by Rysa Walker
She gives me a knowing look. “I saw your face earlier. I’m not asking you when he dies. I don’t want that much information. Just tell me if the spirits were right.”
I can give her that much.
“The spirits were right.”
∞15∞
NEAR DAMASCUS, MARYLAND
September 12, 10:24 a.m.
Jeans. T-shirt. Skechers on my feet, the really comfy ones that I’ve worn so often they’re starting to look raggedy. A mostly empty frappuccino in the cup holder.
Traffic has thinned out now that we’re north of Gaithersburg. The air doesn’t quite have the autumn crispness I love yet, but there’s a slight hint of it in the breeze coming in through the windows. And Trey’s playlist is close to perfect. No deep lyrics or brooding music, just up-tempo tunes by the Arctic Monkeys, OK Go, Frattellis, Vampire Weekend, and a few neo-punk songs I don’t recognize. He also has some eighties classics that make me suspect Trey and my dad would do just fine on a road trip.
That, of course, pulls my mind out of the little cave of oblivion where I’ve been trying to entrap it and back to the fact that Dad is currently driving home from Delaware. That’s good because I really want to see him, but bad because I felt like he was safe at Grandma Keller’s.
I give my head a brisk shake. If I focus hard enough, maybe some fairy godmother will take pity on me and let me stay in this moment. Even if I don’t think it could actually happen, it’s nice to imagine all my worries drifting upward and fading away like soap bubbles.
Although, to be fair, stranger things have happened pretty much every day for the past few months. An hour ago, I was in 1926, fighting with Bess Houdini. This time tomorrow, if not sooner, I’ll be in 2308. I’d say that leaves fairy godmothers who grant wishes entirely within the realm of the possible.
With that thought firmly in mind, I focus on the warmth of Trey’s hand against mine, the music, the blue sky outside my window . . .
And then Trey’s fingers tighten around my hand. Again. Almost painfully, as though a stray thought has sneaked into his head. Am I doing the same thing to him each time I lose grip on my all-too-slippery inner bliss?
“It’s not working, is it?” I say. “Beautiful day, great music, you here next to me, and I still can’t clear my mind for more than thirty seconds or so before it goes running back into Nightmare Land.”
Trey’s mouth tightens. “I just keep seeing that video. Wish I could accept Connor’s argument that it’s not you, but . . .”
“I’m not even sure Connor believes it’s Prudence. He’s just contrary.”
“Mostly because he’s worried about you. And Katherine.”
We’re silent for a minute and then he asks, “So . . . this meeting we’re going to? Who’ll be there?”
“Not really sure. Why?”
Trey gives a small chuckle. “A lame attempt at changing the subject to something slightly less worrisome. And I would kind of like to know how many Cyrists will be around. I’m not even sure I trust the Cyrist Light version.”
“Me either. Tilson will be there, obviously, since it’s at his house.”
“Actually, it’s a plot of land near his house.” He nods at a scrap of paper in the console between the seats. “The jet pack apparently isn’t something they like to test too close to buildings. Something about the lack of precision.”
Lack of precision. And they were planning to have me use it to jump inside a building, or at least the ruins of a building. The weight of Pru’s key in my pocket is suddenly very comforting.
“I’m guessing Max, Charlayne, and Bensen will be there,” I continue, “since they all seem to have been involved with previous tests of the jet pack. Julia.”
I stop for a moment. At least, I hope Julia. It hadn’t even occurred to me until this minute that she might not be there. If she’s not there, I need to track her down and let her know about getting the key from Houdini, because that’s going to change the entire focus of this meeting. Learning to use the jet pack is no longer a priority.
Trey turns off I-270 onto a local road. I pull out my own CHRONOS key, the one Max used when he transferred the meeting coordinates, and bring up the stable point so I can see if Julia is there.
Trey’s right—the location is a big, open field that looks like it was once farmland. Not a tree in sight, just gently sloping, slightly rocky hills. No one’s there yet, so I push forward to 10:57 a.m., a few minutes before we’re supposed to arrive, and scan the area.
At first, I only see cars—two sedans and a white minivan with the tailgate open. Charlayne and Bensen are in the back, fiddling with some sort of harness.
I pan right and see Tilson talking on his phone.
Max is off to the left, with his arm draped around a blonde. Her head is tipped up toward him. Must be the girlfriend Charlayne mentioned.
My opinion of Fifth Column security plummets to a new low. They escorted me and Trey to meet Julia at a secret location, in a car with dark-tinted windows, but Max’s girlfriend is invited to watch me make a fool of myself as I try out the jet pack for the first time?
Then she turns toward the stable point, and I see her face.
I’m so surprised that I nearly blink myself into the location. That wouldn’t have ended well, since I’m currently moving at about forty miles an hour.
“Trey, pull off and call Tilson.”
“Julia’s not there?”
“No, but Eve Conwell is.”
Trey is silent for a moment. “Maybe . . . she’s Fifth Column?” He doesn’t remember Eve as well as I do, but his voice sounds doubtful. “I mean, I know her dad’s a Templar, but maybe that’s changed, too. Maybe they’re New Cyrist?”
“Trey, that was Eve’s dad in the video. Patrick Conwell was the man who dragged me back into the temple.”
His hands tighten on the wheel. “My phone’s in the console. Tilson was the last call I made.”
“I think I’m going to need to set a local stable point after you call him. And that doesn’t work so well in a moving car.”
About a half mile down, I spot a small garage and convenience store combo off to the right. Two patrons are at the gas pumps, so Trey drives around and parks facing the trees.
I pull out my phone. “I need to do a little cyber-sleuthing. Call Tilson. Tell him you’re running late. Ask who’s coming. Make it sound like you’re a little nervous about meeting everyone. If he mentions Eve, try to feel him out. See if you can find out how long she’s been around. And if Julia isn’t going to be there at all, see if he knows where she is.”
He grins. “And I should do all this without being obvious?”
“If Tilson suspects you’re prodding for info, I’m not too worried. I trust him more than any of them. As much as I hate to say it, maybe even more than Charlayne. I mean . . . I don’t think she’s a bad person, but she has mixed motives. All of them do, except Tilson. And maybe Ben, but he’s with Charlayne now, so . . .”
“Like with with?” Trey asks, and I realize I haven’t filled him in on that bit of info. When I nod, he says, “Way to go, Ben.”
Trey starts dialing, and I pull up the browser on my phone. Wikipedia shows that the Sixteenth Street Temple is still the regional headquarters for North America, led by someone named Frank Morton. I can’t remember if Kiernan ever mentioned that name, but the picture leaves no doubt that he’s one of my Cyrist cousins. He looks like Pru, if she had short hair and a square jaw. And he’s older—even older than Older Pru. And yes, I know he was born from a surrogate who knows when, but that fact is still disturbing.
Trey asks Tilson about Julia as I click through a few links trying to locate Conwell. He’s no longer a high-profile televangelist, just the minister of a smaller congregation in Alexandria that converted from Orthodox to Reformed Rite in 1972. The church website says Conwell was appointed in late 2012, after the sudden death of the previous minister.
I half follow Trey’s conversation with Tilson while searc
hing, but he fills in the details when he hangs up. “Julia might be there later. He hasn’t talked to her since last night, but he said she had a meeting scheduled earlier this morning at . . . did he say Langley?”
I laugh. “Ben’s code name for the headquarters building in Silver Spring. Cyrist Interfaith Alliance. CIA.”
“Oh. Ha.” Trey rolls his eyes and continues, “As for Eve—Tilson says she’s been with Max as long as he’s known him, but he’d only seen him a few times before this year. He says Eve can’t use the key.”
“Kiernan says otherwise, although she has less luck with it than he does. When you talked to Tilson about the dual memory—about meeting him before at the barbecue, did you mention anything about Eve? Or Patrick Conwell? Or where the party was held?”
“I doubt it. I barely remembered the names. I guess it would have made a bigger impression on the version of me that got chased by Dobermans, but I’m pretty sure I just said it was held at some Cyrist’s house. Oh, and Tilson sounded really suspicious by the end. Ben and Charlayne were there when he was talking to me, so . . .”
“It’s okay. I don’t think Tilson would say anything to Max. They didn’t look like the best of pals. And Bensen definitely won’t.”
Which leaves Charlayne, who’s never been a stellar secret keeper. I mean, she never leaked anything that I told her, but we were besties, and she dished plenty of dirt on others when I knew her at Roosevelt High.
My forehead is starting to tighten, so I stretch my eyebrows up to relieve it. Then Trey turns my face toward him and gives me a long, deep kiss. For the next minute—or is it five?—my mind empties of everything except his hands, one wrapped in my hair and the other at the small of my back, and his mouth on mine. The sound of his breathing fills my ears, and I close my eyes, shutting out everything that isn’t Trey.
When he pulls away, the rest of the world gradually comes back into focus.
“What was that for?”
“You were looking like I was feeling. Stressed, confused, maybe a little bit whack.” He presses his lips against my hair. “We both needed to reboot. So, what’s the game plan?”
“Find Julia and tell her what I know.”
Trey starts the engine, but I grab his hand. “No, just me. It’ll take forever to drive there, and we don’t have the time. I have a stable point set at Langley.”
Trey’s gray eyes darken. “Okay. That may be the quickest route, but I keep seeing your face from that video in Rio. I don’t want you going alone.”
“I won’t be . . . exactly.” I give him an apologetic look and unzip my backpack, pulling out the Colt.
“That’s still alone. Just alone and armed.”
“Better than alone and unarmed, right?”
He sighs. “I can’t talk you out of this, can I?”
“Unfortunately, no.” I slip Prudence’s key out of my pocket and into the backpack. I still have my own medallion and a spare tucked into the band of my bra. I’m just a little leery about taking Pru’s key with me, especially when I don’t know who Julia might be meeting.
I pull up the current time at the Langley stable point. The chair where Charlayne sat yesterday morning is empty now and the room is dim, with just indirect sunlight coming in through the windows. I skim backward in one-minute increments for one hour, and then another, but I never see lights come on. I try again, going back as early as 7 a.m. The room gradually grows dimmer and dimmer as less sunlight illuminates the rows of cubicles. Still no sign of anyone coming into the building.
There must be another entrance. I was hoping to catch Julia coming in so I didn’t have to walk around looking for her, but apparently that’s not going to happen.
I check the stable point I set in the conference room when I jumped back after dumping coffee on Senator Ellicott, but the room is completely black. It’s much closer to the break room, however, and Charlayne said Julia’s offices were nearby. Since I’m not sure which is creepier—jumping into a room with rows of (probably) abandoned, dimly lit cubicles or jumping into a pitch-black conference room—I opt for proximity.
Trey’s eyes are dubious as I double check the safety and tuck the Colt into the waistband of my jeans. I give him a quick kiss and open the car door, setting a local point outside. “I won’t make you worry long—back in ten seconds.”
The conference room that seemed pitch-black is now illuminated by the blue glow of my medallion. A song I liked as a kid about the blue canary in the outlet by the light switch runs through my head, and I hold back a nervous laugh.
Then I see a faint blue glow at the opposite end of the room, and it’s all I can do to hold back a scream.
When I duck behind one of the conference chairs, the glow disappears, too. Feeling foolish, I cautiously lean back out. Sure enough, it’s my own key reflecting off the whiteboard. I clutch the back of the chair for a moment to give my heart a chance to work its way back down from my throat, then head for the door.
Before I step into the hallway, I tuck the key back into its leather holder. That reflection scared the hell out of me, but it also reminded me that if anyone with the CHRONOS gene is roaming around the building, having this key out in a dim room is the equivalent of a big red arrow pointing out my location.
And again because that reflection scared the hell out of me, I draw the gun, holding it by my side.
The building is quiet, except for a faint hum from the break room. It’s probably the fridge. As I turn down the corridor toward the offices, I see a shaft of light coming from a cracked door two rooms down.
I tap lightly. “Julia?”
No response. I push the door open to reveal a sparsely furnished office. Julia is behind the desk, slumped forward across the keyboard.
The coppery tang of blood hits my nose before I see the pool spreading onto the carpet. I suspect it’s too late, but I reach out to check for her pulse. When I do, my knee bumps the edge of the office chair, and her body shifts toward me, throwing me off balance.
Which, as it turns out, is a very good thing.
I don’t even hear the shot until it hits the wall, sending specks of plaster in all directions. Crawling under the desk, I jerk the cover off my key. A cool wetness soaks through my jeans as my knees press into the bloody carpet. Julia’s body slides out of the chair, and as it does, I catch my first glimpse of her face. If the shot to her neck wasn’t fatal, the one to the head definitely was.
Somehow I manage to lock in the stable point. I’m at a lower angle than when I set it, so I have no idea how this will work, but I can see the open car door and Trey’s feet. A bullet pings against the desk, followed by footsteps. And then my eyes open to see gravel beneath Trey’s car.
“I’m okay! It’s not my blood!” The words are out before I realize that might be a bad thing to yell when there are people within earshot and a pistol in my hand.
I’m already up and moving toward the car when Trey reaches me. My knees are wobbly, and I’m about to sink down into the seat when I remember that my jeans are a gruesome mix of dirt, gravel, and blood.
“Is there something I can sit on? I don’t want to get—”
“I’m not worried about the damned car, Kate.” He cups my face in his hands. “Are you okay?”
“Yes . . . it’s Julia’s blood.” His eyes slide down to the gun. “No! I didn’t shoot her. But since she was very clearly murdered, I think it’s a bad idea to get her blood inside your car.”
“Hold on.” He grabs a rain poncho from the trunk and spreads it across the seat, then tosses two reusable grocery bags onto the floorboard.
“I could just jump back home.”
“Not until we’re out of here. We’re getting odd looks from that guy at the pump. No—don’t look at him! Let’s just go.”
Once we’re back on the road, he asks, “Are we still going to Tilson’s?”
“Not yet. Find somewhere else to pull off while we think about what to do. I need to call him.”
I’m glad
my hands weren’t shaking this badly in Julia’s office or I’d probably be as dead as she is. That thought doesn’t exactly steady me, but I manage to dial anyway.
“Hello, Trey,” Tilson answers.
“No, Dr. Tilson. It’s Kate. Are Max and Eve there yet?”
“Not yet. Is there a problem? You sound—”
“Yes. I jumped back to earlier this morning, to Julia’s office. I needed to talk to her before the meeting, and . . .” I take a deep breath. I don’t get the sense that he and Julia were especially close, but he’s still very old and this may come as a shock. “Are you sitting down? Because . . .”
“Oh my God. How?”
“She was shot. Twice.”
“And you’re certain—”
“Positive. The gunman was either still there or, more likely, he’s a jumper who was monitoring the office, because he fired at me, too.”
Trey says, “You skipped that part earlier, Kate!” at the same moment Tilson asks if I was hit.
I give Trey an apologetic look and tell Tilson, “No. I had to dive under her desk. But listen, I’m very, very concerned that Eve Conwell’s there. I can’t imagine any scenario where she’s on our side in this. Her father is Cyrist inner circle. In the timeline I remember, he was regional Templar for North America. And Eve . . . she was a self-centered bitch, so unless she’s had a radical personality change . . .”
“No,” Tilson says, “that’s still a fairly accurate description. Max would even admit that most days.”
Trey pulls off at a small park, backing in so that we’re facing the lake.
“Your house could be bugged,” I tell Tilson. “For that matter, I don’t even know if this phone is safe, but . . . I had to let you know.”
“I don’t think we’re bugged. I’ve taken precautions in that regard—” He stops, and I suspect he’s thinking the same thing I’m about to say, so I just wait. “But I suppose Julia did, too.”
“I’m sure she did. You, Charlayne, and Ben need to get out of there before Eve arrives. I don’t know about Max . . . can he be trusted?”