Tempus Fugitive (3 page)

Denny thought about this. ‘That means that you’d be trapped back in your bottle.  If I never existed, then I couldn’t have set you free.’

‘That’s his plan no doubt.’

‘So, why doesn’t he just go after
you
?  Kill you in the past?’

‘He can’t do that,
I’m
the one who set
him
free.  No, the part of history he wants to change is when you and I met. That’s when all his problems started.  I expected something like this.’

‘You could have
told
me.’ 

‘Sorry, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to.’ 

Denny suddenly panicked and patted his pockets; h
e drew out a weird looking dagger
. This was the Athame, the magic dagger that gave him certain special powers; he had picked it up fairly recently.  Askphrit had led him to it, in fact, in the hope that its evil influence would lead him to destruction and ultimately the destruction of Tamar, but she had taken it from him and had it blessed to remove the evil.  Now it was just a useful tool. 

Denny breathed a sigh of relief.  ‘Still got this, anyway,’ he said.  ‘I thought maybe he might have gone back and stopped me from finding it; after all, he knows exactly when I got it. He gave it to me.’

Tamar shook her head.  ‘No, if he’d done that, you wouldn’t remember anything about it, as far as you’d be concerned, it never would have happened. Try to keep up.’

‘I wonder what else he’s changed?’ said Denny ruminatively.  ‘I mean if our memories change, how would we know?’

‘We wouldn’t.’

‘Christ!’

Denny looked up at the sky again; it was weird to see the birds static in the sky, and the trees and clouds undisturbed by the breeze. 

He shook himself.  ‘So, what are we going to do?  You can’t leave time frozen forever.’

‘No,’ she admitted, ‘we have to go after him. You’ll be safer in the past at any rate, as long as it’s before you were born anyway.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you didn’t exist then, so the “you” that’s in the past, will be the “you” from
now
–  from this moment in time –  and for now, at least, you still exist.’

‘How do you know all this?  – You know what, never mind.  It’s all academic anyway, surely?  We
can’t
get into the past; we don’t have the codes to the archives.  He didn’t leave them on his computer, after all – we looked.’

‘Well maybe they’re somewhere in the house, it
was
his house after all.’

‘Oh yes, Lord Askphrit, Lord of the manor – in a house full of treacherous vampires, do you really think he would have just left them lying about?’

‘No, of course not, but those vampires were under his control. He was their god, or at least that’s what he told them, until I made it the truth. He might have put them in a safe somewhere.’

‘And if he didn’t?  If we can’t find them?’  

‘We’ll just have to improvise.’

~ Chapter Two ~

S
he was one classy dame, a real cool drink of water, but she was trouble with a Capital T. She said her name was Hecaté. Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn’t.  Maybe it was just “Problem”, with a capital P.  

‘Mind if I smoke?’ she asked.

Jack Stiles, Private Detective, leaned back in his chair and tipped his stylish trilby forward over his eyes.  Behind him, the pink neon sign from across the street flickered intermittently through the half closed blinds. It had taken him months to find an office with this peculiarity.  He felt it added the right ambience. In addition to this, he had a large battered looking desk with an old metal fan whirring constantly, even in the coldest weather, which riffled the edges of a stack of papers, held down by a large paperweight in the shape of a nude lady.  Beside this was a large black telephone.  On the edge of the desk was a whisky bottle, again for ambience, it was actually filled with cold tea. Stiles, a reformed alcoholic, did not wish to put temptation in his way.  The office was dark and gloomy; the only light coming through the glass fronted door on which could be read the legend

The
piece de resistance
as far as Stiles was concerned was a genuine newspaper clipping attached to a notice board, with the headline: “Detective Chief Inspector Fired from Scotland Yard!” With a grainy picture of himself underneath it, being manhandled drunkenly by two junior officers out of the prestigious offices and on to the street.  Talk about ambience. It was only a shame that his name was not Sam. 

‘Go ahead,’ he said, lighting up a cigar and handing her the lighter. 

‘I do not need that,’ she said, as the smoke rose from her feet.

She perched herself on the edge of his desk and leaned seductively over it toward him, and pouted when this did not elicit the response she had been hoping for, or indeed any response at all.  She waved a hand in front of his face. He was frozen.  She glanced at the clock – stopped.  There was only one person on the whole planet that Hecaté knew of, who was capable of stopping time. ‘Tamar!’ she thought.  ‘So it has begun.’  

Hecaté, being a goddess – the goddess of witches, in fact, was not affected by the spell, and she was capable of breaking it, at least on a small scale, that is she could free Stiles.  She thought that she probably should, but he would, she knew, want to go and help Tamar, it was the policeman in him.  Stiles had been a D.C.I in Scotland Yard until his recent adventures with Tamar when he had gone missing for four months with no word, and had come back to find that he no longer had a job.  He could scarcely explain that he had been kidnapped by vampires, because he was indicated in a prophecy about the end of vampire-kind, and had ended up on a quest to kill a god. 

Hecaté was also part of the prophecy – probably, and that was how they had met.  Now she just wanted him to herself, at least for a while.  She did not want him going off on some mad adventure and probably getting himself killed.

She unfroze him anyway.  She tugged on his arm. 

‘What just happened?’ he said, his confusion mirroring Denny’s and occurring at much the same moment.

Hecaté told him what she thought must have happened, and what she thought was behind it.

‘Well, we should go and see if we can help,’ said Stiles, predictably.   

Hecaté sighed.  ‘I thought you would say that,’ she said.

* * *

‘What do you mean, improvise?’ said Denny.

‘Well, we already have
one
archive code.’

‘That’s only to a deleted file. It doesn’t lead anywhere. How’s that going to help?’ 

‘We can hit “escape” see where it takes us. Maybe, it’ll get us into the mainframe, and …’ 

‘
Maybe
?’  Denny was outraged.

‘And, if we get into the mainframe, we’re halfway there,’ she continued stubbornly. ‘We should be able to access the history files. It’ll be a bit hit and miss, we could end up anywhere, they’re numbered I think, not named.’

‘I am not liking this plan,’ said Denny, obstinately.

‘Well, come up with a better one,’ she challenged.

‘I don’t even understand
this
one.’

‘Look it’s this or nothing,’ she said.  ‘In or out?’

‘I don’t suppose I’ve got any choice,’ he sighed.  ‘Okay, I’ll get on it.’  He sat at the computer and began typing.  ‘I hate doing this,’ he said, ‘it always leads to trouble.’

‘We’re already
in
trouble,’ said Tamar dryly.

‘That’s what I heard,’ said a voice behind her, she spun round.

‘Jack!’ she squealed in delight.  ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Hecaté,’ he indicated her.  ‘Your little time freeze didn’t affect her, so she unfroze me and we thought you might need some help.’  He shrugged.

He nodded to Denny.  ‘All right mate?’ 

Denny shrugged. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘considering.  I guess it’s my turn to have a mad god trying to kill me.’

‘Uh, huh, well, anything we can do …  What are you up to?’

‘Hacking,’ said Denny, laconically.

Tamar explained.

‘Sounds – confusing,’ Stiles said, non-committally.

‘It sounds extremely dangerous and foolish,’ said Hecaté.  ‘Jack, I do not wish for you to go.’   

‘I don’t think you should either,’ said Tamar   unexpectedly.  She had a great respect for Stiles.

‘Why not?’  Stiles was hurt.

‘Because I think you might be more use here.  We might need somebody to sort of co-ordinate from here.  If we get in, that is.’

‘Explain?’

‘Oh, yes, yes, I see,’ said Hecaté before Tamar could open her mouth.  ‘That
would
make it safer.’

‘Would it now?’ said Denny.  ‘And what would we have done if Jack hadn’t turned up?’

‘Risked it,’ said Tamar.

‘I still don’t know what you expect me to do,’ said Stiles.

‘I do,’ said Hecaté.  ‘It is probably better if I do it.  You go with them if you want to,’ she added unexpectedly.  ‘I know that you do.’

‘And what are you going to do?’

Hecaté rolled her eyes.  ‘Always with the questions,’ she said.  ‘I will track historical anomalies, so that I always know where you are, and I can pull you out if you get into trouble.’

‘Pull us out how?’

‘I would have to enter the file to retrieve you.’

‘But how would you find us?’

‘I will
know
where you are,’ she said impatiently. ‘
You
will be the anomaly.’

Stiles nodded, satisfied ‘That’s if I’m going,’ he looked at Tamar and Denny questioningly.

Tamar nodded.  ‘It’s okay, with me,’ she said.

‘And it’s okay with him,’ said Denny.

 ‘I found it,’ said Denny.  ‘One deleted file ready and waiting, what now?’

Tamar looked at the screen.  ‘I’m not sure, I think we go in, like before.’

‘You think!  What if you’re wrong?’

‘Okay, hit “escape” and see what happens.’

They lost the file. 

‘Damn! Damn, damn, damn, damn, DAMN!’  Tamar was making the most of her favourite word.

‘Calm down,’ admonished Denny.  ‘I’ll get it back, just as soon as the screen clears.’   

‘What’s it doing?’ asked Stiles, interestedly.  He was trying to keep the relief out of his voice.

‘I don’t know, I think maybe I crashed it.’

The screen was sort of – fizzing, not like a snowy TV screen, but more like a carbonated drink, it looked like the actual screen was bubbling, and if there was an image there, then it was badly distorted.  It was kind of worrying.

Tamar was pacing the room furiously, and it was a large room. She was moving so fast she was practically a blur.  Denny tried to catch her by the arms; it was like trying to catch a psychotic windmill.

 ‘Tamar! 
Tamar
!  Stop it!  If it crashes then we go and get another one, and try again.  The screen bleeped, and they stopped and turned – Tamar stopped so suddenly that her feet created scorch marks on the floor.  The screen had cleared, and there, clear as a crystal ball, were the words.

< WELCOME TO MAINFRAME >

Tamar whooped.  ‘YES! We did it, oh we did it, we – did it.  Well, okay
you
did it.  You’re a genius.  A genius!’  She flung her arms around him and gave him a huge kiss.

She noticed that he was not really sharing her enthusiasm.  ‘You don’t seem very excited,’ she said. 

‘Well, no, I am, it’s just that … well, we’re not quite there yet, are we?’

He pointed at the screen. What file do we want?’ he asked.  They both stared at the screen. Neither of them had ever seen anything like it. 

It was the most densely packed list of files and sub-files that was ever seen.  The type was so small, that human eyes could never have made it out. And this was evidently only the menu.

‘Oh my God,’ said Tamar, ‘try pressing “help”

Denny did so.  The screen changed. It was now a representation of what was presumably the entire universe. ‘Oh, shit,’ he said, ‘now what?’

‘Try “help” again’ said Tamar, unable to think of anything else.

This time the screen cleared and a message appeared

WHICH GALAXY DO YOU WISH TO ACCESS?

Denny rubbed his hands together in satisfaction.  ‘Ah, now we’re getting somewhere,’ he said. ‘Er, does anyone know what galaxy we’re in?’

No one did.  Denny sat there for so long that a rather disturbing screensaver came up. A relic of Askphrit no doubt, as it depicted Tamar being brutally and rather messily chopped up into tiny bits.

‘Well,
that’ll
have to go,’ Denny observed, glancing warily at Tamar, who was laughing.  ‘Oh I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I rather like it.  It’s good to be reminded of our own mortality now and again.’

‘I’d rather be reminded of Askphrit’s mortality,’ grunted Denny.

‘Good idea,’ responded Tamar. ‘We’ll change it to a picture of
him
being hacked to bits.’  

‘Later,’ said Denny, getting rid of the picture and asking the computer for a list of galaxies to choose from.  The idea having just occurred to him.

The list proved to be alarmingly long.

‘We’ll just have to go through them one by one and hope Earth’s galaxy is near the beginning,’ said Denny