by April White
Tempting Fate
Book Two
The Immortal Descendants
April White
Seventeen-year-old Clocker, Saira Elian is back on the run … and being hunted by Mongers. The Descendants of War are amassing power in the 21st century, bent on controlling all the Immortal Descendants. Their attempt to kidnap Saira, a rare Descendant of Time and Nature, reveals just how brazen they’ve become. Archer, the vampire who has loved Saira for over a century, is willing to risk everything to protect her.
When a horrific vision reveals Ringo, thief and loyal companion from 1888, being tortured at the hands of the bloodthirsty Bishop Wilder in a Renaissance prison, Saira and Archer realize there has been a ripple in the river of Time, and they must travel to 1554 to find its source and save their friend. Their rescue mission lures them to the Tower of London, site of the most notorious executions in history, where they encounter the mysterious Lady Elizabeth who is confronting a terrible fate of her own.
The time-traveler, the vampire, and the thief will need all of their skills and ingenuity as they race against time to steal a document that could change the course of history and put the Immortal Descendants at the mercy of the Mongers. Can they stop a madman bent on collecting the blood of history’s most powerful Seer before the executioner’s axe falls?
“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.” – Neil Gaiman
Table of Contents
Run!
Monger
Shaw
Archer
Schooled
History
Found
The Attics
London
Playing With Fire
Survival
Fight or Flight
Battle Lines
A Thief
Thieving
Seers
The Genealogy
Leaving a Mark
Preparation
Discoveries
Time Stream
Morgan
St. Brigid’s School
On the Road
Getting In
Inside
Elizabeth
The Plan
Dudley
Wyatt
An Assignment
The Garden
Visions
Tower Run
Escape
Aislin’s Cuff
Seers
Wards
The Bear
Chopped
Sight
Plan A
The Sword
Tom
Goodbye
Home
Map and History
Run!
I ran. It’s what I did. To escape. To hide. And for the pure rush of freedom.
But this time they were tracking me.
Still a couple hundred feet back, but closing in. From the footfalls I counted at least five bipeds and maybe a Wolf, but it was the Monger with them made my skin crawl. Mongers had hunted me before I even knew such a thing existed, and I could feel them in my guts like the onset of food poisoning. I picked up speed and played the options out in my mind.
The sun was still high and glinted off the upper windows of St. Brigid’s school. I could head back to the safety of the building, but that might put us all at risk. Besides, after three months here, I knew these woods like an old friend. Good trees with thick branches were obvious climbers, but I’d get treed if they looked up. I could cut down the pack if I scaled the old stone wall to my right, but not stop them altogether. The barn just past the woods was good, but I’d be trapped. Unless I was the one doing the trapping.
So, my best bet was camouflage.
I saw the low branch an instant before it would have brained me. I ducked it and kept my path a straight line so they wouldn’t veer off course, then counted to thirty and waited for the first contestant in a little game I called What’s The Worst That Could Happen?
Thunk. I winced at the yell behind me as the branch took someone out - one of the normal humans that ran with this pack. Assuming there was such a thing as normal in my world since I discovered I was a Clocker, descended from Time.
But that meant one down, four to go. And the Wolf, which I sensed circling, trying to outflank me. Not good. I swerved left across some soft ground. Leaves hid a three-foot-deep hole I’d dug out here a few weeks ago. Who would hit it? Who would be contestant number two?
Crash! A yell, and another one went down. Not the Monger though. I could still feel him coming. The Descendants of War were relentless hunters, which was why Mongers had proclaimed themselves enforcers of Descendant law. I’d broken one of those laws when I was born, but thanks to my Clocker mom’s trip forward in time, no one found out about me for seventeen years. Until a nasty piece-of-work Monger named Seth Walters, or Slick, as I un-affectionately called him, found and hunted me right into the arms of an Immortal Descendant family I didn’t know existed. For all I knew Slick was still stalking me, and the twisty-gut sense this Monger invoked pushed me faster now.
The fallen trunk of a massive Scots pine tree loomed ahead. Climbable, but the bark would be rough and full of splinters. I dug deep, hit the highest branch I could reach without hands, and pushed off. I arched up and sliced the narrow gap between branches in a hands-and-head-first dive. Then I tucked. I hit the ground shoulder first, but the bed of needles that littered the forest floor took a painful impact down to uncomfortable. I’d survive the bruise.
I crouched, caught my breath, and prepared for the final round – all or nothing. To my left the big pine trunk hid a small ditch with a void under the trunk. An animal escape hatch. Perfect.
I flattened down to a belly crawl and pulled my body into the cramped den, pretending those weren’t spiders that skittered away in the darkness. I counted on camouflage to hide me and forward momentum to carry my pursuers far away.
Pounding feet split the silence and I froze. They padded over the tree without hesitation and continued on. The Wolf. No question. Then a second set went past. That was the Monger, his feet pounding the ground angrily. Then the Seer. I knew them the way prey knows its predators. I could feel them in the blood that chilled in my veins. The Seer surprised me though. He stopped on the fallen tree, searched, then called. “Hey! Guys!”
Crap. Game over.
The Monger shouted something in the distance. The Seer yelled back, “Over here!”
Approaching footfalls and then the Monger scrambled over the top of the tree trunk spewing very inventive curses with each bite of the bark. He paused at the top of the trunk. The Seer spoke.
“She’s still here.”
The Seer didn’t know that. He couldn’t. Unless he’d Seen it.
“She’s long gone.”
“No, you should have Seen her too. You’re not using your senses.”
“You’re just mad I was faster than you.”
“I can beat you any day.”
Oh good. Just what I wanted. A dogfight over my head. Speaking of, where had the Wolf gone?
“That’s it. I’m out.” The prickling in my gut diminished as the Monger trudged away.
“What crawled up his butt?” The Wolf had doubled back.
“Nice. You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“No, I kiss yours.”
Punk. I had to fight the giggles.
“Ass.”
“Nah, I leave the ass-kissing to you, too.”
> “Listen, mutt. I know she’s close.”
I felt the edge of a ward rise up, like instinct throwing an icy, invisible shield around me, but I firmly pushed it down. The Seer was too close and knew wards. He might feel the temperature fluctuate.
“Wait, I think … she’s definitely here. I’m getting a read on … that’s weird … on what she sees?”
Damn! I shut my eyes and slammed a ward up so fast it was almost audible.
“Hang on … it’s gone.” The Seer sounded bewildered. I was so sure they’d find me, I braced myself for impact.
“I didn’t know you could do that … see out of someone else’s eyes. That’s not cool.”
“I’m not even sure that’s what happened. But whatever it was, it’s gone now. I’m getting radio silence from the Sight.”
“Dude, sun’s going down, I’m hungry, and we’re not even supposed to be here.”
“She’s not either. I’ll wait.”
“I’m out.” The Wolf called out to me, “I’ll catch you later, Clocker.” Footsteps moved away.
I felt my ward slip down with the Wolf’s departure, and the Seer must have sensed it too because all of a sudden his face was inches from mine.
“Gotcha.”
I didn’t jump. I lunged. Right at him.
“What the hell, Saira?” My giant idiot Seer friend, Adam Arman, stumbled backward in surprise and landed squarely on his butt.
I pinned him. Face to face. “Lesson of the day: if you get cornered, throw ‘em off balance and take the upper hand.” I got up and pulled him smoothly to his feet. He dusted pine needles from his jeans and we started walking back toward school.
“That was a pretty fancy move. Reminded me of a Wolverine Shifter I used to know.”
“Did he smell as bad as actual Wolverines do?”
Adam grinned. “We called him Stinky Winky, if that’s any indication.”
I laughed. “Sounds vaguely nasty.”
“There was nothing vague about his nastiness.”
“Hey, did Connor stay human the whole time, or did he run as a Wolf?”
“He stayed human, but did you just segue from ‘nasty’ to know-it-all science geek, Connor Edwards? Somehow, I don’t think he’d appreciate it.”
“You’re a troublemaker, and I segued from ‘Shifter.’ I swear I sensed a Wolf during our run, but then again Connor could have caught me in about a minute if he was in his animal form.” Despite the fact that Connor was only fourteen, he was smarter than almost anyone I knew, and fit right in with the pack of guys I was teaching to free-run.
Adam shook his head with a grimace. “Yeah, but that’s what you Americans don’t get about us Englishmen. It wouldn’t be sporting to run a girl down.”
“Except the girl in question can run, climb, and tumble circles around all of you.”
“I’ll show you a tumble.” I was pretty certain Adam had a mild form of Tourette’s. There were very few other explanations for the garbage that came out of his mouth.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Why hold back? We’re a foregone conclusion, Clocker.”
I snorted. “Sorry, I don’t date outside my species.”
Adam stopped and looked at me strangely. “Because I’m a Seer?”
I stared at him. “What? No! It was a joke, Adam. Since when can’t you take a joke?”
“Since in the world outside St. Brigid’s, Mongers are hunting mixed-bloods and breaking up inter-Family hook-ups. We both know I’m a rule-breaker, and so are you. It just surprised me, that’s all.”
“I can’t believe you, of all people, would think I’d care what Family you’re from.”
“I hope not.” Adam’s voice sounded strange. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. It made me nervous. And suddenly there was a whole bundle of nerves seething in my guts. I took a step backward and then recognized the feeling.
I called out to the silent woods around us. “Hey, Tom! Are you still out there?” Tom Landers was Adam and Ava’s cousin, and the half-Seer/half-Monger who had helped Slick run me down in California.
“He went back before Connor.”
I shook my head. “They’re messing with us then, because I’ve been sensing a Wolf, and I’m getting a read on a Monger too.” I moved closer and leaned up to whisper in Adam’s ear. “Let’s ambush them.”
Adam turned toward me, close enough that I could smell the toothpaste on his breath. He was close enough to kiss me. And he didn’t move away. It caused a stomach flip that had nothing to do with a Monger.
“What are you doing?” I was still whispering.
He stepped back awkwardly. “Nothing.”
The thing was, Adam Arman was never awkward.
“You have a girlfriend.” A stunning Shifter named Alexandra Rowen who had already left St. Brigid’s school and lived in London.
“She’s afraid to be with me.”
I couldn’t argue that, but Alex was a Gazelle Shifter. She was wired to be afraid, and Adam hadn’t been kidding about the ban on inter-Family hook-ups. Alex had broken up with Adam last year so the Mongers didn’t go after him, but they had decided to try again and keep it under the Monger’s radar.
“I have a boyfriend.”
“Really? I don’t see you hanging out together. And you’re always with us anyway.”
“What are you saying, Adam?”
He stared at me, and I couldn’t read a damn thing that crossed his face. “Nothing, Saira. I’m saying nothing.”
I didn’t want this. Neither did he, no matter what his words hinted. So I bolted and called out over my shoulder, “Last one to dinner’s a Stinky Winky.”
Adam swore under his breath and took off after me, but I had gotten the jump and was out of sight a minute later.
What. The. Hell. I shut off my over-active brain and focused on running as fast as I could, with nothing but the next five steps in front of me. That kind of running has no room for thinking. Because my head wasn’t a safe place to be.
When my lungs burned I leapt up a boulder and stopped at the top to catch my breath. St. Brigid’s School was far away, and everything about this day was out of bounds. I’d broken rules to go free-running, made the guys complicit by teaching them, and then there was that thing with Adam, who, with his twin sister, Ava, had been one of my first friends at the school for Immortal Descendants. What the hell was he thinking? Friends. That’s all. Just friends. And my pounding heart was just from running and not from what Adam may or may not have been about to do.
I screwed my eyes shut to change the channel on my mental picture. Adam’s face inches from mine – click. Next image – Archer. My Archer. Dark hair, usually tousled, blue eyes, usually looking at me … for me. The man who loved me a thousand times more than I knew how to love. Click. Tom. Tom? Why did Tom Landers just intrude on my brain? We were barely friends, more like allies. Tom was the darker, sharper, gypsy version of his cousin Adam. They were best friends, but Tom and I had an odd truce. He had been the Seer kid Slick coerced to find me, and Tom didn’t believe what I knew – that he wasn’t just a Seer. He was also part Monger, and we both pretended I couldn’t feel him and every other Monger like an oncoming flu.
Which is what I was feeling at that moment. Time to go. I jumped down, ready to run again, and a truck slammed into me. Everything went black. Maybe not a truck exactly, but someone strong and fast with a spectacular tackle. A dark hood went over my head, and I was prodded to my feet while a sneering voice with a heavy eastern European accent growled in my ear.
“Move.” He sounded like a cartoon bad guy as he shoved me forward, and I dubbed him Boris.
I stumbled deeper into the woods, and Boris pinned my hands behind me. I pushed past the panic and blindness as I tried to use my ‘other’ senses to get an advantage. I was a Clocker who could travel through time using spirals painted on walls. But I was also part Shifter. It was an illegal mix. Hell, every mix was illegal in the world of Im
mortal Descendants, where the original Immortals – Time, Fate, Nature, War and Death – lived forever, and their Family lines had skills beyond ordinary mortals. The Descendants were human though, and we could die.
Boris was something else, something not Shifter, but definitely animal. “This is for my brother.” He yanked my arms up and suddenly I knew Boris; the surviving Romanian Werewolf brought to St. Brigid’s School by the Monger teacher, Ms. Rothchild. They had come to hunt for Archer. Problem was, Archer had killed Boris’ brother.
Killed, as in dead. And now Boris had me.
I’d just become contestant number three in What’s The Worst That Could Happen?
Monger
I recognized the smell of the gardener’s shed as Boris shoved me through the door. We were at the edge of the forest, far from St. Brigid’s. Far from help. But we were not alone. Two Mongers were there. I couldn’t see them, but they stood out over the compost and manure, burning my gut like poison. Boris planted me into a chair and bound my hands in a long piece of rope. As I expected, he wrapped it too tight and I could feel the blood start to throb in my fingertips.
“Tighter.” That surprised me. The voice belonged to Raven, Slick’s Monger niece and my former roommate. Raven, affectionately known to her enemies as The Crow, was proof that beauty is only skin deep, but ugly is to the bone.
“Uncle Seth give you a job, Raven?” I kept my tone deliberately light and conversational. I couldn’t believe I’d just been bagged by such a small-time school bully.
“Shut up.”
The hood was ripped off my head, and my vision adjusted instantly despite the low light. Raven stood in one corner, her arms crossed in front of her with an ugly sneer on her face. I knew it was a stupid thing to do since my hands were literally tied, but I couldn’t help it – I laughed. Mostly at her wardrobe, but also at her whole bad-guy attitude. She’d dressed for the role of kidnapper in stylish black with tall, expensive black leather boots and a black scarf artfully draped around her neck. I couldn’t see more than a bit of Boris, the Were, since he had positioned himself just out of sight behind my shoulder, but I knew him from his scent. Which was fetid and smelled like unwashed socks under a pile of wet towels in the corner of a teenaged boy’s room. The third member of the party was another dismal surprise, because I half-expected their uncle, Seth Walters, the Monger enforcer who had it in for me because he suspected my mixed blood. But it was Raven’s punk brother, Patrick the Spawn, who scowled at me from the other corner. Fascinating and definitely disappointing. Not a bigwig bad guy in sight, which made me feel pretty stupid for getting caught at all. When had the school bullies decided to get so bold? And why were they trying out their fledgling criminal tricks on me?
