Fenzy Read Free Page B

heading for a battle you won’t survive. Besides, tinkering with time—making incred-ible, big things happen—is fun.”
    “Fun?”
    “Like a Rubik’s cube.” He moved his hands as if twisting the puzzle this way and that. “You know, one of those cubes with the little, different-colored squares . . . “
    “I know what a Rubik’s cube is,” Xander said. “But how can you say causing the end of the world is like that?”
    “Think about it. It’s challenging. Tinkering with history is like that: a little change in 1912, another in 1482. Suddenly everything’s falling into place, and I get to cause something that affects billions of people. If that’s not rewarding, I don’t know what is.”
    “So . . . what?” Xander said. “You destroy the world because you can ? How can you be so . . . so . . .” He wasn’t finding the right word. Heartless, cruel, evil . . . none of them seemed strong enough to describe Taksidian.
    The man waved a hand at him, as if Xander were talking gibberish. He looked away, toward two men in the center of the square who were pounding on each other with their fists. “I don’t care about any of that, whether mankind skips into the future happy and healthy . . . “ He glanced at Xander. “Or doesn’t. What you saw in the future is merely a byproduct of my work, not my work itself.”
    “A byproduct? Like an accident ?”
    “One I don’t feel compelled to prevent, especially if it means giving up what I have.”
    “What you have?” What Xander meant was Nothing one person had could possibly be worth all of life on the planet .
    But Taksidian misunderstood, obviously thinking Xander wanted to know what he had, for the man raised his eyebrows and said, “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
    Xander didn’t answer. He remembered what he’d said to David just last night: What if he’s like . . . I don’t know, a demon ?
    Taksidian laughed. “You mean you start a fight and don’t even find out who your enemy is?”
    “We didn’t start anything,” Xander said. “And what more do we need to know, besides you want our house and you’ll do anything to get it?”
    “Well,” Taksidian said, “I make it a point to know who my enemies are.”
    Xander knew it was true. The man had been stalking the King family since they’d moved to Pinedale. And truth was, they had wanted to find out everything they could about him. But between defending themselves from his attacks, looking for Mom, and trying to figure out how the portals worked, when did they have time? They had met the man only last Sunday— five days ago!
    “If you had learned about me,” Taksidian continued, “you might have saved yourself the trouble of trying to beat me. I’m a powerful man, Xander. I own corporations that employ tens of thousands of people . . . all of it thanks to that house.”
    “What are you talking about?” Xander said. “What corporations?”
    “If a war needs it, I supply it.” He smiled at Xander’s puzzled expression. “Armed conflict requires weapons, con-sultants, transportation, food, oil . . . so many things. My companies provide them all. And I make thirty times more money from wars than I do from peace.”
    “War,” Xander said. He recalled a map he’d seen in Taksidian’s house. It had plotted wars all over the world—and all through history. And it dawned on him: “You’re using the house to cause wars. You’re . . . you’re . . . setting up wars in the past that somehow lead to wars now, in the present time!”
    Taksidian nodded. “You’d be surprised how a war in the eighteenth century can lead to hostilities in the twenty-first. Humankind is a warring species. It doesn’t need my help . . . much. Just a nudge here, an assassination there.”
    Xander closed his eyes. He couldn’t begin to imagine the deaths, the grief and sorrow this one man had caused. Why ? he thought, and didn’t realize he had spoken the question out loud until Taksidian