Blood in the Fire (Timelaws Trilogy) (2 page)

“Alright,” Luke agreed, “but don’t interfere.” For Mark’s sake, I tried to conceal my surprise. Mark kept Luke balanced and, though he never said anything, I thought Luke appreciated it.

Mark folded his arms but remained otherwise expressionless as he took a position behind Luke’s chair, leaning back against the kitchen counter. Luke looked at me. I waited for him to start talking, but instead, he let his silence fill the room. If Luke had transformed into a wizard right then and there before my very eyes, it would not have scared me any more than I already was. Finally, he spoke. “Elizabeth, I want you to give up your powers.”

Elizabeth

What!
I thought, breathless.

Mark didn’t move. His lips were pressed together so I couldn’t read his expression. Luke pointed a finger at me and emphasized his point. “From now on, you are forbidden using magic and from taking part in these missions of yours.”

I found my voice. “What! Why?” It wasn’t a question. It was a scream. I wouldn’t obey. The thought of defying Luke churned my stomach, but I hadn’t earned my Dark rank with a weak stomach.

On the other hand, I couldn’t live with myself if I gave up my responsibilities. My roll was not abstract. Mark and Luke were alive and safe because of decisions I made. Earth as a whole could fall to the wizards. As if those reasons weren’t enough, there was something else that compelled me too. My parents were fighting this war when they died. Continuing along the path they had started me on gave me a connection to them that I couldn’t bear to lose. I didn’t want to let Mom and Dad down.

Luke leaned across the table and looked me straight in the eyes. Determination was written all over his angular face as he started to explain.

      But I didn’t need to hear his reasons. “Luke, if it weren’t for Mom and Dad, you would have never let me cross the street by myself, never mind let me walk around town alone.”

He remained still. The unwavering gaze of his green eyes scrutinized my every word.

“You thought some thug was gonna jump me and steal my cash. When you finally did let me out on my own, you saw that I could handle myself in in a fight. I wasn’t going to bleed out on the end of some other guy’s blade.” My eyes looked to Mark for confirmation I was striking the right nerves. Mark always knew how to handle Luke better than I did. He nodded and I continued, “I can handle my magic too. What happened two days ago was an exception. Anton and I being so low on powers was a fluke due to a one-time event, like getting in a fight after getting drugged up for an operation; it doesn’t happen.” I was looking at Luke while I spoke, but when I finished, my gaze darted back toward Mark for more help. He gestured with his hand as if to say, “Keep going.” Luke was listening but he didn’t look convinced.
What else can I tell him?

“Prove it to us,” Mark suggested. “Today, you can take us on a mission with you. Show us you can take care of yourself.”

Today?
Mark knew that giving Luke time to consider would not work to my advantage.
We can’t. Anton and I still haven’t recovered our powers,
I told Mark telepathically. Our last mission had drained every operative in 1981. Two days ago, I couldn’t even conjure a shield. Mark didn’t seem phased. He just nodded as if to say, ‘I know, but let's do it anyway’.

“Yes, let’s go,” I said, reluctantly. “I’ll call Anton and the station and see what missions are available.”

Luke still didn’t respond. His gaze was calculating, scanning me as though I had some mystery to reveal. “Luke, I’m fine. People like me…I mean, people with powers, don’t go to regular docs because they never diagnose us right.” I looked at Mark for more help, but he just folded his arms and leaned farther back. “The doctor thought I suffered from exhaustion, but she was wrong,” I continued. “I was just low on power, that’s all.”
Come on Mark, give me something,
my eyes beseeched. He gave me a wink and painted a smug grin on his face. Not the help I’d been hoping for.

“Alright,” Luke said at last but his eyes were still working some invisible equation in his mind. “But not today.” My tense shoulders dropped as relief washed over me.

Thank you, Mark
. My goofy brother had been right all along. Luke would have never let me out of the house the day after I broke out of the hospital. But if I hadn’t been eager to go today, Luke would have said next week. By then, he would have made up his mind.

“Mark, you don’t have to work tomorrow right?” Luke asked. Mark looked at me and I nodded. It wasn’t nearly as much time as I wanted, but I couldn’t take the risk that Luke would change his mind. Anton and I would not be fully recovered, but we would have more magic than we did now. “Yeah, I’m free,” Mark said.

“Okay,” Luke agreed. “I’d planned to take the day off anyways to stay home with Liz.”

“You won’t be sorry,” I promised as I got to my feet. It occurred to me that I shouldn’t stick around in that kitchen one second longer in case Luke had a change of heart.

Mark

Liz scurried toward the backyard faster than a cockroach caught in a flashlight beam. Luke didn’t move a muscle as she left. He just stared off into the distance. Then, once she was gone, the hand he was resting on the dining table curled into a single trembling fist.

“It’s not easy parenting two teenagers, is it?” I asked. “Especially when one of them is me, and the other one can turn you into a rabbit.”

“Can she really do that?” Luke asked quietly. I walked around and took the seat Liz had occupied.

“I have no idea,” I replied. Finally, his gaze refocused, and he turned to me. His eyes glistened. They were fighting back tears.

My brother’s not soft. He’s the toughest guy I know. Tough enough to hold it together at our parents’ funeral because he thought we needed him to hide his fear. Did he think Liz and I didn’t know that his heart was breaking? And at the age of twenty, he abandoned his plans to go to college, got a job and took guardianship of my sister and me. That’s courage. But his face right now reflected the overwhelming burden that he bore on his shoulders. Liz nearly died and she was acting like the whole thing was no big deal.

“What am I doing?” he asked at last. “Aliens tried to kill Liz. They almost killed all three of us, and I just agreed to go along with her on some mission.”

I let out a long sigh. “She’s stubborn,” I said. “If you tell her she can’t use her magic, she’s just going to do it behind your back.”

Luke glared at me. “So my role as her guardian is to just go along with it?” he asked, tossing his arms into the air in frustration. “She makes the decision to fight in some kind of war, and I’m just supposed to say okay?”

He waited for an answer. Reassurances buzzed on the tip of my tongue, but I kept them to myself. My gaze fell on the kitchen faucet as I considered my response. I hadn’t tightened the knob and water dripped slowly into the sink.

Maybe if Luke pleaded with Liz long enough, she would see what she was doing to both of us and give in. But I knew better. Her obsession with magic consumed her. Enough to make her blind to Luke’s pain. The only thing I could do to improve the situation was reassure him. 

I was about to remind Luke just how bad-ass our sister was. This was a girl who was feared by the thugs and bullies at her school. Real thugs, with blades and criminal records. She had a developed a reputation for being able to kick butt.

He chimed in before I could start. “When I was holding her and she fell unconscious. Her blood was all over the floor and my hands and shirt. I thought—”

“I know what you thought,” I interrupted. "I was there.” Neither one of us needed to relive the moments before my two fingers on her neck felt her weak pulse.

But Luke didn’t stop talking. “Then yesterday, you came home and asked me if she was here, then told me she wasn’t at the hospital, and I swear to God, Mark, for the first few moments, I thought it was another dream.” Why would Luke think he was dreaming? Then, I realized: he must have been having nightmares that resembled that exact scenario. We’d both shared the unspoken fear that the wizards would come back for her.

“Mark, there was a chance magical aliens had my sister,” he continued, “and what did I do? I cleaned dishes.”

“Well, those dishes had been piling up for a while,” I offered. Luke shot me an irritated glare. He was right; it wasn’t funny. It wasn’t like I had come up with any bright ideas last night either. I searched the hospital. Then I came home to see if she had found a way back here. When I learned she was still at large, all I did was plant my behind on the couch and stare at the damn wooden door. If she hadn’t walked through, I don’t know how long I would have sat there, hoping for good news.

“There was nothing you could do,” I said.

“No, you’re right!” Luke exclaimed. “Because I couldn’t call the cops and tell them aliens might be trying to kill my sister. Child services would have revoked my guardianship so fast, Liz would already be in a foster house.”

“She is sorry,” I said. “You know how scared she is of hospitals. She just wasn’t thinking straight.” I wondered if Luke could hear the steady drip of water too. It was out of sync with the ticking clock and the noise was driving me mad. Still, I didn’t move to fix it.

“Yeah, I know she’s sorry,” Luke said, softening his tone. “Sometimes she acts so mature, I forget she’s a fourteen-year-old teenager. I expect her to be an adult. Then she goes off, pulls a stunt like the one from last night, and I remember she’s still a kid.”

“Nah, she’s not a kid. She’s more mature than I am,” I countered. “Which is why I think we should give her a chance. It might even be fun.”

Luke smiled. “It’s not hard to be more mature than a college student who still watches Tom and Jerry cartoons between classes,” he ribbed. I smiled too. I knew Luke couldn’t pass up an opening to tease me, and I’d purposefully handed him that one on a silver platter.

“Hey, don’t you go knocking the genius that is cartoon physics,” I said. Even though Luke had smiled, his eyes were still sad.

“Look, Liz acts like this world of hers is no-big deal,” I continued. “Maybe it’s not. Maybe what happened was some freak act of nature and once you and I get a chance to look into it, it won’t seem so scary anymore.” Luke picked up the glass Liz had been drinking from and took it to the sink to rinse out. He turned the faucet on and finally the dripping was replaced by a steady stream of water. I kept talking. “I mean she’s been doing this for years and she’s never come home hurt before. Mom and Dad got her started for goodness sake. Would they have done that if she was in real danger?”

Luke nodded. He placed the clean cup on the towel by the sink and turned toward me. “Thanks bro,” he said, rustling my hair as he walked by.

“We’ll go with her and then we’re both gonna feel better about this whole thing,” I replied. Luke was already half way to his bedroom, but I kept talking. “And in the meantime, if we get to kick some alien wizard butt along the way, well how cool would that be?”

Elizabeth

My mind tried to connect with Anton as I headed out to the backyard. Wet, damp air greeted me at the porch door: the remnants from last night’s storm. Mosquitos and small bugs hovered around in the still atmosphere.

After a few more attempts, I concluded that my boyfriend was out of telepathic range without a power boost. Short-range telepathy required virtually no magic.

Voices coming from the kitchen let me know that Mark and Luke were discussing something inside. The humidity out here was unpleasant, but I suspected the kitchen would even less agreeable. Instead, I surveyed the overgrown grass in our backyard. After last night, it was probably my responsibility to do the trimming. By tomorrow, I’d be deemed fit enough to start on my new allotment of chores. Choosing between a new mission and yard work, I decided it was worth another shot.

To my surprise, my boyfriend answered this time. He sounded groggy.

Sorry for waking you,
I apologized.
You didn’t get much sleep last night, did you?

Nah, what’s up?
Anton replied. He tried to sound casual, but we’d both been struggling to get a good night’s rest since our last assignment. It ended with me finding out that we were going to lose the war against wizards. It wouldn’t happen soon, or even in the next hundred years, but eventually, the good guys lost.

Anton was the only person I had shared this information with. The shock in his eyes when I’d told him had made me sick to my stomach. But we were both clinging to one small shred of hope. Our future comrades could still win the war if I could figure out a way to break the rules of time-travel. All I had to do to change the course of events was get a message to my friend in the future. Unfortunately, breaking this particular time-law seemed impossible.

My mind was tired of spinning around in endless circles, trying to solve a puzzle that, perhaps, had no solution. I could feel through our telepathic link just how drained my boyfriend was too. He was fighting sleep, despite the hour. We both needed a distraction.

Luke asked me to give up my powers,
I said.

A moment of shocked silence met my announcement.
What did you tell him?
Anton asked at last. I recounted to Anton the details of my conversation with Luke this morning. We agreed that he would grab lunch with my cousin, Tamer, and the two of them would get back to me with a trainee mission: something simple and safe. The last thing I heard through the mental link with Anton before we cut communication was the sound of his sister banging on his door and yelling at him to wake up and fix her blow dryer again.

I smirked at his misfortune, then decided to sit on the back steps for a while, in case my own family troubles waited for me inside.
What would it be like having my brothers on a mission with me
? I wondered. I pictured that first moment when Mark and Luke would realize they’d been teleported into space. Mark would utterly fail to contain his excitement. He would probably stand there for a moment, looking out the window, and then he’d leap into the air, hit the wall and yell, “I’m in space, baby!” Everyone at the station or on the ship would be staring at him and he wouldn’t give a damn. Hell, he might even hug one of the spectators.

What about Luke?
Luke was often too adult to get excited about much, but when he did, it was something special. There was a certain boyish sparkle he’d get in his eyes. It reminded me of Dad. Luke would probably stare out the window in sheer awe until Mark snapped him out of it. Then he would shake his head and laugh at his little brother. Sighing, he’d look at me, beaming, and he’d say, “I can’t believe I’m in space. I can’t believe you brought us here.” Seeing him that way would mean the world to me.

I was enjoying my daydreams. Thinking about bringing them into space was helping me quiet the anxious feeling at the pit of my stomach. How would Luke react to the mission itself? I could probably take him on something as simple and mundane as dragon hunting, and he’d still find a way to convince himself it was too dangerous for me.

“Hey, so is it all set?” Mark asked, walking out and joining me on our back steps.

“Yeah, we’ll meet after lunch tomorrow,” I replied. I purposefully left out the where.

“You know why I suggested today, right?” Mark asked. I nodded but continued to stare off into the distance. Mark picked up a twig by his shoe and started peeling back the outer layers of bark. He never could just sit and not be doing something. “Are you sure you’re up for a mission right away? I mean, you did just break out of a hospital yesterday….”

“I’m fine, Mark,” I interrupted. I leaned over and rested my head on his shoulder. “I’ll find us something real simple. Tell you the truth, I’m kinda looking forward to it or, at least, part of it.”

“Yeah, me too,” Mark said, grinning.

We sat there silently for a minute or two. Then I asked, “Did you know that in our society, Mom was a medical specialist?” Mark shook his head so I continued. “Mostly, she served out in the field as a medic, but her expertise was neurology. Not just humans either. She worked on over a dozen different alien species.”

Mark pulled away and turned to look at me. I guess he wanted to see my expression to make sure I wasn’t pulling his leg. I just smiled back.

“I guess it’s not too much of a jump from cats and dogs to aliens,” Mark said with an awed expression on his face. I’d never told him what Mom really did. She was a veterinary nurse back on Earth.

I laughed and dropped my head back onto his shoulder. “She was always complaining about her job on this planet,” I told Mark. “It drove her nuts every time she had to help put down an animal that she could cure magically. Of course, doing so would have broken our rules.”

“What about Dad?”

“He was a physics specialist like me. His expertise included electromagnetic and temporal phenomenon.” There was another moment’s worth of silence. At this point, there was practically nothing left of the stick Mark had been picking away at. He dusted the remaining pieces of wood off his hands and reached in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes.

“You know what I think you would have been if you had powers?” I asked. Mark was busy lighting up so I didn’t wait for him to respond. “I bet you would have been a diplomat or a mediator.”

Mark laughed so hard, my head fell right off his shoulder and I had to catch myself. “I can see it now, me walking up to a 300-year-old alien in my torn jeans and dirty tee. ‘Hey, welcome to our galaxy, buddy. Want a smoke?’” Mark offered his cancer stick to the imaginary alien in our yard, and I cracked a grin.
His first reaction to aliens would be to invite them out for a beer and a cigarette
.

“Yeah, Mark, you’d be perfect for the job,” I said.

Mark chuckled and shook his head as he contemplated the idea for a moment. Then, he laughed again at some private thought and moved to inhale another drag. “It’s gonna be a good couple of days,” he said. I leaned back against the doorpost and watched the smoke rise.

“Yeah,” I replied quietly. “I hope so.” The sky was turning gray again.