by Schulte, Liz
I blinked. “Yes. I like him.” I glanced over at the man in question who was still frowning at me. “We should go.”
“But what about finding your friend?” Josephine protested, looking longingly at the dance floor.
“We found him.” I nodded back toward Baker.
“Him?” She hooked her thumb over her shoulder. “Well, hot dog,” she slurred. “That was easy.”
I helped her up the stairs, with Baker following close behind. The cool air crashed against my skin and I breathed easy for the first time since I’d gotten stuck in 1923. Everything was going to be fine. Baker would know what to do.
We half carried Josephine back to her house. Baker laid her on the couch in her office while I stood by the fireplace, unlit tonight.
“Who are you?” he asked.
I turned and looked at him. “Maggie Edwards.”
Smooth as silk, a gun I hadn’t even seen him pull cocked in his hand and slowly lifted toward my face. “Talk. I know every single person I’ve ever told what I am and, baby, you aren’t one of them. Spill or I fill you with holes. We’ll get to the truth eventually.” He redirected the gun at my knee.
Well, this was a great start. “I’m from the future.” His finger tightened on the trigger and I flinched. “No, really. Just hear me out. I do know you. We dated.”
“In the future?” He shook his head. “Not possible and if it was possible…” He waved the gun. “It’s not. What’s your next story?”
“I don’t have another story because this is the truth.” Impatience and doubt were the only clear emotions on his face. He was actually going to shoot me. “I can prove it,” I blurted.
“Dazzle me.” His eyes narrowed.
I scrambled to think of something, anything, that he told me that no one else would know. The problem with that was that Baker never told me anything, at least not anything that was true.
“You are a chol. You were on the governing council for the Abyss and you hated it so you left, and that’s why you planted yourself with the humans—”
“Baloney. You aren’t from the future. But you did tell me something useful. The council sent you. They are the only ones who would know what you just said. No way would I tell that to some dame, not now, not ever.”
I threw up my arms. “You’re secretive. What do you expect? Most of what I know I had to piece together after you told me about the Abyss and finally stopped lying to me. I knew you ran with O’Banion’s crew. You’ve told me stories about bootlegging and about what happened after O’Banion was killed. I don’t know how to prove I am what I say I am because all the stuff that will happen won’t take place for another ninety-three years. Do you think it was easy for me to come to you? It wasn’t. But I need your help. I need you to be the Baker I know and love.”
His finger loosened. “I told you about the Abyss?”
I nodded.
His tongue ran over his bottom lip. “Why would I do that?”
I covered my face with my hands. “It’s a long story.”
Baker slowly lowered the gun and sank into the white chair by the fireplace. “I’ve got all night.”
I sat down next to him and even though he had just threatened to shoot me, I couldn’t help but smile. It was Baker. I wanted to smother his face in kisses. He was just on edge. I knew how crazy all of this had to sound.
“You’re really stuck on me, huh?” He grinned, suddenly looking even more like himself. “So tell me your story, Maggie Edwards. Don’t leave a thing out. Start with O’Banion dying. What exactly happens to him?”
I chewed on my thumbnail. That was the only flaw in this plan. I couldn’t tell him everything. I had already said too much. If telling him what was going to happen changed his choices, then my whole future was in jeopardy. What if he never met Holden? What would have happened to Olivia and Holden without Baker? What if he never went to find me? The last thought stopped me cold. If he never found me, then I wouldn’t need to be here now. My life would never have changed. I’d still be normal. But would I want to be normal if it meant no Baker, no Phoenix, no Holden and Olivia or the kids…no Boone? “If I tell you, couldn’t it change the future?”
“Baby, you said you needed my help. If you don’t come clean, then I can’t help you. No matter what you think, the future isn’t set. That’s what I know. Tell me what you know and we can worry about the ramifications later.”
“Well, it all started when a jinni and a human who was destined to be a guardian fell in love,” I said and Baker settled back into his chair.
I told him absolutely everything I knew about his life right up to and including his death. Where it came to me, I breezed over most of it until I got to the mirror, the real reason I needed him. I didn’t get too much into our relationship because in the grand scheme of things, I doubted I mattered very much in his life. I also didn’t tell him the part he played in my becoming a vampire. That choice had been mine and he didn’t need to worry about it or feel bad. I accepted responsibility for it.
“And that’s how I got here.” The clock was chiming four when I finally finished the story.
He hadn’t said a word during my tale. He was so quiet, in fact, I had to check that he was still awake once or twice.
“Either you are the screwiest tomato I’ve ever met, or you’re on the level and my life is about to get real interesting.” He tapped his foot as he gazed thoughtfully at me. “You’re telling me I team up with a jinni and an angel?”
“Before you even met me.”
“That’s a rag-tag crew if I ever heard of one. We fight heaven and hell?”
I nodded. “You guys change the world.”
He took a deep breath. “And you are a half-vampire, even though that is impossible.”
“It’s not so impossible when there’s an angel on board. You were angry that I decided to become a vampire—”
“Well, I have heard of better decisions.”
I glared at him. “I didn’t feel like I had a choice.” I clenched my teeth. We didn’t need to fight about this now. “It doesn’t matter. You got the angel to step in and she stopped the transformation.”
“How does it work?”
“Sunlight is fine and my heart beats, but I can heal and I’m strong.” He nodded. “I don’t feed on humans because my vampire half is constantly feeding on my human half. Instead I actually have to feed on dark souls. We think the angel probably did that on purpose. I can prove the vampire half of me exists. Would you rather see my eyes or watch me heal?”
He stared at me for a moment. “Neither. I believe you.”
Out of everyone, Baker was the only person who hadn’t been there at the time when I was changed who didn’t need proof—but then again he was there.
“And you came here to save her?” He hooked a thumb at Josephine. “Why? What’s her role in all of this?”
“I don’t know. I just know that we were brought together. And Olivia—the angel—said to trust my instincts. I think I’m meant to save her.”
He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “I don’t know. For someone so concerned about changing the future, this seems like something that could have a major impact.”
I nodded. “I know, but why else would I be here?”
Baker crossed his ankle over his knee. “What makes you think you’re meant to save her and not me? You were with us both in your vision.”
“I know you survive.”
“Not past your time. Now, you come all this way to disrupt the past for a stranger when here I am, someone you know and claimed to love, and yet you didn’t want to tell me what I was in for. Maybe you were connected to the mirror and brought here not to stop the dame from being killed, but to warn me. Or better yet, maybe you aren’t supposed to save anyone.”
“Then why am I here?”
He leaned forward into the light. “Maybe you’re supposed to stay here. Ever think that we might not be finished with one another?”
My mouth fell open
and I shook my head, though it was a total lie. “I can’t. I have to go back.”
“Don’t be hasty, baby. It’s not a big deal. You know all the good investments to make and once you get used to it, the decades will fly by. All you have to do is avoid running into yourself in the future, and when the time comes for you to return here, step back in and take your own place, a little wiser than before.”
Chapter 11
The sun was already coming up. Josephine was still softly snoring on the sofa.
“I’ll do some poking around and see what I can find out about time travel, but I’m telling you now that it isn’t done. Anything I find will be theory at best.”
I rubbed at my dry, itchy eyes. “It’s better than nothing. I’ll keep trying to reach my time, but we need to understand how it works before I can tell my friends what to do.”
Baker nodded. “I’ll swing back by this afternoon, and hopefully the scientist won’t be ossified.” We stood up and he squeezed my shoulder. “What happened to us, Maggie? Why’d I let you go?”
I shook my head. “I think on that point, you’re just going to have to wait and find out.”
His soft chuckle was so familiar and safe. I wanted to hold onto him, but I kept my hands to my sides. No matter what he thought, this wasn’t my time and he wasn’t my Baker.
“You want help getting her somewhere?”
I looked down at Josephine’s peaceful face and dark fluttering eyelashes. It didn’t seem possible that someone who looked so very alive could be dead in less than a month. “Actually, I might just leave her where she is. She seems happy.”
“Get some sleep, Maggie. We’ll do what we can, but either way, it won’t be the end of the world.”
“Do you think there’s another way I could get them a message? Like hide a note in the bakery or scratch something on the back of the mirror?”
“Notes could get lost and if you damage the mirror it might not be saved as time moves forward. It’s probably best to leave things here as they are.”
“Other than saving the dame?” I winked and grinned. “I think I finally understand why you never quite let this time go.”
“The language.” His smile matched mine. “I love this era.”
I kissed his cheek. “I know. Now you have to go before I am scandalized.” I pulled the lock back on the office door and let him out the front, stepping out onto the porch with him. “Hey, Baker,” he turned around at the bottom of the steps, “thanks.”
“For what?”
“For being you.” I closed the door behind me and rested my head against it, basking in old feelings. Maybe getting stuck here wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen.
A groan came from the doorway. Josephine staggered up, opening her mouth and sticking out her tongue. “I don’t remember anything that happened, but please tell me you found whomever you were looking for.”
I laughed. “We found him. He’ll be back later today.”
“Ducky.” She leaned heavily against the doorjamb. There was a sound at the top of the stairs, and I spotted the end of Jeanette’s nightgown swish down the hall. “Another night like that and I won’t have to wait for someone to kill me. The alcohol will succeed.”
We got a late start, but by three, Baker had returned, Josephine was mostly herself again, and the three of us were settled back into her office.
“How does the mirror work?” Baker asked.
“Quite by accident, I’m afraid.” Josephine produced a notebook, thumbing through the pages. “This is the process. I have tried numerous combinations of factors. When all the elements are just right, that’s when the connection to the future is the strongest. What works best is using oils to open the third eye to reveal the connection to the ley line—but ‘best’ is a loose term. I’ve only just recently been able to connect to Maggie, and before that, I never traveled past my own attic. All I could do was see it change throughout eras. I couldn’t even go through the mirror.”
“That’s where the mirror was when it was given to me,” I said. “It was found in the attic of this house.”
“But you couldn’t go through?” Baker asked. “What changed?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t do anything different. All I can think is that Maggie herself made the difference.”
“What about what you say while you’re trying?”
She blinked a couple times. “I don’t say anything.”
“You do. I’ve heard you. You mutter something while you spread the oil.”
Baker looked back and forth between us. “What did you see when you watched her open the channel?”
“She had me put on the oil, spread it on the mirror. Her eyes were closed and her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Then she hit a tuning fork three times.”
“Fascinating,” Josephine said. “I have no memory of speaking, but if I am, that could be what changed, but how or why?” She shook her head.
“Okay, and what happened on your end, Maggie?”
I told them about the music and the ghostlike apparition on my side. “Also, whenever a jinni’s around, the music disappears. And when I went back, the two jinn in the bakery couldn’t see or hear me.” Except at the end when I touched Phoenix and he seemed to sense me—but I couldn’t speak of it. Just thinking his name made me remember what he’d said. I refocused on Baker. “I thought that was strange.”
“Not so strange. You are a half-vampire. You are stuck between two worlds: the human world and the Abyss. Jinn aren’t stuck. They are exactly as they should be. You though, you are nothing that you should be. Much like this mirror, you are split. That might be why you could see and hear Josephine. You saw her as a ghost, but in reality she wasn’t a ghost at all. She was a shadow of another time, still very much alive.”
“Do you know more like you?” Josephine asked.
I shook my head. “No half-vampires, but I am acquainted with a half-elf. Would that work?”
“No,” Baker said. “It isn’t the same thing at all. They aren’t between worlds. They are completely in the Abyss. We need someone who technically doesn’t belong in either.”
“How about a psychic?”
“A real psychic might just work. They’re hard to find though.”
“I have one,” I said immediately.
Baker chuckled. “Of course you do, kitten. Next time you go through, try to talk to the seer. See if that helps.”
I nodded. “But what will he need to do?”
“Touch the mirror to open their side and then pull you through,” Josephine said. “When the channel opens, put your hand through like I did, and let them bring you to their end.”
“Sounds easy enough,” I said.
“Let’s get the psychic a message before we count ourselves lucky,” Baker said. “And as for your other problem—”
“Other problem?” Josephine said. “Oh, me. Yes. I compiled a list during tea this afternoon of those who might wish to murder me.”
“Great, can we see it?” I asked.
“There’s no one on it. I am perfectly delightful. Who would want to kill me?”
“What about Floyd Clifford…” I said.
“I told you—”
“But it’s worth checking out. I’ll go talk to him without you and see what I can find out.”
She shrugged, shaking her head. “If you want to, I won’t stop you.”
“How about family?” Baker said. “You got a sister, right? Family can do some ugly things to one another. Is there a sibling rivalry between the two of you? Do you fight? Who actually owns this house?”
“We both own the house. Our parents left everything to both of us, split evenly down the middle. We squabble from time to time, but Jeanette would never hurt me. She loves me as I love her. We used to be inseparable, but things changed as we got older and wanted different things. She’s still my best friend, and I know she would do anything for me.”
I didn’t have any family to s
peak of, but I could see how the idea that your own brother or sister might want to do you harm wouldn’t be easy to accept, especially a twin. But what I witnessed at breakfast seemed cold. Maybe Jeanette just took a while to warm up though. “Could the motive be financial?” I asked.
She shook her head. “We have more funds than we could use in this lifetime.”
“Make a list of your friends and family members. Those are the people to start with. You should continue on business as usual. Maggie and I will poke around and see what comes up.”
Josephine paced away from the table. “I’ll make the list, but I don’t want to carry on with life as usual. We don’t know what will happen. What if you can’t save me? I need to get my affairs in order. I want to say goodbye to people.” She brushed a tear from her eye. “And I want to tell my sister.”
“You should,” I said. It wouldn’t help prevent what was going to happen, but if I couldn’t save her, I didn’t want to stop her from saying goodbye.
“Just don’t go beating your gums about your expiration date or no one’s going to talk.” Baker stood up. “Let’s go see this Floyd fella, plus I’ve got a couple stops to make.”
****
When Baker said he needed to run an errand, I certainly didn’t expect to stop at a flower shop.
“You should probably wait out here,” he said beneath a stripped awning that was nestled into a brick building. “Keep your head down. Don’t talk to nobody. You don’t know nothing about nothing.”
I glanced around the street. It seemed like a nice enough area. There was a well-maintained boarding house to the right of the store and a cathedral across the street. Three men in suits and hats passed us by, giving the two of us a lingering look that was a little too curious. Baker’s gaze follow them.
He looked back at me, shaking his head. “Never mind, forget I said anything. You’re coming inside. Trouble with a capital T, that’s what you are.” He took my arm and all but dragged me inside. “Hey, Frankie B.” Baker nodded at the bored looking man smoking a cigarette behind the counter. “Watch my sheba while I talk to the boss.”