“Go back to the time when you were Frank,” Kallie instructed. “What do you see?”
“I see you,” Chancey said calmly in his trance-like state. “All four of you and Oberi. We’re standing in an alleyway, talking about the key.”
“Good,” Kallie encouraged. “What happened after our meeting ended?”
“I see myself approaching theBanque Surnaturelle de Paris,” Chancey recounted. “The employees are leading me to the vault.”
“Is the key with you?” Kallie asked.
“Yes,” Chancey confirmed. “I’m looking at it now, and I’m closing the box. I placed it on a pedestal and left it there. I’m walking out of the vault, and it’s sealing behind me.”
“How is that possible?” Ava asked. “If this vision’s correct, the key should’ve been there.”
“Shh…” Kallie quieted her, before addressing Chancey. “What happened after you left the vault?”
A beat passed before Chancey answered. “It’s hard to tell. I’m getting two sets of memories.”
“He shouldn’t remember two timelines,” I pointed out. “He isn’t a demigod.”
“But we’re usingmydemigod magic to bring his memories to the surface,” Kallie reminded me. “So it’s entirely possible he’ll recall two sets of memories, because he lived two different timelines after we spoke with him, and he’s channeling those memories through my demigod abilities. Chancey, what happened to you in the first timeline?”
“Someone was following me,” he admitted. “They caught up to me after I left the bank, and slaughtered me on the street. They’d must’ve thought I still had the key on me. I remember thinking before I died that I’d gotten to the vault just in time, because they wouldn’t find the key now.”
“What happened the second time you died?” Kallie asked.
“I was delayed getting to the bank by a few minutes,” Chancey said. “I remember feeling like I was being watched when I went into the vault. I think whoever was following me caught up with me at the bank. They must’ve seen what I’d done with the key. I went to a vampire bar afterward. That’s where they found me.”
“Chancey, do you know who killed you?” Kallie wondered.
“I don’t,” he said. “Both times I died, they approached me from behind and cut off my head.”
“Thank you, Chancey. You can wake up now.” Kallie led him out of the meditation, and we gathered around to discuss what we learned.
I felt Chancey shiver beside me. “You okay?”
“Peachy, man,” Chancey grumbled. “It was a blast, remembering someone knocked my head off twice.”
“Sorry,” I apologized. “We had to know.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He crossed his arms. “But I ain’t doing it again.”
“It had to be Masci Taurus and his men,” Ava said immediately. “They were already on Frank’s tail, ever since Charlie and I— or Lawrence and Lucille, rather— died in that car wreck. Only a strong supernatural could behead a vampire so effortlessly, which means the person who killed him was either another vampire, a shifter, or an angel.”
“My money’s on the angels,” Chancey agreed. “That was too clean a hit to be anyone else.”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “In theoriginaltimeline, Frank made it to the bank and put the key in the vault. Masci’s men found him after he left the bank, without any clue where he’d gone with the key. The key remained in the vault for the next hundred-and-twenty years until someone was tipped off the night before we went in for the robbery. We don’t know who stole it— it could’ve been anyone.”
“Yes, but things changed after we talked to Frank,” Kallie said.
“The second time around, we delayed Frank a few minutes by talking to him. Masci’s men caught up, and saw him put the key in the vault,” I mused. “Then they stole it, before hunting him down to kill him at the vampire bar.”
“That lines up with what I saw,” Chancey confirmed.
“So we’re in anewtimeline now,” I said. “One where the key has been in the hands of the angels all this time.”
“If things changed, did we even rob the bank?” Ava wondered.
Yes,Oberi said.It will take some time for you to recall the events, but I remember them. In our new timeline, Max was able to confirm through inventory records that the box was in the vault. You went to get it, but when you got there, you foundnothing in the box, just like before. Everything else played out the same.
