“You’ve got good instincts, Helena,” said an utterly unexpected but familiar voice.
Will and Helena leapt to their feet, and Will at once placed himself between Helena and the newcomer. Liam Slate watched him with cold blue eyes.
Not Liam, thought Helena. Cain.
“Don’t sell the gun short,” he said without looking at her. His gaze bore into his cousin with hard, frozen hatred. “It made its mark all right. It’s just that Will Slate is a man who can’t be killed.” He cocked his head to one side and narrowed his gaze. “Isn’t that right, Cuz?”
Will said nothing. He seemed a monument of silence to Helena in that moment. She couldn’t see his face; his broad back was a wall of mystery until he slightly turned his head to glance back at her over his shoulder, and she caught the flash of glowing green.
“Yeah…” Liam smiled wryly and looked down at the ground. “That’s what I thought.” He seemed to have arrived out of nowhere. No portal had opened. There was no sign of how he’d gotten there. He’d just appeared. And he seemed different somehow. Taller maybe. And was his hair longer than the buzz cut he’d sported before? Now it brushed his shoulders, nearly the length of Will’s.
The crystals and gemstones crunched beneath his boots as he slowly paced a little to the left and lifted his gun hand. It was still her gun he held in his capable grip; that hadn’t changed. But when he casually lifted it to scratch the back of his head with the barrel as if he were thinking, she knew she was right. This wasn’t Liam. No warden in their right mind would play that way with a loaded weapon. Or an unloaded one for that matter.
“Helena, I’m only going to tell you this once,” said Liam. Even his voice had changed. It was still Liam’s, but it was laced with power that made it echo a little and felt like something electric on her skin. “Step around the fire and come to me.” He looked up and met her gaze, binding her in rings of glowing blue. Then he cocked the Magnum and put the barrel to his own temple. “Or cousin number two takes a dirt nap.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
William recognized the exacting change the moment it washed over the world. It was the split second it took for the bubble of existence to finally and completely shatter around them, the half a heartbeat in which the alternate dimension was no longer entirely safe from the outside influences of his own reality.
The walls of the bubble had been weakening all along. He knew that now. Time had been right; the universe would find a way in. That was what it did with Helena’s car – just like the one he himself owned and loved. That’s what it did with the First Vampire, so like the First Born and just as evil and determined to obtain Helena. That’s what it did with Liam, with his name and his tattoos and his green eyes. The parallels were endless because the universe was a parallel, and once the glass between them was broken, it was easier to see that.
The biggest crack in the glass was Helena herself.
She had the same name, the same face, the same voice. She was so strong of spirit, so embedded in Fate’s ultimate design, Time had not been able to mask her identity any more than it had Cain’s. And from the moment William had laid eyes on her in the guardian’s scrying pool, the Time’s illusion had begun to weaken.
Cain was still Cain, and though he had gone by different names over the years, who and what he was had never really changed. Even here he was powerful and filled with Death. Helena was still Helena. A candle’s flame in a dark and drafty room.
Now he knew why the tattoos had begun to show up on his arms. He knew why his cousin’s hair was just a little longer than it had been and his form a little taller. He knew why Helena had seen Will’s eyes flash green, and he understood the miasma of magic that had surrounded them when he’d taken her to his bed.
Helena was right. William was Will and Liam put together. Time had split William in two and given him the family he’d yearned for his entire existence. It had created a world for him that was so perfect, of course it couldn’t last. The wall between their worlds was collapsing and the cousins were gradually becoming the same man: tall, shoulder-length dark brown hair, stark green eyes, inked spells of magic carved across his body, a love of ancient and timeless things like classic cars, music, and literature. That man was William Balthazar Solan. The Time King.
The bullet had hit him. Helena was right about that too. When Time split him in two, it had also divided his immortality. Will had become immortal. Liam wasn’t. It was why Liam had had to be resurrected by Darryl years ago.
When Helena’s bullet had struck home, it hadn’t even messed up Will’s clothing. But if it hit Liam, it would kill him. The two men were still mostly separate. William would lose half of himself then and there.
William knew why Cain was doing what he was doing. Cain was in the other half of William’s physical form, and he had a firm grip on it. He wasn’t going to let go. The world would crumble around them, mixing and mingling with the one they’d left behind, but Cain would be damned if he would allow it to slip away completely without making the most of the advantage he’d been given here in this existence.
Here he was not only Fate’s dark side, he had a veritable army of Dark World monsters at his command. And at the moment, he even had part of William at his command. He would never have another chance like this, and William knew it as well.
When Cain put the gun to Liam’s head, William heard Helena gasp. He felt her fear spike. He reacted fast, diving full-force into her mind. Flashes of her father’s bloody hand putting the gun in hers moved through her thoughts. She heard her mother’s laughter. And then she saw brief glimpses of everyone who had suffered or died in the years to follow – and she fully believed it was all because of her. Worse, she was beginning to remember her other lives. And all of those who had died at Cain’s hand then as well. And her guilt and regret became palpable.
She was beginning to realize who she really was. Out of the need to preserve his life, she began to move forward without even realizing it. She was halfway to Liam when Will came to a decision. He knew what he had to do.
He turned to fully face her. “Don’t take another step, Helena.”
There was a spell woven into his words. They wrapped around her with timeless power and locked her in place. It was not a request. It was a command.
Helena froze. She looked from Liam to him and more images assaulted her, memories she didn’t even know she had. He felt her confusion; he could sense it running rampant through her as he rode the waves of her mind, and the world felt so very wrong to her in that moment.
He heard her mentally screamed denial. No! I have a past. It’s solid. It’s real! I remember it! She was a warden. She’d lost her parents to Night Terrors. She could move things with her mind and manipulate time. She was not that helpless, happy, witless, past-less woman that history and Fate had always drawn Helena Bonaventure Dawn out to be!
No, she told herself again. Please, no. She begged for this to not be happening. She begged for a return of control. She feared to a witless level that Liam would die because of her. Just like everyone.
But her pain was so very real, it was clear she knew the truth. William would have given anything to take that pain from her in that moment. Anything.
Unfortunately, all he had to give was himself.
“Solan,” said Cain softly. “I truly will kill him.” He wasn’t hissing the words, wasn’t spitting them in fury. It was a simple revelation of fact.
William slowly turned to face him.
“And you will cease to fully exist,” Cain said. “He’s a part of you. And I think everyone here knows it.” His blue eyes burned powerful and bright, glowing with as much unnatural magic as William’s.
Helena looked from one of them to the other. She touched her forehead and in a shaking voice whispered, “William… please.”
But he maintained his hold on her. Not this time, he thought. This time I go first.
“Time’s up,” said Cain. He squeezed, and the bullet left the chamber.
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Chapter Forty
The Contract had already been broken, to no fault of Time, but broken all the same. William possessed more of his original strength than he had in hundreds of years, and he knew that was in part due to Helena. When he’d made love to her… his power had wrapped around her and sucked her dry like a vampire. He’d been unstoppable, and so had what he’d done. He knew that now because he felt the extra strength, the extra magic inside himself.
It was why Helena hadn’t been able to stop time when she’d pulled them from his room in the safe house. Instead, her magical body had substituted space for time, and taken them to another realm.
So William was once more William, more or less. And when the gun went off, he saw the hammer strike, saw the fire it ignited, and watched in slow motion as the bullet emerged from the barrel, spinning faster than anyone but he would be able to see.
He reacted. In his slowed time, he reached out and grasped the bullet, wrapping his magic around it to bring it to a complete stop.
Over and over again, William had lost Helena. He’d lost his hope and his dreams and his family. The last time she’d left him, she’d done so carrying their child. The baby was but two weeks in the womb, but precious to her. She hadn’t yet told him when she’d died. She’d no doubt wanted to be certain and had wanted to surprise him. But he knew.
He could feel the infant there sprouting to life within the woman he loved, solely because the newly created baby carried his father’s DNA and hence, his father’s magic. It was impossible for William not to notice.
William knew that the paranormal world and its realms and kings and queens believed he had been the one to end Helena’s life, choosing the world and its millions of mothers and babies and their continuance over the few, precious lives in that world he actually cared about. He knew they blamed him. He knew they pitied him.
And he didn’t care… but they could not have been more wrong. The truth was, Helena was light and hope and love, and she simply could not bear for others to die or suffer because of her. It really was as simple as that. It was as powerful as that.
It was Helena, not William, who ended it.
Every. Single. Time.
(October, 1918 just outside of Chicago, Illinois)
“How long have you known, William?”
William did not want to answer her. He would have given anything he possessed to not have to answer that question. But he forever would answer her. He would never lie to Helena. “Weeks,” he told her. He felt it come over him, the dread that was laced with stoic and horrible serenity. “Since the beginning.” He looked down and nodded at the paper, indicating the flu epidemic.
Helena glanced at the headline, then closed her eyes. And then she released his hands, and as they slipped from his grasp… so did everything else.
He couldn’t kill Hush. He’d tried. How many times had he tried? But how did one kill Death? Even Time could not destroy Death. And Death could not stop Time. William was the most powerful man in the multiverse, and in the one thing he cared about, he was helpless.
“I can’t let this go on,” she told him. He barely heard her words. He knew she was going to say them anyway. But his heart was breaking too loudly for any other sound.
“William…” she said as she unknowingly touched her stomach again, and he knew she was more desperate this time. He knew she had other reasons. He did too. “Let me go to him.”
William gazed down at her. There was no reason in existence that would make him do that. Not again. Something in him hardened, like a protective shell forming around his soul as he peered down at her. “No.”
“But I can make him stop this.”
“You can’t.” He shook his head. “You will only make him stronger.”
“You don’t know that for certain. Our powers might simply cancel each other out!”
But he did know for certain.
She didn’t remember. She never remembered her past lives. Every time he found her, he had to tell her who and what she was. Who and what he was. Who and what Hush was. And the fact of the matter was, she had tried going to Hush once before.
He’d had to let her go. Anything to keep her alive. But they’d learned the hard way that Life does not cancel out Death. Life simply ends, and that ending is Death. In the end, Death wins. All that had been Helena was overtaken by Hush in that lifetime, who had at the time gone by the name Charles Montgomery. Helena had become his slave in every sense of the word as Charles had run rampant across the globe with her in tow and in veritable chains.
Until William had finally reached her one clandestine night. He’d known she would end herself. He’d known she would once more feel she had no choice. As long as she lived, Hush would come for her.
William found her as the last of her spirit faded from her beautiful eyes. And then she was gone. He’d been as unable to prevent her death as he’d been unable to defeat Hush. When Helena was at full power, William had no control over her. His spells failed, his magic failed, his pleas went unheard. She only had to will her heart to stop beating and never beat again. It simply had to be what she desired more than anything, and Fate gave it to her. She was the ultimate fruition of desire, after all. And in the end, she was her own ultimate desire as well.
That had been the mid-fourteenth century. The epidemic then had wiped out half the population of the planet. Hush was quickly reaching that level now, and Helena hadn’t even joined him. It was as if Hush were more desperate to get his hands on her, and that desperation was making him more powerful. What was causing this?
He knows, thought William. He knows I can’t do this any longer and will find a way to make it stop.
“Helena,” he tried one last time, dropping to his knees before her. “Believe me when I tell you that Hush will destroy half the world before a month is out if you go to him. It has happened before.” He shook his head and dropped it to his chest. “Please don’t leave me.”
It was his final plea. It was all he had left. He knew that Helena would once more realize she could not go to Hush. And she could not continue to live.
He looked up through blurred vision in time to see Helena, hand still pressed to her stomach, close her beautiful eyes. “I love you William. I always will.” The life left her just like that, and she fell.
He caught her small form easily. He gathered her close and held her hard. He cried silently into the curve of her neck as the clocks ticked on the wall.
And then he made a deal with Time.
Now, here in this alternate dimension that was quickly rejoining the one he’d left behind, that deal with Time was broken and they were back on the playing field once more. But this time, something essential was different. This time, if William did it right, he could put an end to the cycle once and for all. And save Helena in the process.
Right now, William was split in two. Sort of. Rather, it was more like Liam was forty percent of him and Will was sixty. But Liam’s life force was still vastly stronger than any human’s, and more than enough to support Cain as the bastard subjugated Liam’s mind and possessed him.
William had never been able to kill Cain. And Cain had never been able to kill William. But Liam was killable. Half of William was mortal. And if you hit that half of a man just right – in the heart or in the head – it killed him entirely.
The problem was, when half of William died and the worlds finished colliding, it would leave William without half of his power. It wasn’t an exact science, the melding of dimensions. He just knew he would be weakened. If Helena became his queen then, she too would be weakened. And with the A-Team out there destroying the planet, he could not afford that. The world could not afford that. Someone had to carry the full mantle of his power.
That someone would be Helena. The queen was stronger than the king anyway.
It was time for her to put on the damn crown.
When he died, she would carry on in his place and face the Triad. She would win, too. He knew that now. S
he was invincible. Her light was inextinguishable; it was why she’d been born time and again. She was hope against hope, and that held out.
William concluded his reasoning in the split seconds he had in that slowed-down time and closed his eyes, pulling his power in around him. In a flash of emerald lightning that split the sky in two and a crash of thunder so loud it rocked the ground they stood on, William dissolved his form – and entered Liam’s. The ground shook with awesome violence, splitting into fissures and throwing both Liam and Helena several feet back.
Time returned to normal, and William found himself on the ground, Helena’s gun in his hand. It had four bullets left in it. The bullet Liam had fired had been knocked away in the aftermath of his magic.
But it worked. He was whole again. He just wasn’t yet glued. He’d taken the two jagged pieces of himself and held them together like the paired fragments of a puzzle. They fit, but they were not sealed, and they might not stay together for long.
So he acted quickly, getting to his booted feet. He was the Time King. He would damn well die standing.
Several yards away, Helena Dawn rolled over and pushed herself to her knees, searching frantically for him through her messed-up waterfall of raven hair. When she found him, her bright eyes widened and she shoved her hair away from her face, letting him look upon it one last time.
And then she watched in absolute horror as William cocked the gun and placed the barrel against his temple.
“No!” she cried hoarsely, reaching out to stop him with a power he knew she no longer had.
But he never had a chance to pull the trigger anyway. The brand on his arm flashed a mean and angry red, and his finger froze a millimeter short of destruction. The pain escalated with impossible speed, and suddenly William was crying out against it and dropping the gun. He crashed to his knees as the pain spread and he was torn in two again.