Blood in the Fire (Timelaws Trilogy) (22 page)

Earth - June 1981

Elizabeth

“Wake up,” Luke demanded. His hand on my arm shook me out of a dreamless, vegetative sleep. I looked around. I’d dozed off on a library bench again. It was one of the few places around town that didn’t have traces of Mark haunting me from the shadows. Fortunately for me, the librarian never locked the doors or shooed anyone out at closing. I guess the neighborhood thieves weren’t the literate kind.

“It’s four in the morning,” Luke said. “Time to come home.”

I hated home. Everything there assaulted me with memories of my brother: his dirty laundry, the beers in the fridge, his football waiting for him on the patio, his toothbrush that neither Luke nor I had the heart to remove, the dumb book on my nightstand that he’d pretended to read when I was sick. The list went on. And that was after Luke had closed the door to his room and locked up the garage where all his paintings and art supplies were still laid out.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“Third time this week,” Luke said. He didn’t used to care if I stayed out late when it wasn’t a school night. Before, I just had to tell him where I was and when I’d be home. Things had changed.

“I’m sorry,” I said again and flipped closed the heavy binder resting on my lap.

“What were you reading?” he asked.

The question froze me in mid-motion. “Nothing useful,” I replied quickly as I stood up to shove the binder into my backpack. He grabbed my wrist and held it there.

“Let me see that,” he commanded.

I hesitated. “It’s nothing Luke. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Because the text is not written in English?” He grabbed my report and looked at the cover. Seeing the foreign characters in boldface print solidified his suspicions. With a flick of his arm, my report slammed back onto the bench. “What did I tell you about that stuff?” Luke asked. “What part of ‘no more missions’ don’t you understand?”

“Not everything in our language has to do with missions,” I replied. “We write novels, fiction and poetry. It’s not all danger and…” I trailed off. The word
death
hung off my lips.

“And that?” Luke persisted. “Is that a poetry collection?”

I looked away from him and deeper into the library. Rows and rows of wooden shelves, stacked high with dusty books seemed to stretch forever. It was the perfect setting for a nightmare or a ghost movie. The binder contained everything there was to know about the Timelaws spell. It was a report on implications, execution, known limitations and theories on interpretations and applications. Somewhere in there had to be the solution to bringing Mark back.

“Well?” Luke insisted.

“It’s just a report, Luke,” I replied. “Please, let’s not argue over nothing.”

“Okay, then how about we argue over the fact that you disappeared for two hours yesterday. Five hours the day before that.” His voice grew louder. I was grateful we were the only people in this section. “I looked all over for you.”

My eyes searched Luke’s tired face for any hint of what the right answer might be. If Mark were here, he would have known how to calm Luke down. My stomach clenched. “Yesterday, I was just up in the station reading. I swear I wasn’t doing anything dangerous,” I told him.

“And the day before?” he asked.

“There was an emergency.”

“I knew it!” he exclaimed. “Liz, you’re grounded. You don’t leave the house unless I say so.” His fist wrapped around my elbow and started pulling me toward the door. I didn’t resist, but my free hand reached for the binder. Luke used his grip to twist me around as he went for the report himself.

“Give it back,” I demanded. Luke and I had argued several times since we got back from the ship. The last one was because I’d missed Mark’s funeral.

“This? You’re joking right?” He held the report above his head with disdain. “I think this family has had more than enough of this,” he said.

“Luke, please,” I demanded quietly. “I need that.”

“What you needed is a good scolding. Maybe if I had reined you in better from the start…”

There it was. Why couldn’t either of us bring ourselves to say it?

“I wouldn’t have gotten involved with magic, and Mark wouldn’t be dead,” I finished for him.

Luke stared at me as though I’d just dumped a bucket of ice water on his head. For a moment, we both regarded each other. It had been obvious from the start that Luke blamed me. Maybe if he would just say it, we could stop pretending that my relationship with my older brother would ever be the same again.

“Mom and Dad wouldn’t have let it happen,” he said at last.
Huh?

“Luke, no,” I objected. “Mom and Dad wouldn’t have done a single thing differently. They couldn’t stop death any more then you could.” Shakily, I reached out and rested my hand on his arm. Luke and I had not comforted each other since it happened. It felt foreign to be interacting with him in some way that wasn’t fighting or silence.

Luke met my eyes with a sheepish smile. “I guess that’s true,” he said. “All that power they had, and in the end, they were run over by a train.”

I dropped my gaze. “That’s not what happened,” I said under my breath. “A wizard killed them.”

“What?” Luke asked. I remained silent as he absorbed the news. “Even after that, you still kept doing this?” he accused. And we were back to fighting. At least it was familiar.

My mind searched through the words that would explain to Luke why his family was so dedicated to the wizard war, despite the great losses. It was at that same moment that I received a telepathic message broadcast to all Darks within range: a distress signal. “Luke, I have to go,” I said. “Keep that binder safe for me. The information inside is confidential.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he protested. Too late. I’d already begun the teleportation spell. In the last moments, as I was fading away from beneath his grip, I repeated once again the same two meaningless words that seemed to make their way into every one of our conversations: “I’m sorry.”

Earth - June 1981

Elizabeth

Kneeling down by the trunk of a tree, I took a heavy breath and stared at the corpse lying face up in the tall grass. The moonlight illuminated his deadpan face so that he looked like a stunned ghost: frozen with his eyes wide and his mouth agape.
Please don’t let him be a father,
I prayed. It was always harder to break the news when there were kids involved. I wondered why. Mark’s death wasn’t any less painful than my parents passing had been. In fact, it was worse.

I turned away from the cadaver and crawled through the grass to the next tree over. My mind was just so tired of thinking about Mark. Could this man’s death have been prevented? I perched myself against the trunk so I faced the Caribbean beach. He must have died within seconds of sending out the distress call. It didn’t take me long to get here, but apparently the time to recite a teleportation spell was more than he had.

“Liz?” someone asked.

I looked into the forest and saw a shadow heading toward me.

“I’m here,” I told Anton. He pushed his way through the vegetation, but paused when he caught sight of the body. “The danger’s over,” I confirmed. “You didn’t need to come.”

“Luke called Tamer,” Anton replied as he walked around the man and lowered himself next to me. “Your brother worried when you disappeared.”

“Geez, I barely left,” I complained. “He’s changed.”

“So have you,” Anton countered gently. “You know you’re not supposed to respond to calls until you’ve been psychiatrically cleared.”

“Yeah, well, talk to Tamer about that. He refused to even consider approving me for missions for at least another month.”

Anton smiled. “You know he’s right,” he whispered into my ear. I shifted again so that Anton could lean against the tree while I rested on his chest. We sat there and watched the distant waves crashing against the sand.

Anton was the first to break the silence. “Luke told me you’ve been disappearing almost every day,” he said. I didn’t respond. Did they really expect me to just sit at home?

“Did you get Naimi back to Francis,” I asked at last.

Anton nodded. “Yes, she’s safe now,” he said. Then a smile entered his voice. “Francis gave me an earful about you turning her into a turtle, though. It took us a while to figure out how to change her back.”

“Us?” I asked. Anton knew how to undo a shape-shift.

“Well, it was funny,” he offered mischievously. “I guess I didn’t care to be too helpful.”

I started to chuckle, but sharp pain between my ribs stopped me mid-breath.

“Are you okay?” Anton asked. His eyes examined me and stopped when he saw the dark spot on my green tank-top. “Liz, you’re hurt.” He started to reach for my shirt so he could see the wound, but I grabbed his wrist.

“I’ll get to a medical center soon,” I told him. “I just want to stay here a little longer. It’s peaceful.”

“Medical center. You can’t heal it yourself?” Anton frowned, “How serious is it?”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Just a little tricky to get the heal right.”

Anton hesitated, as though he was considering arguing the matter, but after a moment, I felt the muscles in his arm relax. “What happened?” he asked.

“Not much,” I said. “A wizard and I fought. I won.”

“You should have called for help,” Anton reproached. “I would have come.”

“There was no need. I had him.”

“He got through your shield,” Anton countered. “You should have called me.”

“He didn’t get through my shield,” I protested. “I never put it up. And calling for reinforcements would have defeated the point.” Only after I said the words did I realize how counterproductive they were. Anton slipped out from behind me and came around to look at me. His brow furrowed with anger and disapproval.

“And that’s why you’re not supposed to answer distress calls after an emotional loss,” he said. His voice grew louder. “Coming into a battle situation without your shield on! What were you thinking?”

“The wizard was weak,” I replied. “He was going to run.”

“And?” Anton asked.

“So I kept my shield down to make him think he had a chance against me. It was the only way to keep the scum here long enough to win…” I took a deep breath, ready to continue, but Anton cut me off.

“I can’t believe you took a risk like that,” he said. “I looked at the reports of your recent assignments. You’ve made a few foolish choices, but this is unbelievable.”

“Foolish?” I asked. “It was necessary. You used to understand that.”

“No,” he objected. “What I understand is that Luke needs you. You’re all he has left. If there’s a chance a wizard’s going to get away, then you let him get away. It’s not worth your life.”

“I told you, I had him. He gets away, he kills someone. That’s on me. That’s why we take risks. To protect people. When did you change sides?”

“Liz, look around, the wizard was clearly lured here.” Anton pointed to the man on the ground “Our guy over there started this when he set up a trap on this island. If your wizard had escaped, he would have just headed home.”

Anton was right about that much. Wizards rarely worked alone and a thick chlorine scent lingered in the air. The smell was the signature of a Dark spell often used to try and knock wizards unconscious. It comes from a gas that only targets their kind, but takes a long time to produce.

Anton grabbed my arm and looked into my eyes. “Liz, I haven’t changed and Luke hasn’t changed. He always worried about you when you were gone.”

My fingers curled into a fist. “You’re saying I changed?” I accused. “What you’re forgetting is that this man was on our side, and he probably targeted that wizard for a reason. Perhaps our enemy might not have been about to kill someone right away, but you really think it wouldn’t have come around to that eventually? Give me a break.” With a jerk of my wrist, I pulled my arm free.

“So we find out what that reason was,” Anton argued. “And then we go after him again, in force and with a plan. Not like this. Never like this.”

Anton was talking nonsense. He knew I was tough enough to handle the wizard. I’d won after all. It was silly to let the old geezer get away. But I didn’t want to fight anymore. I was tired of arguing with everyone. “Anton, why don’t you go home and let Luke know I’m okay. I’ll go back to my room after I’ve healed and informed the family.”

He regarded me coldly. The first signs of daybreak brightened up the cloudless sky, making his face seem to glow white with disapproval. We watched each other in silence. “Let me stay,” he said at last. “We can see the sunrise and then I’ll go inform the family.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted him here anymore, but I nodded and turned away. Anton scooted closer to me and placed his hands on my shoulders so he could pull me back to lean against him. I remained stiff. He didn’t deserve to cuddle with me. “I wasn’t trying to start a fight,” he said.

“Yeah, well,” I replied. Salty breezes were beginning to overpower the chlorine scent. The pain in my abdomen was making it harder to breathe. My lungs drew in a slow, careful breath. Anton tried to pull me close again and this time I let myself fall back onto his chest.