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  Even though Jules wouldn't trade her life for anything right now, something about her mom's enthusiasm, how the whole thing went down, left her feeling, if not suspicious, at least a little puzzled. Something wasn't right and she couldn't seem to put her finger on it.

  This morning Nikki had brought a couple of lattes over from da Vinci's. After they had lunched on some grilled cheese sandwiches Jules managed to whip up on her hotplate, she had tried to pry some intel from her new friend.

  "Nikki, what's the deal with you and my mom? How do you two know each other?"

  Nikki, elbow deep in dishes at the kitchen sink, methodically scrubbed a glass, occasionally lifting it up for inspection before returning it to the soapy water. "Our mothers were part of the same association."

  "A sailing club?"

  She rinsed the glass, handing it to Jules. "They met in France years ago and became friends. When my mother died, Alison, your mother, took me under her wing. Made sure I finished school and applied for a doctoral program."

  "Sounds like my mom. She's all about the education." Jules stood beside Nikki, taking a dish towel to the now crystal clear glass. "Did she say anything about my visit with you?"

  "I'm not sure what you mean?"

  "You know, why she wanted me to be here?"

  Nikki shrugged. "I suppose to live your dream. Your music."

  "Yeah, but I don't know. It's not like her, Nikki. I have this nagging feeling there's more to it than she let on."

  "All I can tell you is what I know."

  "Did my mom mention someone tried to kill us in Hawaii?"

  Nikki hesitated, glancing at Jules. "She did say you had a little…adventure."

  "Yeah. Adventure. Guy went mental and started choking the shit out of her. It didn't make any sense. And he didn't want to just kill us. He was after something—something he thought my mom had on the boat." Jules studied Nikki who stared straight ahead. "You know something, don't you?"

  Nikki took the towel back from Jules, drying her hands. "Merde. You have clearly inherited your mother's intuition."

  "There's more, isn't there?"

  Nikki sighed, leaning with both hands on the sink's edge. “I had hoped your mother would tell you.” She glanced at Jules with a brief, uncomfortable smile. “Maybe it's time, ma chère. I see no point in waiting."

  "Time for what?"

  "Tonight. Midnight. I'll give you some directions."

  "To what?"

  "You'll have all the answers you want, but they must wait until tonight.” Nikki held Jules' gaze. "We will not speak of this again."

  "Speak about what?"

  “Tonight."

  ***

  Nikki went to the boathouse in the afternoon to get on the water for a workout. Not the best time to row Lake Union with sailboats tacking across her bow, gravel barges generating swells, and the ever-present seaplanes landing and taking off for the San Juan Islands, but she needed a release from the tension building inside. With practiced technique, she compressed forward and pushed away, using her legs to drive the force of her stroke on her single racing shell. Her back to oncoming traffic, she stayed closed to the shore, making her way past houseboats to The Cut, a narrow passage linking Lake Union and Lake Washington near the University. Beyond the distant noise of commuter traffic on I-5, the only sounds were the steady, mechanical rhythm of her oars in their locks and the burbling turbulence of the bow cutting through the water. If only the rest of her life could be as simple. Inking people who have long since died, entering their minds, journeying across centuries through an endless array of cultures and languages, meant an Inker’s life was, by definition, complicated. And recent events brought the point home.

  She had joined The League eleven years ago—it seemed like centuries. When Thomas asked her to keep a watchful eye on his son, Addison, she initially took the task as just one among her other duties in the League. However, a friendship naturally blossomed with Addison, something akin to becoming his big sister. Minding Addison also meant she saw more of Thomas. To her surprise, she also found something in Thomas she didn’t expect—a lover.

  The first time was almost by accident, although in hindsight she did nothing to delay the momentum of the moment. Afterwards, they told themselves it was a one-off, a happy, but not to be repeated intimacy. However, they couldn’t, wouldn’t, stop. She could never tell Addison. How do you tell your ‘brother’ that you’re sleeping with his father? At least that’s how Addison would see it. So for the last year, they had maintained a covert relationship for Addison’s sake. And now Thomas, dear Thomas, was dead.

  Of course Addison had been led to believe his father died by accident, but she knew better. Thomas had known the danger when they last parted in Alexandria, almost two thousand years ago. They had been careless. Thomas wanted to ink from his study so he would be at home when Addison returned from a visit to his orthopedic surgeon. He insisted a couple of Inkers guarding the house would keep him secure during the inking. Why did I agree?

  On her return from the mission, she couldn’t get Thomas or the other Inkers on the phone. Nikki rushed to Thomas’ house, every instinct in her body telling her something terrible had happened. She found the heads of two Inkers stuck on rake handles spiked into the ground in the back garden. Searching the house, she found Thomas in a broken heap at the bottom of the basement stairs. A cleanup team handled the mess before Addison got home, and the scene fooled the police, but she knew the truth. Someone had brutally murdered the two Inker guards then attacked Thomas, throwing him down the stairs to his death. What kind of monster would do such a thing? I know Thomas suspected Cameron. Could it be? She couldn’t know if he had come back from his inking before being murdered, but if not, killing his body meant Thomas’ mind had nowhere to go at die back. When he died in Alexandria, he died—mort permanente.

  Nikki quickened her stroke, her muscles burning with fatigue, each labored breath releasing the toxins of her Inker life. The attack on Alison’s boat also troubled her. Clearly someone, maybe Cameron, had attempted to murder Alison and steal her inking pen. The only reason he failed had been Alison’s ferocity in protecting her daughter and Jules’ willingness to fight for her mother’s life. Alison had sent Jules to Seattle for “a carefree summer” probably thinking Seattle would be safer. But Jules’ wasn’t stupid—or safe, so Nikki had decided to tell her about the League now. She strained on her oars. Alison’s going to be pissed, but it’s my call.

  With the loss of Thomas, she had the dubious honor of taking the reins of the League in hand. Now, she also had to train a new Inker. Of course, given the surge of malicious activity in the continuum, she would have welcomed Addison into the League, as well. They needed every resource available to combat this growing menace to the stability of the continuum. However, her hands were tied. The last promise she had made to Thomas had been to keep his son out of the League. All she had to do was find Thomas’ pen and prevent Addison from reading his father’s letter. A simple task, surely.

  I will keep my word, Thomas. I will, my love.

  Dead Reckoning

  Sitting alone in his den, Addison ran the battle scene through his mind over and over again, trying to make sense of the dream, the hallucination, whatever it was.

  Can I be slipping back into the nightmares after the wreck?

  The Wreck. Three years in his past, The Wreck still haunted his dreams and invaded his waking life with each halting step of his shattered leg. He had taken Beth, red-haired, green-eyed Beth, to the mountains. They met his sophomore year in anthropology class and over the semester became increasingly close. Close, as in whenever his father went out of town they 'studied' at the house—one third humanities, two-thirds human sexuality. Jesus. He started out in lust with her, easy to do with Beth, but ended seriously in love.

  His spent his last hours with her skiing fresh powder under a topaz sky on the Snoqualmie slopes. A perfect day, which would be made better once they got out of their winter clothes and
under warm blankets. Things went wrong when the weather turned gray, dropping a thick layer of fresh snow on the roads. He thought about waiting for the plow trucks to clear the way, but the longer he delayed, the less time they'd have alone at the house. Addison had driven in snow, but never in a full-blown snow storm on a winding mountain road. He took a turn too fast, the Mustang’s wheels slipping away on black ice, his steering doing nothing, as he careened off the road and down a steep embankment into some trees. The impact bent the car almost in half. Rescuers spent a frantic hour cutting him away from the wreckage. The whole time Beth's dead green eyes stared at him, her ashen lips open as if wanting to say one last word.

  When Addison got home from three weeks in the hospital, he spiraled into a dark place. He kept reliving the accident, every action preceding it. He would have visions, so real, a sickening mix of blood, noxious fumes, and frigid snow. But over time, the nightmares came less frequently, the vivid images fading. He still thought about her. A few months ago he recalled those green eyes, but couldn't remember her face. In a panic, he dug through files on his computer until he found her image.

  I will never forget you, Beth. Never. You should have survived, not me.

  He never talked to his father about how he felt, but who could ever really understand? Addison had cheated death at the expense of an innocent girl. He would carry the blame, the burden, the crushing guilt, to his grave.

  Now, after picking up the fountain pen to find himself in a trench on a battlefield, he didn't know what to think. He had nightmares, plenty of them, but they all focused on a snow-covered road, not some muddy hell hole in France. And how did he know it was France? It's not like he was some kind of history buff.

  The clock on the mantle struck two, reminding him he'd been running scenarios in his mind since noon. If he didn't stop thinking about it, reliving these hallucinations, or whatever the hell they were, he'd go bat-shit crazy. He needed to get out of the house, maybe talk to Nikki, get some perspective.

  He walked the six blocks through a neighborhood of Craftsman cottages and cubical modernist condos to Market Street. Annie had left her corner, he hoped spending her money on food, instead of drugs. At Cafe da Vinci’s, a guy behind the counter told him Nikki had taken a lunch break and could probably be found at a vintage vinyl record shop, RPM, across the street. All the times Addison had wandered into da Vinci's, he'd never visited the record shop. Addison didn't own any vinyl, or he didn't until inheriting the extensive collection of jazz and rock music his father had played on an ancient turntable. Compared to Addison's digital world, the old analog technology was like parking a Model T next to a Ferrari, but his father insisted the scratchy records sounded better.

  Stepping into RPM, Addison found Nikki, her barista apron stuffed into a pocket of her jeans. Surrounded by floor-to-ceiling shelves of vinyl discs she stood in one of three aisles of waist-high record racks. Flipping through a collection of punk and rock discs, she pulled one of the album covers out to view the photography and cover notes. At the moment, she had a thirty-year-old Siouxsie and the Banshees JuJu album in her hands. She looked up with a smile, setting the album back in its place among the antique vinyl. "Bonjour, mon cher. Didn't know you were into vinyl."

  "My dad had a bunch of records, but all my music's digital."

  "Digital?" A girl's voice broke into the conversation. "That word's anathema in here."

  She stepped beside him, her ebony hair swept back from her face, exploding into an expansive afro. When she turned her head, his eye caught a silver nose ring and silver hoops spiraling through her ear lobes contrasting against mocha skin. A tattoo ran the length of her right arm, a twisting vine of green leaves and yellow, orange, and pink flowers, disappearing into the short sleeve of a black Ramones tee shirt. Addison couldn't help but wonder how far, and in what directions, the vine grew around the curves of her body. She wore black combat boots and black leather pants with a silver-studded belt slipped over her hips. She looked to Addison like a woman from another time and place—a fierce female Maasai warrior from the Tanzanian Serengeti.

  "Just kidding, babe. Well, maybe not. But I'm not going to throw you out. Yet." She playfully shoved his shoulder, hard enough for Addison to have to use his cane to steady himself.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean anything…”

  She offered a wry smile. "It's okay. You're not the only one who's been sucked into a false sense of security."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Did you know the NSA tracks every phone call you make?"

  Nikki rolled her eyes. "This is Jules. She's staying here for the summer. She failed to mention she's some kind of conspiracy freak."

  "I just read the news, Nikki. The people in power want to control us—our thoughts, the music we like, the art we create," Jules’ dark, sultry eyes met Addison's, "even the love we make."

  Normally the whole Afropunk piercing thing would have intimidated him, but he lost himself in her words, her full lips, the way the tip of her nose moved ever so slightly when she spoke. A moth to the flame, her spicy world of orange blossoms and cinnamon lured him closer.

  Nikki's voice broke through the trance. "Jules. I think maybe you're getting a little paranoid. We don't want to creep Addison out, do we?"

  Whatever she was going on about, Addison didn't want her to stop talking. "No, I'm good."

  "Mark my words, Nikki," Jules poked a finger in her direction with a nod to Addison, "and your friend here, too. I read about this girl who had her identity stolen. You think you're safe, but everything can be taken away from you in a heartbeat. One day you're here, the next, poof." She swept open hands outward. Addison could almost see the magician's cloud of smoke.

  Nikki sighed. "Jules, you've got to quit reading all these stories."

  "I know you don't believe me, Nikki, but I promise, when you're gone, it'll be like you never existed."

  Nikki looked to Addison. "I keep telling her if she didn't look like she was about to rip out your heart, eating it while still beating in her hand, she might get a date now and then."

  Jules frowned. "Very funny."

  "What can I say?" Nikki gave Jules' arm a motherly stroke. "I guess I'll have to get used to living with a crazy person."

  Addison extended his hand to Jules, more to touch her, to feel the softness of her skin. She took hold of his, and time stopped, an energy pulsing between them. Her long, slender fingers, a velvet black iris bouquet in his hand. "Hey, Jules. I'm Addison. Must be great to work here. It sort of reminds me of what my dad does—used to do."

  "He's a radio DJ?"

  "No, he is—was, a genealogist."

  Jules' brow furrowed. Addison thought he might have screwed up, but she still held his hand. Her lips parted with the hint of a grin. "A genealogist? Didn't see that coming." They let go of each other. "My mom sails, which is a pretty unusual job, but a genealogist. Okay, now I gotta know. How does a vinyl shop remind you of genealogy?"

  He thought of the stories his father had told him about the intersecting paths of families across time. "All of these records, hundreds and hundreds of them, are doors into our past. They take you to a time and place, tell a story connecting you to everything that happened."

  Jules nodded her head. "I have to agree with you there, Addy. When I listen to The Ramones or Jimi Hendrix or Leadbelly, it's like…I leave my body for another world."

  "Yeah. I love the past. It's safer, you know? Everything has already happened, you already know the outcome."

  Jules reached for a Run-D.M.C. Raising Hell disc misplaced with the D's, pulling the offending album out. "I agree with you to a point, and I know this might sound odd coming from a girl surrounded by music laid down on an outmoded technology, but the present's where it's happening. Cobain played his last riff. He's gone."

  "But you listen to his music, right?"

  "Yeah, but that's different. All we've got are bits of sound frozen in time. Now, if you riff off Nirvana, that's making music."

 
; "I don't get it."

  "Music's a living art, Addy. It's the opposite of genealogy. Music's messy, you don't know what's going to happen, what'll work and what won't, what'll catch people's imagination and what'll fail. The unknown, that's what makes being a musician exciting. It's alive."

  Nikki put an arm around Jules' shoulders. "Jules just started singing with a band in town. What's the name of the band?"

  "Very funny." She pulled away from Nikki's grasp. "She's only been a groupie since we started. I've got her 'My Little Pony' panties she threw at me to prove it."

  Nikki shook her head, a smirk across her face. "You wish. The band's called Diseased Minds, Addison. I think you can see why it's the perfect name."

  Addison had not shifted his eyes from Jules. "What kind of music do you play?"

  "Believe it or not, I found some guys up for playing Afropunk. Kind of a punk rock hip hop fusion. We've just started making music together, so we're still working out the kinks." Jules paused, her dark eyes studying him. "We've got an early set tonight at The Hole. Why don't you come on down. I think you'll see what I'm talking about. People who shop here have a nostalgia thing going, but in my world, the present's where it's happening." She glanced at Nikki, and back to Addison. "Well, I'll leave you two alone to do your couple thing."

  Couple thing? "Oh, we're not…you know."

  Jules offered a knowing nod toward Nikki. "Sure, Addison. Whatever you say. I'll be in the back, if you have any questions."

  Addison looked to Nikki who continued to rifle through the albums. "She thinks we're—"

  Nikki flipped through the B's coming to a Bleached "Carter" disc, a nude couple on their knees embracing each other on the cover. "Together? Yeah, probably."

  "But we're not. I mean, even if we were, we wouldn't be since you're, well…"