The Secret Truth of Time: A Time Travel / Supernatural Suspense Novel

by C. M. Murphy

  "Most of our records on the subject were sealed ages ago, but I was able to get my hands on them. This new one, the one you said was James, seems young. We weren't sure he was a vampire until Leo's death."

  "How do vampires come about?" Alma said.

  "We're not sure. When we cast out Livius, we halted all contact and study of vampires to prevent them from finding out about us and using us for their plans."

  "That didn't work out so well," Alma said.

  "Alma! He's a guest and my friend," Tita Win scolded.

  "It's okay, Winifred. She has a right to be angry. I was when I found out. It's why I'm leaving The Observatory."

  "You are?" Win Win asked. "So your visit can be for longer than a week?"

  Charles turned to Win with a shy smile. "I was looking into an apartment."

  Doug couldn't believe what he was hearing. His life was a lie, and the man who recruited him was leaving The Observatory. But Charles didn't notice that. His attention was fixed on Win Win.

  "There's plenty of room here," Win said. "You can fix my garage door, and help with the garden."

  "I'll get an apartment, but I'll still fix your garage and help with the garden," Charles said, sneaking an uneasy glance at Alma.

  A pang of guilt hit Alma in the gut. He seemed like a nice man, and she'd never seen Tita Win so happy. She decided to tone down her anger.

  "When are you quitting?" Doug asked.

  "I told them I'd be here on assignment. Then, I'll tell them I'm retiring a few months down the line. I don't want them to know I've broken into their information on the vampires and copied all their files," Charles Taylor answered, looking directly at Doug. "I just hope nobody in The Observatory discovers my secret and turns me in. My theft is only to help right the wrongs I unwittingly put into play."

  Doug nodded.

  "So how do vampires come about?" Doug asked.

  "As far as we can tell, it runs in families. Families that contain other paramortals like psychics, witches, empaths, IMs. Except no one notices because they're rarely Awakened, so they look like just regular mortal offspring."

  "Why don't you just assume that the one regular offspring in a family is likely a vampire?" Alma asked.

  "Most of the time it's only one paramortal in every one to three generations," Charles explained. "Your family is very rare."

  "Why aren't vampires Awakened?" Doug asked.

  "For vampires, it's not a simple hug, handshake, or touching an object. They're awakened by murder—literally bloody murder. According to some of the theories set forth by early members of The Observatory, vampires were more common when there were more bloody battles. It's believed that the legend of Achilles was based on a real-life vampire. If you recall in the story, Achilles's mother was said to be immortal.

  "But regardless, what made them strong was they absorbed the life force of other men when they killed them. They lived dangerously and died old for a warrior but not necessarily for a regular human.

  "Not to mention many people died of diseases then. So absorbing the life forces of the men one killed in battle merely led to a longer life expectancy.

  "Some also theorize that surges of power after killing a human explains serial killers and Jack the Ripper himself. They might not even be aware of their own power.

  "But our sealed records do have portions of the diary of Livius, and he killed many men in battle, and he continued to kill even after his time as a warrior was over.

  "When Livius was eighty years old, he met a thirteen-year-old who could remember a battle from Livius's younger days. They became good friends, but the young man was impaled by a tree that broke off during a storm.

  "According to Livius, the allure of the young man's life force that radiated from the boy's spilling blood was like no other. In his diary, Livius claimed the boy begged for his own death to be spared the pain. I'm not sure I believe that, but when Livius took the boy's life his aging was reversed by decades. He even found that he could remember some of the other lifetimes that the boy had lived.

  "He searched for other young people who remembered past lives, and he found another and murdered her. His mind overloaded with fear, memories, and a flurry of languages. He thought he might go mad, but then he noticed his aging had reversed even more.

  "One day he read an article by a man named Edward Wallace, who collected stories of children who seemed to have knowledge of past lives and surmised that reincarnation must be real. Livius tracked down Wallace and the man told him he how he'd been to Asia and how reincarnation was common. Wallace believed that beings who could remember past lifetimes had a greater chance at discovering true enlightenment, and the meaning of life.

  "It was Livius who dubbed those who were reincarnated as Immortal Mortals and became obsessed with tracking them down.

  "He had accumulated a great deal of wealth over his long life and proposed to Edward Wallace the idea of recruiting scholars to track and study Immortal Mortals. Wallace accepted his offer, and they began The Observatory."

  "But didn't they notice all their subjects dying?" Doug asked.

  "Livius only needed to consume the soul of one IM to extend his life for seventy years or longer. When they discovered how to track Awakenings in families, there was no need to hurry to kill them. He needed time in between to deal with madness, anyway. Wallace died never suspecting the truth.

  "It wasn't until two hundred years later when another Witness named Joshua discovered the truth." Charles Taylor pointed at Alma. "He enlisted your great-grandmother's aid as a witch to kill Livius."

  Win nodded. "Your great-grandmother predicted there would be one like you and worried about Livius. He became selective of who he wanted to kill and didn't because the insanity the reincarnated ones feel when they remember their deaths. My lola tried to kill him, but he'd killed a healer like me and could heal himself. So she made him forget."

  "I didn't know that," Charles Taylor said. "That's why we haven't been able to find him."

  "But there's a new vampire," Win said, turning to Alma, "and my mother, your lola, sensed his power. That's why she sent us to the United States."

  "She said you'd both died, but we found out about the adoption," Charles Taylor said, realizing that if he'd never tracked down Winifred and Bernadette, James would have never found them. Guilt tore at his gut. He remained silent.

  "But James isn't like Livius. He's young," Alma said. "He'll be easier to kill."

  "True, but we'll need to keep you safe while we find him," Doug said.

  Alma wasn't listening. Knowing that with each acquisition, James grew more powerful, Alma knew her best option was to go back in time and kill him before he acquired Leo, Irene, and her mother. It would be easier, and she would also be able to save her mother. She just needed more information about James's whereabouts.

  Alma closed her eyes. She reached into her memory to try to remember some piece of information about James that would help her.

  There was something important about the man that she needed to grasp. It floated at the periphery of her thoughts just out of the grasp of her mind. She stretched to reach it.

  Darkness. The sensation of falling. "Aye! Alma!" Tita Win said.

  "What was I saying?" Alma asked.

  "You weren't saying anything," Taylor said.

  "Alma!" Tita Win shouted again.

  "I'm right here," Alma said from across the dining room table. A part of Alma remained in the room, but the greater part of her consciousness was trapped in the dark.

  Alma tried to force her eyes open. The darkness morphed from empty blackness to a deep, dark, violet. Alma tried to scream, but she had no voice. No throat. No body. She imagined she had eyes and closed them. The evil-seeming purple tinge to the darkness faded to black. Her thoughts turned to Tita Win Win. She was in the other room. No, wait. Tita Win was at the table. Win was trying to bring her back. This had happened before.

  An odd calm fell over her. Her thoughts relating to Alma beg
an to fade. The void warmed around her. This wasn't bad. There's no pain here. No people. No me. A shriek pierced through the darkness. The warmth ran cold.

  The purple hue grew stronger. Fear gripped her. If she had a throat, she would have sworn it was being crushed.

  Back at the table only a second had gone by. Doug didn't understand Win Win's alarm. "She's fine."

  "No," Win said, rushing from her seat to the other side of the table.

  "Alma!" Tita Win screamed as she grabbed Alma's wrist with one hand and her head with another.

  "What are you doing?"

  With her palm on the crown of Alma's head, Win positioned her thumb so it was between her two eyes above the nose. Win Win closed her eyes. "You're back. You're here. You're with me."

  A breeze swept through the dining room. Doug looked to his boss. Taylor's jaw slacked open, and his eyebrows arched wide. He didn't know what to make of it.

  Her mind emptied of all thoughts. A cool breeze swept around her. This. This felt familiar. An image floated to the front of her brain. A pregnant woman's smiling face. She knew that face.

  The wind swirled around the dining room and picked up force. Doug watched Alma and Win Win. He noted that their hair didn't move with the wind. It was as if they were the eye of a localized tornado. Tita Win's eyes opened. The wind stopped at the same moment.

  "Tita Win Win!" Alma gasped as she wrapped her arms around her aunt's waist and wept. "How did you get me back?"

  "But you were here the whole time," Doug said.

  Win shook her head no. "No, she was here, but her spirit was not."

  "I drifted again, but I couldn't get back. He can sense me. I know he can."

  "I didn't realize you'd grown so close to the Eternidad," Win said, sitting down in the open chair next to Alma. She didn't want to risk her niece floating off again.

  "What is this Eternidad?" Taylor asked.

  "Leo calls it the Infinite Truth," Alma said.

  "The teachings of Irene?" Taylor asked.

  "Then you're familiar," Win Win said.

  "To be honest, The Observatory dismissed it as a coping placebo for the mental instability so many of the IMs get over their lifetimes," Taylor said.

  "It does help IMs cope, but that's because it's true," Win said.

  Taylor moved his head as if to say he would give it the benefit of the doubt.

  Win Win laughed. "You don't have to believe in the Sun to be in its orbit, but it is like you Observatory types to only believe what you see with your five senses even when dealing with things that involve a sixth. But Alma is the one destined to be at one with the Eternidad, and there's no way to fight it." She turned to Alma. "Eat some pie first." Win slid over her slice of buko pie.

  "I'm full," Alma said.

  "I made this pie," Win said. "It will help you, and avoid stretching your mind to remember memories that don't belong to Alma Davis in this lifetime. That 'reaching' is what's making you move all over the place, and you're not strong enough to come back without an anchor. Why didn't you tell me this was happening to you?" Win grabbed a fork and took a spoonful of the pie sweetened with young coconut. "It's your favorite."

  "Win, I'm too weirded out for pie," Alma said, pushing it away.

  Win laughed. "This pie will keep you here with us, because I made it."

  "That's how you do it," Taylor said. "We never noticed."

  Win turned to him and smiled.

  "Do what?" Doug asked.

  "Heal," Taylor said to Doug and turned back to Winifred. "That's what you are, isn't it? A healer."

  Win Win laughed. "You can call it that," she said to Taylor, and then turned back to Alma. "Eat the pie."

  Alma knew better than to question Tita Win Win any further. She took the spoon from her aunt and swallowed a bite of pie. It surprised Alma how good it tasted, and each bite made her feel better. It was as if she'd had a flu for the last four days, and the dizziness and fever had been cured. She felt like herself.

  "Better?" Tita Win asked.

  Alma nodded. Win got up and went to a drawer and pulled out an odd-looking red and black bracelet. "I made this. It's made from painted beans from my garden and fishing line," she said, walking over to Alma and wrapping it around her wrist. "There's no history on the beans. It won't take you anywhere. It'll ground you in the here and now.

  "That's why I couldn't travel earlier today. You'd grounded me with the pancakes and coffee."

  "The bracelet ought to do it, but just in case, cover this," Win said, putting her index finger in between her eyes just above the nose. "It's like that bookstore. The third eye."

  "Is that real?" Alma asked.

  "As real as anything else," Win said.

  "I need to go back and find out about, James, Tita Win," Alma said. "I can feel Mom leading me back there. Will you help me, too? I don't think we have a lot of time."

  Win sighed. "Leo can help me ground you and maybe we can use objects to narrow down in which timeline you want to travel. But the more time you spend as someone else, the less Alma you will be. I won't be able to bring you back if you go too far."

  "Then we'll have to plan it all just right," Alma said.

  "Or, you can wear the bracelet for a while to ground you and forgo all traveling. After a week, you should be grounded enough for me to heal your thoughts back to being only yours. You would be safe."

  Alma picked a loose crumb of pie off the plate and put it in her mouth as she thought. "It'd be nice to go back to normal, but I'd lose my only memory of my mother and any chance of saving her, wouldn't I?"

  "I don't think you can save her," Win said.

  "But you don't know for a fact that I can't, and I get this feeling like it's the only way," Alma interrupted.

  "You've lived your whole life without thoughts of your mother. She wanted, more than anything, for your happiness."

  "Even if you erase my ability to travel, James won't believe it." Alma said as she yawned.

  Win nodded. "Do you want to sleep here tonight?”

  Alma glanced over at Taylor. "I can take the couch," he offered.

  "This house has four bedrooms," Win said. "You don't have to do that."

  "I'll sleep in my own bed," Alma said. Even though it was still early the exhaustion of the day weighed on her. "Do you think it’s safe for me to go to bed now?"

  "Don't try to remember anything," Win said.

  Alma nodded and stood up. Doug needed to know how to contact Taylor, but he couldn't talk in front of Tita Win Win or Alma. He followed Alma to the front door. "Do you want me to stay with you?" Doug asked Alma.

  "I just want to sleep," she said.

  Doug nodded.

  "Doug!" Tita Win Win said. "Come back to the kitchen, and I'll fix you up with a slice of pie."

  Alma stopped at the door to wait.

  "You go to sleep. You look tired," Tita Win said to Alma.

  Alma laughed and waved goodbye to her best friend. Doug stepped back into the house, and Win shut the door. "I'll get you some pie, and we can go back to the table so you and Charles can talk Observatory business."

  Win Win knew his secret.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The sound of his father's hands smacking hard on the swinging door made Haniel jump.

  "Why did you lie to me about the girl?" his father yelled as he crossed the room and shoved Haniel.

  The force of his father's push to his chest made Haniel gasp for breath. Haniel's anger sparked and without thinking he grabbed his father's hand by the wrist and yanked it away. His fingers seemed to lose their strength around his father's powerful wrist.

  "How dare you!" his father yelled, pushing his son against the wall and into the glass-framed business license hanging there. A shard of glass stabbed into Haniel's shoulder blade. Haniel could feel it cut his skin.

  "What the hell are you talking about, old man?" Haniel yelled.

  His father let go and stepped back, almost frightened. Haniel didn't understand
it.

  "In the beginning part of my meditation. I felt her, but I couldn’t keep her with me. She's drifting. I can't have her like this. I need her before she can control her power and use it against me." Bloodlust consumed James. He'd have killed his son just for the momentary surge of power, but he needed Haniel.

  "You're the one whose vision said we had until her birthday," Haniel said. His father's eyes disturbed him. They'd gone from blue to dark purple. He'd never seen his father so angry.

  "Why aren't you doing your part right now?" James demanded.

  "She hasn't been home. I gotta be cool. We've only had one date."

  "You said she took your watch and felt nothing. That's impossible. That watch is teeming with energy."

  "Nothing happened. We drank margaritas and made out at the table. She was fine."

  "That's impossible," James said, his voice lower. This morning's meditation brought contact with her energy and moments ago her presence loomed so close it was like she'd reached out to him.

  His father's unstable behavior disturbed Haniel. He needed to calm the man down. "I'm working on it. I am. I'll call her every fifteen minutes until she picks up, and if she doesn't pick up in the next two hours, I'll camp out at her house."

  James's body hungered for power. He forced himself to appear calm. He needed his son's help. It would cripple his plan to alienate the boy now. "I'm sorry, son," he said in a distracted attempt to excuse his outburst. "We need to move up our timeline."

  "How soon?"

  "A week."

  "But what about your vision of her birthday?" Haniel asked.

  "I said a week," James said, leaning closer to him, his eyes still dark purple.

  Haniel nodded. His father turned away and left the room.

  Alma entered her apartment exhausted. The blinking light on her answering machine drew her attention. She hit play and grabbed a T-shirt out of her dresser to wear to bed.

  "Hi Alma, it's me, Haniel. Just calling to see if you wanted to get together today or tonight," the message started.

  She'd forgotten all about Haniel. Alma listened to the rest of the message, and the stress of her day evaporated. She glanced at the digital clock on her microwave and wondered if it was too late to call. He'd left his home number. While debating whether or not to wait until morning, her phone rang. She dashed over to answer her phone before her answering machine picked up.