Shift (ChronoShift Trilogy) (30 page)

To say he was enamored would be an understatement.  Her beauty was invasive.  Her pearl-white teeth formed a smile that warmed you from the inside out.  Her laugh caused his heart to accelerate excitedly.

Brief lapses back into rationality tinged his cheeks with embarrassment when he realized how much he was acting like a desperate schoolboy.  Exactly how long
had
it been since he’d been out with a woman?

His wife had left him....

How long ago had his wife left him?
  Linearly, it was about two years or so, but he’d jumped around so much, it was probably closer to three for him emotionally.

They had nothing else to do for the entire day, so they ate breakfast together, milled around some shops, and then had lunch.  Mark felt like he was on a date.  They strolled through the streets, checked out more local shops, went to the park.  After some espressos at a coffee shop, they took in a movie.  He instinctively chose a romantic, candle-lit restaurant for dinner.

Laura was fun.  She was a balm to the sting of the acute loneliness which had plagued him since Kelly left.

When Mark lost his children, the pain had been unbearable.  His world had come apart at the seams.  When Kelly left, instead of pain, he'd gone numb.  It was a merciful, self-protective feature of the soul, deadening him to the anguish he might have otherwise suffered.

He was sure Laura didn’t view their day together the same way he did.  She had no reason to.  What would a dancer like her want with a guy like him?  At least, she seemed to be having fun too.

Mark hadn’t recognized how desperate he’d been for companionship until now.  Like a dying man in the desert, ignorant of the strength of his own thirst until he took the first sip of water that unleashed the full power of his need, Mark fought hard against the rising desperation he felt from the prospect of their day coming to an end.

He paid for separate rooms at a five-star hotel in downtown Boston.  He'd never taken his wife to such a place, not because he hadn’t wanted to, but simply because they had never been able to afford it.  Now, money was no object.

“You should have the hotel give you a wake-up call,” he said, “We’ll leave here about 5:30 AM.”

“Why so early?  I mean, you’ve got the watch and all.  Can’t we just go over there any time we want?”

“Yeah, but it's best to shift when no one is around.  We need to be assured we’ll have the street to ourselves.”

“Okay.”

He hesitated, wanting so badly to kiss her, to make some kind of move, to express what he was feeling so strongly, but he feared the feeling wasn’t mutual.  She was his involuntary prisoner on this shift, biding her time until he took her home.  He gazed into her eyes, but held himself back, not willing to force his desire upon her.

She leaned forward and bussed his cheek, a light butterfly of a kiss that melted his heart with a hope for a future he wasn’t sure was there.

***

“Are you ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”  She looked nervous, though she tried to hide it.

“Grab both my shoulders and hold on.  Stay well behind me.  I’m gonna try to pop in right behind the guy who attacked you.  As soon as you feel the shift, let go of me and drop down as low as you can.  I can’t be distracted by concern for your safety.”

“All right.”

“Remember, I’m not the police.”

“What does that mean?”

“These guys aren’t gonna make it until the police arrive.  Got it?”

“Oh.”  She grimaced, apparently not having thought through all the ramifications of Mark’s planned action.

“You can always stay here.  I’ll come back for you.”

Her jaw set firmly.  “No, it’s okay.  I’ll go.”

“All right.  Grab on.  If you see any movement other than the two guys we know of, yell.   For all we know, there may be a third one.”

He positioned himself in the approximate spot he thought would work.  Laura stood behind him and laid both her hands on his shoulders as if about to give him a back rub.

He was off by a few feet.  The man he needed to focus on was the second attacker, the one who had conked him on the back of the head.  The first attacker was still struggling to recover from the blows Mark had laid into him.

Mr. Second Attacker was obviously a body builder.  He was completely bald and wore a loose-fitting T-shirt.  His mug, which most of the time could undoubtedly produce the meanest of glares, now appeared quite shocked to have witnessed two people evaporate from the ground before him into thin air.  His eyes were still glued to the empty spot on the sidewalk where they had been.

He would never overcome his surprise.  Wasting no time, Mark raised a silenced pistol and fired two neat shots into the man’s forehead.  These two were systematic rapists and Mark had no tolerance for rapists.

Plus, the police couldn’t arrest them.  There was no crime; Mark had prevented it.  If he let them go, they would just rape again, and probably kill at some point, if they hadn’t already.

He turned to his right and emptied another couple of rounds into the body of the first attacker who had pushed himself up against the building, still not having yet recovered from Mark’s first attack.

“Mark!”  Laura screamed.

A bullet slammed into Mark’s upper arm, driving him down and to the right.  He continued with the natural flow of the motion and rolled, coming up into a kneeling position facing the direction from which he instinctively felt the shot had come.  Two more attackers had been hiding in the alleyway and were now rushing him.  One of them brandished a gun.

Mark tried to lift his arm to fire, but it wouldn’t respond.  He’d been shot in his gun arm.  He threw himself onto his side to avoid the barrage he knew was coming.  Sudden bursts of pain ran through his shoulder as the ground slammed into his wound.  Several bullets whizzed over him through the space he’d just occupied.

Deftly, he transferred the gun to his good hand and took aim at the third attacker who held the gun.  A couple of well-placed shots ended that threat.  The fourth man turned and ran.  Mark fired several rounds after him, but only managed to hit his leg before he got away.

Mark sat up, gripping his wounded arm.  Blood ran down his sleeve, dripping from his wrist to the concrete below.  He didn’t know how badly he’d been hit yet.  It was still fairly numb from the shock, but enough pain was already flaring up for him to wish it to stay in shock.

“Mark.”

She wasn’t hysterical or panicked, just concerned as she ran her soft hand over him, checking for other wounds.  She examined his arm lightly, careful not to jostle it.

“You’re bleeding pretty bad.”  She removed her leather belt and wrapped it around his upper arm like a tourniquet.  “That should help until we get to a doctor.”

“I told you it wouldn’t be pretty.”

“Do you make a habit of getting shot?”

“Very funny.”

“You stopped them from hurting me.  That’s all that matters.”  She didn’t like the way his arm looked.  “We need to get you to a doctor.”

“We’ll shift to yesterday.  The police from today will be checking the hospitals for a while looking for men with gunshots.”

“Okay.”

“What are you doing?”

Laura was rolling the attackers’ bodies over one by one and removing their wallets.

“I want to know where these scum bags lived.”

***

Sitting on the cold, steel examining table, the weak florescent lighting made Mark’s face appear paler than normal.  The harsh light even dulled Laura’s normally caramel skin to a flat, pasty brown.

“So, what are you gonna do with those wallets?”  Mark asked.

“I don’t know.  I figured we might need to know who they were.   Thought maybe they’d done this kind of thing before.”

She was holding a gauze pad to his arm as they waited for the doctor to come back and stitch up his wound.  It had absorbed as much blood as it was going to, so Laura peeled it off and replaced it with another.

Mark winced in pain.  “I’d bet that wasn’t their first time.  The newspaper report said you had been attacked by only one man.”

Laura shuddered at the mention of a newspaper account of a rape she’d been spared.

“That means the group must have made it a practice to assault women together, but took turns as to who actually did the assault.   The others would have been waiting in the back-ground, like they did with us, for any unexpected trouble.  Shrewd.”

“Why would they do that?” She asked.

“Because the police wouldn’t be as quick to link the cases that way.  It would always seem like a different perp, different description, etc, whereas if the public got wind of a gang going around assaulting women, the police would be searching fast and furious for them.”

Laura clenched her fists tightly.  “You’re right!  This couldn’t have been the first time.  We’ve got to stop them.  Go back and stop them from doing it to
any
woman!”

Mark nodded his head a couple of times slowly.

Laura raised her voice a pitch.  “Mark, we’ve got to stop them!”

“Laura, don’t worry.  I’m going to stop them.  This is what I do for a living.”

“I’m going too.”

“We’ll see.”

“I am.”  Arms crossed, she was resolute.

“I said, we’ll see.  I won’t be doing much of anything for a while, not until my arm heals.”

“The doctor said you’d have most of your motion back in two to three weeks.”

“Yeah, thankfully it missed my artery and just nicked the bone.”

Her voice softened silkily, “I want to take care of you, Mark.  I’ll nurse you back to health.”

Warm blood rushed to his cheeks.  He’d had worse wounds than this.  He didn’t really need the help, but he didn’t want to say no.

“Okay.”

***

Mark awoke drenched in sweat.  His arm throbbed horribly.

Must have an infection.

Good thing the doctor had prescribed him some antibiotics.  He struggled to his feet and shuffled to the kitchen, groggily squinting in the dim light.

“Mark, what are you doing up?”

“Got a headache.  Infection.  Need some pills.”

“Here, here.  I’ll bring them to you, just get back in bed.”  Laura gently turned him back the way he came.  He shuffled back to his room and collapsed on the bed, his head pounding.

Then, she was there.  Feeding him his pills, a glass of water in hand.  She caressed the fever-dampened hair from his forehead.  He felt better already.

“Mark....?”

“Yes.”

“I was thinking.  Do you know how much money you could make with that thing...that watch of yours?”

“Yeah.  I already made billions.”

“Oh.”

“You want some?”

“Boy, you
are
groggy.”

“No, really.  No problem.  I can make more easy.  I’ll have a couple of million transferred to your account tomorrow.”

“Oookay,” she intoned sarcastically.

He’d closed his eyes and was trying to go back to sleep.  ‘
He’s actually serious
,’ she realized.

“That thing really is powerful, isn’t it?” She asked.

“Uh-huh.”  He wanted to drift off again.

“Mark, could you take care of a guy for me?”

“Who?”  He was waking back up now.

“Guy named Dwayne Cole.  He owns the club where I work.”

“What’d he do to ya?”

“Well, nothing....to me.  But most of the girls there, before he’ll allow them to dance in his club, he makes them do special favors for him, if you know what I mean.”

“Why would they do that?”

“It’s good money.”

He didn’t reply.

“Then, he tries to get all the girls hooked on crack or coke or dope or something else, so they’ve got to give him all their money to pay for the drugs.  When they run out of money, it’s back to the special favors again.”

“Sounds like a piece of work.”

“He is, believe me.”

“It also sounds like these girls got into it with their eyes open.  He probably
should
be killed.....but not by me.”

“Why not?” she huffed.

“‘Cause I only kill killers....or rapists.  There’s a lot of bad people in the world.  I gotta draw the line somewhere or I’ll just become a common murderer.”

She said nothing in response.  Her arms were crossed again, forehead creased in anger.  It was becoming a familiar gesture of hers.

“Look, you said it yourself.  This shifter is a powerful tool.  I’ve got to be careful to never abuse it.”

“All right, fine!”  She threw her arms down in exasperation.  “Can’t you do
something
?”

“I’m sure we’ll think of something.  Now can I go back to sleep?”

“Okay.  Here, lay down.”  She patted the bed.  He laid on his good side and she began caressing his hair again.  Soon, he was blissfully drifting off.

“Laura?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad I found you.”

October 8
^th
, 2012, Boston, MA

Mark, Hardy, & Ty met every Monday morning at 9:00 AM at ChronoShift headquarters.  They needed to meet regularly in order to coordinate efforts.  Theoretically, they could meet every day, or even every hour since time wasn’t an issue, but to keep their sanity, it seemed best to maintain some kind of orderly progression of time in the present.