The Eyes of Odin
The Eyes of Odin
Alex Gideon
I stepped onto the Branch of Midgard the way a drunk steps into the night. Shaky. Woozy. About to vomit. Certain I didn’t want to be here. As soon as the tachyonic shift ended, I turned and hurled all over the nearest wall.
When Laplace Corp first implanted the Eye of Odin, they told me I’d feel some slight discomfort when I walked between branches of time. The lab coats must have been through some shit to have the confidence to say that. Each walk felt like running on the bottom of the ocean. Except someone had replaced the water with broken glass and dirty needles and had set the whole fucking floor on fire.
When I finally stopped puking, I took in my surroundings. A dirty alley. Which narrowed my possible location down to any-goddamn-where in spacetime. This was a Midgard Branch though, which meant Homo Sapiens. Good. A lot easier to blend in here than among the tiny red bastards of the Helheim Branches. From the smell of piss and the depressing architecture, I imagined myself somewhere in the twentieth or twenty-first century by this Branch’s reckoning.
Atlanta, Georgia. The United States of America. Year 2018 AD, said a voice in my head I didn’t recognize. I hated when my agent changed. I liked building a rapport. It made the job easier.
“E.R.T.A., dress me in something standard, circa Midgard, 2018.” A ping sounded in my head and my skin crawled as my Ergonomic Recombinating Tactical Armor reformed itself. A damned useful bit of tech. Thousands of preloaded outfits and nothing existed on the lower branches that could destroy it. I’d never get used to the sensation, though.
E.R.T.A. settled on a plain t-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. Comfortable and economic. I reached up and touched the comm in my temple. “How far to Nareena’s tachyonic disturbance, new guy?”
Just a couple of city blocks. Almost a straight line. Turn around. At the end of the alley, I saw several skyscrapers. At least, what passed for them on this branch. Now start walking.
I smiled as I did just that. I liked this one. I touched my comm again. “What’s your name?”
Eat a dick.
“Sounds foreign. I like it.”
Heard you were funny. I’m Ereth. Glad I got the chance to work with the legendary Kahlan Kade. The agent chuckled as I stepped from the alley into the horde of people on the streets. I winced at the sarcasm.
Stop.
A command to my suit. The sudden halt bounced my brain around in my skull. “What the fuck, newbie?”
Don’t what-the-fuck me. You were about to walk into traffic. Even your E.R.T.A. wouldn’t have saved you.
I watched the wheeled metal contraptions zip by. “Are the transports of this time not equipped with pedestrian braking systems?”
Just brakes. And you’ve got to rely on the drivers to hit them in time.
“Fuck.”
Exactly. This is a primitive branch. Be careful. There’s a light on the other side of the street. You can cross when you see the little man appear on it.
I waited for the light and when it turned, I hurried across with the crowd. I didn’t trust those transport operators to heed the traffic laws. I turned my attention to the people around me. No projected displays around their heads. Instead, almost all of them had their eyes fixed on strange rectangular devices. I couldn’t make anything out on the tiny screens. Perhaps the point of the size. In any case, I found it all strange.
I crossed a couple more streets before Ereth guided me toward another alley. The closest tachyonic signature is down there. I’ll let you know when you’re close.
“Roger.”
I activated my Eye of Odin. The tachyonic sight overlapped my own and I stopped dead. Great swaths of pitch black stretched across the fabric of time. They looked like slash marks, all dark and menacing, like a portal to hell. They extended across the damp wall of the alley, over the top of an overflowing trash receptacle, and down on the other side. I reached toward it, and my hand passed through the darkness like it was an evening shadow.
Oh yeah. Nareena was here.
We leave behind small tears when we walk between branches, but this was different. Something had disturbed the time stream, but I had no idea how. Not for the first time, I wished I had both eyes. I could jump between branches and see the flow of time up until my present, but without the other Eye I couldn’t see the flow ahead or move along the branch at will. It made time travel a guessing game and put me perpetually following in Nareena’s wake.
You’re on top of it.
“I know. These aren’t time-walk scars.”
No. Loki is still on this branch, and she didn’t enter here.
I hated when they used that codename. She was still a person, dammit. I kept the thought to myself and said, “Then what the hell is this?”
That’s what you need to find out.
I followed the dark slash around the receptacle and stopped in my tracks. A man sat against the dirty wall, out of sight of the main street. Elderly, obviously. White hair and wrinkled all to hell. A cursory scan with my Eye showed no vitals. Body temperature too low. Dead. No visible cause of death. Like this man just decided to sit down and die.
“I’ve got a body.”
Loki’s doing?
“Most likely.”
I knelt next to the man. Something seemed off. His clothes maybe. They looked more like the younger crowd I’d seen on the streets. “E.R.T.A., gloves.” Material crept down to my hands. A second later I wore a pair of white medical gloves.
I found no bruising, cuts, or injuries on the man. No signs of struggle. Nothing to reveal a COD. I pricked the man’s finger and blood welled slowly to the surface. He hadn’t been dead long. I ran my finger through the drop of blood and said, “E.R.T.A., run toxicology.”
My head buzzed and a tinny voice read off a list of foreign substances found. All common enough. Nothing to cause this man to keel over. In fact, from the results I’d think him younger than he looked. Perhaps…
“E.R.T.A., estimate of age?”
Age at time of death: twenty-five years.
Twenty-five? Not possible. I patted the man’s pockets until I found a wallet and the ID inside. Jared Andrews. Born, September 9th, year 1993 AD. Twenty-five-years-old. How the hell? I glanced up at the dark slash through time.
“Ereth, can an Eye of Odin affect space-time outside of its user in an isolated area?”
In theory. The Eyes give their wearers full control over space-time. But we didn’t get much chance to use them before Loki stole one.
“Which means you don’t know fuck all about them, huh?”
Not really.
“Shit. Well, I think Nareena used hers to kill. This body I found belongs to a man in his twenties. He looks eighty. No discernible cause of death. This man died of old age.”
Again, in theory Loki could speed the passage of time in an isolated system. If so, that makes her even more dangerous. Rerouting branches of time is bad enough, but now—
“Now she’s committing murder.”
I heard a metallic click, then something hard pressed just behind my ear.
“It’s weird to talk about yourself in the third person, asshole.” A man’s voice. The object behind my ear dug in harder. “Hands behind your back, dickbag.”
I moved without thinking. One hand up, wrapped around the weapon at my skull. I turned. Drove the other fist into the man’s stomach. He recoiled. I tossed the useless weapon aside. A clatter of metal across the dirty pavement. I’d interrupted his breath with my first blow and I placed another to the man’s chest. Then his throat. The man lost his breath entirely. His hands went to his throat. I snapped a kick to his temple. His head whipped to the side. He collapsed into a heap in the filth.
The sound of a discharged weapon ripped through the alley. Something slammed into my side. Pain blossomed across my ribs and I crumpled against the wall. Without E.R.T.A. I’d probably be dead. Fighting to breathe, I tried to get up. My shooter ran toward me and kicked me under the chin. My teeth clacked together and I landed hard on my back.
“I don’t know how you’re alive but move and I’ll put the next between your fucking eyes.” The man planted a foot in my chest. His weapon trained on my face.
Just do what he says, Ereth said in my ear. He’s law enforcement on this branch. So was the man you just dropped.
Through a haze of pain, I glanced over at the guy beside me. Same uniform as the one standing over me. Shit. Fighting to stay conscious, I placed my hands out to either side and managed to gasp, “Officer, I promise this isn’t what it looks like.”
“Yeah? That’s what they all say. You have the right to remain silent. Fucking use it.”
Hours later, I sat handcuffed to an incredibly uncomfortable chair. Across from me, Detective Tamika Jones rubbed her temples in exasperation. Unlike the officers who brought me in, she didn’t wear a uniform. On my time-line, all law enforcement had a regular uniform, regardless of position. I felt like I was being interrogated by a CEO rather than a detective.
“Let me get this straight.” In the last hour I’d begun to hate that phrase. “You’re from the future? Some decorated military man. And you were ‘sent,’” she made air quotations with her fingers, “to find a man named Loki—”
“Woman.” She looked up then, and I saw in her eyes just how crazy she thought me. “Codenamed Loki. Her real name is Nareena.”
“Right. Nareena. Lapel Corp. sent you—”
“Laplace Corp.”
“Whatever.” She thumped the table with her finger. “They tracked this woman to this time and you came here to bring her back. And it’s this Loki who killed the geezer in the alley?”
“Yeah.”
Detective Jones burst out laughing.
“Jesus Christ, you’re one loony ass toon, you know that?” She wiped at her eyes. “It’s a good story. And damned convincing. Now let me tell you a story.” She rested her elbows on the table and leaned toward me.
“We found his wallet on you, so you’d already robbed Andrews. But you still needed more. The geezer seemed like an easy target. You dragged him into the alley and killed him. Roberts caught you in the act and you beat the living shit out of him trying to get away. You didn’t see his partner with him and your ass got caught. Then you made up this bogus story to make us think you’re crazy so the courts will let you off easy.” Her voice dropped to a hiss. “But that’s where you fucked up. Because I’m going to make sure you fry, fucker. And the worst part? That man didn’t have anything on him.”
I’d had enough. I leaned toward the detective and let my own voice drop. “I appreciate your commitment to duty, Detective. But the wallet you have in evidence belongs to the man on the table in your morgue. Jared Andrews. Dead of old age at twenty-five. And your officer put his gun to my head first. For all I knew, he meant to mug me.”
“You expect me to believe that old dude is only twenty-five?” She gave a condescending laugh. “Seventy-five maybe. Now tell me you killed him and make this whole thing easy.”
I sighed and rubbed my eyes, the chain of my handcuffs clinking against the table. Ereth’s voice sounded in my ear. This is pointless. While you sit here and argue with her we’ve had two more tachyonic disturbances.
This isn’t pointless, I responded, using the psionic link function of my comm. I hated doing it since it took so much focus, but I didn’t need the detective thinking me any crazier. I felt a twinge of pain between my eyes. If I get the local law enforcement on my side, I might stop her this time. I’ve chased her for months now, and if I don’t catch her soon, there’ll be no going back for her.
Ereth sighed. There’s already no going back. Hurry. I don’t like Loki out there without someone on her ass.
I looked up at the detective and smiled. She narrowed her eyes. “It’s obvious we’re not getting anywhere like this. So here’s what’s going to happen.” I glanced up at the primitive camera looking down on us. “E.R.T.A., put that camera on a loop.” A tiny ping sounded in my head. “Good. Sleeves please.” Another ping and the sleeves of my t-shirt crept down to full arm-length.
“What in the fuck?” The Detective scrambled out of her chair.
“As I said. From the future. E.R.T.A., get rid of these handcuffs for me.”
I felt a sort of vibration around my wrists. The metal of the cuffs glowed red, then melted onto the table. Detective Jones’ eyes had opened so wide I expected her eyelids to rip apart. I stood and she scrambled for her gun. I blinked and my Eye of Odin activated. Time ground to a halt and that pain behind the implanted Eye deepened. I ignored it and walked to the Detective. I took her gun from the holster at her side and moved back to my place on the other side of the table. I let time flow again and cleared my throat.
“Looking for this?” I pointed to her gun on the table in front of me. “Sit down, Detective.”
She ran instead.
I stepped outside of time long enough to get between the detective and the door. I blinked and time returned to normal. That twinge blossomed into a dull ache. Jones crashed into me. I’d never seen anyone so confused. I navigated her back to her seat, and retook my own.
“How the fuck did you move that fast?”
I chuckled.
“I didn’t. I just stopped time.”
“Yeah. Sure. Why the fuck not?”
I slid her weapon across the table. She put her hand on it and left it there. “Now that I have your attention, we’re going to sit here quietly until your medical examiner finishes their autopsy. When they tell you he is in fact Jared Andrews, I’m going to help you find the woman who killed him. Because she’s got this technology too and you’re ill-equipped to handle her. Think you can do that?”
“I don’t think I have much of a choice.”
“Perceptive.” I activated my Eye. Time halted. Agony filled my head. I staggered to my feet.
You’re overdoing it.
“I know. Shut up. I need her.”
Just don’t put yourself out of commission.
I stumbled behind Jones and steadied myself on her chair, trying hard to ignore the pain. I needed just one more push to get her on my side. I let time flow again and said, “You don’t have a choice in the matter at all.”
The detective leaped from her seat and scrambled around the table. She slammed her back into the wall, her gun trained on me. A quick scan with my Eye told me her heart rate had sky-rocketed. Endorphins and adrenaline dumped. Fight or flight. The reaction I’d hoped for. “Jesus fucking wept,” she panted, lowering her gun and clutching at her chest. “I got it. You’ve got crazy future superpowers.”
“And the woman we’re both after does too. We need each other.” I held Jones’ eye. If I hadn’t convinced her, it would all go to shit here. After several moments Jones nodded and I had to fight down my sigh of relief.
You got lucky, you know that.
Story of my life, kid.
“If this chick can do the same shit, you’re right. But that’s a big if. I’ll wait to hear what our ME says. If you’re wrong, then I’m tossing your ass in holding and throwing away the key.”
I smirked. The detective didn’t stay rattled long. A knock sounded at the door.
“Come in,” Jones yelled, never taking her eyes off me. The door opened and a mousy man in glasses bustled inside.
“I’m sorry to interrupt—” he stopped when he saw the two of us. His eyes darted to Jones. Down to her gun. Then to me. I winked at him and he took a step back. “Is everything—”
“We’re fine, Fen. What do you have for me?”
He glanced at me again. “If you’d step outside—”
“Kahlan isn’t our killer. He’s an Interpol agent. Or so he says. Confirm it for us.”
I raised an eyebrow at her and she grimaced. She’d just lied for me. I was touched.
You heard her, newbie. Forge some documents for me.
Coming right up, boss. Want me to put a bow on it?
I snorted a laugh, earning me a look from both. Fen bustled in and spread his files on the interrogation table. I picked up a photo of the old man on the table, his torso spread wide. “As far as I can tell, Mr. Andrews wasn’t murdered, that’s the—”
“Wait,” Jones said, cutting him off. “Did you just say Mr. Andrews?”
“I did. That’s the odd thing,” Fen said, annoyed. He pushed his glasses back up. “The wallet you found on the suspect…ah…” He glanced at me and I waved a hand at him.
“I’d have thought it was me, too.”
He nodded and continued. “I found the vic’s prints in the system. The man on my table is the twenty-five-year-old Jared Andrews. Dead of old age.”
Jones looked up at me, shock painted across her face in big, bold, crappy graffiti letters. I gave her my best I-fucking-told-you smile and she scowled. To Fen she said, “That’s some weird shit, but what does it mean for us?”
“Well, normally we’d call it a medical mystery. Someone other than me would poke and prod at him, stealing all the glory. And we’d all get back to our lives.”
“I hear a ‘but’ in there,” I said, crossing my arms. Fen shrugged at me.
“Like I said, we’d normally do that. Except we brought in another body just like Mr. Andrews, so we’re calling this a serial murder case.”
“Yup. She’s dead as hell,” Jones said, setting the sheet back in place on the autopsy table. I scanned the body and a thousand processes I didn’t understand scrawled across my vision.
Subject name Mia Takanashi, a mechanical voice said in my head after a few moments. Deceased. Age thirty-two. Cause of death, undetermined.
“Do you have a COD?” I asked Fen. He shook his head.
“No clue. They found her in a bathroom in a Marta Station, so I expected gunshot or stabbing. But she just died. At thirty-two.” He wandered off toward the offices, muttering to himself.
Hey newbie, can you search the records on our two vics and see if there is some reason why Nareena might have targeted them? I’d used the Eye too much and transmitting the message hurt.
Can do, boss. I heard the sarcastic salute.
“What do you think?” Jones said once Fen disappeared into a back office.
“Definitely Nareena’s work. That woman was murdered.”
Jones gestured for me to follow and we left the morgue.
“How?”
I tapped at my Eye. “Because she’s got one of these. An Eye of Odin. Together the Eyes let their user see all of spacetime. See and control it. I’ve got the left one, and she’s got the right.”
“I still don’t see how some glass eye can let someone commit murder.” She opened a door and let me pass through into the interior staircase.
“Spacetime is made up of particles called tachyons,” I said as we ascended toward the station above. “Like most particles they can have different charges; positive, negative, and neutral. My Eye is negatively charged, so while I’m on a time-line, I can see everything from that moment back. Nareena’s eye has a positive charge, so she sees the future. We can also affect time as well, like when I stopped it before. I think Nareena uses her Eye to positively charge her victim’s tachyons. She’s aging them to death.”
Jones blanched at that.
“Fuck. It’s got to be a bitch to age that fast. But why kill people?”
“I don’t know.” We passed through the station. A few heads turned, but I flashed my recently generated credentials and they went back to ignoring us. “My entire organization has tried to figure that out since she first stole her Eye. We think she’s trying to reshape the future. Trickier than you might think. But I’ve chased her all over spacetime and she’s never killed before.”
We’d made it outside and she led me over to her vehicle. My turn to blanch. Getting in one of those primitive death traps again didn’t appeal to me.
“I’d rather not.” I backed up a bit. Jones laughed.
“What’s the matter? Scared of cars?”
“I had my fill when your officers manhandled me into the back of one of these hunks of metal.”
“I’m a good driver. I promise. Now quit being a pussy and get in the fucking car.”
She opened her door and slid inside. I grimaced again, but got in. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the interior. A nice faux-leather covered the soft seats, and a gentle circulation of cold air fought the oppressive heat outside. I settled into the seat, and the detective smirked at me.
“See, not that bad. Buckle up.” She pushed a stick on the guiding wheel and the car lurched into motion. It took me a moment to realize she meant the safety restraint. She grinned at me again as I struggled to get it into the receptacle and said, “Now, what do you mean reshaping the future is tricky?”
“I’ll show you. E.R.T.A. project ‘Yggdrasil,’ flipped.” I held out a hand and an image appeared in my palm. It showed a kind of spindly tree, with a single line at the bottom as a trunk which split off into hundreds of branches.
“You probably think of time like this. A tree. Branching off into a thousand different outcomes. In my era, we discovered this theory was incorrect.” I flipped my hand over, and the image flipped with it. “Time does look like a tree, but like this. Upside down. Converging together into one line. The final line. The ultimate culmination of spacetime. That’s where I’m from. We call this Valhalla.”
“So why does that make changing the future hard?”
“Because once on the Valhalla line, nothing can be changed going forward.”
I saw the understanding dawn in Jones’ eyes and she said, “Unless you change the lines leading up to it.”
“Exactly. Nareena stole one of the Eyes, and she’s bounced around, changing the lines to try and make a new Valhalla.”
“How?”
“These points where the lines converge,” I enlarged the image to show the gap between two lines, and their combined line above. “We call them Schrödinger’s Points.”
“Like the dude with the cat in the box?”
“Exactly. When two parallel lines have opposing events. Say, a man is shot here,” I pointed at one line, then the other, “and here he isn’t shot. Both of those lines end at that moment. Spacetime decides the outcome, and creates a new line that’s a merger of the two going forward. She’s changing these events to eliminate Schrödinger’s Points. Doing so makes new lines. I’m sure these deaths are leading to the change of another Point, I just don’t know how.”
“Then let’s stop the bitch before she fucks up my time anymore,” she said as I let the image die. I winced at the coldness of her words. “Where do we start?”
“Take me to this Marta Station where they found Ms. Takanashi’s body. If Nareena killed her there, maybe I can figure out what her next move is.”
We’ve got a problem. I jumped at Ereth’s voice. Jones shot me a look, but I waved her off. Those two dead? They were part of a startup company. Communications based. That startup grows to become the basis of our own communications matrix here in Valhalla. Which means—
“She’s trying to shut down our intra-time communications. I won’t be able to phone home anymore.” And if Nareena succeeded, I was fucked.
Ereth sent me a list of names, each involved in this “startup,” as he called it. It swam before me in the overlaid sight from my Eye. Over a hundred long, and with the red lines through the first two names it looked like a hit list. An odd musical tone sounded and Jones pulled one of those square slabs from her pocket. She put her finger on a green circle and slid it across the screen, then put the slab to her ear.
“Jones here. What have you got?” she said to the slab. A communication device. Fascinating. I found the look on her face less fascinating. Something had happened. “I’m on the way. Send me the address.”
She pulled the slab from her ear and fiddled with the screen. While driving. I didn’t like that combination of activities. “What’s happened?”
“They’ve brought in three more bodies. Just like the two we’ve seen already.”
“Fuck. Do we have names?”
She rattled them off from her slab and I watched red lines slash through each in turn in my oversight. Fucking hell, Loki moved fast. Way too fast. We couldn’t chase each of them separately. “Ereth, who’s the head of this thing?”
Aarav Agarwal. He’s an Indian programmer with a specialty in communications. He’s only been in Atlanta for a few weeks in your time. And according to this, he moved there to start this venture.
“Can you send me his address for the current time?”
Coming to you, boss.
“Who are you talking to?” Jones said as a seemingly meaningless series of numbers and words flashed across my oversight.
“I’m speaking with an agent from my own time. He just sent me an address we need to head to.” I rattled it off and she input it into her slab.
“Okay, I got it, but what’s so important about this place?”
“The man at that address is going to die.”
Jones’ eyes widened.
“Alright, shit. You don’t have to tell me twice.” She stomped her foot onto a pedal on the floor of the transport. Her car lurched forward even faster, and I gripped the handle on my door. Hopefully Jones didn’t kill me first.
She took us into a crappy neighborhood with dilapidated cars. Many of the tiny houses had broken roofs and porches. I’d seen images of the poverty of this time, but witnessing it first hand was jarring.
Lots of people walked the streets, and Jones’ sleek black transport drew attention. Not good. I didn’t want innocents getting caught in the crossfire. We pulled into a driveway behind a car with a back end so rusted, I couldn’t believe it hadn’t fallen off.
“Are you sure this is the place?” Jones killed the power to her transport. With a thought, I slid into tachyonic sight. Abnormally positive tachyons surrounded the house. Not good.
“I’m sure. The tachyonic signature is unmistakable.”
“Then let’s get this shit over with.” She flung open her door and climbed out. I followed as she started toward the house, gun held in front of her in an obvious combat position. I placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “Nareena is dangerous. And she has more control over her Eye than I do. But I need to talk to her.”
“She’s dropped five bodies in my city,” she said, her eyes hard. “She gives me a reason, and I’m going to put a bullet between the bitch’s eyes.”
“I understand.” Together, we started across the yard toward the front of the house. We took position on either side of the door. I held up a hand with three fingers and started counting down. When I got to one, we both moved. I swung out and planted my foot into the door at the handle. It crumbled in at my kick. We raced inside, each of us covering one side of the tiny house. We didn’t have to go far.
“Hi, Kahlan. It’s been a long time.”
Nareena stood in the middle of a living room cleaner than I expected. She stood behind a man gagged and tied to a rickety chair. Aarav Agarwal. His eyes bulged when he saw us, and he strained against the ropes, screaming against his gag. Nareena twined her fingers into his hair and dragged his head back. She held a knife to his throat and he whimpered, tears streaming down his face.
“Drop the knife and put your hands behind your head,” Jones said, her gun trained on Loki.
“Wait.” I stepped in front of the Detective and pushed her gun down. “Let me talk to her.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Kahlan.”
“She’s my wife.”
That stopped Jones cold. She squinted at me, hesitation etched across her face. Finally, she lowered her gun and took a step back. “You’ve got five minutes. I’m bringing her in after that.”
She’s your wife? Ereth said in shock. I ignored him and shut down my comm link. I didn’t need Laplace Corp interfering here.
“That’s all I need.” I gave her a smile and turned. My throat tightened. Nareena wore her curls loose and her doe brown eyes complimented her dark skin perfectly. She wore an E.R.T.A. as well, hers a close fitting, midnight black armor. She’d not moved an inch, even with Jones out for her blood. I saw something in her. Something hard I’d never seen before. She’d changed and I had no idea why. I felt like I didn’t know her anymore.
“Stop this, Nareena. Just let him go and come with me.” I took a step toward her and held out a hand.
“I can’t. I’m sorry, love. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.” She took a deep breath and I saw something I didn’t expect. Fear. No. Not fear. Deeper than that. Horror. Whatever she had glimpsed was so unimaginably horrible, she’d resorted to murder. She’d always been my sweet researcher, so different from the soldiers I spent my time with on the battlefield. She was my light. But the woman standing in front of me now was a warrior as well. “What I’m doing may seem extreme. But it’s necessary. You of all people should understand that.”
She pressed her knife into Aarav’s throat. A line of red trickled across his skin.
“Nareena—”
Jones stepped in front of me, cutting me off, her gun trained on Nareena again. “Drop the knife. I won’t tell you again.” She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Sorry, but I can’t let her kill another.”
Hot panic shot through my chest. I couldn’t make Jones back down again without a fight. I didn’t see Nareena dropping the knife either. Jones was going to shoot her. I couldn’t let that happen. “Nareena. Please. Just do what she says.”
“I can’t.” She gave me a sad smile and I saw the muscles in her shoulder move.
“Don’t do it!”
The report of Jones’ gun tore through the room.
I screamed, activating my Eye. Time halted. Silence fell. Did I make it? Dear God, let me have made it. Fire enveloped the tip of Jones’ gun barrel. Her eyes were set. Intent upon the kill.
“A close call.” Nareena’s voice. Relief flooded through me. The bullet Jones had fired hung just before her face. “Thank you.”
“Why aren’t you stopped like the others?” She was alive, so now I needed to buy time. I sent E.R.T.A. a silent command.
“The Eyes can’t affect each other.” Nareena removed the knife from Aarav’s throat. Another relief.
“Then I’ll have to stop you myself.” With a flick of my wrist, I hurled the tachyonic destabilizer at her face. I struck her just above her own Eye and spread to cover it.
“What is this?” She tugged at the destabilizer.
“Something they developed after you stole the Eye. It cuts off its power.” I stalked across the room. “Now you can’t time-walk out of here. I’m sorry Nareena. I’m bringing you back.”
I needed to immobilize her before she ran. I grabbed her hand and wrenched the knife from it. I swung low. Driving my fist toward her gut. She twisted away. My fist met only open air.
She kicked me in the face.
A snap kick. More power behind it than I’d expected. It spun me to the side. I lost my grip on her. She kicked me again. I lost my footing and went down. She aimed a third kick at my head. I rolled, feeling the wind as her foot sped by my face. I lost concentration and time hiccupped. Shit. Keep it
together. Head ringing like a bell, I scrambled to my feet. Where the fuck did she learn to fight like this?
She’d put Aarav between us. I staggered just a bit, but I stayed upright. I wiped at my mouth and cursed when I saw blood. I didn’t want to hurt her, but if she fought me like this, I wouldn’t have a choice. I had to bring her back to Valhalla. I met her gaze and I saw the challenge there. She’d fight until the end. Just what had she seen?
I rushed her again and she flipped Aarav up at me. He halted in midair when she lost contact with him. I dodged around him. She followed. Her fist rocketed towards my face. I blocked it. Sent my elbow for her temple. Her turn to block. Her fist for my gut. Downward block, then a chop to her throat. Another block. We traded blows for several seconds before she slipped. My fist sailed through her defense and connected with her jaw. Her head snapped to the side. I tried to end it then, but she ducked my next blow and came up behind me. She planted a foot in my back and I nearly fell again. I lurched forward and only just managed to stay upright.
“You actually hit me.” She rubbed her jaw.
“I’m taking you back to Valhalla, willing or not.”
She chuckled at that, the sound melancholic.
“I wish you’d help me, you know. You have no idea what’s coming.” I heard the plea, and it almost broke me. Goddamn it, she was still my wife. I loved her more than anything. But I couldn’t let her leave a trail of bodies behind. I think she saw that in my face because she said, “But you’re not going to. I’m sorry, Kahlan.”
A blur of motion. Something flew at my face. I raised my arms to protect myself and something bit deep into my forearm. A disrupter blade made to bypass E.R.T.A. armor. Buried in my arm. I grabbed the handle to pull it free. Nareena was on me. She drove her palm into the handle. The blade sliced deeper into my flesh. Pain lanced up my arm into my shoulder. I cried out. She struck my throat. It closed. I gasped for a breath that wouldn’t come. Then she planted one last kick into my temple.
I hit the ground. Hard. Barely clinging to consciousness. Time sputtered again. Then resumed its flow. My connection to the Eye ended. Aarav crashed to the floor and screamed in pain. I tried to get to my feet again, but I couldn’t see straight. Jones yelled my name and rushed to my side. The sudden noise made my head explode.
“Thank you for playing your part, Detective,” Nareena said from somewhere in front of me.
“What do you mean?” Jones said, wrapping her arm around me and helping me to my feet. My vision cleared a bit and I saw Nareena gesture to Aarav. A crimson pool spread around him.
“I needed him to die, but you had to do it. And you did splendidly.”
“You moved him into position,” I rasped at her. She’d planned all of this. She knew I’d bring Jones. “You played us both to make sure Jones’ weapon killed him.”
“It was the only way.”
“Why?” I said harshly, the strain hurting my throat. “Why kill all these people?”
“You’re about to see.”
The world started to change. A flicker across my vision at first. Then everything went out of focus. Twisting and distorting. I felt Jones’ hand on my arm. “What’s happening?” Her voice sounded a thousand miles away.
“I don’t know.” I tried to take a step, but I was so disoriented I couldn’t move. Then everything went black. The feel of Jones’ hand disappeared.
Pain erupted through my being.
I cried out, but I didn’t have a mouth. Or lungs. I was outside of time. Goddamn it. God fucking damn it. Nareena had won. She’d rerouted the line. I couldn’t stop her. She stood right in front of me and I couldn’t fucking stop her.
Newbie, are you there? I concentrated to reestablish the psionic connection. Nothing. Just as we’d feared, rerouting that line had shut down our cross-spacetime communication. Fuck! I needed to get back to the lab and regroup. I focused my Eye, looking for the tachyonic beacon set up to help me find the Valhalla line. After a few moments it pinged in my consciousness and I walked.
I had glass bones when I stepped onto Valhalla. I stumbled and a pair of hands caught me. Their touch set my skin on fire. I’d used the Eye too much.
“Hey there, boss. I thought we lost you.” I recognized this voice. Ereth was younger than I’d expected, and he looked at me from under a shock of crimson hair. Natural. Rare on Valhalla. “Fuck, you’ve got a knife in your arm.”
“Don’t worry about that. How bad is it?”
His face fell.
“Let me show you.” He helped me limp over to the bank of holo-screens on the other side of the command center. “When the line collapsed, we didn’t know what had happened to you. She didn’t actually change much, but we lost all contact, and we couldn’t find your tachyonic signature anywhere in spacetime.”
“Nareena?”
Ereth shook his head. “We can’t find Loki’s signature either. But you survived, so she probably did too.”
“I put the destabilizer on her. She didn’t have access to her Eye.”
“Oh, fuck.”
Grief washed through me. She couldn’t use her power, so when she kicked us into spacetime, she had no protection. None of us knew what that could do to a person. Most likely it ripped her to shreds. Her existence scattered across time. I took a ragged breath, fighting back tears. I couldn’t grieve now.
“Show me what she did to Yggdrasil.”
Ereth seemed to want to say more, but he stopped when he saw my face. He settled into the chair and brought up the holo-screens. Yggdrasil appeared before me. The World Tree. All of time in a single image.
“You were on a Midgardian Branch here.” He highlighted a strangely empty portion of the tree.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Because there’s nothing there anymore.” He circled the entire area to bring the emptiness into full view. “Whatever she changed by killing the people she did, it didn’t just affect how that line flowed into the Schrödinger’s Point.”
My breath caught in my throat. I leaned forward, trying to wrap my brain around what I saw. Up until now, she’d rerouted lines. Changing the shape of branches to change the fate of Valhalla. But not this time. This time she’d deactivated the entire branch. All that history. All those worlds. All those people. Gone forever.
“Oh god, Nareena,” I whispered in horror. “What have you done?”