Time Raiders: The Avenger
The dream started like the other one. She was in the middle of a dense, gorgeous forest, surrounded by layers of verdant green that could have very easily mesmerized her—had she not already been expecting some weirdness. This time she wasn’t a tourist. She was wary and ready for whatever her obviously stressed-out psyche could throw at her.
She walked down the same path as before, only now she wasn’t gawking at the nature surrounding her. Alex was paying attention to the fact that there were no damn birds.
Okay, a little detail like that might have escaped most people’s radar, especially most dreaming people, but Alex was an experienced hiker and was used to birds chirping away as she hiked. In her dream world, there were no sounds at all, not even the sloughing of wind through the thick green leaves of the ancient trees that formed a living canopy over her head.
“Same place, but it’s like someone pressed the mute button,” Alex said. “Well, at least in my dream I’m not hungover.” She had just decided her previous experience must have been wine-induced craziness when his voice drifted down the path to her.
“Come back to me…”
Had Alex reasoned out what she planned to do on her next visit to this made-up dream world, she would have said that she was going to be logical. She’d demand the man materialize, and if he didn’t, then she’d simply ignore him and go on about her dreaming, still hoping her subconscious would come up with a tryst with Aragorn.
But the dream wasn’t reasonable. It defied logic. The man’s voice had Alex reacting on a visceral level.
“I’m here! I came back! Where the hell are you?”
“Come back to me…I need you!”
“This is just ridiculous!” But even as Alex grumbled, she increased her pace. His voice was coming from down the path in front of her. This time she wasn’t going to wake up until she found out what the hell was going on in this dream.
The fog began to slither across the path.
“Damn it, no! This happened last time and I’m not putting up with it again! Hello! Where are you? Hello!” Alex was jogging now, shifting her gaze from the path to the misty space ahead of her, all the while straining to see through the soupy grayness.
The mist enveloped her. This wasn’t the romantic, cozy fog she liked to dream about lifting from low spots of the prairie on cool fall mornings. This mist was almost sentient. It was grasping, touching her with frigid fingers that crept into her clothes and down her spine, surrounding her body and soul until, panting, she stumbled to a halt.
“Where are you and what’s happening to me?” she whispered as she gasped for air, trying to catch her breath and regain her composure.
“I need your help. You must have the courage to come back to me.”
“Well, tell me who you are and where you are, and I will!” Alex blurted, utterly frustrated by this dream version of cat and mouse.
Ahead of her the mist cleared for just an instant and an image materialized. It was a symbol in the shape of an S, with both ends of the letter curling in and around to form a thick spiral. Its color was a deep sapphire-blue and she knew that this image held answers for her—somehow the S was his.
Automatically, Alex reached up, wanting to touch the pattern she glimpsed within the mist, wondering if the thing could be a part of a ghost. She’d never had a spirit get into her dreams before, but after almost three decades of seeing the dead, she figured nothing would surprise her.
Out of the mist someone grabbed her hand! Alex yipped a surprised “Yikes!” and tried to pull away, but the disembodied whatever kept a firm hold on her.
“Just do not say no. You must come back to me.”
And then Alex’s hand was lifted up into the mist, and she could swear that she felt lips—warm, firm, intimate lips—brush her skin. The touch somehow grounded her, settling her nerves and making her feel calmer, and surer that she was where she was supposed to be. Everything would be okay. This wasn’t a ghost—they couldn’t touch her. This was a man—a sexy dream man she’d conjured to entertain her sleeping mind. Through his strong grip he telegraphed need.
Alex grinned.
Of course he needed her. Of course he was calling for her. She’d dreamed him up. Now all she needed to do was relax. No doubt the mist would be whisked away—probably to the tune of the theme song from the cool old Lerner and Lowe version of Camelot. Oooh! Maybe that was who she’d dreamed up—King Arthur! Yep! He was definitely King Arthur. This dream world was a perfect pretend ancient England. No wonder he’d kept disappearing when she’d been imagining him as Aragorn—silly her! She was having a dorky historical fantasy, not a dorky sci fi/fantasy fantasy!
“All righty then,” Alex said happily, squeezing the hand that still held hers, “I’m ready. I’ve come back to you.” Still grinning, she braced herself, sure she’d figured out her dream version of the Gordian Knot, and everything would clear right up in an instant.
“It won’t be that easy, daughter of man!”
The new voice blasted Alex. Whoever had her hand dropped it, and, thrown off balance by the force of the voice and by the absence of the comforting presence that had anchored her in the dream world, Alex stumbled backward. And there was nothing behind her. Her arms windmilled, but she couldn’t stop herself from falling…falling…falling…
“Hey there, Ms. Patton! You’re awake now—everything’s okay.”
Alex jerked away from the old guy whose big, beefy hand was resting on her shoulder.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that you were making some real strange noises and I thought you might be having a doozy of a nightmare.”
Alex blinked up at the man—thinning gray hair, silver unibrow, lots of nose hair—and reality rushed back into her frazzled brain.
“Oh, Mr. Thompson, you startled me.”
“Were you having a bad dream, dear?” Mrs. Thompson, a plump woman who looked as if she’d be the perfect grandma, peered down at Alex over her husband’s shoulder.
“I—I guess I was. I don’t really remember.” She stood abruptly, brushing nonexistent dirt and grass from her khaki work pants. “I can’t believe I fell asleep,” she said, trying not to sound as disconcerted as she felt—especially when she realized she was the center the half dozen city folks’ attention.
“Sweetheart, you’ve been out like a light for the better part of two hours!” boomed Mr. Meyers, a retired butcher from Tulsa.
“Oh, Frank, leave the girl alone. I was just thinkin’ how tired she looked while we was hiking up here.” Mrs. Meyers, who insisted Alex call her Trixi, patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry. We all need our beauty sleep.”
“Okay, well, are we ready to head back?” Alex said, wishing she could crawl under the nearest rock.
“Yep, sure are! And I’ll bet you can set a quicker pace than you did on the way here, after that nap you took!” Mr. Meyers chuckled and slapped Alex on the back.
Thankfully, none of the tourists were staying the night, so Alex’s duties were done after she deposited the group in the prairie gift shop. Still feeling out of sorts after the weird repeated dream, she decided to indulge herself in one of her favorite pastimes—watching old BBC Masterpiece Theatre specials on her widescreen iMac. She’d popped some extra-buttery popcorn, poured a huge glass of iced tea—no wine today!—opened her new Netflix envelope and was just getting ready to pop disc one of The House of Elliott into her computer when the screen bleeped, telling her she had a new e-mail. Without really thinking about it, Alex clicked on the logo and saw that the new mail was from ACarswell@flagstaff.net.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding,” she muttered at the screen. With an annoyed jab, she clicked on the e-mail.
There was one line, which read: If you want to find out more about this, come to Flagstaff. It was signed A. C.
Alex glanced up at the address block and saw that there was an attachment. She almost didn’t click into it. What could Carswell possibly send her that she’d want to learn more about? But, grudgingly, Alex had to admit she was curious. She clinked into the attachment.
The symbol that filled the screen had her breath catching in her throat.
It was the sapphire S design from her dream.
Chapter 4
It took her too damn long to dig around in her address book and find the number to the Project Anasazi headquarters Tessa had given her months ago, when she’d first tried to talk her into joining Carswell’s team. Alex wasn’t at all surprised when the professor answered the phone herself.
“Where did you get that design?” Alex asked without any preamble.
“Alex, it’s good of you to call,” said the professor smoothly.
“Where did you get that design?” she stubbornly repeated.
“As I explained in the e-mail, if you want to know more about the symbol you’ll have to come to Flagstaff.”
“That’s bullshit!”
“Nevertheless, that is the deal.”
Alex drew a deep breath and got a handle on her temper before she spoke again. Then, in short clipped sentences, she said, “I do not know why you’re doing this. I will not join the project. My answer there will be the same as my answer here.”
“I’m doing this because we need you. The world needs you, Alex.”
“That’s just more bullshit! The world? I can’t save the world. Find someone else—someone who’s more like Tessa.”
“It’s you we need for this particular mission.” When Alex didn’t respond, Professor Carswell continued softly, “The symbol is important to you. I can tell you that.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Alex could hear the smile in her voice. “Because you’re not the only freak around.”
Alex snorted.
“Come to Flagstaff. It’ll change your life,” said Professor Carswell.
“I don’t want my life changed,” Alex insisted.
“Don’t you?”
There was a long silence on the line and then Alex heard herself saying, “Is that ticket still at Tulsa International?”
“What’s woad?” Alex asked Professor Carswell. She was sitting across from the professor in her office at the Time Raiders headquarters in Flagstaff, staring at a beautiful sketch of the S design the professor had scanned into the computer and sent to her. Only this original had been drawn on the outline of a human face. The face didn’t have any detail—it was just a frame for the swirling S pattern that spread from the man’s forehead and cheekbones, down to the side of his neck and even onto his torso.
Alex thought she’d never seen anything so exotic, beautiful or compelling.
“Woad is a powerful tattoo that ancient Celtic warriors used to adorn their bodies.”
“That’s an ancient tattoo?” Alex continued to stare at the design as if she was trying to see the man behind it.
“Well, there is a rather boring academic debate about whether the Celts actually tattooed the images on their bodies, or whether they were painted on. This particular image once adorned the body of a Celt who was a druid and a warrior. He lived about AD 60 in Briton. I’m sure about all of that, but I’m not certain if these designs were painted or tattooed on his body.”
“I don’t understand. How do you know all of this, and what does it have to do with me?”
“What does this have to do with you?” asked General Ashton, who’d chosen that moment to join them in Carswell’s office.
“You tell me. I thought that’s why I flew down here.”
“Why does this particular carrot dangle so enticingly for you that it did get you down here?” the general asked.
“Alex, I know this design is connected to you,” Professor Carswell said gently.
Ignoring the general, Alex spoke to the professor. “I’ve seen it in my dreams. I think the man who’s wearing this design is calling to me.”
“He’s asking you to come to him?” Professor Carswell leaned forward, literally on the edge of her seat, waiting for Alex’s answer.
“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly.
The professor nodded slowly. “Then it is you who must go on this mission. Alex, I’ve located the next piece of the medallion. I can tell that it is hidden in AD 60 Briton. I can also tell that it is tied to the Celtic warrior queen Boudica. The only other detail I know for sure about the placement of the medallion is that this particular piece in our puzzle is surrounded by death. It’s almost as if the dead have paved a path to the hidden piece. They know where it is. I do not.”
“So you see, Alex, we need someone on this mission who can speak to the dead,” General Ashton finished for her.
“Oh, no!” Alex was shaking her head. “Look, I haven’t even been away from the tallgrass prairie for a full day and already I’m sick and tired of seeing ghost after ghost swarming everywhere.” It gave her a twisted sense of pleasure that the professor and the general both glanced nervously around in response to her words. “Don’t worry about it—you can’t see them. Anyway, they don’t seem to like this building. There aren’t any in here. But here’s the deal—I know Tessa told you about my thing, and I understand why she did. Tessa’s all about being a team player. I’m not. I’m out of the air force. The whole thing…” she paused and gestured vaguely around her “…this whole thing is just too much for me. Yeah, I’m curious about the man in my dreams, but you guys are telling me he lived a zillion years ago, so that really doesn’t have anything to do with me today. I just want to go back home—to my quiet job—to a world where I can actually get some damn rest and not be driven out of my mind. Besides all that—in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not particularly into the military mind-set of do-what-you’re-told-and-shut-up anymore. Sorry I’ve wasted your time and mine.” Alex started to stand up.
“Sit down, Sergeant.” General Ashton didn’t raise her voice, but the tone of command in it had Alex sitting back down before she even registered the fact that she’d complied.
“You’re a blunt woman, so I’m going to be equally as blunt with you. This isn’t about some dream man. This isn’t about you getting your rest. This is about finding the twelve pieces of the medallion, which once reassembled, will stop a race of creatures who have been subjugating women for thousands of years. We are their only challengers, and they will unmake us in order to keep their power. This is about saving your daughters’ daughters and all those women who come after them. Suck it up, Sergeant. Stop whining. You can sleep when you’re dead.”
Alex met the general’s sharp gaze. The officer was obviously pissed at her, but that didn’t bother Alex at all. Actually, it was like a sweet walk down memory lane—she’d kinda liked pissing off officers. The truth was Alex respected that the general had finally given her the bottom line and stopped dancing around the damn bush. “These creatures, they’re really as bad as all that?”
“The Centauri will wipe out human females before they allow us to join the free galactic community.”
“I’m not a hero, General. I’m just a woman who hears the dead. And if I’m not buffered by the tallgrass prairie, that usually stresses me out so badly I can barely think.”
“How much thinking do you have to be able to do to ask some ancient ghosts to lead you to this?” General Ashton pulled out a drawing of what looked like a piece of a bronze medallion. It was oblong in shape and about the size of two quarters welded together. There was an interesting raised pattern on the piece that looked as if it might be sparkly, and vaguely reminded Alex of constellations.
She shrugged. “Depends on how long I have to go without sleep.”
“Alex,” Professor Carswell interjected quickly. “Do you know why you find the tallgrass prairie so peaceful?”
“No, except when I’m there the dead don’t bother me as much. It’s like they’re more tied to the earth or something. I’ve never really questioned it. I’ve just been glad Tessa and I decided to stop there on a road trip several years ago.”
The professor nodded. “Tied to the earth…that’s an interesting premise. Did you know the ancient Celts were very closely tied to the earth, too? I can’t know for sure, but my guess is you could be a lot less troubled by ghosts in the ancient world than you are in our modern one.”
“But whether the professor’s guess is correct or not, we need you to go on this mission,” said General Ashton.
Alex turned to face her. “I want to talk to Tessa.”
Ashton glanced at the professor, who cleared her throat, then said, “Tessa isn’t on earth right now, Alex.”
“Huh?”
Carswell gave a slight nod. “It’s true. She was only here briefly, when she made the call to you. Actually, she was here for a prenatal examination.”
“Prenatal!”
The general’s smile was self-satisfied. “Had you not hung up on your friend she would have told you herself.”
Carswell frowned at the general. “Tessa wouldn’t have explained that she’s pregnant with an alien’s child and is going to raise it to be a star navigator in the father’s home world. She would only have said that she was pregnant.”
“An alien kid?” Alex felt a little dizzy.
“Half alien, half human,” Carswell corrected.
“So her mission was successful,” Alex murmured.
“On many levels,” agreed the general.
Alex met General Ashton’s gaze. “I’m not like Tessa. She’s always been one of the good guys. She’s always known the right thing to do, and done it. I got sick of doing the right thing when I was six and my parents started to treat me like they were scared of me because I helped lead the cops to a neighbor kid’s body. For a long time I’ve preferred staying on the sidelines.”
This time the general’s smile looked genuine and softened her face, so that Alex suddenly thought how pretty she was. “So, aren’t you tired of getting splinters in your butt from staying on the bench? How about getting into the game for a change?”
“I think you’re backing the wrong player,” Alex replied.
“I don’t think so,” Professor Carswell said quickly. “You’re linked with the druid who bears that woad design.”
“What do you mean by linked?”
Instead of answering, the professor cocked her head to the side, as if she was listening to a whisper in the wind. “You’ve never been in love.”
It wasn’t a question, but Alex felt awkwardly compelled to answer. “No. I haven’t.”
“It’s never been right with any man, has it?”
“It’s a little hard to concentrate on romance after a guy finds out I can talk to dead people. It’s not like on TV. Guys don’t so much like it,” Alex said sardonically.
“The man who wears that woad design will change that. He is woven into your soul,” said the professor.
“And just what the hell does that mean?” Alex blurted.
“Accept this mission, go back to ancient Briton and find out,” General Ashton said.
“Ah, hell,” Alex groaned.
The professor and the general shared a brief, victorious smile.
Chapter 5
“Are you sure this bunny’s going to act right?” Alex peered into what looked like a cat carrier, at a very ordinary white rabbit.
“The rabbit will do what she’s supposed to do. Just unwrap her from the cloak you’ll be wearing, speak the lines you’ve memorized, and then drop her at your feet.” Professor Carswell smiled at Alex. “Keep in mind you’re the powerful priestess of a mighty goddess, as well as what the Celts recognized as a Soul Speaker—so you need to deliver the lines with some aplomb.”
“Aplomb? Seriously?”
“Seriously. You need to be in character.”
“I’ll do my best. Hope the rabbit does hers.”
“Leave that to me. I’m going to be sure you’re facing southeast. The rabbit will bolt away from you and directly toward Londinium.”
“And that will make Boudica attack London?” Alex said doubtfully.
“History is clear. Boudica was a devout follower of the goddess Andraste. Rabbits were sacred to the goddess, pure white rabbits especially so. Before making the final decision to march her army against Londinium…” Carswell paused to be sure Alex caught the correction in calling the city by its ancient name “…she released a rabbit, saying that she would march her army in the direction the goddess commanded. You’re posing as a priestess of Andraste, so that moment is the perfect one for you to materialize in the queen’s camp.”
“Assuming they don’t all freak and attack me because I’ve just beamed down. They have to be superstitious as hell.”
“Their specific belief in their goddess, and their more general belief in the magic of the earth, is what is going to ensure our plan works. What we consider science, they considered magic. Also, you don’t have to hide your ability to speak to the dead there. You’ll be venerated for it.”
“I certainly hope so.” Alex also hoped Carswell had been right about the ghosts of the past behaving like ghosts did on the tallgrass prairie. Even though the lab, which she hadn’t left for days, was insulated against psychic phenomena, Alex could feel the presence of spirits in the city surrounding her, and just that was enough to mess with her sleep and her nerves.
“Use some of that famous attitude of yours that has kept you butting heads with General Ashton these past several days, and no one will have any trouble believing you’re the priestess of a war goddess,” Carswell was saying.
“Ashton thinks I’m insubordinate.”
“War goddesses often are,” the professor stated, which made Alex laugh. “Just rely on your instincts. The knowledge that I place within your brain during the transport will be like a very strong gut feeling. Sometimes you’ll receive whole strings of information in your subconscious, so be sure you follow your hunches.”
Just then Alex’s nervous gut felt the urge to empty itself. “I really won’t have any trouble communicating?”
“None. The chip implanted in your brain’s language center will act as your own internal computer. It’ll translate what you say and what you hear. Remember, you aren’t Alex anymore. You are Blonwen, priestess of the goddess Andraste. You’ve escaped the Roman governor Gaius Seutonius Paulinus’s slaughter of druids and priestesses on the Island of Mona.”
“Who you believe could be a Centaurian.”
The professor nodded. “With his historic record of cruelty it’s a definite possibility. Plus, we know the medallion is there. No doubt there will also be a Centaurian tracking it and trying to keep it from us.”
Carswell handed over a cuff bracelet of beaten gold embedded with a quartz crystal, which Alex slide onto her right wrist. “My get-out-of-jail-free card,” she said.
“Don’t lose it,” General Aston called as she took her seat behind a computer monitor near the glass booth that stood in the middle of the lab. “The Emergency Signal Cuff is the only way we can get you out of there if you’re really in trouble.”
Really in trouble? Alex mused silently. Does she mean versus the unreal trouble I’ll be in the instant I step into the past?
“Don’t forget that we can correct historical events you accidently impact, but you have to activate the ESC before you’re mortally wounded. You aren’t a part of history, so you can actually be killed,” said General Ashton.
“That is impossible for me to forget,” Alex muttered wryly.
“Ready, Blonwen?” Carswell asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” she said.
“All right. Here’s Thumper.” Carswell pulled the rabbit out of the carrier and handed it to her.
“Thumper?”
The professor smiled. “Bambi was a favorite of mine.”
Too nervous to smile back, Alex concentrated on not holding the rabbit too tightly.
As the professor put on the crown-shaped headpiece that would allow her to harness sine waves and send Alex back in time, she whispered, “Your druid will be there for you. I know he will. Allow yourself to find him.”