Harper looked down apprehensively as the small, invisible space ship took off from the cracked pavement in front of the Tampa Theater. Her mind was still reeling from all she’d heard and seen. She felt like she’d suddenly been transported into the middle of a sci-fi dystopian novel—the kind of cheesy, guilty pleasure book she brought to the beach.
The beach…my God, all I wanted was a few hours to myself alone at the beach. And look at what happened. Where is Shad taking me? What the hell is going to happen?
As the small craft rose through the smoggy air, she realized she had no answers.
She wanted to get some though—wanted to try and clarify everything she’d seen and heard during their brief, bewildering layover at the theater—but she hardly knew where to start. Also, there was an intensely focused look on the big Kindred’s face which made her think now would be a bad time for conversation.
They were rising steadily through the air, straight up this time instead of skimming along just above the pavement as they had before. The Tampa Theater had already dwindled to the size of a shed below them when she heard a whooping alarm start to go off outside. The alarm was so loud that she could hear it clearly, even through the walls of the ship.
“What is that?” she gasped, as the alarm grew louder still, enveloping the small ship in a wall of shrieking sound.
“Proximity alert,” Shad shouted back. “It goes off when any unauthorized ship tries to leave Earth’s atmosphere. Alerts every Hive ship in the vicinity to come to the source of the sound. Which in this case, is us.”
Harper swallowed hard. In the viewscreen, she could see numerous ships converging on them. Were they still invisible? Could the Hive ships find them anyway, even with the stealth tech on Shad’s vehicle?
“Will they catch us?” She heard the terror in her own voice but she couldn’t quite help it. The whooping alarm made her feel panicky—like her throat was stuffed with cotton so she couldn’t breathe or swallow properly.
“Not with War and Peace on watch,” he replied and the look on his face was unreadable.
Suddenly, there was an even louder sound—a claxon or a bell tolling and then lights began to flash from the Tampa Theater down below. The Hive ships—which had the same, lumpy, extruded appearance as the new, weird buildings she’d seen—suddenly dropped, zeroing in on the more obvious target.
As Harper watched, her heart in her mouth, they started firing. Shad’s ship was rising fast but she could still see the moment when the old theater crumbled in on itself. The lights stopped flashing and the two alarms cut off almost simultaneously. Then all was silent and as they rose still higher into the sky and then into the blackness of space.
“My God,” she whispered, feeling a lump form in her throat as she realized what had just happened. “Your brothers…War and Peace…they sacrificed themselves for us.”
“Yes.” Shad’s eyes were dry but one look at him let her know every muscle in his big body was tensed.
Harper just couldn’t wrap her head around it.
“I heard them talking about it but I thought…I guess I thought maybe they’d get away at the last minute,” she said.
“That was impossible,” Shad said flatly. “And a Kindred always keeps his word—even unto death. They had to stay at their post and so they did.”
He was hurting, Harper could tell—he just didn’t know how to express it.
“Shad…” Though she hardly knew him, Harper had the impulse to comfort the big Kindred. She could almost feel the pain rolling off him in waves—what they had just seen, what had happened to his brothers—it was too much for him to bear alone. Tentatively, she reached out and laid a gentle hand on his broad shoulder.
Shad was still bare-chested and his muscles tensed as he jerked away.
“Don’t,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t touch me.”
“Sorry.” Harper drew back, offended. “I was only trying to make you feel better.”
“I know. You always do.” His hands tightened on the steering yoke until his knuckles were white and he shot her a glare. “But it’s better if you don’t. Better if we just…keep our distance. All right?”
“All right, fine.”
Harper couldn’t help feeling hurt and rebuffed. But people grieved in different ways and if that was the way he wanted it, fine, she’d stay away from him. As much as she could while they were on the run together in a small space ship, that was. Anyway he wasn’t exactly her type. He…
She got a sudden flash—this one stronger than either of the other two she’d experienced before.
She saw herself laying a hand on his muscular arm, as she had just now. But instead of rebuffing her, Shad covered her hand with his own. He looked at her, his strange, opalescent eyes burning with emotion.
“Harper,” he murmured and reached for her.
In the strange vision, Harper saw herself going to him, twining her arms around his strong neck as his big hands stroked her back. His scent was all around her—some dark spice she found irresistible—and she couldn’t help kissing him, wanting to wash away the grief and pain she saw in his strangely beautiful eyes. Shad stiffened for a moment but then he kissed her back, taking her mouth with his hungrily, as though he couldn’t get enough of her…
And then the flash was over—leaving her reeling with sensation as though it had really happened. Had it really happened?
Harper put a hand to her lips. She could almost feel the press of his full, sensual mouth and her back and shoulders were still warm from his touch. But how could that be?
He didn’t touch me…didn’t kiss me, she told herself uneasily. Hell, he doesn’t even want me touching him. What’s going on with me? Why do I keep getting these weird flashes?
And this one had been the most vivid yet—even stronger than the one she’d had of the huge insect face when she’d touched the lifeguard guy who turned out to be a mind-slave of the Hive.
I have to stop this, Harper told herself sternly, although how she could stop the momentary hallucinations when she wasn’t having them on purpose was beyond her. I have to get hold of myself. This situation is weird enough as it is without me going batshit crazy and starting to see things that aren’t there and feeling things that didn’t really happen.
“So where are we going?” she said, hoping her voice sounded normal. “I mean, what’s the plan?”
“First to a wormhole I know of just outside the orbit of Saturn.” Shad’s deep voice was a little calmer now, less ragged than when she’d tried to comfort him, she thought. “It dumps out a few parsecs from the Centaurus Reticulum System. We’re aiming for the planet Juno—it’s where all the best forgers live.”
“Forgers? What do we need to get forged? Money? Documents?” Harper shook her head, bewildered.
Shad looked at her. “More than that. We need to get you a whole new identity. Something that will stand up to intense scrutiny when we get to the Palace of She Who Alters.”
“You said something about that before—who is, uh, She Who Alters?” Harper asked, frowning.
“The only being in the universe who can help us, I believe.” He sighed and looked at her. “Remember I told you that you’re a ten’sora and you—”
“Please don’t start about incubating grubs again,” Harper said quickly and shivered. “That’s just too awful.”
“All right.” He shrugged, his broad, bare shoulders rolling appealingly.
Harper told herself she shouldn’t notice. It didn’t matter how attractive he was, he obviously wanted nothing to do with her so she might as well not even bother.
But she couldn’t forget the weird flash she’d had of them kissing. It made her shift in her seat and press her thighs together. After all, it wasn’t as though the momentary hallucination had been unpleasant. Quite the opposite, to be honest…
She became aware that Shad was speaking again and she’d missed most of what he’d said. She cleared her throat.
“I’m sorry—could you repeat that?”
“I said, we have to change that about you—have to alter the part of you that makes you a ten’sora.”
“Oh?” Harper frowned uneasily. “How can we do that? Some kind of gene therapy or something?”
Shad shook his head. “I’ve tried that before—it’s a dead path. At first I thought it would be good to take you to O’ha, to the gene splicing district and get your DNA altered there. But it never works out.”
“Never works out? What do you mean?” Harper asked.
He looked grim. “You always die there. You’re too beautiful—too exotic—and you attract all the wrong kinds of attention from the cloners and splicers. Even when I disguise you or try to hide you, the bastards still catch your scent.” He sighed. “Usually they kill us both when I try to defend you. It’s…not an easy death.”
“So…you’ve died before trying to do this? Trying to change the past?” Harper asked, feeling sick.
“Hell yes, I’ve died. What do think restarts the loop? Your death or mine or both.”
“So…you’ve died over a hundred times trying to do this?” Harper asked, her stomach churning.
“You have too, sweetheart,” he growled, casting her a side-long look. “You just can’t remember it like I can. I remember everything—every death, every failure—because I have the looper.” He nodded at the underside of his left wrist, where the weakly blinking red lights were located.
“It’s like some awful video game,” Harper whispered. “One that keeps making you go back to the very beginning when your character dies.”
Shad barked an unhappy-sounding laugh.
“That’s about right. The looper brings me right back to the beginning—right back to that beach where I have to keep you from touching the E’lo stone and take you off Earth all over again. Only this time I’m going to try something different.”
“So…this is the first time you’re going to take me to She Who Alters?” Harper asked. “But why? It must have occurred to you to try it before, especially when the two of us kept, uh, dying over and over in the gene-splicing place.”
“Not just in the splicing district—you die everywhere I take you. Either the Hive gets you or you die some other way. Even when I tried taking you away with me to a secure, self-sustaining life pod, to hide out for a couple of years and let the heat die down.” He shook his head and muttered, “Gods, now that was a mistake.”
“Why? What happened? How did I…uh, die there?” It felt surreal to be talking about her own death in the past tense but Harper found she was almost getting used to it—maybe because of Shad’s matter-of-fact tone when he spoke of her demise.
“I believe it was an aneurism that time,” he said, his voice growing suddenly hoarse. “You just…fell down dead, right in front of me. I caught you, before the loop started again—held you in my arms. But there was nothing…” He cleared his throat and looked away. “Nothing I could do.”
“That’s terrible.” Harper wanted to comfort him again although part of her pointed out she ought to be wishing for some comfort herself—after all, it was her death they were speaking of here.
“Like I said, the past doesn’t want to be changed,” Shad growled.
“And that’s why you decided to try taking me to, uh, She Who Alters?” Harper asked. “It’s a, um, path you haven’t tried?”
"It occurred to me to try it many times,” Shad admitted. “But no, I’ve never taken you there before.”
“But why?” she insisted.
“Because fooling She Who Alters is impossible,” he said shortly. “It’s never been done before—by anyone. And the penalty for failure is death.”
“If it’s impossible then why are we doing it?” Harper exclaimed.
“I’ve tried doing the possible, Harper,” he said, and gave her a hard look. “I’ve tried it over and over—tried so many different ways to erase the ten’sora part of you and change the past and none of the possible things I’ve tried work. This time I’m going to try the impossible. Maybe with the Goddess’s help we’ll somehow succeed.”
“And if we don’t?” Harper whispered, her stomach twisting in knots.
“If we don’t then the Kindred and most of the Earth will die with us,” Shad growled. “Look…” He showed her the weakly sputtering red light on the underside of his wrist. “The looper is almost out of power. This is our last chance. If we don’t make it this time, we’ll stay dead for good.”
* * * * *
Shad knew he was stating things too plainly—too harshly. Knew he was being too hard on her. But he told himself that Harper had to understand the stakes—had to know exactly what they were up against.
Still, you didn’t have to tell her the ways she dies—or has died in past paths, a little voice whispered in his head. He especially wished he hadn’t spoken of the years they’d spent in the life-pod before she’d died so abruptly for no outwardly apparent reason.
Gods, what a mistake that had been! He’d told himself he was trying to keep her safe when in reality, he’d just wanted more time with her. And time they’d had—two whole years of it while he fell deeper in love with her every day.
He didn’t allow himself to try and bond with her—that was usually impossible for a Shadow Twin anyway. But he had done everything else. Shad closed his eyes briefly, letting those bitter-sweet memories rush over him…
Holding her in his arms at night… feeling her breathe and inhaling her sweet scent as she fell asleep… waking up to her lovely face each morning… laughing with her…pleasuring her until she cried his name…making a life together… learning each other inside and out…
Foolishly, he’d allowed himself to do it all.
And then he’d gone through losing her and going all the way back to the beginning again, knowing that those two years were gone forever. Knowing that he had failed her again…that he couldn’t seem to stop failing her no matter how hard he tried…
Don’t think about it, he told himself, desperate not to relive the heartbreak he’d felt as he held Harper’s limp, lifeless body in his arms and roared his anguish before the loop reset yet again.
Concentrate on getting it right this time, he told himself. Remember what the Goddess said…
The Kindred Goddess—the Mother of All Life—had come to him often as a child. But as he grew older, Shad had felt his connection to the deity weaken. Still, she had spoken to him once more when she’d opened the Time-door and allowed him to step through after Ziza’s death. And then she had spoken again, more recently…
The last time he’d heard her voice was during the previous reset. He’d been floating in a void of nothingness—seemingly only a spirit uncoupled from his body—when he heard her cool, smooth voice speaking into the blackness.
Warrior, she had said formally. Your quest is not going well because you are afraid to trust—afraid to do what feels impossible.
Shad wanted to ask what she meant, wanted to clarify her statement. But he couldn’t speak in this form—he had no mouth, no body with which to express himself.
Trust…the Goddess had whispered and then the loop had reset and he found himself racing naked over the sands of the beach, trying to keep Harper from touching the glowing purple E’lo stone yet again.
But the Goddess’s words had stuck with him. He’d tried every other way he could think of to change Harper and keep her safe and every time he failed. Maybe this time he should do what was plainly impossible and trust that The Goddess would see them through to the end of the loop.
He had no other choice.