by Gary Jonas
“You're a hard man to read, Jon. Some of what you say is sincere, but there's something lurking beneath the surface that feels off kilter, and I don't like it.”
“You're being well paid to jump Rayna through the hoops I've set up to make sure she doesn't get hurt. I'm not breaking any laws.”
“Right. I need to leave now. I've got a missing-person case to follow up on and paperwork to do on a divorce case. Your money is nice, but this little gig needs to be finished by Saturday. I don't care how much you're paying; this whole thing just rubs me wrong.”
“Our business will conclude on Saturday.”
He rose, shook my hand, and walked out.
I followed him out of my office but stopped at Esther's desk. When Parker was gone, I tapped my fingers on the side of the desk. “Esther,” I said. “We need to talk.”
“You're going to close the office,” she said.
I nodded.
“Figures.
“I'm going to give you a nice severance package, but today is your last day here.”
“I haven't finished typing the book.”
“It was never going to be published anyway. If you want to relocate--”
“I like it here in New York,” she said. “I have friends here, and I can't imagine living anywhere else.”
“In that case, I have this for you.” I pulled a letter of recommendation out of my jacket pocket and handed it to her. “I typed it myself.”
She opened it and gave it a once-over. She shook her head. “You should have had me type it. You made four typographical errors in three paragraphs.”
I laughed. “I'm a terrible typist,” I said. “You can retype it if you like.”
“That won't be necessary. It's charming and it will make it obvious that I didn't write it myself.”
I placed an envelope full of cash on top of her typewriter.
She stared at it for a time then stood and gave me a hug. “Thank you, Mr. Easton. I don't think I've ever seen this much dough in one place before.”
“You deserve it, Esther. You can take the rest of the day off.”
She clutched the envelope close to her stomach and backed up to the door. “I'll see you at Mr. Winslow's funeral,” she said.
I nodded. “Of course,” I lied.
She took one last look at the office and walked out of my life.
I sighed, sat down in her chair, and ran my hands over the typewriter.
It was still brand new. I thought back to the day I walked into my office at Shade Investigations so many years in the future and first saw the ghost of Esther Carmichael. I remembered the way she smiled when I saw her and took several steps back.
“Oh!” she said. “You can finally see me! Isn't that the berries!”
Her smile was contagious.
I thought about that typewriter and how for the longest time I had to lug it around if I wanted Esther to be near me. As a ghost, she couldn't move more than fifteen feet from it. I remembered when Blake Ravenwood chucked the typewriter out the window at Dragon Gate Industries and blew it into myriad pieces. How I felt when I thought I'd lost Esther, my ghostly friend and companion. And how relieved I was when she wasn't really gone, but could now pop over to any piece of that typewriter.
I considered how she'd gone back in time with me and recalled our problems in 1877 and how we patched things up when I stopped being such an idiot.
And I remembered the year 1900.
That was the year she faded out of existence because she'd been born, and I'd had to say good-bye to her spirit for the last time. And I remembered melting the last of her typewriter keys because I'd been warned not to have them when the typewriter was actually manufactured years later.
The first day I'd seen Esther in the flesh, it was difficult to rein in my emotions, but I was an old man, and I had a plan to keep her alive. That plan required keeping her close until Henry was gone. Now she'd walked out the door, and I would never see her again.
I couldn't go to the funeral. My future self would be there, and I didn't want him or Kelly or even Naomi to see me. This was the one risky part, but I'd covered my bases because I sent my grandfather Arthur Shade a letter telling him not to come to the funeral. He was a twenty-one-year-old man living in Denver, and he was just coming into his own as a wizard. He couldn't come because that's where Esther met him in my original timeline. And Esther mailed him the typewriter beneath my fingers right before she killed herself to be with me.
I couldn't take any chances. So Arthur Shade was told to stay away. I didn't want him anywhere near Esther. I didn't want her to die and go on as a ghost for eighty-some-odd years, alone and unable to talk to anyone. I didn't want her attached to this typewriter. I didn't want her to fall in love with a man like me. She deserved to live a good, safe life, and I took every precaution I could to make sure she wouldn't have any positive interactions with the original Jonathan Shade. Now she thought of him as a murderer, so she'd keep her distance.
I shook myself back to the present. The typewriter was wet. I touched my cheeks and realized I was crying.
I wiped my tears, picked up the typewriter, walked over to my open office window, waited until the coast was clear, and threw the Underwood at the sidewalk as hard as I could.
The typewriter bounced hard but didn't shatter.
“Son of a bitch,” I said. Why did they have to make things so much stronger these days?
I sighed and walked down to the elevator, took that to the ground floor, then headed outside to retrieve the damned typewriter.
Kelly Chan stood on the sidewalk holding the Underwood. “Did you drop something?” she asked.
CHAPTER EIGHT
There are times in life where we have to face things long before we're ready. Truthfully, we're probably never ready for the things life throws into our paths. How many couples are really ready to become parents when they get the news they're pregnant? How many people are ready to lose their parents? I was not ready to talk to Kelly. I refused to look her in the eyes. The last words she'd spoken to me before she was cut into pieces by sixty hatchets some fifty years ago were about Winslow, “Jonathan, promise you'll kill the son of a bitch.”
I'd broken that promise.
“I'm sorry,” I said.
Kelly thought I meant about dropping the typewriter. To her, I was a stranger. An old man wearing a nice suit who tossed a typewriter out the window, but my words carried a much heavier weight for me because I was sorry for so much more.
“That's all you have to say?” Kelly asked. “You could have killed someone.”
“I don't do things like that . . . anymore,” I said. I kept my eyes on the street.
“This was a perfectly good typewriter,” she said.
“I'll take it back,” I said, stepping closer without looking up at her.
“You threw it away,” she said. “Why should I give it back to you?”
“I'm sorry,” I said again and turned to go back to the building.
Jonathan Shade stood in my path, and he held a gun trained on me. “Jon Easton,” he said. “Henry Winslow's godfather.”
“Not officially,” I said.
“You're a difficult man to research, Mr. Easton.”
I shrugged.
Shade squinted at me. “And you have yet to ask me who I am.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“A better question is who the hell are you?”
“Jon Easton,” I said. “I own Jon Easton Magic, Incorporated. I was Henry Winslow's manager. I booked his gigs. He was a stage magician. Have you heard of him?”
“Nice try,” Shade said. “Henry Winslow was a powerful wizard until I put a bullet in his head.”
“That would certainly put an end to his career,” I said.
“Anything you want to say to me, Mr. Easton?”
“Have you thought about turning yourself in to the authorities?” I asked.
Shade laughed. “Get a load of this guy, Kelly.”
“There's something about him,” Kelly said. “Something a bit off.”
“Are you going to shoot me right here in broad daylight?” I asked.
“Not unless you force my hand,” Shade said. “Look me in the eyes, Mr. Easton.”
“I'd rather not,” I said.
“Very well, let's take this conversation up to your office.”
“Again, I'd rather not,” I said.
“It wasn't a request,” Kelly said and grabbed me by the back of the neck. She pinched hard and guided me toward the door. She had the typewriter tucked under her other arm, resting on her hip.
“You don't have to hurt me,” I said. “I'm an old man.”
“That's not a good enough reason to keep me from hurting you,” Kelly said.
Samuel saw us coming and opened the elevator. “Going back up so soon, Mr. Easton?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Sam, I need you to go call the police. This man and woman are trying to abduct me.”
Shade sighed. “That was stupid,” he said and aimed his gun at Samuel.
Samuel raised his hands.
“It's all right, Sam,” I said. “He won't shoot you. Go call the police.”
“Sam,” Shade said, “look at me.”
Samuel looked at him.
“Mr. Easton is wrong. If you step out of that elevator, I will shoot you. I won't kill you, but I will shoot you in the kneecap. Do you want to walk with a limp for the rest of your life?”
“No, sir.” Samuel's eyes were wide, and he looked ready to pass out.
“Then stay in the elevator and take us to the thirteenth floor.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kelly released me and pushed me forward. I stepped onto the elevator. “I'm sorry, Sam,” I said. “He wouldn't have shot you. He was bluffing. You're perfectly safe so relax. Breathe.”
“You don't know me, Mr. Easton,” Shade said.
“I know a lot more about you than you think I do,” I said.
“That's what concerns me.”
“Going up, sirs and madam,” Samuel said. He looked like he wanted to cry.
I placed a hand on his shoulder. “It's all right, Sam. Just breathe. You're not in any danger.”
“Says you.”
Shade shoved me to the back of the elevator and pushed his gun up against Samuel's temple. “What do I look like?” Shade asked.
“I don't see nothin',” Samuel said, his eyes clenched shut.
I wanted to punch Shade. I would never have intimidated an innocent this way.
“I know where you live, Sam,” Shade said and rattled off an address. From the look on Samuel's face, I knew it was correct. “Don't do anything to make me have to come visit you at home.”
“I won't, sir. I promise.”
“You're a grade-A asshole,” I said.
He pointed the gun at me, but this time I met his gaze. He hesitated when he looked into my eyes. There had to be an uncomfortable familiarity for him because it was certainly there for me. The problem was that I really didn't like what I saw in his eyes. He looked far more dangerous than I ever thought I was. We sometimes wish we could see ourselves through other people's eyes, but I'm not sure that's such a good idea.
We rode the rest of the way in silence.
When the elevator door opened, I patted Samuel on the back as I stepped off. Shade and Kelly followed me, and Samuel practically sank to the floor as the doors were closing.
“That was a dick move,” I said. “Sam is just an innocent kid.”
“Whatever, Jon. I already don't like you. Get your ass into the office. You're going to answer some questions.”
“Why would I answer any questions?”
“Just do as he says,” Kelly said. “We don't want to be here, and you don't want us here. Help us to help you go home alive.”
I entered the office and started toward my door.
“Sit at your secretary's desk,” he said.
“Fine,” I said and sat in Esther's chair.
Kelly placed the dented typewriter in front of me. “The sooner you cooperate,” she said, “the sooner we're out of your life.”
“I doubt that,” I said.
“Don't piss me off,” Shade said. “It's been a shitty day, and I'm not in the mood for any more crap.”
I leaned back in Esther's chair and folded my hands in my lap. My bangs fell into my eyes since I wasn't wearing my hat, so I blew a shot of breath up to get them over a bit.
Shade glared at me. “Who are you?” he asked.
“You know who I am,” I said. “I'm Jon Easton, Mr. Winslow's manager.”
“You're more than that.”
“I'm a father of two young men who grew up to be lawyers. I married a woman I met on a stagecoach many, many years ago. I watched her die of the flu shortly after giving birth to Timmy, our second boy. I moved to San Francisco and lived next door to a widow named Mary Winslow, who had a son named Henry. As he and Timmy were the same age, they became friends. I sort of became Henry's surrogate father. I worked as a journalist for a time then sold insurance. When Henry started dabbling in magic, I saw he could do things other people couldn't. I advised him to make sure it seemed like sleight of hand, and I helped him create a stage show. We traveled a lot, made a little money, met other magicians, including Erik Weisz, better known as Harry Houdini. Erik introduced us to the Freemasons and talked us into signing with the Society of American Magicians, and we settled here in New York eight years ago because some of my investments paid off. We'd be heading to London for another show next month, but you murdered Henry, and now I'm closing down the business. How much more do you want to know?”
I'd mixed enough fact in with the fiction that if he'd done any real research into Jon Easton, he'd know I was telling him enough of the truth that he ought to accept the rest.
“Were you there when the college kid punched Houdini in the stomach and killed him?” Shade asked.
“Houdini is still alive,” I said. “And he's been punched in the gut by many people with no problem. He has strong stomach muscles.”
“Houdini doesn't die until next month,” Kelly said.
“He's busy debunking psychics and mediums,” I said. “What makes you think he's going to die next month?”
“I don't care about Houdini,” Shade said. “I care about getting home.”
“Then go home,” I said.
“It's not that simple.”
“If you need magic, that's not in my wheelhouse. I can't even do card tricks.”
Shade paced the floor. Kelly stood still and watched him.
“Are you planning to kill me?” I asked.
“Shut up,” Shade said. “I'm thinking.”
“Don't hurt yourself,” I said.
He glared at me. “Don't piss me off,” he said.
“Jonathan,” Kelly said. “Calm down.”
Shade put his back to the wall and slid down to a sitting position. He buried his face in his hands.
Kelly walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We're going to get home. I don't know how, but we will.”
“She wasn't there,” Shade said. “She wasn't fucking there.”
I didn't have to ask to piece it all together. Sharon sent him back the same way she'd done with me, but in my reality, Sharon had already betrayed me, so I half expected some sort of double-cross. Shade must not have had the same experience because he didn't have Esther, and his Naomi lived, and he didn't have Brand. So he fully trusted Sharon.
And she betrayed him.
The poet Maya Angelou said something that always stuck with me. When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. I hadn't quite learned it the first time with Sharon, but after she and Chronos pushed us to go on this temporal mission and didn't give us time to think about it, I realized something was wrong. I was supposed to kill Henry Winslow in ancient Egypt, but I held back. Something told me all was not what it seemed.
Events p
layed out so it seemed like he'd betrayed me, so when I saw him again in 1877, I tried instantly to kill him. I failed. I kept trying. When I couldn't kill him, I killed his father. In a very real sense, Henry was a pretty good person until I pushed him to be bad, so I'd spent the past fifty years working to set that right so he'd be a good person again. Now my younger self murdered him, but that had happened the first time around, so that completed that time loop. Time is layered. I wanted to set enough in the standard grooves that things wouldn't change much until I pushed them. So far, so good. The problem was that I hadn't taken into account the original Shade and Kelly finding me.
It was time to improvise and start pushing. It was sooner than I wanted, but I had plates spinning in the air, and those were still under control. I just needed to smooth things out a bit here and there. Step one was to push them away from those spinning plates.
“Do I have to sit here listening to a crybaby?” I asked.
Kelly spun toward me, nostrils flaring, eyes narrowed. “Stay out of this!” she said.
I spread my hands. “I can come back when he grows a pair.”
She reached out and grabbed the edge of Esther's desk. She flipped it across the room, and it crashed into the wall, cracking the plaster. Kelly leaned down to get in my face, but when she got close, I smiled and whispered, “Big, bad Kelly Chan, a Sekutar warrior created by the asshole wizards at Dragon Gate Industries.”
She backed off and stared at me. “What did you say?”
I kept the smile on my face and continued whispering so Shade couldn't hear me. “Born November 17th, 1978, but reborn as a magically engineered assassin in 1997 after more than ten brutal years of training and suffering. Sent back in time by Charon from the Underworld to accompany Jonathan Shade and Naomi Miller on a mission to murder a wizard named Henry Winslow.”
“Naomi Shade,” she said. “Who the hell are you?”
“What's going on?” Shade asked.
Kelly motioned for him to stay where he was.
“Look into my eyes,” I said.
“If you try any wizard bullshit, I'll kill you.”
