John looked confused for a moment before he headed off in the direction of the immobilized Scot. Satisfied, Lany picked up speed and raced down the stairs to the second floor landing which overlooked the lobby below. The Maiden and Kitty had already left the building.
As inconspicuously as possible he raced down the next set of stairs, reached the main doors and burst through. Across the street the Maiden was getting into a little red car driven by her friend. There was a horrible grinding of gears as the vehicle sped off.
Lany sighed in relief. Thank the Creator she was safe… for now. He mumbled a quick prayer that she would stay that way until the interview that evening and headed back upstairs.
* * *
Julia paced beside her car, tired of waiting and wondering what was happening inside. Perhaps she should have gotten someone more reliable, more professional, to do the job, but Steven had done her well enough so far. And he had gotten here as soon as she called and told him where Shona was. Not bad for such short notice. Perhaps she was too impatient. Things were so risky now and she knew she couldn’t afford to get nervous.
“Miss Dawson?”
Julia spun on her heel and came face to face with her hired help. She quickly took in the sight of the three young men assigned the task of harassing and terrifying Shona Whittard. “What on earth happened to you?”
Steven, the leader of the three, stepped forward reluctantly. “We, uh, ran into a little problem.”
Julia’s face contorted. “What kind of problem? You got the job done, didn’t you?”
Steven again looked at his friends. “We can’t do this for you anymore. It’s getting too dangerous. Lewis got scalped in there, and Ed thinks he may have a concussion.”
Julia looked them over sternly, noted Ed’s black and blue face and Lewis’s missing hair, then turned her attention back to Steven. “How did she react when you gave the trigger phrase?”
“Just like you said she would, she ran and froze, ran and froze. We chased her all over the third floor before…” he looked at Lewis and Ed, “…we got interrupted.”
“Interrupted?”
Steven swallowed hard and nodded again.
Julia reached into her car through an open window and pulled out her purse. She began to dig through it. “I want you to do the same thing in two days if possible.” She fumbled with a wad of money. “I can have her here in the afternoon.” She handed Steven three, one hundred dollar bills.
The three young men glanced at one another, Ed shuffling his feet as they did. “Don’t count on me going through this again, lady. I almost got killed in there today.”
Julia looked him squarely in the eye. “I pay you to do a job and do it right. If there are a few risks involved, then that’s the way of it. I explained this to Steven before I hired him. Besides, I assumed you were capable of handling anyone interfering with your work.” She extracted three more bills from the wad, handing them to Ed, her voice sarcastic. “What happened? A book fall on you?”
He snatched the bills from her hand and glared at her before looking at the money. “Something like that.”
She gave a satisfied smile, pulled out another three bills and handed them to Lewis who took the money with little enthusiasm. She then dropped the wad back into her purse and snapped it shut. “Two days, gentlemen, unless you hear from me prior.” She got into her car and sped away from them with a loud screech of tires.
Steven looked after the car, his face a frown, and then turned to his friends. “How much money we got?”
All three looked at the money in their hands. Ed glanced back to the library a block and a half away. “Enough money to stay at my dad’s beach house for four or five days.” He touched the left side of his face tenderly, wincing in pain as he did.
Steven and Lewis also glanced at the library down the street before turning to each other. “Let’s go,” they said in unison.
Things had to be safer at the beach.
Sweetest sweet and fairest fair,
Of birth and worth beyond compare,
Thou art the causer of my care,
Since first I loved thee.
Yet God hath given to me a mind,
That which to thee shall prove as kind
As any one that thought shalt find,
Of high or low degree.
A Ballad
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Do you have any hobbies?” John asked to start things off, amazed at how well recovered the Maiden seemed considering the library incident. But, he reminded himself, her emotions could disappear and reappear in an instant. Hmmm … perhaps it was time to test them.
They were seated in the Whittard’s third-floor music room—John on a large white, rather worn, pillow-like sofa, Shona across from him on a matching love seat. There was a glass topped table between them, a very expensive looking one, John noted. It stood out against the other furnishings. The only things on the table were John and Shona’s cups of tea, offered earlier by Shona’s mother before she excused herself to go run a few errands.
John sat and silently observed Shona as she organized her thoughts.
She was lovely. No, not the right word. Exquisite? No. Dainty? That she was. She was no more than four inches above five feet tall, and her bone structure, judging from her face and hands, was extremely delicate and fragile looking. However she didn’t appear scrawny as he thought she might, considering how small her Muiraran mother Shannell was. No, the Maiden, despite her size, had a womanly voluptuousness to her. A well-proportioned, dainty, elegant—that was the word—piece of priceless art painted by the heavens.
He then got his first real good look at her eyes. John automatically sucked in his breath as they locked with his, their green luminescence jolting his senses. The Maiden’s eyes had the upward slant of her race, the one Muiraran feature her camouflage instinct did not completely hide.
“Hobbies?” Shona began, reaching for her teacup. She sat back in her seat and took a sip. “Fencing. For about seven years now.”
John reached for his own cup. “Do you enjoy it?”
“At first no, not much. But now I find it to be great fun, not to mention good exercise. Between school and lessons, it is hard to find time to work out.”
“You like working out?”
She looked at him as if he were some sort of dimwit, causing John to swallow too much tea and almost choke. Shona merely raised an eyebrow, as if she found his display interesting in a scholastic sort of way, and then remembered her manners. “Mr. Eaton, are you all right?” She stood and calmly reached over the coffee table to pat his back.
The touch gave John a strange tingly sensation that spread across his back and through the rest of his body. His coughing immediately stopped. “Tha… thank you,” he managed to sputter as he forced a smile.
The Maiden returned to her seat, studying him like he was an unusual insect. He supposed she was taking in all aspects of his behavior, cataloguing them for future reference. Muirarans absorbed everything.
“Yes,” she said as she retrieved her cup from the table. “I do like to work out.” The statement was matter-of-fact.
“Do you have any other hobbies?” John stared at his tea, wondering if he should have another go at it, then looked to the Maiden.
She observed his decision making indifferently. “Yes, I do.”
“What are they?”
“I like languages, gymnastics… and music.” Her last words were spoken softly, as if she didn’t want anyone else in the house to hear them.
“Music,” John prompted just as quietly.
She lifted her eyes over the rim of her cup as she sipped, their green color brightening with suppressed excitement. “Yes,” she breathed, “music.”
The passion in her voice couldn’t be missed, and John made a note of it. Music. Lany and Zara were right; the Call was manifesting itself that way. It also explained why Dallan heard music every time he received the Call. “So music is not only your chosen voc
ation but your favorite hobby?”
“Yes, yes it is! I… I love music.” Her words escaped on a breathy whisper, and she must have realized how she sounded if the blush creeping into her cheeks was an indicator.
“Why do you like music so much?”
Shona took a deep breath, probably to calm herself. At least she still had control, or it appeared she did. Time would tell… “I don’t really know. I guess because of the way it makes me feel.”
“How does it make you feel?”
Her breathing picked up again, and John could tell she was indeed fighting for control. “Satisfied,” she finally offered.
John made a note or two on his tablet. Time to see how stable or unstable her emotional states really were. He swallowed and looked back to the Maiden, a determined gleam in his eyes.
“Have you ever been arrested?”
Shona nearly choked as she sipped. “No.” she told him, having to compose herself. “I have not.”
He smiled. The flat, forced fact-finder voice she’d used earlier was gone. The Maiden’s seemingly nonexistent emotions were keying up.
“Do you have any health problems?”
“No, Mr. Eaton. I do not.”
“Have you ever had a mystical experience?”
Dead silence.
“Miss Whittard?” he prompted. He knew very well she was having dreams and possibly nightmares just like Dallan. A direct result of the Call constantly stirring within her, growing.
“I… I’m not sure I understand what you mean by mystical,” she finally offered, trying to sound sure of herself and not doing a very good job.
The question had to have thrown her, John thought. This was, after all, supposed to be a university entrance interview. “Things out of the norm,” he replied casually. “Strange dreams for example.” He reached for his cup to give her a moment to consider her answer. From the cornered look on her face, he knew he’d hit pay dirt.
The question did more than just throw her. Shona braced herself as her face paled. For a fraction of a second, her features fluxed.
John froze.
“Mr. Eaton, if… if you will excuse me, I… I need to …to...” Shona’s eyes grew wide with panic. She sprang off the love seat and headed straight for the stereo system behind the sofa.
John sat nervously as he waited for the Maiden to finish playing with an assortment of buttons, knobs and dials on the wall of audio equipment behind him. He knew then her heart was hungry.
She inserted a flat silvery disc into a slot, pushed a button and music filled the room. Her entire body shuddered in response as her heart began to feed. She took a deep breath and turned to look at him, her eyes slightly glazed.
He smiled nervously at her. “Ready?”
She took another deep breath, leaned back against the sofa and stared blankly at him for a moment before nodding.
"Let's move on, shall we?" John asked, wondering if it was a good idea to try to question her while she was feeding. The fact that she was feeding the more important matter.
He gasped as the Maiden’s features began to flux to Muiraran and back again, her emotions keying up, her camouflage instinct obviously skipping a beat or two. Did she have any idea what was happening to her? Had she ever seen her true features before? He studied her more closely. Something else seemed to be happening to her but he didn’t know what, except that he didn’t want to be alone with her should another emergency arise like the one at the library that morning. Wasn’t Julia Dawson in the house somewhere? Did she know what was going on? What about her mother? Did either Julia or the Whittards even know what—who—Shona really was?
The Maiden's breathing slowed to normal, and John looked about apprehensively. Where was Lany? He should have left Kwaku and Zara by now. Thank the Creator, they’d returned on time, but they would be of no help this afternoon. Zara was weak and Kwaku would have to…
“I'm terribly sorry Mr. Eaton. I seem to be a bit out of sorts.”
John jumped.
She had practically panted the last sentence as her body moved seductively to the music. She looked at him, eyes bright, and licked her lips before swallowing hard.
John began to fidget uncomfortably at his end of the sofa. Where was Lany?
A sudden knock outside the music room made both John and Shona jump.
Lany poked his head inside. “Sorry to interrupt, but Kwaku… found what, uh, what you were looking for.”
John sighed in relief then realized what he’d just heard. "Oh! Yes, of course." He turned to Shona. "This is my associate Lany Mosgofian. In fact he'll be going over a few things with you as well. Would you mind if he and I stepped out?"
Shona stared at him blankly a moment before her gaze slowly travelled to Lany. She stared at him with interest.
Lany offered a weak smile. "Nice to meet you. I look forward to our time together." He quickly turned to John, an anxious look governing his face.
"Excuse us, Shona." John got up from the sofa. "This won't take but a moment."
She merely nodded and continued to scrutinize Lany, who cringed uncontrollably. He could actually feel her inner heart pushing and pulling at him. He turned abruptly and fled the music room.
John followed at a more normal pace, but quickly caught up to Lany halfway down the stairs. “Julia Dawson?”
“Yes,” Lany quickly glanced about the small hall-study they were in at the bottom of the stairs, looking for anything to distract him from the Maiden and her pull.
“Well? What about her?”
He jumped slightly but didn’t think John noticed. “Oh, uh, we were right. She’s trouble.”
“What did they find out?” John’s voice was low.
Lany looked around and lowered his own. “Well, let me put it this way. Either Dawson was moved through time and relocated, so to speak, or there really is such a thing as reincarnation.”
“Really?”
“A woman by the same name, with the same description and retina I.D. existed during the rebellion of oh, forty-nine.”
John’s eyes widened. “Three thousand forty nine?”
“That’s the one. She was a scientist with the Anontist Center when she was arrested.”
“Arrested!”
“Arrested. For murder. First degree. Eight counts.”
John blanched.
“Wait, there’s more.” Lany added, still shaky but starting to recover. “Just before she was to be executed, hours before, she disappeared without a trace, never to be seen or heard from again.”
“By the Creator.” John said to no one in particular as a cold chill belligerently forced its way up his spine.
“And,” continued Lany. “The people she murdered all reappeared ten days after the scheduled execution. From all outward appearances they had never been gone.”
At that, they both exchanged the same sage look.
“She was moved, moved to this time.” John whispered his face white.
Lany nodded.
Both men shivered simultaneously as the same conclusion gripped them. They looked at each other in horror.
“By a Time Master.” They said in unison, the realization pushing both onto the nearest pieces of furniture, their limbs too shaken to hold them.
* * *
Ten minutes later John was back at the interview, praying he looked composed. The new information Lany brought was, to say the least, disturbing. Very disturbing. It was always thought a past Time Master was used to take the Maiden as an infant, the motive to stop a Muiraran prophecy from coming to pass, one never explained to John. But that would simply mean hiding the Maiden somewhere, and possibly easy to do if the Time Master used wasn’t the wiser as they were often sought out in major emergencies. And someone had been smart enough to pull it off. Unfortunately the most likely Time Master to have been used was gone now, passed away shortly after the Maiden’s abduction. Both he and his mate. Without being able to question the primary suspect, there was no other way to find where
she had been taken. The Muirarans had to wait until she was of age, when her inner heart would begin to grow and struggle out of its dormant state. Zara could then locate her with her own, having bonded with the infant shortly after birth. A precautionary measure and a wise one it turned out to be. But Julia Dawson was probably moved well after the Maiden was taken. Which meant there still had to be a Time Master involved. But which one? John knew of only Kwaku. He and his people knew nothing about any of the previous Time Masters. With Muirarans one was always on a need to know basis.
John took a deep breath to compose himself, a nasty headache brewing as the nausea in his stomach grew. Wasn’t that Dawson woman in the house somewhere? How were they going to deal with her now? His headache suddenly exploded. Time to bring in the reinforcements. Namely Dallan.
John began to absently rub his tired eyes. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment again, Shona, I need to make a…er, communication.”
“Communication?”
“You know a contact?” John absently flung his hand about in a circle as he tried to think of the correct term. “A message, a…”
“Phone call?” she offered.
John pointed to her in confirmation. “Yes, that’s it.”
She stared at him a moment, concern in her eyes. “There is a phone in my bedroom, or you can use the one in the family room down stairs. Just go right at the bottom of the stairs and you will be there.”
“Thank you, the family room will do.” Now all he had to worry about was finding the blasted thing. What did a phone look like anyway? By the Creator, he knew he should have paid closer attention to Lany’s briefing before coming today.
John got to his feet and excused himself again before leaving to find the phone, which of course he had no intention of using. He needed to get Lany there to take over the rest of the questions and observations for a while, as the Maiden now posed no threat of falling apart. He hoped.
He proceeded down the stairs, his nausea now coming in waves. He knew it was from the recent news and the stress it caused. He prayed Lany still had his communicator on as he entered the family room and crossed to the other side, searching. From what he could remember, a phone was attached to the wall by a length of plastic covered wire or, in some cases, no wire at all. There would be buttons with numbers on it as well.
Time Masters Book One; The Call (An Urban Fantasy, Time Travel Romance) Page 24