems, but it took them a moment longer to understand. He used his time.

  Neil dropped to the ground, kicking the legs out from one of his brothers, then leapt backwards, rising to meet a third who barreled toward him. He slipped sideways, but two others grabbed him. They didn’t have a good grip, and he pulled them with him to the ground. He wasn’t stronger than they were, and they were just as fast.

  He rushed for the door, but another golem slammed into him from the side, both of them crashing down on top of the coffee table. One of the legs broke and he rolled with his brother, both of them struggling to pin the other, grappling for purchase, their speed and strength and skill perfectly matched. This went on for a few seconds, long enough for Neil to wonder where his other brothers were. Only one was fighting him. Why was no one tearing them apart and shooting him through the head?

  “Push him off,” said a woman’s voice, and in the flurry of movement, he caught sight of two stockinged feet.

  Astrid.

  He managed to separate from his brother just long enough for her to do what she had done to the others, to create a Door beneath the golem’s feet.

  “They’ll be back soon,” she said and took his arm. They fell through her Door in an instant, and it took him a moment to get his bearings once his feet his solid ground.

  Luna Park. The boardwalk.

  Rain poured from the sky and something howled overhead. Neil watched as a string of black, diaphanous forms flew past, then broke into groups.

  “Those are the souls,” said Elliot, coming up beside him. “It’s not all though. More will come. I saw them. So many.”

  Sister took Elliot’s hand. She flinched when a great bronze serpent, winged and terrifying, flew low over the roller coaster, dipping down as if searching for something.

  “Coaxoch!” Neil shouted, and the drake turned.

  She saw him, he knew it, but instead of drawing closer, she turned and flew out over the beach. An instant later, a rip appeared, black and empty. The void.

  “I promised you nothing, golem,” she shouted, and was gone.

  Chapter 42

  Astrid felt the familiar pulls of psychopomp jobs, but instead of the usual one at a time, there were many at once. The sensation was akin to having ten, fifty, a thousand people all calling her name.

  Overhead, another rip to the afterlife formed. She changed into an owl, leaving her clothing behind an abandoned snack booth and flew up through the rain, forcing the souls back both with her force of will and by physically shoving them. Though smaller in owl form, she retained her psychopomp ability to force the movement of souls, and she used it without hesitation, digging her claws in, shoving and shouting.

  When the Professor had told her that he could not close the Door at the cloister, she had explained that a Door couldn’t be closed while it was in use. The same was true now, and she was forced to close this new Door to the afterlife gradually, squeezing it tight until only one soul came through at a time and then clawing and pushing them back until the Door was no longer in use and she could close it.

  She sealed this rip, but another opened, and another. They were multiplying on their own now, like cancer cells. She flew through the wind and the rain from one rip to another, closing them, but no sooner had she closed one than two more opened. Some of the rips were closer to the ground, and she noticed Graciela and Robin, both in their black dog aspects, or Gopan popping in to close them. She was relieved to see Graciela and Robin. The group wasn’t complete without them, and they were needed.

  She caught sight of Sevilen from the corner of her eye. He was working to close the rip to the void that the other drake had opened. She left him to it. She could have helped, but while she could work on all Doors, he could not affect ones to the afterlife. Only she could do that.

  “Your phone was ringing a minute ago,” Sevilen called to her. She got two more rips closed before diving down, changing into her human form and crouching behind the snack stand to check her messages. Gopan had called, asking her to come to New Orleans if she could. Like her, he was moving all over the world to close rips. She changed into her owl aspect and made a Door.

  It was raining in New Orleans, and Jackson Square was filled with souls. She flew up to close three that were too high for the others to reach. Now and then Graciela or Robin appeared below. They shoved souls back and then vanished to attend to others somewhere else.

  Astrid moved from Jackson Square to Mexico City to Tangier where she found sidhe, the fair folk, tearing open the hole that Sevilen had closed. She found the drake at Luna Park and told him as much, then traveled to a small town in Ireland and back to Luna Park. Some locations were more susceptible to tears, and they were not only at the places that the Time Corps had torn time rips. There were others, and in each one, dark clouds poured down rain.

  She also noticed that she hadn’t seen Jeff. She stopped, became human, and called Gopan on the phone.

  “He’s making complex traps,” he said, “like a web. A series of Doors that the souls move through, only to be trapped back in the afterlife. He’s at the center, monitoring and adding pieces as necessary.”

  It sounded a bit complicated for Astrid, who worked better visualizing and moving swiftly and silently.

  She returned to Ireland to work with Graciela, splitting the work between sky and land, then returned to Luna Park. She changed into her human form to check another message on her phone. Powerful arms wrapped her like a great iron vice.

  Instinctively, she created a Door to the void beneath the assailant’s feet, but though the two of them fell, the man did not release her. This was a golem, she knew, one of Neil’s brothers. She made another Door between their bodies, pushing it over him until his arms loosened slightly. She squirmed hard, considering changing into an owl and wondering if it would give her an advantage, when she had an idea.

  As they hung in the black, silent, empty space between worlds, she worked fast, her fingers nimble. The golem must be suffocating by now, his arms locked around her. She didn’t know how long he could survive here, but it could not be indefinitely. She worked the slim black device off of his wrist and clutched it while she made another very thin door in front of her, between his arms and her body. Now, she was sandwiched between her Doors with only his arms on either side. By stretching the Doors around herself, like a cocoon, she managed to escape. She moved a few yards away and turned to see her captor. This was the golem who looked like he was from the Indian subcontinent. No matter, for they were all the same to her, mindless animated matter. All but Neil.

  She became an owl, clutched the device in her talons and made another Door to Luna Park, focusing on Neil and finding him. She dropped the black device into his hand. He had only opened his mouth to thank her when another golem, this one of African ancestry, leapt at her. She pulled a Door around herself, like a membrane, so quickly that the golem had no time to react.

  The void again, then Luna Park, this time near a small rip from the afterlife. She closed it. Yukiko was now working with Seamus, Felicia, Luke and Hazel, making illusions to distract void wyrms or to confuse the Seelie and Unseelie who had managed to make another Door through.

  Sevilen came through one of his Doors and they paused together, her perched on a boardwalk railing.

  “I got the Seel
ie Door in Tangier closed, but they’ve opened one here as well,” said Sevilen. “Also, that Aztec drake wants to let the void wyrms through.”

  “Doesn’t she know it’ll kill everyone?”

  “It won’t harm the wyrms. They’ll thrive. And the world will once again belong to the great reptiles.”

  She was about to ask him what he would do about it, if anything, when the female drake appeared, ripping a large void hole overhead. Astrid immediately closed it from where she sat while Sevilen launched himself at the other drake. The two dragons locked together, jaws clamping and tearing, their tails lashing, their bodies writhing and straining together in their frenzied struggle.

  “Astrid!” yelled Neil, and she turned to find one of his brothers almost upon her. She vanished through a Door.

  She flew out over the top of the arcade building, wanting to help Sevilen, but not knowing how to do so. Even if she made a Door around the Aztec drake, she would simply return. The void was no problem for her. And if she made a Door to death for her, then Sevilen would be sent there too.

  She closed another rip, this one smaller, and spotted one golem, then another. She ducked down low on the roof of the arcade as they gathered on the beach, watching the drakes as they rose and fell, locked together.

  The drakes dropped, nearly hitting the water before shooting toward the shore, where they crashed and slid together, wet sand spraying around them, their teeth snapping, their wings opening and closing as they vied for purchase on the earth and sought each other’s throats.

  The golems watched them and at a word from one, they tore across the sand toward the two of them. Sevilen reared back, breaking free, and in that moment, Astrid made a Door around him, forcing him into the safety of the void.

  The golems did not indicate any surprise at this, and they fell upon the Aztec drake. Already weakened, she thrashed as they held her, pulling long knives from hidden sheaths to slice at her. She snapped at them, but two golems held her head while the others set to slitting her throat. Silvery blue blood wetted the sand and the front of her body. After a long while, her tail stopped moving, her wings fell limp and her lifeless head fell forward.

  The golems drew back, and though Astrid couldn’t hear them speaking among themselves, she knew that they noticed the one missing among their number. She hoped by now that their brother would be suffocated in the void or eaten by a void wyrm.

  The golems did not ponder this long, because overhead a new rip opened. Astrid knew it was a Door to the afterlife, she could feel it, but this place was different. She sensed the place before her eyes registered the smoke, the dark, the flickers of orange light.

  Then the souls came. Unlike the souls from Purgatory, these ones screamed and howled, some tore at their own flesh and some were already missing limbs, jaws, eyes, hunks of skin or parts of their skulls.

  She soared up to the rip, dodging the spirits, arriving at the rip and pushing the closest spirit back. The stench was terrible, and the creatures barely registered to her as human. They were changed beings, things that once were men and women, but now were mad, corrupted representations of human people.

  She pulled the Door partly closed, as tight as she could manage while the spirits poured out, and behind them came other creatures, things that felt like the Twelve, but were vastly different in their intent and internal makeup. Within a moment, she knew this was a place of death, true death, and she thought she understood.

  She got the Door mostly closed, and only one soul at a time could come through, but she could do no more. Down below, on the boardwalk, another rip opened from this evil place, this one larger. Souls six or seven abreast poured through, and she watched as Hazel yelled for Seamus and Felicia to bring their machine to close it.

  Astrid knew that Hazel had no idea that their machine would never work.

  Astrid darted down, just in time to see Jeff appear through a Door, barefoot and wearing a ratty green bathrobe that was soaked with rain. Like her, he must have been operating in his aspect form and needed to change clothes quickly.

  One of the terrible creatures, the ones that were like the Twelve, approached the Door. The thing was like a burning cinder, but alive and full of such pure malice that Astrid was mesmerized for an instant, her soul paralyzed by the creature’s mind as he looked into her face. It only lasted an instant, and she pulled again at the Door, closing it partway, using all her might to keep that monstrous thing trapped inside.

  Jeff ran straight up to the Door and she felt his effort as he worked to close it, struggling against the tormented souls that squeezed out, trying to shove the spirits back, sometimes succeeding, but often failing.

  Graciela and Robin appeared, both in black dog form, and assisted them, but the monster had already reached the rip. Gopan was the last to appear, and he screamed as the creature forced its way through and took Jeff by the throat, raising him high and looking straight into his face.

  The thing spoke words, terrible words in a foul language that filled Astrid with a sickening sensation. She only understood them for an instant, before they faded in her mind, leaving her feeling empty and full of despair.

  Jeff disappeared, and for a moment Astrid thought he had made a Door. But no, she would be able to sense that. Something else had happened.

  The creature paused then opened its hand and launched itself into the air, moving so quickly that none of them could have caught it, even if they had desired to. It dropped down to the ground outside Luna Park. Though the park was empty, the surrounding city was not.

  Gopan knelt in the rain, searching for something on the ground, frantic, his face contorted in agony.

  Astrid heard the screams as the creature moved among the people outside the park. She soared into the air, catching glimpses as it ripped people apart, tearing heads from necks and limbs from torsos.

  The violence was bad enough, but the way the thing moved, with pure pleasure, with glee, with delight, was the worst part. It wasn’t a terrified being, reacting to an unfamiliar place. No, it understood everything and loved what it was doing.

  She tried to make a Door beneath it, to send it to the afterlife, but the thing sidestepped it, then launched itself into the air again, vanishing into the distance so quickly that she couldn’t make another Door to try to capture it.

  She returned to the ground where Graciela and Robin had finally managed to shove the tormented human spirits back and pull the Door smaller and smaller until they closed it.

  “What was that thing?” asked Graciela.

  “An evil spirit. A demon,” said Robin.

  Gopan remained kneeling, cupping something in his little boy hands. The dogs moved in to get a better look, but Astrid, with her owl eyes, could already see. A spider lay in his palm, its legs twisted and its round black body crushed.

  Chapter 43

  Seamus heard Elliot yelling something, but he had no time to comfort his friend. He howled of worlds and more worlds, of how he could see them all, simultaneously separate and unified and of the dark things that tormented him in the recesses of his mind.

  Seamus wanted to help his old friend, the man he had worked with for years, the one who had saved his life more than once, who had saved all their lives. But that man was now lost beneath the layers of madness. And unless they found a way to close the rips, it wouldn’t matter much anyway.

  Seamus had seen the thing that tore across the sky, and now he saw the kneeling Indian boy, the two dogs and the owl.

  “Hell is emptied, and all the devils are here!” cried Elliot.

  Sister took Elliot’s hand and Huginn landed on Elliot’s shoulder, speaking into his ear. What an amnesiac raven could tell a madman, Seamus couldn’t guess, but Elliot moaned and fell to his knees.

  “Seamus!” called Felicia, and he rushed to her, pulling the time machine with him. Luke s
tood nearby, as Felicia would not let him leave her side, and she glanced at her handheld sensor and pointed out a place where the protective layer between the worlds was thinnest. The human worlds were merged, but other worlds, those of the sidhe and the void and the dead, still opened. The Doors to death he had to leave to the psychopomps, but the rips between worlds he could close.

  He set up the machine and started it, noting as Hazel darted past with another sensor, checking on places where the layers were thinning.

  “The ship!” cried Luke, pointing out to sea.

  Skidbladnir was just offshore, aflame, dark smoke billowing from her sail and blackening mast. Three golems were on board, and Seamus watched as they leapt off of the deck and onto the sand. The monkey crew was a hundred yards off, scampering up the beach, apparently ignored by the golems.

  Seamus turned back to the spot Felicia was monitoring only to see Hazel tearing across the beach toward her ship. He didn’t call out to her, but raced after her, following her down the concrete stairs from the boardwalk to the rain-soaked sand.

  She was fast, motivated both by love and the pure rage he knew she had toward anyone who would harm her dragon-headed ship. But he was not an old man yet, and he pounded over the sand, yards behind her, then only a few feet. He grabbed her around the waist and got a hard elbow in the stomach for his troubles.

  She spun around, all hellcat fury, clawing and fighting until she realized it was him, then her anger transformed.

  “Let me go!”

  “They’ll kill you,” he said.

  “She’s my ship.” She struggled against him, working against his arms, but he knew she wasn’t really trying to hurt him. If she had been, he’d have a broken nose by now. “They’re killing her!”