The Dark Gifts Birthright (26 page)

She had already tried looping back on
herself, endeavoring to arrive while she was watching it happen.
Cass had hoped that she could get her “other” self, which should
have already been there, to help. For some reason, she couldn’t do
it. She could go back to the first time it happened, but each time
she was there, it was as if the other times she watched had not
occurred.

Cass could do no more that day. She couldn’t
remember the last time she’d fed, but she was too tired to hunt.
Lying across her bed, she told herself, “Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will
save them both.”

***

Day two of Cass' self-appointed solitude, Liz
went to Gregorio. “I don’t know what to do. She hasn’t left the
room at all. I’ve tried many times to listen at the door, but I
don’t think she’s in there. It is completely quiet. Other times, I
hear her rustling around and talking to herself, then it becomes
silent again.”

“Have you tried to enter?”

“She keeps it locked.”

Gregorio’s face became vacant as he sent for
Athena.
“I need you down here.”

“
What’s wrong now?”
Athena
answered.

“
Bring Minerva. We will need her help.
Whatever she‘s doing, it has gone too far.”

“
We are coming.”

Gregorio’s eyes focused once again on Liz.
“Find Angie and put her at watch. Go get some rest.”

***

An hour into her watch, Angie grew tired of
waiting. She left her hiding place and knocked on Cass’ door.

No answer came. Angie pressed her ear against
the door and listened. The only sound coming through the door was
the wood crackling in the fireplace. Angie knocked again and then
tried to open the door. It was locked.

“Oh yeah? Well we’ll see about that.” She
said as she forced the handle. A small click sounded as the lock
broke. Cass was nowhere to be found. “Who does she think she is?”
Angie plopped on the bed, crossed her legs, and waited for Cass to
return, intending to give the woman a piece of her mind. Maybe the
others would tiptoe around her, but Cass was a mother and someone
needed to remind her of that!

She waited for hours. Finally, a portal
opened and Cass tumbled through, nearly hitting her head on the
wardrobe in the corner. Tattered, ragged, and bleeding, she
collapsed on the floor. Angie was by her side in an instant,
lifting her gently to the bed. Cass, almost delirious with pain,
kept crying out that she couldn’t save them both.

She grabbed Angie by the shirt, pulled her
close, and with a wild crazed look in her eyes whispered, “You have
to help me! We have to save them both. I can’t watch them die
anymore!” As her last word was uttered, Cass lost
consciousness.

“
Liz, help!”
Angie screamed.

“
What’s wrong?”

“
She’s back. She’s hurt. Hurry
up.”

Liz entered at full speed, causing the door
to crash into the wall. If she had been moving slower, it would
have knocked her off her feet as it bounced back and fell off its
hinges.

“She needs blood.” Angie said.

Cass' wounds were not healing as they
should.

“Do you know when she fed last?” Liz
asked.

Angie shrugged.

“
Michael? How fast can you get
here?”

“
I’m around the corner.”

“
Can you--”

“Got it.” Michael said as he entered the room
carrying a full carafe of blood. Starved as she was, the smell of
it brought her around. She drank deeply, and then meekly asked for
more.

“Do you mind?” Liz asked, holding up the
empty carafe to Michael.

“I will, but when I get back I want some
answers,” he answered as he stormed out of the room.

While he was gone, Cass told the girls what
she had been up too.

“Are you insane?” Asked Angie

“Cass, you know better than to attempt
something like that on your own. Why didn’t you come to us?” Liz
scolded.

“I know. I just…I had too--”

“You had to nothing.” Angie stopped her mid
sentence. “You have an obligation to us and to the Council, and
let’s not forget to your daughter. What if you’d died? We’d have
lost you both!”

“You don’t understand. I could not take the
chance that the Council would find out about her time travel. You
saw how they reacted to her learning magic. How do you think they
would react to this?”

“We have to tell them. This is too important
to keep to ourselves.” Liz answered.

“Right, we tell them and then what? Remember
what Minerva said at the meeting? Most don’t choose to be taken
over by dark magic, it does it without their knowledge. Do you
trust every witch that lives in the Citadel? Every last one of
them? Can you?”

Liz and Angie looked at each other in doubt.
After the fiasco at the fortress, who was to know whom could be
trusted?

“See what I mean? There are only a few we can
trust with this. The ramifications of this power are astronomical.
We can’t take any chances. Imagine what would happen if a dark
witch found out? It would be the end of all of us! Of
everything!”

Liz tried to calm her down. She was getting
hysterical in her plea for secrecy. Both of the girls finally
assured her that they wouldn’t tell.

When Cass told them the story of what had
happened to Jenna the first time she had returned, Angie and Liz
were devastated. “Don’t you see?” she asked them. “I have already
gone back and saved her or she would not be here! I can save Dan
too!”

“What if you can’t save him, Cass?” Liz asked
tenderly. “Why isn’t he here if you saved him too?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t figured that out
yet. What if I couldn’t let myself know about this until it was
time for me to know? What if I stashed him somewhere safe until
after I knew he was saved? If I knew to start with he had been
saved, then I wouldn’t have ever tried to go back and save him and
found out that Jenna had died.” Cass was way past the point of
making sense. She needed sleep.

“Look, you just rest. In the morning we will
discuss this further.” Liz said as she straightened the blankets
around the exhausted mother.

“I don’t think we need to wait till morning.”
Hands on her hips, Angie glared at both of the other woman.

Liz returned her glare and sweetly replied,
“I said it’s enough for now. Go tend to Jenna. Shouldn’t she be
having a test or something?”

“Wait.” Cass called out as Angie headed for
the door. “Don’t leave yet. You have to promise me. Both of you.
You have to promise that you will tell no one until we’ve figured
this out together. Just the three of us.”

“Okay, Cass. We promise, don’t we,
Angie?”

“Umm,..yeah sure. We promise.” Angie said
glaring at Liz.

Liz winked at Angie and then bent over and
pushed the hair out of Cass’ face. “But you have to make a promise
in return. Okay?”

“Of course. Anything.” Cass replied.

“Good. You promise that you will not do one
more thing without first telling both Angie and me. Will you do
that?” Liz asked.

Cass thought it over for a few seconds and
nodded her head.

“Wonderful. Now you get some sleep. First
thing in the morning, we will figure all of this out.” Liz blew out
the candles and gently led Angie out the door.

In the hallway, Angie began to argue with Liz
about leaving the woman alone.

“Shhh. That’s enough. Michael is just around
the corner.”

“But--”

“Hello darling.” Liz said as Michael rushed
down the hall. “I’m afraid she won’t need that now, we just got her
to sleep.”

“What the hell is going on around here?”
Michael asked.

Liz smiled, nodded at Angie, and led a
ranting Michael back down the hall.

***

The next morning, head cleared, and wounds
healed, Cass went out to hunt. She looked better than she had in
days; she almost had a smile on her face as she left the Citadel.
After she returned, she called Liz and Angie to her. She finally
had it all figured out, she knew exactly what she needed to do. The
solution was simple. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it
before. She would take Liz with her! Liz already knew portal magic,
so there was no danger of her being caught unaware. She was an
extremely capable killing machine, so she should have no problem
taking the three Unnamed on Dan’s side of the car. The only real
problem was stopping her past self from seeing the future versions
of themselves.

When the girls arrived, Cass told them what
she wanted to do. Liz was to go with her and Angie would stay
behind to create a diversion. Both of them were flabbergasted. They
both thought that Cass had finally gone off her rocker. Even if
Angie kept the others at bay, Michael would know immediately that
Liz had left the castle. How was she to explain an unauthorized
departure? He would be furious if he knew that she was even
thinking about going through with Cass' hair-brained scheme. And
how in the world were they going to stop Cass' past self from
seeing either of them jump out and attack the Unnamed surrounding
the car?

Angie sat there listening to the two argue
and finally said, “It’s too bad we can’t mesmerize ourselves, Cass,
then you could just make yourself remember that you weren’t
there.”

Cass and Liz’s jaws dropped at the exact same
time. Cass started laughing so hard she doubled over. Liz just
smiled and shook her head.

Angie gave both of them a nasty look and
folded her arms across her chest. “It wasn’t that freaking funny!
I’m just saying that it’s too bad we can’t do that.”

Cass had stopped laughing, but was still
smiling. “Who says we can’t, genius?”

They agreed that Cass would try one more
time, and Liz would go with her. Cass was pretty sure that if she
knew herself (and she did), that seeing them both there would stop
her in shock, but after a few seconds, she would turn and fight off
the Unnamed. Once they had saved both Jenna and Dan, they would
wait for her “other” self to return to the vehicle and Cass would
glamour herself. The only major concern was what to do with Dan to
keep him out of the way until they had returned from saving
him.

“I’d take him to the cabin to keep him safe,
but I’ve been there recently, and I know he isn’t there.”

“I thought you told me that
when
you
went to the cabin it was last year?” Liz said.

“Of course. It was last year. As of right
now, I am deciding right now that no matter what, I am taking Dan
to our cabin in the mountains for safekeeping.” Then with a
conspirator’s look on her face, she said, “You know what we do
now?”

“What?” Liz and Angie asked in unison.

“We go to the cabin and see if he is there.
If he is there right now, then we have already saved them both and
will know exactly what to do.” She laughed.

Incredible as it sounded, it made perfect
sense to check ahead of time to see if they could actually pull
this off. At least as much sense as could be made when discussing
time travel and alternate time lines.

Without waiting, Cass created a portal and
jumped through. Liz and Angie followed her. They came out in the
middle of Cass' living room. Cass was enfolded in the arms of a
man, kissing him with all her might.

Angie and Liz looked each other, then at Cass
and her husband, and started laughing. Liz patted Cass on the
shoulder saying, “Come on, Casanova, let’s go save this man and you
can pick up right where you left off.”

***

They jumped straight from Cass' home to the
primary time when the event occurred, and took out most of the
Unnamed without much trouble. Cass was powerful, and Liz was second
only to Michael, in killing techniques. The primary Cass gave them
little trouble, shocked as she was to see herself there, and
allowed future Cass to mesmerize her. Of course, the girls had to
explain everything to her to get her to do so.

They took Jenna just outside the clearing,
and Cass planted the seeds of the alternate story that Michael
would see, leaving one directive in her head: walk into the
clearing and wait for help. As elaborate as the plan was, it went
off without a hitch. Dan was returned to the cabin for safekeeping,
and the girls returned to their own time. That is when the actual
trouble with their plan began.

Cass and Liz arrived back at the Citadel just
a few minutes after they had left. Luckily, Michael didn’t even
notice that Liz was gone. Liz went off to find him, while Angie
went to Gregorio and Athena. She was to report to them that Liz had
indeed managed to get into Cass' confidence, and that Cass would be
taking her on special training missions that were highly sensitive
and top secret. Liz was to tell Michael the same thing, and then
report right back to Cass.

“You absolutely will not.” Michael bellowed
slamming his fist on the table. A pewter goblet tipped over and
rolled off, hitting the stone floor with a loud clink.

“Oh for Pete’s sake. Be reasonable.” Liz bent
down, retrieved the goblet, and set it firmly on the table.

“The woman came back half dead yesterday.
Nobody knows where’s she been or what she’s been up too. And you
think I’m the unreasonable one?”

“I already told you she was fighting
Unnamed.”

“By herself.” Michael said glaring at
her.

“I didn’t say that it was a brilliant plan,
but she has the right idea.” Liz walked over to the fireplace,
picked up the poker and stabbed at the burning logs.

“And you’ll be doing what exactly? Fighting
them with her? Alone?”

After her excursion with Cass, Liz knew she
didn’t need a bodyguard anymore. But she couldn’t tell him that. It
was hard enough keeping that little secret locked in her mind.