My eyes opened, a familiar room blurring into view.
A digital clock blinked in the corner, flipping over to three in the morning. My mouth was dry from whatever drugs they’d loaded into my neck, and I had an awful headache. I could feel the blood spilling out from my open chest.
The sounds of my own death played in my ears, the blade ripping through the flesh right before everything went black.
I shuddered, only to find that I was straitjacketed and lashed to a chair.
Goddamn Stevens.
But not bleeding or dying.
Even if I’d soon wish that instead. Through the fuzz, I tried to make sense of everything. Dream? It had to be a dream. Something like a dream within a dream. Maybe I’d fallen asleep with Dewitt. After killing her.
That wouldn’t be good.
I tried shaking my head at an odd angle, like when you have water in your ear. But the uneasy feeling clung to me like mange on a sick dog. All I got for my efforts was an extra-splitting headache and a dizzy view of the room.
My insides flipped as reality sunk in.
They’d really taken me back to the dark room.
A pitted steel table—the only piece of furniture in the closet-sized space other than my chair—sat next to the door. I looked down beneath my feet and saw the rusty drain, flecks of blood at the edges that could never be washed out.
Bright lights flashed on overhead, antagonizing my headache. Metal music pounded through unseen speakers, shaking the entire room. After about ten minutes, the music cut off, leaving my ears ringing and nerves fried.
An intercom cut through.
“Subject 1 exhibits noticeable signs of distress under intense light and aural stimulation. Blood work still indicates an as-yet-unclassified species. Age, based on records, appears to progress at a rate of one year for every twenty human years.”
“Hello? Hello?” I rattled the chair as best I could. “Agent Roark?”
I had to get out of this dream.
But the gnawing voice at the base of my skull—and the searing pain coursing through my head—told me the truth. This was no dream. But I pretended otherwise.
It was the only way to survive.
“Subject 1 appears to have suffered a psychotic break during the initial testing phase.” The invisible scientist droned on, like I was merely a specimen without feelings or opinions. “Calling out for an ‘Agent Roark,’ despite being alone.”
“I’m not crazy, you son of a bitch—”
Electricity surged through the floor, sparking white-blue as the lights dimmed. I convulsed so hard that I tipped the chair over and slammed against the chipped concrete. Even then, the shocks didn’t stop, and I flopped like a beached shark until some minutes—seconds?—later I heard a distant switch click off.
Sweat soaking every fabric of my gray cotton sweatsuit, I barely noticed when someone entered the room.
“I’m disappointed.” Stevens’s gruff voice filled the walls. Still, I was thankful for the temporary reprieve. In comparison, listening to him insult me was like a spa vacation. “You used to be so much more…resilient.”
“Agent…Roark.”
He cracked his neck and knelt by me so that I could see his eyes. His black moustache curled up in a cruel, petty smile. But I read the worry in his face, which gave me a little satisfaction. He wasn’t sure how I knew about the hotshot FBI agent from the memo.
And that bothered the hell out of him.
“I’m handling your little indiscretions in house.” Stevens stood sharply. “No need to involve the FBI.”
I let out a sigh. “You…dick.”
“Adjust the dampeners.” He pointed toward a vent near the ceiling. “That’s a good trick, freak. Almost had me going.”
“No trick,” I said. “You’re not going to get that promotion, though.”
His arm—the titanium alloy enhanced one, judging from the grip—flung me upright.
“What is it? Mind reading? You psychic? Telepath?” His expression turned wild, unable to contain his need to know. He shook the chair, my brain feeling like mush as I jerked back and forth. “Are you inside my fucking mind, freak?”
My addled head whispered that I’d made a mistake poking the bear. Minds like Stevens’s were simple things. Today, he had seen the list and, out of spite—and a wounded, ahem, ego—decided against making the call, career aspirations be damned.
The call that would free me from this hellhole.
Vengeance clouded everyone’s judgment.
Instead, he’d merely thought about calling the FBI, telling them all about this strange creature able to do unusual and wonderful things. Responsible for four bodies that happened under Administrator Warren’s watch. A killer perfect for hunting another killer.
But maybe he’d barely thought that hard at all. Maybe, after the elbow, he’d just snapped.
“Goddamnit, answer me.” His fist crashed against my jaw. I heard the bones snap, blood filling the back of my throat.
Instead of replying, I laughed, choking on my own blood.
Enraged, Stevens screamed and stomped out of the room. Sometime later, the music roared. Then the oxygen deprivation. Poison exposure. Temperature drops. Anything they could think of to fill up their little charts, on and on.
Jaw hanging askew, bones clicking whenever I breathed, I stared at the clock. Feeling every infinite minute of the dark room’s torture. Wondering when it would end.
If it would end.
Or if this time would be forever.
At 11:59 PM, I heard the scientist on duty—who had been replaced three times during the course of the day’s trials—drone over the intercom, “Subject 1 appears to have a normal response to bee stings. Swelling indicates that—”
Everything disappeared, the room spiraling out of focus like it’d been sucked down a drain.
A moment later, I felt the pen in my hands, slashing through the fourth name on the list. My thoughts centered around the fact that I couldn’t tell the blood and ink apart.
Opening my mouth to breathe, I found my jaw intact and fully operational.
The pen dropped from my bloodied fingers as the undeniable truth set in.
The necromancer had plunged the world into an endless time loop.
And I was the only person who could see it.
7
Day 3
When Captain Stevens caught up with his men outside this time and said, “What the hell you been up to, little girl?” I didn’t do anything stupid, like elbow him in the groin.
Only something marginally stupid. Like saying, “Making a guest list for my party.”
I had to admit, I was still pissed about the dark room experience. Even if it hadn’t technically happened. How does that work in time loops? Do all those memories not count? Because I distinctly recalled choking on my own blood for twenty straight hours while being subjected to tests that mice would find indignant.
I decided to leave such matters to the philosophers, because I had bigger concerns.
Like not going back.
Stevens’s arm tensed, slowly crumpling the paper into a ball. “You think you’re real funny, don’t you? We’ll see how damn funny you are in the—”
“You want that promotion, Stevens.” I nodded my head, since my hands were zip-tied. “And I want to speak to Agent Roark.”
His eyes flashed with worry and curiosity. “How the hell do you know about Roark?”
“I read the memo on Dewitt’s computer.” I hoped like hell that would be plausible. “Tell Roark I can help him with the necromancer.”
Stevens didn’t look ready to do me any favors. The moonlight trickled down from the dry summer sky, glinting off the well-maintained MagiTekk rifles. In a distant cabin, a werewolf howled, instincts not completely suppressed by all the wonderful pieces of technology littered around the camp.
Finally, the captain said, “You’re a clever freak, aren’t you?”
“I’ll take that as a yes.�
� Internally, I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
He smoothed out the list of names against his shirt and dialed his neural link. After a brief conversation, he nodded toward his men. “Take her to central command.” Then he looked at me. “Better talk fast, little girl. Because there ain’t much that can save you from the hole you’ve dug.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
But inside, I felt less than confident.
Because time loops were uncharted territory for us both.
8
Day 4
Goddamnit.
Chalk up a win for Captain Stevens.
Coming straight out and telling someone they’re in a time loop—surprise, surprise—is a remarkably good way to sound insane. Especially when you open with that after shiftily staring at the blackened glass like a fucking crazy person.
Special Agent Colton Roark was open-minded and curious—hell, he wanted to believe—but even he wasn’t ready for time loops. Not that I blamed him. Time-based magic was some serious shit. As in, totally uncharted waters. No books discussed it, no creatures even broached the subject.
It may as well not have existed.
There wasn’t even a vocabulary to describe the phenomenon. But somehow, this serial killer necromancer had bent the power of time in his favor. Why? Well, none of the theories were particularly cheery.
Made for a good, quiet place to practice your evil deeds in peace. Something worthy of an anniversary celebration.
One I needed to stop. Which necessitated a change in strategy after spending the rest of the previous day in lockup. All things considered, that outcome was vastly superior to the dark room—even if I had to listen to some old wizard drone on and on about the one time he changed the outcome of the World Series with a well-executed wind spell.
At midnight, I found myself with the pen in hand, blood staining my fingers. Eager not to repeat my mistakes, I was even more conciliatory toward Captain Stevens, verging on fawning. I managed to avoid the mild sedative and any threats of violence, and soon found myself waiting in the third-floor holding area.
The red door swung open, and I had to grip the worn steel chair to stay put and not seem like a schizophrenic babbling about time folding around itself. We were going to do this the patient way. Judging from the necromancer’s words, I’d made it out of this room a grand total of once during the time loop.
That was not a great success percentage. And here I thought I had a winning personality.
All the stories people whispered about me would suggest otherwise.
Special Agent Roark stepped inside, scanning the room. His eyes settled on me, and he stopped, holding the door open.
“You look like you have something to say.” There was an amused curiosity in his voice.
I tried to choose my next words carefully. I’d had a day to think about it, but now, with the prospect of either the dark room or a cold cell stretching before me, I was slightly less sure of things.
I had to get out of this place and stop whatever the necromancer was doing. Not for everyone else’s sake.
So I could finish my list.
So I could survive.
Which meant I needed to speak a language he’d understand. There was one advantage to Roark knowing everything about me: I could open up about my past, and he could tell if I was giving him the truth.
Give him the truth, and I could gain his trust.
“The names,” I said. “I wanted to make them suffer for Pearl.”
“Revenge.” The strands twisted above Roark’s head. A point of common ground. The old photograph in his pocket. How he followed after his brother.
I said, “Like your brother.”
His already straight posture stiffened like I’d run a live wire through it. “Who told you about that?”
“We have that in common,” I said, keeping my tone cool. “Loss.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” He took my list from his pocket. My gut twisted as he tore it in half and let the pieces drift to the floor.
At least he wasn’t turning to leave.
Silently, his handsome face doing its best to remain expressionless, he sat down in the opposite chair. He folded his hands on the glass surface, staring at me for a long time. His muscles tensed beneath the dorky polo, an homage to a brother long gone.
After a long time, he said, “It takes doing bad things to catch bad people.”
I said, as confidently as I could, “Sometimes it just takes bad people.”
“And why should I let a bad person out of here?” Roark said, the darkness above his head edging out the light.
“Because otherwise the necromancer will kill us.” I paused, waiting for that to sink in before venturing into deeper waters. “Again.”
All I heard was the buzz of the overhead lights as Colton Roark took in the information. My mind screamed, No, too soon. Too goddamn soon. Idiot.
So I practically waited until he offered a skeptical, “Okay,” before I exhaled.
It was a trial run.
But I had my foot in the door and was on the case again.
For now, that would have to be enough.
Because the last thing I’d want to do is disappoint a psychotic, time-warping necromancer.
9
Trial runs have a tendency to go quickly off the rails. There would be no free lunches today, even if I knew what was coming next.
“Don’t respond!” I waved my hands frantically in front of the cruiser’s navigational console as it flashed red.
“It’s central dispatch.” Roark sounded more suspicious of me than the vampire trap we were about to walk into. You’d think this would be easy, seeing the future. But goddamn if it wasn’t impossible. Say too much and people started getting uncomfortable.
Say too little and you got bit by the same snake twice.
I’d just have to ease into this time loop thing. Roark’s toe was in the water, but the ocean was swimming with sharks.
“I have a lead,” I said, pretending to check the clock. “It’s, uh, in the city.”
“You sure know a lot of interesting things for someone behind bars,” Roark said with cool indifference.
“We get a great cable package.” Who knew if cable even existed anymore? Everything else had changed. The cruiser picked up speed, showering mud on the tin-plated shantytown houses lining the road, their foundations shaking as we roared past.
Roark answered the call, giving me a glare.
“Special Agent Colton Roark, this is central—”
I did the only thing I could. Using the butt of my shotgun, I smashed the car’s console to plastic pulp, chipped fragments spraying over the interior. The ruined screen sparked and hissed as the voice died.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Roark managed to catch my fourth strike. By then, the dashboard was nothing but a mangled cavern of tangled wires and glass. “This is government-issue equipment.”
“So arrest me,” I said with a shrug, shaking his arm off.
His fingers brushed over the ruins. “You know what code red means, right?”
“Good news?”
“This was a mistake,” Roark said.
“You didn’t listen.”
“I can’t listen, now that you ruined my goddamn system.” Roark dug in his pocket for his phone.
“To me.” I poked at the phone with the shotgun’s barrel, sending the device spiraling to the floor. It didn’t crack, but this second piece of interference caught his attention.
Blue eyes filled with rage, he spun in his seat, face only inches from mine. I could smell his aftershave. “I’m taking you back, Ruby.”
“Or you could say thank you.”
“You’re crazy.” Roark didn’t move. Neither of us breathed, our lips inches apart. “Everyone at the outpost is right.”
“Good to hear I’m so popular.”
“They call you the Crimson Angel.”
And that was before they knew about my little extracu
rricular activities inside the Tempe Camp.
“Not as catchy as Lightning Blade,” I said. “But I’m still flattered.”
His lips opened slightly, trying to hide his surprise. We hadn’t gone through the whole data cube dog-and-pony show this time, so I hadn’t heard his call sign. Roark’s aura went from confident and angry to uncertain within seconds. Blinking heavily, he leaned back in the leather seat. The car continued on its course, making no detour toward the field of doom.
As Phoenix’s shimmering skyscrapers loomed into view, threatening to block out the horizon, Roark said, “Tell me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“What’d you mean by again?”
I gave him a mysterious smile and looked out the window. “I don’t know if you’re ready for that.”
I heard him pick up his phone and dust it off. “How the hell do you know what’s going on?”
“I’m a Realmfarer,” I said, which wasn’t an explanation, but a little bone to toss out.
To which Roark replied, “I know.”
“I know that you know,” I shot back, then looked straight into his eyes. The special agent could probably play a mean hand of poker, because he didn’t look surprised by my response at all. “Because you’ve told me before.”
Turns out, there’s no real good way to ease into the whole time loop thing. Hopefully we were far enough away from the camp to make it a major pain in the ass for him to turn the car around.
“Let’s say I want to believe you.” Roark tapped at his phone, the car’s ruined audio system spewing gibberish into the air as the coordinates adjusted. “Tell me how.”
I said, “I can see the loop.” Looking straight ahead, I clarified. “The time loop.”
I’m not sure what I expected. For him to stop the car. Scream oh no. Roll his eyes and take me back immediately.
But today was better than yesterday. Apparently I was growing on people.
Because Colton Roark dialed a number and said, “Alice? Clear your schedule. I’m coming by.”
The caller on the other end gave a short, perfunctory response.
“Look up anything to do with time loops.” A short pause. “The necromancer, yeah.”
Ruby Callaway: The Complete Collection Page 5