“Is that why your sisters aren’t here?” Red asked delicately.
Ears pinkening, Elianna nodded. “I’m not the greatest of my line, but I’m trying my best.”
“How are you going to get us out of this time loop?”
“That’s why I needed a mortal witch. Whatever the enchantment is, it’s deliberately blocking me. It’s imbued with a primordial divine essence. I’ve never encountered such, even from the new Olympians.”
“Considering your hood, that’s shudder-worthy intel,” Red said.
“There is only one god with this power—”
“I know. My working theory is that it’s a God Trap disguised as a statue. My buddies think his toenail is in there or something. I don’t care if it’s earwax. We need to free whatever part of Chronos is captive.”
Elianna looked horrified. “That is worse than I feared. I must make a doorway massive enough for a God?” She gulped at the last part. “I commandeered a portal to your realm; I didn’t do it myself. Theoretically, it is possible…” She sounded dubious.
“How is any of this happening? Why can’t Chronos save himself?”
“How can I explain malevolent machinations and divine motivations? I live in the Gods’ realm. I am not one of them.”
Red slumped back against the couch. She’d wanted a deus ex machina. This sure wasn’t it. “How can I get to the statue alive? Because while you fade like morning dew to reset, I get slaughtered out there, then wake up to do the nightmare again. What’s killing me anyway?”
“I don’t understand the mechanics of this blasphemous God Trap. I’m not exactly mortal, so it must be easier for my form to pass less drastically through the enchantment. Death and sleep are when humans are most receptive to the gods, so they would be natural entry points in a timeline. Whatever force is driving this along is attached to you. I’m merely caught in the undertow.” Elianna studied Red’s face for a long moment. “Do you know why I approached you at the diner? I could sense you had been gripped by this anomaly before. It was under the leftover traces of portal travel.”
“Why isn’t Hekate here? What is she, retired?”
Elianna looked down at her hands. “Some things are better for mortals not to know. Our worlds were separated. Wisely, in my opinion.”
Red wrinkled her nose at the cryptic speak. “Fine. Keep your secrets. I’ll sleep easier when I have fewer gods around. Why aren’t your sisters here?”
“I lost contact once this dreadful spell began.” Elianna shrank in on herself. “No one knows that I went off-realm. I was supposed to visit my mother, so no one is looking for me.”
“We’re both stranded here then. Fabulous.”
Thelma popped her head inside the front door. Her eyes widened on Elianna. “Is that her?” Recovering from her shock, she bowed as she came in. “Welcome, my lady.”
“This is a priestess to Hekate.” Red started the introduction and did a double take midway. “Elianna, do you think she could boost a message to your headquarters? The shrine is beautiful. They’ve got the whole divine gang there if you want to ring up someone else.”
Thelma bowed again, confused yet eager to please. “I have many honeycakes to offer.”
“Maybe…” Elianna trailed off, uncertain, but she stood. “Do you have frankincense?”
The priestess nodded.
“There you go.” Red rubbed her hands. Maybe now they might get somewhere. She wasn’t the religious type despite being knee-deep in the supernatural. Or maybe because of it. Everything she’d heard today had given her an open mind. “Send off a prayer-o-gram. See if it sticks.”
Smiling, Thelma beckoned the demigoddess on. “The shrine is this way. If you think of anything that your mother would want changed, please tell me and it will be done.”
“I’m sure it is perfectly suitable,” Elianna mumbled as she opened the door.
Red began to follow. She didn’t know how these religious transactions went for true believers. Never had been really interested, outside of magic rituals, but this might be a once-in-a-lifetime sight.
Thelma motioned for her to stay. “There is a friend who wants to talk to you and will arrive momentarily.” She hurried after the demigoddess. “Let me find the good offering dishes…”
The door closed behind her.
“Sure,” Red said to the empty room. Was it Hannah or Basil? Ian was a possibility. He’d have questions for sure. After washing her bowl in the kitchen, she wiped her hands and returned to finish the movie.
Perenelle Flamel waited on the couch with an enigmatic smile. “It’s been an exciting day, hasn’t it?”
13
Time Loop #92 – July 3, Late Afternoon, Las Vegas
Why was the Immortal Alchemist here?
Red absently smoothed her hair, realizing how she must look, her clothes wrinkled and dirty from fighting in the catacombs. She chuckled dryly. “Exciting day? That’s an understatement.”
Perenelle, draped in a deep purple velvet dress that Stevie Nicks would covet, rose gracefully. She air kissed Red on both cheeks. “I fear it will be a long one for me. The Blood Alliance will know what has happened here by sunset…if not already. My diplomats will hear about it from the Global Covens too.”
Red’s shock faded, and her skepticism flooded in. “I’m happy to see you, but I have to be at the end of the list of people to see now. I don’t even think the Bowler Hats are done in the tunnels.”
“The Las Vegas Synod will need me more in the aftermath,” Perenelle predicted. “I had a moment to spare for my curiosity. It’s not every day that a demigoddess graces my academy. The Gendarme reported that you fought against O’Sullivan too. They wanted to question you to discover how you happened upon both, but I volunteered for the task.”
“Thank you,” Red said, grateful, yet she remembered the tequila-filled night when she’d overheard Ian and the First Alchemist discussing how to use the time statue as a weapon. They’d revealed that Perenelle had gone to Coyote Creek too. The little fact had nagged her since the twenty-fifth loop. “Elianna doesn’t have anything to do with the academy. This is one stop on a different road for her.”
Perenelle reclined on the couch. “We welcome her and wish her no harm. My people have their hands full with the vampires’ wrath. Why add a god to the brew?” Reassuring tone, open body language, smiling face; the immortal was trying to put her at ease. Just a chat between girlfriends.
Sitting next to her, Red matched the relaxed posture despite her wariness. The alchemist might want a do-over on this mess in Las Vegas if she knew it was possible. Red needed to control the conversation. She kept her casual pose as she asked bluntly, “Did your late husband invent a God Trap?”
Paling, Perenelle straightened. “Is that what this is about? Was Elianna sent by a higher power?”
“No, she went rogue on the trail of an anomaly. The God Trap was my guess.” Red scrutinized the other woman. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Nicholas was fearless. I was always the more sensible one in our partnership. His journals are in my deepest vault. Not even I have read them for a century. The God Trap never materialized beyond his private notes.” Her lilac eyes lifted heavenward as if addressing the gods too.
“How does it work?” Red asked.
“It shouldn’t. The design was flawed, requiring a ridiculous amount of energy. His inspiration was parasites, siphoning power unnoticed by their hosts. I don’t believe he moved beyond theoretical musings.”
“Would it be possible that someone copied his notes before his death? Could there have been a prototype?”
“Have you found one?” Perenelle asked quietly.
“I think so. Wherever it came from, it’s been active for over a century. Who knows how often it changed hands? I need to destroy the trap before it can do more damage.”
“My husband never finished his work.”
“You don’t seem certain.”
“We were living apart before his
death. As ever, I admired his relentless passion. Our work merely led us in different directions; I wanted collaboration while he withdrew. I commanded the academy in Prague, and he remained in Paris. I knew that his research had only grown more radical, but it wasn’t until the end that I realized how much.”
“Relentless passion? I thought—” Red stopped herself from repeating the official lore about Nicholas Flamel thoughtfully choosing to expire after centuries of life due to considering his life’s work finished.
“I know what you thought.” Perenelle looked away, blotting her eyes with her sleeve. “That is a comforting story for the students we considered our children. My husband was murdered in his laboratory. He hadn’t taken an apprentice in years, so no one could be certain what might have been stolen.”
“I’m so sorry.” Despite her sympathy, Red had a feeling the cover-up was as much for the academy’s enemies as its students. “You didn’t find the killer?” she asked, hardly believing it could be true.
Today had proved that the alchemists hit back twice as hard when attacked.
“I’ve never stopped looking.”
“I have a lead for you, too, then. A company called Uriel & Sons imported the God Trap to Los Angeles before it popped up in Oregon. If a prototype was stolen, it ended up on the black market. Their business card was on O’Sullivan’s desk, so it’s likely they sold him the Skull of St. Benedict too.”
“I’m more familiar with that cursed relic. It has only increased in power. One hundred and twenty years ago, witch hunters used it against my academy, butchering my students. I found out later it came from a sly warlock. I assumed he stole it back.” Perenelle studied Red, her cunning gaze probing as she said, “His name was Maxwell Baldacci.”
“That’s a name I can’t forget.”
Shock cracked Perenelle’s mysterious visage. “You remember him?”
“His ghost left an impression,” Red made a stink face. “I vanquished him last December in the Dreamland. Not surprised to hear that he wasn’t more pleasant when alive.” She wrung her hands as an unsaid question buzzed in her mind. “We’re already off topic, so I hope you don’t mind me asking something. Why did you go to Coyote Creek?”
“How ever did you learn about that?” Perenelle didn’t seem perturbed. Her question held a scientist’s neutrality.
“Overheard it. Around,” Red said cryptically. “You were checking out the Battle Forge portal and decided to go farther afield. Why?”
“Even in June, the Synod was planning evacuation routes for the students due to vampiric aggression. That portal was necessary. We needed to know why it glitched in sending you to Oregon instead of to Las Vegas.”
“I wondered myself.”
“The creek bed had already experienced a portal event. When one opens, it changes the environment on the mystical and molecular level. That will ease the passage of another. Our immature portal seeding must have been drawn to the area. Perhaps boosted by your thoughts as you passed through.”
Red asked, “Could you tell when that first portal opened on Coyote Creek?”
“Two years ago, judging from the tree-ring samples. From where, I do not know. The original energy traces have faded. There isn’t a record of natural portal activity in that area, so there must have been a catalyst. Once I proved that our portal was operating correctly, I concluded my research at the creek.” Perenelle asked, “What do you think of my findings? Curious, no?”
“Curious indeed,” Red muttered. It was more evidence for Zach’s idea that she’d escaped the Blood Realm. The thought made her stomach churn as an ever-expanding multiverse loomed as a reality, not a theory. She steered the conversation away. “The story about your late husband confirms something even more important now. I’m dealing with his work in Charm. Or someone’s spin on it. Whatever it is, Elianna will destroy it.”
“I would offer the local Gendarme, but the Synod needs them more than a demigoddess does.”
“Can we borrow the skull? That will make the job easier.”
“My Nicholas debated himself in his journal about this invention. I was bemused when I discovered that he’d even reflected on what I would have thought of it. He was correct, and it’s why he didn’t tell me. You have my full support in destroying this abomination.”
Elianna materialized in the living room. “I will make sure that Hekate knows your feelings.”
“You have my gratitude.” Rising, Perenelle bowed and strode to the door. “I’ll fetch the relic.”
Elianna confessed to Red when they were alone. “I think you had more of an effect than I did.”
“If it works. Either way we’re heading to Charm and finishing this.”
---
After being fully equipped with the skull and other alchemical goodies, they teleported. The academy disappeared. In a microsecond, they were across the street from Lili’s Diner.
The Oregon sun kissed their cheeks as the breeze ruffled their hair.
Red made sure to look both ways carefully before crossing the road. Her backpack straps dug into her shoulders from the weight of the reliquary with the skull. She didn’t want to be taken out by a car. Not when they were finally so prepared.
“If we get separated, you need to know where I wake and when.” She rattled off the info to Elianna, soothing her inner paranoia. “I can pick up right where we leave off. It’s everyone else that we have to remind.”
In the gravel parking lot, they navigated through the cars waiting for takeout orders. It was only a little after five, but the dinner dash started early in a town like this.
Elianna smiled brightly. “We have another ally in destroying the statue. All we must do is get to the sea caves. Chronos is trying to free himself, I believe. Maybe he is engineering the right sequence of events.”
They were pawns. Red didn’t know what was so great about it. “He’d better figure it out soon. People are dropping dead like it’s Game of Thrones. This relic better zap that statue. It’s super heavy.”
“All we can do is send him out of your world and try not to mess too much with the timeline in the process.”
Red opened the diner door. “We’ll assemble everyone—”
A gun blast cracked across the parking lot.
Red knocked forward like someone had lobbed a fastball at her backpack. The reliquary box absorbed the blow. The glass cracked, and it unleashed the skull’s power. Pushing Elianna inside, she looked over her shoulder.
A woman in a black suit leaned out of a sedan with a 9mm handgun, long silencer at the barrel. She didn’t miss again.
Time loop #93 – July 4, Morning, Charm, Oregon
Red jumped out of her bed, heart racing. She dove into her laid-out exercise clothes and sprinted downstairs with a backpack of hunting supplies. The Bigfoot smell in the living room told her what day it was as much as the marked calendar did.
“Hi, boys. I’m borrowing a ride; enjoy the cartoons,” she said without looking at them. Grabbing Zach’s keys from a hook by the front door, she trotted out before they could put down their cereal bowls. “Bye, boys.”
On the road to the diner, she plotted how she’d get the jump on her murderer. She’d finally gotten a good look and placed her instantly.
It was the other out-of-towner who’d been behind her in line at the breakfast counter in the original timeline. She’d been in a sweat suit, a generic black one like the jogger on the beach. Hiding in plain sight, she’d been in that Charm dinner rush before too. She must have overheard Red while waiting for takeout in the diner parking lot and decided to make a bold move to defend the statue. First with Callaway and Olivia and again with Elianna. It always ended with murder.
Whoever had sent her, they obviously didn’t want the statue demolished.
Red parked behind Lili’s in the employee lot at 8:50 a.m.
Olivia stood at the back door, puffing on a vape stick as she read a notepad. Her perfected sculpted eyebrows creased together in concentration. Mutt
ering, she rehearsed to herself, “Stace, I’ve procured enough for the boxes to—” She noticed she wasn’t alone.
Red waved and trotted over. “Is everyone here yet?”
“Joining the committee now?” Olivia put the vape away in her beige blazer and opened the door.
“Got a new job for you.” Red entered the back room of the diner with a nod to Callaway.
“Why am I not surprised?” The cop chuckled at the table.
“Nice stickers,” Red said, looking at her binder. Judging by the clip art and charts, Olivia wasn’t the only one who’d prepped for the day’s meeting.
Callaway smoothed over an embellished page. “I scrapbook when it’s not football season. I picked it up in college.”
“Is it Antonio?” Stace asked, walking out of the kitchen with a coffee. Her sunny yellow top was a mismatch with her irritated expression. “Because I already know about him.”
“I wish,” Red said. “In thirty minutes, an assassin will walk in and order a bagel. I very much need to know who she is.”
“Assassin?” Callaway said at the same time as Olivia asked, “A bagel?”
“I’m certain about the bagel, less certain about the job title,” Red admitted. “She’s definitely a pro. As far as I can gather, she’s here to retrieve a relic from the sea caves no matter what gets in her way. She has light brown hair in a bob, is in a black jogging suit, and is built like a weightlifter. We need to pin her down somehow.”
“Did Mr. Gabriel send her?” Stace asked, alarm tightening her petite features.
“No,” Red said. “It’s a long story. The short one is that this statue should be rubble, not on the black market. If she doesn’t know that I found it, she will soon, and it won’t be pretty.”
Stace folded her arms. “You didn’t tell me you’d found something so exciting on one of your hikes.”
“Newish development,” Red lied. She didn’t have enough time for the truth. “I’ll tell you everything after. First, I’ve got to see a demigoddess in the bathroom.”
Witch in Time: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 6) Page 19
