by Amy Vansant
“What’s that accent?’ asked the one with short, blonde hair. She squinted at him as if she might be able to see his accent if she tried hard enough.
“Maybe he’s from the Thunder Down Under,” suggested her brunette friend.
A collective gasp echoed from the vehicle. “Are you Australian? Say put another shrimp on the barbie.”
Broch smiled. Being told to say something reminded him of the game he played with Jeanie back at Parasol Pictures.
“Pat anither shrimp oan the barbie?”
The women squealed and the driver’s window lowered. A dark-haired woman who looked as if she could be Catriona’s older sister pushed down her sunglasses to peer at him.
“I apologize for them. They’re a bunch of idiots.” Her voice grew louder as she said the last sentence, and she dipped her head inside to be sure her friends heard it. Finding her scolding was having little effect, she returned her attention to Broch. “I’m the lucky designated driver. They’ve been drinking since two. Divorce party.”
“I’m finally single!” screamed the brunette in the back.
The woman nodded towards the road behind her. “I saw what I guess is your van back about a mile? Run out of gas?”
Broch pictured the bullets riddling the front of the van. “Engine trouble.”
A hand reached out from the open back window, fingers curling around his bicep to squeeze it.
The driver scowled and turned to the back seat once more. “Stop molesting the man, will you?”
Giggles.
The music blared again for a moment before the driver threw out an arm and turned it back down.
She sighed. “I don’t know how much longer I can control them.”
“Are ye goan tae Las Vegas?”
“Where else do you think I’d be taking this band of idiots? Did you call for help?”
“Ah lost mah phone.”
“Oh.” She eyeballed him from head to toe and hooked her mouth to the side. “Tell you what. If you promise not to sue them for sexual harassment, you can hop in the back. If you dare. You’ll die out here.”
Broch looked in the back window and the women beckoned to him, daring him to get into the car. He looked down the long desert road, unsure which fate might be the most dangerous.
“Aye. Ah’d appreciate that.”
The driver nodded. “Hop in. Don’t let them push you around.”
Cheers rose from the back of the car as he opened the door. As he dipped his head to crawl in, the brunette leaned over her friend to grab his scarf, whipping it off his neck and wrapping it around her own. The blonde shifted on top of her friend to make room and they slapped at each other a moment as they fought for space. Once Broch sat and closed the door, the women collapsed, the closest to him landing on his lap.
She threw an arm around his neck.
“Hey there,” she breathed, her face close to his. Her breath lay heavy with booze.
Chapter Eighteen
“Hey Sean.”
Sean sat up and started coughing anew.
“Take it easy, man. Take your time.”
Sean squeezed a word between each cough. His mind wrestled with the vision of Luther beside him.
This can’t be happening. None of this can be happening.
“You let her die.”
Luther shook his head. “I didn’t. You didn’t either. Isobel was already dead.”
“She wasn’t...she...” Sean cut short and gasped for breath. His chest hurt in new ways, unrelated to the bullet hole in his chest. He felt as if he were going to drown in his own lungs.
Through blurry tears, Sean saw Luther thrust out a hand.
“We have to get out of here. Can you stand?”
“Can I—?” Sean twisted and spotted his son still wrapped in his swaddling clothes, one hand free and waving in the air above his head. “Brochan.”
“He stays.”
“What? Lying there? That’s—”
He felt Luther’s enormous hands plant themselves, one on each of his cheeks, forcing him to face his old friend. His expression was a serious as Sean had ever seen.
“Listen to me, Sean. Isobel is dead. She died hundreds of years ago and there’s no changing it. Broch will be found outside the cottage, just as he was always found outside the cottage. He’ll grow up with the Broken Women and someday he’ll find his way to you in Los Angeles.”
“But—”
“There is no but.” Luther scanned the land behind Sean’s head. “Except we have to get our butts out of here before they come to find Broch. Before you come to find—” He moved a hand from Sean’s face and motioned to the smoking cottage.
Sean found himself speechless. Luther lifted him by his armpits and he stood like an obedient child, his legs weak. They walked to his grazing, stolen horse, standing not far from the burning house, and Sean took the reins. Luther pulled them from his hands.
“Leave it. That horse wandered from home. You didn’t ride it.”
They walked a few steps farther to Luther’s enormous steed, the white hair fringing around its hooves making Sean think of beer commercials. Luther maneuvered him into place and helped him mount the horse. Taking shallow breaths, Sean allowed himself to be positioned again. He took his seat behind the saddle and Luther hoisted himself to sit in front of him.
“Hold on.”
Sean turned to look at Broch, who lay still happily waving at nothing, thirty feet from the remains of his mother and his ashen home.
“Are you sure—”
Luther reached back to put a hand on his leg. “I’m sure. You know I wouldn’t—”
“I know. You’re the only one I would trust on this. But still—”
“Hold on. I think I can let you watch.”
Sean tightened his grip on his friend’s waist and Luther spurred on his horse. The animal lurched forward and Sean squeezed with his legs to keep from sliding off the back.
They galloped for a few minutes before Luther reined in his mount. He lifted the gray, woolen cloak wrapped around his massive frame and glanced at his watch. “It’s time.”
He turned the Clydesdale to face the direction they’d come. Sean saw the cottage, the smoke barely visible now. From their position, tiny Broch was nothing more than a dot on the ground.
Sean felt bile rise in his throat.
I can’t do this.
He was about to demand Luther return when a man and a woman appeared, running over the hill and into view. The man ran to the cottage and disappeared inside the sticks that remained. The woman covered her mouth as she watched. A moment later her head turned, as if someone had called her name. She scurried to Broch and picked him up. The boy must have cried, but Sean couldn’t hear.
“My neighbors,” said Sean, recognizing them. “They found him.”
“I told you.”
“So they’re the ones who took Broch to the Broken Women?”
Luther nodded.
“They were poor. Another mouth to feed would have been too much.” Sean tried to take a deeper breath and winced at the pain. He rested his forehead on Luther’s shoulder.
“How did you know all this? What are you doing here?” he whispered, trying to avoid another coughing fit.
Luther reached down and patted the side of Sean’s calf as he turned his mount. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, buddy.”
~~~
Half an hour later, Sean sat across from Luther in a small dark tavern he remembered visiting thirty years previous, or three hundred years, depending on how he looked at it.
Across the room he saw the booth where he and Isobel had supped for special meals out. It felt like only days ago, the way she’d picked at her lamb stew, pointing out the shameful lack of meat. They’d laughed about how much better her stew was, how maybe she should share her recipe with Luke, the tavern owner.
Feeling his emotion rising, Sean looked away and stared at the friend he’d only ever known in modern Los Angeles. He found it
difficult reconciling the image of Luther so misplaced in his old tavern. He still wore a gold earring in his left ear. He was still enormous, though the muscles usually visible peeking from the sleeves of his work polo shirts were now hidden by his large woolen cloak.
Sean took a deep breath, the sting of smoke still aching his lungs. He felt sadness on so many different levels he didn’t know where to start or if he could muster the strength to begin.
“You made me leave my baby outside a burning building.”
Luther grunted. “I let you watch the woman find him. I shouldn’t have even done that. They could have seen us.”
Sean put a hand on his forehead. “I must have knocked my brain in the car accident. This is some kind of fever dream.”
Luther shook his head. “Not a dream.”
Luke arrived tableside to place a tankard of ale in front of each of them. He eyed Sean’s modern dress, frowning with suspicion. They made eye contact and Sean thought he saw a flash of recognition in the man’s face. Just as quickly, Luke appeared to shake away the idea he could be looking at a man he knew, thirty years older. He returned to his seat behind the bar with a grunt of disapproval.
Luther pushed the beer in front of Sean. Sean took a sip. It tasted real enough.
Luther raised his own tankard and Sean spotted the collar of Luther’s work polo beneath his cloak.
“You must have been in a hurry, too,” he said.
Luther’s brow furrowed and Sean pulled at his own polo collar.
Luther’s fingers scrambled inside the neck of his cloak to touch his own modern dress. He chuckled.
“Yeah. Lucky, I knew where they were filming that dragon movie. Thought I’d grab a cloak to make life easier.”
Sean looked down at his own clothes. “I didn’t have that luxury. So that white-eyed ghoul didn’t get you too?”
Luther shook his head. “He didn’t send me here. Not here by his hand, anyway.”
“So you planned this? How are you here? How did you find me? How did you never tell me—”
Luther held up a palm. “Easy. One at a time. I’ve got questions for you, too. We can take turns.”
Sean scoffed. “Oh, by all means. Let’s play a game. It’s that kind of day.”
Luther sniffed. “Tell me how you ended up here first. What happened to you?”
“Catriona’s daddy happened to me.”
“Rune.”
Sean paused, his ale nearly to his lips, and put down the tankard.
“How did you know his name? Did Catriona tell you?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Same as I know your real name is Ryft.”
Sean scowled, hearing that name twice in one day.
“I probably told you my name was Ryft when I first showed up.”
“Yeah, well. I already knew it.”
“So you knew this guy, Rune, back when I found Catriona? When I nearly cut him in half?”
Luther shrugged one shoulder. “Not exactly. I knew of him. Things were a little fuzzy that particular day.”
“You got shot.”
“Yeah, there was that.” Luther took a sip and continued. “Rune came after you?”
Sean nodded. “Seemed like it. He followed me from the lot. When I pulled over to confront him, he jumped from his car, gun blazing.”
“He shot you?”
“Not just then. I dove back into the Jag and took off. In the rearview I watched a truck mow him down in the street. I was wondering how Catriona would take the news of her father being flattened, when the bastard appeared in front of me, gun up and firing again.”
Sean pulled down his shirt and showed Luther the angry red dent in his chest.
Luther winced. “Ouch.”
“Yeah, ouch. I woke up here, pulled the bullet out of my lung and...” Sean felt the pain of losing Isobel a second time intensifying and looked away to give himself a chance to check his emotions. “I thought I’d been given a second chance.”
Luther shook his head. “Don’t give that another thought. This was no second chance. You didn’t screw up.”
“It feels like it. And how the hell do you know? Why are you here?”
“I’m here for you.”
Sean rolled his eyes. “I should have said how are you here. The Luther I know couldn’t jump through time. Are you God? Was the Morgan Freeman portrayal closer to the truth than anyone knew?”
Luther laughed his deep baritone. “Naw, I ain’t God.”
“No. God probably wouldn’t say ain’t.”
“He might.”
“Fair enough. Who can say right?” Sean flicked at the bottom of his mug with his nail.
“Anyway, it took me months to train myself to say ain’t. To blend in and be who I said I was. If I remember right, you didn’t lose your accent overnight.”
“Uh huh. Help me out here. I’m trying really hard not to freak out, as Catriona would say.”
“No reason to freak out.”
“Tell me why.”
Luther tilted his head to the side, squinting one eye at his friend. “A lot of what’s going on is on a need to know basis.”
Sean felt a flash of anger. “Don’t you dare tell me I don’t need to know. I think I deserve some answers at this point.”
“You do. You deserve a lot of ‘em. And you’re ready.”
“Gosh thanks.”
Luther stared at the table and nodded his head slowly, as if gathering his thoughts. “I got the call your car had been in an accident. But you weren’t there and the tall skinny man the truck driver said he hit wasn’t there either, so I had some idea one or both of you might have...”
Luther wiggled his fingers in the air as he raised his hand to imply flight.
“Flown away through time,” said Sean, filling in the blank.
“Yup.”
“Okay, I told you about my past, so I can see how you might come to that conclusion. But that doesn’t explain how you’re sitting here.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Luther threw back the last of his ale and motioned to the man behind the bar for another. “There is somethin’ I’ve been meanin’ to tell you—”
Sean laughed and looked away, the insanity of the moment making it hard for him to concentrate. Or maybe it was the ale. He didn’t know the alcohol content of ancient brews. It wasn’t like there were labels. He only knew he felt strange.
He finished his pint and pushed it towards the end of the table.
Luke brought them two more tankards and took theirs away, blessing them with another distrustful glare. Sean’s strange clothing and the ebony shade of Luther’s skin would make it impossible for them to go anywhere without suspicious looks. Sean silently groaned at the idea of having to find scratchy wool replacements for his comfortable, one-hundred-percent-cotton polo shirts. Modern day had its perks and he’d come to expect them all.
Another random thought bounced through his head.
“Catriona! did you—?”
Luther shook his head. “She doesn’t know. She and Broch are still in Las Vegas on the Tyler thing.”
He nodded. “Good. I don’t want her worried.” Sean leaned back in the booth and took as deep a breath as he could, exhaling slowly.
Luther tapped the table with his finger. “That’s what we need to talk about. You were never supposed to be here.”
“No? Then why am I here?”
“Honestly? I think you wanted it so bad you made it happen.”
“That’s possible?”
“I’m here, ain’t I?” Luther leaned back in his booth. “Remember Fiona told Catriona the two of them being together would help their father find them?”
Sean recalled the conversation. Luther had been eating a tuna fish sandwich when he relayed the information to him, and Sean could smell the fishiness of it now as he remembered.
“Yes...”
“She was right. She’s young to know stuff like that, which worries me,
because if you haven’t figured it out, she’s not on our side.”
“Our side. Who are we?”
“The good guys.”
“The ones who help people.”
Luther smiled. “You figured that out on your own.”
“Sometimes I have half a brain,” Sean muttered into his ale. He put down the tankard and looked up at Luther. “So that’s how Rune jumped in front of my car? He just wanted to?”
“Yep. The truck put him on an unstoppable path towards death. So he left that time and started again, a few minutes later.”
“In front of my car.”
“Right where he wanted to be.”
Sean straightened. “And I wanted to be here? To save Isobel?”
Luther nodded. “I suspect that’s a big part of it. You didn’t have any plan in mind so you followed your heart, literally.”
“Is that wrong?”
“It’s wrong to come back here. Anything you change could change everything in the future.”
“So if I’d been able to save Isobel—”
“She might have had more children. Her children might have married people that other people married in the world we know now. The disruptions are endless.”
“So why was it so easy for me to pop back here?”
“Rune was near you. He tempted you to do something you shouldn’t do. To follow your own selfish path.”
“Because he’s a bad guy. He and Fiona make people make the wrong choices.”
“Exactly.” Luther put his big paw on Sean’s.
Sean thought about the things he’d done since arriving. The peasants he’d talked to, had he changed their lives by stopping them to chat? Then he’d stolen a horse and—
He gasped and looked up at Luther. “I saved Broch. He would have been in the house—”
Luther nodded. “It’s a problem, but it’s a problem that was supposed to happen.”
“Supposed to happen?” Sean hit the table with the side of his fist, making the beers jump. “So you’re saying my wife was supposed to die?”
Luther grimaced. “You know that ain’t how I mean it—”
“Then how do you mean it? And how do you know?”
Luther put out a hand to rest it on Sean’s. With his other hand, he pushed aside his ale and put a finger to his eye. He pulled down his lower lid.