Even though I was still on the floor, I lost my equilibrium. I put my palms flat as my vision blurred. When it cleared, I stared up at my mother. Not an ounce of emotion crossed her face.
“How is it that you haven’t given Jack ‘trouble’?” I asked. “Why hasn’t he taken your memories?”
“I know how to block him. He’s the one who taught me how, back when we were both in Memphis.”
Jack looked like he regretted the choice.
“Too bad she didn’t learn the trick.” I gestured to the woman beside Jack. “Whoever she is.”
“I’ll introduce you.” He took my arm and hauled me to my feet. “Cat, you’re being rude. Shake hands with Hallie.”
Cat stared at Jack for a long moment.
He nodded, and she made a grab for my hand.
My very bones vibrated the second she touched me. Time slowed down, my body roaring as if an electrical fire burned under my skin. Something that felt like a rectangular piece of metal branded the skin below my collarbone.
“Let go,” I screamed over the sound of the wind in my ears and tried to jerk my arms free, but got nowhere. “Let me go.…”
Cat’s mouth formed an O shape as her skin tightened on her already skeletal face. I was draining her energy. I felt it flowing through me. To Jack. His hand was still on my arm.
All the noise and activity dissipated in a rush. I hit the ground again.
Cat followed.
A mere husk of the woman lay crumpled in a heap. Aftershocks of power surged through me, but I ignored them and put my fingertips on her throat, searching. She looked like an addict who’d taken things too far. Desperate, starving, ruined.
Dead.
Jack held a spinning purple sphere in his hands. It gave off a crazy, glowing light, and crackled with electricity, just as I had thirty seconds ago. I’d seen Poe with something similar. Exotic matter.
“It worked,” Jack crowed, mesmerized. “She transferred Cat’s ability to me.”
Whether Cat had been willing or not, she’d overdosed on Jack Landers and his ability to take away pain. He had been her illicit drug.
I looked at the dead body beside me and wondered if he was about to make me his next addict.
Dune
I hadn’t underestimated the power of the Mississippi. Muddy, churning, and teeming with life, the current pulsed strong and willful. The closer I got to its banks, the more it pulled at me. Regulating my intake of air was the first step to maintaining control, the second, exhaling.
The desire to see what I could do was powerful, flowing through my veins faster than my blood. The desire to keep Hallie alive was stronger.
The cab dropped me off just below the Port of New Orleans, and I followed the coordinates Lily had texted me. They led to a docked riverboat. I could see Hallie lying on the deck. Jack Landers stood beside her, holding a spinning ball of exotic matter in his hands.
The loading dock was at the other end of the boat. I approached it at a run, slowing down as I crossed it, and only then to soften the sound of my footsteps.
Chapter 25
Hallie
Fast as a snap, Jack lost twenty years. His pale hair brightened to blond, and his skin glowed with color. His cane hit the ground, and he left it where it fell.
“Exotic matter. First step, complete.” Jack tossed the light up, and then mimicked hitting it with a bat. It shot out like a home run, highlighting a veil behind him.
Mother waved to a couple of men by the paddle wheel and gestured for them to pull in the loading dock. No one could get on or off the boat without it, even though we were still tethered to shore, which meant I was on my own.
“You have what you wanted,” she said. “I’m sure it’s all you hoped for.”
My stomach roiled with the consequences. We’d known the Infinityglass could possibly transfer powers between people with time-related abilities, but we’d focused on dealing with the rips.
“It’s all we hoped for,” Jack said.
I started a slow crab walk backward. Jack was beside me in seconds, hauling me up by the arm. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
“Don’t make me do that again.” I felt like crying, but I didn’t want to show Jack an ounce of weakness. “I won’t.”
“You will, because that’s your purpose.” He steered me to a bench by the ship’s railing. “I have records. Years of information about people with time-related abilities. You’re just one of the tools I need to possess them all.”
“One of the tools we need,” Teague said, the mocking tone slight, but present. “Right, Jack?”
“What are the others?” I asked.
She pointed to my neck. I reached up to find the pendant I’d noticed her wearing in Audubon Park.
“There’s nothing standing in the way now. We have everything we need,” Jack said, beaming at my mother.
My mother smiled in return. Jack didn’t know her well enough to understand what a smile like that meant, but I did.
“Not everything. You’ve forgotten something very important, Jack.”
“I didn’t forget—” He faltered, sensing something amiss in her expression. “But … I helped you find the pendant.”
“You participated, but you didn’t discover what activates an Infinityglass, and if you remember, that was part of our deal.”
“I can still find out. We have endless resources now, and a way to use them, thanks to you.” As he tried to wheedle his way into her good graces, I wondered how long she’d had him whipped.
“Maybe I already know.” Her words slipped over me like cold silk. “But if you ever do, you’ll have a weapon to use against me. One I can’t block.”
She waited. Let it sink in. Everything about his demeanor proved he hadn’t anticipated the double cross. Then she made her move.
The amount of energy Mom pulled from him was double what I’d experienced when Jack had used me to drain Cat. I was now transferring two abilities, his and Cat’s, to my mother’s body. The current ran through me again, and the same pain seared my skin under the pendant. In addition to the burst of electricity, flashes of memory crowded my brain: a crying girl, with auburn hair and brown eyes; Poe, with a knife to his throat; a little boy, running into the path of a car.
Grief, anger, terror, and then it was done. I slumped back onto the bench as Mother gave Jack a hard shove. He pitched over the railing into the river.
Dead before he hit the water.
Dune
Jack Landers left no legacy other than a wake of destruction. Teague brushed his touch off her coat and forgot he ever existed in the same breath. The Hourglass’s biggest perceived threat had been nothing but a pawn.
Hallie pointed to something around her neck. I slid closer to her and Teague, keeping my back to the main cabin, grateful the crew was busy making preparations to launch.
“You were wearing this the other day. What does it do?” Hallie asked her mother.
“It’s duronium. If your skin is exposed to the pendant for an extended period of time, it reacts with your body chemistry and serves as a conductor. Creates the connection between those who have time abilities. Whoever you touch first receives the ability.”
“Or whoever touches me first.” Hallie dropped the pendant. “You had on a turtleneck at the park, which means you were afraid to let it out of your sight, but smart enough not to let it touch your skin. It’s not like I don’t have access to duronium. Poe’s knife. Weren’t you afraid I’d conduct too soon?”
“Maybe an Infinityglass requires this particular piece.” Teague shrugged. “Or maybe I assumed any prolonged exposure to Poe’s knife would result in your death. But only on my orders.”
“I don’t take your orders. I’m not a killer.” In one swift movement, Hallie grabbed the pendant and jerked down, but the chain didn’t break free. A red line marked her neck, and blood welled below it.
“I didn’t ask you to be. I’ll leave the killing to Poe,” Teague said. “You’re
nothing but a weapon now.”
As long as Hallie wore that pendant, she was untouchable, just another way for her mother to isolate her.
My mind raced to find an answer. Poe’s exotic matter had been necessary to get Teague in a veil, but thanks to Cat, Teague had her own. Poe’s duronium knife had factored in, too, but Hallie had duronium hanging around her neck. And what had Teague meant about leaving the killing to Poe?
I scanned the river. A veil shimmered a few hundred yards downstream.
I measured the pull of the tethers against the dock. Studied the flow of the current. Considered the trajectory of the vessel when it launched.
I had one tiny, miniscule chance to turn things around.
But I’d need the river’s help.
Chapter 26
Hallie
“For the amount of intellect that man had, you’d think he would’ve anticipated that outcome.”
Two people just died at my hand. My own mother made me an accessory to murder.
“Greed makes people blind and dumb.” I offered. “Or maybe he didn’t know you well enough to understand that your go- to is betrayal.”
“I’ve never betrayed you, Hallie.”
“You betrayed me before I was ever born.”
“I created you for a unique purpose. Picked every single trait.”
“I’m another version of you, Mother dear. Created to resemble the creator. You even gave me a calling. Sound familiar?”
She was so busy buying her own propaganda that she didn’t even hear me. “I always wanted to dance as a child, but we didn’t live close enough to a studio for me to walk to classes. I picked that for you.”
“Did you cause my accident, too?” It was sarcasm, not an accusation.
But she blinked.
My knees grew weak and threatened to give. “Did you have something to do with Benny’s death?”
Mother stared over my head. “The guard wasn’t supposed to follow you. You wouldn’t have been hurt if he hadn’t tackled you.”
“Benny was my best friend.”
“He was an attachment you didn’t need.”
“He was my friend and I loved him.” Long-buried grief surged in my heart. “That’s the way humans are supposed to work. I tried to love you.”
And I deserved to be loved.
“Love is a nice concept, but ultimately life is about the survival of the fittest, and who’s strong enough to come out on top.”
“You never should’ve been a parent. Thank God I had Dad.”
“How do you think your father will feel when he finds out you were a means to an end?”
“He already knows.” I lifted my chin. “And his love is more than enough to make up for what a piss-poor mother you’ve been.”
She smirked. “What about Dune? Because I’ve seen the way you two look at each other, and that’s not love.”
“Yes, it is.” She couldn’t shake my faith in him, in us. He’d said it and he’d showed me. He came to New Orleans and stayed. Stuck by me when the crazy started. Called in his friends to serve as backup. Offered me a piggyback ride, because he didn’t want my toes to get cold. “He gave up his life to help me.”
“The Infinityglass is an obsession for him. He came for it, not you.”
“It seems like you’re trying to convince me that you’re a more appealing option than he is. You created me in a lab, not out of love. You want me to murder for you. You’ve got the Infinityglass gene. Why can’t you do it yourself?”
“I don’t want to be a tool.”
“So you built one. The Infinityglass is vulnerable because you believe the true power lies with the person who controls it.” The truth got uglier. “I am your daughter. Do you have any concept of what family is supposed to mean?”
She ignored the question. “Get in the cabin.”
“Are you going to make me forget about my life here? Daddy? Dune? How long would it take you to turn me into Cat? Because that’s what you’ll end up with if you expect me to go with you without a fight.”
“What I expect is for you to get in the cabin. I still have the gun. My next shot might involve an artery. I don’t know how quickly your cells can regenerate, but I imagine the healing process would be painful, especially if you had to do it repeatedly.”
There had to be another option. I wouldn’t kill for her again. I scanned the shore. Too far to jump, and too many bodies in the way.
“Don’t even think about it. You can’t get past the crew unless you can fly, and they won’t hesitate to fish you out of the water.”
“Whatever did you do to make an entire ship of sailors so loyal to you?” I smiled sweetly as the implication landed exactly where I’d aimed.
She didn’t get a chance to answer.
“Hey, boss!” One of the men waved and held up a satellite phone. “Port authority question before we shove off.”
She turned her back on me and signaled to one of the deckhands. He crossed over to Cat, picked up her body, and tossed her into the water.
I watched the proud line of my mother’s posture as she walked away, and thought that I’d rather give myself over to the rips than let her control me for the rest of my life. It was an option. One to consider, eventually. I wasn’t ready to give my life up yet.
Movement by the cabin caught my eye, and my heart became a rapid bass line thumping in my chest. Rips, as if they’d read my mind. How would I fight them on my own?
I turned around.
Not rips.
Dune.
Dune
If I made one misstep, I could unleash the power of the Mississippi and kill us all.
Water. Nothing but molecules—hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The compound that made up more than half of every human on the planet, including me. Liquid matter that could bend to my will. My will.
I focused on exactly where the veil hung in the atmosphere.
“Dune. Dune!”
Hallie.
I held a finger up to my lips. Teague was too far away to hear Hallie’s whispers, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
“You’re on a boat,” she whispered. “In the river. And you’re fine. How?”
“Because you’re on a boat in the river, and I have to be fine to help you get back to dry land.”
Her eyes softened, and in that moment, I wanted to touch her more than I wanted to breathe.
“Hal, I have an idea, but we don’t have a lot of time, so you have to trust me.”
“Tell me what to do.”
“Don’t look at me, for starters.”
She focused on the dock as I briefly explained the plan. “I’m going to try to guide Teague into a veil using the river.”
Hallie’s eyes went wide. “You’re going to use your ability.”
“I don’t see any other options, and I’m going to need your help. Teague has Cat’s exotic matter. I need you to try to get the necklace off. It’s the missing ingredient to get her into the veil.”
“I’ll try.” She straightened, and I flattened myself out against the side of the cabin seconds before Teague said her name.
“Hallie. Why aren’t you in the cabin?”
“I want to say a melancholy good-bye to my childhood home. Not that you understand why, because that would require emotion.”
Hallie stepped away from the railing. That was my cue.
I breathed in and out and called the current. It complied with a slight shift toward the opposite bank.
Adjusting things too fast could cause an accident. As it stood, it was only a matter of time before one of the deckhands noticed me.
I tried not to think about the day, all those years ago, when I had asked the ocean for help and it gave me the wrong answer. Hallie stood on the boat deck, five feet away from her mother.
I couldn’t mess this up.
I tried again, shifting the flow a little more this time. Not enough. The crewmen had already begun to loosen the moorings. Stern, midship, and bowline.
Teague wasn’t in position, and Hallie was still trying to take off the pendant.
I closed my eyes to concentrate and gave the current one more nudge.
“Stop! No!”
Hallie, in trouble. My eyes flew open, expecting an out-of-control rip. Instead, I saw Teague staring at me. Fury flashed across her face, quickly replaced by cunning. She grabbed Hallie’s arm.
“Stay away from him.” Hallie dug her heels into the deck. “Stop. I won’t let you do this! I won’t do this.”
Teague became only more determined, yanking her daughter behind her.
Her intent was written all over her face. She was going to kill me, and she was going to use Hallie to do it.
Hallie
My mother lunged for Dune with determination and a grip that would leave bruises on my arm. I went limp to slow her down.
That’s when a rip of a woman in a cancan costume stepped directly into our path. Mom lurched to the side to avoid it, and I broke free of her grasp and ran for Dune.
I exhaled the second he wrapped me in his arms. The relief and comfort that flooded through me felt like more than love. It felt like family.
“I can’t get the pendant off. There must be a trick to the chain clasp.”
He uttered a low oath. “It’s soldered closed.”
The development changed the plan, but gave us leverage. As long as I had the pendant around my neck and one hand on Dune, my mother wouldn’t touch me. Too big of a risk for her to lose her powers and her life. But I didn’t think anything would stop the rips. Their number only grew larger.
I faced her. “I see you’ve stopped in your tracks.”
“I see you’ve forgotten about this.” She held up the gun. “You can stand in front of him from here to Key West, but you can’t stop a bullet.”
I knew the words weren’t empty.
“I’ll go with you,” I bargained. “We’ll get on the speedboat and head to open waters and leave him here. You don’t have to shoot him.”
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