“You think you’re the first freak who tried to kill me?”
I brought the shotgun up, but it was too late. His turret gun lit up the night sky with blue sparking fireworks, bullets ripping through my torso. Stumbling backward, shirt warm with blood, I collapsed against the side of the concrete tower. Sliding down, I could feel a dampness at my back.
It wasn’t sweat.
Vision fading, I focused on the neon skyscape. The inhuman metal clomp rattled closer. A dented helmet loomed into my field of vision, the black visor dissolving into a clear window.
The guard’s pin-tiny pupils stared into mine as he said, “Free piece of advice.” The crinkling at the edges of his eyelids told me he was smiling. He had the manic look of someone who had been up for too long and had lost touch with reality.
“What’s that?” Blood dribbled down my chin. Weak fingers that felt like someone else’s reached for my shotgun. I heard him kick it away.
Just give in, a voice whispered. Try again tomorrow.
But if I gave Solomon Marshall too many tomorrows, he’d become too powerful to stop. I didn’t know much, but he had Roark’s number.
Which meant he had mine, now, too.
I strained to get up, but metallic fingers pushed me back against the wall.
“Always double-tap an Elite Guard,” the soldier said. “Because we’re tough as shit and just don’t die.”
“We’ll see about that,” I whispered through gritted teeth.
The Elite Guard laughed.
Then he pulled the trigger, and everything went dark.
16
Day 5
I gripped the red pen tightly, wondering when the world outside the fence had suddenly become so lethal. Over two centuries without dying, and suddenly I’d been subject to a bullet in the head and a sword through the heart within the span of a week.
Hanging around with Roark was bad for my health.
Before I could stop Solomon Marshall, I needed to learn more about the new world order. It might’ve been more deadly than him. And this time I’d have to navigate the changes alone. Pearl had guided me when I’d emerged from the Weald, some seventy-seven years after my—what would you call it?
A banishment, maybe.
A resurrection, too.
I dropped to my knees and went through the motions. Captain Stevens asked about the list. I told him I’d speak to Special Agent Colton Roark about it. His centipede moustache curled in surprise—and a little fear, like I could read his mind—but half an hour later, I was sitting in the third floor room with the glass table.
Watching that red door like a dog waiting for its owner.
Roark stepped inside the plain room, his sad blue eyes focusing on me.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” I said.
“Slow down.” He leaned against the door, arms crossed as he wore an amused expression. “I just got here.”
“Just sit down.” Goddamnit, this was getting old. I wished I could just load up some sort of needle and inject him with everything he needed to know. Unfortunately, I had to coax him along, like a puppy to a pee pad.
Any loud noises—or mentions of time loops right off the bat—and he’d get skittish.
Maybe it was impatience. Maybe it was the realization that, with the necromancer building his skills in the time loop, that meant each hour we wasted was another we fell behind. But I desperately wanted to cut down on this little interlude and hop straight to the trust part.
I sure as hell had no plans to stare down the barrel of his gun again.
“I’m all ears.” Roark smiled faintly, curious where this would go. The chair dragged across the floor slowly, each second a ticking reminder of the necromancer’s unseen plans. Roark set the data cube down on the glass surface, but didn’t activate it.
“Listen carefully,” I said.
“You have my attention.”
Start with his brother, or something a little easier? There could be no second guesses, no having to blow out the navigation console in the cruiser. It was one thing to be curious.
It was another entirely to believe.
That’s what I needed, straight from the jump.
If we were going to be partners, then we would be partners.
“Well?” Roark spread his hands out on the table.
“You know I’m a Realmfarer.”
He pursed his lips slightly, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge the reveal. “A what?”
“Cut the shit,” I said. “Weren’t you listening?”
“All you have is time, far as I can see.” His handsome jaw settled into a blank expression. “What’s the rush?”
“You have all the information on your little cube.” I pointed toward the device. “I just want to know how you put the pieces together.”
“A—Realmfarer, you say?” Roark stroked his chin.
“How’d you figure it out?” I asked. “You’re one of the few.”
“Appealing to my ego won’t help, Miss…”
“Callaway. Ruby Callaway.”
His eyes narrowed ever so briefly, which was about all the surprise he would offer. Shame I couldn’t read people’s minds. Colton Roark probably wondered just what the hell my game was, given the gaps in his file. After two hundred years as a ghost, I simply reveal everything about myself?
“Interesting name, Ruby.”
“I chose it myself.” Another truth.
“I see.” I could see the curiosity in his sad blue eyes.
“Different question then,” I said, holding his gaze. “Why didn’t you put that in the file? Hiding something from your superiors?”
His hand stopped on his chin, the wisps of light circling around his head blending blueish black. The smile disappeared. “Tread carefully.”
“You have no idea how good that advice is.” I flashed back to the sword driving through my skin. “But we’re kind of pressed for time.”
“You’ve mentioned that.” Roark reached for the data cube and stood. “This was a mistake.”
Shit. My survival instincts were still wrapped up in me. Wondering where my weak points were: how had Roark found out who I was? Really, that didn’t matter.
Well, maybe it did.
Either way, I couldn’t let it go.
“If the necromancer finds out about me, then we’re both dead.” I swallowed. “He’s watching us both. And I’m the only advantage you’ve got.”
Bold words for someone who wasn’t a spellcaster. And whose intuition hadn’t stopped her from eating it twice in five days. Some advantage, right?
Roark’s ramrod posture stiffened. “What did you say?”
“Tell me how you figured it out.”
“I studied the patterns. Read books.” Roark’s eyes didn’t turn away from mine, didn’t blink. “And worked slowly.”
“Like a—a profiler? For…for…”
“Killers?” Roark didn’t move. “Sure.”
You’re a hunter, Rebecca Callaway. A killer.
This was not the way to generate trust.
Nothing separated me from Solomon Marshall. Except he had a cause, and I had only myself.
“Ruby?”
I fought down the thoughts. “It’s nothing.”
“The necromancer,” he said, the flat tone belying his hatred, his obsession. Casual, barely even a question. Just an agent doing his job.
“It’s Solomon Marshall,” I said, the words faint. “I think he was assassinated by—I don’t know.”
The wisps above Roark’s head turned into a furious, churning darkness. “How do we find him?”
“We follow the money,” I said. “Simple as that.”
Before Roark could answer, the red door burst open and slammed against the plain wall. Three men, including Captain Steve
ns, marched inside and yanked me from the worn chair.
“What the fuck is going on?” Roark reached for his side arm. “I have jurisdiction here.”
“Boss’s orders,” Stevens said. He looked mildly disappointed about the promotion. But torturing me would be a worthy consolation prize.
“Stand down.”
“This goes beyond your paygrade.” Stevens pushed me past. “National security. Call from up top.” He jerked his broad neck toward the black glass. “Even your name can’t stop this, Roark.”
I forget they were watching.
I forgot that there might be bigger sharks swimming in the waters than Solomon Marshall.
“I work for the FBI,” Roark said.
“Take it up with Daddy.” Stevens jabbed a final thumb toward the glass with a cruel smile. He shepherded me out of the door, past Administrator Warren. The fat man bore the look of smug satisfaction, having successfully defended his little fiat kingdom against invaders.
Whatever I’d just revealed in that room had made me too dangerous to let loose.
Far more dangerous than a serial killer.
“You need to stand down,” Roark called, following us into the hall. “The law says—”
“I am the law, wonderboy,” Warren replied. “Your little freak is a threat to national security.”
“Goddamnit.” I heard Roark unholster his gun and draw. Stevens’s goons didn’t wait. They filled with the room with gunfire, tearing him apart in a hail of automatic bullets.
Cool as can be, Stevens kept his arm around my wrist, dragging me away from the scene.
“Well, little girl,” he said, a sneer on his face. “Look at the little mess you made.”
“I don’t know shit.”
“We’ll find out, won’t we?” The smile didn’t leave his face. “The dark room reveals who we really are.”
Truer words had never been spoken.
17
Day 6
I gripped the red pen tightly as Stevens came through the door. Got on my knees.
And then jammed it right through his fucking eye.
A bullet hit me in the torso, then in the shoulder, as the rest of the containment team sprang into action to suppress the threat. Laughing, I crawled toward him, reaching for the pen.
“I didn’t say shit.” His moustache quivered as he roared in pain. “That’s who I am.”
“You—you goddamn freak.” Blood poured from the ruined socket. “I’ll…kill you.”
“You first.” My fingers grasped for the bloodied pen.
Another gunshot, and everything went black.
18
Day 10
Fuck all of this.
Fuck Roark, Stevens, Marshall, Warren—all of them. That battle wasn’t mine, and it was too much trouble to get the gears working right. Convince Roark, get thrown in the dark room. Get too weird, get thrown in a cell.
Say something that scared the people behind the glass, get tortured for hours.
Twice I’d made it beyond the fence, and twice we’d failed because he didn’t trust me.
And the other times, I’d gone to the dark room for my trouble.
After a few brief loops, I’d gotten my share of fleeting revenge against Captain Stevens. This time, instead of attacking him, I played my role perfectly. Got my meeting with Roark. Kept everything in the Goldilocks Zone: not too aggressive, not too strange.
Rode to the Mud Belt, when he got the call from central dispatch. Didn’t stop him. We followed it into the slum and got out.
Then I waited for him to march off, all alone, barely noticing that I existed. Driven by thoughts of vengeance and memories that just wouldn’t die. Forever haunted by the necromancer’s taunt.
Don’t disappoint me, Colton.
Taking my shotgun, I bashed in the trunk’s lock and surveyed the contents. The car’s alarm howled, the AI warning of an intrusion. Didn’t matter. Roark wasn’t coming back. Maybe the necromancer would be out there today, waiting for him.
Maybe Marshall would get his entertainment elsewhere, and let the feral vamps do the job.
Or maybe there’d be nothing, and Roark would simply come back to find me in the wind.
All irrelevant to me.
I grabbed the leather jacket and shells from the trunk. Nothing else in the jumbled mess looked particularly compelling to bring along. The sight of the unused filtration masks stirred a little emotion in my heart.
I snatched them, along with a first aid kit. It wasn’t from nostalgia. Without money, I’d need goods to exchange. Roark was making his choice, and I was making mine.
If I figured out how to break the time loop, then I was free.
Of course, there were more than a couple issues standing in my way.
“One thing at a time,” I said, boots squishing in the mud as I passed back into the shantytown. Rusted siding and patchwork walls formed a narrow pathway through the endless residences. Unlike the camp, the town thrummed with the sounds of life, even deep at night.
Town might not have been the right word. The sprawl went on for miles, up until it abruptly stopped outside Phoenix. Like the metropolis was enclosed within a dome or surrounded by a moat.
It wasn’t, at least not physically speaking. But the berth of undeveloped land was a sort of territorial line in the sand, marking where those with supernatural blood were unwelcome.
Sucked for the mortals.
That was where I was heading.
If I could get a ride into the city.
I followed the strands of intuition through the shambles until they stopped at a door dissimilar to the others. How dissimilar? It was attached to an actual frame, with an actual house.
I looked at the small two-story structure and its surroundings. It was disconnected from the rest, granted two dozen feet of private space—a veritable ranch by the standards of the place. The wooden door was peeling and warped, but looked positively palatial in comparison to the tin flaps gracing most of the residences.
After walking across the small courtyard, I banged on the wood with the shotgun’s stock and waited. There was clamoring from inside. A woman’s voice—angry. A man telling her to calm down as he stumbled downstairs.
The door cracked open, a faintly glowing eye looking back at me.
“I’m busy.”
Reading the strands of passion above his head, I said with a bemused smirk, “I see that.”
“You’re new around here, so I’ll give you a tip.” He glanced at my shotgun, barely acknowledging it. “Coming around and interrupting like this, no good.”
The words carried the subtle undercurrent of a threat.
Undeterred, I said, “Well, since I’m here already.”
The door swung open, smashing against the water-stained wall loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood. With a snarl, he glared at me, his eyes flashing amber. The hair on his chest pricked up, like a wolf’s would.
But the aura was wrong. This wasn’t a wolf.
Not any more, at least.
Ignoring the warning, I said, “What the fuck happened to you?”
His throat rumbled in an instinctual growl. “You’re asking a lot of questions for someone new in town.”
At my periphery, I could eyes peering through slits and cuts in the other houses. Sense the fear and curiosity from those watching. Maybe I should’ve been scared, too. But I was more pissed than anything else. And I was in a time loop, which meant to hell with caution.
Might as well leverage this situation to my advantage while I could.
I dropped the first aid kit on the muddy stones that acted as a walkway to his door. Then I pulled up the shotgun and racked the slide.
“I can ask the questions, since I’m the one with the gun.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
Between growls and warning yells, I heard the cock of about a dozen firearms from the shadows. With a satisfied grin, eyes still glowing, the man in the doorway gave me a nod. “You see, I have friends.”
I raised the gun toward his head. “Dead is dead, though, isn’t it?”
His eyes widened in primal fear. That’s the thing about irrationality: sometimes it’s the crowbar that opens up a particularly troublesome door. When you had a lunatic on the front steps of your little slumlord palace, all bets were off.
He whistled, and I heard the growling subside. Then he looked at me and said, “What do you want?”
“I wanna trade.” I tapped the first aid kit with my boot, but didn’t lower the gun. “I need a ride outta here.”
“To where?”
“Anyone who specializes in time magic.”
He blinked slowly, taking it all in. Finally, he said, “Then you’ve come to the right place.” Suddenly, a looseness entered his taut limbs that even I couldn’t have foreseen. Funny how that worked: barely mention time loops to Roark, and I scared him off.
This guy popped a hard-on.
Although, judging from the fiery complaints from upstairs, his little lover would have preferred if that hard-on had stayed with her.
Tough shit. I was going ruin this necromancer’s day, and then ride off into the sunset. I lowered the shotgun and picked up the first aid kit before heading in.
The not-a-wolf closed the door behind me. Once inside, I saw that the house was cramped—cozy would be a generous way of describing it. There was a living room and a kitchen, and a set of stairs that led to his annoyed woman.
That was about it for the tour.
“Aaron,” he said, by way of introduction. “Aaron Daniels.”
“Never trust a man with two first names,” I said. “Ruby Callaway.”
“Never trust anyone in the Mud Belt,” he said, walking into the kitchen. His residence was lit with thin LED strip lights. Clearly not tapped into the grid out here. Maybe they couldn’t afford the power quotas.
Maybe the government didn’t extend a helping hand.
There was rattling in the kitchen and Aaron said, “Tea?”
“No thanks.”
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