Chronomancer Read online

  Jack reached inside to flip on the light next to the door frame. When the light snapped on, he froze. The living room was a mess. The plaid sofa was overturned and ripped apart. White stuffing had been pulled out from the lacerated cushions and scattered across the rug that was stained with red wine from the coffee table that had been cracked in half. The writing desk in the back had been ransacked. Picture frames were smashed, their photographs of Ellie and Jack bent and covered with a layer of shattered glass. Pens had been snapped in half and their blue ink stained the white lace curtains that hung over the window.

  He slowly stepped inside, the splintered wood from a broken chair leg crunching below his boots. Jack covered his mouth with his trembling hand as he moved to the kitchen where the refrigerator doors had been thrown open and its contents had been removed. Broken eggshells littered the sea foam green tiles and liquid yolks trailed down the scuffed cabinet doors like orange slugs. A gallon of milk had spilled and mixed with a carton of orange juice. Pots and pans were dented and left where they were thrown. Even the oven was open and a half-baked chicken had been tossed from it.

  Jack turned to head to the closed bedroom door, but he paused. When he spotted the smear of crimson on the wall below the clock with the broken face, he gritted his teeth and hoped it was only jelly or ketchup from the kitchen mess. The tart metallic smell and the handprint through the middle told him otherwise. His first reaction was to take out his cell phone to dial 911, but he stopped. If he called for the police and they found him standing in the middle of a crime scene, he would become a suspect. On top of that, there was no telling how long it would take them to get there. They might arrive too late.

  Jack slid his phone back into pocket and set his eyes on the bedroom door. He nervously pushed his curly bangs out of his face and tried to calm his rapid breathing while he tiptoed across the trashed apartment. He only stopped for a moment to pick up an umbrella to use as a weapon if he needed one. Guns versus an umbrella was a fight not in his favor, but he had to try. Ellie needed him to be a man, and a man never turned to run.

  Jack paused to compose himself before turning the doorknob. With a slight creak, the door swung open. The smell hit him like a sack of bricks. He stumbled backwards before vomiting into a trashcan beside the door to Mr. Dawson's room that was destroyed as well. Blood.

  He had never seen that much blood. The pastel pink sheets he had slept on so many nights when he fell asleep next to Ellie while playing games or watching scary movies were shredded and soaked in blood that was still wet. It was saturated to the point of being nearly black. The black and white pictures of him and Ellie on a paddle boat in a nearby pond had been torn down from their collage on the wall and scattered like leaves across the bloody floorboards. The stuffed purple unicorn Jack had given to her for her last birthday had been decapitated and its fluffy insides torn out.

  "Ellie? Mr. Dawson? Oh, God." He turned to the bathroom where toothpaste was smeared on the wall above the toilet in the shape of an hourglass. "What is this?"

  Jack choked back his tears and drew back the shower curtain, fearing he would find two bodies of his friends, but there was nothing aside from a layer of soap suds in the bottom. He made his way back into Ellie's bedroom and went to the one spot that was not a disaster. Her white desk appeared to have been saved, but something had been added. A glimmer of silver caught his attention on the floor next to the leg. He squatted down and picked it up. A heavy silver coin of unknown origin with an engraving of the same hourglass shape that was on the wall of the bathroom.

  When Jack held it up in the light to examine it closer, something pricked his finger and he tried to drop the coin, but it was embedded in his skin. Without a way to stop it, a burning pain spread up his left arm until it stopped on his lower forearm. The coin rolled up his arm and rested there. Jack cried out when more needle-like pinpricks stabbed into his skin. In a few seconds, it was over and the coin unattached itself before falling to the floor, once again lifeless.

  Jack clutched at his injured arm. He pried up his hand to take a peek. The thick black lines caught his attention. A mark had been emblazoned on his forearm like a tattoo. An hourglass. He rubbed at it, but that only served to irritate the already swollen skin. In a panic, the kicked the coin across the room and turned to run, but he knocked into the desk and sent a Manila folder falling onto the floor in front of him. On top of a stack of forms in a symbol language that he could not identify, was the face he cared for more than any other. A picture of Ellie was stapled to the forms. Someone had circled her face with a red permanent marker.

  Jack ripped the photograph from the papers and turned it over to see where someone had written on it in that same red ink. Elizabeth Erin Dawson. Age:16 Wanted: Alive. Priority: High.

  What was going on? Did someone take Ellie? And what about Mr. Dawson? Jack clutched at his throbbing arm before pulling out his cell phone once again and dialing Mr. Allen's number. It rang twice before he picked up.

  The man's stern yet soft voice answered. "Hello?"

  "Help me. I don't know what's happening. I don't know."

  "Jack? Jack, where are you? Breathe."

  "I'm at Ellie's. I . . . she's . . . they took her."

  "Who took her?" Mr. Allen asked.

  "I think they're dead. I don't know. There's blood and . . . oh my God. They're dead."

  "Who's dead? Jack, get out of there. Come back to the school. I'm still in my office. We will sort this out here. I don't want to do this over the phone. Listen to me. Whatever you do, do not call the police. Do you hear me? Don't call 911. This is way above their heads and you will be the number one suspect. You don't want to go to prison, do you?"

  "No!" Jack shouted, but quickly remembered to not be too loud.

  "Shh. Then keep your voice down. Go to your apartment and change clothes. If there's any blood on you, wash it off. If there's blood on your clothes or shoes, burn them. You have to get rid of any trace of it. Can you do this?"

  "I don't know."

  "You can. Go. You don't have much time. The cops could already be on their way if your neighbors heard anything. Stay on the phone with me and tell me what you're doing as you do it."

  "Okay. I'm going to my apartment." Jack jumped around the piles of books from overturned bookshelves and slivers of porcelain from smashed dishes until he stepped out into the vacant hallway. He gingerly closed the door behind him and locked it after a few shaky tries. He went to the next door down and unlocked it. Jack shoved his way inside the bleak apartment that had only been furnished with the bare essentials. From what he could see, nothing had been gone through. "I'm in my apartment."

  "Is anything missing?"

  "Not that I can see." He went to the kitchen with the tired blue walls and peeked inside his refrigerator that was as bare as always. Only a half-empty jar of pickles and a sad, crusty bottle of mustard greeted him. He checked the cobweb-filled cabinets and the entertainment center drawers where he kept his stash of cash. It was all there. "I'm going to change now."

  "Do it. Quickly, now. Wear something warm that you don't mind wearing for a long period of time if you have to go on the run."

  Jack rushed into his bedroom where all of his laundry was piled up in a twisted mass on the patchwork quilt his grandmother had made for him out of colorful t-shirts she collected on her travels around the world. He stripped off his clothes, checked them for any blood spots, then threw them under his bed. With the phone on speaker, he pulled on his pair of oldest jeans, a soft black tank top, and his trusty grey hoodie with the red skull patch sewn onto the chest that Niki had insisted he put on it. He grabbed his canvas messenger bag from the empty closet and packed it with his phone charger, some ibuprofen, his stash of cash, an extra pair of boxers, and a flashlight he used whenever they lost power during thunderstorms.

  "Jack?" Mr. Allen asked. "Are you still there?"

  "I'm here. I'm changed."

  "Good. Get over here. Ride your bike. No, wait. Don
't. Make it look like you didn't leave your apartment. Don't give them anything to place you at Ellie's."

  "Okay." Jack stepped into his sneakers and tied them tightly before leaving his apartment and locking his door behind him. "I'm on my way."

  "Did anyone see you come in?"

  "Uh, yeah. The receptionist."

  "Can you jump out of a window?"

  He glanced at the window at the far end of the hallway. "Are you crazy? I'm on the third floor."

  "Fine. Then leave out the front, but act casual. Pretend it's just a normal night. Come on, Jack. I can hear you panicking over here. You can do this. You're an actor, so act like you saw nothing, act like you have everything under control."

  "Okay." Jack took a deep breath. "I can do this. I have to act cool and collected like the Phantom."

  "Yes, Jack. Like the Phantom."

  Jack steeled himself as he trotted down the stairs to the lobby. The second his sneakers squeaked against the checkered floor, he knew something was wrong. It was too quiet. He glanced around to see the elderly couple now slumped over their table, lifeless, with chess pieces scattered on the floor below their chairs. He turned to the reception counter where his tenant information was pulled up on Jannet's computer, but she was nowhere to be found.

  "Jack!" Mr. Allen's voice barking over the cellphone speaker brought him back to reality. "Jack, what's going on? Talk to me, boy."

  "They're setting me up. Everyone's dead."

  "Get out of there! Get to the school. I can protect you, but you have to get here on your own."

  Jack ran to the door then out into the midnight air that bit through his hoodie. He started down the sidewalk towards campus, running as quickly as he could. "Who are these people? Why are they doing this?"

  "I cannot answer that right now. I don't know if this signal is secure."

  Were they secret agents or the mob? "They can hack into cell phones?"

  "And much more. If you're on their list, if they have their sights set on you, there is nowhere you can run that they won't be able to find you. I can give you the information you need and help, but they will find you one day."

  He ran across the street towards the gas station. "What about Ellie and Mr. Dawson?"

  "I can't give you any guarantees, Jack. What I can do is get you to something resembling safety. You do trust me, don't you?"

  "Of course."

  "Then stop freaking out on me and focus on running. I will not let them hurt you, Jack. I promised your father seventeen years ago that I would do whatever I had to in order to keep you safe. I do not intend to break that promise."

  Jack sped through the alley where he had talked with Niki earlier that night then headed up the hill towards the glow of the lights above the campus gates by the auditorium. A cold wind hit him, but he continued with his pace, being driven through his exhaustion by his own deep fear. He made it to the parking lot with the oak trees outside the administration building where he slid to a stop yards from the door to the building behind the auditorium where Mr. Allen's office was located.

  A shadowy figure emerged from behind the solitary black van three parking spots down from him and a voice snapped at him. "Where do you think you're going, Jack Carter?"

  He quaked where he stood, his knees threatening to buckle and his chest burning from the run through the cold night. Jack backed away from the approaching figure until the man stepped into the haze of the streetlight. "For the love of God, Niki! What are you doing out here?"

  Niki twirled the stick of the sucker with his tongue, dyeing his lips blue in the process. He crunched down on the candy. "I could ask you the same thing. I thought you were headed home. Hell, Jack. You look like you've committed a murder."

  Jack laughed nervously and adjusted his messenger bag on his shoulder. "Come with me. I have to get your stepdad's office right now. I don't know what's going on, but-"

  The approaching sirens cut off his words.

  "What did you do?" Niki stormed up to him and shook him by the shoulders. "What did you do? You're supposed to be the good kid. Did you finally have enough kissing up to cops and teachers and have a psychotic break? Tell me!"

  "We have to get inside."

  Niki snatched the phone out of his hand and spoke into it. "Who's this?"

  "Son?" Mr. Allen sounded relieved. "Niki, get to my office and make sure Jack is with you."

  "What's going on?" Niki asked, demanding answers.

  "I can't tell you that right now."

  Jack took off towards the building. "Niki, come on! Oh, God. They're here."

  The red and blue lights bounced off the tan bricks of the school buildings and the sirens blared, drowning out Jack's racing heartbeat. He grabbed onto Niki's arm and pulled him along as he darted up the shallow steps to the offices and threw the glass door open.

  Tires screeched to a stop behind him before twelve police officers in bullet-proof vests and helmets jumped out of their vehicles with pistols drawn and pointed at them. A flood light clicked on, bathing them in white light. One of the officers held up a megaphone and spoke over it. "Jackson Carter, you are under arrest for murder and kidnapping. Surrender now and come with us. If you resist or flee, we will use deadly force."

  Jack squinted in the sudden flood of illumination. "How did they find me so fast? What do we do? We're close. Run, Niki. Run with me."

  "You did snap, didn't you? Who did you kill?"

  "No one. You have to believe me. I'm not a murderer."

  Niki took Jack's hand and squeezed it. "If we run, they'll shoot at us. How good do you think you'll be at dodging bullets?"

  "I can't go to prison for a crime I didn't commit. I can't."

  "Well, then there's only way to do this. You run and get to Allen's office. I'll be right behind you to catch anything that comes your way."

  What was he suggesting? "You're insane. You're not a bullet shield."

  "Just run, you half-wit!"

  With a nod, Jack spun around and darted down the darkened hallway. He turned the corner right when the pops of gunfire rang out and the glass door shattered. Bullets chased after him, hitting the cork boards and lockers along the walls. One hit a fire extinguisher, sending white foam exploding down the main hall. He slid to a stop outside Mr. Allen's office door that was already open.

  Strong hands pulled him inside and threw him onto the coarse grey carpet beside the cluttered metal desk. Jack sat up and curled up against the file cabinet to catch his breath while shouting came over the mega phone outside and more sirens woke up residents in the quiet town. To his relief, Niki came tumbling inside the office to sit next to him.

  "Boys, are you hurt?" Mr. Allen pulled Niki to his feet and turned him around, looking him over for injuries in the lamplight. "You look okay. Jack?"

  "I'm fine. Actually, no, I'm not fine. They're going to kill me. They'll storm the school and shoot me or arrest me and lock me away. Oh, no . . . what if they put me on death row? What if I get the death penalty?"

  "Calm yourself. That's not going to happen. Why do you keep rubbing your arm like that?"

  "What?" Jack looked down to where he was holding onto his left arm. The burning remained. "It's . . . nothing."

  Mr. Allen loomed over him. "Show me."

  "I can't. I'm scared."

  "Jack, you said you trusted me. Show me. We don't have much time."

  Jack rolled up the sleeve of his hoodie and held out his swollen arm where the hourglass tattoo was slightly bleeding. "Some coin did it to me. I found it in Ellie's room. I don't know what it is. Is it going to kill me?"

  Mr. Allen nodded his head. "All right. Niki, move my desk over to bar the door, then move the file cabinet in front of the window. No one is getting in here. Son, they're going to want you as well for being an accomplice at this point. I have to send both of you away because I cannot lose either of you. I'll pack a bag for you two."

  While Niki moved the furniture around to prevent the police from entering the office
, Jack stood shakily to his feet and watched his teacher rummaging through plastic totes in the corner, stuffing packets of dehydrated lasagna, bags of rice and beans, a water filter, batteries, and space blankets into the camouflage camping backpack. "Where are we going?"

  "I'm not sure, so I can't dress you for the appropriate time period or culture. I'm sorry, but it's best if you hide this bag and your clothes when you get to where you're going. I can't have you two burned at the stake for being witches or end up being a sacrifice for some tribe somewhere."

  "What are you talking about?" Jack gasped when Mr. Allen unlocked the top drawer of his desk and took out a 10 mm pistol and a box of ammunition. "You have a gun?"

  "I knew this day would come. I hoped and prayed that it never would, but I knew your blood would eventually give you away, you and Ellie both. It's a miracle that it has taken the Syndicate this long to make a move."

  "Syndicate?" Jack asked, trying to process everything that was happening. "What are you talking about? I don't understand."

  "The Zurvan Syndicate. They're the ones who took Ellie and who killed those people. They're after you, Jack. I swore to your father before they killed him that I wouldn't let these people corrupt you or make you face the same fate as the rest of your family."

  His shoulders slumped. "They killed my family? I was told it was a plane crash and a car crash-"

  "Convenient cover-ups. With the ties the Syndicate has within the government, it's easy for them to write down whatever they want."

  A crash outside the door was followed by shouting and more gunfire as the hum of a helicopter approached the building. Footsteps raced closer, followed by fists pounding on the door.

  Niki hissed. "They're here. What's the plan? I don't want to be in handcuffs again."

  Mr. Allen turned to his stepson. "Again? Son, is there something you need to tell me?"