Timepiece: An Hourglass Novel (13 page)

Chapter 24

“F

orget being quiet,” Lily huffed over her shoulder, as we flew down the hall and out the front entrance of the Pyramid and into the crowd.

I spotted what looked like a tour group close to the food stands. All wearing the same shirts, broken English touched by a French accent, and a woman holding a tiny red flag above her head.

“Slow down.” I took Lily’s elbow and pulled her to my side. I’d noticed she got a lot of stares from both men and women in general, but with the appealing addition of flushed cheeks and accentuated curves, it was attention we didn’t need. “Try to blend. We’re too conspicuous if we run.”

“Let’s get good and mixed in with this crowd first.” She pulled the sleeves tight around her waist again and tied them in two knots this time. “Do you see anyone?”

I scanned the crowd. “No sign.”

“I can’t sense them.” Lily exhaled, but her body didn’t relax. Tension pulled her shoulders together, and I reached for the base of her neck to help ease it. I stopped before I touched her and shoved my hand into my pocket.

I was losing my mind.

“I won’t feel safe until we get back to the hotel.” Her hands went to the small of her back, and then she moved them to her waist, stretching and twisting from side to side.

“You okay?” I asked, mesmerized by the movements.

“Yes. I wanted to make sure everything was secure.”

Everything looked secure to me.

“I want to be able to run again if we have to. I’m so scared I’m going to drop this thing.”

I shrugged. “Maybe if you do, it’ll pop open.”

“Not the time for sarcasm.”

We stepped back into the flow of the crowd like migratory birds, wayward ducks falling into alignment.

The bird fetish was rubbing off on me.

“Kaleb.” Lily’s eyes were wide. “Look.”

I took a step back, trying to figure out what was off. The crowd was twice as big as it had been two seconds ago.

There were rips.

Everywhere.

“None of the scenery has changed,” Lily said in a shaky voice. “It’s just extra people. There were fifty people setting up, I blinked, and then there were a hundred.”

“The French tourists are here.” They were chattering away, checking out the Memphis skyline and the reflective surface of the Pyramid. “And they don’t seem to see the rips.”

The bodies occupying the crowded space were sharing features, like multi-limbed demigods. They were in the same air space, possibly even in the same cell space.

“So instead of a whole scene, we have a whole crowd. That’s freaky,” I said under my breath. Facial features blurred like out-of-focus photographs as the living blended with the dead. “That’s way too freaky.”

Lily’s hand tightened on my arm. I didn’t know what it would feel like for a rip to walk through me, and I sure as hell didn’t want to find out.

A mother, father, and two young boys stopped beside us, posing for a family photo. An elderly woman held up a camera and counted to three. It was all very vacationlike and innocent, unless you saw the man standing with them.

Although the more accurate term was
in
them. One leg rested solidly in the dad, the other, in the mom. His hand was visible on one side of the youngest boy’s neck, his elbow on the other side.

“That’s too much. I’m going to be sick.” Lily closed her eyes and turned toward the breeze blowing off the river, inhaling deeply.

“Stay there and keep your eyes closed. I’ll take care of this.” When the family finished posing, they turned and headed toward the parking area. I rushed to tap the man on the shoulder, expecting him to disappear.

He jumped, startled. “Can I help you?”

The family had been part of the rip instead of the man. Their Memphis Grizzlies jerseys should have clued me in. “I’m so sorry, sir. No.”

“Kaleb?” Lily waited for an explanation.

“My mistake. It’s okay.” I stayed beside her and scanned the crowd, trying to find someone who was obviously out of place. “The rips don’t see us. It should be easy to find one.”

“Just like it was a second ago, right?”

Doubt. Fear. More like terror.

“I bet she’s a rip.” I pointed to a woman wearing white Reebok high tops with fluorescent pink laces. I called out to her. “Ma’am?”

“Yes?” she answered.

I wasn’t expecting a response. “I like your … shoes.”

She hurried away, eyeing me strangely.

“I didn’t even know they made those anymore,” Lily said, now obviously holding the Skroll in place with her hands, ready to run.

I pushed down a creeping sense of dread. I didn’t want to tell Lily, but I was starting to worry that we were becoming planted more firmly in the crowd of rips than in reality. I wanted to run, too. Problem was, I didn’t know where to go.

“Trying again.” A teenage girl wearing a sweatshirt with the neck cut out was my next target. I could see a shiny spandex leotard underneath. I didn’t bother speaking to her; I just stepped in front of her and held out my hand. She walked into it and dissolved before she reached my body.

“Thank God,” Lily breathed out.

“Don’t relax yet.”

Poe and Teague stood on the steps by the Ramses statue, scanning the crowd.

“Run.”

Chapter 25

“W

e’re totally not conspicuous,” Lily said as we raced through the crowd.

“Stop running, but walk fast.”

“That I can do.”

We hurried toward the Mud Island monorail and the riverfront, weaving through parked cars. Some of the cobblestones were crumbling. “Be careful.”

“I should probably give this a little extra protection.” She slid her arms out of my shirt and wrapped the Skroll in it. “Oh no. Duck!”

Call it a stress reaction, but I had the strangest thought she’d gone back to the bird fetish thing. “What—”

“Duck! Poe’s boots.”

She dropped to the ground behind a Honda Accord and shoved the wrapped Skroll underneath it. Then she yanked my arm, pulling me down with her. On top of her.

When things like that happen in movies, they always result in a longing look, or an almost kiss. In real life, it translated to Lily’s eyes squeezed shut in pain. She was the only thing between the cobblestones and me.

“
Holy crap.
You’re like … a … giant.” She smacked at my biceps as she choked the words out. I rolled onto my back with my hands on her hips, pulling her with me. She took a huge gulp of air, but instead of moving, she lifted her upper body and straddled me, craning her neck to get a glimpse of Poe. “I don’t see anyone. Maybe he wasn’t as close as I thought.”

I clenched my jaw and stared at the thin white clouds in the otherwise blue sky.

This was about to get really uncomfortable.

“Lily.”

“Oh hell. He
is
close. Teague’s with him.” Dropping back down, she pressed her chest against mine. Her hair tickled my neck.

“
Lily
.” I exhaled through my teeth. A blush of surprise colored her face, but not before a brief second of recognition passed over it. The second when she realized exactly what she was doing to me.

“Sorry.” She grinned.

“I bet.”

Scrambling to her feet, she squatted down behind the car and looked toward the river.

I took a few seconds to recover, and then crept over to the rear bumper of the Honda and peeked around the side. Teague turned back around and headed toward the Pyramid, while Poe moved to the end of the line forming to board the monorail.

We waited, crouched down. The water lapped against the dock, and hungry seagulls cried out for lunch.

“Too bad I don’t have my camera to hide behind,” Lily said, pulling the Skroll out from under the Honda and into her lap. “We could have pretended to be tourists.”

“How long have you been taking pictures?”

“Abi bought me my first camera when I was twelve. It was secondhand, but it had all the bells and whistles. I had a blast learning how to make it work.”
A blip of sorrow.

“Why does thinking about it make you sad?”

“I’d started to forget things about my family. The house I lived in when I was little. Abi thought being able to keep a record of my life here would help me. So I’d never have to worry about forgetting anything again, and so I’d have a tangible memory.” She slid a little on a loose stone and I lightly touched my hand to her back to help her keep her balance. “Been taking pics ever since. I have a digital camera now, but I kept the original.”

“Your stuff is really impressive. You could have a gallery showing. Em pointed them out, on the walls at Murphy’s Law. Do you want to pursue photography professionally? When you’re older?”

“I’m pursing it professionally now.”
Drive and determination.

“It looks like we’re in the clear,” I said, standing. I reached for Lily’s hand to help her up. “You sense anything?”

“No.” She held the Skroll close to her chest. “But maybe you should sniff around for some despair.”

We made it to the hotel without any further incidents. Neither of us paid attention to the duck parade that was taking place as we hurried through the lobby. We didn’t talk in the elevator.

Lily remembered our room number. We’d left without a key, so I had to knock. Waiting for someone to answer was torture. Finally, Michael opened the door and we stepped inside, barely dodging a flying Emerson.

“You scared us to death,” she said. “What the hell’s going on? Where have you been?”

“Calm down, Em,” I said.

“Don’t tell me to calm down. You take off in a strange town with my best friend and—”

“We’ve been with Teague.” My words made the impact I’d hoped for. Em sat down hard on the edge of the couch.

“Teague?” Michael joined Em.

“On the way back from getting your coffee, we saw Poe and followed him. He led us straight to Teague’s office in the Pyramid, which I’m assuming is also Chronos headquarters.” I pulled two different bottles of soda out of the minibar and held them out to Lily. She picked the non-caffeinated one.

“You randomly saw Poe on the street in downtown Memphis. He led you to an abandoned commercial building, and then you followed him inside?” Michael asked. “It could’ve been a trick.”

“It wasn’t.” I didn’t like the implication that I would’ve put Lily in a situation like that. “I’d have known if he was trying to trick us, and I’d have insisted that Lily come back to the room.”

“He tried to make me come back to the room, anyway, but I didn’t listen.” She untied the sleeves of my shirt and removed the silver rectangle. I took it. It was still warm from her skin. “If I had, we might not have made it out with this.”

“What is that?” Em popped up off the couch and plucked the Skroll from my hands.

“Dr. Turner called it a Skroll.”

“Wait. Dr. Turner was there, too?” Michael looked from me to Lily and back again. “Maybe you should start from the beginning.”

We explained everything, including the crowd of freaky rips.

“So now we have a device that we don’t know what to do with, and we still don’t have any leads on how to find Jack,” I said.

“Obviously, we have to go back to talk to Dr. Turner.” Em felt the edges of the Skroll, looking for a way to open it. “We’re taking this with us. First thing in the morning. And we aren’t leaving until we get answers.”

Chapter 26

E

arly the next morning, Em and I hurried across Bennett’s campus toward the science department.

“Are you just going to plop it down on his desk and say, ‘Hey, my best friend stole this from the same office where you were seen with the head of Chronos. What’s that all about? And also, do you know how to open it?’”

Em had the silver case in her bag. “No. Maybe. I don’t know right now. But when I see him, I’m sure I will.”

We didn’t even have to go all the way to Dr. Turner’s office.

He was in front of the science building, holding his briefcase. A pink carnation was in the buttonhole of his vest.

“Dr. Turner,” Emerson called out.

When he heard his name, he turned to face us and smiled politely. “Good morning. How can I help you?”

He seemed a little formal after our encounter yesterday. I stepped close to him, hoping no one around would hear us. It was around nine, and people were rushing to classes all around us. “I took your advice and checked out the sights. The Pyramid? I saw some things I wanted to talk to you about.”

I expected shock, at the very least, surprise. But not confusion.

“I’m sorry, did I give you advice?” Dr. Turner pulled at the edge of his bow tie.

“Yes,” I answered, “in your office, yesterday …”

He had no idea what I was talking about.

“Dr. Turner, it’s me. Emerson.” She smiled and nodded, encouraging him to remember. “We were here yesterday morning.”

He leaned over to get a better look at her face. “Yesterday morning?”

“During your office hours.” She looked around before saying in a low voice, “We talked to you about Chronos.”

Distress coated his words. “I don’t … I wouldn’t … oh, hold on, my phone …” He fumbled around, touching each of his pockets before finally finding his cell. “Hello?”

He glanced at Em and me as he listened to the caller on the other end, his fear more pronounced by the second.

Em’s anxiety crashed into mine. “I don’t feel good about this.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Could he be senile, have Alzheimer’s or something? Or does this mean what I think it does?”

“His memory is gone.” I nodded. “It has to be Jack.”

“But he disappeared off the map.” She fought her fear, denying the obvious truth. “Lily’s been checking every hour.”

“More like every half hour.”

“Then how could Jack have gotten here?”

“He could be hiding in veils. If he stays inside them, it could block Lily from being able to track the pocket watch. He would exist outside space and time.”

“Or he could be stuck. That could explain why the rips just keep getting worse. More screwing around with the continuum equals more consequences.” Em made a sound of frustration. “As if things weren’t bad enough already.”

“Actually, I don’t think Jack’s stuck. He paid the professor a visit, which would be impossible if he were stuck.”

“Why would he take Dr. Turner’s memory?” Em asked. “Specifically his memory of us?”

“I don’t know.” I just knew we were surrounded by enemies and uncertainties, and everything in me wanted to get the hell out of this town and back to Ivy Springs. “Maybe because Dr. Turner told us too much about Chronos.”

“He barely told us anything.”

I looked at Dr. Turner, paid attention to his appearance, and panic settled in my chest. “We have to go, Em.”

“We need to call someone. We can’t leave him like this.” She didn’t move. “Who knows how much of his memory Jack took?”

“Em, don’t.” I needed to get her back to the hotel. “There’s nothing we can do.”

Dr. Turner had hung up his phone, and he stood staring at the Gothic arches in front of the science building, frowning at them.

“Please, we have to at least take him to his office. He has grandkids, a family.” She pushed away from me. “We want to take you to your office, okay, Dr. Turner? We’ll explain once we get up there.”

“I’m afraid you can’t. I have to get to a meeting shortly.” He tucked his phone into the pocket beside the buttonhole that held the carnation. The bright pink, perfectly fresh carnation.

“Don’t worry,” Emerson said. “We’ll be speedy. Just come with us.”

She reached out to take his hand.

He dissolved.

Denial came first. A white-hot burst of adrenaline in our chests that flooded out to our arms and legs, making us weak and dizzy.

Reality kicked in, the image outside reconciling with our brain. Panic sped up our breathing, broke us out in a sweat, made us shake.

I’d never felt another person’s emotion so strongly in my life.

“Dr. Turner?” Em turned to me. “Kaleb? Was he …”

“No,” I said, reaching out for her before she turned around. I knew where she was going.

“Rip.” Her breath heaved in her chest. “Dr. Turner was a rip. He was a rip, and he didn’t recognize us.”

“It could have been a future rip,” I said, trying to stall her, calm her down. Work out a way to stop what I knew was about to happen.

She shook her head in protest. “No. Michael and your dad said they haven’t seen any future rips since all this started.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“Kaleb, he was wearing the exact same thing he had on yesterday. He had the pink carnation in his buttonhole. It was fresh. He should have recognized us. Oh no.”

“Emerson, don’t.”

“Oh please, God, no.”

She didn’t wait for me, just took off running at top speed. My legs were longer, but she ran distance and had fear as a chaser. “Stop! You don’t know what happened up there—stop—Em!” She skidded through the entrance to the science building. I was two seconds behind because of the time it took to open the door she let slam behind her.

Her footsteps echoed up the stairwell. I heard her wrench open the door to the second floor. I caught it right before it closed.

The receptionist from yesterday sat at her desk, her mouth opening to ask us where we were going. We were too fast for her.

Em opened the door to Dr. Turner’s office and stood, frozen, just outside. I stopped in time to keep from running into her.

The fedora he’d worn to meet Teague was on the floor.

The pink carnation was wilted in the pencil holder.

The pipe was cold.

Dr. Turner lay facedown on his desk in a pool of blood, his throat slit from ear to ear.