by N. D. Wilson
She had tried not to think about what she would find. She’d heard the guns and the shouting in the smoke. Even worse, she’d heard hours of silence after, broken only by the groan and crash of a shifting train car or by the squalling of an unseen vulture. She knew it wouldn’t be good.
But she had never expected this.
Squinting in the sunlight, Glory moved through the mounded ring of bodies. Sand had drifted over them, between them, and around them—hiding legs, arms, and even full torsos. There were more than she could count, and every last one of them was Father Tiempo.
Dozens of him. All shot dead.
At the outside of the ring, the priest’s hair was white and his face creased and hard. But as she moved carefully through the ring, he grew younger. His hair darkened. His face softened. The very youngest version of the man had fallen near the center of the priestly ring, beside the body of Sam Miracle.
A startled sob jumped out of Glory when she saw Sam. His shattered arms were black with cracking blood and pointing in a different direction at every bullet break. His eyes were shut, but his cracked lips were parted. His ribs rose slightly. And then fell.
He was still alive.
She dropped to her knees beside him, trying not to cry.
“Sam, I’m here,” she said. “It’s Glory. I’m here.” She wasn’t sure if she should touch him. Or where. Definitely not his hands or his shoulders or his arms. Oh, his poor, poor arms.
She touched his chest and felt his slow breathing. He couldn’t last very long. Not after losing that much blood. Not in the sun.
“Stay alive, Sam. I’ll think of something. Just stay alive.” She looked around at the piled-up priests. The story the bodies told was a strange one, but she thought she understood it. Father Tiempo had died defending Sam. And he had known that he would. He had sent his oldest self to die. And then a slightly younger self. He had died younger each time, giving more and more of the end of his life until . . . what? He had given too much?
She looked back at Sam’s face. A living version of the priest wasn’t here now. Was Tiempo dead for good or had he run out of life that he could spend? Or maybe he had just left Sam to die and had gone back to an earlier time to steer Sam into avoiding this next time.
No. He’d tried that already. He had said that he was risking everything on this one throw. She looked around at the priest’s bodies. That’s what he had meant. Father Tiempo had spent himself to save Sam. This moment and this attempt had cost him how much? She couldn’t say.
Sam’s eyes cracked open. They met Glory’s, and then fluttered. She leaned over him, holding their attention. And then his voice hatched out of his throat.
“Millie? Father said not to. I didn’t. I didn’t leave you.”
“Shhhh,” Glory said. She didn’t need to correct him. “You don’t have to talk.”
“Alive?”
Glory nodded. “You are. Yes. You’re alive, Sam. Be strong, okay? I don’t know what to do, but I’ll think of something.”
“Hurts,” Sam said. “Been here. Before.”
Hurts didn’t even begin to describe how bad he looked. Glory wiped her cheeks quickly. “Why didn’t you hide?” she asked. “Father Tiempo said to hide. To survive. But you tried to fight.”
Sam shut his eyes. Glory watched his throat spasm a swallow.
“The book,” he said. “I’m. Not. Poncho. Couldn’t leave you. Won’t.”
Tears darted down Glory’s cheeks, and another sob broke loose like a laugh. She’d told him Poncho deserved to die for leaving his sister. That she had wanted him to die at the end of the book. How could she be so stupid?
“I know you’re not Poncho. You’re Sam Miracle. The book can change. It already did. It will change more.”
Sam had fought. But Millie was gone, anyway, and the priest was pretty thoroughly dead, and Sam was dying in the sun. And even if he didn’t die, he would never use his arms the same way again. If he had arms at all.
“I’m so sorry,” Glory said. “I’m such an idiot, but I didn’t know we’d be living it. I didn’t know it could be real.”
Sam’s eyes opened again. They turned away from the train wreck.
“Water,” he said. “Please. That way. Been here.”
“Yes!” Glory scrambled to her feet and adjusted her backpack. She pointed. “That way?”
But Sam was unconscious. Hooking her backpack straps tight, Glory began to run.
THE CREEK WAS AT LEAST A MILE AWAY, OVER BOULDERS AND through dense tangles of sage, and it was more pale mud than water, but Glory couldn’t have been any happier to see it. She dropped onto her stomach in the mud and sipped off a trickle at the top. Then she filled her water bottle and ran back to Sam.
She trickled water onto his lips and into his mouth, but his eyes didn’t open. She thought about dumping water on his wounds, but that might cause more harm than good. If more harm could possibly be done to him. She settled for pouring the rest of the water on his forehead and neck and chest. He needed to be out of the sun, but there was no way she could move him—his arms might come all the way off. She stripped the black outer robes from two of the Father Tiempos, and then pitched them in a tent over Sam’s body, using dead cactus arms for poles. Then she ran back to the stream.
Back and forth, as the sun dropped into the west, Glory shuttled water. She bathed Sam’s forehead. She squeezed out cloths into his mouth and on his throat. She listened to him breathe. Finally, parched and blistered herself, Glory widened the tent, and wriggled inside. She didn’t watch the darkness fall. She slept.
Hours passed. Cold crept in under the coats and all the way into her bones.
Coyotes woke her.
Snarling in the darkness.
Glory snapped back into consciousness, her heart pounding blood and adrenaline through cold veins. She reached out and felt for Sam. He wasn’t breathing. She slid her hand under his shirt. His chest was still warm against her icy hand. And there was a breath, faint and ghostly beneath his ribs. Sam moaned slightly and Glory jerked her hand away. The snarling outside the tent stopped. But only briefly.
Holding her breath, Glory lifted the corner of her makeshift tent. A quick shape darted away. Two other shadows leapt and rolled and circled each other, growling. There were shadows all around, nosing through the bodies.
And one of them was creeping toward her. A big one. Head low and steady, shoulders rolling. Moonlight dying in the animal’s eyes. Glory didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. The coyote stopped, eight feet away, staring. Quick sniffs sampling the air. One leap and it would be on her. Glory wanted to scream, but a scream would draw all of them. This one might still leave. Dear God, make it leave.
The coyote raised a paw. But behind it, a swaying lantern was coming slowly down the tracks. As it approached, the other coyotes stopped their nosing and their snarling, and they turned. Finally, the animal closest to Glory stood up tall and turned with them.
A sharp whistle raced down the tracks and every coyote tensed. One more sent them racing away.
Glory gasped for air and shivered relief, but she wasn’t about to call for help. For all she knew, she could be watching Rattles or Tiny coming back for Sam’s body. She slowly lowered the tent flap and slid a little closer to Sam.
The lantern was on a small cart, pulled by a mule, led by a man. The man was humming something that swayed like a lullaby, mixing in a few verses of song here and there—some in English and some most definitely not.
The solemn bells are ringing
And though my grave is singing
I’ve yet to reap my corn
My sons are all unborn
So give Death a poison cake
Beside a quiet lake
And I shall steal his pony
The humming man was wearing high boots, a loose vest over bare skin, and a tall top hat. He led his mule and cart straight to the ring of fallen priests. There, he paused for a long moment, his face sorrowful in shadow. Then he removed his hat,
made the sign of the cross, took the lantern off the cart, and wove his way through the bodies to the tent of cloaks.
Glory held perfectly still. The man was bigger than he had looked. And old to be so straight and strong. His long white hair was bound back tight with a strip of black cloth. His mostly bare chest was crowded with necklaces, and his wide belt was hidden behind knives and bottles. With one hand, he lifted the tent and threw it to the side. Glory yelped and slid away. Without even looking at her, the man held out the lantern for her to hold. When she took it, he began to chant and hum quietly, bending over Sam, assessing his damaged arms with thick gentle fingers. Slowly, and with a very somber face, he folded Sam’s arms tidily onto his chest. Then, scooping him up easily, he carried him toward the cart.
Without needing to be told, Glory followed, holding the lantern high. The big man slid Sam carefully onto a bed of furs in the back of the cart, and then he turned to Glory.
“Daughter of tomorrow,” he said. “Do you choose to come with me or to die here?”
“What? I’m coming!” Glory said. “No way I’m letting you take him—”
The big man touched her head and her tongue wobbled to a stop. Thick rippling cold poured through her, relaxing every muscle, soothing her sunburnt skin, but somehow warming her insides. Her eyes shut. Her legs gave out. She didn’t even feel the large hands catch her and lift her into the back of the cart.
WHILE THE NIGHT ANIMALS WATCHED, THE GREAT MAN stood before the dark ring of dead priests. He drew a small paper card from his vest. Then, breathing a quiet blessing of farewell, he flicked the paper out into the ring, and returned to his cart. With his top hat back on, and the lantern swinging on the cart, he clicked his mule away.
The card whispered across the sand.
BROTHER, I WILL BE FALLEN BEYOND MY STRENGTH. CARRY MY BURDEN.
ATSA
THE TOP FLOOR OF THE ROYAL SHARON PALACE HOTEL WAS seven stories above the cobbled San Francisco street. But the rooftop tower rose another seven stories above that. It rose high above the shouting and the fighting and the chatter and the clatter of iron horseshoes on stone.
It even rose above the fog.
On the very top floor, in a circular room, carefully bent window panes shivered in their wrought iron frames as the morning breeze blew in off the sea. The sun had risen above the fog, and the world outside was a chain of hilltop islands, peering up through the flat blanket of cloud. The city was mostly hidden. The bay was invisible. But the sunlight roamed free.
Inside, sprawling on black silk sheets with seven gold-and-pearl watch chains in a tangle around him, William Sharon stared at the ceiling and wished that he had the energy to yell. He was that tired. And that disappointed. And now the sun was in his eyes.
He threw his arm over his face and groaned.
The bed was carved ebony, darker even than the black marble floors. At the head, two large feathered wings stretched up, almost reaching the gold vaulted ceiling. At the foot, two enormous talons gripped black globes—carefully mapped with the world. But the globes had been pierced by the talons and were collapsing into skulls.
In addition to the bed, the room held a hulking desk, a hulking fireplace, a hulking chair, and a tall slender bookshelf overloaded with books, files, journals, logs, and parchments rolled up like scrolls.
An iron spiral staircase rose up through the ceiling to the tower rooftop and receded down through the marble floor.
It had taken William fourteen years lived in one tower to accumulate all that he had. He had repeated days over and over until he’d gotten them just right—until all the right people had been killed, the right secrets stolen, the right properties burned—until he had maximized his gain. And then he had moved on to the next day. Some months had taken years. But the longer he had been at it, the more efficient he had become. Now, he could repeat a week once and know that he had squeezed as much blood and gold and power out of it as he could possibly squeeze.
William Sharon, aka Bill Rose, aka Bill the Vulture, aka Bill Buitre, aka Boss Buitre, aka El Buitre, had married and unmarried, murdered and unmurdered, invested and destroyed. He had shot judges and bought judges. He’d looked for the best gold mines in the future and had taken violent possession of them in the past. And he’d made even more money on failing mines. He had made friends incredibly rich, only to pluck their lives when the time was right.
And he always knew when the time was right.
He’d been a senator. And a bank robber. When his best friend and the founder of the Bank of California had finished building his mansion and had nearly finished The Palace Hotel, Bill the Vulture had crashed his most valuable asset (the Commodore Mine), created a run on the bank, and then pushed his friend into the San Francisco Bay with a hammer tap to the head.
The Vulture had taken everything—the bank and all its holdings, the mansion, the hotel, and a hundred other properties. He didn’t need anything more from this time.
El Buitre was ready to move on.
But he couldn’t.
He wasn’t repeating weeks now in order to gain. He was repeating weeks because he was still living in the month of his death. And the boy had escaped him again.
At first, it had been infuriating. And then boring. Now it had become insufferable.
What had the priest been thinking, dying like that? As Father Tiempo had scattered the outlaws through the years, they had cut him down easily. But he hadn’t stopped coming. He hadn’t stopped dying until the last remaining outlaws had fired their very last rounds and had been tossed through the centuries.
Tiempo was a fool. He could never get those years of his life back, and he’d laid them down for a boy already hopelessly broken. As good as dead.
William Sharon sat up on his vast bed. Seven pearly watch chains rattled behind him. He still hadn’t changed his clothes since returning from Arizona, and his sheets were full of sand.
A wide woman with gray-streaked hair pulled back into a tight bun stood beside the stairwell in the floor. One lightly tapping toe was just visible beneath her black floor-length skirt, and a bulging gray metallic blouse was buttoned all the way up into a lacy cuff beneath her fat chin. Her pale face was pillow smooth and pillow shaped, and she gripped a leather-bound book with short, thick fingers, tipped with silver nails. She had no eyebrows, and her eyes were deadly and burrowed well back in her face like twin vipers in twin dens, ready to strike any fool who might pass by.
She wore a large golden two-headed vulture brooch above her left breast. A clock was set in its feathered belly; two pearls were gripped in its talons.
William Sharon looked at her, and then looked out of his tower window, across the clouds. He wasn’t in the mood for Mrs. Dervish.
The tapping of her foot filled the room.
“What?” he said. “Speak, woman, and stop that tapping before I cut your foot off.”
Her tapping grew louder. When she spoke, it was like her shrill voice was dragging nails across the stone floor. “I told you this would fail, William. Unnecessary risks were taken. Do you even care what I think?”
“No.”
“May I remind you where you would be without me?”
El Buitre’s nostrils flared as he looked at her. “No, Dervish, you may not.”
Mrs. Dervish held up the big leather book. “The story had changed already before your attempt, and the boy was still doomed. Poncho would have come to you, William, if he dared. I could have protected you. We could have taken his heart at our leisure, but now . . . the priest will have hidden him again.”
William Sharon rolled his shoulders, his frustration simmering into fury.
“I do not require your protection, Dervish. I am in no danger.” He stared into the visible black tips of her eyes, licking his teeth beneath his thin lips. “But you are. Do not forget to whom you speak.”
Mrs. Dervish snorted. Holding up the leather book, she opened it, pages facing the Vulture. Raising her bald brows, she flipped through the
pages slowly, without glancing down.
El Buitre blinked in surprise. His lip curled, and he jerked his beard into a tighter point.
“Blank,” Mrs. Dervish said. “The priest has outsmarted you.”
“The priest is finished,” El Buitre snarled. “Pages have been blank before.”
“Never this many.” Mrs. Dervish took a step forward. “Not since the very first change. Anything could happen, William. Anything.”
Faster than sight, the Vulture slipped a knife out of his sleeve, flinging it at the woman. The blade flashed, and then Mrs. Dervish slammed the book shut like she was catching a fly. The long thin blade stuck out of the spine toward her face, but the handle was firmly trapped in the pages. Small dust tendrils spooled slowly away from the book.
“Madam, begone,” the Vulture said quietly. “You’ll have his heart. We will end this thing.”
“No,” said Mrs. Dervish primly. “We will finally begin.” She looked at the knife in the book, and then back at William Sharon, slumping over the side of his bed.
An elongated man in a tight suit and bowler hat was creeping up the stairs through the floor behind Mrs. Dervish. She stepped aside, retreating down the stairs on clicking shoes once the tall man in the motorcycle boots cleared the stairwell.
“Boss?”
“Don’t call me that,” William growled. “You know my name, Tiny. Get your bones all the way in here and tell me what you’ve learned. Where’s he hiding the boy?”
“I couldn’t say, Mr. Buitre,” Tiny said. His long fingers adjusted his eye patch and then picked nervously at the deep scar on his cheek.
The Vulture filled his chest. “I’ve given you a month in these last three days. A month.” He pushed back his long black curls and then scratched his thick mustache. “Tiny, you are useless. Shall I kill you? You were the Tinman once. You were a terror. Now you are a ghost, a gas, nothing more terrible to me than an unpleasant odor.”
“Sir, Boss,” Tiny stammered and pulled off his bowler hat. “Mr. Buitre, I’ve done my level best for you.”
El Buitre rose to his feet. He flexed his fingers and looked around the room. “Shall I strap on my guns and let you draw, Tinman? Should I be frightened?” He looked back into Tiny’s one eye. “Could you beat me? Are you fast enough to kill the Vulture? If you are, I’ll leave you everything. Perhaps Mrs. Dervish will chain these watches to your black heart and build you an empire across time. After all, there’s no point in my living”—he moved toward the lanky outlaw, raising his voice with each step—“if I can’t find the boy!”
