variable.
Until you ran out of it.
She reached the corpse, well preserved from the cold, altitude, snow, and ice covering it since 1972. The body was missing a hand, the stub still covered by Moms’ bandage. She gently brushed snow and ice from the face.
“Pablo, I buried your dog tags at your lover’s grave. I thought it’s what you would have wanted.”
She sat down in the snow.
She recited the prayer they’d shared just before he died. “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.”
Moms didn’t believe in prayer; her mother had prayed all the time in their rundown house out in the middle of nowhere Kansas. And look how those had been answered?
But Pablo had and that was all that mattered. The dead had to be honored.
She repeated the prayer three times. Then she pulled off a glove and placed her hand on his frozen face. “I remember your name. Pablo Correa.”
Then her satphone went off: Send Lawyers, Guns and Money.
Duty called.
Roland: Eastern Coast of England.
“THIS IS WHERE I LANDED with the Vikings,” Roland told Neeley.
Surf pounded the beach, the waves riled by a storm offshore, somewhere between England and Scandinavia. There was no sign of civilization in either direction.
Neeley was a tall woman, almost six feet, with short dark hair, now with some grey. But Roland towered half a foot over her and while she was slender and lean, he was broad chested and well-muscled. They were both accomplished killers, which an observer might think was the attraction between the two, but it was really their differences that had drawn them together.
Roland was a simple man; not simple-minded, as his teammates sometimes joked, especially Mac, but it was more a case of having a direct and linear way of looking at life and dealing with situations. Perhaps it was a result of his large physique, but Roland went through things, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Neeley, coopted by a terrorist cell as a teenager, saved by a covert operative when her terrorist boyfriend betrayed her, trained in the dark arts, then coopted by the Cellar to be an assassin, tended to be more circumspect. Each respected the difference in the other, and respect is the foundation of any relationship.
Roland recalled his bubble of time here in 999 AD. “It was foggy.” He pointed inland, to the right. “Come.”
The two strode across the beach and into the dunes, Roland narrating as calmly as if describing a pleasant vacation. “This is where the berserkers ambushed us. I took down two, but it was a ploy. One escaped to give word of the number of our party and capabilities.”
“Look.” Neeley pointed. There was a unnatural mist ahead. “Do you feel it?”
“It’s chilly,” Roland said, but he knew that wasn’t what she was referring to.
“Reminds me of the Space Between,” Neeley said, referring to the netherworld region where innumerable Earth timelines connected. “Very faint, though.”
They continued toward a six-foot tall upright stone. There were more behind it, placed in a rough circle. In the center was a nine-foot stone, angled 45 degrees.
“I feel it now,” Roland said as they entered the stone circle. “It’s exactly what it was like a thousand years ago. Tam Nok, the seer, said this was built by the original people, the survivors of Atlantis.”
Neeley was drawn to the angled stone. There were faint markings on it. “This looks like what you said they’re using in the Possibility Palace. Hieroglyphics.”
Roland reached past her and put his hands on the stone. “I had the vision here. Actually, Tam Nok gave me the vision from the stone. Of the nun who had to die and the possible futures if I failed in my mission that day.”
Neeley put a hand on his back. “You didn’t fail.”
Roland let go of the stone. “Let’s
Until you ran out of it.
She reached the corpse, well preserved from the cold, altitude, snow, and ice covering it since 1972. The body was missing a hand, the stub still covered by Moms’ bandage. She gently brushed snow and ice from the face.
“Pablo, I buried your dog tags at your lover’s grave. I thought it’s what you would have wanted.”
She sat down in the snow.
She recited the prayer they’d shared just before he died. “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.”
Moms didn’t believe in prayer; her mother had prayed all the time in their rundown house out in the middle of nowhere Kansas. And look how those had been answered?
But Pablo had and that was all that mattered. The dead had to be honored.
She repeated the prayer three times. Then she pulled off a glove and placed her hand on his frozen face. “I remember your name. Pablo Correa.”
Then her satphone went off: Send Lawyers, Guns and Money.
Duty called.
Roland: Eastern Coast of England.
“THIS IS WHERE I LANDED with the Vikings,” Roland told Neeley.
Surf pounded the beach, the waves riled by a storm offshore, somewhere between England and Scandinavia. There was no sign of civilization in either direction.
Neeley was a tall woman, almost six feet, with short dark hair, now with some grey. But Roland towered half a foot over her and while she was slender and lean, he was broad chested and well-muscled. They were both accomplished killers, which an observer might think was the attraction between the two, but it was really their differences that had drawn them together.
Roland was a simple man; not simple-minded, as his teammates sometimes joked, especially Mac, but it was more a case of having a direct and linear way of looking at life and dealing with situations. Perhaps it was a result of his large physique, but Roland went through things, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Neeley, coopted by a terrorist cell as a teenager, saved by a covert operative when her terrorist boyfriend betrayed her, trained in the dark arts, then coopted by the Cellar to be an assassin, tended to be more circumspect. Each respected the difference in the other, and respect is the foundation of any relationship.
Roland recalled his bubble of time here in 999 AD. “It was foggy.” He pointed inland, to the right. “Come.”
The two strode across the beach and into the dunes, Roland narrating as calmly as if describing a pleasant vacation. “This is where the berserkers ambushed us. I took down two, but it was a ploy. One escaped to give word of the number of our party and capabilities.”
“Look.” Neeley pointed. There was a unnatural mist ahead. “Do you feel it?”
“It’s chilly,” Roland said, but he knew that wasn’t what she was referring to.
“Reminds me of the Space Between,” Neeley said, referring to the netherworld region where innumerable Earth timelines connected. “Very faint, though.”
They continued toward a six-foot tall upright stone. There were more behind it, placed in a rough circle. In the center was a nine-foot stone, angled 45 degrees.
“I feel it now,” Roland said as they entered the stone circle. “It’s exactly what it was like a thousand years ago. Tam Nok, the seer, said this was built by the original people, the survivors of Atlantis.”
Neeley was drawn to the angled stone. There were faint markings on it. “This looks like what you said they’re using in the Possibility Palace. Hieroglyphics.”
Roland reached past her and put his hands on the stone. “I had the vision here. Actually, Tam Nok gave me the vision from the stone. Of the nun who had to die and the possible futures if I failed in my mission that day.”
Neeley put a hand on his back. “You didn’t fail.”
Roland let go of the stone. “Let’s
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