by Mia Fox
“I want her back safely. That’s all I want.”
James looked to me and I nodded my assent. With that, James accepted Phineas’ hand and the two shook. A customer at the other end of the bar flagged James down and even though he hadn’t meant to work, he took the opportunity to further cool down.
Phineas turned his attention to me then. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Suzette, but surely you must know how dangerous it’s going to be for you. Why doesn’t James go with you?”
“He can’t, and it’s my decision.”
“But why?”
“Samantha is dead and Charlotte has gone to bring her back. And from where? I don’t even know if one can come back from the Romani Realms. Certainly Charlotte should never have entered them and I can’t have James going there too. It’s too much on my conscience.”
Phineas grew quiet and looked across the bar into the massive mirror that hung behind it. I met his gaze in the mirror and instantly regretted what I had said.
“It was supposed to be me,” he said quietly.
“Phineas...”
I couldn’t pretend that I liked the guy. I wasn’t even sure that I trusted him or knew for sure that he hadn’t contributed to Samantha’s death, but I couldn’t deny that Charlotte had loved him and he did seem torn up over her.
“I meant to go into the Realms the day of Samantha’s funeral, but Charlotte was so impulsive...and so smart. I never would have thought a human could pull something like that off.”
I smiled, a feeling of pride over Charlotte coming to me. “She’s amazing. And maybe, just maybe she’ll pull it off.”
“But you’re still going to try this alone?”
“My best chance of returning with them is by having James remain here to pull me back. He and Maebeline have brought each other back from the dead more times than should be possible for even a supernatural. If I’m going to gamble with my life, I’m betting on him to save me.”
Phineas just nodded to himself, appearing deep in thought. Finally, he spoke. “You know why I’m here?”
“I’m assuming because this is the only place in the city where Raven can’t hear our thoughts. Dating a Shade has its advantages. James has extended the protective field that surrounds my condo to the whole building.” I leaned back in my chair and noticed James eyeing me from down the bar where he was mixing a cocktail. “Besides, the food here is to die for.”
“I didn’t come for the food,” Phineas said, taking a long drink from a short glass, downing the clear liquid and then grimacing before continuing. “I want to go into the Romani Realms as well. I know she loves me and I can convince her to come back.”
I laughed aloud. The thought was preposterous. “You are even more delusional than Raven if you think I’m going to willingly go into the Realms with both of you. You might say that you have Charlotte’s best interests at heart, which by the way, I’m not totally convinced of yet, but sending you in there is craziness. Even if you wanted to bring Charlotte back, the chances of Raven convincing you to do otherwise and then using your powers against her are too tempting down there.”
“I’ve convinced Raven that I was devoted to her before, even when my heart belonged to Charlotte.”
“And she fooled you,” I said simply. “Raven’s powers far exceed yours and she can manipulate and control you. It’s too much of a risk. Besides, you’re assuming that Charlotte would choose a life with you over her friendship with Samantha? She already established her loyalties when she left after the funeral.”
With that stinging comment, Phineas waved to a bartender on duty, indicating his desire for another round. James, always with a watchful eye where I’m concerned, came over instead. “Haven’t you had enough?”
“Just give me another, James.”
James rolled his eyes and seemed to weigh out the advantages of having Phineas where he could keep an eye on him versus sending him back to Raven where he could end up plotting against me. James’ eyes met mine and I merely shrugged my shoulders, an acceptance that Phineas had become our drinking partner for the time being, although it was barely even lunch time.
“The same?” James asked.
“Nah, tequila shot.”
“You’re not going get sick in my bar by switching from vodka to tequila.”
“Of course not. It’s physically impossible for me.”
“You can still feel some affects of it,” James pointed out.
“Just fill the glass...dad,” Phineas said with annoyance.
“You’re older than I am, you crazy demon,” James said as he filled a shot glass with amber liquid, and muttered under his breath, “even if you don’t look it, jerk.”
Phineas immediately downed it. “Being older and looking older are two different things. Going supernatural at a young age has certain advantages.”
James rolled his eyes and seemed relieved to be summoned to the other end of the bar. “You don’t mind if I leave you alone with your asinine thoughts?”
But upon returning James seemed more annoyed than when he left. He poured another shot and lined it up next to the existing one. “Courtesy of the young ladies at the end of the bar.”
“Ha! Told you old man,” Phineas beamed, and toasted a thank you to the girls who had sent over the drink.
Given the choice between Phineas’ youthful appearance, for all intents and purposes, a 20-something year old with a sexy arrogance or James’ rugged appearance, the strong jawline that seemed to always have a perpetual bit of scruff, his physique broader than Phineas’, I’d choose James. Yet, throughout the hour that we had been seated at the bar, more than one young woman had sidled up to Phineas, his looks more eye-catching because of his supernatural turning, and I might add superficial beauty bestowed upon demon gypsies. Phineas may have been drool-worthy, but James, whose blue eyes could undress my every thought, was all man. More than one young woman had given me dirty looks because of my proximity to both. If they only knew that this was hardly a social gathering.
Phineas nodded toward his empty shot glass indicating he wanted another.
“So are we going to drink all afternoon?” I asked, addressing Phineas for the first time in half an hour.
He quickly drained his last shot, and turned on his barstool to face me. “What if I went back to 1850s England while you went into the Romani Realms?”
“I thought you said you couldn’t get drunk.”
“I’m serious, Suzette...as well as sober.”
“You’re not going anywhere near that office with its time travel formulas. That’s what caused this situation. If you hadn’t taken Charlotte there in the first place...” James’ voice rose slightly.
“Wait,” I interrupted. “He might have a point.”
You can’t trust him. James said in my head, his voice sounding angry.
“Maybe we have to try?” I tested my ability to answer back, but my response came out aloud.
“Looky there,” Phineas said with amusement. “The love birds have a new trick. You can hear him whisper sweet nothings to you?”
“Watch it,” James warned.
Phineas put up his hands in mock submission, and imitated talking back with a silent gesture of his mouth and eyes rolling.
“That’s real mature,” James noted with annoyance. “You see?” he said in my direction.
“James, we can use all the help we can get.”
James walked in the opposite direction and no sooner turned back around, frustrated with the situation as well as with me. “How can you even consider trusting him after...after Samantha died and Charlotte...jeez, the whole mess?”
In spite of being warned against Phineas’ allegiance to Raven, Charlotte fell hard for him and even traveled back in time with him. Talk about an extravagant first date. Unfortunately, this one didn’t end well. Raven distorted the reality of their return into this realm. Whether Phineas knew what Raven was doing was unclear, but one thing was for certain, Charlotte should never have gon
e back with him. It gave her access to the Amulet of Pollox, the stone that holds the memories of the greatest minds that I have had the privilege of serving.
Phineas seemed equally distraught and as angry as James. “Charlotte was an emotional wreck after Samantha died. You saw her, Suzette. She was capable of...you know.”
I nodded, knowing what Phineas was implying. Charlotte lost her best friend and blamed herself for the accident. She would have taken her own life as retribution, but found what she considered a solution, albeit an extremely dangerous one.
While Charlotte and Phineas were returning from the past realm, Samantha was also prone to Raven’s influence. It was child’s play for Raven. She simply allowed Samantha to see Phineas and Charlotte returning from 1850s London, and while no harm was coming to Charlotte, in order to return to the present she and Phineas had to run through the wormhole, throughout time, appearing as if they were running for their very lives.
The image Samantha saw seemed desperate and I responded to her totally unselfish prayer. Although she never uttered a wish, I ensured Charlotte’s safety over her own. This unselfish plea would be her dying request for it allowed Raven to distort Samantha’s reality to the degree that she didn’t see the traffic of Pacific Coast Highway careening toward her, or herself about to plummet over the massive bluffs to her death.
“James,” I said gently placing my hand over his, “I’m going into the Romani Realms -- tonight. I don’t want to remember our last hours together as having had an argument.”
James stared intently at me, and without warning placed his hand on the bar and catapulted himself over it as if it were the height of a child’s step stool. His look was dangerous, direct and yet, I was frozen in place. But when he reached me, he simply took me in his arms and I melted into them. “You mean the world to me.”
He took his hand and lifted my chin so my head tilted upwards and then his lips were on mine. Tender at first, with just soft kisses around my mouth, but the passion immediately overtook us and his tongue found mine. My hands weaved into his wavy brown hair and stayed in place so that his kiss wouldn’t end. James didn’t disappoint. His mouth left mine only to trace kisses down my neck, until his head reached my collarbone and he got a hold of himself.
He pulled himself up to his full six feet, pressed his forehead to mine and whispered into my hair, so only I could hear. “You just focus on coming back.”
I nodded silently, afraid that if I opened my mouth to respond, the tears would flow and although, I wanted to trust Phineas, I sure as anything wasn’t going to let him see me get emotional -- vulnerable.
James released his hold on me. When we stepped away from each other, we noticed a bit awkwardly that Phineas was staring at us, more bored than interested.
“You guys should really get a room.”
James jumped to attention and once again tried to grab Phineas, but I put myself between the two of them. “Not now, you two...Let’s focus on what we do know about how Charlotte got into the Romani Realms.”
Overcome with grief about Samantha’s death and the guilt that she was inadvertently the cause due to having gone to the past willingly with Phineas, Charlotte harnessed her new powers accumulated from the Amulet of Pollox and figured out a way to get into the Romani Realms, much in the way that Phineas had taken her into the past.
“I think she knows about a logarithm created by Charles Babbage,” Phineas spoke up.
“Why him?” James asked.
“I worked for him and we were in my old office before Samantha’s death.”
“Oh now he tells us,” James rolled his eyes, and then turned to me, “He’s unbelievable.”
“Thank you, I’ve been told that before.”
I elbowed Phineas, “It wasn’t a compliment!”
“Hey, that hurt,” Phineas looked at me surprised, but James put a protective arm around me and smirked.
“Spill it,” I said.
Phineas took a moment, but then told us about Charles Babbage, his former boss and the man who created the first computer, along with a logarithm that would later be used for time travel. Reaching for a cocktail napkin, he wrote down some formulas that looked more like chicken scratch than algebra, but then he explained the complex formula.
“When I worked for Charles Babbage the world was on the cusp of so many discoveries. The industrial revolution poured money into the city and he was at the heart of it. His logarithmic differentiation...these complicated formulas,” he said tapping the paper, “were used to determine and analyze different functions. When applied to time travel, they made it easier to differentiate the logarithm of a function rather than the function itself.”
“What does that mean in English?” I asked staring at his writings.
“In simple terms, this meant that Charlotte was able to break down a formula and see its separate parts, thus letting her figure out exactly what was necessary to do for her to physically jump dimensions.”
“How would a seventeen-year-old human figure this out?” James asked indicating the napkin and Phineas’ drawings.
I spoke up, both proud and wistful. “Charlotte has an eidetic memory. Anything she saw or heard -- both images and sounds -- was implanted in her brain.”
Phineas continued, “I can go back to my old office and see how the logarithm works in reverse.”
“But wouldn’t Charlotte be able to figure that out?” James asked.
“It wasn’t written in reverse so she never saw it. Are you willing to leave it up to chance that she can just ‘figure it out’?”
I looked away from both of them, realizing that Phineas was right, but certainly not wanting to take his side in front of James. It wouldn’t bid well with him for numerous reasons, least of all being the fact that women, including Charlotte, found Phineas irresistible. I wouldn’t want to outright agree and have James’ feathers get ruffled. Although his argument certainly had merits.
“I never thought she would use the information...to do this,” Phineas said grimly. “I need to get her.”
“Like hell you do.” The edge in James’ voice was as sharp as his words. “We told you, if you think we’re going to allow you and Raven to be down there...with Charlotte, Suki, and God willing, Samantha, you’re a crazier bastard than I ever thought you were.”
“Easy,” I said placing a hand on James’ arm, before turning to Phineas. “What he means is that if you’re in the Romani Realms with Raven, your bond to her will take precedence over everything else. Your perceptions will be altered and you may not even want to help Charlotte.” I paused, finding the strength to say what had to be noted. “You might try to keep her there indefinitely with Samantha, which is what Raven hoped when she orchestrated this.”
Phineas ran a hand through his sandy-colored hair, his green eyes taking on a worried look. “Then let me help by way of the past. While Suki is in the Romani Realms, I’ll go back to the Industrial Revolution. If I know Raven, she’ll try anything to stop her from returning to the present, including going to the past to destroy any of the data created by Charles.”
For the first time, James seemed to approve of Phineas. “It’s not a bad idea,” he said putting a protective arm around me. “And you’ve got Maebeline and I to make sure nothing goes wrong.”
A wry smile crossed my lips. “So with you as my Shade and Phineas as our honorary, demon gypsy friend, nothing can go wrong?”
Phineas put out his hand first. James took it and I placed mine on top of both.
“We work together and get Charlotte out,” Phineas said.
“And Samantha...if she’s alive,” I added. “Once I’m there, at least my connection to them will allow me to see what’s happening...even if I’m not physically near them.”
James left us to retrieve three shot glasses from the bar, which he filled with amber liquid. He passed one to each of us, “To Charlotte and Samantha” he said raising his glass.
Phineas and I clinked our glasses together a
nd repeated the sentiment: “To Charlotte and Samantha.”
* * *
Chapter Two
Charlotte arrived in the Romani Realms as if she were meant for time travel. She found herself lying on her side in an open pasture. Taking just a moment to look up at the clear blue sky, she took a deep breath and like a baby fawn taking its first steps, adjusted to the changes her body had just gone through in a matter of moments. Passing through time with Phineas had taught her that the wind would be knocked out of her, but it was temporary and she had no time to baby herself.
Rising to her feet, Charlotte started across the meadow, surprised by the utter beauty of her surroundings. The expanse of grass was a green blanket that covered as far as she could see. The soft blades were evenly cut, perfectly manicured although not a person was in sight. Surrounding the outer edges of the meadow, for what seemed like acres into the distance, was a wall of Sycamore trees. The weather was pleasant with a light breeze in the air and the sun provided just enough warmth to feel like a comforting hug. Charlotte actually smiled to herself, enjoying her surroundings as she took her time crossing the expansive meadow, following a trail of monarchs that flitted to and fro.
The breeze grew slightly more forceful, but not enough to lead Charlotte to believe that she should turn back the way she had come. She still walked as if enjoying a Sunday outing, stopping to pluck a wild flower from the ground, staring with wonder at a deer standing just a few feet away, daring to meet her gaze before bounding off toward the trees. Her eyes followed the direction in which it departed and she was delighted to see cotton-tailed rabbits nibbling on yellow flowers and then scattering as she neared. Only the breeze hinted that the beauty around her was fleeting as darkened clouds rose up in the distance.
Be careful. I could sense her. I knew she was alive. But fear still gripped me and would continue to do so until I could be by her side. Please, Charlotte. Take care.
As she continued to cross the wide expanse of the meadow, the rustling of the wind sounded vaguely like children’s laughter, normally a pleasant sound, but as there was nobody around, it was disconcerting. She was alone, but the desire to find the children that she was so positive she could hear became so suddenly overwhelming that Charlotte began to run toward the trees with all memory of enjoying a casual afternoon stroll now forgotten.
