by Wyatt Kane
“Right, then,” the old man said as we began walking. “When we get to the museum, there’s an ancient artifact we’re looking for.”
“What sort of artifact?” I asked.
“A tribal pendant from the Amazon. I’ll know it when I see it.”
“Fantastic,” I muttered.
The stone path soon joined a road, and we walked a short couple of miles into a small city. It looked … modern.
“I thought you said we were in 1954?” April said.
“No, that was back at the forest,” the wizard said. “We’re now in 2005. Not long before the recession that hit the United States and Europe.”
Stunned, I stopped walking, and April collided with me. I would have been a young teenager, still living with my parents. No, wait. Maybe not. My father was already dead by then.
“Where are we?” I asked.
The wizard grinned. “We’re in Greece, of course, but there’s been an incursion in the museum. Sometimes, the minor demons will latch onto residual space-time disturbances caused by keeping so many artifacts from different times in the same room. Museums are time-traps, if you will, for these little buggers to wreak havoc. We’ll need to root this one out before we can move on. Right, so here’s the plan—”
June grabbed the wizard’s shoulder to stop him. “You told us we needed a part for the van!”
“And we do,” the wizard said, gently removing her hand, “but it’s in the museum where a minor demon has taken up residence. Now, if you’re done… ah, damn.”
He was fading again. This time, the hand holding June disappeared, followed by his arms and rib cage. Inconveniently, his robes vanished as well, and we were left staring at two wrinkly, hairy legs, his junk (again), and his face.
April closed her eyes and shook her head with a grimace. She looked like she was trying to dislodge the picture from her mind. I didn’t blame her. I felt like I needed to bleach my own mind.
“Listen quickly. I don’t have much time,” the wizard said. “The pendant will hang in the Amazon exhibit. You’ll know it because of the time dilation surrounding it.”
“Huh? The what?” I asked.
“You’ll sense it, Caleb. Work together, get the pendant, and try to lure the minor demon away from any crowds. With any luck, that monster is hiding in storage and hasn’t yet figured out there are easy meals walking the halls.”
“Absolutely not!” June said. “We’re not fighting another one of those things! April almost got killed last time!”
“It wasn’t that close,” April said defiantly. Despite her tone, her face had paled.
“What do we do?” I asked. The wizard’s toes had disappeared as well. Considering what was left, I wished the rest of him would go, too.
“Work together,” he repeated. “It’s the only way you can get home. Oh, and don’t let anyone know you’re from another time. That’s very important.”
And then, for the second time, he vanished.
“Fuck,” June said.
I agreed.
XV
The museum was easy to find. All we had to do was follow the signs, which, usefully, were in both Greek and English.
Part of me was admittedly excited for this mission. Call me crazy, but I liked the idea of saving the universe. It was a refreshing change from being a bouncer in a seedy night club where all I had to worry about was the occasional obnoxious drunk.
The museum was free admission, so we waltzed in, catching a few stares. Mostly, April and June did, but the only place they’d fail to draw more than their fair share of attention would be at a convention for the blind. Individually, they were stunning. Together, they could have stopped traffic at the Indianapolis 500.
We quickly found the Amazon exhibit. It was fashioned to look like an artificially lit jungle. Behind glass cases, all manner of spoons, bowls, and necklaces were displayed with tiny cards written in Greek announcing what they were. None of them looked like a pendant, nor did anything jump out at me as being something that would help fix a time-traveling van.
I was starting to worry that we’d been sent on a wild goose chase when April paused. “Is this it?” she asked, pointing to a beaded necklace with a circle carved out of bone hanging at the end.
The wizard had been right. I sensed something emanating from the pendant. Time seemed to move around it in waves, and I wondered if the vibrations were similar to those Shell had felt when April orgasmed.
Stop it, I thought to myself. We were in a public place with a possible monster on the loose. I needed to focus on what we were doing.
“Yeah. That’s it,” I said.
“How do we get it?” June asked. “I wonder if either of you thought of that before we embarked on this great adventure.” She sounded sullen and grouchy.
April answered the underlying issue instead of June’s actual question. “I want to go home as much as you do,” she said. “I’m just ready to help us get there.”
June didn’t seem satisfied. She shook her head and muttered, “Fucking ridiculous.”
April turned to me with a smile. “I’m sorry about my sister’s foul language,” she said, tossing her blond hair. “She’s always been a potty mouth.”
“I don’t mind a dirty mouth,” I remarked without thinking. The twins looked at me. April raised an interested eyebrow. “I mean,” I said, “in the Marines, I heard much worse than that on a daily basis. In case you hadn’t noticed, what comes out of my mouth isn’t always language you’d want your grandmother to hear.”
June offered a snort. “Who do you think taught us to swear?” she said.
“We were raised by our grandmother,” April explained.
My jeans instantly became uncomfortably tight, and since I was commando, there wasn’t much to hide the bulge growing down there. I turned toward the glass and whispered, “I said ‘what comes out of my mouth.’”
April smiled. “I know what you said.”
My gaze drifted down to April’s breasts, and the memory of the morning flooded back. We really did need to get home, and I hoped when we did, April would come over and spend some more time with me.
June cleared her throat. “For fuck’s sake. We’re going to die while you two stand there eyeing each other. Flirt later.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, grinning. “So, we never came up with an answer to how we’re going to get that pendant.”
“Really, Caleb?” June asked, with a hint of both sarcasm and humor. “You have no idea?”
I thought about it for a moment. “Oh,” I said. “I guess you mean my talent.”
April nodded in agreement. “That might work. Seems like all you need to do is slow everything down, go in there to get it, and come back out. If anyone’s watching, it’ll be like the pendant just disappeared.”
Made sense to me. I looked around to see how the display area could be accessed. Not through the front, obviously. Somehow, the museum staff must have accessed it through some sort of access corridor at the back.
“Does anyone see how to get in behind it?” I asked.
We looked, and three displays down, we found a door hidden behind some fake vines and trees.
“Locked,” I said after trying the handle.
June pushed me aside. “I’ve got this.” She pulled a hairpin from her hair and crouched in front of the lock.
April and I stood watch. “That’s handy,” I said.
April gave me a naughty look. “So are you.”
I couldn’t help but grin at her words. “Glad you liked it this morning.”
“Can you two cool it for a minute?” June asked. “And maybe do something useful, like keep a look out?”
I had to admit that the prospect of getting caught picking this lock and having to escape the museum without the pendant didn’t excite my libido. But that didn’t mean I was above some flirting.
Still grinning, April
and I turned to watch the families stroll by, oblivious to the hidden dangers that might even then have been waiting in the rafters above, ready to strike. They passed us without noticing what June was doing, but I spotted a guard heading in our general direction. I slowed time, taking care not to let it affect June or April. This time, the crowds practically stopped.
“You’re getting better at that,” April remarked.
“Do you think it’s like Shell and wizard said? That the closer we get, the greater my powers become?”
“Maybe, but I don’t like the idea of the wizard being right all the time. Because that means there’s a giant bug roaming around in this building. And if there is, why hasn’t anyone seen it?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” I said.
“Got it!” June hissed.
She stood and opened the door, and all three of us stepped through. Before closing the door behind me, I allowed time to flow back to normal. The crowds continued their strolling, and the guard resumed his rounds. At the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder at the twins’ upbringing. Swearing and picking locks? I was impressed.
Inside the back corridor, it was utilitarian and dark. All along the hall, the back doors of displays lined one side while other regular doors lined the other. We counted display doors until we found the third one from where we had entered.
“This must be it,” April said. “Damn. It’s locked, too. June, can you get it?”
The dark-haired sister frowned at the lock. “I don’t know. This one looks more complicated. I can give it a try.”
She bent to the task. This time, she cursed quietly under her breath as she worked, and as the minutes slowly ticked by, I began to feel the frustration coming off her in waves.
Maybe it was June’s frustration, but I started to feel anxious. Every second we were there was another second in which we risked getting caught by a museum worker. Not to mention that bug the wizard had mentioned.
Nor was I the only one. More than once, April shot me a worried look. I wondered what we would do if June couldn’t pick the lock. Would we have to break the display door open somehow? Or what?
It was a pity my talent couldn’t help with this, I thought.
Although … I was starting to think that maybe it could.
June stood up. “Damn it!” she said. “I can’t do it!”
She looked at April and me standing there, her frustration clear. “Sorry,” she said.
“Now what?” April said.
“My turn,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “I’m going to try something. You have to keep watch, though. I don’t know if I can slow time and do this, too.”
The twins didn’t ask any questions. They just stationed themselves to either side of me, keeping watch down the hall. We heard the sounds of doors opening and closing, but no one appeared within view.
I thought back to when the wizard fixed June’s ankle and thought I might be able to do something similar with the lock. Of course, the old man had been muttering some sort of incantation at the time, but Shell had shown me that spell. Could I remember it? Could I bend time around the door to a point where it had been unlocked?
Perhaps I could. Of course, I didn’t actually know how the old man’s spells worked. Maybe all I needed to do was repeat the words and focus…
I touched the keyhole and closed my eyes, thinking about the lock and how time was moving all around it. I spoke the words of the spell and made the appropriate gestures as best I could remember.
For a while, nothing happened. Then, I felt a something shift.
More tumblers turned as I imagined my fingers melting into the keyhole and manipulating, not the tumblers themselves, but the currents of time around them.
Finally, the lock clicked open. I was surprised to find sweat beading on my forehead, and I was panting as if I’d just been for a run.
“Neat,” April whispered. “Now, slow time while you steal that artifact because someone is definitely walking down the hall.”
I did as I was told, slowing time before I grabbed the handle and turned it. The exhibit door opened, allowing bright yellow light to flood the darker hallway. A kid was standing with his mouth pressed against the glass, making faces. When he saw me, his eyes slowly widened in an expression of surprise. I wondered what I looked like to him. A blur? A sudden apparition? Either way, his mother wasn’t looking at me, so I took my opportunity to grab the pendant off its stand.
There was no time to celebrate. As soon as my fingers touched the beads, the timelines shifted. I felt them in my bones, twisting and turning, criss-crossing over one another until they were tangled like a hairball in a shower. A flicker of fear ran through me, and I realized that once again, it wasn’t my fear, but June’s.
“Caleb, look out!” the dark-haired twin screamed.
XVI
I didn’t know how she knew to warn me. Maybe her own talent told her something was in the ceiling above me. Maybe she’d sensed its anticipation and hunger. Either way, the ceiling started to sag in the middle, and it was no longer just June’s warning that told me to run. I could hear it, a massive something shifting its weight just above my head.
I needed no further encouragement. I dove for the door with the pendant in my hand. At the same time, the thing in the ceiling let out a blood-curdling screech and came crashing down inside the display. I fell into the hallway as the lights flickered and died. The hallway became pitch black, the terrible screeching filled the air, and I lost my grip on time.
April had the presence of mind to slam the door behind me.
“I’ve got it!” I said, stuffing the pendant in my pocket. It was almost as if the demon heard me, because the sound of its claws on wood made my skin crawl as it tried to force its way out of the display. I scrambled to my feet, grabbed April and June, and we felt our way down the hall toward the door.
“Here,” April said. When she opened the door, the public spaces weren’t much lighter than the hallway. The lights had gone out everywhere. To the right, glass shattered, triggering screams nearby. More people joined the pandemonium, and everyone began running.
“It’s loose!” I yelled over the din. The click-click-click-click of claws on the tile floor of the museum caused my arm hairs to rise.
“Back inside!” April yelled. She pulled me backward, and then all three of us were back in the pitch black of the hallway with the door pulled closed behind us. The screams outside intensified, changing from expression of fear to those of pain and death as it the monster caught up with those outside.
I knew those sounds, and a shiver ran down my spine. “We’ve got to go out there and help those people.”
Partial lights returned, and I could make out the girls’ eyes. April’s were fearful, June’s were defiant.
“This isn’t our fight,” the dark-haired sister reminded me. “Just because we survived from blind luck last night doesn’t mean we’ll survive today.”
April took my hand. “I’m with you, Caleb,” she said. “We’ve got to help those people.” At her sister’s words, June started to swear under her breath.
Something heavy hit the door. It made the wall shudder, and we lurched away from it. Expecting a mad bug-demon creature of unknown shape, size or nature to come bursting through it at any moment, I looked around for a weapon of some sort, but the hallway was clear. There wasn’t even a spare broom lying about.
“Ideas?” I asked.
June let out a noise of disgust. “All right!” she said. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
She made her way quickly back through the corridor to the Amazon exhibit. As the dark-haired twin disappeared into its depths, I realized April was still holding my hand. She was squeezing it tightly, and I imagined her knuckles turning white in fear.
All we could do was wait for June to return and hope the bug on the other side of the door didn’t make i
t through in the interim.
Three more times, the monster pounded itself against the door before June made it back. Three more times, the door stood up to the punishment. But only just. The third time, there was aloud, wood-splintering crack! that caused April to hold my hand even tighter.
But then it was silent, as if the monster had wandered away.
When June finally returned, she held up a stone ax from the smashed exhibit.
“Great thinking,” I said. Then I studied her closely. “Are you with us?”
“I don’t have a choice. I don’t want to see April get killed,” June said, glaring at me.
“Trust me, I don’t want to see any of us get killed,” I said. “So we’ll do like we did last night. I’ll go out there as bait, and when it gets close enough, I’ll slow time again so we can all attack it together.” I ignored the fact that my talent didn’t seem to work as well on these monsters.
“Last night, we let the other demon attack it,” April pointed out. “Something tells me June’s ax isn’t going to be enough.”
“We’ll grab those spears from the other exhibit,” I said, “and use the ax to smash the glass.”
“Because that won’t attract the monster at all.”
“We’re supposed to attract the monster. That’s the point.” As I spoke, more screams sounded, providing more evidence that the monster was no longer at the door—as well as telling us that we needed to hurry before more people died. “Let’s do this!”
Not wanting to rush straight into the demon’s claws, I cracked the door open and peered back out into the main museum floor.
“See anything?” April whispered.
“No,” I replied. I took a deep breath to calm my pounding heart. “April, if you see anything, tell me through your thoughts.”
With that, I crept out of the maintenance area, stealing behind the fake trees hiding the door. The scuttle of feet sounded close, accompanied by a disturbing crunchy sound and the smell of a fresh kill. I felt April put her hand on my back as she tiptoed out behind me.
