Page 52 of Demon's Bluff
“Where is everyone?” Elyse wiped her mouth, glancing at my heavy shoulder bag before peering up at me. “You think it’s funny? To spell my clothes off? You are an ass, Morgan! You hear me? An ass!”
What, by Tink’s little pink rosebuds, am I supposed to do with her?“I didn’t take your clothes, and your friends are fine.”
Elyse staggered to her feet. If she wasn’t so haggard, she’d look like a frat boy’s dream in my bedazzled leather jacket hanging mid-thigh. “Oh, so they just magically vanished for no reason? What is your problem!” she shouted, and then she cried out in sudden, unexpected pain, her face creased as she staggered, reaching for the curved wall of the bridge. “You singed me!”
“Elyse, wait,” I said as she stomped to the embankment.
“Orion?” the woman called as she picked her way up in her white socks. “Yaz!”
For one moment I thought I’d let her just go, and then I hiked my shoulder bag higher and started after her. She hadn’t gone far, and I found her at the base of the bridge, mouth agape as she stared at the moon peeking through the trees thick with leaves. “How long was I out?” she whispered, fear pinching her expression. “What did you do to me?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, then put up a hand, asking for patience. “This is not my fault,” I added as she slowly inched away. “You couldn’t just let me go back and get the mirror.”
“Go back?” she echoed, and I nodded. “You mean like in time?” she squeaked, her attention darting to the moon.
“As far as I know, Orion and Yaz and Adan are fine.” Sympathy and a little guilt tightened my chest. “Ah, how badly are you singed? I didn’t know that would happen.”
Elyse smacked my reaching hand away and retreated two more steps into the bushes. “You are in so much trouble,” she said, her eyes on my demon mark.
“For what?” I glanced at the two people pushing a stroller to the parking lot. “I haven’t done anything illegal,” I said softly. “I think. I need to find out when we are. I swear, if I didn’t get far enough into the past, I will leave you here to take the long way home.”
But I wouldn’t. She could do too much damage, and worry tightened my chest as I looked for a trash can and maybe a receipt with the date. I doubted the charm to spindle my life force had spindled hers. She might not have any other choice than to take the long way. Stasis charms only lasted three days before they spontaneously broke to prevent death by dehydration. At least, the contemporary ones did.
“My God, you really think you can go back in time?” Elyse said, half hidden in the bushes to make her white socks stand out. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah.” There was a trash can twenty steps away, but I wasn’t ready to walk away from her yet. “I honestly didn’t know it would hurt. I’m, ah, sorry about that, but you shouldn’t have interfered with the spell.”
Elyse’s eyes narrowed. “Why am I naked and you aren’t?”
“Because I spent two hours yesterday in a secondhand shop finding clothes that existed five years ago. Ah, you don’t happen to know when you bought your socks, do you?”
The woman pulled my jacket tighter about herself and glared. “Take me back. Now.”
“Um, right. Just sit and let me find out when we are.” Motioning her to stay, I edged away, my new-again boots thumping as I strode to the overflowing trash can at the water’s edge. It wasn’t my fault if she was stuck here, but I still felt responsible.
“Slick?” Elyse shouted for her familiar, and I grimaced, ignoring her. She wouldn’t get far in only my jacket and a pair of socks. Head down, I began to pick through the trash for something with an expiration date, finally finding a yogurt cup: August 20, 2007. It wouldn’t be the exact date, but it would be close.
I exhaled as I dropped it into the trash bin. August 2007. Upside: the original ever-after still existed. Downside: both Newt and Al would know me. I’d have to get Newt alone, get the mirror, and dose her with her own forget charm without her caretaker/familiar Minias knowing.
“You have to undo this,” Elyse said from the bushes. “I can’t do eighteen again!”
A familiar, cheerfulpingcame from my bag, and I swung it around, trash forgotten. My old phone had connected to a tower. I had the date.Gotta love it when things go right…
“Where’s my pin?!” Elyse shouted. “Morgan, did you take my pin?”
Seriously? She is worried about a pin?Hands shaking, I dug my phone out. My lips parted. One fifteen a.m. July 28. I had just missed my birthday. But that didn’t throw me as much as the text. It had posted a while ago and was from David. He was frantic. Three of his one-night stands had committed suicide.
“Oh, crap on toast,” I whispered, my breath leaving me. Staggering, I felt for the bench and sat down. It wasn’t August. It was late July.
Kisten is alive,my thoughts sang, but my gut hurt as I stared at themoon, feeling betrayed. This was bad. Al was actively trying to abduct me. Ivy’s girlfriend Skimmer wanted to kill me. Trent was trying to blackmail me into being his lackey. In about forty-eight hours, I was going to arrest him at his own wedding. But the worst? Kisten was still alive. I couldn’t warn him. I couldn’t stop it.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered, gaze unseeing on the townhomes across the park. Elyse was worried about having to do eighteen over? How about sit and do nothing knowing the man you loved was going to die twice to keep a monster from eating you alive and enslaving what was left?
Hand at my middle, I stared at David’s frantic texts. I’d seen them first two years ago, and they still filled me with fear. He would be jailed for manslaughter, the church would be condemned, and Kisten…
I forced myself to take a breath, vision swimming.
Kisten would be made into a blood gift before the night was over. I wouldn’t know he had died for days. But I knew now, and it hurt. Bad.