Chronomancer

by Mackenzie Morris

  Chronomancer

  Book One of the Time Mage Saga

  Mackenzie Morris

  Chronomancer

  Copyright © 2018 by Mackenzie Morris

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Dedicated to The Agency Free Company. Your constant support and friendship helped to make this possible. Thank you all. Love, Director Xair Korvin.

  Other Works by Mackenzie Morris

  The Genesis Sequence

  The Genesis Sequence: Reboot

  Dawn-Dirge Saga

  Nuclear Winter Series

  Angel of Darkness Series

  Angel of Light Series

  Paradise of Lead Trilogy

  Paradise Awakened Trilogy

  Paradise Forgotten Trilogy

  Lights of Agramont Trilogy

  Wings of Onyx Shadow

  Dr. Calafey

  Widow's Kiss

  Chapter 1

  Under the heat of the spotlights with the mingling scents of powdery makeup, leather shoes, and spray paint from the cardboard backdrop of an ancient playhouse, seventeen-year-old Jack Carter held hands with his fellow cast members from the Mana Glen High School Drama Club. The applause filled the packed auditorium as the audience of friends and family members gave a standing ovation. His emerald eyes glittered below his brown sweat-slicked bangs. Even with half of his face hidden behind the Phantom's white mask, everyone knew and adored him.

  "Give it up for your Phantom of the Opera!"

  Jack laughed when his hand was raised in the air by Gwen, the red-haired girl next to him in the white lace gown, the understudy for Christine. The crowd roared for him. He blushed, but bowed to them as the surge of adrenaline from singing in public for the first time washed over him. It popped like electricity, drew out giggles, and made his head dizzy and his palms clammy, but he loved it. It was a high like he had never felt before. Just moments after finishing the ending song, he felt the pounding of his heart and knew he needed to do it again. Every inch of his skin was alive, covered in goosebumps, and tingling as if it was the first time he had ever touched the air.

  Gwen leaned over to whisper to him over the sound of the cheering. "I hope I did okay."

  "Ellie would have been proud."

  "I hope she's not sick, though."

  Jack's smile faded a bit. "Yeah. Me, too."

  "I'm sure she's fine."

  Jack scanned over the audience while the thick velvet curtains closed. At the back doors to the auditorium below the balcony, he spotted four men in deep purple slacks and matching shirts. They wore sunglasses despite being inside and it being a dark fall night. When the men in suits turned to leave before anyone else, a shock of confusion leapt to life in Jack's chest at what he saw.

  Guns. Each man wore a holster on the back of their belts. They pulled on their purple suit jackets before nodding towards the stage and vanishing through the doors into the bustling lobby. Why would anyone have guns on school campus? Why would they bring them to a play? Jack bit his lip as a multitude of questions raced through his mind. His adrenaline sparked for a new reason.

  The moment the curtains closed, a heavy hand landed on his shoulder, causing him to jump. The friendly face of his drama teacher, Allen Lambert, grinned at him with his ruddy cheeks and tiny glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. Jack stared at his teacher from his balding head to his rounded stomach and tweed pants with the red suspenders he always wore. "Mr. Lambert!"

  His teacher grinned, showing his crooked front teeth. "Great job out there. For opening night and working with an understudy, you handled your nerves well. Hey, are you okay? It's over now. You get to relax until tomorrow night. I told you that you wouldn't have a problem memorizing all those lines. Your voice was clear and perfect and didn't crack once. You drank that lemon tea like I told you, didn't you? I told you it was a miracle in a cup."

  "Did you see the audience?" Jack asked.

  "Sure did. It was a packed house. And you were the star of the show, Jack. I knew you could do it."

  "What about the men in the suits?"

  "Men in suits? Huh." Mr. Allen hooked his thumbs around his suspenders and chuckled. "We did put an announcement for this play in six online Tennessee newspapers. Maybe they're talent scouts for colleges. You may have just earned yourself a scholarship, Jack."

  "Talent scouts?" Jack took his teacher's arm and dragged him into the corner, away from the group of his classmates who were ripping off their costumes and joking around as they ordered pizza in preparation for the after-party. "Mr. Allen, why would talent scouts need guns?"

  "What are you talking about? Did all that hairspray get to your head?"

  Jack took off the mask and tossed it onto the growing pile of elaborate skirts, costume jewelry, and heeled shoes. "I'm serious. They had pistols on their belts. I couldn't see their faces because they wore giant sunglasses. They stood at the back of the auditorium."

  "You said they wore suits. What color suits?"

  "Purple. Who wears a purple suit?"

  The teacher's jubilant attitude abruptly changed. He pushed Jack against the cinder block wall then leaned down until he was inches from his face. "Where's your phone?"

  "Uh, here." Jack fumbled through the interior pockets of his black silk costume until he pulled out his cell phone that had been on silent. He glanced at the screen, hopeful for a message from his friend, but there was nothing. "Why?"

  "Have you heard from Ellie?"

  "Not since lunch. I think she went home before fourth period. She wasn't in history with me. I thought she would be here tonight, but Gwen was ready to play Christine. I didn't have a chance to go by her apartment before I had to get ready."

  The teacher let him free. "Go home, Jack. Go home now."

  "What? Why? We're about to start the after-party and I have to help put up the costumes."

  "I'll take care of it. Run home as quickly as you can and don't stop for anything. Go check on Ellie. Now, Jack."

  "But-" Jack gasped when the quick slap to his face cut off his protests. He touched the quickly swelling pink welt that was left behind. "You hit me. What the hell?"

  "Go. If you need me, you have my number. You get to Ellie. I don't have time to play games with you. Run."

  Without another word, Jack rushed past the dressing room where music and laughter spilled out and to the metal doors. He pushed them open before taking off in a full sprint through the quiet campus. A puffy silk shirt, heeled boots with buckles, and a pair of the tightest velvet pants Jack had ever squeezed his tall yet slender frame into were not the best clothes for running across the sleepy town of Mana Glen. His feet ached with the growing blisters on his toes and he began chafing from the inflexible pants. However, he kept moving.

  He had never seen Mr. Allen like that before. Normally, nothing spooked the level-headed drama teacher. Jack had known Allen Lambert since he was a baby, then grew closer when he was brought to the town to live alone in the apartment that his only remaining family member, Grandma Tina, had rented for him after she couldn't care for him any longer on her own. It was daunting to be left alone in a strange place with strange people and a strange apartment at the age of five, but Ellie's family next door ate dinner with him and Mr. Allen would travel across town to visit him and bring him movies to watch while Grandma Tina wa
s away on her endless world journeys to exotic locales with the money she had from her husband's life insurance.

  Jack had not questioned the relationship he had with those people or why they chose to care for him like they did. It was something the younger him accepted as being what good people did. As long as he was clothed, fed, and in school, no one batted an eye. It was simply the way things were. While he might not have had a blood-related family, he was far from ever being lonely. With Niki two years older and always taking care of him, even on visits so long ago when he was an infant, he had support and love.

  Mana Glen had become his home. It was peaceful and out of the way, yet still close enough to the big city to not be mind-numbingly boring. Some of his fondest memories were of Mr. Dawson, Ellie's father, driving the two of them into the city and across the Mississippi River into Arkansas to pick up fresh fruit and vegetables from roadside stands along the interstate. They would take their watermelons and eat them on the park benches along the riverbank with the music of street performers and the tangy smells of barbecue wafting through the summer evening.

  But now, something unsettling filled that same Southern air. A cold northerly wind sent dry brown leaves skittering across the crumbling streets that were empty that time of night and thick clouds rolled in to block out the yellowish haze of the full moon. Jack clung to the sidewalks where the dead grass poked out through the cracks below the flickering orange streetlights that threatened to go out at any moment. Even the fast food restaurants were already closed for the night down Main Street, the two that had not been boarded up and closed for good. The only signs of life other than him were the blaring of a police siren speeding towards Memphis and the distant sound of a train echoing on the wind.

  When he turned the corner next to the only gas station in Mana Glen and took off down the dark alley, Jack tripped over something that sent him tumbling to the wet asphalt. In the glow from the vending machine, he sat up to rub the scrapes that were bleeding through the knees of his torn pants. He looked around until he found his attacker.

  A tan-skinned young man a couple of years older than him was leaning against the soda machine with one boot-clad foot still outstretched into the path where Jack had been running. He tossed his spiky black hair with the white tips out of his eyes that were smudged with eyeliner before punching the machine with his fist that was covered with a solitary spiked fingerless glove. There was a clank when one of the cans dropped down into the dispenser. With a toothy grin, the boy retrieved it then cracked it open and took a long drink before holding out his other hand. "You gonna stay down there or are you gonna tell me what you're running from?"

  Relief fell over him as he took the boy's hand and stood, wiping off the mud as best as he could. "Hey, Niki. You tripped me, you freak."

  "I trip everyone in this alley. It's my way of knocking everyone down a few notches." Niki took a step back to trail his eyes up and down his friend, his leather pants creaking with every movement. "Didn't know you were into playing dress up. Is that lipstick? And you're the one constantly making fun of me for wearing eyeliner."

  "I had a play tonight. It was opening night. I invited you, remember?"

  "Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. I was busy with . . . stuff."

  Jack rolled his eyes before snatching away the grape soda from his friend and chugging the rest of it. He crunched the can in his hand before tossing it into a rain gutter. "Have you heard from Ellie? Tell me she called you."

  "Dude, that was mine. Whatever. I'll just get another one." Niki kicked the machine until two more cans toppled out of the bottom. He took them both and set them at his feet. "Yeah, Ellie, no. I haven't heard from her. What are you running from, anyway? Cops? Nah, you'd probably invite cops into your apartment for tea and crumpets, wouldn't you? Or you'd write a paper about how you love being an upstanding citizen and doing the right thing."

  "It's not cops. I-I don't actually know what it is. Your stepdad slapped me and told me to run."

  "The old man hit you?" Niki laughed, the pink scar on the right side of his mouth catching the light. "Oh, damn. You gotta sue him. Sue him and take all his money. That's straight up child abuse. You'll get millions. But then you gotta share it with me, of course."

  "I'm not suing Mr. Allen. And he doesn't have millions. You really don't know how that works, do you? Never mind. I have to go."

  "Wait up. Wanna get some burgers or something? I'm starving. There's a new taco truck down the road with a dancing raccoon wearing a sombrero. He dances, Jack. I heard they have tequila shots and don't check IDs. We can get so wasted."

  He glared at his friend. "Touch a drop and I'll tell Mr. Allen. I mean it, Niki."

  "Pssh. Whatever, man. You're too uptight. Hey, if you find Ellie, tell her to bring back my MP3 player. I need it. I'm tired of listening to cars drive by."

  Jack ignored him and took off down the sidewalk in a brisk jog now, feeling the stinging in his scratched knees. A single van drove past, spitting out choking exhaust, before heading towards an unknown location closer to the city. He crossed the street to the other side where his favorite bakery sat at the corner. Many days after school, he would sit at the table outside and share blueberry muffins with Ellie. He would pretend to be working on homework on his laptop, but he was secretly snapping pictures of her warm olive skin and slick ebony hair. He had amassed a collection of seven thousand photographs that he kept locked away in hidden folders for his eyes only. The thought of something happening to her and never being able to take another picture tore at Jack's heart like nothing else.

  Surely Mr. Allen was overreacting. Ellie was probably sick and went home where she had been resting, nothing more. Jack repeated that scenario over and over in his head as if he was reciting lines to memorize. It had to be that simple. He would get to her apartment and find her in her pajamas with her hair a mess and they would eat cereal while making fun of late night infomercials like they did so many times before.

  Jack rushed up to the brown brick apartment building with the fountain out front that was never turned on and the half dead shrubberies that no one trimmed below the first floor dingy white shutters that no one cleaned. It was not fancy, but it was enough. It was home. He pushed open the main door to the lobby where an elderly couple sat underneath a green lamp, playing chess and drinking the stale coffee from the pot on the reception desk that had been made that morning. The black and white checkered floors needed to be mopped, as always, but it seemed normal enough.

  Jannet, the ever-too-bubbly receptionist skipped out from the room behind her desk and pinned her frizzy black braids up onto the top of her head. "Hey, Jack. I have some tickets to the blues festival in Memphis next weekend. My uncle is going to perform. Wanna come along and bring Ellie?"

  "Yeah, sounds great. Um, actually, have you seen Ellie today?"

  "She came in around one, I think. She didn't look too good. She picked up her mail and headed up to her apartment. Didn't say much."

  He sighed and smiled. So his worry was for nothing. Ellie was sick and resting. "I was worried when she didn't text me or show up for the play."

  Jannet stacked up a pile of envelopes and receipts. "I figured it was bad if she was missing opening night."

  "Gwen did a good job, though."

  "I'm glad it went well. You go on up there, now. Don't keep your girlfriend waiting."

  Jack felt his freckled cheeks warming. "Ellie isn't my girlfriend. We're just friends."

  "Mmm hmm. Sure." Jannet winked at him and grinned, her bright smile vibrant against her dark skin. "I know you better than that, Jack Carter. One of these days, you'll just tell her how you feel. Then, I'd better get an invitation to the wedding."

  "There's no wedding, Jannet. Oh, do I have any mail?"

  "Just some sale ads that I chunked for you. But there were some guys who came in here, looked like business types from the city, all in suits and stuff. They drove up in a sleek car with tinted windows and chauffeurs like they were famous o
r something. They were asking about you and Ellie. I told them you weren't here, but sent them up to her room."

  He shook his head. "Why did you do that?"

  "What? They looked like they were FBI agents or something. I don't get involved with police types, Jack. You could learn from that Niki friend of yours. Never trust anyone with a badge."

  "Your father is a police officer."

  Jannet shrugged her shoulders, making the ruffles of her blouse fluff around her chest. "And I don't trust him either."

  "What did these men look like?" Jack asked. "What did you say they were wearing?"

  "Suits."

  "Don't say purple."

  "Yeah, why? That's not a very common color. Do you know them?"

  His stomach turned. "When did they come in here?"

  "About twenty minutes ago, I guess. They haven't come back down, so they're probably still up there."

  "I gotta go." Jack raced to the stairs that were covered in mottled burgundy carpet to match the pinstripes on the beige walls and took them two at a time as Jannet called after him. His legs ached, but he had to get to Ellie before those men did something to her. He was far from a fighter, but he would do what he had to do in order to protect his lifelong friend.

  When he reached the third floor, he ran down the hallway until he came to the door with the daisies carved into the light wood and the welcome mat with the smiling sun on it. He knocked on the door. "Ellie! Ellie, it's Jack. Are you in there?"

  Nothing but silence answered him.

  Jack checked the time on his phone. 10:13. Ellie's father should have been home by then. "Mr. Dawson? Hey, I need to talk to you, to anyone. Please. Just let me know you're okay."

  Again, there were no voices from the other side.

  He shifted uneasily on his feet, rubbing the painful blisters against the leather soles. Not wasting another second, Jack lifted up the welcome mat to retrieve the spare key that they left specifically for him if he was ever locked out of his apartment next door. He slid the key into the lock and turned it, but the door swung open. It had been left unlocked.