Chapter Twenty-Seven
NERVOUS WAS AN UNDERSTATEMENT… I was scared as hell that I’d mess this whole thing up. I mean, what was riding on my success? Only the life of the president of the United States. Countless lives would also be lost if the president were assassinated publically by creatures that no one even knew existed; and let’s not forget that the events today could alter the time stream if I failed. No pressure, really.
On top of everything else, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to warp back to my time any longer. I had friends here. I also had Aldwin and Soren. I had so much more than I’d ever had in my own time. I couldn’t fail, but I could only hope that once we succeeded, I would be allowed to remain in 1904.
I finished pulling my hair back into a bun and secured it tightly with pins, strapped my dirks in place, and laced up my black-heeled leather boots. I wore a long, simple black skirt with a black, long-sleeved lace blouse. Pinning on a small, black hat with a black, see-through veil that fell over my eyes, I looked like a black widow, especially when I added my black, kid-leather gloves. I would blend in as much as possible with the men wearing their black suits, and that was all that mattered. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.
I left my townhouse on foot, hoping everyone else was in place. The streets were already filled with people heading to Town Hall to hear President Roosevelt’s speech. My boots thumped out a steady rhythm as I walked and kept an eye on the people I passed. It would have been nice to be able to take care of the problem before it ever got close to the president. But, of course, that would have been too easy.
I arrived at Town Hall just as officials were shuffling the crowd toward the designated spectator area. Once I reached the front doors, a man in a black suit and hat motioned for me to head in the other direction. “I’m here as part of the president's party,” I stated, stepping into his personal space so I could speak quietly because I didn’t want to make a scene.
His eyebrow rose, almost touching his non-existent hairline, and he smiled at me like a child who was entertaining him.
I stepped even closer, making him retreat a step, and his smile slipped in the process. “Perhaps you’d like to inform the president that you are keeping a member of Cerberus from doing her job—the one member who could very well save the president’s life… and keep the world from plummeting into absolute chaos.”
I’m not sure how I sounded to him—I didn’t have time to check my attitude or deal with anyone’s crap—but his eyes became as big as saucers, and he stepped back enough for me to enter the building. I followed him to the back of the building, where a large group of men were huddled around a small, round table, talking.
My reluctant companion walked over to the group and spoke into the ear of a ginormous man. He glanced in my direction and ran his eyes over me in a purely academic perusal before he walked over. I gawked at the giant standing before me and held out my hand, which he reluctantly shook with his much larger paw.
I cocked my brow at him. “I am going to assume that you are the head of President Roosevelt’s security, and I’m also going to assume that you didn’t get the position just because of how large you are. Nor am I going to assume you got it because of how intimidating you are. No… I prefer to believe that you earned this position because you are the best at what you do.” I clucked my tongue. “I would hate to make assumptions based on appearances, wouldn’t you?” I looked up at him, keeping my eyes wide and innocent.
He cracked a grin. “Touché, Ms. Hannigan.”
“Please, call me Sage. I’ll have to be close to the president during the entire speech, and just to let you know, I have three weapons on me and a unique ability that may also come in handy.”
I waited a second while he digested this info. His gaze quickly raked over me again, and I smirked as he tried to figure out where I could have hidden so many weapons. “You may want to rethink your disregard of women being capable enough to be a threat in the future. Luckily, I’m on your side.”
“Indeed.” This time, he looked at me with a bit of admiration when he held out his arm to me. I was suddenly nervous as he took me to become a bodyguard to the twenty-sixth president of the United States.
President Roosevelt didn’t waste any time. Everyone was briefed on the situation and the part I would play as a female bodyguard. If there was any shock from the other bodyguards over my sex, or the fact that I’d be acting as second to the president’s head bodyguard, I didn’t notice. I was way too busy focusing on the task ahead of me. I barely registered anything that was said around me, and before I knew it, I was flanking President Roosevelt as we headed out the front doors of City Hall to stand in front of a crowd of thousands of spectators… thousands of potential assassins.
As I stood on the patio in front of Town Hall, it hit me how hard it would be to spot a suspicious person. All the women wore long skirts; all the men wore suits in varying shades of gray, black, and brown. 1904 was just a little too perfect for someone trying to blend in.
The president approached the banister, which overlooked the audience packed into the area to hear his speech, and began addressing them in a booming voice. I stood back, a few feet to his right, and scanned the crowd. I was amazed at how quiet the huge group was as they listened to him.
An abrupt movement in my peripheral vision caused me to take a step toward the president. I saw several people standing around a figure on the ground, and two men lifted her up as if she had fainted. I watched as they moved through the crowd, and a man with gold-rimmed eyes turned and winked at me. Soren. The woman had been a threat.
I stepped back into my original position and continued to scan the crowd for anything peculiar. A few minutes later, there was a scuffle close to the steps of the patio where we stood. It looked like a drunken fistfight, and I caught a glimpse of a scarred face before he grabbed the drunk by the scruff of his neck and led him away.
So far so good. My body began to relax just a little. The president’s speech would be over any moment, and his bodyguards would get him quickly and safely out of Charleston. There was no doubt in my mind that two preternaturals had been taken care of by Soren and Aldwin, and I could only hope that they were the only ones dispatched to try to assassinate President Roosevelt.
Just as the president was wrapping up his speech, I saw a glimmer of bright yellow in the front row of spectators. I stepped closer to the president and put my hand lightly on his elbow. He didn’t act like anything out of the ordinary was happening, but my stomach lurched when I saw a pair of elongated eyes staring in my direction. Dear God. For some reason I had expected a vampire, but if a shifter began shifting in front of everyone here, it would be beyond explanation.
President Roosevelt’s chief security guard followed my line of vision, and his eyes widened when he found whom I was watching. The man’s face had already begun elongating, his eyes looked more animal than human, and his teeth had already lengthened into deadly fangs.
It seemed that luck was on our side—only the head of security and I had noticed the change taking place. I had to scramble to come up with a way to handle the shifter without drawing attention to him or myself. He didn’t give me the luxury of overanalyzing the situation, though. His eyes narrowed as he lunged toward the stairs leading up to the president.
A few people around him gasped when a growl erupted from his chest, but very few could track his inhumanly fast movements. Without thinking, I did what I was meant to do. I did what I was brought to 1904 to do. I warped.
My left hand was still on the president’s elbow as I ripped the power from deep within myself and hurtled it toward the crowd to encompass as far as it could reach. I bit my lip to keep from screaming out; it felt like my soul was being torn from my body. A warm trickle of liquid slid over my upper lip, and I quickly wiped the blood away with my gloved hand. I looked around myself and out into the crowd, nearly dropping to my knees when I saw the sea of people standing frozen like freaky, lifelike pieces at a wax museu
m. My power was stretched so far that I couldn’t track its edges. I had no idea how much I could encompass with my time-freezing powers, or how far those powers could reach.
I removed my hand from the president’s elbow and swung my eyes around to the shifter, who was frozen halfway up the stairs. I walked over to him and flinched. He had progressed at least halfway through his change. When I looked at his face, I felt like punching him. Moving the frozen half-wolf was going to be a difficult task. I pressed down on the center of my butterfly bracelet until I heard a little release snick, then jabbed the poisoned pin into the side of the shifter’s neck and began the foul-language-inducing task of hauling the half-furry man away.
Sweat poured down my face and back by the time I had maneuvered the creature’s body around the other frozen spectators and into a broom closet in the back of the building. Aldwin had told me that the poison coating the needle would knock out anyone—human or not—for several hours, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I ripped off the ruffled hem of my underskirt and gagged and trussed the shifter like a Sunday goose before I headed back to the patio.
Time Warper: Fated, A Sage Hannigan Novel Page 28