Out of the corner of Jack's vision, he noticed a shadow pass over the window, blocking the moonlight.
Kage slowly leaned over to the table against the wall and picked up a katana with a broken tip and green hilt wrap with a single gold tassel hanging from the end. He spun in a circle and stood in one fluid movement, his robe flowing around him like a blooming flower. When he held up his blade at the figure in the window, his eyes glowed with the intensity of forged steel. "You would dare to come here, Olivia?"
Jack gasped and jumped up to see Olivia Morningstar step down from the window sill. "Leave us alone."
Olivia smoothed the wrinkles from the front of her plum purple peacoat and matching dress underneath. Her sharp-edged cheekbones caught the moonlight, making her harsh rusty blush become garish against her ivory skin. "Chronomancer Jackson Carter, I have come to collect on your debt. I've had enough of this cat and mouse game, chasing you down all over time and space. You have a decision to make. Turn yourself in and submit to Xander and Zurvan's will, or I eliminate both you and Elizabeth here and now. I highly suggest that you make the correct decision. As I'm sure you've seen, the Syndicate will take any action necessary to follow the orders of our Director. Make your choice."
"You need to leave." Kage stepped closer, his katana still at the ready. "This is my castle, which I have opened to my guests. You are not a guest here. How dare you come into my home and threaten my guests while we eat dinner? What happened between us is in the past, Liv. It's over. We agreed to go to our separate times and remain there, never to interact again. You cannot drag these innocent people into our drama."
"First off, they are far from innocent. Second, you are the one who stormed off in the middle of the night right before your initiation and threw a fit like you were a toddler."
Kage's words struck at her like a venomous snake bite. "You killed my unborn child."
"I had an abortion because I was ordered to We do what the Director says, no matter what. I couldn't be in the field while carrying a child. It's a liability."
"You didn't even ask me how I felt about it. That was my baby, too, Olivia. I will never forgive you for taking that away from me."
"You're lucky Director Mason let you get out alive and live as a hermit here." Olivia shook her head. "Stand aside and let me conduct official Syndicate business, or I will do what Mason left undone."
Kage spun his katana threateningly. "Forgive me, my guests, but I must quell any threat that enters my home."
"Then I suppose we'll dance, Kage." Olivia drew two thin daggers from inside her coat and leaned forward, ready to strike. "Your move."
With a roar, Kage dashed as quick as lightning at Olivia. Their weapons clashed with a loud clank. Their eyes narrowed and their muscles rippled as they pushed against each other.
Olivia grunted through the strain of holding the katana back. "Where's that sage of yours, Kage? What, can you not make a baby with him?"
"Shut your mouth, you harlot. I would never do anything of the sort with Abejide. He is like a brother to me!" Kage dropped to his knees and swung his katana at his opponent's legs, but Olivia leapt over it. "Damn you!"
Kage fell flat on his back and his katana slid across the wet floor.
Ellie ripped a wooden staff from the wall and jumped into the fray. A raid flurry of hits with the end of the staff to Olivia's back was enough to knock her off of Kage. The samurai rolled to the left, scooping up his katana as he went.
Jack helped him to his feet. "You okay?"
The Chronomancer lashed out at Olivia, but she evaded with inhuman quickness. "Ellie, down!"
Ellie ducked just as Olivia whipped a pistol from inside her coat and fired. The bullet sped past her ear to hit the paper door where it tore a hole through the center.
With a growl, Kage ran up the wall and leapt down on top of Olivia, striking down from the rafters. A shot to his hip dropped him mid-swing, but the Chronomancer scrambled to his feet, seemingly unfazed by the bullet lodged in his side.
While Olivia and Kage fought, Jack frantically searched the unfamiliar room for anything he could use as a weapon. Despite being an actor, improvisation was never his strong point, and without Niki, he was more of a liability in a fight rather than an asset. But that didn't mean he wouldn't try.
Jack ran to where they had been eating and picked up the teapot. He shifted on his toes, waiting for the precise time to strike. Olivia kicked Kage in the chest, throwing him backwards before spinning around and taking Ellie by the neck. She slammed her against the wall then dragged the stunned girl to the bathtub. With a powerful thrust, she dunked Ellie below the surface. Jack watched in horror as Ellie flailed her arms and squirmed below the larger woman's body that held her there. With time running out and Kage struggling to get back up, Jack felt destiny prodding him into action.
While he knew he risked hitting Ellie as well, he had to do something before those bubbles stopped popping on the water's surface. Jack removed the lid then hurled the teapot at Olivia. When it collided with her shoulder, near boiling water sprayed over her, making her scream. In that moment, Jack lunged at the tub and turned it over. Water rushed out, flooding the room like a pond. Ellie rolled to a stop, wet and motionless.
"No! Ellie!" He laid her flat on her back and began chest compressions, but the love of his life remained unresponsive. "Come on! Come on, breathe. Kage, she's not breathing!"
Kage was back at it, darting and dodging every thunderous shot from Olivia's pistol with hyper-tuned finesse. If he didn't know better, Jack would have thought the samurai was a robot.
He continued trying to revive Ellie with tears of rage swelling in his eyes. With every push against her chest, Jack vowed vengeance. He hated them all for what they had done to him, to Niki, to Ellie. One way or another, he would make them all pay the price.
With a sputtering of water, Ellie returned to consciousness. She coughed and turned onto her side before drawing a deep breath.
"Ellie, are you okay?"
She gasped through panting breaths. "Kill her, Jack. Kill the bitch."
"I will." He stood then dashed forward toward Ellie's staff, but Kage shoved him out of the way. A bullet tore through the air and embedded into the tatami mat where Jack had been a split second before.
"Summon your weapon!" Kage shouted at him "Jack, don't you have a blade?"
"I don't have it with me."
"Summon it. Didn't your father ever show you how to do that?"
"Oh, yeah. Watch my back." Jack closed his eyes and thought of his sword. He let his body begin to spread out into the universe just like he was warping. When the burst of energy flooded the room, he knew it had worked once again. "Yes!"
Durendal manifested out of thin air to slice and thrust at Olivia, catching her thigh above the knee. The blade flashed past the window to stab at Olivia again. The razor edge cut through her dress, leaving a deep gash across the top of her back. She screamed as the legendary sword flew to Jack and hovered there until he took into in his hands.
With Kage at his side and Ellie waiting in the corner to strike, Jack readied for battle. A silent nod from Kage sent him rushing at Olivia, swinging his sword with all his strength. He clipped the wooden tub while Kage's katana coldly delivered a clean slice straight through the Syndicate agent's torso.
Turning pale with the splash of blood around her feet, Olivia collapsed. She spit out blood while clutching her abdomen. Through gasping breaths, Olivia spoke to them. "Kage, I should have known. I'm sending Jack . . to a place . . . he needs to be. Lance . . . Lance wants to play."
"No!" Jack jumped towards her, but the blackness slammed into him like a brick wall. His breath left him and his nerves shocked to life. He was warping, but he had no control over it. Right before he reached the unknown destination, he blacked out completely with the scent of blood tart in his nose.
When Jack regained consciousness, the ache in his arms and shoulders hit him first. He opened his eyes to see that he was
standing on a stone platform with an audience of men in white and red robes standing there, looking solemn while two held blazing torches. Jack glanced behind him to see the tall wooden post that this arms were bound behind with heavy chains. Ellie was in the same predicament. She looked at him, but only whimpered. She had been changed into a plain white dress that was stained with dried blood and fresh welts spotted her arms.
Where were they?
Jack looked around in the darkness. A medieval-looking castle stood behind them, its tall grey stone walls trailed with ivy. He listened to the language the men in robes were speaking, but he couldn't quite place it.
The most muscular man in a blood red robe with golden gloves and belt climbed onto the platform. His eyes were as dark as his bushy eyebrows that stood out against his ivory bald head. Like a topography map, the man's face was covered in lines from scars and burns.
"We finally meet, Mr. Carter. My name is Enforcer Lance Terringer. Welcome to medieval France during the heat of the witch hunts. We are the foundation of the Inquisition of Purity. Of course, there were many who came before this time period, but this is where we truly took power and embraced our purpose."
Jack pulled against the chains, but they kept him bound securely to the stake. Bundles of hay and stacks of limbs and branches were piled up around the stage with him and Ellie in the middle. He looked to Ellie who had grown quiet, and his heart leapt in his chest. Her head was down and her body had grown limp. "So what? You're going to burn us?"
"Like the heretical witches you are. Your cursed Iskaydrian blood can only be cleansed with the fires of truth and justice. Only those who join the Inquisition of Purity and swear to dedicate their lives to the holy cause are spared the flames."
"Does the Inquisition know hat you plan to do with us?" Jack asked. "Does Shay Terringer know?"
"Shay Terringer is a corrupted blight upon our sacred organization. He may have befriended you and that apostate detective, but I will never waiver in the face of pure evil. The unclean sins must be purged. We will bring purity back the world, to the timeline that the demon Zurvan has twisted to his own tainted desires."
There had to be more to the story. "After you kill us, what then? What do you really get out of this?"
"Your death is merely a stepping stone towards our ultimate goals. We will gather our forces and storm Zurvan Tower that the tyrant Xander Sutcliff has erected in Memphis like he owns the place."
Couldn't he see that they were working towards the same goal? "I want to stop Xander as much as you do. I can help you do that. If we work together, we'll be stronger against him."
"Do you think I'm an idiot, Carter?" Lance beamed with sadistic delight, his teeth more like fangs of a rabid hyena "I will never tarnish my soul by working with a treacherous heretic like you. Besides, I don't need your help. You would only get in my way. I've been watching you, trying to find any reason to believe the rumors and the prophecy that the echoes foretold. You're not Thysian. You're just another false prophet!"
"Thysian?" Jack asked. "I don't even know what that is!"
"It's not for a sinner's ears to hear the truth. Now, do you confess to your crimes against humanity? Do you confess to being a witch and using your chronomancy to harm mankind?"
"Never. That's not me. Xander is the sorcerer. He's the one you want to take down, not us. We're just kids caught up in this mess. I didn't ask for this. I didn't even know that time travel was real two months ago. And Ellie can't even warp on her own. She's innocent. At least let her go."
Lance's enormous muscles rippled under his robe as he pointed at Ellie. "She is the bride of Xander Sutcliff. She cannot be allowed to live. I will tell you one more time. Confess, or you will feel the flames of justice."
"I won't confess to something I didn't do!"
"Then your screams will be your testament."
Jack struggled against the chains when the two inquisitors stepped up onto the stage and lowered their torches until the flames leapt onto the straw and bundles of twigs at his feet. "Ellie, I can't reach my tattoo. I can't warp us."
Ellie's eyes danced with the glow of the flames. Her voice was small yet as strong as concrete as she whispered to him through the crackling of the blaze. "I had a dream the last time I slept. I died, Jack. I died in a fire. There were flames everywhere and I was okay with it. They burned around me, but I couldn't feel the heat. I was finally free from all of this."
"No. You can't die here. I won't let you."
Ellie sighed, resigned to her demise. "There's nothing you can do. I love you, Jack."
"There are no words, Ellie, no words to tell you how much I love you."
"I know. I'd rather die here with you than to live a thousand years with Xander."
With tears streaming down his reddened cheeks, Jack lowered his head and waited for the flames to reach him. The smoke billowed up to burn his eyes and make him cough violently, but he swore to himself that they would not have the pleasure of hearing him scream.
A boy's voice broke through the roar of the flames. "Jack!"
Jack blinked through the heatwaves and smoke to see Thyme standing on the edge of the stage in a grey wool poncho and a floppy hat that made the ends of his messy brown hair curl up around his ears. What was the doing there? How did he get there? "Thyme! Do the thing. Get us out of here."
As if he knew what was going to happen, Lance took off running into the dark forest behind the group of onlookers.
"Okay, Jack." Thyme held out his arms as the men in robes rushed the stage. The sage boy threw his head back and howled with an ear-shattering shriek that stirred the very air itself. Like a stone being dropped in a lake, ripples appeared in the sky above him and spread down onto the crowd of onlookers. Bright branches of snapping lightning burst from Thyme's tiny hands. The electricity popped when it separated like a massive tree to zap the inquisitors in rapid succession. One by one, the men cried out in agony before becoming enveloped in black shadows.
In front of Jack's eyes, the inquisitors vanished in a swirl of shadows and lighting. But he had more pressing problems. Ellie screamed as the flames grew closer to her bare feet. Jack shouted at the boy. "Thyme! Get us down from here."
"I've got you." Out of the darkness, Mr. Allen emerged with Shay Terringer at his side, both of them carrying modern day fire extinguishers.
Jack glared at his former drama teacher and the man he had once thought of as his father figure. Even when Mr. Allen finished putting out the flames and unchained him from the stake, he only felt overwhelming anger towards him. Jack yanked his arm out of Mr. Allen's grasp. "Don't touch me!"
"Jack, I realize you're upset-"
"Upset? You think I'm upset? You sold me to strange men for my blood, you joined with the enemy and Xander, and you filmed while your stepson was tortured in a freezer and you think I'm upset! I'm furious. How could you do this to him, to me, to Ellie? We stayed at your house and played board games with you, we celebrated birthdays, we sang karaoke, and cooked and baked brownies and watched movies. We were a family, damn it. I loved you like you were my dad because I didn't have one. Why? Why did you do this to us? God, we're kids, Allen. Tell me why. Don't we deserve that much, at least?"
Mr. Allen wrapped his fingers around his red suspenders. "Jackson, I understand that certain things have not gone the way they should have gone. I realize that it appears bad."
"Are you serious right now?"
Shay cleared his throat from where he was holding onto Ellie, keeping her warm inside his coat. "This isn't the place to discuss this. There may be more rogue inquisitors lurking around here. Jack, if you will allow me, I will write out a date and coordinates on your arm so you can take Allen to a secure location where you can talk through this while I take Thyme and Elizabeth back to the present and deal with that situation."
Jack crossed his arms in defiance. "I'm not going anywhere with him."
"Marjorie is dead, Jack."
His defense crumbled. "What? No. Wh
en?"
Shay continued. "You need to be caught up on the events going on in the present. Nikolas is in trouble, your birth mother was slaughtered by Xander, and everyone has banded together in Mana Glen to combat the growing Syndicate menace that has locked down most of the timeline. You and Ellie have Syndicate agents on your trail like hungry bloodhounds. As much as it angers you, we have bigger issues to deal with right now than things that happened in the past. The fate of the future is in danger and you are the only person who can stop it."
"What's wrong with Niki?" Jack asked, his breath hitching in his chest. "How is he in trouble?"
Mr. Allen took over the conversation. "As we speak, Nikolas is preparing to ride with Dean Amethyst to a tower that Xander has erected in Memphis with a backpack full of explosives. They're going to bomb Zurvan tower. If anything goes wrong, it will turn into a suicide mission."
"How do you know this?"
"I have contacts, Jack. And no, I'm not funneling the info to Xander or anyone else in the Syndicate. I want Niki to come out of this alive. I love my son."
Jack snarled at him. "He's not your son and you've never loved him. When you love someone, you don't do these things to them. There's no excuse for the abuse. There's nothing you can say that would make me believe you felt any kind of remorse or guilt for your actions. There's nothing you can do to ever make me come back to you like we were before. You threw all of that away when you turned against us. It makes me sick to think of you sitting there filming what those monsters did to Niki. I can't do it. I can't separate you from that now. I don't even know who you are."
"Jack-"
He turned his back to him. "I'm not going anywhere with him."
"Go, Jack." Ellie pulled away from Shay with soot smeared on her rosy cheeks. "We need answers. If this can help stop Xander, then we need to do it."
Shay placed his hand on Jack's shoulder. "I will keep Elizabeth safe."
"Fine. But if Allen tries anything, I will not hesitate to kill him."
Mr. Allen's shoulders slumped. "Jack, I would never hurt you."
"Shut up with your lies. I'm risking becoming an echo by warping without my Time Knight, all so you can try to spread your lies and pretend to care about us."
Chronomancer Page 51