Silver Storm: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 2

by Michele Callahan

  And what would she say? Hey, guys, I found a spirit down here that the Triscani want to kill. She’s human, but I don’t know who she is, or where she lives. Just keep your eyes open.

  That just sounded stupid. They obviously couldn’t track her in the energy fields, not like Sarah could. And what if they wanted her dead? What if they didn’t? What if they wanted her alive so they could use her power themselves?

  No. And the more people who knew, the harder it would be for Sarah to protect her.

  The poor girl was stuck with Sarah as a champion. So, now she knew, it wasn’t just Chicago these aliens were after, it was a baby. But why? And how was she supposed to keep this girl alive when she had no idea who she was or how to find her in the real world?

  But whatever the reason for their hunt, the Triscani wanted her dead. And according to Celestina, The Triscani and the Archivers had been at each other’s throats for almost a thousand years. Must be save-the-world important. Then again, what wasn’t with the whole Timewalker theme?

  No pressure, Sarah. No pressure at all. She’d felt like a cheater when she’d learned that Alexa’s mission had saved seven billion people and hers was just Chicago, a measly nine million.

  Oh, wait. Oops. Make that nine million people to save and an entire race of evil creatures to evade. As far as she knew, Alexa’s problems had been entirely human ones.

  Way to one-up that tiny little blonde. If she had a Champagne glass she’d salute her horrible victory right now.

  If Chicago were attacked, would the girl go down with it? Was that why they were attacking a single geographical point this time? It was her best guess. Celestina did say the Triscani had never done that before…

  This felt like a messed-up version of Terminator. She’d watched the movie a few months before the lightning strike that took her away from her old life. So, she was Kyle Reese, sent through time to save a kid, the aliens were the Terminator, and little John Connor was a baby girl.

  Trouble was, Kyle Reese died in that movie. He won, but he died.

  Did that make Tim her very own Sarah Connor? She studied the chiseled lines of his face and bit back a laugh. Her name was Sarah, not his. And the thought of him in one of the popular mullet-style 1980s hairdos didn’t fly. She kinda liked his bald head and hard edges. She was stubborn and strong-willed, but she wasn’t used to death and war. Battle. He was. She could see it in the ghosts behind his eyes and the alert way he moved. His vigilance allowed her to relax a bit and trust that he’d know if something went wrong. She could relax and think…about sex.

  Crap. Focus. Map. They were looking at a map.

  “Okay, let’s hit the northern edge and work our way south.”

  Sarah followed his fingers as his hand flowed from grid to grid on the map. “Okay.”

  “And you’re sure you can take out the ship without killing yourself?” Tim’s intense gray eyes focused on her face like laser beams, making it impossible for her to lie.

  “I think so.”

  “You think so.” Tim sighed and rubbed his head with a free hand, a frown on his face. “You think so. That’s not good enough.”

  Sarah shrugged and sat up straighter in her chair. “It’s all I’ve got.”

  “I know, sunshine. I know.” Tim rose from his seat and her foot lost contact with his as he walked around the table to stand behind her. The energy overload didn’t hit her like a sledgehammer this time, instead it stretched and pulled between them like invisible strands of warm taffy. She instinctively knew if he went more than a couple of feet away from her, those strands would break. But for now, it was enough to know she wouldn’t be dropped to her knees every time her skin lost contact with his.

  He felt it too, and smiled as his hands came to rest on the back of her neck and shoulders. He massaged the knots out of her tense muscles with pinpoint and painful precision. She let her head fall back against his stomach and relaxed into his care.

  “We’ll start up north. And this time you won’t ride the lightning alone.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes, afraid he’d see the tears that gathered despite her brain’s fierce demands to stay strong. She would do what she had to do. She’d fight to the death if she had to. But she wasn’t strong enough to resist the solace of his touch and found that she was no longer sure she even wanted to try.

  <><><>

  Wednesday, 8:04 p.m.

  They drove for two hours, her hand wrapped in the warmth of his between them in his truck. They fought traffic and hit the northern edge of Chicago along the shores of Lake Michigan as the sun was setting. Twilight. Perfect flurry of kinetic energy, wind shifts, and power flowing through the water as the top layers of the lake released the sun’s heat back into the approaching night. A dense cover of clouds hovered over them from the high humidity and lingering warmth.

  “Why did we start up north?” Sarah was curious. He’d been adamant from the moment they’d pulled out the map.

  “A hunch.” He shrugged and pulled into a parking spot, cutting the truck’s engine.

  “A hunch.” Sarah raised her eyebrows and waited. There was more to it than that. She could feel it.

  Tim stared out the windshield as he spoke. “I’ve always had strong instincts. I don’t know how to describe what I feel. I just know sometimes. It saved my team too many times to count. It got to the point where the CO would come to me in private and lay out a mission and ask me if my gut was talking or not. Most times, I got nothing. Sometimes, I’d tell him to pull the plug or rethink it. I can’t explain it. I’d be sitting on the helo and see things in my head, things that the guys on the ground were dealing with. I’d know where snipers were before they fired, or where a bomb was buried. Stuff like that. The guys started calling me Prophet. I told them to stop, but it kind of became their thing, a superstition. Guys started asking for me to fly them, knew I brought guys home. The spook attached to our unit knew how accurate I was. He was a good man, but loyal to the Casper Project. I think he turned me in. I knew the top brass would turn me into a lab rat or bury me in some company think tank and never let me out. In fact, after my little chat with the Rear Admiral’s boys in the Casper Project, I figured if I didn’t get out, I’d disappear. The last mission I flew confirmed it.”

  “So, you’re clairvoyant?”

  Tim shook his head and finally looked her in the eyes. “I guess so. Sometimes.”

  Sarah squeezed his hand in hers. She had to know. “What are you getting right now about this? About us?”

  Tim’s jaw clenched and unclenched several times before he answered her. “Not a damn thing.”

  “Well, that stinks.”

  Tim burst out laughing and it completely transformed his face. She grinned back at him. “Yes. Yes, it does.”

  They got out of the truck and walked toward the shoreline hand in hand like a couple of goo-goo-eyed teenagers. She couldn’t resist the urge to swing their joined hands as they walked.

  “So, you said after the last mission you knew you had to get out. What happened?”

  Tim snugged the backpack strap over his opposite shoulder and lifted their joined hands to his lips to drop a quick kiss on her fingers. “I got shot with a tranq dart while I was in the field waiting to pick up the team. Never should’ve happened. No one was supposed to be there. I was captured. There were three of us, but the people who took us weren’t interested in the others. It was obvious that they only wanted me. They wore masks. They took my blood. Drugged me and interrogated me all night, then dumped us at the embassy. I can’t prove anything, but they knew where we were going to be, and when.”

  “And you think it was an inside job?”

  “Yes. I think it was the Rear Admiral’s boys.”

  “But why? Why would they do that to you? They’re supposed to be on our side.”

  “Yes. And they saw me as a threat. I said too much and the recordings got back to the wrong people.”

  “The wrong people?”

  “Some
one passed the audio up the line. I had to warn a couple of my team about a trap. I couldn’t let them die. I knew I was being watched. The CO had already warned me and the rest of the guys to tone it down and try to cover my ass, but it was either speak up or let them die.”

  Sarah brought his hand to her lips this time, and tried to soothe him with a kiss. “So, that’s why you think they’re the ones who took you?”

  They reached the edge of the water and Tim slung the pack off his shoulder and pulled out a blanket. After whipping it into place along the beach he sat with his legs out and made room for her to sit between them. “One of the guys on my team got a call. No names. Top level secret hocus-pocus crap. They were asking a lot of questions about past missions, reviewing audio. I knew if they had access to me it would only be a matter of time.”

  Sarah settled between his legs and leaned back into the heat of his chest. “So, what did you do? You can’t just quit, can you?”

  “No. You can’t.” He pulled another blanket from the bag and spread it over her legs. His voice sank, full of bitter pain, and she immediately thought of his scar.

  “Your injury wasn’t an accident, was it?”

  “No.” Tim didn’t try to deny it. “I had three months left after that phone call. I kept my head down and my mouth shut and didn’t re-up. After that, I was offered a job on the civilian side. At least, that’s what I thought. Really it was just a front company for the feds. My intuition and mathematical background worked beautifully together. I was in heaven. Improving weapons. Designing new ones. But I kept being reassigned to new projects. Higher level. Dangerous, experimental stuff. I already had the clearance, and they were watching me, following me. The work was great, until I actually figured it all out.”

  “Figured what out?” Anger rose within her on his behalf and raced along her flesh in an assault not unlike static electricity arcing from her hands into the ground. They’d obviously used and abused her man, and she didn’t like it one bit. Neither did her new super-power.

  “I figured out how to build what they wanted me to build. After that, I had to take out the lab, destroy all of my notes and equipment, and make it look like an accident. The burn was severe. The concussion was worse. But I survived.”

  Sarah considered for a minute in silence as the waves crashed to shore in a constant steady rumble. “And what better way to prove you weren’t able to predict the future than to get hurt?”

  “Something like that.” Tim wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her snugly against him, her back to his front. Her Mark hummed in blissful warmth at its proximity to his just a few inches behind her.

  On impulse, she tilted her head back on her neck and twisted around to kiss him on the cheek.

  Tim turned and kissed her full on the mouth until she melted into a puddle of want right there on the beach. Took about ten seconds, by her generous estimation. Probably closer to five seconds, but who was counting anyway?

  Tim saved her from embarrassing herself by breaking the kiss and resting his forehead against hers. Their breaths mingled in the wind and strands of her hair whipped around to tickle them both in the face.

  “You ready to do this?”

  “Yes.” She wasn’t ready. She wanted to sit on this beach with Tim and pretend they were a normal couple in love, cuddling and watching the city lights to the south flicker on and reflect off the water. Romance, ambiance, simplicity. But that wasn’t true and never could be, so why delay? She had Tim’s arms around her. That would have to be enough.

  Closing her eyes, she relaxed in his arms and let her mind go quiet, waiting for the buzz of information to start as she tapped into the energies around her.

  All she could feel was Tim, his strong arm wrapped around her waist and the heat of his chest at her back. Even the flow of air molecules as he breathed in and out beside her. Fascination held her still as she watched cold particles flow into his body and heated, dancing molecules flow out. The world around her took on a new dimension, a hypnotic beauty that she’d never before seen with her naked eyes. She was different now, her sense of the world expanded beyond anything she could have imagined before. The waves crashed, ribbons of wind whipped and spun around one another in a million never-ending duels, and the fading light of the sun skittered around like sparkling golden pixie dust blessing everything it touched with renewed energy and life. She felt like she’d left Earth completely and entered a magical, glittering wonderland.

  Sarah settled back against Tim again and let her mind, her spirit, float up out of her body. She noticed a strange light hugged her body where it remained on the sand. The soft amber glow stretched between her body and Tim’s, cocooned them and connected them in a way she couldn’t comprehend.

  Before her heart could jump to conclusions or her body could call her back with all out lust, she turned her attention away from the beach and floated up into the wind currents like she’d done before, riding them like a falcon, using them to hunt.

  She soared upward until she hovered about a mile above the northern edge of the city and waited, filtering energies as they passed through her, hoping to get another odd ping in her consciousness that would alert her to the enemy ship or to the child’s bright soul. But all she felt was the frantic activity of humanity and their machines bustling around like busy bees, humming in a strange artificial rhythm at odds with the synchronicity and harmonies of nature’s energies.

  No wonder the world was mad.

  Sarah rejoiced in her newfound power and control. Making love to Tim had changed her somehow, made her stronger, more focused and aware.

  Another presence bumped against that thought, a consciousness other than her own pulsed and flowed around her.

  A woman. Not as controlled as Sarah, not as big in the world. Sarah could feel the stranger’s mind struggle to maintain her place in the currents of existence that continuously ebbed and flowed in a great ocean of energy around them.

  Sarah could squash her like a bug, rip the stranger’s energy pattern into unrecognizable shreds to be absorbed by the rest of the world’s frantic systems.

  Who are you? The soft, curious question fluttered to her, like a thought with butterfly wings alighting on her shoulder.

  Sarah froze, debating. The Archiver hadn’t told her about anyone else like her. It could be the enemy, could be a trap.

  Or it could be a very unique young lady wondering who she was, thrilled that she was no longer alone in the skies.

  Hello? Are you there? Can you hear me? The woman’s voice was a bit stronger this time, perhaps closer. Sarah debated for a heartbeat more then answered.

  I am Sarah. Who are you?

  I am Katherine. I want to meet you. Where are you?

  Sarah laughed in her mind, the wind currents rippled and spun around her like dancing fairies. I am here, just like you.

  Here. Present. Touching the world with her mind and watching it swirl in a kaleidoscope of motion and life. Sarah was confused. Why would the woman ask or care where she was when they were both so omnipresent at the moment over both the city and the lake? Over hundreds of miles of airspace?

  And no alien spaceship in sight. Damn it anyway. Had she really thought it would be that easy? The Triscani must have found a way to tangle their energies with the world’s as well. She’d never be able to find them this way if that were the case.

  Where are you, Sarah? I’m in Chicago…

  The trailing question brought Sarah up short. This woman was in Chicago? The city to be destroyed in just over twenty-four hours’ time? Oh, and by the way, she just happened to have skills similar to Sarah’s, to a Timewalker’s? Something didn’t add up. Katherine might be what she said she was, a woman out riding the wind, but the coincidence would have to be astronomical. The statistical likelihood of that was basically zero. So, that left the other option.

  Anger fueled her as she brought the vastness of her being back from the edges, pulled it in from miles in every direction and trapped the
woman inside like water in a balloon.

  Katherine panicked and Sarah wished she could grin, wished she found humor in the ugly task she’d set herself.

  Katherine’s reach was small, much smaller than her own, and Sarah felt like she was disciplining a small child once she felt the full weight of the other woman’s mind and abilities.

  Katherine fled back down the only unbroken energy path Sarah had left her, a thread through which to escape back to her own body.

  Sarah followed the woman back to the passenger seat of a large van and waited, her energy subtle and small, flitting around the air molecules inside the vehicle, as she watched the woman regain consciousness and catch her breath.

  Katherine had a gun strapped to her side and five men with her, coiled to strike.

  “Bloody hell, she’s strong.” Katherine’s voice filled the small space and the men tensed around her. “She’s here. Close. Head north, she’s on the shore. We can be there in a few minutes.”

  The man beside her started the van’s engine. “You can track her?”

  “I think so.”

  “Dangerous?”

  The woman rolled her eyes. “Of course. But I don’t think she’s been trained. She felt…” There was a pregnant pause as Katherine struggled to come up with the right word. “She felt normal. I don’t think she’s foreign or military trained.”

  “All right. We’ll talk first and shoot second. Let’s go get her.”

  Sarah meant to follow them, to listen and find out who they were and what they wanted, but a soft touch of discord reached her senses and she knew the enemy searched for her. Perhaps she could find them first in the complex web of energies flowing above the city. They were hiding, as she was. It was the ultimate game of cat and mouse. And she had to win.

  The strange woman and her van full of human soldiers would have to wait.