Destroyer

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A temporary paralysis seizes a person when inside a jump. One usually doesn’t notice it because the mere fact you are traveling in time makes you not want to move. But as my own experience has demonstrated more than once in the last twenty-four hours of my personal time line, someone in motion before a jump remains in motion after arrival. So if I’m running, I continue to run, and if I’m falling, I don’t stop just because I find myself somewhere else.

As Lidia moves her finger to the chaser’s home button, I tense my arm and start it on an arc that will collide with the hand Lidia’s using to hold the knife. It’s barely off the ground when we enter the mist.

One of the longest jumps I’ve ever taken landed me in a New York hospital for several days. This jump is not quite that long but close. No matter how torturous, I need to hold on and subdue Lidia. Unconsciousness can take me after she’s no longer a threat, but not before.

The dimming of the mist finally signals that our journey is coming to an end.

As the black of the jump fades into a dark night, my arm flies up and smacks Lidia’s hand. I’m not even sure she notices. I barely realized what’s going on myself as my brain feels as if it’s on fire.

Hold on, I will myself.

I flop onto my belly and force myself up on all fours, then look around. Lidia lies on the grass beside me, eyes closed and moaning.

Crawling toward her, I tell myself, Get… the chaser.

I’m almost to her when something bites my palm. I snap my hand up, and can feel blood oozing from the puncture. I scan the ground, looking for the animal that attacked me. But the bite didn’t come from an animal at all.

Shimmering softly in the dull starlight is the knife.

I grab it with my bloody hand and continue over to Lidia. My mind is working at only a fraction of what it should, and I’m already moving the blade under the satchel’s strap to cut it free when I realize the chaser isn’t in the bag at all but lying on the ground next to her. I grab it, and then, since she’s obviously in no condition to put up a fight, I work the satchel over her head and pull it off.

She moans again as I do this, her eyes fluttering but not opening. Once I’ve strung the bag across my chest, I put the chaser inside. My hand brushes against a coil of wires and for a moment I wonder what else she’s put in the satchel until I realize it’s RJ’s charger.

I use Lidia’s limp finger to unlock the lid of the chaser and then wrap one of the charger’s cords around it several times so that it doesn’t close again. Now I’ll be able to rekey it once I can concentrate enough so that I don’t screw it up.

As I close the satchel’s flap, I breathe a sigh of relief.

It’s over. I’m the one in charge now.

While there’s still much work for me to do, Lidia can cause no further damage. I’ll start with the Mongol messengers and then slowly work my way forward through time.

But not yet. Rest first. A good long rest.

I stagger to my feet. I need to get as far away from Lidia as I can so that when I do collapse from exhaustion, she’ll never find me.

We seem to be in a shallow depression covered by tall tufts of dried grass. Nothing looks familiar, but that’s not surprising.

The home button was created to give rewinders a quick way of returning to the institute — the preprogrammed location — at the point that corresponded with one’s date of birth and how long he or she has actually lived since then.

Where we are, though, is not the location that equates to where the institute would be had the institute existed in this world. Once I committed to living in Iffy’s time line, I reprogrammed the home location coordinates to the living room of Ellie’s and my apartment. Even so, given the distance Lidia and I have just traveled, all without a companion to keep our path true, a displacement of several hundred miles is not out of the question.

I check the chaser and see that we are a little bit north of where San Diego should be. What surprises me, though, is that we’re not in 2015. The date on the device reads: October 12, 2018.

That’s impossible. I can’t go to 2018. I haven’t lived long enough. That’s three years past my home time. It must be some kind of mistake. It has to be an—

Wait. Lidia has lived an extra three years. Instead of being nineteen like I am, she’s twenty-two now. And the chaser has been keyed to her. Could it be possible that the time barrier is in effect only in relationship to the person who is connected to the chaser?

Another wave of pain rushes over me. This is too much for me to figure out right now. I need rest. I can figure out what’s going on when my head clears.

I weave up the slope, my hand touching the ground with every step to steady myself. In the distance, I hear a hum that sounds a lot like the drone of traffic, but there are no other noises.

Good. The farther away civilization is, the better.

As I climb out of the dip in the land, I see a glow rising above a jagged horizon in the general direction of where San Diego should be.

Good. Maybe the change hasn’t affected things as much as I feared.

Off to my right is a line of vehicle lights on a road — the source of the hum. Scattered here and there are other lights, too, homes I’m guessing, but none are closer than a few miles.

My luck seems to be holding.

I randomly choose a direction and start walking. I can’t describe how utterly exhausted I feel. I don’t think there’s a single atom in my body not pleading for me to lie down and close my eyes.

In this condition, it’s no wonder I don’t hear the footsteps behind me until a moment before I’m hit in the back. I trip over my own feet and take a slow tumble to the grass. I have enough energy to roll onto my back, but not enough to stand.

Lidia sways a few feet away, her face twisted in fury and pain.

“Where do you… think… you’re going?”

“Go away, Lidia. Leave me alone.” To be honest I can’t help but wonder if this spot might be where I lie forever.

A growl starts low in her chest and becomes a scream the moment she throws herself at me. I curl to the side to protect the satchel and chaser a second before she smashes into me.

She claws at my shirt, at my neck, at my hair. A fingernail rips a gouge across the skin just above my collarbone.

“Get off!” I yell as I throw back an elbow.

It connects with her jaw, knocking it into her skull while at the same time causing my arm to feel like it’s been rung like a bell. The sting is so acute, I look at my arm, thinking it must be broken, but instead of seeing bone sticking through my skin, I see Kane’s knife still in my hand.

I pull away from Lidia and am somehow able to get my knees under me. From there I lurch to my feet. “Go, Lidia. You’re done. Go and enjoy what you’ve created while you can.”

She pushes herself up and rubs her jaw. Her gaze flicks to my hand, and she huffs, “What? Are you going to cut me?”

“I said go.”

She starts walking toward me. “Or what?”

“Just go!”

I take a backward step, but she keeps coming until she’s only a few feet away. Holding her arms out wide to her side, she says, “Go on, Denny. The first slice is free.”

I don’t want to do this. Why can’t she accept the fate that she’s created for herself?

After a few seconds, she drops her arms and laughs. “I knew you didn’t have it in you. You caste dregs are all the same.”

She sneers as if she thinks she can simply take the knife out of my hand.

Ellie.

Iffy.

The billions and billions who now have never been.

Yes, I’ve done my share of erasing, but my crimes pale compared to Lidia’s. I did what I did for love — for my sister and for Iffy. Lidia? Her motivation has been spite and anger and jealousy. The only one she’s contorted history for is herself.

In a burst of speed that surprises even me, I rush at her. Her eyes widening, she reaches for the knife, but I jerk my hand so that it flows under her outstretched arm and drive the blade into her chest.

Confusion is the first emotion that rolls over her face. Her hands go to the wound, and when she sees blood on her fingers, fear rushes in. She takes a staggering step before falling backward.

“Wha… what…” She loses her train of thought as she looks at her hands again.

Slowly, as if she is just going to bed, she lowers her back all the way to the ground. Her eyes, however, remain open as she stares between blinks at the night sky.

I didn’t want it to go this way, but she’s left me no choice.

She is Kali, the goddess of time and destruction, to the end. Because though my hand is holding the knife, she has destroyed herself.

When I kneel beside her, her lips begin to move, but she emits not even a whisper.

I stay there, my bloody hand holding hers until the life finally fades from her eyes.

Gently, I shake her just to be sure. “Lidia?”

No reaction.

“Lidia?”

It is truly and finally over. I have stopped her in the most permanent way.

I lay her arms beside her and close her eyelids. The last is for me, a final gesture that proves to me she’s gone, and perhaps, to a lesser extent, that in killing her I haven’t lost all of my humanity.

What I really should do is dig a grave. There’s no way to know who might live around here, and I certainly wouldn’t want some kids stumbling upon her body. The problem is, I don’t have enough strength to even start.

Doesn’t matter anyway, I remind myself. Once I jump out of here, I’ll change the past, and Lidia’s body, along with whatever reality this 2015 (or 2018 or whenever this is) has become will disappear.

Right.

Good.

Not an issue then.

The next thing I know, I’m stretched out on the grass beside her. I don’t remember lying down, but, well, it does feel good.

Maybe I’ll rest for a few minutes, just get a little strength. Five minutes, tops, and then I’ll find someplace else to hole up, where I’ll be out of the sun when it rises.

Good thinking.

A few minutes. That’s all.

Just…

… a…

… few—