Infinityglass

Chapter 6

Hallie

He’d gone all college professor–like, with his fingers steepled together. “Bear with me for a second, and give me a chance to help you understand.”

“Understand what?” The piano riff faded, replaced by a low, thrumming bass as things inside the bar returned to normal. “I can barely hear you over Jay-Z. Outside.” I slid off my stool and grabbed my bag.

He took my elbow, and when the crowd got thicker as we approached the side door, he moved his hand to the small of my back. We stepped out into the cold. I shivered before he maneuvered me to stand beside one of the industrial-sized warming lamps.

Thoughtful. Considerate. Tricky.

The bass still thumped through the closed shutters of Lafitte’s, but we were the only people in the courtyard. November wasn’t the best time for outdoors, even as far south as New Orleans.

“All right,” I said. “I’m ready. Shock and awe away.”

“You aren’t taking me seriously.”

“That’s kind of the way I roll, chief.”

“Stop it. This is important.”

His urgency startled me. I flinched when he put his hands on my shoulders. They were big and warm, and covered a lot of bare surface area.

“I’m sorry.” He started to move his hands, but I grabbed his wrists.

“Uh-uh,” I said. “It’s too cold.”

I liked the warmth and the feel of his skin against mine. He slipped his jacket off his shoulders and wrapped it around me.

That’s when I noticed he wasn’t packing heat.

That’s when I got nervous.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“I’m part of your security detail.”

“Security details carry weapons.”

He hedged. “I wasn’t sure of the carrying laws in Louisiana. Not in a bar.”

“Laws don’t matter when you work for Paul Girard. You do what he says.”

“I’m new at the security thing, and if you don’t let me take you home, I’ll never get a chance to be old at it.” His eyes told me he was worried about way more than losing his job.

“I’ll let you take me home.” His look of relief disappeared when I held up my hand. “When you tell me who you are.”

I watched him mentally backpedal, then scramble around for a good answer. It didn’t take too long.

“You were right.” He exhaled deeply, his shoulders slumping. “Your dad told me about your transmutation ability.”

“Smooth. Totally nonobvious subject change.” Maybe I’d been wrong about the smart thing. “Don’t even try to play like that’s all you know.”

“You aren’t the only person in the world with time-related abilities.”

He shouldn’t have seen what we saw inside Lafitte’s. And he shouldn’t know about people with time abilities.

“Do you have your own brand of magical powers?” I fisted my hands on my hips. “Is that why he told you about me?”

“Yes. No.” He ran his hands over his short hair, and then repeated it, like he forgot what it felt like.

“Do you work for Chronos?”

“No, not Chronos.”

He could see ripples. He knew about time-related abilities. Nothing shocked him, even my quick change from one face to another. Then I remembered something Dad said.

“You work for the Hourglass.” I whipped his jacket off my shoulders and shoved it into his chest.

His face and his fumble gave him away. “Wh—what?”

“Please do not irritate me further by acting like you don’t know what I’m talking about. That would be a serious mistake.”

“I used to work for the Hourglass, but now I work for your dad.”

“And they sent you?” I asked. “Were there no competent adults available?”

He stared at me for a long time. “I know more about certain subjects than others. Even competent adults.”

A sneaking suspicion crept its way up my spine. “What kind of subjects?”

“Subjects like you.”

“Right.” I started backing up toward the gate that led out to Bourbon.

“Hallie, wait, please.”

I stopped when I saw his eyes. They couldn’t keep a secret. Honesty shone out from behind them.

“You’re more than you think you are, and your ability is only a symptom of something … greater.” He took a steadying breath. “Something huge. Something that could possibly change the world, even save it. I can help you.”

I laughed. So hard I doubled over.

“I don’t think you’re grasping the magnitude of what I’m trying to tell you,” he said seriously.

“What I will be grasping are your man berries in a vise when I turn you over to my dad.”

“He knows who I am and where I’m from. He hired me to help you.”

“Dad knows who you are?” That straightened me right up. “And he made you my bodyguard? Because you’re really, really crappy at it.”

“I tracked you here, didn’t I?”

Touché.

“It was his cover for me. And you weren’t supposed to be leaving the house, so I wasn’t supposed to need to be good at it. But I put a GPS in your bag.”

I smacked him with my purse and then held it open. “Get it out. Now.”

After he removed the GPS and slipped it into his pocket, he looked at Lafitte’s, back at me, and then blew out a deep breath. “I’m really kind of like … a historian.”

“I’m an Aquarius.”

He groaned in frustration.

“So you’re here to make a historical note of what?” I shivered, rubbed my arms, and jerked the jacket back out of his hands, shoving my arms into the sleeves.

“I’m not here as a witness. My specialty is in something called the Infinityglass. I used to think it was a what. Now I know it’s a who. And you’re it.”

He looked at me as if he expected a big gasp, or some sort of physical reaction. I didn’t give him one.

“Hold up a second, Hagrid.” Laughter bubbled to the surface again. “If you think you’re here to tell me how special I am, you can stop. I already know.”

“You what? But … how?”

“Did you really think you were springing something on me?” I hugged myself, wrapping his jacket around my body. “That’s cute. Were you going to teach me the ways of the world, Obi-Wan? Did you think you were my only hope?”

I expected him to crumble under the weight of my sarcasm. Instead, he rested his shoulder against the outer wall of Lafitte’s, and looked all sorts of superior. And knowledgeable. “What if I am?”

His confidence carried knowledge instead of swagger. All I had was enough information to be dangerous.

“How much do you know about who you are, Hallie? Because I bet I know more.”

I shrugged and tried not to look like my next breath depended on hearing what he knew.

“Give me twenty-four hours,” he said. “I promise I can help you.”

“I can’t … I have to think about this.” I turned to head for the gate to the sidewalk.

And faced a ripple.

The man in front of me had lanky brown hair. His clothes were old-fashioned, but dusty, not dirty. Authentic. Real or part of a vision, his eyes were black and devoid of emotion.

“Things are hopping tonight.” I slid my arms out of Dune’s jacket.

Dune grabbed at me. “Wait, Hallie.”

“Just go around it.” I jerked away from Dune, still gripping the jacket, and took one fat step forward. So did the rip.

We became one. The present was lost. The Bourbon Street I knew slipped away. Cars were replaced with horse-drawn buggies, and daylight replaced dark. My body didn’t belong to me. Neither did my mind.

A memory I had no right to tickled the edge of my conscious.

“I’ve done no wrong. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”

My voice, but not my voice.

“It was a mistake.”

Suddenly, a man stands across from me, rage touching every one of his features. “You killed her.”

Callused hands scrape the thin skin of my neck.

My skin, but not my skin.

My coat smells of wood smoke, and the breath of the man choking me reeks, moist against my face. I squeeze the man’s wrists so hard I hear bones pop. I am surprised by my strength.

“You’re an abomination,” the attacker accuses.

A kitchen maid. A new one, with a gap between her front teeth. What I’d done wasn’t an accident. The swamp had stunk of rotting fish and algae in the late summer air. I hadn’t even pushed her skirt down before I rolled her into the water.

“I didn’t mean to,” I say inside my head, silently begging, as black dots cloud my vision.

I pushed against the memory, wanting out of the man’s mind. I focused on escape with all I had. We separated with force, and he stumbled into a veil that hung in the air, shining like sunlight on water. It was jagged around the edges, and the inside was nothing but swirling darkness.

The dark disappeared, zipping from top to bottom. It left no suggestion of the incident, with the exception of a faint hint of wood smoke.

I managed to stay upright for five seconds before the ground made a grab for my face.

Dune

The rip … absorbed Hallie.

It couldn’t have lasted for more than fifteen seconds, but it felt like an hour. I knew I was looking at Hallie, because her clothes didn’t change. At first, I wondered if it were a transmutation thing, if maybe she were trying to mess with me to make me leave her alone.

But her features rearranged themselves.

A broad forehead and small eyes took over Hallie’s face, unseeing. Thin lips formed words, something about a mistake. At first, anger distorted the expression, but it quickly turned to horror, and then the skin began to turn blue.

I was reaching out for her when Hallie’s facial features became more prominent, and she and the rip separated. She spun around, and almost as if she shoved him, the man fell backward into the veil, shimmering in the air. It zipped shut behind him.

I caught Hallie just before she hit the ground. We were still in the courtyard of Lafitte’s. After a quick check of the windows to search for peering eyes, I scooped her up in my arms and scanned the area for someplace safe. Going back into Lafitte’s wasn’t an option.

“Cab,” she said groggily, pushing herself out of my arms. “Get a cab and take me home.”

I flagged down a cab and helped her in, giving the driver the address to her house. I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her to my chest. Let the driver think we were making out. He’d seen her. I’m sure he wouldn’t blame me.

“Are you okay?” I whispered into the hair above her ear. “Is there anything I can do?”

She hung on to the front of my shirt and tilted her chin to look up. “No. But thanks for catching me.”

“What did you see?”

“You first. What did you see?”

Her jaw had gone slack, her eyes blank, and her limbs loose. “You were limp, staring out at the dark like you could see something playing out in it.”

Hallie nodded and then shivered. “I could.”

“Your face … it was like you lost yourself for a minute.” I didn’t want to tell her how much her features had changed. “Then you and the guy separated.”

“I did.” A deep wrinkle formed between her brows.

“Then the veil went dark.” Or sewed itself shut. I didn’t want to say it, because it sounded too crazy, and we were running high on crazy already.

She nestled into me and held on tighter. “I became someone else. A man, one who’d done terrible things, and another man was choking me. Then I was me again, and I … pushed.”

“Has anything like that ever happened to you before?”

“No.” I heard fear in her voice. I’d known her for a week, and I was certain Hallie Girard didn’t do fear. “You’re the expert. Can you explain it?” she asked.

“I don’t know the answer.” A primal drive kicked in when I looked into her eyes. “But I will.”

“I believe you.”

We reached her house. I paid the driver and helped her out of her seat. She held on to my arm, just until the cab drove off, and then she pulled away, promptly hitting the sidewalk on her knees.

“Damn!” She went on her palms next, uttering several more curse words.

Hallie prized her independence and I wanted to give it to her, but she was in obvious pain. I dropped to a squat beside her, resting my elbows on my knees, my hands outstretched.

“I’m not leaving you. I can help you get to your house, or at the very least, I can walk behind you. Whatever you want.”

“I don’t want anything.” She bit her lower lip as she stared at my hands. “From anyone. I can handle situations by myself. Usually. This … this is … different.”

I reached out farther. “It’s five minutes of assistance, just enough to get you to your room.”

“My room, huh? Are you trying to get another flash?”

“Not tonight. I won’t make any promises about tomorrow.” I smiled, and watched as the teasing softened her. When she smiled back, my heart gave an extra kick in my chest.

Hallie took my hands and I helped her stand. She held on tight, and when we reached her house, she stopped at the side entrance.

“I’ll take it from here,” she said. “Carl’s on duty, and he won’t rat me out or ask any questions. Thanks for getting me home.”

“So, tomorrow. Do you want me to come back, or are you planning to … what was it? Put my man berries in a vise and hand me over to your dad?”

Her laugh was soft, her eyes curious. We looked at each other, and in that long moment, we came to an understanding.

“Yes,” she said. “Come back tomorrow.”