"You're the demon here!" Niki shouted at Inquisitor Terringer and tried to stand, but Opal held him back. "Jack did nothing wrong! He can't help what he was born into."
"You will have your chance to voice your opinion when it is your turn in the chair. First, I must deal with your Chronomancer." The inquisitor smoothed Jack's hair. "Chronomancer Jackson Carter, do you confess to your crimes of using demon magic to alter time with the intent of destroying humanity?"
Was the man insane? Jack wrapped his quivering fingers around the arms of the chair, feeling splinters digging into his skin. "No."
"Then our dance will begin." Inquisitor Terringer circled the knife blade around Jack's tattoo a few times before his eyes flickered with an inner bloodlust. He chanted in some unknown language, increasing the pressure until the razor edge pierced through the surface. "Confess."
Jack cried out and jerked in the chair with the cutting pain.
"Stop!" Niki yelled at him. "What happens if he confesses?"
The inquisitor stopped and smiled at Niki. "If the Chronomancer, this witch, confesses his sins, he will be delivered to judgment with a forgiven soul. A bullet to the head, quick and done. If the heretic refuses to confess, he will be tortured then burned to death. Such is the fate of all sorcerers."
"What the hell kind of drugs are you on?" Niki's face was red. "Witches? Sorcerers? Are you high? This isn't a role-playing game, you sick freak. He's a human. Just because his DNA is a little different, that doesn't mean he's evil."
Inquisitor Terringer turned back to Jack. He delivered a quick punch to the side of Jack's face. "Confess, you heathen."
Jack coughed then spit out blood. His ears rang from the violent impact. Was this the way it ended? Would he die there, in the Renaissance Venice catacombs at the hands of a crazed torturer? The slicing in his arm seared into him. He threw his head back and howled. Every millimeter the blade sawed into his arm, he cried out, unaware and unable to control his pleading words.
It stopped. The clanking of the dagger against the stones coaxed Jack back to reality. His arm was oozing red. Blood stained the front of his tights where it dripped from his busted lip. When he blinked, he saw Niki on top of the inquisitor, straddling him on the floor, pummeling him with a flurry of vicious blows. Opal held Inquisitor Terringer down so Niki could beat him.
"Kill him, Niki!" Opal kept the man's hands pressed to the floor. "Kill him already!"
Before Niki had the chance to finish him off, the inquisitor kicked him in the stomach and rolled to the side, tearing his arms free from Opal's grasp. In a flash, the inquisitor raced to the table and sent a vial to the floor where it shattered. A plume of blinding smoke hissed out from the broken capsule. Jack coughed and groaned, his body reaching its limit of abuse.
Hands groped his legs through the smoke screen, moving upwards until they found the straps. The fingers made quick work of the restraints. With the clinking of the buckles releasing, Jack crumpled forward, unable to hold himself upright after the abuse.
"I've got you. I'm here." Niki appeared out of the dissipating smoke, cradling Jack in his arm. "Don't you give up. Don't you die on me."
"I'm not dying, Niki. Help me."
Niki called out to Opal who had chased after the inquisitor. "Opal, get back here. Let him go. We can't run after him."
"But-"
"Stop. I need your help to get Jack somewhere safe. He's not strong enough for this. Please. He's fragile."
Opal climbed up the short wall from down near the dark water. "All right. Can he walk?"
Fragile? On a normal day, Jack would have protested and punched Niki for saying something like that, but in that moment, Jack knew his friend was right. He was weak. Helpless, cowardly, and weak. He had been since middle school when his bravery was forever stripped from him.
Niki pulled Jack to his feet, supporting him with an arm around around his back.
"I've got a candle. This way. I think I heard the inquisitor enter from the other side of the room. There might be another hidden door." She stepped up to the wall then glided her fingertips across the surface. She knocked on the bricks until a hollow sound reported back. Opal giggled mischievously and pushed a circular stone inwards. There was a click before the wall slid to the side just like the first one.
A staircase headed up into the early morning sunlight.
Jack weakly laughed. "It was right there the entire time."
Niki stuffed the dagger and a handful of the inquisitor's poison darts into his belt before guiding Jack up the stairs. It was slow-going, but steady. Once they were back on the streets after emerging from a mundane-looking entrance in a graveyard on the outskirts of the city, Niki took the opportunity to chastise him. "So, it was a trap. No doubt that inquisitor got your cell number and sent that text to lure you here. I told you this was a bad idea. But do you listen to me? No, of course not. Now look at you."
Opal held Jack's cape around herself as she shivered. Walking in the dewy morning grass with the icy rays of yellow sunlight peaking over the brick buildings where it barely pierced the fog that rose from the calm canals was difficult for all three of them, especially after the ordeal they had just survived. That didn't stop her from picking on Niki. "You shouldn't talk to your Chronomancer like that. He's hurting. As long as he's weak, he can't take you anywhere. He needs your support, not to be yelled at. If I had talked to my first Chronomancer like that, Ryan would have whipped me."
"Sounds like this Ryan guy was a dick. Don't tell me what to do."
Jack groaned. "Both of you, stop."
Opal led them down a side street and over a couple of bridges while roosters crowed. Merchants began to roll their carts out into the market, children ran in the shrinking shadows while they played, and guards dragged a drunken man out of a well. Life returned to normal as if nothing had happened the night before.
They stopped outside a two-story wooden building with red bricks at the base. Dead flowers rustled in their clay pots, dormant for the winter. Opal pushed the door open. "Here we are. Niki, you might have to carry him up the stairs. He looks lightheaded again. It is our duty as Time Knights to care for all Chronomancers."
Niki rolled his eyes. "Ugh. You're a broken record, aren't you?"
Jack leaned against his friend as they entered the first floor of the textile shop. He hobbled up the rickety stairs while Opal spoke a few friendly words with the owners. They paused at the top of the stairs until she joined them and unlocked the door.
Ivory, green, and yellow fabric hung on the walls and windows, covering every inch. Bolts of wool, cotton, and linen lay stacked in piles, stood in barrels, and had been arranged up against the eastern wall to form a makeshift bed. A crude yet functional cooking stove heated the room from the back section that was separated from the front by wooden partitions. A table near the bed was covered with vials, dried herbs, and colored powders sitting in the mortars where they had been crushed and mulled with care.
"Sorry about the bed, but it's the best I could do. I'll go stoke the fire and warm it up in here. It's going to be a chilly day."
Jack climbed onto the bed and let his muscles go limp. Every inch hurt. His brain hurt the worst. After the adrenaline wore off, he was left in an exhausted, intoxicated-like state. His heartbeat returned to normal and the feeling returned to his extremities, but his head continued to swim. Too much had happened for Jack to cope with it all in a short amount of time. Niki, however, appeared to take everything in stride.
The Time Knight took a wet rag from Opal then began wiping away the dried blood from Jack's wounds. "These look mainly superficial. I think he wanted to scare you more than anything. We'll get you cleaned up and back to normal in no time. Don't you worry."
"Here, drink this." Opal handed Jack a small clay cup filled with a bubbling herbal tea. "It's a special tonic tea that I made with ingredients I brought with me from the present and ones I found around here. It will soothe your nerves and let you get some sleep."
"Of course. I'll be in here making us some food."
Niki patted Jack's knee. "What happened to you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yeah, you do. It must have been when you were in middle school. I kept quiet about it for years now, but I can't anymore. Something happened to you. You changed. You lost your spark, your sense of adventure. You hid from the world, you became introverted, you locked yourself away inside and pushed everyone else away. You stopped living. The only time I saw you truly feel anything after that was when you were onstage, pretending to be someone else. I need to know what's going on with you. That's when these panic attacks started. It's when you began having nightmares. What happened to Ellie, Jack?"
Jack took a sip of the menthol-laden tea that tingled his nose. "Why are you asking me now?"
"Because of what you said. When that inquisitor was cutting you, you started screaming. I thought it was random babble, but then it kind of made sense."
"What did I say?" Jack asked, setting the cup to the side.
"Ellie. Her name, over and over. You said you were sorry and that you had to do it. What did you do to Ellie? Is this why you refuse to date her? Did you hurt her when you were kids?"
He was not ready to have that conversation. "Please, don't. Not right now."
"Fine. But you listen to me, Jackson. I don't care if you're my Chronomancer or my friend. If you're hiding something, if you hurt Ellie, I will find out and I will make you pay."
Jack curled up with his head on the pillow then pulled the blanket over himself, hiding away from Niki's threats. "I'll turn myself in once we get back to the present."
"Why?" Niki asked, not giving up.
"Because I deserve to be in jail for what I did to Ellie. I'm a criminal. I'm a monster. What I did to her was unforgivable. I've hated myself since that day."
"You were in eighth grade. Ellie came home with stitches on her forehead and shoulder. I remember that. She claimed that she fell off of her bike and into a ditch. Did you do that to her?"
Jack wrapped his arms around the feather pillow. "Worse."
"Damn it, Jack. Tell me. I need to know. Enough hiding it."
"I tried to rape her."
"W-What?" Niki laughed in disbelief. "No. No, you're joking and it's not a funny joke, man. That's not you. Come on, enough playing around. What actually happened?"
Jack sat up and wrung his hands together. "We were walking home from school. We took the shortcut through the woods because we were going to stop and pick up donuts from the shop by the park. That's when I . . . I took her shirt off and . . . she was screaming. I didn't want to hurt her. I was so scared."
Niki stared at him, unblinking.
Opal peeked around the partition, her hand over her mouth.
"I couldn't stop it. I was a coward."
Niki stood and backed away from him. "You're a demon. You're a demon, just like Terringer said. I should have that inquisitor tear you to pieces. How dare you? Ellie was your friend. She loved you, Jack. Even after you did that to her, she clung to you. Probably because she felt dirty."
"No. Niki, you don't understand."
"Oh, I understand perfectly well. We're done. I'm not going to kill you, Jackson Carter. I'll let you do that yourself when your self-loathing becomes too much for you to handle." He stormed to the door and pulled it open. "I hope you rot in the streets so the rats can eat you."
Opal rushed after him. "Niki, where are you going?"
"Forget I exist. I will not be associated with a rapist piece of trash. You fooled me, Jack. You fooled everything into thinking you were a good person. I knew it. Hell, I knew you were hiding something dark in that perverted mind of yours. You were just really good at hiding it. The truth always comes out."
Jack squeaked out a plea. "Please don't leave me, Niki. I need you."
"You need a long, slow execution and a shallow grave."
He flinched when the door slammed shut. A vase fell from one of the bookshelves and broke into four pieces. Jack held his face in his hands. "No, no."
"Why did you lie to him?" Opal asked.
"I didn't lie."
"You're not a rapist." Opal sat on the edge of the bed and touched Jack's arm. "I can see it in your eyes. What really happened? It's all right, Jack. You can tell me. I know we just met, but I'm here."
"Do you have anything to drink? Alcohol?"
"Yeah, sure." She slid a rounded bottle from underneath the bed and handed it to him. "Here's some wine. You can have all you want."
Jack's voice cracked as he removed the cork. "Please don't be afraid of me. I'm not going to hurt you."
"I know. That's not you. There's something you're not saying, and I'm not sure why, but if you want to say it, I have two good ears and an understanding heart."
With stinging eyes, Jack lifted the bottle of wine and began the slow process of drowning those memories that could never remain buried. The warm grasp of the alcohol wrapped around him, dragging him close to sleep and close to his thoughts of Ellie. If only he could see her once again, he would make everything right. He would fix it, no matter how long that took.
Chapter 6
Rain pelted the windows behind Detective Dean Amethyst's heavy oak desk, the glow from the streetlights casting stripes onto his burgundy walls and file cabinets. The fifty-five-year-old was in his wrinkled black slacks with the belt unbuckled, his hot pink socks, and his coffee-stained baby blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The purple head of the cobra tattoo was barely visible above his unbuttoned collar and the tail wrapped around his forearm to his wrist. His silver hair was short, but with side-swept bangs to the right.
The detective was frazzled, running on his eighth pot of coffee. He flipped through the detailed papers in the red folder, pausing momentarily on the pictures of two young faces. His notepad was filled from edge to edge with scribblings that had all been scratched through. Something about this case was not adding up. Never in his thirty years as a detective for the Memphis Special Case Division was Dean Amethyst ever at a loss for leads.
But this was not a typical case. The FBI was involved and the president of the United States himself had given Dean full control because of the close proximity of Memphis to the sleepy town of Mana Glen. He liked to think it was more due to his record of never letting a case go cold, but he knew it was probably the former.
Dean smoothed his bangs out of his steely eyes before sending his pen flying across the room. It hit the metal file cabinet then fell into a potted fern. What was he missing? There had to be something hidden in that stack of papers that would explain the events of November third. No matter how much the local police and the FBI pressured him to place the blame on two kids, the detective knew there had to be more. So, he kept the investigation open, working through the night without sleep or food, to find the truth.
A young police officer with a streak of mustard on the collar of his light blue uniform entered the office. He stood there, shifting from foot to foot with a goofy look of confusion on his face. "Um, Mr. Detective, sir?"
Dean pulled down his sleeve to cover his tattoo. "This is a private office. Entrance is by appointment only. Being that it's four in the morning, I highly doubt you had an appointment."
"Uh, Mrs. Morningstar, your assistant, she-"
"Doesn't matter. You've broken my concentration already. Shut the door and come closer so I can hear you. I don't bite too hard."
The young officer didn't seem to understand the joke. He shuffled forward, wringing his hands together. "Police Chief Daniels sent me to see how you're doing with the Mana Glen case."
"What's your name?"
"Ryan. Ryan Mueller."
"Ryan, why did Daniels send you, exactly?" Dean asked.
"He told the others it was an initiation ritual. All the others said you were
-"
He raised an eyebrow. "I'm what?"
"Mean and angry."
"You on duty?"
Ryan hesitated. "Not until seven tonight. I just finished my shift."
"Good. You over twenty-one?"
"Yes, sir."
Dean reached over to the mini fridge and took out a cold can of beer. He slid it across a small patch of bare wood on his messy desk. "Drink. Sit. We'll talk about this case. What's wrong? It's not poisoned."
"Right. Thanks. I mean, thank you, sir."
He grinned while he watched the officer sit on the other side of the desk and fumble with opening the can. "What does Daniels want to know?"
"If you're-" Ryan smiled with his success of cracking open the can. "If you're ready to give a definitive answer on the criminals and associated charges."
"No."
"No? No, what?"
"I'm not ready yet. I've only had the case file for twelve hours. I've been looking over it all night."
Ryan took a long drink. "He said it was an open and shut case."
"No case is that simple when people's lives and futures are on the line. I'm not going to send innocents to prison or to death row because it takes work to find the truth. There's no room for those kinds of shortcuts or mistakes in this line of work. The sooner you learn that, the better an officer you will become."
"Thank you. I'm still learning."
Dean laughed. "Hell, I'm still learning. That's the thing about doing something you love. We never stop learning new things, new ways to look at the world, new ways to help people. It's when you stop learning and become set in your ways that people suffer."
"You're not as mean as the guys made you sound."
"Just don't get on my bad side. Anyway, do you know much about this case? I had a couple of questions."
Ryan wiped foam from his lips. "Chief Daniels briefed me on it. Two criminals murdered innocent people and went on a rampage through Mana Glen. They shot at a SWAT team then vanished."
"You know, it's funny how much the details of this case change from person to person. I have a woman who claims to be an eye witness. She swears up and down that she saw two black men shooting at police at the high school. You know what's wrong with that?"
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