The Time Paradox

Artemis paled. Uh-oh.

 

“Let me explain what happened,” said Opal sweetly. “I scrambled the brains of my little helpers somewhat, so they could not report on me, then had them fly the shuttle back to Haven. Then I hitched a ride on your time stream before it closed. Oh so simple for someone with my skill set. You didn’t even leave a hex at the hole.”

 

Artemis snapped his fingers. “I knew I had forgotten something.”

 

Opal smiled thinly. “Amusing. Anyway, it became obvious to me that I was, or would be, responsible for this entire affair, so I dropped out of the stream a few days early and took my time getting to know your group. Mother, father, Butler.”

 

“Where is my mother?”shouted Artemis, anger punching through his calm exterior like a hammer through ice.

 

“Why, I’m right here, darling,” said Opal in Angeline’s voice. “I am really sick, and I need you to go into the past and fetch a magic monkey for me.” She laughed mockingly. “Humans are such fools.”

 

“So this is not some kind of shapeshifting spell?”

 

“No, idiot. I was perfectly aware that Angeline would be examined. Shapeshifting spells are only skin-deep, and even an adept such as myself can only hold one for short periods.”

 

“This means that my mother is not dying?” Artemis knew the answer, but he had to be certain.

 

Opal ground her teeth, torn between impatience and the desire to explain the brilliance of her plan.

 

“Not yet. Though soon the damage to her system will be irreversible. I have possessed her from a distance. An extreme form of the mesmer. With power like mine, I can manipulate her very organs. Imitating Spelltropy was child’s play. And once I have little Jayjay I can open my own hole in time.”

 

“So you are nearby? Your real self?”

 

Opal had enough of questions. “Yes, no. What does it matter? I win, you lose. Accept it, or everyone dies.”

 

Artemis edged toward the door. “This game is not over yet.”

 

Footsteps outside and a strange rhythmic squeaking. A wheelbarrow, Artemis guessed, though he did not have much experience with gardening aids.

 

“Oh, I think this game is over now,” said Opal slyly.

 

The heavy door bounced in fits as it was butted from the outside. Butler pushed the trolley into the room, stumbling after it, hunched and shivering.

 

“He is strong, this one,” said Opal, almost in admiration. “I mesmerized him, but still he refused to kill your friends. The stupid man’s heart almost burst. It was all I could do to force him to construct the barrel and fill it with fat.”

 

“To smother fairy magic,” Artemis guessed.

 

“Obviously, idiot. Now the game is absolutely over. Finished. Butler is my ace in the hole, as you humans might say. I hold all the aces. You are alone. Give me the lemur and I will go back to my own time. Nobody has to suffer.”

 

If Opal gets the lemur, then the entire planet will suffer, thought Artemis.

 

Opal snapped her fingers. “Butler, seize the animal.”

 

Butler took a single step toward Artemis, then stopped. Shudders racked his broad back, and his fingers were claws wringing an invisible neck.

 

“I said get the animal, you stupid human.”

 

The bodyguard dropped to his knees and pounded the floor, trying to drive the voice from his head.

 

“Get the lemur now!” shrieked Opal.

 

Butler had enough strength for three words. “Go . . . to ...hell.”

 

Then he clutched at his arm and collapsed.

 

“Oops,” said Opal. “Heart attack. I broke him.”

 

Stay focused, Artemis ordered himself. Opal may hold all the aces, but perhaps there is a hole in one of those aces.

 

Artemis tickled Jayjay under the chin. “Hide, little friend. Hide.”

 

And with that he tossed the lemur toward a chandelier suspended from the ceiling. Jayjay flailed in the air, then latched on to a glass strut. He pulled himself nimbly into the hanging light and hid behind sheets of dangling crystal.

 

Opal immediately lost interest in Artemis, concentrating on levitating Angeline’s body to the level of the chandelier. With a squeal of frustration she realized that such remote elevation was beyond even a being of her power.

 

“Doctor Schalke!” she called, and somewhere her real mouth was calling it too. “Into the bedroom, Schalke!”

 

Artemis filed this information, then ducked below Opal to his mother’s bedside. A mobile JumpStart defibrillator cart was parked among the row of medical equipment ranged around the four-poster, and Artemis quickly switched it on, dragging the entire contraption to the limit of its cord, to where Butler had collapsed.

 

The bodyguard lay faceup, hands thrown back as though there were an invisible boulder on his chest. His face was stretched with the effort of moving the great stone. Eyes closed, sweat sheened, teeth clenched.

 

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