Ricochet Through Time (Echo Trilogy Book 3)

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  I frowned and hunched my back. Neither sounded appealing.

  The apartment my mom and I’d lived in over the shop for pretty much ever popped into my head, but a second later, I dismissed the idea of going there. Though the vivid image in my mind showed it exactly the same as we’d left it last spring, I knew our things had been moved out months ago—some moved here, into this bedroom, others put into storage elsewhere on the compound. The idea of being there when everything was wrong wasn’t remotely appealing.

  I perked up, feeling a tiny, triumphant smile curve my lips. The apartment might’ve been eerily empty, but the shop wasn’t. It had been closed for months, but it was still there, just as my mom had left it. It was the perfect place to watch the videos in privacy.

  “Kat?” Aset’s voice reminded me I’d been quiet for too long.

  “Oh, um, sorry.” I scooted off the bed and slipped my bare feet into cozy, wool-lined boots. “Yeah, I’ll be right—” I caught a glimpse of my splotchy, tear-streaked face in the standing mirror by the wardrobe. “I’ll be down in a few minutes,” I said, amending my response.

  “Lovely. I’ll let Tarsi know. I’m sure she’ll be excited.” Aset’s retreating footsteps moved down the hallway, then descended the stairs.

  I shuffled into the bathroom and turned on the sink. A few splashes of cold water and a couple minutes usually did the trick. I should know—I was a pro at this, after all.

  ***

  In the grand scheme of things, I don’t really matter. Not compared to everything going on with Lex and Marcus and ma’at and the fate of the universe. That fact was made abundantly clear when I drove one of Marcus’s many cars off the compound with nothing more than a nod from the Nejerette on duty at the gatehouse. I didn’t even have permission to borrow the Lexus. Not that I was breaking any rules, exactly. Probably. I just hadn’t asked.

  Nobody cared, anyway. Whatever. I didn’t mind.

  But also, I kind of did.

  My pride probably would’ve been wounded, had I much left, but Dom had been doing a pretty admirable job of beating any excess pride out of me, figuratively speaking. For the most part.

  I skipped several dozen songs on my iPod before giving up and driving the fifteen minutes to the ferry terminal in quiet, just the hum of the engine and the road sounds filling the silence until I parked. I used to love music. My mom had always hated my taste in music. Now I could barely stand my old favorites, either.

  While I waited for the ferry to disembark, I stood bundled in my long, puffy down coat at the bow of the upper deck and stared down at the water, thinking it was exactly what Lex would be doing were she in my place. She adored ferry rides, using pretty much any and every excuse to take one. The faux fur lining the rim of my hood tickled my cheeks with each icy-cold gust of wind. I shivered.

  Lex was probably lazing about the Tuscan countryside with Medieval Marcus right now, so I doubted she’d really be feeling like she was missing out on this particularly frigid ferry ride. She was supposedly in fourteenth-century Florence now, having just arrived, according to Aset. I smiled to myself, imagining pregnant Lex materializing right in front of Marcus, who in my mind was wearing some ridiculous getup that consisted of tights and one of those puffy-sleeved doublets. Remotely, I hoped she’d found a way to make her phone’s battery stretch. I desperately wanted to see pictures when she got back.

  Splat.

  I glanced down at the deck. About a foot to my right, a fresh, clumpy white blob of bird poop glistened in the crisp December sunlight. I looked up at the seagull swerving back and forth overhead, just beyond the bow. “Not cool, dude.”

  And I swear that little feathered bastard’s beady eye locked on me right before he released a second slimy missile.

  I took a step back just in time, the seagull crap landing where my right boot had been a second earlier. “Asshole.”

  The bird cried out.

  With one last glare, I turned and headed into the ferry’s warm interior, following the signs to food and drink. I needed something warm. Maybe not coffee. I was already antsy enough; I didn’t need to be jittery, too. Hot chocolate, then.

  Which, as I found out a few moments later, turned out to be from a packet. But for the hot water and sugar, it was totally worth it. I sat in one of the empty booths near the stern, warm and cozy within the ferry’s cabin and hands curled around my Styrofoam cocoa cup. I stared out the window at the expanse of glittering gray-blue water.

  It was easy to zone out during the thirty-five-minute ferry ride. The clear winter sky overhead was a crisp, icy blue; the late morning sun was shining, reflected by the ruffled surface of the Sound. In no time, I was in Seattle.

  A half hour after leaving the ferry, I was hopping off the bus in Capitol Hill. I crossed the street to the east side of Broadway, where my mom’s long-closed shop, The Goddess’s Blessing, still occupied prime real estate between a novelty shop and a hipster cafe. Marcus owned the building, so it wasn’t like my mom and I ever had to worry about losing the shop or our apartment above. It was the biggest way my mom had let him help us out, and she’d made him accept a rent check every month.

  I never understood why before, but I got it now. Pride and shame. I was starting to wonder if every human action and interaction could be boiled down to pride and shame.

  My key slid into the lock easily. Part of me had expected the keyhole to be clogged or rusty from months of disuse, which seemed stupid in retrospect. I pulled the door open, holding my breath when the little copper bell overhead chimed, alerting nobody of my arrival. The sound sparked a string of bittersweet memories.

  I stepped out of the sunlight and into the dark shop, breathing in the stale, dusty air. It was scented overwhelmingly by the rich, spicy, floral, and earthy aromas of the incense and essential oils that had pooled within the stagnant space. Eyes watering, I coughed into my sleeve and turned around to twist the lock on the glass door, then rested my forehead against the metal frame and closed my eyes. “Welcome home,” I murmured.

  Air from months ago coated the inside of my lungs, a time capsule more real and evocative of the past than anything I’d ever viewed in the At. Of course, maybe it was less about the smell of the place and more that I’d pretty much grown up here.

  I made my way past dusty display tables of the stones, figurines, and New Age–chic trinkets my mom had adored to the back of the shop, stomach twisted and achy. Slowly, almost hesitantly, I passed through the heavy beaded curtain of quartz, amethyst, and moonstone beads blocking off the doorway to the back room. This was—had been—my mom’s favorite place. She’d spent more time in here than in her own bedroom. Literally. There were nights she would send me upstairs but would remain down here, doing readings, researching, crafting.

  And by crafting, I’m not talking about glue guns and papier-mâché. You see, my mom was a Nejeret carrier, and carriers are special: not quite like us, but not quite human, either. They’re a whole brand of other, unique all to themselves. They don’t get to live forever or benefit from superhuman healing and heightened senses, but they haven’t totally lost the genetic lottery, either—especially not if they know what they are and what they’re capable of.

  Some people call it a sixth sense, or insight. It’s the eyes in the back of parents’ heads and the gut reactions some people feel so distinctly they can’t not trust them. It’s the unshakeable sense of déjà vu, the heebie-jeebies, the mother’s instinct. It’s the sense of knowing, in your heart, what can’t be known. The realization that wakes you in the middle of the night. The hairs that stand up on the back of your neck. The urge that makes you pick up the phone just before it rings. It’s all part of being a Nejeret carrier.

  Many carriers are born, live their lives, and grow old totally unaware of their full potential. Others, like my mom, are raised knowing what they are, fully aware not only of the wondrous world closed to them but of the mysterious in-between that belongs to them alone. And some carriers, like my mom, capitalize
on their unique abilities.

  Fortunes were her expertise, mostly palm reading and tarot cards, but she discovered early on that she had a talent for sensing physiological vibrations. She could read people better than most Nejerets who’d had thousands of years’ experience. Or rather, she could read most people. She hadn’t been able to read an Apep-possessed Set, my father—shudder—and hers.

  The thought was truly vomit-worthy.

  And my mom must’ve been fooled by Carson, both before and after he’d been possessed by Apep. My lip curled into a sneer. I wished I could bring Carson back to life just to kill him slowly. His death had been way too fast and far too painless. He deserved worse. More. But I couldn’t bring him back to life, so I’d have to settle for hunting down the other members of the Kin instead.

  I shrugged off my messenger bag and set it on top of the round table in the center of the room, then pulled a tablet from the bag with shaking hands.

  At the sound of a key being fitted into the lock of the shop door, my head snapped up. The bell over the door jingled, and I spun around, fingers clutching the tablet. Through the beaded curtain and the shadowed shop floor beyond, I could see only a dark silhouette backed by blinding sunlight.

  “Mom?” It was irrational, I knew. She was dead, I knew. But part of me fully expected her voice to be the one that answered. My whole body tensed, waiting. Hoping.

  “It’s me, Kitty Kat.” It was Nik.

  I covered my mouth with my hand just before a sob broke free. I leaned back against the table and hugged the tablet to my chest, taking deep breaths. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Nothing,” I snapped. Who did he think he was? This was my place. Mine and my mom’s. Nik had no right to be here, let alone to pry into my business.

  “Not true,” he said. “You’re definitely doing something. Sharing is caring, Kitty Kat …”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Thanks, but teens aren’t really my thing.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Hmmm …” His silhouetted hand traced along the edge of a display table. “Don’t think so.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Why are you here?”

  “Curiosity.” He wasn’t moving and I couldn’t see his face, but I had the disturbing impression that he was watching me through the curtain.

  I was quiet for a moment. “Yours?” I asked. “Or Re’s?”

  Nik started across the shop floor, slowly nearing the beaded curtain. “Re thinks you matter. He claims you’re important for some reason—you’re fated to be the catalyst for something epic.”

  That was the last thing I wanted to hear. “Like what?”

  “Don’t know. He doesn’t share everything with me.” Nik stopped in the doorway, just on the other side of the beads. “All I know is that if you run off and get yourself killed now, everything he’s worked so hard for will turn to dust and blah blah blah …”

  Can I just point out how not happy I was with the revelation that Re thought I was important. What bullshit. I did my important thing, helping break Lex out of Apep-Set’s prison in the At back in June. It was a way more important thing than I’d ever expected to do in my lifetime—help to rescue the literal mother-to-be of the gods, the messiah of our people, the world, and the whole damn universe—and I’d paid the price for mattering. I was stuck in the body of an eighteen-year-old. Forever. And let’s not forget that my forever could last thousands of years.

  So yeah, I tapped out from doing important things after that. Washed my hands of mattering. Re was free to think whatever the hell he wanted to think about me, but it wouldn’t change a thing. I was done. Done.

  I straightened my spine. “I have no intention of getting myself killed.”

  “Oh, Kitty Kat …” Nik stretched out his arms and planted his hands on either side of the doorframe, then pushed his face through the curtain. “So naïve.”

  26

  Watch & Learn

  There was nothing I could say or do to make Nik leave. Sure, I could’ve packed up and left to watch the video files elsewhere, but I had little doubt that he would follow me. It wasn’t like I hadn’t anywhere else to go, anyway.

  “Just don’t break anything.” I watched him through the beaded curtain while I fished the thumb drive out of the zippered pocket inside my bag. “And don’t turn on the lights,” I added as his hand hovered over the switch on the wall to the right of the doorframe. “I don’t want anyone thinking we’re open.”

  He lowered his hand. It wasn’t like he needed any light, anyway. He was a Nejeret; he’d be able to see more than well enough once his eyes adjusted to the dimness.

  “Would it be so bad—people thinking you’re open?” he asked.

  I pulled out a chair and sat—not my mom’s vintage violet armchair, but the other, smaller padded chair clients used to use during their readings. It was where I always used to sit when I was there after school, doing homework or playing on my phone when I wasn’t covering for my mom out on the shop floor.

  “We’re not—the shop isn’t open.” I turned on the tablet. “It’s probably in some sort of legal limbo now, anyway.”

  “It’s not.”

  I stared at him through the curtain. He tossed his long, black leather jacket onto the checkout counter, then thumbed through the business cards displayed on the end, his back to me. “What do you mean?” I shook my head. “How do you know—”

  “Dom transferred everything of your mom’s over to you.”

  “I—” I swallowed and licked my lips. “What?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “What?”

  Nik straightened, and he looked at me, his eyes glinting in the shadows. “File number seventeen. Watch it. You’ll understand better.”

  I glanced down at the thumb drive. “You’ve watched them?”

  Nik moved on to the outdated fliers posted on the bulletin board hanging on the wall beside the counter. “Marcus made the whole Council watch them all. His attempt to nudge the other Council members out of inaction.”

  “It didn’t work.” It was impossible to keep the bitterness from my tone. If the Council of Seven wouldn’t man up and go after the Kin, then I’d do it for them. Actually, I preferred them sitting on their thumbs. It would keep them out of my way.

  Nik’s shoulders rose and fell. “They’re afraid.”

  I snorted. They’d be stupid not to be—and however slow the Council was to act, intelligence and wisdom were not things they lacked. Which apparently made me a moron, because all I felt was hunger for the hunt … excitement for the kill. “Are you afraid?” I asked Nik.

  He laughed, a harsh, dry sound. “I’m bored.”

  I plugged the thumb drive into the tablet’s sole USB receiver. “And what—you think following me around is the most direct route to excitement?” I still didn’t really know why he was here, other than the bit of insider information he had from Re. What did he want? “Awesome plan. How’s that working out for you?”

  “It’s yet to disappoint.”

  I frowned and muttered, “Well, don’t blame me when it does.” Reaching into my bag, I pulled out my headphones. “Will you be able to entertain yourself for a couple hours?”

  Nik grunted. “We’ll manage.” We. Right, because he wasn’t alone. Far from it. He’d been sharing his body with a being with near-infinite knowledge for thousands of years; they probably still had tons to talk about. Like me, apparently.

  I tucked the earbuds into my ears, adjusted the tablet’s volume, and opened the thumb drive. My eyes scanned the file names, unconsciously searching for number seventeen. As it turned out, it was one of the files with “Kat” and a timestamp written in parentheses at the end of the date-time file name.

  Tapping on the video file, I shot a quick sideways glance to the curtain but didn’t see Nik. He must’ve moved into one of the alcoves to study the jewelry in the glass cases or the crystals, stones, and candles on the boo
kshelves. Whatever. So long as he didn’t intrude further, I didn’t really mind him being there.

  The video opened, engulfing the tablet’s small screen. Once again, my mom appeared. She was sitting on the far side of a table, facing the camera, just like before. Only this time, she wasn’t in the underground holding cell but in a white-walled room, empty but for the table and two chairs.

  I watched with bated breath as Dom came into view and sat in the chair opposite my mom. His body didn’t block the camera’s view of her, but that didn’t stop me from scooting my chair closer. Like it would make any difference.

  “Let’s continue where we left off yesterday,” Dom said, and my mom nodded.

  She watched him, attentive. Willing. I could see it on her face. She wanted to help.

  I cleared my throat, and I leaned in closer.

  “Tell me more about the relationship between Mei and Mari,” Dom said.

  “What do you want to know?”

  I had no idea who or what they were talking about, beyond the fact that Mei had supposedly been the leader of the Kin before Carson freed Apep and she was killed—maybe even by his hand. And I only knew that much because Neffe and Dom had been talking about it one morning at the breakfast table and hadn’t heard me come down the stairs. Sometimes it was like they all forget that I, an out-of-the-loop Nejerette with pretty dang good hearing, lived there, too.

  After double-checking the timestamp at the end of the file name—16:07—I slid the progress bar to the right, too curious and impatient to wait a whole fifteen minutes for them to get to the relative good part. I needed to know what Nik had been talking about just a moment ago, not to mention what Dom had deemed significant enough to note as being of specific interest to me. Like, now.

  “… and I respected her for that,” my mom said. “Mari was the closest thing Mei would ever have to a daughter. Mei loved her unconditionally … would’ve done anything for her.”

  “So you felt you could relate to Mei?”

  My mom didn’t say anything, just nodded and turned her face away from the camera. She was crying. My own eyes stung with tears.