Killing Time (The Witches of Mingus Mountain #3)

1. Nightmare Come True

1

NIGHTMARE COME TRUE

Seth McAllister stared at me, his face a study in consternation and confusion. I supposed a good part of that could be attributed to the way our combined powers of teleportation and time travel had rocketed us away from 1884 Flagstaff just a few seconds before the villainous Samuel Wilcox pumped a few bullets into us, but I guessed my companion also wasn’t exactly happy to learn that the primus of the 1940s, Jasper Wilcox, had just made off with the woman who was supposed to be the McAllister clan’s next prima.

Voice rough with worry, Seth said, “What do you mean, Jasper Wilcox kidnapped my cousin Ruby? Why would he even do such a thing, Devynn?” His clear blue eyes felt as if they were boring into my face, demanding an answer.

I made myself take a breath. My whole body was shaky, off-balance, but I couldn’t know for sure whether that was because of the enormous jump in time we’d just made…or because I understood the ramifications of Ruby’s kidnapping far more than Seth did.

Probably the latter.

The breath I’d taken didn’t seem to have steadied me as much as I would have liked, but I knew I needed to answer his question.

“Jasper Wilcox got it in his head that the only way to break the Wilcox curse was to bind himself to the prima of another clan,” I said. “In my timeline, he made an attempt, but Ruby called out to her clan members — just as she did a moment ago — and the McAllisters chased him and his accomplices away. Now, though….”

The words trailed off as I made myself acknowledge the enormity of what had just happened.

And Seth, perceptive as always, finished the sentence for me.

“But this time, everyone was distracted by our return, and they were way up at Abigail and Charles’s house so they couldn’t get to Ruby quickly enough to stop the kidnapping.”

I nodded. “Yes, I think that’s exactly what went wrong.” A pause to gulp in another much-needed breath, and then I said, “It’s all our fault.”

At once, Seth came close and wrapped his arms around me. It felt so good to lean my head against his chest, to listen to the reassuring beat of his heart and know how strong he was, his muscles hardened from years of working at the United Verde mine.

A mine that should be closing in the next couple of years, according to what his older brother Charles had told us only a short time earlier. I’d read a little about the history of the mine, and his story corroborated my own research.

By 1952, the last large-scale opportunity for employment in the little town would be gone, and it would continue its slide for more than a decade before the remaining McAllisters and some dedicated civilians began the slow process of bringing Jerome back to life.

I couldn’t worry about the little town’s future now, though. Far more important was getting Ruby back. Without her here to protect the McAllister clan when it was at its most vulnerable, the family — at least in the form I and everyone else knew — would be gone.

As best I could, I shoved that terrible thought to the back of my brain. The situation was bad enough without me borrowing enough trouble for the next fifty years.

Seth’s cousin Helen came around the curve of the Flatiron building, which sat at the confluence of Main Street and Hull Street, low-heeled pumps pounding the asphalt at a dead run, while the two other elders — who I guessed must be at least several decades older than she — jogged along behind, with Charles keeping pace. Helen was the only one of the three I recognized, since when I’d first landed in 1926, she’d been the one to examine me for any head injuries and make the initial diagnosis of amnesia. Of course, I hadn’t had amnesia at all, had only been doing my best to hide who I was and where I’d come from, but I still remembered her as a powerful witch…and a kind and friendly one as well. It made sense that the McAllisters would have appointed her as one of their elders.

I didn’t know the other two elders at all. In 1926, I’d had no reason to interact with them. Charles, on the other hand, I knew a bit more than I probably would have liked, but considering how it seemed his marriage to Abigail, the clan’s current prima, hadn’t been a happy one and he’d suffered through quite a lot during our twenty-year absence, I thought I should try to cut him a little slack.

Helen came to a stop a few feet away from Seth and me. Her golden blonde hair was mussed and she was panting from the exertion of running all the way down from Paradise Lane at breakneck speed, but that didn’t stop her from demanding, “What happened?”

By that point, Seth had already released me from our embrace. He shot me a sideways glance, and I nodded.

We couldn’t hide what had happened. No, we had to face it squarely and figure out what in the world we were going to do next.

“Jasper Wilcox and a couple of his goons just kidnapped Ruby,” I said, my tone flat.

Helen stared at me for a moment, her face blank. But then she paled, despite her recent exertion, and said, “How do you know it was Jasper Wilcox?”

“Who else would be bold enough to capture a prima -in-waiting in bold daylight?” I countered, and Seth nodded.

“The man had black hair and drove off in a black car,” he said. “And he was powerful. I could feel it.”

I didn’t know whether that was merely an educated guess or something a bit more. Jasper hadn’t been close enough for me to sense anything about his magic, but every witch and warlock had a slightly different zone where they could detect another magical person’s power. It was possible that Seth had a more refined gift for such things.

Or maybe he’d made it up because he didn’t want Helen — or the elders, or his brother Charles — to figure out how he was so sure the kidnapper was the head of the Wilcox clan.

“To what end, though?” one of the elders asked, a man with a thick shock of white hair and piercing gray eyes.

To my relief, Helen answered, her tone crisp. “I should think that would be obvious, Josiah,” she said. “We all know that a prima -in-waiting in her twenty-first year is especially vulnerable. It’s clear to me that Jasper Wilcox must have decided he would be that much more powerful if he was consort-bonded to Ruby.”

Yes, that would be a probable side effect of their joining, but I knew Jasper’s real motive was much more clear-cut. His family had suffered through nearly eighty years of the curse that doomed the wives of its primuses to an early death and ensured they would have one son and no more, and he was ready to be done with it.

“This is terrible,” the other elder said. His hair was iron gray rather than white, and he had brown eyes, a rarity in this family of blond and blue-eyed people. Sure, there were exceptions, like my friend Bellamy’s flaming red hair and Seth’s mid-brown locks, but still, they tended to be fair.

“Yes,” Charles said. “But standing here and wringing our hands isn’t going to change anything. We need to go talk to Abigail and let her know what has happened.”

Privately, I didn’t think the pale, fragile prima of the clan was going to be able to help much, but I held my tongue. It was customary to let the head of the family know what was going on, even if the means of fixing the problem might fall on others more capable of dealing with it.

Although Seth could have blinked the two of us to the house on Paradise Lane, we fell in with the rest of the group to trudge our way back up the hill. Somehow, the town felt even more desolate than it had when we’d appeared here less than an hour earlier, and had met Charles and gotten some more period-appropriate clothing from his general store, but I knew that was just my imagination playing tricks on me.

Still, it was awful to see so many boarded-up windows, so many storefronts that had been saloons and shops and restaurants. Not all of them were gone, though — I thought I spied a reassuring stream of smoke coming up from the English Kitchen as we passed Jerome Street — but the Jerome of 1947 definitely wasn’t the boom town it had been in 1926.

Seth’s hand slipped into mine as we walked, and that made me feel a little better. The changes in the town must have been much more terrible for him, since it was the place where he’d been born and had spent all his life, but you’d never guess that by looking at him. No, his head was up and his jaw set, and I knew he intended to do whatever it took to get the clan’s prima -in-waiting back.

What exactly that would be, I had no idea. At least when we were stuck in 1884, we’d had the unexpected assistance of Jeremiah Wilcox, the primus of the clan at that time, and might not have gotten away at all if it hadn’t been for his guidance.

I kind of doubted Jasper would be so helpful.

Charles took the lead as we approached the house he shared with Abigail, a big, beautiful Victorian painted white with green shutters. It had a similar color scheme in my own time, and something about seeing it made me feel a bit better, a piece of continuity in the little town that wouldn’t be denied.

All of us walked up the front steps and followed him into the back parlor, which was where the prima had been sitting when we met with her only a half hour earlier. As far as I could tell, she hadn’t moved at all, and was sitting in the same armchair near the window so she could get a little sunlight without having to go outside.

To me, she looked like she needed a good dose of Vitamin D — and maybe a Vitamin B cocktail as well — but I didn’t know whether such treatment would be enough to make her less sickly and pale.

She stirred as we approached, though, and sat up a little straighter in her chair. “What’s happened?” she asked, her tone sharp with worry.

She must have seen something in our expressions. A strong prima might have been able to detect the presence of the Wilcoxes in town, but it didn’t appear as if Abigail was powerful enough for that.

Charles glanced at the elders. They nodded at him, as though giving permission for him to be the one to speak. It was probably a delicate balancing act, trying to figure out who had precedence when dealing with the prima’s consort and the clan elders.

He went over to his wife and took her hand in his. Seeing them together only emphasized how much Abigail had declined over the twenty years since I’d last seen her. Although Charles had aged as well, with lines on his face and silver in his hair that definitely hadn’t been there in 1926, he still seemed strong and sturdy enough, while in contrast, the prima looked so fragile he could break her over his knee.

“Bad news, I fear,” he said. “From what we can tell, Jasper and several of the Wilcox warlocks grabbed Ruby while she was down at the overlook just past the Flatiron and took her away with them.”

Abigail couldn’t go any paler than she already was, but something about her still seemed to contract in that moment, the little energy she possessed drained somehow.

“That’s not possible,” she replied, her voice a mere husk of a whisper. “The wards would have kept them out.”

The gray-haired elder spoke up then. “It seems our wards weren’t sufficient to prevent them from entering the town limits. As far as I can tell, they probably drew on the power of the day to ensure they would have the strength they needed to break past the wards.”

Power of the day? I sent a puzzled glance up at Seth…and then realization dawned. I’d noticed a couple of forlorn-looking jack-o-lanterns sitting on several front porches, but I hadn’t paid them much note, since decorations were often set out before Halloween and lingered afterward for a few days.

Well, unless the javelinas got them. I’d heard a few stories during my time in Jerome about how those pig-like relatives of peccaries just loved to munch on pumpkins.

Today was Halloween. For the McAllisters, it was a sacred day where they honored their ancestors, whereas for us Wilcoxes, we treated the holiday much more like civilians would, with costumes and parties and trick-or-treating.

It seemed as though Jasper Wilcox might have borrowed a trick from the McAllisters’ book. I didn’t find it too hard to believe that he might have called on primuses from the past to lend him the additional power needed to break through the wards the elders had set on Jerome to protect it from any witchy enemies.

“Does that mean Jasper plans to bind himself to Ruby tonight?” Seth asked, his tone urgent.

If that was the case, we didn’t have much time.

“I’m not sure,” the elder said slowly. “Today’s magic isn’t connected with the sort of dark forces that Jasper would require to bend the prima -in-waiting to his will. The nonmagical part of the population views Samhain that way, but it is far more a time for communing with the spirits.”

Well, I doubted Jasper had stolen Ruby so he could have a séance with her.

Everyone looked confounded, so I thought I’d better speak up. At least now Abigail and Charles knew I was a witch, so I didn’t have to hide that truth from them.

As far as being half Wilcox —

Probably better to hold my tongue there. I was on their side in this, and trying to explain how the Wilcoxes and McAllisters were allies in my time would only muddy the waters…especially since I had a feeling we’d never get to that place of peaceful coexistence at all if we couldn’t figure out a way to steal Ruby back.

“I saw Jasper in my dreams,” I said clearly, and everyone went still, their gazes focused on me. “At the time, I didn’t know who it was, of course. I just kept seeing a black-haired man and a black car that didn’t look like anything from 1926. But when this happened — ” I paused there to take a quick breath — “I realized the dreams had been trying to warn me about him, about what he intended to do.”

A tense silence followed that announcement. The elders looked at each other and then at Abigail, but she only shifted in her chair, as though not completely sure how she should respond to my words.

The silver-haired elder stepped in there. “Did your dreams show you anything else?”

The black-haired man…the black car…the cold, black night, studded with stars but with no sign of a moon.

I explained what I’d seen as best I could, and the two male elders exchanged an alarmed look.

“The dark of the moon,” the gray-haired one said, and the other one nodded.

“What about the dark of the moon?” Helen asked, her voice sharp. It seemed clear to me that she wasn’t exactly thrilled that her fellow elders possessed knowledge she apparently didn’t.

The silver-haired man was the one who responded. “It is not something commonly known in our clan, as we don’t dabble in that kind of black magic. But I am sure the Wilcoxes are familiar with the power of the dark of the moon, and I have a feeling that Jasper will wait for that day to share the consort kiss with Ruby. He will be able to bend all his magic toward her, bolstered by the black moon. She is a very strong witch, but I doubt she will be able to resist him. He is also an extremely strong warlock, just like all the primuses of the Wilcoxes have been, and if he employs the proper incantations to bind Ruby to him, there is very little she will be able to do to get away or even block the binding.”

Something in my stomach turned over, and I doubted the queasy feeling had much to do with how the last meal I’d eaten was going on eight hours ago now.

Or maybe a couple of decades.

“When is the dark moon?” I asked. In my own time, I’d noticed the McAllisters were pretty attuned to the cycles of the moon, but I didn’t know whether that was tradition or whether they’d gotten a little more woo-woo over the years.

Abigail looked at her husband. “Charles, fetch the almanac.”

Without a word, he left the room, presumably heading to the library we’d passed on our way to the back parlor. The rest of us waited in awkward silence while he was gone, but his errand didn’t take very long, and he was back in only a minute or two.

He paused near his wife’s chair and leafed through the almanac. “It looks like the dark of the moon is November twelfth.”

That was something, I supposed. At least it wasn’t tonight. With more than ten days to work with, we might actually manage to accomplish something.

However, the elders…and Abigail…didn’t look as pleased with this information as I’d thought they would be.

“That isn’t much time,” the prima said. “But also, far too much time for Ruby to be spending in Wilcox territory.”

“So, what…you’re just going to give up on her?” Seth cut in, and the gray-haired elder sent him a pitying look.

“Of course not,” the older man said, and even though his voice was calm enough, it had a chiding note to it as well, as though he didn’t think Seth had the right to address a clan elder in such a way.

Maybe he didn’t, back in the middle of the twentieth century. Things were a lot mellower in my time, and although everyone seemed to treat the current elders with a great deal of respect, they also weren’t put on a pedestal, and all the members of the McAllister clan felt free to go straight to them with any concerns they might have.

That didn’t appear to be the way of things in 1947, however.

“I will consult with my elders,” Abigail said. Her voice was still whispery, and probably not nearly as commanding as she would have liked it to be. “We will do our best to formulate a plan. In the meantime, I think it best that you go home, Seth.”

“‘Home’?” he repeated, looking blank.

Charles stepped in there. “Like I told you earlier, your bungalow has been sitting empty for most of the year. Even though you won’t necessarily need it, I’ve still got the key at the shop — we can stop there on the way over and pick it up, along with anything else you might need. We’ll also need to get you a car.”

“What happened to my convertible?” Seth asked, looking understandably upset. I could see why — the little black roadster had been his pride and joy.

His older brother didn’t even blink. “After you were gone for two years, Mother and Father gave it to our cousin Freddie. He moved down to Cottonwood to open a bookstore and took it with him. Held on to the thing for nearly a decade, so it had a good run. But it wouldn’t be safe to drive now.”

I supposed that made some sense. While a lot of people in my time had some serious hobbies involving restoring and fixing up old cars, I had no idea whether that was even a thing in the 1940s.

Seth looked less than thrilled by this news. However, he seemed to realize that asking whoever had eventually taken over his little bungalow down on Juarez Street to inherit the roadster as well was a bit much, especially since it sounded as if the cousin who’d been living there with her family most recently wasn’t the type to be hauling toddlers around in a convertible. Instead of arguing, he said, “What car?”

A very small smile tugged at the corner of Charles’s mouth. “A ’46 Stylemaster. Dad bought it early last year.” He paused, then added, “He didn’t have much time to drive it before he was gone, so it’s got very few miles on it. Abigail and I already had a Cadillac, so I covered up Dad’s car and left it behind the shop. I was planning to sell it, but….”

“Then we’ll get the car when we get the key to the bungalow,” Seth replied. I could tell he was still a little unsettled but doing his best to adapt to all the changes that had been thrown at him over the past hour. Learning his parents were both gone had been hard enough without having to pile this mess about Ruby on top.

Well, we’d go back to his bungalow and do our best to regroup. Sure, the elders and Abigail were going to have a sit-down and try to come up with a plan of action, but that didn’t mean Seth and I couldn’t do the same thing on our own.

If nothing else, we had much more area knowledge about Flagstaff than the current crop of McAllisters could possibly possess, even though I knew a whole hell of a lot about my hometown must have changed between 1884 and 1947.

“Yes, that sounds like a good plan,” the gray-haired elder said, telling me that he wanted us out of the way so the adults could talk. True, Seth and I were both in our twenties, but to someone in their seventies, we must have seemed like infants.

And honestly, I was fine with leaving them to their own devices. Seth and I had already proven that we worked well together as a team, even though I had absolutely no idea how we were going to get past Jasper Wilcox and the other warlocks he had working with him. Somehow I doubted they had any witches on the team, since I’d heard my clan hadn’t been so great on the equal rights front back in the day. All the same, I couldn’t help thinking the two of us might have a better chance at getting Ruby back since we’d already survived almost two weeks in Flagstaff.

Funny to think of my hometown in such a way, but honestly, before Connor took the reins following his older brother Damon’s death, it hadn’t exactly been the happiest place on earth.

“Of course,” Seth said, almost nonchalantly. However, I stood close enough to him that I could sense the tension in his body, and I knew he wasn’t thrilled with being treated so dismissively.

But since he also seemed ready to leave and get back to his house, he didn’t say anything else and instead waited for Charles to say a brief goodbye to his wife and the elders before the three of us headed out the door. We were a silent group as we walked down the hill toward the mercantile, but I was okay with that. Despite the obvious decline in the town, the day itself was beautiful, with a few high, streaky clouds adding depth to the clear blue sky, and air that was just cool enough to tell me it was late in October without being so cold that I thought I’d need a sweater or jacket.

And then we reached the mercantile, where Charles pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door before flicking the switch to turn on the overhead lights.

“The key to your house is upstairs in the apartment,” he told us. “You might as well go ahead and get some more clothes and some supplies as well, since I know Margie cleared everything out before she and her family moved to Payson.”

Right — their cousin Margie, who was Helen’s daughter. She’d been just a child when Seth had last seen her, and now she must be older than either one of us.

So many things he’d need to adjust to.

But he only nodded at Charles’s comment before heading over to the wall that held the clothing and shoes and underwear in neat stacks on the shelves mounted there. I followed him since I didn’t know what else to do. So many things I wanted to say, but I knew all that would have to wait until we were alone together in the bungalow.

Seth worked efficiently, making a pile of pants and shirts and some sweaters and socks before fetching an overcoat that hung on a rack nearby and placing it on top. I did much the same, although my pile was mostly skirts and blouses and a couple of dresses and sweaters. Once I’d put enough together for a week’s wardrobe, I also grabbed a coat, figuring that if we were going to end up in Flagstaff, I’d definitely need something heavier than just a sweater.

Afterward, we got some canned food and a bag of flour and little containers of salt and baking soda and anything else we might need to restock the empty kitchen at Seth’s bungalow. Put together, it was quite a collection, and I was glad that we’d be getting his father’s Chevy so we wouldn’t have to drag everything over to the house on foot. Yes, he was only a few blocks from here, all of it downhill, but it still would have been too much to manage.

Charles re-emerged from the back room where the stairs terminated and headed over to Seth so he could hand him two sets of keys.

“For the bungalow,” he said as he gave Seth the first key. “And for the Chevy,” he added as he put another key in his brother’s hands. A pause, and then he also gave his brother a black leather wallet, one that appeared to be stuffed with cash. “That should help get you started. If you need more, just ask.”

“Thanks,” Seth said briefly.

I could tell he wanted to say more but had decided to refrain for the time being. Charles had had months and months to mourn their parents, but for Seth, their loss was new and sharp, something I guessed hadn’t even sunk all the way in.

Well, we’d have some time alone soon.

Because Charles also seemed intent on getting our stuff in the car and the two of us out of the store as quickly as possible, he helped us carry everything out to the Chevy their father had left behind. I had to admit it was a hell of a sweet ride, two-tone turquoise and darker blue, with wide whitewall tires and much sleeker styling than the little Dodge convertible Seth had left behind in 1926.

Despite everything that had been going on, I could tell he was impressed by the car, because his eyes widened slightly as he took in the vehicle once Charles set down the supplies he was carrying and had removed the protective fabric covering that helped shield it from the elements.

“Mom was okay with Dad buying something like this?” Seth asked as Charles scrunched the cover into a blob that would be a little easier to carry and then set it down on the back porch.

His brother shrugged. “We’d gone through a lot during the war — rationing, blackout rules, supply chain issues. Mom thought he deserved to treat himself.”

I’d read about some of those privations in history books, but this was the first time I’d ever encountered anyone who’d had to deal with them personally. Which made sense, of course; by my time, the people who’d lived through World War 2 would have been long gone.

Seth appeared to take his brother’s explanation at face value, since he only nodded and then walked over to the car so he could unlock the trunk. It was absolutely huge, well suited to carrying our booty down to his bungalow, and we silently filled it up with everything we’d gotten from the mercantile.

“Well, I guess we’ll get settled in,” Seth said, then gave his brother a piercing look. “Do you really think they’ll come up with some kind of plan to help Ruby? I hate the thought of her being trapped like this for even a day.”

Although Charles didn’t exactly shrug, I got the impression he wasn’t nearly as concerned about the situation as his brother. “They’re extremely competent,” he replied. “And we have time to work on the problem. I’m sure what Gilbert said about the dark of the moon is correct, which means Jasper Wilcox knows he needs to wait to truly claim her for his own. For now, I think it’s better if you focus on getting settled on where…when, that is…you’ve landed. And Helen’s still just down the street from your place, so you’ll have help nearby if you need it.”

Meaning, I supposed, that Charles had decided to wash his hands of the matter. Anger on Seth’s behalf roiled my stomach, but I knew better than to speak up. His older brother already viewed me as an interloper, so I didn’t see the point in causing an argument now.

And while he might have been bitter at being left to navigate the changing times and his disappointing marriage on his own, none of that was Seth’s fault.

No, it had been my unpredictable time-travel “gift” again, snatching us away and sending us decades into the past.

Seth only nodded and said, “That’s good to know,” before walking around to the passenger side of the car and opening the door for me. I headed over there and sat down, and I had to admit to myself that the leather seats were a lot better padded and comfier than the ones in his ’20s-vintage Dodge.

Once I was settled, he went around to the driver’s side. Maybe he gave the slightest tilt of his head toward his brother before he opened the door and got in.

He sent me an unsmiling glance.

“Let’s go home.”