Whiplash (Through Time 2)

“I know. I’ve heard ye and Prince Trevor talk about him.” Frankie put her hand in Jazz’s hand and looked up at her. “I also heard ye say you need to get back to your time, and it worries me.”

“Why, sweetie?”

“When ye go … I want to go with ye. Please don’t leave without me.”

Jazz thought about this. Could she somehow adopt Frankie? Could papers be created saying she was her ‘sister’?

“There’s time enough to deal with that, but I will never leave you unless you wish me to. I promise that I will look out for you one way or another. Okay?”

Frankie smiled. “Okay, but I don’t want another family. I want you and Trevor.”

Jazz was already more attached to Frankie than she cared to admit. She flicked Frankie’s nose. “We’ll see, but one thing is for sure, I will look out for you.”

“Then you’ll never leave me,” Frankie said with such a serious face that all Jazz could do was hug her close.

And then it happened.

The sky turned black—as though someone had turned a switch.

Dark, billowing clouds filled the heavens but not overhead, only on the other side of the wards.

She knew at once this was dark magic. She knew it was meant to impress, but was it the Dark Prince’s magic? It didn’t have his feel.

Overhead everything was still clear and blue, a lovely day at Prince Breslyn’s estate. Bizarre, she thought as she watched and waited.

Bolts of fire struck, but instead of hitting the ground or a tree and then dissipating, they took shape. They slithered through the sky, slithered over the earth … snakes of fire testing the wards.

Glinting daggers of blood-splattered metal slashed through the atmosphere, and even though Jazz knew they were safe on their side of the invisible fence, she pushed Frankie back towards the house and commanded, “Go on, get Trevor—he has to see this.” She watched Frankie run towards the house and then turned back towards the slithering fire-snakes that filled the atmosphere. While the blood-tinted daggers slashed the air with no discernible pattern or target only feet away, Jazz bolstered herself and walked towards the anomaly.

Oh, yeah, she thought, this was most definitely dark magic, but it wasn’t Dark Fae magic. This was sorcery.

She had met a wizard once in her life, but he had been like a Dumbledore, with a beautiful smile and bright, warm eyes. He wouldn’t do this.

The Wizard Rysdale was all about light magic. She had been lucky enough to encounter him when she was younger and traveling through Ireland with her parents. He had saved her life when she had tripped and fallen backwards into traffic. He had simply looked her way, and she felt his magic wrap around her and lift her back onto the curbing.

The Wizard Rysdale knew at once what she and her mother were and had introduced himself before he vanished.

This was not anything like the Wizard Rysdale, and yet, she mused, it felt familiar.

Suddenly a dark, round hole similar to what she thought of as a wormhole appeared, and a being began to take shape right before her eyes.

Standing with his arms outstretched, he brought them together with a clap of thunder, rubbed them, and glanced her way to cluck at her.

Holy shit, Jazz thought, opening her eyes wide. Damn, but he looked like Rysdale’s twin—could be his tw

in, except this one had dark gray hair while Rysdale’s hair and beard had been white. This one had coal-dark eyes full with the flames of dark magic displaying explicitly what he had become.

His robe was styled like the Wizard Rysdale’s but was black with flame-lit stars throughout, as was the black cone hat on top of his head.

Who the hell was this, and what did he want?

Instinctively Jazz now took a step backward as she wondered if the wards would withstand a wizard’s power. “You are by now wondering who I am,” he said with a soft and coaxing tone.

“Yes, I am,” she answered, giving nothing away.

He laughed, but it was an unpleasant sound. “Ah, allow me to introduce myself. I am the Wizard Baudali.”

“You look like someone I know,” she said before she realized she shouldn’t tell him anything.