You could tell that this place had been designed by men, if designed was even the right word, because no woman would have left the shower visible from the door. But most of the Corps were guys, and I guess they didn’t care about such things. As a result, I could clearly see the former version of me struggling to get in the room while carrying a heavy tray full of food.
For a moment, I just stared.
It wasn’t from watching myself, which was freaky, but so was my life. It was from the realization of just how badly I’d screwed up. The person who was supposed to protect the timeline was about to break it, when former me didn’t get attacked on schedule.
Because present me had just frozen her attacker!
Damn it, this was exactly what Billy had warned me about. No matter how careful you were, nobody was perfect, and sooner or later things were going to go wrong. Really wrong, I thought, staring at former me trying to find a perch for the tray, and wondering what the hell I was supposed to do now.
The answer, as it turned out, was nothing. Because a moment later, former me was attacked right on schedule, and saved only by the coat she was currently holding. Which someone hadn’t known was strong enough to stop a spelled blade in its tracks.
Kind of like I hadn’t known that there were two guys hiding in Pritkin’s room.
But there must have been. I could still feel the warmth of the body right in front of me, invisible though it was, paused halfway through his own attack, while the other was getting the crap beaten out of him in the room outside. Or he was until he bolted
for the door, throwing it open and darting away—
Right about the time that attacker number two ripped through my time spell, punched me in the gut, and shifted—
“Mircea?” I gasped, bewildered.
It wasn’t Mircea.
He’d smelled wrong, for one thing, a harsh, biting scent that clashed with the fey glamourie he was wearing. And for another, Mircea didn’t physically assault me! But it was somebody using the Pythian power that had no right to it, because the magic swirling around me was unmistakable.
It was also palpable enough that I managed to grab hold of the fluttering end, just before my attacker got completely away. And pulled. Slamming him back into place a second later, using the same method that Gertie had to keep me in place in the garden.
Something that . . . might not have been my wisest move. A time freeze is debilitating, and now I was stuck in a tiny cubicle of a bathroom with a crazed . . . something. Only I couldn’t see who or what!
Fortunately, he was also freaking out, not seeming to understand why his shift hadn’t worked. Which was probably why he tore out of the bathroom without remembering to kill me first, that and the fact that he couldn’t see me, either! And thus didn’t know how bad of an opponent he was currently facing.
Not too bad, I thought, clutching my stomach, even as Mircea’s hunter instincts kicked in, and kicked in hard. But they were having to battle my own shock, pain and confusion. Not to mention worry over what I’d just turned loose on HQ!
Which was nothing, I realized, because there was still a remnant of my attacker’s magic in my fist.
I looped it around my arm a couple times, trying to figure out what to do, since I didn’t have the strength to reel him in. But I guessed the same wasn’t true for him. As soon as he reached the end of the tether I’d accidentally created, I found myself being jerked out of the bath and across the room, like the smallest kid in a tug of war.
Only they don’t usually play that game where there are walls to run into. Or doorframes to scrape across. Or rock-filled corridors to stumble into the middle of. I hit the hallway outside, biting my lip on a yelp, and barely avoiding crashing into the other me, who was coming back to grab some potion bombs with which to terrorize Lab Coat.
“Sorry,” I gasped automatically, when I bumped into the little guy, causing him to jump and stare around.
You’d think somebody who worked in an underground magic lab would be a little less twitchy, I thought.
And then I was jerked down the corridor.
It was a hard jerk, like trying to control a wild bronco, and sent me stumbling down the hall in the opposite direction from my other self. I didn’t understand that; shouldn’t this guy be trying to help out his buddy? But it seemed like all he wanted was to get away.
Especially when he kept trying to shift!
Oh, no, you don’t! I thought, and held on, jerking him back every time he made another attempt, although I shouldn’t have had the strength for that. Unless I was ripping off Mircea again, who was probably having a bad day.
But then, so was I.
I was being dragged through a low-ceilinged, underground tunnel by a crazed lunatic, while being thrown into walls, and worse, into war mages. Who didn’t stop to think that, hey, I bet that’s an invisible Pythia wrestling with a time thief, maybe I should help her out—oh no. They did what war mages always do and tried to blow me up!
I managed to shift a potion bomb to the other end of the hall, de-age a snarling Doberman back to a puppy in mid-leap, and freeze a whole raft of bullets being sprayed across the corridor, creating a sort of leaden cloud in the middle of the hallway.
Which I then plowed through with my face.