Defying time, p.1
Defying Time, page 1
Defying Time
THE NIGHTSHADE GUILD
BOOK TWENTY-SIX
MANDY ROSKO
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Also by Mandy Rosko
The future is bleak now that the Nightshade Mages are gone.
Being thrown in time is not something Lisa expected to experience once she became a Nightshade Guild Mage. The fact that her lover, Jason, and familiar, tiny dragon Angus, were tossed in with her just made it personal.
Before they’ve even had time to learn the new rules of the year 2333, Lisa receives a message. She needs to find the piece of the time shard that arrived with her, retrieve it, and return to Ameria so she can help the Nightshade Guild mages stop the impending apocalypse.
They’ll have to play it cool while Lisa searches for the shard, Jason avoids the wandering eye of a giant gargoyle woman, and Angus puts up with being fed dog food.
They can’t escape fast enough.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to the coordinators of the Nightshade Guild project and to all the Nightshade Guild authors. I’ve enjoyed continuing Lisa, Jason, and Angus’s story in this book.
Thank you to Lia for the cover, you rock!
And thank you to every reader, whether you’re just joining the Nightshade stories now, or you’ve read since the beginning. I hope you enjoy!
XOXO Mandy
Chapter One
One second, they were there. Then just… nothing.
All of the Nightshade Guild mages had been fighting against Sidrith, and they weren’t alone. Familiars of all kinds—such as Lisa’s little red dragon, Angus—and even spouses and partners had gone into the battle with the ones they cared about. Lisa’s boyfriend, Jason, human though he was, stood alongside them. He’d had his arms around Lisa, holding painfully tight while trying to pretend everything was all right.
Lisa might’ve been squeezing him back just as hard.
Angus had his claws dug into Lisa’s scalp as he kept a firm grip on her bun, hissing and spitting and ready to attack anything that came near them.
But the dramatic battle that had just ensued faded from Lisa’s vision, as did all the others.
Nothing was there.
And it was a true nothing.
It couldn’t even be called darkness because there was always something in the dark. This nothingness was a void.
Lisa couldn’t feel Jason’s arms around her or the frantic beating of his heart against her chest. She couldn’t hear his voice or feel his breath against her neck.
Angus could be dragging his claws up and down her back and legs, using her as a scratching post and she wouldn’t know it.
Lisa couldn’t feel her body. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t breathe.
She tried to scream, and maybe she did, but nothing came out. Her chest didn’t expand to welcome in the breath she needed to shout.
Was she dead? Was Jason dead? Angus would die without her. She needed to get out of there!
Suddenly, out of the void something came toward her. Slow at first.
She couldn’t see or hear anything, only sense that something else was with her.
The taste of cotton rose in her mouth and she felt the same muffling feeling in her ears. Then, yes! Lisa’s fingertips and toes tingled. She had fingers and toes again!
That tingling quickly turned to burning, spreading through her body like a virus. A small light pierced through the void like a glinting knife in the dead of night. Stars twinkled, and she was propelled toward them at a painful speed that made her wish for the void.
Like she was hanging out the back of a commercial airplane by a thousand tiny fishing hooks through her skin, flying behind it at a thousand miles an hour, the force around her threatening to stretch her skin right off her bones and burn her up in the jets.
Then, an explosion of light. The sensation of being hot and cold at the same time stopped. The hooks in her skin were gone.
Lisa came to a painful landing on her knees.
She threw up immediately, her stomach twisting, but at least she retched on solid ground.
After her stomach was emptied, Lisa pounded her fists against the asphalt, proving to her brain that it was real. It was there.
Even if it tilted and turned every three seconds on her.
She might’ve been dizzy, but this was more than that. Too heavy. Her body was drenched with sweat. She still felt the heat from the invisible engines that had burned her, but Lisa couldn’t stop trembling like she was cold.
“You got this kid. Get it out.”
Angus. He was here. He was alive.
“That’s it, good girl,” he said, his claws a gentle, comfortable scratching against her scalp this time.
She reached for him.
“Hey! Hey, don’t puke on me now,” Angus said, letting her grab him and hold him to her chest.
She didn’t try to wiggle free on her which was nice. He snuggled closer to her chest, his little warm body bringing her closer to a sense of calm than she thought she could be after something like that.
“Y-you’re alive,” she said, her throat feeling like she’d just swallowed some coral.
“‘’Course, kiddo,” Angus’ wings fluttered behind him. “You think I was going somewhere?”
Lisa didn’t know what she’d thought. She only knew that nearly losing him once was more than enough.
He was here, she was here, but it wasn’t right. Not yet.
“Where’s Jason?”
She looked around, expecting to see him puking his guts out next to her, but he was nowhere to be found.
Lisa didn’t like that. That same dread she’d felt while swallowed up in that darkness seemed to catch her now.
Jason had been holding her when that… whatever it was happened. So many people had been there.
Where were they all now?
That’s what she got for celebrating too damn soon. It’s what they all got.
Lesson learned, she supposed.
“What have to find Jason,” Lisa pushed herself to her feet.
Her wobbling, aching feet.
Her heels were gone, and it was chilly. The sky was gray, but a quick glance around and… everything was normal.
She was on a pier. The sounds of the ocean were all around.
Seagulls cawed, and there were some boats tied up.
A man in the distance glanced her way. She couldn’t make out any features, not with that shaggy gray beard of his hiding most of his face.
He tipped his hat to her and went back to his fishing line.
At least he wasn’t bothering her. Probably thought she was a drunk.
“We need to get out of here,” Angus whispered, holding himself close around her neck, almost like a scarf.
“Agreed,” Lisa said, and there was only one place to go.
Back to land.
And the vision of a city. A silver city made of glass and crystal that might have blinded her if the sun had been out.
“Whoa,” Lisa breathed. She tried to think of literally anything else to say to that, but nothing came to mind. “Whoa.”
“That’s not like any city on Earth.”
“On… what?” Lisa’s brain scrambled. “Have you ever seen anything like that anywhere else in your life?”
Angus shrugged, still holding close to her skin. “Not really. Looks like Rivendell went to the future though.”
Lisa took another look at it, paused, and… yeah, she had to kind of agree.
Despite the towers and glass and crystal, the slender arches between the buildings, the growing, well-maintained greenery, and the damn waterfall coming down from… she couldn’t tell where all that water was coming from. Why bring it all the way up the tower just for it to fall down again?
Like some oversized bird bath.
“Let’s just go,” Lisa needed to find Jason, and she needed to get off this damn pier.
The closer she got to land, the more people there were. The more fishermen, the more cars, and on land itself stood a bustling market.
But something was still off.
The vehicles looked… different. Sleeker. The tires were round, like basket balls. Most cars looked as though they could barely fit two people inside.
Everything shone like new here, too.
Lisa watched as someone approached one of the two-seater cars, waving their hand over the window of the driver’s side door.
A brief flash of the person’s face and a green check mark appeared, instantly unlocking the doors and giving him access.
Lisa almost couldn’t tell that it was a man at first, not by the long, blue-grey robe he wore that seemed to hide most of his body.
“Creepy,” Angus said. “Did he unlock his car with a chip in his hand?”
“I think he did, don’t stare. Let’s go.”
The problem was that everyone else seemed to be staring at her.
And of course they were. She stood out.
Everyone was wearing those body-hiding clothes. Everyone wore long robes and most people had hats. There was almost nothing of color in any of the clothes.
Everything was either grey or beige or maroon.
Lisa’s red sweater and dark blue jeans with knee-h
“I think they can see me,” Angus said, as if everything else wasn’t bad enough.
That sent a jolt right through Lisa that she couldn’t shake.
“No, it’s impossible. They can’t see you,” she said, whispering.
Just in case, Angus pressed himself closer to her throat, pulling the neck of her sweater up, but with every tiny move he made, it really did appear as though people noticed.
Too many eyes glanced toward her neck, though no one said anything. It was a lot of looking, and then a lot of looking away.
A few people sized Lisa up, but she thought that was more to do with her clothes than Angus. Some nodded approvingly at her.
The ones who refused to make eye contact, or hold it for long, all had white collars around their necks, and on closer inspection, no shoes.
She saw it. Bare feet, dirty, whenever the men, women, and even a few kids, with collars, walked around.
They almost looked like everyone else, but there was something clearly different about their stations in this society.
“So creepy. So, so creepy,” Angus said.
“Yeah,” Lisa agreed. “I need to get into some different clothes. Blend in.”
“Lisa?”
She stopped, Jason’s voice reaching out through the crowd of people.
Her eyes scanned the crowd, and she saw him. The reaction she felt was too big, too consuming to just be called something as simple as relief. It was something else and it was fantastic as it washed over her while Jason pushed through the crowd, his blue eyes glued on her.
Like her, Jason wore normal clothes, and she wondered if she looked as pale and shaken up as he did. He was all right, though. Strong as he crashed into her.
“Jesus Christ, you’re all right,” he said, his hands all over her, like he couldn’t decide where to put them. On her back, in her hair. Everywhere. “Fuck me, when you weren’t there…”
“I know, I know,” she said, yanking herself back just enough to kiss him hard and fast on the mouth.
Again and again and again.
He tasted like an old dumpster—she probably did, too, but she didn’t care, and apparently, neither did he.
“Guys, uh,” Angus said. “Not that I’m not happy for you, but we need to make like a tree and get the fuck out of here.
“What?” Lisa laughed. “That’s not the… oh.”
It wasn’t just a few people glancing their way anymore. It was a lot of people. And it was outright staring.
At her, and at Jason.
“Babe,” Jason said. “Where the fuck are we?”
“I got no idea,” she grabbed Jason’s hand, holding it tight. She needed that connection just in case something yanked her out of here the same way it had done at the celebration.
She was never letting him go again.
“We’re going to find out. Come on.”
Jason was on board with wherever they were going. She didn’t exactly have to drag him out of there, but Lisa wanted to run with him.
This wasn’t right. Something was definitely messed up, and the more she moved, the more whispering she heard.
Words like human and no collar were flung around. Someone commented on Jason’s shoes.
This was bad. This was very bad.
“Down this way.” She led her group.
“What’s there?” Jason asked.
“An alley,” she said quickly. “All alleys are basically the same, right?”
And this one kind of was. It was damp, a little dirty compared to everything else, though in truth it was the cleanest city alleyway she’d ever seen in her life.
There was even something called a Safety Booth. She didn’t want to think about what that was for.
“We need to find out where we are and get out of here,” she muttered, eyeing the strange Safety Booth.
“This place isn’t in one of your spell books or anything?”
“No, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Lisa?”
She stopped dead in her tracks. The whispering sounded like it was coming from right next to her ear.
She stopped and looked around.
“Lisa? Can you hear me?”
“Do you guys hear that?”
Lisa looked up into Jason’s eyes. He could see and hear Angus, so that meant his amulet was secure under his shirt, but he glanced around, searching for the thing that had her attention. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Angus?”
Angus hopped onto Jason’s shoulder, climbing on top of his head, as though using the man as a radio tower. “I got nothing. What do you hear?”
For Jason not to hear the voices that may or may not be magical was one thing. For Angus not to hear them meant something else entirely was going on.
“I’m right here.”
Lisa jumped back, startled by the vision of a young woman—a girl, really—appearing before her, flicking along the alley walls.
Her heart skipped a beat. “What the hell?”
“What do you see?” Jason asked. “What’s there?”
“You don’t see that?”
“They cannot see me. Only you.”
That… was not helpful in the least.
The young girl looked at Lisa, something bright and shining in her eyes.
She looked like she was staring at a Christmas tree. Like she was getting the best present of her life.
And Lisa couldn’t help but think she’d seen this girl before.
Maybe smaller, with chubby cheeks and…
“Ameria?”
Chapter Two
“Ameria?” Angus asked, looking around, as though expecting to see her rising from the shadows. “You’re seeing Ameria right now?”
“The little girl?” Jason asked. He pulled out his amulet, the one that allowed him to see Angus, and held it in his hands, as if that would help him to see what Lisa was seeing.
Apparently, he still couldn’t.
“Only you as a member of the Nightshade guild can see me,” the elven princess explained.
“Okay,” Lisa said slowly. Unlike the other Nightshade Mages, who’d all cared for Ameria when she was small and being hunted, Lisa only knew her from the times she’d been invited to her castle with the other Nightshade mages.
But the last time Lisa had seen Ameria, the girl had been only three years old. What happened?
“When the Scythe shattered, it threw you all into different time periods,” Ameria explained. “I’ve been looking for you ever since.”
“This is a different time?” Lisa asked. “Are you sure it’s not a whole different world?”
“Depending on your perspective, it is a whole other world,” Ameria said with wisdom in her words that betrayed her age. She seemed to be looking down at something Lisa couldn’t see.
“What’s she saying?” Jason asked.
“We’re in a different time period.”
Jason inhaled a deep breath. “Right. Sure. Why not?”
“It’s been ten years for me. I’m here in the year 2033, but if my calculations are correct… you’re in the year 2333.”
The weight of that hit hard.
“We’re three hundred years in the future,” Lisa said, looking at Jason to see if he was just as stunned by that as she was.
He sure looked pale. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry to deliver this shock to you,” Ameria continued apologetically. “Jason should not have had anything to do with it, but it seems anyone the other guild members were touching were also transported.”
“You’re here with me because you were holding onto me.”
“He should consider himself lucky he didn’t land several years before or after you. Even centuries could have gone by, but you both landed in the same place within minutes of each other.”
Lisa didn’t relay that information to Jason. This was already too much, even for her.
“So how do we get back?” she asked the projection of Ameria, getting right down to the point.
“You need to find the shard of the scythe that came with you. You should know it when you see it.”
