Slipping the Past

by D. L. Jackson

  “Who’s the guy she was accused of having the affair with?” Gabriel asked.

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Nate said and typed in a name. Another primitive painting, in the style of Puritan times, came up. Amber eyes, dark hair. “He look familiar? Caleb Dover. His portrait is in a museum in Salem, part of a witch exhibit and the same that has the journal. The murdered woman was his brother’s widow.”

  “Gabriel,” Jocelyn murmured and reached out to touch the image, pressing her fingers through the holo and closing her eyes. Nothing. She pulled her hand back and sighed. “I can’t see anything.”

  “I can,” Gabriel whispered. “I don’t know why. Slipping the past isn’t my thing.”

  “No, you specialize in frying people and tossing them around like a rag doll,” Nate snapped.

  “Maybe it’s because of the loss….” My sight. Gabriel stared at a wall of books, as though looking through it. She knew that feeling—had been there a time or two.

  “Maybe,” Gabriel mumbled. His eyes glazed over and his voice slurred. He gripped the back of the chair so tight, his knuckles turned white. “This is odd. It’s never happened.” He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. “I’m seeing it through your eyes, Jocelyn. As if I’m there.”

  “It’s okay. Take a deep breath and let it come.”

  “Widow Dover.” Josephine nodded to a pretty blond woman, holding her two young children’s hands as she left the meeting house with the Sabbath crowd.

  The woman’s gaze traveled up and down. A sneer curled her lip. “It’s Goodwife Dover, Mistress Smith. Stay away from my family. You’d do well to remember the sermon today. It talked of coveting what thou canst have. Coveting leads to lust—lust to adultery. It’s the work of the Devil.”

  “Pray, did I hear thee correctly? I am a God-fearing woman. I most certainly do not covet and I’m no adulteress.”

  “Then why doest thou watch my husband so? And he—he watchest thou. Hast thou be-spelled him? Perhaps thou art a witch?”

  “Husband? Goodwife, indeed. There have been no vows exchanged. Thou art but a greedy widow. He doesn’t want you.” Josephine leaned in close to Widow Dover, so the others couldn’t hear. “Mind thy tongue, Widow. Thou art not his wife. I’m not a witch but I’m not helpless either. Be careful of whom thou accusest. Judge not, lest thou be judged.”

  “A fine one to quote scripture, thou art. We shall let God judge, then.” She brushed past, dragging her children with her. “Stay away from my husband or thou wilt suffer more than God’s wrath.”

  “Fussock,” Josephine murmured and watched her go. “He is not thy husband.” She snorted. “And she thinks I’m the witch?”

  “Mistress Smith.”

  Josephine glanced over her shoulder to see Constable Jones, their spiritual leader. Curious. The man looked remarkably like Ian.

  “I beg a word with thee.”

  Sharp pains stabbed through his skull. Gabriel shot backward, snapping off a piece of the chair. He wobbled and Jocelyn and Nate caught his arms. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. That was….” He cringed and sucked in another breath. “Unpleasant.”

  “It takes a moment, but the pain will ease.” Jocelyn rubbed his shoulder.

  Gabriel opened his eyes, breathing shallow. “It’s gone. I can’t see anymore.”

  She leaned in close. “What did you see?”

  He shook his head and set the broken section of the chair on the table. Should he tell her that Ian had been in the vision? No. Something about it seemed off. Until he knew what was going on, it would be better to keep that information quiet. “Nothing useful. A Puritan catfight.”

  Nate smiled. “Toxic. How do I get to have one of these visions?”

  Both Gabriel and Jocelyn turned and glared.

  “What? You two get to have all the fun. Cool powers, past visions….”

  “It’s not fun, Nate. Do you remember where my last vision put me?”

  Nate turned from her, his eyes lit with excitement as he addressed Gabriel. “Did they rip each others’ clothes off? Tell me they bitch-slapped.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “They were arguing about coveting. All kinds of accusatory thees and thous. Real intense.”

  “That’s a catfight? Dude, you were gypped.”

  A trickle of blood ran from Gabriel’s nose. He reached up and wiped it away. “Yeah, that’s it. Gypped.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Why are we getting a room here?” Nate walked out of the bathroom and over to the window. He glanced out and then yanked the curtains shut. The room was in a bad neighborhood, not the cleanest, and besides being cramped, the hot water wasn’t working. To make matters worse, he had a fear of heights and this building had over one hundred twenty floors. The thing was scabbed together some two decades ago as housing for the city’s poor, and even they hadn’t wanted to live there. Some slumlord scooped it up and rented rooms by the hour. For all he knew, a stiff breeze could blow it over. Even worse, Gabriel had decided to rent a room somewhere in the middle. The ground floor would have sufficed.

  “This isn’t our room, it’s yours.” Gabriel handed the keys to Nate. “You need to split from Jocelyn and hide. If you don’t know where each other are, Ian won’t either. I’ll find you and Jocelyn as needed.”

  “This isn’t some excuse to get my sister alone?” Nate glanced around the room and sighed. “Couldn’t you have gotten something nicer? A little lower to the ground?”

  “Don’t bitch. It’s all I could find on short notice.”

  “Sure, and what did you get for Jocelyn? Queen-sized suite? Does it have one of those vibrating heart-shaped beds that spin, and a tub for two?”

  “Yeah, and a velvet swing.”

  “Fuck you. Stay away from my sister.”

  “If you see Ian, don’t talk. Run.” Gabriel shoved a piece of paper in his hand. “You can reach me at this number. Stay in the room, Nate. It’s not safe out there. I’ll come and get you as soon as I figure something out.”

  “Gee, thanks. I feel so protected.” Nate tucked the paper in his pocket. “You hurt Jocelyn again and I’ll kill you. I don’t care if you carry a charge that can knock out a rhino. I’ll take you down.”

  “I’d love to see you try.” Gabriel shut the door and shifted to where he’d left Jocelyn. She had both hands pressed against a storefront, staring at a green dress. Her breath fogged the glass and in the middle of it she’d drawn an upside down heart.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What do you think I’d look like in something like that,” she murmured, continuing to stare at the garment.

  Gabriel studied it. Long, with a bodice that ended just below the breasts. The emerald silk had to be expensive. The design came from another time, something a woman would wear to seduce all the attention in a room to herself. There was only one way she could look in something like that. “Unforgettable.”

  The past brushed his mind, awakening forgotten memories. Gabriel’s vision began to fuzz and he shook his head and blinked.

  “You shouldn’t have come here looking for me.” His hand slipped up her skirt, stroking along the ribbon garter that kept her stockings up, moving from silken fabric to silken skin. “I can’t keep my hands off you.”

  “That’s why I came.” Joelle arched her spine, exposing her throat and breasts, which strained to pop free from the décolletage of her gown. The birthmark peeked at him from above her left breast. “I need you.”

  He kissed along her neck. “Where’s your betrothed, Joelle?”

  “With some strumpet in the ballroom, making a scandal of himself.”

  “You really think I’d look unforgettable? There you go again, saying something sweet. You’ve got to stop doing that. You’ll tarnish your bad-ass reputation,” Jocelyn said.

  “Stop it.” Gabriel pressed his palm to his forehead.

  “Stop what?” Jocelyn turned with a smile that quickly faded. “You can fight the visions, but they’ll hur
t worse.”

  “Help me fight it. Can’t pass out here.” He groaned and sank to the sidewalk, clutching his head in his hands. Blood began to trickle from his nose.

  “Don’t let it take you. You’re too heavy for me to carry.” Jocelyn dropped next to him and used the cuff of her jacket to dab at the blood. “Stay with me, Gabriel.”

  “I’m trying, Jo,” he growled between gritted teeth. “I can’t believe you lived this long with these. How’d you survive?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I was used to it. I had a million other things to worry about. After awhile, it becomes routine.”

  “God.” Gabriel groaned again and rocked back and forth. “This sucks.”

  “Hang in there. I’m here. Stay with me.” She touched him and fire shot through his blood. There was a tug on his energy and he looked into her eyes. “You need to kiss me. Don’t ask why, just do it.” Jocelyn’s face blurred, replaced with another’s.

  He whirled her around and pressed her into the side of a stone wall. Her legs wrapped around his waist.

  He stroked the skin of her thigh, pushing the jade skirt higher, exposing everything forbidden. “You’re so beautiful, Joelle.”

  “I want you to be my first.”

  He knew he shouldn’t, and fought the temptation. Joelle wasn’t just some pretty maid. His father and hers had been the best of friends. They’d lived but a short distance from each other, and he’d seen her often, out in the fields picking flowers or walking along the road toward the abbey. As children, they’d chased each other through the woods. As a young man, he’d chased her in another manner, wanting to catch her for reasons more than child’s play. As she grew older, she bloomed into a beauty, a sight to behold. He’d loved her for as long as he could remember, but could never put voice to his feelings.

  When his father sent him away to serve another lord, he thought he’d never set eyes on her again, and that day he’d abandoned all hope of finding love. He’d left his heart behind with her.

  Years later, this very night, he saw her sitting at his lord’s table, drinking wine and staring across the room from where he stood next to a fireplace. His lord’s toast to his future wife, Lady Joelle’s beauty, had shaken him to his core. He dared not take a seat for fear he’d be caught watching her, and excused himself from the feast, claiming he’d a tavern wench to tup.

  A lie. It was no tavern wench he lusted over. He’d escaped to a small courtyard, trying to catch his breath, not knowing she’d followed.

  He was a knight sworn, but here he was in the garden with his lord’s betrothed. If he had her, he’d pay for what he took. He sucked in a deep breath and pressed his forehead to hers. “I cannot do this.” He had taken oaths not easily broken. His honor would fall with them. For the seventh son of a lesser lord, that would leave him to beg in the streets for scraps, or swing from the gallows, or perhaps find his head piked on the gates.

  “Cannot or will not?”

  “I will not.”

  She nibbled his chin before pressing her lips to his ear. “I do not love him.”

  “That does not matter. This marriage is sanctioned by the king and church. You will be wed to him tomorrow and you will be his wife.” He broke free and stepped back. “You can never belong to me.”

  “I’ve belonged to you since the day I was born. Can you not feel it? Do you not remember how happy we were?”

  “No.”

  “Your jaw twitches when you tell a lie.”

  “Does it?” He looked away, not wanting her to see the truth in his eyes. How he ached for her.

  “Aye. You know I am right.” She ran her hand along the side of his face and turned him back to her. “Be with me tonight. I will never speak of this to anyone. I shall surely die if I do not lie with you before I am given to another. I will always belong to you.”

  “My honor won’t allow it.”

  “What of your heart?”

  “Do not speak of matters of the heart. They lead men into temptation and treachery.”

  “The heart does not lie.”

  “Ah, but it does. It would trick me to commit a sin, to break my oaths. I cannot listen to it.”

  “Then listen to this.” Her warm breath brushed his mouth as she leaned in.

  Jocelyn slid her hands into his hair and touched her lips to his. The fire inside him leaped and the pull on his energy increased. Worlds blurred and became one. He started to pull back and she seized his head, holding him to her. The drain increased.

  As the vision began to fade, Jocelyn’s hands dropped to his shoulders, her kiss warm with a longing that went deeper than the moment. He continued to hold her, savoring the feel of her lips against his, until the past and the pain disappeared.

  The draw stopped and Jocelyn fell slack in his arms. Gabriel pulled her tight to his chest. “No.” He hadn’t been mistaken. She was the one draining him, taking the pain, stopping the vision. So why was she limp?

  “Jocelyn.” He shook her shoulder. “I’m such a bastard.”

  “No,” she mumbled. “It’s okay.”

  He pulled her in tight. “I thought I hurt you again.”

  “Don’t worry about me.” She turned her face and buried it in his coat.

  “Your eyes?”

  She nodded. “My sight’s back. Nate’s in trouble. We’ve got to save him.”

  ***

  Nate flicked through the channels on the holo-set. “You two need to split up,” he grumbled, mocking Gabriel’s voice, “so I can bang your sister.” What was he thinking, letting that reaper take his sister? “I’m an idiot.”

  He stopped on a channel for a second, then started flipping through them again. “The man has absolutely zero respect for women and I let him take Jocelyn. Dumbass.”

  “Whoa. Hello there.” He stared at half-naked women running up and down the beach. “With a little more bounce, baby. Oh yeah, make those….” The lights in the room flickered and the screen went static.

  Nate smacked the remote against his palm. “What the hell?” He pointed it at the screen and pushed the button. The station changed. More static. “Oh, come on. You stick me in this dinky room with nothing to do and I can’t even watch a show.” He threw the remote across the room and jumped up.

  The lights flickered again. He opened the drawer, stared down at a bible, and slammed the drawer shut. “I’m going down to the office and getting my show back.” He shoved his feet into his tied sneakers and reached for the door. “Stay in the room, Nate. It’s not safe to go out,” he grumbled.

  Nate peeked down the hall. Empty. The lights flickered like they did in the room. He shut the door behind him and started walking, glancing at the lights every time they popped. As he turned the corner, they went out.

  “Oh, shit. This is so not good.” He’d been so preoccupied with losing his entertainment, he hadn’t thought twice about why the electricity was acting up. Damn, he’d been a fool. Nate pressed back against the wall, hoping the emergency lights would kick on.

  They didn’t.

  Doors opened and people poked their heads out. One man held a flashlight. Nate pushed off the wall. He strode straight at him, snatched it from his hand, and darted down the hall.

  “Hey. That’s mine.”

  “I need it more than you do.” Nate ignored him and trotted for the stairs, glancing over his shoulder. How’d they find him? He tugged the door open and started down. “Yeah, I’m going to have to tell Gabriel what I think of his brilliant idea.”

  “It was brilliant, with one exception. He underestimated me.” Red eyes stared up from the bottom of the stairwell. “Are you going to make this easy or do I come up there and get you?”

  ***

  “No Enforcer has ever shifted more than a soul and his own body. Not enough energy. Physics won’t allow it.”

  “Then you’ll have to leave me.”

  “I’m not leaving you.” Gabriel settled her on her feet.

  “Please. Just go.”

&
nbsp; “I’ll get you to the room first.”

  “Stop. Listen to me.”

  “It’s not too far.”

  “Would you shut up for a second? I don’t know why it happened, but I’m okay. This is what I’m used to. I can take care of myself. Save my brother.”

  “You’re blind again.”

  “I told you I see fine.”

  “No.” He grabbed her arm and began to escort her down the street.

  Jocelyn yanked away. “I’ll be okay. Go. I’ll be here when you get back.” She found a grate in the sidewalk where the warm air blew up. She sat down and pulled her jacket closed. “Please go. They’ve found him, or will soon.”

  He growled.

  “If you don’t save my brother, you can forget about me. We’re a package deal.” Jocelyn raised the cuff of her jacket to her mouth, then dropped it. If he saw her fretting, he wouldn’t leave. His urge to protect her was driving her nuts. Nate needed help. It never took long for her prophesies to come to fruit. She tucked both hands into her armpits.

  “You’re serious.”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I don’t plan on it. It’s kind of hard to navigate without a cane or eyes. The streets are empty. I can’t ride and the lamps here are too bright to use my eyes.”

  “Ride?”

  “I’ll explain later. Go.”

  Jocelyn felt the hole when he vanished. His comforting energy disappeared, replaced with uneasiness.

  ***

  Gabriel did say not to talk to him. Yeah, okay. Hard to ignore Ian when he had him by the lapels and a foot off the floor, slammed against the wall. The garlic from whatever Italian dish he’d consumed blasted from the reaper’s mouth.