The Chrononaut, The Witch, and The .45

Shelby Mercer stood beside Bell while the surveillance footage played. On the monitor, a woman raised her hand toward a pub. The windows burst outward, and the building’s front collapsed into the street. Bell stopped the recording before the falling brick reached a woman beside a parked car.

“Run it back,” Mercer said. Bell returned to the last clear image before the explosion. The pub’s name was visible above the door. Mercer leaned closer. “The Eagle and Child?”

“Oxford. Sometime in the fifties.” Bell brought up the original breach recording beside it. “She should have been in London around 1900. Instead, she’s turned up here, half a century later. We still don’t know how.”

Mercer studied the two images. He had spent the last twenty years in the “other” Bureau, entering places that should not exist and looking for people who rarely came back alive. Their equipment required a room full of machinery and somebody like Bell to keep it working. The witch had crossed fifty years without any of it. They still didn’t know how she had accessed portal technology, much less how she was skipping through time.

“She shouldn’t have any power here.” Bell turned from the monitor, waiting for him to explain. Mercer pointed toward the screen. “I’ve read the books. She comes into our world and finds out her magic doesn’t work here. The Christ King had come and disarmed the powers and principalities. That kind of dark magic shouldn’t work.”

“You just watched her bring down a building.” Bell let the recording advance until the light appeared around her hand. “Whatever she’s using, it works.”

“Look at her mouth,” Mercer said. “She’s reciting an incantation.” Bell slowed the footage, and Mercer watched her turn toward the pub. “Who could want something so twisted unless they were devoid of light? All she has to offer is desolation and abomination.”

Bell stopped the recording. “You think somebody sent her?”

“She could be working for the Old Ones. Could be the Morningstar himself.” Mercer reached for his pistol. “Doesn’t matter. Neither amounts to much in the presence of the Light.”

He drew his Colt .45 and removed the magazine. Bureau ammunition: silver-tipped, consecrated with holy water, and carrying a sliver of garlic beneath each tip. Twenty years of fieldwork had taught him to carry those even when the briefing said ordinary ammunition would do. He checked the laser sight beneath the barrel, then switched it off.

Bell opened the equipment case and placed a fresh magazine on the bench. Mercer picked it up, but his attention returned to the pub. His father had given him The Hobbit when he was eleven. Years later, he’d read Lewis to his own children, sitting on the edge of a bed while they argued about whose turn it was to see the pictures. He’d even taken his oldest to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at the theater. The boy had wanted to see King Kong, but Mercer had insisted on Narnia. He knew where those men had met to discuss their work. He had never expected to see the place like this.

“Twenty years in the Bureau, you notice who they target,” Mercer said. “Our heroes. Our authors. Some writers are close enough to the Christ consciousness that their work manifests hope, friendship, and faith in the world. The darkness can’t account for that. It frightens them.”

Bell looked toward the pub on the monitor. “You think that’s why she chose this place?”

Mercer nodded. “They have to diminish that light. Discredit the men, diminish their work, convince people there was never anything worth reading. But when evidence and argument won’t do it, they cheat.” He pointed at the screen. “They go back before the books are finished. Before the stories reach the people who need them. In this case, they kill Tolkien and Lewis over a pint. Does that make sense, Bell?”

Bell nodded, returning the footage to the moment before the windows shattered. “Do we need to find out who’s inside?”

“No. We stop her either way.” Mercer studied the witch. “What interests me is that a Hollywood producer and her writers have entered the fray. Now we’re getting new manifestations. Different abilities. Different destinations. Things that weren’t in the books.”

“You think their version brought her here?” Bell placed the two recordings side by side again. On the left, the witch tore an iron bar from a London lamppost. On the right, she lifted one hand and demolished a building.

“That’s a hell of a change,” Mercer said. “I think we need to look into them when we get back from this jump.” He set the fresh magazine beside his pistol. Bell studied the destruction on the monitor, then checked the breach readings on his console.

Mercer waited, watching him. When Bell said nothing, he asked, “What’s the call from upstairs, extraction or execution?”

“Kill the witch. End her.”

Mercer sat down, seated the fresh magazine in the Colt, and tightened the strap above his left knee. An old injury, aggravated by too many years of fieldwork. Bell began entering the coordinates, checking each figure against the surveillance recording. “I can put you there eleven seconds before she attacks. But the breach is unstable. I can’t promise the return will hold.”

Mercer tested his weight on the leg, then limped to the wardrobe beside the equipment lockers. He pulled on a dark bus driver’s jacket over his shoulder holster and settled the matching peaked cap on his head. Bell checked him against the street footage, then nodded. Mercer buttoned the jacket and picked up his pistol. His phone lay beside the console, with a message he had been trying to answer since morning. He left it where it was.

“Open it.”

The portal opened between steel uprights beneath a sign that read BUREAU OF TEMPORAL AFFAIRS. Cold air entered the equipment room, carrying the smell of rain and gas. Beyond the parked car, the woman in the coat walked toward the corner with her hands in her pockets. Mercer recognized her from the recording. In eleven seconds, she would be under the falling brick.

“Right now, I’m gonna serve this witch her last call. Salem style.” He stepped through the portal, caught himself against the car when his knee buckled, and kept the pistol low beside his leg.

The witch stood a few yards away. Behind her, a young man opened the pub door. Mercer motioned him back inside, but the man stopped at the sight of the weapon. The witch followed the young man’s gaze and turned toward Mercer. Her eyes moved from his uniform to the pistol, then to the opening behind him.

“Who are you?” she demanded. Mercer moved sideways until the young man was clear of his line of fire, then raised the Colt. She raised her chin, regarding him with cold contempt. “Stop pointing that thing at me and kneel. Unless you would prefer to spend eternity in stone.”

Her lips began to move, and she raised her hand toward him. Only then did he notice the small amulet clasped between her fingers. It glowed with a reddish-pink phosphorescence, lighting her palm from within. Mercer switched on the laser, and the red dot settled on her hand, nearly lost against the glow.

He fired. The round struck her hand, knocking the amulet onto the wet pavement. Its light diminished. She thrust her empty hand toward him, finishing the incantation. Nothing happened. Her gaze dropped to the amulet, and the command became a scream. She lunged for it as his second shot struck her forehead, dropping her beside the curb.

Mercer approached with the pistol raised. The witch lay still, her empty hand open beside her. He crouched with difficulty and picked up the amulet by its chain. The last of its light faded. It looked like an ordinary piece of jewelry now. He slipped it into his jacket pocket as Bell shouted his name.

The portal had narrowed to less than the width of the pub door. Through it, Mercer could see Bell holding the control lever down with both hands. He backed toward the opening, keeping the witch in sight. Across the street, the woman in the coat had stopped beside a shop window. A man beneath the pub sign was shouting for the police.

Mercer stepped backward into the equipment room just as the opening closed. Bell released the lever and braced himself against the console. Mercer switched off the laser and put the Colt on the bench, then lowered himself into a chair and loosened the strap above his knee.

“Did you see a device?” Bell asked. “Anything that could explain how she got there?”

Mercer took the amulet from his pocket and lowered it onto the bench by its chain. “She was holding this. Lost her power when she dropped it.”

“You put it in your pocket?” Bell looked at Mercer, then at the jacket. “Next time, leave me something I can identify.”

Mercer glanced down at himself. “You picked the uniform.” Bell shook his head and fetched a specimen case from the equipment locker. Mercer took off the peaked cap and set it beside his pistol while Bell secured the amulet.

On the monitor, people gathered in the street, keeping their distance from the body beside the curb. Bell advanced the footage beyond the time of the original explosion. The young man was still in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame. He looked from the witch to the empty space beside the car, then reached behind him and ushered someone back into the pub.

“And the Eagle and Child?” Bell smiled. Mercer leaned back in the chair, watching the young man pull the undamaged door shut.

“Still standing.”