“Edon still with Ahramin?” she asked.
“Yeah, he won’t leave her even though they’re not holding him in a cage. We just checked on them. They’re both fine,” Rafe said. “A bit irritable, but that’s to be expected.”
“I was about to go up,” Lawson said to her. “You climbed down all by yourself?”
She nodded. “I couldn’t wait. I figured out something important.”
“What’s up?”
“You told them what Marrok said? About Romulus’s plans not changing?” she asked. The boys nodded. “Okay. It’s about Aunt Jane. She was the Watcher. The Pistis Sophia,” she said. “The Immortal Intelligence of the Blue Blood Coven. She’s a seer. Marrok said he didn’t know how Romulus planned to make his way through the passages without the chronolog. Well, after Marrok stole the chronolog, Romulus stole something too, he stole Aunt Jane. He’s planning to use the Watcher to navigate through time. It’s why the hounds took her. It has to be.”
“You never mentioned that before,” Lawson said. “The Watcher, huh? What does that mean?”
“I’m sorry…it’s complicated.” Bliss explained, as quickly as she could, Jane’s various incarnations, among them the sister of Lucifer, and how she’d now returned in the form of Jane Murray, the woman Bliss called Aunt Jane. “I thought the hounds took her to keep me off their scent,” she said. “But now I think they took her because of who she was, not because of who I am.”
“Have you heard about this Pistis Sophia?” Lawson asked Malcolm.
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything,” Malcolm said. “But I’m guessing it’s most likely because this Watcher is something the vampires keep a closely guarded secret. An oracle who can predict the return of the Dark Prince is not something they would reveal to the rest of the world.”
“So…this Immortal Intelligence can make the chronolog unnecessary?” Lawson asked.
“I’m not sure, but I’m guessing yes, it could.”
“I can see where stealing her would be easier than getting the chronolog back from Marrok,” he mused. “Can they make her do it, though? Would his powers work on someone like that?”
“I don’t know,” Bliss admitted. She wasn’t sure what Jane was capable of, didn’t know how long she could resist them.
Lawson must have seen the distress on her face. He reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll find her,” he said softly. “If she’s been through that much in her many lifetimes, she’ll make it through this. We’ll find her, and we’ll bring her back to you.”
“Thank you,” she said.
He smiled at her, looking handsome and regal even as he was sitting in the dirt, leaning against the tree. He began to empty his pockets, just like a boy, Bliss thought; they always removed their wallets and phones when they sat down. He tossed a stack of pictures held together by a rubber band on the ground.
“Could I see that?” she asked.
She picked up the stack and looked through the pictures. In the middle was the postcard she had seen before. It was the image of a painting showing a riotous struggle between an army of Roman centurions and a defenseless crowd of women. One figure, however, stood motionless and calm at the top of the scene. He wore red robes, carried a staff, and held a single hand aloft.
“Romulus,” Lawson said, tapping the picture. “I’ve always been drawn to this painting; one of the stories passed down among the wolves is about our history with the Sabines, but I don’t know much about it. None of us do, we just know we’re connected to them somehow. I found this in a gift shop and I had to have it.”
“I know a little bit,” Bliss said. She had studied history with Jane Murray, and she remembered what her aunt had told her about the event.
“Tell me.”
“During the founding of Rome, the Romans took the Sabines as wives. They were a soldiers’ society and women were scarce. They needed to balance the population and so they had to abduct their wives from the surrounding communities. They planned celebratory games for their new city and called the festival the Consualia, a festival for Neptune. It was intended to attract people from the surrounding region, act as a showcase for the newly built city of Rome. They issued invitations to all the tribes, including the Sabines. But it was just a cover. As the games were about to begin, Romulus gave the signal that you see here, and the Roman soldiers rushed into the crowd and snatched the unarmed Sabine women.” She looked closely at the picture. “Something’s different. Something’s changed,” she said. “Look!”
“I don’t see any difference,” Lawson said, squinting at it.
“There is—they’re killing the women in this version—stabbing them, gutting them.” Bliss turned the postcard over. In small print, the text read The Massacre of the Sabine Women.
But when she turned the postcard back, the image was the original painting, in which the women were merely being captured. The title went back to the original as well.
“It’s changed back—what’s going on?” Bliss asked.
“You can see that?” Lawson asked. He looked at her keenly. “I’m not sure, but I think what we’re seeing is a timeline in flux. History hasn’t been set. Something’s happened or is about to happen. This must be where Romulus is headed when he enters the passages. He’s going to this moment in time to turn the abduction into a massacre. But why? Why does Lucifer want the Sabines destroyed? Why are they so important?”
In the morning, Lawson told his brothers the plan to follow Romulus into the timeline. “I don’t expect you to follow me, I can handle him myself,” he said.
“What do you take us for, cowards?” Rafe asked. “Of course we are going with you. Right, Mac?”