Time Walker

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  Without actually seeing it, Beth felt a section of the cave wall shift behind her. Something was moving, stepping out from within the stone itself. A chill ran down her spine, as she felt what she would have sworn was cold breath wash over her.

  “Demons don’t exist,” she whispered. But Rose’s eyes, staring way up over Beth’s head, had widened in fear.

  “Don’t they? The one behind you would certainly disagree … if it spoke English.”

  Beth, still trying to convince herself this was some trick of Bethany’s to get her to turn around, scanned the faces of her other siblings. Unfortunately, though they all looked scared for her, none of them seemed surprised by whatever was looming over her head.

  Still, she refused to look, clutching the sword to her chest as if it was a lifeline.

  This movement caught Bethany’s eye, and a look of tormented desire crossed her face. Beth could tell that the other woman truly believed the sword would solve all her problems. But Beth knew, having held the sword, that it was designed to create chaos and nothing else. That was its sole purpose.

  “You are wrong.” Beth found her voice within the fear, as she tried to ignore the layer of ice that seemed to be forming on her back. “You are wrong about the sword. You are wrong about why I came here.”

  “Am I?” Bethany nodded to the thing hulking behind Beth. A thing that Beth was pretty sure had taken form from the granite of the cave walls. A thing she was certain had just opened its mouth around her head, even though she couldn’t yet see it in her peripheral vision.

  Ari and Rose’s faces went so white that they looked as if they might faint. Finn started yanking violently on his chains, but Bryan did nothing. He just watched her.

  Something slimy, spit probably, dripped on Beth’s shoulder, and the icy numbness of her back spread down her left arm. She wondered if the demon had real teeth or if it was completely made of rock.

  Her right hand found the hilt of the sword among the folds of the velvet cloth. And then, without even intentionally moving, she found herself wielding it.

  She spun and brought the sword up between her and the demon.

  The hulking pile of rock — and, yes, it had teeth — reared up behind her. It was at least three times her height, and could maybe have stretched higher, but was constrained by the ceiling of the tunnel.

  Bethany screamed as if suddenly truly afraid for the first time — or simply afraid for Beth herself. Bryan shouted, but Beth couldn’t have stopped even if she’d wanted to … the sword was in control now.

  She thrust toward where she thought the neck of the demon might be as it craned down to bite at her. It roared and reared back again. An arm composed of chunks of granite suddenly appeared at its side, and the demon swiped at her. Again, the sword moved Beth, yanking her out of the way, spinning her around, up, and then behind the demon, who was now caught between her and the fire.

  Too close, she thought. Too close to her siblings, but the sword wasn’t interested in protecting anyone. It destroyed.

  The demon tried a second swipe with its other arm.

  Beth twisted and sliced that arm off. The creature stood, though it didn’t seem to have legs, and stared stupidly at its chunk of arm lying on the floor of the tunnel.

  Then the sword danced Beth around to the demon’s now unprotected side and sliced off the creature’s head.

  It took three blows. The sword was eager for more, but the granite demon lay seemingly dead at Beth’s feet.

  She wasn’t even winded. She wasn’t even slightly bruised. She stepped around the demon, seeing from the corner of her eye that the creature was being absorbed into the floor. The sword was singing. It wasn’t a nice song, and Beth was pretty sure no one could hear it but her.

  The blade was happy to have slain the demon, but there hadn’t been any blood. It craved blood. There was plenty of blood in the tunnel … plenty of people who’d harmed Beth in some way …

  “That … that’s not possible,” Bethany whispered. She hadn’t moved from her place by the fire.

  “Which part?” Beth sneered, even though she didn’t think she’d ever sneered at anyone before in her life. “That I just slew a demon, or that I’d have no trouble doing the same to you?” She raised the sword and took another step toward Bethany.

  Bryan moaned softly and she shut him out. He was weak … he’d always been weak ... with this sword in her hand, she was a warrior …

  “Don’t be silly,” Bethany replied, quickly shaking off her previous disbelief. “You’d have to be able to catch me to kill me, even if you could kill yourself, and yes, I am aware of how deep your self-loathing runs. Specifically, I was speaking of the demon, you shouldn’t have been able to kill him.”

  “Because he was your friend? He was going to eat Rose and me. I’m not going to feel sorry —”

  “Quiet! Your nattering is maddening.”

  “I really don’t think you can blame me for your crazy.”

  “Rose killed that demon right before the Demon Rising. That’s a major event. It possibly triggered the entire war. You shouldn’t … you shouldn’t have been able to …” Bethany trailed off, absorbed in her own thoughts.

  Beth stepped closer. The sword whispered to her, drawing her nearer to her intended victim.

  “It’s the sword!” Bryan’s voice interrupted the urgings of the blade, forcing Beth to realize that the weapon had been intensifying her anger.

  “The sword,” Bethany replied, as if she and Bryan were discussing dinner and he wasn’t currently hanging off a cave wall by chains.

  “You said it doesn’t exist in your time, but here, you’ve had Beth free it. You’re changing things —”

  “For the better,” Bethany cried. “For you, Bryan, I would do anything.” And with that statement, she disappeared.

  Beth rushed to where Bethany had previously stood and then turned to glare at Bryan. “Look at what you’ve done,” she hissed, the venom of the sword leaking into her tone and demeanor. “You’ve made her —”

  “Beth! Unchain me!” Bryan demanded. “Before she —”

  Something slammed into Beth from behind and sent her sprawling face first onto the stone floor. Pain exploded through her head as something crunched and blood gushed from her nose. Bethany kneeled on her back, pinning her to the ground, as she tried to pry the sword from her grasp, but Beth held on. She hadn’t let go to stop her fall, and she wasn’t going to let go now.

  Bethany cursed. Then she bent Beth’s arm back hard enough to wrench her shoulder from the socket with an agonizing tear. Beth screamed as the white-hot pain ripped through her. She passed out for a moment with her face pressed to the stone, as if her brain just needed a little recovery time, but still, she didn’t let go of the sword. It was as if the weapon was glued to her hand.

  When Beth resurfaced, perhaps only a few seconds later, the crushing pressure was gone from her back, and Bethany and Bryan were having some sort of argument. Bryan was pleading with Bethany for something. For Beth? Was Bryan begging Bethany to stop hurting her?

  Beth rolled over and slowly sat upright. It was a struggle. She switched the sword to the other, now much more functional, hand. It seemed just as happy to be held in her left as it had been in her right.

  Then, as the fog of pain cleared a little from her head, Beth realized that Bethany had moved next to Rose. She had a knife at the girl’s throat. Rose’s eyes were squeezed shut, but not in terror. Rather, she looked like she was concentrating fiercely.

  “Please, Beth.” Though he used her name, it was her older self that Bryan spoke to, using the tone he most often used when he was trying to compel someone. Or something — usually a horse, actually. “Don’t do this. You don’t need the sword. You have me. That’s the point, isn’t it? For us to be together.” But it wasn’t completely working. The inhibitor seemed to prevent his power from fully manifesting. Though Bethany’s hand shook, she didn’t remove the knife from Rose’s throat.

  Be
th struggled to her feet. The sword wasn’t happy to be used as a cane. It wanted to stab Bethany through the back she’d so stupidly turned on them. The sword would prefer her heart blood, but any killing blow would do.

  Beth wrenched her mind away from the weapon’s hold, and immediately became aware of the screaming pain that was her shoulder. The sword had dampened that somehow.

  “That’s not the point,” Bethany insisted. “You are not him, not yet. I have to get him back.”

  “But what’s the plan, Beth?” Bryan continued, and it seriously bothered Beth that he was calling Bethany by her name, as if he thought they were the same person. “How many times have you tried? How do you know that the sword will change things?”

  “Because it already has.”

  Rose was stretching her hand toward the ground. She waved her fingers. The stones at her feet wiggled a little.

  “How long?” Beth’s voice came out louder than she intended. “How long do you think you can hold them?” she asked, though she swayed on her feet as she did so. She might have hit her head. It certainly felt like she’d hit her head. At least her nose had stopped bleeding.

  “Long enough for you to give me the sword,” Bethany snapped, and she transferred her attention away from Bryan. That was just fine with Beth, because all she had to do was keep the older woman’s attention away from Rose, who now had a stone hovering off the floor.

  “The sword doesn’t want you.”

  “It will. Once it knows what I want it for.”

  Beth held the sword across her two open palms toward Bethany. Bryan shook his head firmly in her direction, but she ignored him.

  “Fine. Let the sword choose who it wants to be wielded by. If it stays with me, it gets to destroy you.” Bryan moaned, probably traumatized that Beth would even think of taking someone’s life, even think of allowing the evil of the sword to act through her. She ignored him, believing that all she had to do was distract Bethany for a little longer, just until Rose was able to activate her powers. “You can’t make it the same promise,” she said, “because you’d be killing yourself. I’ll only be killing a future version I don’t even want to be. It likes the idea of destroying you. Offering it Rose or Ari or even Bryan won’t satisfy it nearly as much.”

  Bethany dropped the knife from Rose’s throat and took a step toward the sword. “If the sword comes to me, I’ll offer it Theo’s life. I came here, because I knew the earthquake had pulled all the adults from the castle, and I could easily lay hands on the sword, but I will take it from here and travel back to her great sleep and cleave the Spirit Binder’s heart in two.”

  Bryan gasped, which was odd because Beth had pretty much figured out the who, if not the when, already. The others all stared at the negotiations taking place … but who negotiated with a sword? Well, she did, obviously.

  “You’d kill your own mother?” Bryan whispered.

  “Not my mother. My mother died because of the Spirit Binder. I’ll be avenging the deaths of both my parents. Won’t I, Beth?”

  “All of us have had terrible things happen in our past!” Beth said, refusing to fully acknowledge Bethany’s accusation. She kept the past firmly locked away in her deepest, darkest soul and she wasn’t going to let it out now. “Theo saved us —”

  “Oh, you and your precious Theo. All of you are in love with a myth. She caused it all. All our parents are dead because of her. She causes all the death. She kills Hugh, and then Bryan. She has to be stopped. I can stop her. The sword and I.”

  “But the sword cannot kill me, Bethany.”

  Theo’s soft voice echoed lightly as she literally floated into the cave. She rode the magic carpet, entering from the direction opposite the castle … from the outside in, Beth guessed. The stupid carpet! She hadn’t even thought …

  Bethany seemed to unravel as she faced Theo, who was rather calmly stepping off the carpet now. Beth’s older self was actually shaking, though maybe that was fueled by rage rather than fear.

  “Mom,” Bryan called, “we’re okay. She hasn’t hurt us.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Beth muttered. But she didn’t look away from Bethany, who seemed to be rapidly trying to figure out —

  Bethany disappeared. Theo was apparently too formidable an opponent.

  Actually, as she stood there with what felt like one dead arm and a crushed nose, Beth was surprised that Theo hadn’t used mind speak to tell them she was coming. In fact, Beth couldn’t even feel the Spirit Binder’s presence at all… maybe the others had known? Maybe Theo had needed to mask herself from them both, from her and Bethany, for they were the same person, weren’t they?

  She looked down at the sword still dangling at her side.

  She looked up at Theo, who stood before her without speaking. Why wasn’t her adoptive mother freeing the others?

  Theo held a hand out for the sword.

  Oh. The sword. Of course, Theo wanted to secure the sword above all else.

  Beth turned the sword in her hand, grasped the broad part of the blade above the guard, and offered the hilt to Theo. Theo looked confused for a moment and then smiled.

  “No, Beth. I want your hand. Will you give it to me? Our connection seems to be —”

  Bethany appeared beside Beth. She grasped her arm, which still held the sword point-backward. Then she spun Beth around and thrust the now foward-facing blade into Theo’s chest.

  “This sword just killed a demon. It will kill you,” Bethany sneered. Her cheek was pressed against Beth’s — only inches from Theo’s face.

  Beth screamed and let go of the sword.

  She crouched down, and then slammed her shoulder upwards into Bethany’s chest. Bethany reeled back, lost her hold on the sword, and tumbled to the ground. Beth, still charged by terror and pain, threw herself onto the Time Walker and pinned her down.

  Only then did she look back at Theo, who had fallen to her knees.

  The blood sword jutted out of the Spirit Binder’s chest, blood slowing seeped from the wound. Blood coated her lower lip as well.

  “Mom!” Beth screamed. She was vaguely aware that Bryan was howling behind her.

  “It’s all right, baby. It’s all right,” Theo murmured. She grasped the hilt of the sword but didn’t pull it out. Instead, she closed her eyes.

  Beth wanted to go to her, to pull the sword from her, but she felt frozen — half-pinning Bethany to the ground, half-terrified that she might have just killed her mother.

  The sword slowly drained of its deep-red color, as if Theo was somehow absorbing all the blood and magic that powered it. Bethany didn’t struggle, didn’t move at all, as she watched Theo with rage-fevered eyes. “No,” she moaned.

  When Theo pulled it from her chest, the sword was as transparent as glass. The wound, which should have been spurting blood, simply closed, so that the slash on Theo’s gown was the only evidence of the attack.

  Then the glass sword disintegrated into a fine sand that ran through Theo’s fingers and spread out across the stone floor.

  “I’m sorry, darlings,” Theo murmured. “Nothing good could have ever come from that sword … I love you. If I … If I don’t … tell Hugh …” She swayed to one side as if terribly weary.

  “No. No. No!” Bethany’s moan turned into a scream as she flung Beth away from her. Beth’s shoulder slammed into the ground as she sprawled near Finn’s feet, and she was momentarily overwhelmed by the burst of pain that shot through her.

  “Beth!” Bryan yelled. “Unlock me!”

  Bethany slowly stalked toward Theo, who was now lying on the ground looking like she was taking a peaceful nap. The absorption of the sword’s magic had overwhelmed her, but Beth didn’t know if the effects were temporary or not.

  “Beth!” Bryan was screaming now. A weakened version of her brother’s compulsion hit her, and she scrambled to her feet only to stumble back into Finn. Despite being chained, he tried to steady her.

  Bethany leaned down over Theo and slowly pulled h
er knife from her boot … the same place she wore it herself, Beth’s brain unhelpfully advised her. The older woman was relishing the moment. She’s going to kill Theo now.

  Beth lunged toward Bryan. He was reaching for her, so all she had to do was brush her hand over the locks at his wrist.

  Bethany raised her knife over her head.

  Bryan broke free of the chains and lunged across for Bethany, who was arcing her knife down toward Theo’s unprotected throat.

  Beth, no longer propelled by Bryan’s compulsion, fell to her knees, twisting so she could see Theo.

  Bryan wasn’t going to make it. He wasn’t going to be able to stop Bethany. Later, Beth would realize that he never had any intention of fighting. Bryan wasn’t a warrior. He did, however, love Theo more than life itself. So he took the blow.

  He flung himself in between Theo and Bethany just as Bethany thrust down with the knife. He took it straight to the heart.

  Bethany screamed.

  Bryan didn’t make a sound. He fell back across Theo, his lifeblood pumping out through the hole in his chest. Bethany still held the knife.

  Theo opened her arms as Bryan collapsed. She gathered him into her. Bethany screamed again, falling to her knees beside them.

  “Oh, Bryan,” Theo whispered, and then Beth, who had instinctively stumbled to her feet toward Calla, knew he was dead. Just like that. Theo was covered in his blood, but it no longer pumped through his veins. Calla couldn’t heal what was already dead.

  Beth stumbled again, unsure where to move or what to do. She didn’t feel anything anymore. Not her possibly broken nose, not her dislocated shoulder. She just didn’t want Bethany anywhere near Bryan.

  She pushed her older self away from her mother and brother. “You killed him! You killed him!” she screamed down at Bethany, screamed down at herself.

  “Yes,” Bethany agreed, her face streaked with tears. “Again, and again, and again.” The Time Walker struggled to her feet as if they didn’t belong to her, but Beth ignored the words as she took her place, sinking down to kneel before Theo and Bryan.

  Theo’s face was streaked with silent tears as she held her child in her arms. Beth had always known that Bryan was Theo’s most precious child, and now he was dead.