Die Back Page 6

  "No, Addison. STOP!"

  Nikki dove across the desk, grabbing his writing hand, but he had already written a date and a name.

  October 8, 1942

  Benjamin Waltrop

  ***

  Once again, as if sucked through a molecular pinhole into the vacuum of space, his mind and body exploded into billions of particles. Swirling and twisting my world narrows, the vastness of being compressing to a point in space and time, until…

  At the edge of the sky.

  A multi-pane glazed aircraft nose cone is the only thing between me and an infinite azure sky. I should have stayed a mechanic. What the hell was I thinking? The air reeks of fuel, sweat and fear. The B-17's four turbo-supercharged Wright engines rumble, sending vibrations through the airframe and into my chest. My heart races as puffy white clouds above us and far away disappear beyond the horizon of the deep-blue Pacific. I'm scared, but determined. A voice comes on the comm: Captain Thatcher. A couple days ago, our previous pilot took some flak to the head. I don't know Thatcher—odd guy. I'm not sure he understands what we're up against, but I have no choice.

  "Coming over the target. Your aircraft, Waltrop."

  I've got the Jap transport ship lined up. Hell, we're low enough I could reach down and slap them. I don't need the Norden sight to skip bomb at a hundred feet. The Japs see us, their tracers streaming past the nose. Wesley, our navigator, is on the .30 cal to my right, popping short burst, bambambam, bambambam, deafening in this tin can, but I'm focused on the enemy ship.

  "Steady."

  A succession of loud pops and screeching overwhelms the explosive banging of his gun, then the thud, thud, thud of a butcher's cleaver hacking into meat— machine-gun fire from an attacking Zero shattered the nose, slamming into Wesley, who crashes back into a bulkhead. Shit. I glance over my shoulder. He's on his back, a gaping red hole in his chest, fucking blood everywhere. I can't get enough air, my heart pounds.

  ”Goddammit!” Come on, Waltrop. Steady.

  Explosions rock us, our machine guns blasting away at Jap fighters.

  "Fuck you, Japs!”

  I release a stick of thousand-pounders, as Cap'n pulls up over the ship, climbing for altitude and safety. My bombs hit the water and hopefully slam into the bastards' hull. Our bird shakes from concussive explosions.

  Waist gunner, Sammy, celebrates over the comm. "Thataboy, Waltrop!"

  I hit my target, but we're still not clear. Cap'n's climbing as fast as our bomber will go to get above some small cumulus clouds dotting the sky. A Zero comes out of nowhere, its 20-mm cannon firing away. Lead rips through aluminum—tak, tak, tak, tak, tak—Cap'n's screaming in my headset:

  "Waltrop, get your ass up here!"

  I unplug my comm and crawl over Wesley. His eyes, glassy like my little sister's Shirley Temple doll, stare at me, but he's gone. We were just playing cards last night. Jesus. Inching my way past his navigator table to the flight engineer, I rise up, my back to the cockpit. Charlie should be standing in the dorsal turret, but he's sprawled on deck, dead. A hand grabs my shoulder.

  "Get up here, Waltrop. Now."

  Hancock, our co-pilot, slumps against the window. Instead of shattered glass and torn metal from Jap bullets, he's got a single wound in his left temple. Suicide? Cap'n yells above the engines' drone. "Move him!"

  I drag Hancock from his seat, laying him out on the deck below us, next to our dead flight engineer. Charlie should be all torn up from machine gun fire, but instead, he's got two neat bullet holes in his back. What the hell?

  "Let's go, Waltrop. If we're getting out of here, I need you at co-pilot."

  I slip into Hancock's seat. There's blood smeared across the side window, a small hole where a bullet passed through his head and into the glass. "What happened?"

  "Took a stray bullet."

  Cap'n's got blood on his sleeve and a .45 semi-automatic in his hand. Shooting Nips out the window?

  He smiles. "Too bad we're not in F-16's. We'd be blowing these assholes right out of the water."

  F-16's. If only. "Yeah. A guided missile beats the hell…" Wait. F16's? Missiles? How do I know what he's talking about?

  "Hello, Addison."

  Addison? No, I'm…Waltrop.

  "It's disorienting at first, isn't it?"

  "I don't know what you're—"

  A fiery flash followed by debris spatters across the nose as an incoming Zero explodes at my three o'clock. The concussion slams the aircraft, knocking us sideways and down as if God, angry at our intrusion on the heavens, is swatting us out of the sky.

  "Yes, you do. We met on a battlefield in Cantigny."

  "What are you talking about? Jake?”

  "You're Addison Shaw. Thomas' son. You're inked into Waltrop. Remember?"

  Right. Nikki tried to stop me, but I found Waltrop's name in the file and… "Who are you?"

  He laughs for a moment, then his lips become a thin line, his dead eyes staring at me. "Your father and I had a shared interest."

  Waist gunner's banging away at Japs swarming off our wings. "I don't understand. You worked with my father?"

  He laughed again. "Call me Kairos. Your father could have joined me, but he clung to his precious League. And now here you are, picking up where daddy left off."

  A Nip flashes past us, engine screaming. The concussions from our bombs must be screwing with my head. "What are you talking about?"

  "Did the old man ever mention blood-inking? Ah, probably not. The League couldn't be trusted with the ability to ink forward in time.”

  I don't know what to think, what to do. All the gore, the bullets, the death. Why am I here? The plane shudders with an explosion, tearing metal screeching. Flames and black smoke spew from one of the starboard engines. We're transforming into a goddamn meteor. Somebody's screaming, "Jesus, Jesus!"

  I yell at him, “I don’t understand!”

  Kairos, growls. "My blood has been altered alchemically. When you come in contact with it, my blood transmogrifies your life essence enabling me to force my consciousness into you, my host." He laughs. "Or I just might stuff you in some brain-dead peasant to die, along with their pathetic little life."

  "No…you can't—"

  "Of course I can." He glares at me. "Just like I took care of your old man, Thomas."

  Son of a bitch! Nightmare? Reality? I don't give a damn. I lunge at him, but his fist, wrapped around the barrel of his gun, crushes my jaw, a savage pain searing across my face. I fall back in the seat, my vision narrowing.

  "Nice try, Addison." He waves the Colt's muzzle at my face. "Instead of worrying about me, maybe you should think about the Zero at eleven o'clock." He hooks his thumb over his left shoulder, grinning like a hyena feasting on the entrails of a dead gazelle. "He's going to kill us both."

  A Jap fighter bears down on us with relentless speed. "What?"

  "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." He takes the gun in his left hand, firing once in his right palm, blood splattering across the cockpit. What the hell? Beyond him the Zero's cannons flash.

  "Time for you to join me, Addison." He scowls, lunging at me. Tak, tak, tak, tak, tak. Bullets tear a path toward us. In the same instant, a shell rips a gaping hole in my chest, hurling me against the fuselage, hot red gore everywhere. Kairos’ bloodied hand rushes toward me…

  ***

  Nikki watched her friend fall into a catatonic state. The pen, Renascentia, frozen in Addison’s hand, his eyes staring unblinkingly at the page. She had inked Emmett the day after he died on the battlefield to make Addison think the damn pen didn't work. She looked at the page under Addison's writing hand.

  "Benjamin Waltrop? What is this date? Putain de bordel de merde!"

  She didn't know when 1942 fell in Waltrop's life, although she hoped later. However, the odds, and her worst fears, fell on his consciousness entering Waltrop much earlier, even in the womb. She couldn't let Addison ink this guy's entire life. His conscious
ness lost inside Waltrop would be catastrophic. Addison would die back, but he'd also be a paranoid schizophrenic, or worse. And what if it was a trap? Whoever murdered Thomas, why not Addison? I'm supposed to protect him. Great job, Nicole Babineaux.

  She knew only one way to pull an Inker out without a die back, but she didn't have a stun gun with her. How was she supposed to know Addison would ink right in front of her? Merde. Looking around the study she grabbed the lamp, wrapping the cord around her hand, and yanked with all of the force she could muster. The long cord pulled free. She ran down the hall to a guest bathroom, turning the water on to fill a footed bathtub before running back to the study. She put her arms around Addison's chest, dragging him out of his chair and down the hall. Straining with effort, she heaved him into the tub, now partly filled with water, folding a towel behind his head. She plugged the cord into a socket by the sink, grateful Thomas hadn't gotten around to modernizing the outlets with circuit-tripping breakers.

  Putain! I hope this works.

  She dropped the cord into the water. Addison's body seized with violence. Unplugging the cord, she waited a moment for Addison to come out of the inking, but he lay still as death, the tub looking too much like a coffin for Nikki's comfort.

  "Come on, Addison. Come on!"

  She put an ear to his chest, his heart racing a rapid, erratic rhythm. Thomas is going to kill me for letting you use Renascentia.

  She pounded on his chest.

  "Come on, goddammit!" She pounded again. "You stupid son of a bitch! Goddammit. Live!"

  Addison inhaled a large gulp of air, grabbing Nikki as if trying to break a fall. Flailing, he opened his eyes, water up to his chest, Nikki astride him. “No, stop! No!”

  She let out a breath. "Thank God."

  Addison pushed her away. "What…what happened? What the hell are you doing?"

  Nikki rose from the tub, water dripping from her soaked tee shirt and jeans. "Saving your life, mon cher. Something you're going to have to do for me when Thomas gets wind of this."

  "My father's dead."

  "Sure, I know. But still. He's going to be pissed." She grabbed the side of the footed tub, swinging a leg onto black and white tile.

  "How long?"

  Padding with wet feet, she plopped onto the toilet lid, wringing water out of her shirt. "How long will he want to tear me a new one? I don't know, Addison. He seemed pretty intense about wanting me to protect you."

  "My dad?" He pulled himself up and out of the tub, all the while looking at Nikki as if she was an escapee from an institution for the criminally insane. "No, how long was I gone?"

  "Too damned long, if you ask me."

  "How long?"

  "Like, three minutes. I had to shock you back."

  He sat on the edge of the tub, hands on his knees, his chest aching. "And how did I get in the bathroom?"

  "You inked a guy named Waltrop in 1942. If I hadn't ripped you, I'd be visiting you once a week to feed you baby food through a tube."

  "Ripped?"

  "Yeah, it's how we pull someone out of an inking."

  "I don't understand. You threw me in a bathtub."

  "Needed the water to increase the intensity of electrocution."

  "You electrocuted me? Are you out of your fucking mind?" Addison hurled a bar of soap at Nikki, who blocked the incoming projectile with her arms.

  "Did I ask you to ink into someone without knowing what the hell you're doing? You're just lucky I was here to save your ass."

  "By electrocuting me?"

  "Yes, and then restarting your heart."

  "You could have killed me."

  "You could be sitting in your own piss, drooling all over yourself. So back off."

  Addison levered his visibly stiff body away from the tub, water dripping on the tiles from his wet clothes. An electrical cord lay on the floor between them. "Wait. You said something about keeping me out…of the League?"

  Nikki shook her head. "Where did you hear about the League?"

  "Kairos."

  All color drained from her face. She stood, and walked out of the bathroom, water trailing behind her. Addison followed as Nikki ranted on her way into the study. "Kairos. Christ, it was a trap. Look, you're not supposed to be doing this. That's why I—" She folded her arms over a wet, transparent tee-shirt. "No. I'm in deep enough."

  Addison grabbed his cane from the study floor. "What's the League? Who's Kairos? You know the bastard?"

  "Addison—"

  "He said he killed my father, but you're talking like he's still alive. Which is it?"

  "We're not going to have this discussion."

  "This is my father we're talking about, goddammit. So yes, we are."

  She glared at him. "I think we've had enough excitement for today, don't you?"

  Addison slammed his cane across the desk with an explosive smack. "Why are you hiding the truth from me?"

  Nikki flinched. "Merde, okay. Calm down."

  "I almost died of cardiac arrest talking to some whack-job who says he killed my father. And when he tried to shove his bloody hand down my throat, I could swear the evil son of a bitch was in my head, grasping for me. So don't tell me to calm down."

  "He inked you?"

  "I don't know—"

  "You never loved Beth, did you?"

  "What?"

  "Just answer the question. You never loved her, right?"

  "Of course I loved her! Why are you bringing her up?"

  "You were secretly relieved when your father died."

  "That's bullshit. What the hell are you playing at?"

  She ran both hands through her hair, shaking her head. "Putain. I'm sorry, I just had to be sure. If you were hosting Kairos’ consciousness, he wouldn't be able to access emotions as readily as objective facts. I needed to be certain his inking failed."

  Addison glared, his face flushed, panting as if he had just finished a run. "You say my father's still alive. We had an open casket. I tossed dirt on his grave. What the fuck are you talking about?"

  "I know this is difficult to understand."

  "Try me."

  She looked past him, letting out a sigh. "Your father, Thomas, is dead in the present, but his consciousness lives on in the host he inked in the past."

  Addison shook his head. "You are so full of shit."

  "Addison, I'm telling you the truth. He inked a librarian in third century Egypt. His present-side consciousness still lives in the past."

  "Bullshit. You're just trying to cover your lies. You knew Kairos killed my father and said nothing."

  "Addison, I didn't know for certain—"

  He shoved past her to the desk.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Exactly what needs to happen."

  "And what's that?"

  "Kairos said he killed my father and wants to destroy the League, whatever it is. This pen is how I get to that murdering son of a bitch. You say my father still lives in the past, so I'll start with him. Maybe he'll give me some straight answers."

  "Wait, Addison."

  "Wait? For guys in white coats to drag me away?"

  "I'm not saying you shouldn't spend some quality time tied down to a hospital bed with a steady diet of barbiturates, but just don't use the pen again. At least not yet. Not without some training."

  Addison glared, every fiber in his body daring her to stop him.

  She massaged her forehead. "Jesus. I am so screwed." She moved toward the door, but Addison anticipated, lunging, cane in hand.

  "You're not leaving until you tell me what the hell this is all about, Nikki."

  She dropped her hands, a condemned prisoner resigned to her fate. "Okay. We'll start training tonight. I'll text you a location after your date."

  "I don't have a date." Addison raised his cane as Nikki stepped toward the door. "You're so full of shit, lying to me all along. You knew about the pen. You knew about my father. Did my dad arrange for you to be my little guardian angel?"

  "It
wasn't like that."

  "What was it like, Nikki? Our friendship's been a lie for four years. All this time I thought I had a friend, a big sister I could trust and it turns out you were just babysitting me. And now you're telling me I can't go after this Kairos guy until you train me?"

  Addison leaned back to swing his cane, but Nikki seized it and a good portion of his shirt, flipping him over the desk and into the wall. Addison crumpled to the floor, stunned. He could just make out Nikki's blond hair above the top of his desk. The laid-back French barista had been replaced by a Navy Seal with anger issues.

  "Jesus, Nikki. What the hell?"

  "I am your friend, but it goes both ways imbécile." She stuffed Addison's pen in her jeans pocket. "You're going to have to trust me."

  "Trust you? Why should I trust you?"

  "Tonight. After your date. Are we copacetíc?"

  "I don't have a date. And no, we're not copacetic."

  He waited for her comeback, but the only sound from Nikki was the front door slamming behind her.

  The Hole

  Addison sat in the den, muted daylight casting the room in gloom, mimicking his state of mind. He wondered if one more horrifying experience might melt his brain, the jellied gray matter oozing from his ears. How did Dad use the pen, going in and out of dead people, and not put a bullet through his head to suppress the haunting images? How could he be alive in the past? It doesn't make any sense. And Nikki. I trusted her.

  Late in the afternoon, his doorbell rang. Probably another package for his father. Just one more reminder. He pulled himself off the sofa, grabbed his cane, and trudged to the door. To his surprise, the girl from the vinyl store stood before him.

  "Addy, glad you're home."

  "Jules? How—"

  "You going to ask me in?"

  "Yeah, sure."

  She stepped into the foyer, Addison painfully aware of his now dry, but dirty jeans and tee shirt, courtesy of Nikki. Jules defined hot in black combat boots, painted on jeans, a white tee, and a black leather jacket with silver studs. She had shaped her braids into a double ridged mohawk and painted a glittering white and gold falling star on one side of her hair.