Destroyer

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I’m surrounded by black, and for a split second believe that I have indeed been erased. But the fact that I can even think this means I’m still alive.

That’s when I become aware of the gray mist and know that I’m within a time jump.

I made it. Dear God, I actually made it.

It’s Kane who deserves the credit, though. He sacrificed himself to give me a chance to stop his grandmother. No, that’s wrong. The Lidia I’m currently bound to is not Kane’s grandmother. Which is exactly what I think he realized at the end.

The relief I feel for making the jump dissolves in an instant as I remember that Iffy has been left behind. My heart seems to stop, and my throat feels as if it has constricted to the width of a hair.

I tell myself that in the grand scheme, it doesn’t matter. Once I deal with Lidia and clean up whatever mess she creates, my final act will be to return to San Diego in 2015 and change the time line so that Kane never steals the chaser. As far as Iffy will be concerned, everything that has happened after that point will not have occurred. But as many times as I tell myself all this, I can’t get rid of the thought that there’s a real possibility I’ve lost Iffy forever.

And then there’s my sister, too.

Oh, God.

The weight of it all feels as if it’s about to crush me when the gray starts to fade and our destination begins to replace the mist around me. It’s only at the last second that it dawns on me that I’m not arriving as I typically would. I entered the journey nearly horizontal and in midair. And while my chaser is able to accommodate for elevation, I materialize at a steep angle that has my toes touching the ground, but my head and my outstretched hands a good couple feet above it.

I thump down on a grass field with an oomph, and know that I’ve just racked up a few more bruises. The headache from the journey is annoying but not overbearing, and I’m able to quickly get to my feet.

I turn in a circle, knowing Lidia has to be somewhere near.

Wherever we are, it’s night. Lidia has stuck to training in that regard. The field is surrounded on three sides by a U-shaped building and by a high fence on the fourth. As my eyes adjust, I realize it’s not a typical building. While it has a roof, the side nearest me is open air and contains rows of chairs moving higher and higher, all facing the field.

A stadium, I realize. And I’m right in the center of it.

I turn toward the sound of movement off to my right and see the outline of a person push up from the grass fifteen feet away. Lidia. Since she hasn’t traveled in several years, I’m guessing it’s taken her longer to deal with the trip’s side effects than it did in the past.

I rush at her, knowing that this will be my best shot to subdue her. But I only cover about a third of this distance, when everything disappears again, and we are once more in the grip of a time jump.

When traveling great distances into the past, the preferred method is to make a series of shorter trips. This is done to lessen the pain one feels, since the longer a jump, the stronger the headache. A trip of a couple centuries could even black you out for days. Go too long in one leap, and you’ll arrive dead.

Given that Lidia has taken us on a second hop so quickly, I figure our ultimate destination must be a great distance from 1952. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d been lying about no longer being interested in resurrecting the empire, and that we’re actually heading for the trigger point in 1775.

As the mist begins to clear again, I brace myself, knowing Lidia will be in front of me. I want to get to her before she triggers the next jump. The night is so dark, however, that I can’t even see her outline this time.

I rush forward anyway, my hands blindly waving in front of me, ready to grab her. But she also hasn’t remained still, and instead of knocking into her, I feel her brush by me going in the other direction.

As I’m turning, we jump again, and I am surprised to find that we’re back in the stadium. I finish whipping around and see that Lidia is running toward the seats, already thirty feet away from me. I raise my foot, and—

Jump.

The deep dark of night again. I can see the stars above me, but little else. What I hear, though, is Lidia putting even more distance between us.

I start after her but am afraid of going too fast as I can still barely even see my own hand.

Jump.

The stadium again. Only Lidia is not on the field anymore. In fact, I don’t see her anywhere.

Jump.

Darkness.

I can hear her running steps again. She’s much farther away now, and no longer directly in front of me.

Jump.

Stadium.

I’m all alone and can hear nothing but the sound of vehicles on a road somewhere outside the complex. Having no idea now where she could be, I remain where I am, anticipating another jump. But several minutes pass, and I’m still here.

I’ve been a fool. My chance to grab her was before she ever rose from the grass. It’s clear what she’s been doing. She can’t unslave my chaser from hers without accessing the device in my possession, and therefore knows wherever she goes, I will go, too. What she can do, however, is put enough distance between us so that when she does jump, she won’t need to worry about me being right behind her.

If I can’t locate her, she’ll be free to do whatever it is she has planned, while I can only witness the deeds her hatred of me has sparked.

I must find her.

Not for my sake, or Iffy’s, or Ellie’s, or even Kane’s.

For everyone’s sake.

I have to—

Jump.

I’m someplace new. A quiet city street, streetlamps on — electric, I think, not gas — and most of the houses dark. As I turn for a look around, I see that the horizon to my right is an orange and yellow blend more representative of a sunrise than a sunset.

I look at my chaser to find out for sure. It’s 5:47 a.m. Surprisingly, we’ve come back to 1952, only a week before Kane, Iffy, and I are to arrive. A check of the log reveals that the two jumps we had been alternating between were to 1927 and 1903.

I cradle my chaser to my chest, wishing I had my satchel to put it in, and approach the cars parked along the side of the street. The license plates are all black backgrounds with yellow characters. Embossed across the bottom is CALIFORNIA.

Could it be that we’re back in Los Angeles? Back where we started?

I wonder if Lidia has returned to her house, but a quick look around makes me think this isn’t the case. The Echo Park area where her house is located is extremely hilly, while the area around where I stand right now is flat. She can’t be more than a few blocks from where I am. There just hasn’t been enough time to get any farther away.

We’ve already been here longer than any other place we’ve jumped since leaving Iffy. Instead of just standing around to see what happens next, I decide to try and figure out where we are. If I can find an area where there are more businesses, I should be able to locate a newsstand or something else that will clue me in. After a quick study of my choices, I decide my best bet is to head north.

Though it’s still not six o’clock, I can sense the city coming to life around me as I walk — a door opening here and there, a light coming on inside a house, an engine roaring to life. The sky continues to lighten above me, and the slight chill of the night is giving way to what feels like will be a pleasant October day.

I turn left three blocks up, thinking this will give me a better shot at finding what I’m looking for, and indeed it does, though not in the way I expected.

Lidia stands on the sidewalk at the other end of the block, staring at me. I hesitate a moment before starting in her direction. I’m sure that she’ll start running again, but she holds her ground. I pick up my pace to a lopsided semi-jog.

I’m about fifteen feet away when she raises her chaser, her finger over the go button, and says, “Perfect.”

Down she presses, and away goes the city street.

The jump is so short, though, I never see the mist. Suddenly I’m in a room, running toward a wall dominated by a large window. I skid across the floor and crouch down so that I slam into the concrete portion of the wall instead of crashing through the glass. I hit shoulder first, and nearly drop the chaser.

“Denny?”

I whip back around at the sound of Lidia’s voice and scan the room behind me, but it’s empty, not just of another person but of anything.

“You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?” Her voice is coming from higher up than it should. I look to the ceiling and see a speaker mounted in the exact center.

As I stand up, I look around for the exit, but there isn’t a door anywhere. The walls to the back and sides are solid. I turn to the windowed wall.

Lidia stares at me from the other side in a room that looks similar to mine except that there’s a table against the back wall and next to it a door. Something is on the table, but it’s too dim back there to see what it is. From the ceiling hangs a wire attached to a microphone, which dangles just above Lidia’s head. I look above me and see there’s an identical mic in my room, too.

Looking back, I study the glass for a moment. It’s thicker than a normal pane, and through it spiders a mesh of wires. I have a feeling even if I had crashed into it, though the glass might have cracked, I wouldn’t have broken through it.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“Do you like it?” She looks around and then back at me. “I didn’t know if I’d ever get the chance to use it.”

“Where are we?”

“Just outside of Los Angeles in an area I think you know as the Shallows.”

The Shallows? My original home.

“I thought it would be fun putting this someplace you were familiar with. I contemplated having a window to the outside installed, too, but there’s really not that much to see. Just trees and bushes. Hardly anyone lives out here yet.”

“You built this place?”

“I had plenty of time to make my plans and prepare for any contingencies. I had this place built especially for you. Just in case. The walls are a foot thick. Concrete slab ceiling. And this glass?” She walks up and raps on the window in front of my face. “One of the strongest they make in this era. You might be able to get through it, but it’ll take you a long time.”

“Let me out.”

“What are you talking about, Denny? No one’s keeping you there. All you have to do is unslave your chaser and you can jump anywhere you want.”

I would like nothing more than to jump into her room, grab her chaser, and get out of there. Unfortunately, I know full well that the moment I unslave my device, she’ll activate her own jump, and leave before I can get to her. If that happens and for some reason I’m not immediately erased, I’ll never be able to find her. She could be anywhere in time. My only option is to keep my box connected to hers and hope that she makes a mistake.

“No?” She laughs after several seconds. “You’re a coward. Your kind always are.”

She turns away from me, walks back to the table, and lifts the mound I noticed earlier. As she returns to the glass, I see that it’s a simple-looking rucksack that, like my satchel that hangs across her torso, could fit into most eras without drawing attention.

“Like it?” she asks. “My bag of presents. If the institute was still around, boy would I get in trouble for traveling with this. But they’re not an issue anymore, thanks to you.” She snickers as she pulls my satchel off and puts it inside the rucksack. She then dons the larger bag. “I haven’t properly thanked you for helping Vincent come back to me.”

“Don’t bother.”

“No, really. Thank you. Without your assistance, I would have had to go through childbirth and raising a baby and… ugh. Not something I’m interested in.” We stare at each other for a few moments before she says, “Well, I guess we should get things started. I would hold on to your chaser if I were you. We’ll be going soon. I just need to put a little distance between us.”

“Where are we going?”

“Thought we’d start off small.” She walks toward the back of her room.

“What are you planning, Lidia?”

“I told you already. I’m going to destroy everything you have known.”

If she really wants to get to me, there’s an obvious way. “It’s Iffy, isn’t it? What are you going to do? Erase her whole family?”

Lidia reaches the door, but instead of opening it, she looks back at me, shaking her head. “Denny, Denny, Denny. Do you really think I’m that petty?” She motions to the room around her. “That I’d build all this only to change the fate of one insignificant girl? If that were my intention, it certainly wouldn’t have taken three years to plan. I could have figured that out in an afternoon. Perhaps that might have broken your heart, but that’s not enough for me. I want to rip it to shreds.” She pauses. “When I was daydreaming about how I could get back at you, I thought about those months we were in training at the institute, and I remembered how you spent most of your free time in the library, studying, and how you always got the top score on the tests. And I realized the way to crush you is to destroy your greatest passion. It’s not some girl you met in a bastardized time line.” The side of her mouth ticks up in a half smile. “It’s history, Denny. Your love for it was why the institute stooped so low to pull you out of your caste.”

She opens the door, letting in a stream of bright sunlight, and hesitates on the threshold for a moment before looking back at me again. “I’m glad you’re coming along to witness the bloody mess I create. But make no mistake. Everything that happens from this point forward is your doing.”

She steps outside and the door closes behind her.

“Lidia!” I yell. “Lidia!”

But she’s gone, and I fear that I will never set eyes on her again.