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“Our target is—” her mother ruffled a few papers, and for the first time Frankie noticed the tiny lines of worry that settled around her eyes, “—a man named Dekkar James. My intel is spotty, but in approximately one hour he’ll be in New York City.”
“Why does he need me?”
Her mother paused, the intelligent face pinched with worry. “Assassins from The New Order are being dispatched as we speak. You won’t have long, maybe a few hours before they reach him. This man must survive the night.”
Her mother rose from behind her desk and Frankie was shocked to see the gleam of tears misting the edges.
“You need to protect him. I can’t stress enough how important this is. If they succeed in assassinating him, there will be drastic consequences…for everyone.”
A half hour later, her mother’s words echoed eerily in her mind and she tried to shake them as she prepared for her mission.
The rush of a time shift could be addicting. It was a mad bombardment of adrenaline that pulsed through every cell in your body, setting them all afire with a crackling energy. It was amazing; it was wild and sometimes scary.
And Frankie got off on it, taking the vibes and storing the energy for later use.
She grabbed her bag and peeked inside. It was loaded with all sorts of goodies, and if she was lucky, she wouldn’t need them. But hey, if her life was threatened, she had one hundred and one ways to kill, packed and loaded to go.
Her mother’s dire warnings surfaced and a sick feeling cramped her stomach. She pushed it aside. No time for shit like that. Grabbing her intel, she tried to make out the face of her target, Dekkar James.
He was tall, long-limbed and lean. His face was grainy in the picture and she couldn’t make out his features very well. Frankie sighed as she tucked it into her pocket. No matter. She’d find him.
She didn’t have much to go on, other than the fact that this Dekkar person was some sort of entertainer. She’d tapped into the info com and read an article on him. He was considered a “Rock God”, whatever that meant.
Not a lot to work with, but hell, she’d had less in the past. She grabbed her pack, casting a critical eye in the mirror before she left. She’d been ecstatic when she’d realized she’d be able to wear clothes from her vintage closet.
She might not have been a history buff like her sister, but she sure liked the fashion.
Her long legs were poured into faded denim. The feel of the material was soft against her skin, and her fingers ran over the exposed flesh above the low-cut jeans. She’d grabbed a tankie; it was black with Black Sabbath emblazoned in silver on the front. She had no clue what that meant but it sure as hell sounded cool. Her long hair was loose, and she smiled as she noticed the flush that stained her cheeks.
Nothing excited Frankie more than a time shift. Live life on the edge—that’s what kept her going. She sobered somewhat as her mother’s words echoed in her brain, but she pushed them away. She’d never failed a mission before, and this one would be just like the rest.
She’d make sure of it.
She slipped her feet into a pair of battered Doc Martens, tucked the chain with her black opal down between her breasts and headed out the door. Serena was waiting for her and she gave her sister a hug before heading to the shift chamber.
The chamber was only used when her sisters weren’t present to fuel a shift. It wasn’t as accurate, but Frankie didn’t care. A shift was exciting no matter how it was done. It was gonna take a lot of juice to send her back three hundred years and the machine was already humming noisily.
Frankie stepped into the chamber, her skin flush with excitement as the mist began to swirl around her flesh. White-hot energy enveloped her limbs and she threw her head back as it assaulted every single cell in her body.
Her mother’s pale blue eyes were the last things she saw as the vortex sucked her away, and her thoughts were scattered. But one stood out in stark relief. She hoped like hell there was enough juice to bring her back.
Chapter Three
The air was rank with the smell of rotting food, garbage, urine and a whole host of other scents. It was disgusting and hit Frankie like a ton of bricks. She gagged slightly, wrinkling her nose in distaste. Crap. New York City stank worse than any place she’d ever been.
She’d misted into solid form in some back alley, filled to the brim with refuse. Small rodents scurried about and there were a few ragged people who didn’t seem surprised to see her appear from thin air.
Frankie exhaled softly and checked her time piece. It was eleven o’clock in the evening. She had approximately two to three hours before the assassins would be in this place, in this time. That’s if the intel was correct. There were never any guarantees.
She needed to act quickly.
“Hey!” She yelled through the thickening gloom, “Do you know a person named Dekkar James?”
An older man started to move towards her and it was at that precise moment, Frankie realized maybe it wasn’t the city that stank so much as the man coming towards her.
He obviously hadn’t washed in days, weeks even, and his body odor mixed tragically with the smell of vomit, feces and urine. The concoction was putrid and she wrinkled her nose, pasting a smile to her face as she waited expectantly.
He stopped a few feet away, swaying softly, so thin that a hard wind would have knocked him to the ground. Pity formed deep inside, and Frankie felt it wash over her in waves. In the future most planets had eradicated poverty, addictions and the like. There was no room for ugliness such as this.
