Timesurfers (37 page)

“Elias captured and tortured Cate and her
father?” Jonah’s eyes met Cate’s, clearly thinking about their
encounter at the Neon Posse. Elias was in Tempus Falls.

“I assume it was done under his directive.
You were so vulnerable until you came into your powers, Cate. Each
night I hoped with all my heart they would emerge. I was devastated
each time I healed you from the fire ants.”

“No! They weren’t dreams. You let fire ants
gnaw at me?” Cate pulled at her hair.

Mortez tugged a hand through her hair. “To
see if your powers were close. They always appear subconsciously
during sleep first. I always healed you.”

“Well, THANKS! That makes you so much less of
a monster,” Cate shrieked. Another piece of the puzzled clicked
into place in her head. She pointed an accusing finger at Mortez.
“You healed me when Jonah attempted to surf with me.”

Mortez nodded. “I wasn’t happy with Jonah at
all. I want you to be safe.”

“Well, news flash! Elias is here in Tempus
Falls, so the whole hiding me from him thing? Epic. Bloody. Fail,”
Cate screamed.

Silence resonated like a clear, crisp note
around the room. Out of the corner of her eye Cate sensed movement.
A bloodied knife lay on the floor where Zach had been.

The laundry door banged shut.

Cate whirled and bolted to the front door.
She yanked the door open and flew down the steps. The freezing air
burned through her chest mingling with the bitter mix of agony and
betrayal encasing her heart. There was no time for tears. Zach was
going for Eve.

Chapter 31

SORCERESS

C
ate sprinted along the damp, empty streets. She
hurdled painted picket fences and tore through hedges, oblivious as
thorns gouged her arms and face. When she finally paused at the
familiar red door of Eve’s house, her pounding heart threatened to
smash through her chest. The freezing air burned her lungs with
each gasp.

Lights blazed throughout Eve’s house. Cate
counted twenty silhouettes in the downstairs windows. This wasn’t
right. Eve’s parents weren’t party people. Hands on her knees, she
scanned the front yard. She knew Zach was here.

“C...C...Cate.” Eve stumbled out from behind
the enormous redwood tree in the front yard. Tears streamed down
her chin, and her arms were stuck at an awkward angle behind her
back.

“Eve!” Cate hurried forward but stopped
sharply when Zach appeared from behind the massive tree trunk.

“That’s close enough.” Zach wrapped his
fingers around Eve’s neck and raised his other hand to her temple.
Metal glinted in his hand. He had a gun.

Cate held her hands in front of her body.
“Calm down and think about this, Zach.”

“I’m completely calm.” Zach’s voice was
scarily calm.

Eve trembled with fear as silent tears
dripped off her cheek, creating wet blotches on her shirt. Red
marks flared on her neck as Zach tightened his grip.

Cate
manoeuvred
deftly closer to them. She had recovered
from a burning cannonball at the GTs, so that gave her every chance
of surviving a gunshot wound. If a bullet hit Eve and it wasn’t
fatal, Cate could heal her. The fewer bullets Zach got off, the
better though. If Eve sustained a fatal shot, Cate was screwed. She
could never make Eve a zombie.

Zach’s finger quivered on the trigger. That
was her opening. She sprinted forward. He panicked and shoved Eve
away to fire at Cate. An explosion of noise and white-hot pain
ripped through her chest, arm, neck, and leg. Zach had shot her.
Four bloody times. Zach offered no resistance as she plucked the
gun from his limp hand.

“But I shot you four times.” He blinked as
the gaping bullet hole in her chest closed, and the huge abstract
bloodstain on her shirt vanished. The whites of his eyes flashed,
they were forced so wide with astonishment.

She smashed his head into her knee. “That’s
for Eve! And this”—the gun cracked against his temple—“is for
shooting me, you loser!” she screamed at Zack’s unconscious body,
crumpled on the ground.

Eve’s hands covered her face as little by
little she slid to the ground.

Cate fell to her knees and face planted onto
the cold grass. She commando-crawled until she could touch Eve’s
foot. “It’s okay. You’re going to be fine.”

“I’m so sorry,” Eve sobbed. “I had no
choice...”

“It’s not your fault.” Cate patted Eve’s foot
and heaved herself onto her back. Warm blood trickled down her neck
and arm from the remaining gunshot wounds. A chill ran the entire
length of her back, making her teeth chatter. The idea of sleep
wrapped around her like a warm blanket. Maybe she could rest her
eyes for a minute before she healed the remaining gunshot wounds.
The second her eyelids closed, a sharp, short pain slammed into her
ribs. Two harder blows followed. She cracked one eye open. “Now you
arrive.”

“You could have compelled him to put the gun
down!” Rose snapped. “But no, you have to get yourself shot. Teens
are so dramatic.
Wake up
and heal
yourself. I can’t do it for you. Oh, no. This isn’t good.”

A wave of people streamed from Eve’s house.
Jonah joined Rose, a rueful smile on his face. “We’ll all have to
work together to stay alive against this number of Elias’s
people.”

Cate’s head snapped back. What were Elias’s
people doing here?

Eve dropped her head onto her hands and
choked out “sorry” repeatedly between her sobs.

“Heal yourself and get off your butt and
help!” Rose growled.

Jonah offered Cate a hand up. “I can do it if
you need me to.”

“No, I can do it.” Cate pressed her back hard
against the tree. She dug her heels into the dirt and inched her
body into a standing position.

Jonah and Rose had their heads close together
as their eyes darted around, assessing the situation. Mortez and
the boys joined the huddle, their eyes focused on Elias’s people
fanning out around them.

Fingers gripped Cate’s arm. She scuttled away
from the scorching heat. Austin had grabbed her. Sweat rivulets
poured down his cheeks, and his shirt was wringing wet. His face
glowed beetroot red.

“Whoa!” He fanned at his face. “Is it like a
thousand degrees out here, or is it just me? It’s time to do some
real fighting.”

“You’re in no state to fight.” There was
concern in Rose’s voice.

Mortez nodded. “I agree with Rose, which has
never happened before in this or any other time line. You’re in no
state to fight, Austin. You’ll be a liability.”

“I’m fine.” Austin staggered slightly.

Jonah grabbed Cate’s shoulders. “Your job is
to protect Eve. Nothing else. You stay with her and keep her
safe.”

Rose nodded. “That would be best.”

Eve grabbed at Cate’s arm with surprising
strength. “Stay with me,” she pleaded.

“Austin...” Rose raised her hands in the air.
“I know you won’t listen, but I’ll say it anyway. Sit this out.
Please don’t die.”

Austin smiled. “I’ll do my best.”

Guttural cries rang out, and everyone rushed
forward. The war was on.

Cate wanted to help. She was torn. Help fight
or protect Eve. As she deliberated, an enormous burst of light
erupted from a vortex swirling in front of Eve. “What the
hell?”

“Trust me. It’ll be safer on the other side.”
Eve heaved at her arm, but Cate refused to move.

“I’m not jumping in...through...that...What
is that?”

A violent shove from behind and Cate stumbled
forward. Before she regained her balance, Eve gave another almighty
push, and Cate tumbled through a kaleidoscope of light and face
planted on a cold, hard, and smooth surface.

Someone hauled at her legs, dragging her away
from the swirling light. Eve chanted a Latin sounding word three
times, and the vortex vanished.

“I repeat: WHAT THE HELL! We have to go back.
I have to help.” Cate clambered off the floor.

A whining meow caught her attention. An
enormous ginger cat padded toward them, its paws soundless on the
marble floor. It leapt gracefully onto a gigantic gold throne and
stared at them.

“Is that Polka Dot?” Cate stepped closer and
froze. Polka Dot had vanished, and the only male Cate knew who wore
black eyeliner and shimmering gold eye shadow sat in his place.
Polka Dot had morphed into Elias right in front of her. “I’m so
done with all this crap.”

Eve rushed and knelt at Elias’s feet. She
clutched at his gold toga. “I did what you asked. I brought you
Xavier and Cate. Now return my parents.”

“Indeed you did my little sorceress.” Elias
clapped his hands twice and Eve’s mother and father were
frog marched
into the
room, their hands bandaged.

So many pieces of the puzzle clicked into
place. When Eve was talking to her mother and Cate thought she
heard a man’s voice. Eve had been speaking to Elias. The afternoon
Cate saw Polka Dot and someone with a tangle of white-blonde hair
disappearing around the corner was the day Eve had left school
early for an appointment. Eve went to meet Elias. Jonah and Cate
had run into Eve at the Neon Posse when she was leaving after
seeing Elias.

“You have my brother.” Cate hissed through
her teeth at Elias. “And you...” An inferno of anger and betrayal
engulfed her as she stabbed a finger at Eve. “You kidnapped Xavier
and brought him to this psycho? And when the hell were you going to
tell me you were a SORCERESS?”

“I had no choice!” Eve pulled at her hair
like a mad woman. “Elias took my parents and sent me one of their
fingertips in a box every day for a week. He threatened their heads
would be next if I didn’t bring you and Xavier to him. I only took
Xavier after Jonah had kidnapped him. So technically I rescued him
from Jonah.” Eve sunk to floor and sobbed. “I’ve begged Elias to
take me instead of you. I’ve spent every waking minute since the
bus stop trying to create a spell that will let me do what you can
do. I CAN’T DO IT!” she screamed. Her normally carefully
dishevelled
hair
resembled a bird’s nest and her eyes were filled with anguish.

“You’re meant to be my best and only friend.
You’ve been lying to me for years!” Cate said in a quiet, fierce
voice.

“Oh, pu-leese!” Eve sprung up from the
ground. Her eyes flashed with anger. “You were supposedly in
witness protection the entire time I’ve known you, and you never
thought to mention that! And what about
your
mother, the evil, time travelling school
principal who wants to rule the world with the army of Timesurfers
she’s training under the guise of running a juvenile detention
centre. You never mentioned any of that.”

“I didn’t know about my mother...”

“Oh buy a vowel. Mortez is your last name
spelled backwards.”

“I never
realised
...”

“Your actual name is Hannah.”

“So?”

“All the female Timesurfers have palindrome
names. Your mum’s name is Emme. Rose’s first name is Anna. Yours is
Hannah. Then there’s Pip and mine is Eve.”

“I have no idea what a palindrome is. So I
don’t know what your point is about those names.”

“Palindromes are words that spell the same
thing backwards and forwards.”

“That’s more obscure that the Mortez thing.
No normal person has even heard of a palindrome, let alone could
make that type of connection.”

“Girls! Girls!” Elias clapped his hands and
signalled
for the guards
who had appeared at his side to surround Cate and Eve.

“You do know you’re carrying a spear? Careful
not to take an eye out with that.” Cate tapped at the blade of the
long spear in the hand of the guard nearest her. He promptly lifted
the spear and slammed the blunt end into her stomach.

“Never touch another man’s spear, Catherine,”
Elias tutted as Cate struggled to breathe, doubled over with pain.
“Girls, please don’t say anything you’ll regret to one another.
Everyone is in a highly stressed state trying to make the best of a
confusing situation.”

“Don’t
patronise
me, you gold dress wearing tool. This is
entirely your fault.” That earned Cate a blunt end of the spear to
her kidneys. “I want to see my brother.”

“Patience, Catherine. Eve, you did as I
asked, so I will send your parents home. Let’s see what’s going on
in the front yard before we return them, shall we?” Elias held both
palms toward the cream wall, which disappeared, replaced by a life
size picture of Eve’s front yard and everyone in it. The 2014 date
and time showed in the left hand corner.

Bodies lay deathly still on the grass. Rose
was alive and fighting three people, her damp hair flying around
her face like a weapon. Jonah was battling four hulking men close
by. Mortez and the three wise men were also fighting multiple
attackers. A group of Elias’s people had surrounded Austin. Blood
flowed down his face and his eyes were mere slits, they were so
badly bruised. His attackers were playing with him.

“It’s a real time picture of the past.” Elias
beamed at Cate. “Eve has an extraordinary flair for combining magic
and technology. I now have no need to wait for those pesky cubes to
reset every twenty-four hours, which is exceptionally useful.”

“Whatever you want from me will never happen
if Austin dies,” Cate hissed. “If Mortez, the boys, Rose or Jonah
die, you’re also screwed. You’ll get nothing from me.” Her hand
struck out like a snake and seized a spear from an ill-prepared
guard. She pressed the tip to the base of her throat. Now to see
how precious of a prize she was. “Call your Timesurfers back or
I’ll slit my throat.” She gave a defiant toss of her hair and
pressed the spear against her skin until warm blood trickled down
her neck.

“You can’t die. You heal automatically.”
Elias gave her a cursory nod and returned his attention to the
screen. “Austin is taking a savage beating. He’s a popular
target.”