The Eighth Guardian (Annum Guard)

by Meredith McCardle

  “Twelve hours in the present, more or less.”

  “So if we stay two hours, we lose an entire day. We can’t do that.”

  “Well, I don’t want to project again.” Yellow sighs. “Look at this. Look at what he did to me.” She holds out her arm, and I recoil. Her stitches are crude, thick black strings snaking up half her forearm. “I can’t project again. Physically. I need to recover, at least for a night. I don’t care if I lose a day or a week or even a month. If I project again, I might die.”

  I rest my head in my hands. My life is literally racing past me. When I left the present yesterday, it was November. I’m not sure exactly how much time has passed, but it has to be weeks later, maybe even a month or so. And I’ve only passed a few hours.

  I could leave Yellow here. I never wanted her tagging along in the first place.

  I look down at her, sitting in the street with her legs straight out in front of her. Her patterned tights are ripped, her once crisp dress shirt is ruined, and her skirt is dotted with blood. Because of me. Yellow chose to leave Annum Guard and help me. I can’t abandon her. It would be like leaving an injured man behind on the battlefield. There are some things you just don’t do.

  I hold up my index finger. “One night. We’ll develop a game plan and figure out how we’re going to bring down Alpha. So tell me, Miss Nineteenth Century, is there a hotel we could check into or something?”

  “The Parker House,” Yellow says. “It’s the best hotel in Boston. I’ve eaten in the restaurant a bunch of times, but I’ve never stayed there. I’ve always wanted to.”

  I scrunch my nose. “And how exactly are we going to pay for that?” It dawns on me that when I ran away, I didn’t count on having to pay for things. Ever. I have exactly zero dollars on me. I haven’t eaten in a day. As the thought crosses my mind, I realize that I’m hungry. Starving. And thirsty. It’s as if I was blocking out all the discomfort because I was so high on adrenaline, but now that I can finally breathe, I’ve come crashing back to Earth.

  I place my hand on my stomach. “We need to eat. Do you have any money on you?”

  She pushes up, pulls a twenty out of her pocket, and looks at it. “This would more than cover a room and dinner, except that we might run into a problem right here.” She holds it in front of my face and taps on the lower-right corner, where the words 2008 SERIES are printed.

  I sigh. “So we have no money.”

  “And you’re in a muumuu, and I’m in a corduroy miniskirt.”

  “You sure you can’t project again?”

  “Positive.”

  I nod my head. “Okay.” I look down at the charm bracelet dangling from my wrist. My Hanukkah gift from Abe’s family. I hate to part with it, but sometimes you have to make hard choices. “We can sell this.” I shake my wrist.

  Yellow shakes her head. “No, you’re not selling that. It was a gift from your boyfriend, right?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “You told me it was a gift when you first started at Annum Guard. I just guessed it was from a boyfriend.”

  I can’t believe Yellow remembers something I told her in passing about my bracelet.

  “We’ll sell these,” she says. “Or one of them, at least.” She unscrews one of her diamond stud earrings and holds it up, then she drops it into my hand. “You have to do it, though. Those suckers were five thousand dollars apiece, and I think I might pass out when they give me, like, a hundred and fifty for it.”

  Yellow leads me down Washington Street and stops in front of a door. SHREVE, CRUMP & LOW is written on a sign out front.

  “Tuck your hair up and pretend you’re a man,” Yellow tells me before I go inside. “They’ll give you a better price.”

  “I’m in a flowered muumuu. They’re going to think I’m an asylum patient.”

  “Oh. True. Well, then, just do your best.”

  The man standing inside the jewelry store gives me a very blatant once-over, but all appearances are overlooked when I pull out that diamond stud. He tries to lowball me, but I talk him up to $175. I honestly have no idea if that’s a fair price or if I’m getting ripped off, but, oh well.

  Next, Yellow and I duck into a small clothing shop down the street and buy dresses and shoes that are good quality but at least ten years out of fashion. At least that’s what Yellow says. But we can afford them; that’s the important part. Then it’s on to the Parker House.

  The lobby of the hotel takes my breath away, even in 1894. Massive Corinthian columns line the room, stretching all the way from the marble floors to the coffered ceilings. Dozens of dome chandeliers dangle above our heads. We go to the desk, money in hand, ready with our cover stories. Yellow and I are the daughters of a foreign dignitary here in town on business. Our father sent us to check into the best hotel in Boston. But the man behind the counter doesn’t even blink. He gives us a metal key to room 303 and that’s that.

  Finally. Something is simple for once.

  The room is small, with two beds, a dresser, and a night table. Yellow collapses onto one of the beds, but I refuse.

  “Uh-uh. Get up. I’m starving, and we have to figure out a plan. We can rest later.”

  Yellow grumbles but pushes herself up off the bed. I grab the files and Alpha’s notebook, and we head downstairs into the restaurant, which is already filling up, even though it’s just five o’clock.

  When we sit, I glance around, sort of to make sure no one is eavesdropping on us but mostly to see where the damned waiter is with the dinner rolls. I toss Alpha’s notebook onto the table, and Yellow scoops it up at once.

  “Is this Alpha’s?” she asks.

  “Yeah.” I drum my fingers on the table and look around again. “I took it from his office. I haven’t gotten a chance to look at it yet.” Yellow’s already flipping through it. “There’s so much to process here. What I don’t get is why Alpha wants Ariel Stender dead.”

  “Who’s Ariel Stender?” Yellow asks, flipping a page. She doesn’t look up at me.

  “He invented these,” I say, fingering the watch hanging from my neck. “I already told you that.”

  I look around. Seriously, where the hell is the waiter?

  Yellow flips another page. “But who’s Ariel Stender? Was he part of the original Annum Guard?”

  “No, he’s still alive in the present. He’s . . . he’s my boyfriend’s grandfather.”

  At that Yellow looks up at me over the top of the notebook. Her eyes are wide with surprise.

  “Alpha told you to kill your boyfriend’s grandfather?”

  I nod.

  “And you considered it?”

  “No!” I hiss. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t ever—”

  And then the waiter sidles up to our table. Finally. Yellow ducks her head back to the notebook.

  “Good evening, ladies.” He sets a small basket of bread on the table. I have to restrain myself from jumping on it. “Have you had a chance to look over the menu?”

  I haven’t even opened it. Yellow’s sits untouched, too.

  “I’ll have the green turtle soup and the filet of beef,” Yellow says, her head still down. “Rare, please. Oh, and a side of the truffled duck in jelly.”

  I blink. Most of that sounds absolutely disgusting. I quickly glance at the menu and want to gag. Larded sweetbreads, kidney, mutton, tongue. I could never live in 1894.

  The waiter clears his throat.

  “The filet of beef, too,” I tell him. It’s like the only edible thing on the whole menu. “But medium, please.” On the outside, I might seem like a rare-meat kind of girl, too; but really, meat that is too pink and bloody and, well, raw makes me want to hurl.

  The waiter raises an eyebrow. “Medium? I don’t understand.”

  My head whips over to Yellow, and she quickly shakes her own. People haven’t heard of medium
in 1894? I look back to the waiter. “Um, just not rare. A little more cooked.”

  This doesn’t seem to clear much up, but the waiter takes our menus and leaves. I pounce on the bread basket and rip open a half moon–shaped roll with my teeth. I don’t pause to bother with the butter, and I sure as hell forget my manners. The roll is warm and buttery, and I could eat seventy of them.

  “Anyway,” I say. “It’s clear that Alpha’s up to something, so we need to figure out what it is and then come up with a way to stop him, which is going to be difficult, considering I’m apparently a wanted felon these days. Any ideas?”

  Yellow doesn’t even acknowledge that I asked her a question. She still has her nose buried in that damned notebook.

  I clear my throat and grab another roll. “Ahem, I asked if you had any ideas.”

  Finally she looks up. She has a bewildered expression on her face. “You haven’t read this?”

  “No,” I mumble with a mouth full of bread. I should have ordered an appetizer. “When would I have had a chance to do that? When I was running from you guys? When I woke up in a hospital room, and you showed up like a minute later? While I was breaking into a colonial house to get back your necklace? Huh? When in all of that free time was I supposed to sit down and do some pleasure reading?”

  Yellow shakes her head. “You don’t have to be so snippy about it.” She tilts the notebook at me. “It’s our missions. Every single one of them. I think Alpha was selling them on the side.”

  I reach over and snatch the notebook out of her hands. It’s open to an entry marked June 5 from last year. It reads:

  JL

  7.5

  I scrunch up my nose. “And how exactly did you come to the conclusion that this is a mission?”

  “Because of the date. June 5. I remember that mission. Green and I tampered with a Supreme Court decision on some transportation statute, then he tried to cop a feel before we projected back. I kneed him right where it hurts. I’ll never forget that day.”

  “What’s seven point five?” I say. “This doesn’t strike me as having anything to do with money.”

  Yellow grabs back the notebook and flips it to the beginning. “Look, here.” She holds it up and points to a page of entries. My eyes scan them.

  RF

  $5.75

  BB

  $2.8

  KP

  $3.0

  “He stopped using the dollar sign almost right away, probably because it was too obvious,” Yellow says.

  I take the notebook from her and flip forward a few pages. She’s right. The dollar sign is on that first page and then it disappears. I thumb through and find the JL entry. “So what’s seven point five? Seven and a half million?”

  “No way,” Yellow says as she shakes her head. “There are hundreds, thousands of entries in there. Alpha isn’t making several million dollars off each of them. He’d be a billionaire or something. Alpha doesn’t have billions of dollars, I can tell you that much. Seven and a half thousand, maybe? Or seven hundred and fifty bucks?”

  “Who’s JL?” I ask.

  Yellow shrugs. “Code for one particular person, I’d imagine. And I’d really doubt that those are initials. Alpha’s smarter than that.”

  She drops her napkin into her lap and reaches for the bread basket.

  “You ate all the rolls?” she asks in horror.

  I barely hear her. I’ve already flipped the notebook to the last few pages and am staring at the dates. The Boston Massacre mission is there. KA bought it for 50.0. Well, tried to buy it, at least. I failed that mission, as evidenced by the angry blue scratch mark through the number.

  Fifty thousand dollars. Yellow’s right. It has to be thousands. Alpha would have made fifty grand off that.

  The mission in DC with Senator McCarthy is there, too. OO bought it for only 3.0. Small potatoes. The Gardner mission’s there, too. That one went for a million dollars. Holy shit.

  I flip to the very front of the notebook. Looks as if Alpha started selling the missions in the early 1990s. Which means . . .

  I flip forward a few pages and feel the rolls I just pounded start to rise in my throat.

  It’s there. It has an entry. Alpha knew about the JFK mission. It wasn’t unauthorized at all. Alpha might have set up my dad.

  I stare at the entry. Alpha was set to make ten million off stopping the JFK assassination.

  Instead there were two assassinations that day.

  “We’re going to Dallas,” I say as the waiter sets down two plates, a low bowl of soup, and a rectangular serving platter on the table. My mind is racing.

  Yellow picks up her spoon and swirls it around in her reddish-brown soup. “Excuse me?”

  I toss the notebook across the table at her. “Someone code named CE bought the Kennedy assassination for ten million dollars.”

  Yellow swallows and sets down her spoon. Her face turns sour. “Look, I don’t know if that’s the best idea.”

  “And why not? It’s the only idea we have, and I don’t see you throwing out any suggestions.”

  “You’re saying we should go back to the mission where your dad died.” She says it like a statement, not a question.

  “Yeah. So?” I shove my knife through my steak and saw back and forth. It’s well-done.

  “So what do you want to do, stop your dad’s death? We can’t do that.”

  I set down my fork a little more forcefully than I mean to. The couple at the next table looks at us. The man is wearing a white dress shirt with a high collar and a gray-striped frock coat. His wife has on a long, corseted gown with ruffles. She raises her hand to her face as if she’s shocked by the way I’m acting.

  “What are you looking at?” I snap at her. Her face grows red, and she drops her gaze.

  “Iris, stop it,” Yellow says through gritted teeth.

  “No!”

  She kicks me. Hard. Right in the shin. “Stop making a scene,” she mutters under her breath. “You are the most selfish person I’ve ever met; you know that?”

  My eyes fly open. “I . . . what?”

  “It’s always you you you. What’s best for Iris? That’s the only thing you think about. And then you lash out at people who don’t immediately see things your way.”

  “You don’t know me at all, Yellow.”

  “Really? I think I do. You haven’t stopped talking about yourself since you joined Annum Guard. You were born in Vermont. You thought your dad was a Navy SEAL. Your mom is bipolar. You had to leave your boyfriend behind. No one likes you. Boo freaking hoo. Iris Iris Iris. All the time.”

  “That’s not true,” I whisper.

  “Really? So tell me something about myself then. I mean, other than the fact that you finally figured out who my dad and brother are, which, for the record, it kind of hurts my feelings that you haven’t mentioned it since I told you.”

  “I . . .” I open my mouth and then shut it. Because she’s right. I don’t know anything about Yellow.

  “Do you have any idea how much I sacrificed to be here for you? I left the only life I’ve ever known. I abandoned my family. And let’s not forget about this.” She thrusts her arm across the table.

  “I didn’t ask you to . . .”

  “You didn’t have to.” She pulls back her arm. “I like doing the right thing. And believe it or not, I think you’re doing the right thing. I want to help, but you’re not making it very easy. And now you’re talking about going back in time and stopping your dad’s death. That’s not what I signed up for.”

  I shake my head. But she’s right. God, she’s so right. I’ve been nothing but selfish since I joined the Guard. The only person I’ve thought about is me. How can I advance? How can I get the next level of clearance? You get what you give, and all I gave was negativity. It’s no wonder the others never really liked me. Wel
l, besides Indigo.

  Yellow’s brother.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I . . .” Everything running through my head about being out of my element sounds like an excuse, and I don’t do excuses. “You’re right. You’re exactly right. I’ve been really unfair to you. I judged you the first second I saw you, and I haven’t let that go. I’m sorry.”

  Yellow lets out a breath, and her shoulders relax. “Well, if I’m being perfectly honest, I totally judged you, too. And I resented your presence. Most of us didn’t like the idea of outsiders coming in and taking over the Guard. We probably weren’t as welcoming as we should have been. But everyone does think pretty highly of you. You’re smart. You’re resourceful. And you have some balls, woman. I mean, the Gardner. That was intense, and you didn’t even break a sweat.”

  “No, I pretty much wanted to piss myself the entire time.”

  Yellow’s face widens into a smile, and I reach across and grab the notebook. I flip it back open to the page of the Dallas mission.

  “Look, all I want to do is to go back to Dallas and figure out who CE is. This thing is like a spiderweb. We tear at one corner of it, and the rest will collapse. We identify CE, and that’s all the proof we’ll need that Alpha is corrupt.”

  “But why CE? And why Dallas?”

  “We’re not going to get any bigger than CE and this mission. Ten million dollars.” I toss the notebook back to her. “Flip through there and try to find another. But considering all we have are dates, it’s kind of hard to figure out what the missions are. Dallas is pretty much the only lead we have right now. Stopping the JFK assassination? That’s huge. We uncover CE, we rip away half that spiderweb.”

  Yellow flips through the pages. “But doesn’t that mean CE is going to have his tracks pretty well covered?”

  “Probably.” I pick my fork back up. My well-done steak is kind of cold now, but I’m so hungry it doesn’t matter. “We’ll have to work extra hard.”

  “And your dad?”

  I swallow a bite. “We’ll see what happens.”