Time Jacker

by Aaron Crash

  Kerrata unfurled the whip on his belt, a cruel cat o’ nine tails. The would-be Interim Lord vibrated with power and energy. Kerrata flung out the whip and caught Gabby’s legs, whipping her down to the ground, right under the oxen’s bloody stumps and their sharp chitinous toenail faces.

  “Gabby!” Bailey cried out in horror. She didn’t pause but leapt off the cart and out of sight, into the middle of the oxen, the chitin dogs, and those barbed fiends in the air.

  That left Jack alone in the cart, facing Kerrata. The Fug laughed. “Oh, so the little man who keeps getting in the way has come to get in my way again. I haven’t come all this way, with this little gift, to be stopped by the likes of you. Tanichron knows of you and this human bitch, and he has promised me land and power.”

  “You won’t be making that deal, Horns, because today you die.” Jack raised the shotgun, but he never had the chance to use it.

  Kerrata plucked the gun out of Jack’s hand and lashed him with the whip, shredding his coat and shirt and flaying open his skin.

  Current Corpus: 155/200

  Jack was blinded by pain for a minute, and then he heard Gabby shriek. She wasn’t blowing the horn yet, but they no longer had the element of surprise.

  A fingernail bird came flying down and stabbed Jack in the back with its barbs, and his left arm went numb. There was a poison in that thing.

  Current Corpus: 125/200

  His left arm might be numb, but his right hand was still working. He could pull the Eternity Cannon, hammer back, the trigger ready.

  A fingernail bird dived right into his face at that moment. Jack had no choice but to use one of his precious rounds to blow the thing apart. The wings turned to dust and black blood covered Kerrata, along with bits of flesh and the cracked remains of the thing’s fingernail face.

  Since he’d killed with the Cannon, Jack was given a choice of what to do with the energy. He didn’t know if he needed to help Gabby or not, but he couldn’t help her if he went down.

  “Aeterna, convert half the Kairos to Corpus, but keep the other half ready!”

  The result was immediate.

  Current Corpus: 150/200

  Jack could partially use his left arm again, and he felt better, but he was still wounded, and the pain threatened to consume him. He’d fix that shit in a minute.

  Kerrata raised the whip, but Jack wasn’t going to get hit again. He rolled across the cart and hit the edge just as a chitin dog drove a spiked bone leg into the wood right next to Jack’s face.

  Jack used his hand cannon to blow off one of the chitin dog’s horns and most of his skull. Black brains filled the air. Jack changed more of that Kairos into Corpus, and the pain was better. He was close to full.

  Kerrata stomped over, those clawed spider feet flapping. The Fug had his cat o’ nine tails up, and he lashed down, but not before Jack rolled off the edge of the cart. He hit the ground and faced a wave of chitin dogs.

  Jack needed to fire a lot of shots fast, and that was something the Eternity Cannon couldn’t do it. He whipped the Cannon into his left hand and pulled the Beretta, knowing he had to make every shot count.

  He kept moving as he fired into the horned Fugs, clacking around him with their bone spear-point feet. Move, fire, move, fire—every one of his bullets found a head. Chitin dogs went falling, one after another. Jack even had to take out some fingernail birds that swooped in close. He ran through one magazine, then had to eject it. He stuck the Cannon under an armpit so he had an extra hand to slam in more bullets for the Beretta.

  The bodies were starting to pile up. However, Jack sped through the corpses and ran toward where Bailey was on the ground, blood streaming from a cut in her head. The demon had saved the angel but not without a price.

  Gabby stood over the ink-haired demon, facing down both of the toenail oxen, who lowered their faces to smash the women to pieces or rend them into lunch meat with the sharp edge of their nails.

  Jack aimed the Eternity Cannon at the center of one ox’s nail face and pulled the trigger, hoping the big magical bullet could pierce that thickened keratin. He wasn’t disappointed. A fist-sized hole appeared in the ox’s toenail face, and brains went flying. And yet, the thing was still alive somehow. It let out a roar. This beast was tough.

  Kerrata was at the edge of the cart, laughing maniacally. He brought his whip down on Gabby. She took the barbed leather right on the face. She didn’t flinch, despite the blood.

  The angel raised her horn to her bloody lips.

  “Don’t do it!” Bailey screamed.

  But they were surrounded, by birds, dogs, and oxen, with Kerrata standing above them, ready to whip them all again.

  The angel’s divine horn let out a clear note of pure destruction.

  The nearest birds popped like pimples. The dogs had their bone legs blown from their bodies. Some of them lost their horns. The toenail faces of the oxen split down the middle. The rest of their bodies were covered with blisters from the horn’s blast.

  A howl of alarmed outrage rose from the top of the wall in the distance. Tanichron’s horde now knew there was an angel in hell.

  It was only a matter of moments before the gates opened and the Hell Duke and his demons came pouring out. The timer had started.

  Jack cranked back the hammer and stepped to the side. He blew the chest cavity out of the wounded ox. When the Kairos hit, he topped off his Corpus so his wounds were healed. He then seized Gabby’s hand and fixed her wounds.

  He was about to do the same thing to Bailey, but the demon was up, taking on the last of the toenail oxen. The succubus charged forward and whirled her war pick and slammed it into the side of the thing. She then clambered onto the back of the beast and cracked her pick down into the fleshy side of the ox’s head. It wasn’t enough to kill it. The toenail ox bucked, and Bailey was thrown around like it was Saturday afternoon in Cheyenne during Frontier Days.

  Jack had forgotten how many bullets he had for his Eternity Cannon, so he quickly removed the cylinder and replaced it with a fresh one. He had just put the used cylinder in his pocket and the gun back together when Kerrata whipped it out of his hand.

  Jack had fixed up his skin, but now he was bleeding again. Kerrata went to lash him once more, but Gabby lunged forward and took the blow.

  Another dozen fingernail birds were coming to hit him with the barbs, or to ram their jaggedly sharp nails into him. Another dozen chitin dogs had scurried forward through the remnants of the other creatures that Gabby had blown to butcher scraps.

  The angel would’ve blown the horn again, but Kerrata had her tangled up in his whip. He yanked her toward the cart. Jack saw the single hole he’d put in Kerrata’s head with his Beretta back when his adventures began. If only he’d had the Eternity Cannon back then.

  Ha. He didn’t even have it in the current fight. The magical revolver lay on the ground about a dozen feet from Jack. He could magically pull it to him, but he needed time to do that.

  He just needed a few seconds.

  Jack still had his Beretta, but he was down to his last magazine. Bailey was hacking at the ox but couldn’t put it down. Gabby struggled against Kerrata’s whips.

  They were about to be overwhelmed.

  Worse yet, the rusted hinges of the massive gate let out a world-shattering squeal. The doors were opening. Whatever marched out would be a horror show of literally hellish proportions.

  Jack knew it was going to hurt, but he didn’t have a choice. He swept his thumb over the toy soldier, clicking the key farther to the left. Would he be stranded in hell forever? Would he shatter his core? All were distinct possibilities.

  But this was their only chance.

  Jack felt the clockwork of hell shuddering—he wasn’t just stopping the flow of Kairos. In a place like that, he also had to freeze the Decaysia.

  He gritted his teeth and felt his core draining, but time in hell had slowed, then stopped. He’d done it! Both the Tempus Influunt and the Influunt Diaboli were
stopped completely.

  Whatever system the Clockwatcher had given him flashed to life before his eyes.

  Current Kairos: 60/200

  Current Decaysia: 210/200

  Potential Auxiliary Storage: 100/100

  A second later he was down to 50 Kairos and up to 220 Decaysia. He felt the weight of the death energy filling him. What would kill him first? Losing all that Kairos or gaining all that Decaysia?

  If he was burning ten points of Kairos for every second he had hell’s timestream stopped, that meant he would run out of Kairos in five seconds. Luckily, he had his auxiliary storage, which gave him a total of fifteen seconds before he completely ran out of time energy.

  The headache was already starting to rip through his skull.

  Fourteen seconds left.

  Bailey was on the ox, which was bleeding from a dozen puncture wounds from where she had rammed that pick home. The demon would need help killing that monster.

  Even though he’d healed her, blood still covered Gabby’s face. Those normally gentle blue eyes were now full of hate, completely focused on Kerrata. Nothing would ever break that angel’s will. She was strong. She was good. Her sword was covered in gore, and her divine horn gleamed, however tangled her arm was in the whips.

  Jack leapt into action. He holstered his Beretta and pulled the Eternity Cannon to him.

  A little voice let out a cheer. Yay! I’m back in Master’s hand!

  Yes, it felt good to have the gun back where it belonged. He raced over and freed Gabby from Kerrata’s cat o’ nine tails.

  A warning flashed in his vision.

  Kairos at zero. Auxiliary storage activated.

  Jack felt all 100 points of Kairos fill his core. Still, his headache was growing. It felt like someone had pushed needles into the back of his eyes.

  Ten seconds left.

  Jack climbed onto the cart.

  He cut Annie loose and pulled the hood off her head. Her hair was matted, her face sweaty, and there was a look of such horror on her face. She had the look of a woman who would be forever traumatized by being held captive and then taken to hell.

  Jack could help her with that trauma. Not him, directly, but Bailey could.

  Eight seconds left.

  Jack aimed at the space right behind the ox’s front leg, where its heart would be. That way, if he missed, he wouldn’t hit Bailey because she was up top. Jack pulled the trigger. He made his intentions clear, as he had with the match in the Wycombe House. He wanted that fired bullet to freeze along with everything else.

  Jack shifted his sights on Kerrata’s chest and fired again. The instant the bullet left the gun, the round hung suspended in midair, surrounded by gun smoke. One bullet for the ox, and one for Kerrata.

  Five second left.

  Jack took one last look at the gate of Tanichron’s palace. Half open, he could see inside. There was what appeared to be a market, with stalls and demons of all kinds, and a few things that looked somewhat human. However, striding forward, mostly obscured by the door, was a giant goat-footed thing, hairy and blue.

  That had to be Tanichron. The figure was probably fifty feet tall. A big, dark, azure arm flexed a bulging bicep. A huge platinum vambrace covered the Hell Duke’s wrist. He wore a golden skirt of hardened leather. Jack couldn’t see the duke’s face, and he was glad. He didn’t want to mess with such a blasted thing.

  There was a good chance he’d never risk stopping the Influunt Diaboli ever again.

  Jack stood back and swept his thumb over the toy soldier. The windup key moved to the right one click.

  With one second left, the Influunt Diaboli started up again, but the Tempus Influunt, back on Earth, would still be frozen.

  Jack slammed his hands to his head. The pain was blinding. He felt his soul shriveling. Dying.

  Current Kairos: 10/200

  Current Decaysia: 370/200

  Potential Auxiliary Storage: 0/100

  Kerrata took the round in his chest and it blew through him, ripping out most of his body in a rain of blood. The other bullet ripped into the chest of the toenail ox, punching a hole in its heart.

  Gabby was free. She blew her horn, one last time, shredding chitin dogs, blasting fingernail birds, and clearing the battlefield.

  “Jack!” Annie wailed.

  Jack couldn’t answer. He was on his knees, almost passing out, and there was Kerrata with most of his body missing.

  Kerrata coughed up black blood. “No. Impossible. You stopped the Influunt Diaboli. That is impossible.”

  “Impossible is what I eat for breakfast, Horns.” Jack put the Eternity Cannon to the 9mm hole he’d put in the Fug’s head. He pulled the trigger, taking off most of the top of Kerrata’s head, splitting his horns and taking out his brains. A fist-sized hole was punched into the top of the cart. That would be the Interim Lord’s brains and blood leaking through the hole to spatter on the rough stones of the Sin Road.

  Kairos from both the toenail ox and Kerrata swept around him, but his core was having trouble processing all that energy. There was a ton of the stuff.

  He turned to see the gate open, and the ground was black with demons, the sky full of every kind of gargoyle horror. The duke himself was obscured by the massive army both on the ground and in the air.

  Gabby flew in and grabbed Jack, who still wasn’t right. Would he ever be right again?

  Bailey took up Annie in her arms, and then they were running, making for the D’Nyr Gate.

  Jack couldn’t tell if it was the scream of the wind of his ears or the scream of the duke’s armies.

  He found himself on his back, riding the edge between consciousness and darkness. He was out of bullets, or else he might’ve stuck the Cannon into his mouth. His soul was dying. Too much Decaysia.

  Where was the Kairos from his kills?

  Aeterna had the answer. The gun’s whisper filled his voice, though it felt like a dream. Thirty-six years of minutes, Master, from this Fugit. More minutes from your Annie. What would you have me do?

  Jack couldn’t do the math. What was thirty-six years of minutes? That was from Evelyn Mundi. Those were her minutes. His eyes were squeezed closed. He had to trust that Gabby and Bailey would get them across the damned landscape and back to reality.

  He was at single digits Kairos. First things first, they couldn’t be trapped in hell. If Earth’s Tempus Influunt started, they couldn’t use the crossbones key to get back.

  “Aeterna, take me to fifty Kairos, and I need some of this Decaysia out of me. But keep at least thirty-six years of minutes. Those belong to Evelyn Mundi.”

  Yes, Master, I can take your Decaysia down to acceptable levels. As for Evelyn Mundi, she will need the minutes of her life, for she is the mother of the prophet. I will do as you wish.

  A second later, Jack could confirm the Cannon’s actions.

  Current Kairos: 50/200

  Current Decaysia: 270/200

  Jack felt stone under his knees and hands. They were back at the D’Nyr Gate. Jack had a moment to wonder if the Decaysia damage might be permanent. It seemed like it had leeched out of his soul and was affecting his cells.

  Annie was near him, weeping in terror.

  Jack looked up to see Bailey ram the crossbones key into the stone arch, twisting it, and the entire structure shuddered, shook, and more stone crumbled away.

  Jack staggered to his feet and grabbed Annie, and they both stumbled out of hell and onto the asphalt of the parking lot behind the bank. Bailey followed, then Gabby, and the gate closed.

  Jack swept the toy soldier’s ink key to the right. Time started once more.

  With the ice-pick pain in his temples, he knew he was about out of Kairos again. He’d regenerate. Yes, he felt thirty-six years of minutes in the Eternity Cannon, but that life wasn’t his to take. Now that would be the ultimate in stealing.

  Jack dropped to his knees, then hit the ground and rolled onto his back. Breathing hard, he knew he was going to lose consciousness
, but he had to tell Bailey his plan first. She had to remove Annie’s memories...the bank teller could forget she’d ever been captured. She could forget whatever Kerrata had done to her.

  Too late. Jack was out. The void seemed eternal. But he’d rescued the girl. Whatever happened to him, fine. He’d finished his business and could rest in peace. But he couldn’t help but think his gun just might miss him as much as Bailey and Gabby.

  And what about Evelyn Mundi’s minutes?

  With that last thought, the darkness took Jack away from himself.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  JACK WOKE IN HIS APARTMENT. From the light, it was early to mid-morning, probably the next day. He was in his bed and staring at the curtains. He had a headache, but it wasn’t bad. Worse was the sense that he’d dreamed everything: the ability to stop time, Bailey and Gabby, and everything else that had happened.

  Had he really met some Austrian guy who liked Enochian gold? Was Pinetree going to be able to sell those goblets he’d stolen from the Cast Away, Gone Astray?

  And why had Kerrata been interested in Evelyn Mundi and then Annie Blackburn?

  Jack raised his left hand and saw the toy soldier tattoo on the side of his left index finger. He then noticed the guitar under his window didn’t have any dust on it. He pulled himself up off the bed and put his face in his hands.

  No, it was all real. He was a Time Knight, and he’d done two things now that seemed impossible to everyone who knew about these things. He could stop the flow of the Tempus Influunt, and he could stop the Influunt Diaboli, though freezing time in hell had been a hundred times harder than freezing his current reality on Earth.

  He heard whispered voices from the other room, murmurings, all feminine voices—not just one woman, but three.

  Bailey’s brazen cursing. Gabby’s kind and soothing murmur. And then Annie’s dorky laugh. Jack wondered how he could’ve been brought back to his apartment, but then he knew. Gabby was strong enough to easily pick him up. She might look like a slim blonde, but she had enormous strength.