Time - Chapter 3
I learned very early in my travels that if you wanted to leave at a moment’s notice, you had to travel light.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.
In the ashes of her past, she will rise up, and her death will save us all.
Lizzie ran from her past for ten years, zigzagging across the United States every few months, trying to outlast the prophesy that an oracle gave to her when she was just sixteen years old.
But nobody can run from their destiny forever.
After watching her friend brutally gunned down by a group of ruthless demons, she had no choice but to protect the woman’s child, and there was only one place where Lizzie knew the girl would be safe.
Bronard, Missouri.
Home.
She stayed away to protect her parents, but the girl needed mystical protection.
Her parents had taken in magical strays their whole lives, including Lizzie. If anyone could save the poor child’s life, it would be her mother and father.
But will returning to her home doom Lizzie even as she works to save the child she has vowed to defend?
I learned very early in my travels that if you wanted to leave at a moment’s notice, you had to travel light. Over the years, I only accumulated enough stuff to fill my old purple Jansport from before I dropped out of high school, and a small rolling suitcase where I kept two pairs of jeans, a black pleated skirt, and a black dress, along with enough underwear to last a week, plus two pairs of heels that needed to be repaired or replaced, a pair of slippers, and an extra pair of tennis shoes, along with a puffy coat and a light jacket. In my backpack, I kept a lockpicking kit, toiletries, a small make-up kit, a CD player, whatever books I was reading at the time— I’d just finished Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire, and now it was Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons—and a first aid kit. For a while, I kept old aprons and nametags from all the places I worked, but I packed in a hurry some years ago and lost them somewhere around Nebraska.
It was for the best because they linked me to my past and the memories I made along the way. As it stood, I tried my best not to keep any clothing for more than a year if I could help it. The only thing I kept from my childhood was a black opal necklace that my mother once gave me for protection.
There was nothing else to bind me to the past, not even my name, which I made sure to change at least once a season whenever I could find a good counterfeiter. Usually, I worked with some high school or college kid who could connect me with somebody that made fake IDs, but they were of dubious quality. I needed them to fool even the police. In a pinch, I could make one, but good equipment wasn’t cheap, and I rarely had extra money lying around.
After cleaning out my motel room, I walked to the front desk. There wasn’t a fancy name for it or anything. It just said “motel” in big, neon letters that buzzed through the night. Bugz kept the place clean enough, and the price was right. Apropos of the owner’s name, the place was littered with cockroaches, but they scattered when the lights were on. I almost always stayed in motels wherever I traveled. I didn’t even want to commit to a month-to-month lease.
“Evening, Niobe,” Bugz said to me, giving me a smile that showed all four of his chipped front teeth. “What can I do ya for?”
“Checking out, Bugz,” I replied.
His face dropped, and he scratched the stubble on his chin. “That’s a shame. You were a good tenant. Never made no trouble for me.” He leaned in. “Not like some people who come here for all sorts of illicit activities.”
“I’ve heard ‘em here and there,” I said. “I just try to keep my head down and stay out of trouble.”
His face scrunched. “Seems like trouble found you, though, didn’t it?”
He pointed past me to a shadow that stood next to my Civic hatchback. I recognized Kimberly’s outline immediately, even in the dark. She had a way of standing out when she wanted to look tough, and she had tracked me down enough times that I knew the way she leaned against my car.
I grumbled to myself and put down a wad of money. “Looks that way. This should be enough since I paid up last Friday.”
Bugz flipped quickly through the wad of fives and ones, and then nodded. “Seems like it’s all there. Take care of yourself, Niobe, ya hear?”
I pushed open the glass door of the office. “I’m trying, but some people aren’t making it easy.”
I felt like stomping across the parking lot and having it out with Kimberly, but that’s exactly what she wanted—to get under my skin—and I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction. Instead, I smiled brightly at her, putting on my best “aggrieved waitress trying desperately to stay sane face”, and walked toward her.
“I thought I finally lost you,” I said. “How did you find me? This town isn’t even on the map.”
Kimberly had bangs that cut across her face like Aaliyah, and her black hair was just as shiny. I had no idea how she fought when she could only see out of one eye, but she managed somehow because she was still alive. In her line of work, that meant something. It wasn’t just anybody who could track down demons and slaughter them. I was deeply scared of Kimberly the first time she tracked me down but had since numbed to her incredible powers.
“You’re getting sloppy,” Kimberly said. “You used to drive for days, zig-zagging across the country before you stopped. This one was less than a day’s drive, and it seems like you took the 5 all the way down here. You didn’t even switch cars. That’s amateur.” She pushed off the car. “Plus, I got a look at the stash of IDs you keep in the glove box last time, and there are surprisingly few Niobe’s in California.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I knew I was going to have trouble with those weird names I bought last time. Then again, I figured you would just go away.”
“It’s been a decade, kiddo. When will you learn I’m never going away?”
“When will you appreciate what I’m trying to do here? Oh right, you don’t fear death because you’re immortal.”
She held up her hands. “I am as the gods made me.”
“As Thanatos made you if I remember correctly.” I shook my head. “What do you want?”
She sighed. “Junebug is sick. Doctors don’t think she’s going to make it through the month. She wants to see you before the end.”
My fists clenched. I felt my heart thump faster in my chest and the tears well in my eyes, but I did everything in my power to appear calm. “So?”
Kimberly’s brow furrowed. “You’ve been trying to outrun your past—to decouple your emotions from everything you were for over a decade, and one mention of your mom sends you to tears. Maybe that’s a good indication running isn’t a good idea anymore.”
“Goddamn it!” I threw my hands in the air. “I’m doing this to save them.”
Kimberly had found me a dozen times before in a dozen cities around the country, and every time she did, she tried to convince me to return home to be with my parents—that I could have a normal life, even knowing what I knew. She tried to tell me that my past wouldn’t burn and I wouldn’t die. Every time, I sent her back to my parents empty-handed, but now with my mom dying…how could I not go?
“That’s garbage!” Kimberly screamed. “You’re doing this to save yourself. That’s fine, honestly, but why don’t you think of somebody other than yourself for a change and go see your mother before she dies?”
“All I do is think of other people!” I shouted back. Before the words even left my mouth, the tears began to fall. Big, heaping tears like I hadn’t cried in years—like I don’t know if I had ever cried, at least not in the past decade. It was as if every emotion I’d siphoned away flooded out of me at once. I collapsed on the ground, right there in that motel parking lot, and curled up in a ball.
“What’s going on out here?” Bugz shouted as the door to the motel office flung open. “You okay, Niobe?”
I don’t know what I said to him, but whatever I pushed out of my mouth seemed to be enough to satisfy him, and he went back into his office, though when my eyes found the window, I saw him watching me as Kimberly rubbed my back.
Eventually, the tears were gone, and there was nothing left to do but clean myself up. I walked back into the lobby and asked if I could use his bathroom. Graciously, Bugz gave me the key to my old room.
“You still technically have it ‘til morning.” He smiled at me as I left him.
I didn’t notice that Kimberly had followed me inside until I came out of the bathroom and yelped in surprise at her standing there. I thought about saying something vicious but choked it back and sat on the bed, alone, as she sat on the chair across from me.
“What does she have?” I asked.
“Cancer,” Kimberly replied.
“What kind?” I whispered, barely able to keep it together.
“One of the bad ones. Pancreas, or at least it metastasized there, and her lungs, and her—the last set of x-rays lit up like Rockefeller Center on Christmas, Lizzie. I think it would be easier to tell you where she doesn’t have cancer right now.”
“What about chemo? Radiation? Whatever other stuff they have to fight this stuff?”
“She’s been sick for a long time,” Kimberly said. “She swore me to secrecy. Didn’t want me to guilt you into coming home. Now there’s nothing left but to wait for the end.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Cuz I want you to see your mom before she dies. She’s earned that much. Even if she doesn’t want it, she needs it. I think now she’s just holding on…she’s just holding on to the hope that you’ll come home—”
I had never seen Kimberly waver in all my years, but the tears came, even for her. I walked into the bathroom and brought her a roll of toilet paper. She took a few squares and dabbed her eyes, taking a moment.
“Junebug would kill me if she knew I told you this.” Kimberly sighed. “Or she would if she wasn’t bed—bedridden.” She barely choked out the last words, and I felt for her. She was family to my mother, and vice versa.
“If waiting for me to come home is the only thing that’s keeping her alive, then I can’t go back. I can’t be the reason she dies—I can’t.”
Kimberly nodded, more to herself than me. “I figured you would say that. I hoped maybe this time would be different, but deep down, I knew it wouldn’t.” She pushed herself off the chair. “You’re the most selfish being I’ve ever met in my whole stupid existence…and I’m including demons into that equation.”
“How am I selfish? I’m staying away to save her!”
“No,” Kimberly replied. “You’re staying away to save yourself. It’s okay, like I said. I don’t know why I expected this time to be any different.”
She reached into a pouch on her belt and pulled out a pinch of pink powder. Without another word, she threw it on the ground and disappeared into a puff of pink smoke. With the lingering smell of burnt ember from Kimberly’s smoke, I threw myself on the bed and began to cry again.
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.