Time Jacker by Aaron Crash (nonfiction book recommendations .TXT) 📕

middle of the chiseled yellow rock stood a gate of desiccated wood and rusted metal fittings. The gate was at least two hundred feet tall and a hundred feet wide. There were massive rusted hinges on either side. When that gate opened, it would squeal like a whole hog farm.

Bailey nodded at the massive wall, which extended across the land. “That’s the duke’s palace. We do not want that gate opening. We want to ambush Kerrata before Tanichron even knows we’re here. Kerrata should be coming across the southern Sin Road. There.”

She pointed to a crumbling highway of rock cutting across the decayed land.

“Let’s get to it,” Gabby said. “This place is very unpleasant.”

That was an understatement.

Bailey was able to jump and glide from ledge to ledge, while Gabby jogged with Jack. When they came to a broken bridge, she’d take hold of him and fly him across.

The teetering building was a good ambush spot. There was a set of wrecked steps leading from the bottom floor of the leaning tower down to a flat section of the southern Sin Road. The three of them found good positions under the creaking stone.

Bailey tried to act cool, but it was clear she was scared. She kept touching Gabby. “Remember, if that gate opens, that means Duke Tanichron is coming, and he’ll be coming with his horde. We can’t handle that fucking action, and we don’t want to try. So if the gate opens, we run back to the D’Nyr Gate, and I use the crossbones key to get us the fuck out of here.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Jack agreed.

Gabby, though, was silent. That didn’t bode well.

The demon wasn’t about to let that go unnoticed. “I need a ‘Yes, Bailey’ from you, Feathers.”

“Yes, Bailey,” the angel said. “But I came here to get Annie. If I have to choose her life over mine, I won’t do it. It’d be better for me to die here if it meant Annie would get her life.”

The succubus exploded. “That’s the kind of fucking bullshit—"

Jack cut her off. “Look!”

Creeping down the Sin Road came a wheeled wooden cart pulled by two giant herd animals that looked like a cross between toenails and water buffalo. Their faces were yellow chitin, a single block of toenail, and they walked on bloody stumps...at least it looked like they were trailing blood from their matted, hairy legs. Had Kerrata walked the hooves off his oxen, or was this like the road repair crews, human souls given painful form for the enjoyment or convenience of demons and Fugs?

Surrounding the cart were what looked like cheap copies of Kerrata himself. Instead of being man-shaped, the Kerrata copies looked like dogs, with two big horns curling back from their heads. They had no discernible features, just the horns covering their faces. They didn’t have claws or paws. Instead, their four legs ended in sharpened bone points. If those nasty pups couldn’t ram you to death, they’d impale you with their spear-like peg legs.

Annie was tied to a post on top of the cart. Though she wore a hood, Jack recognized one of the outfits she wore as a teller. Standing next to her was the huge figure of Kerrata himself, riding along. His arms and legs were emaciated, but he had the huge curling horns, the overly large claws, and the gigantic, spider-like feet. How many toes did he have on each foot? It looked like eight at least, each tipped with a long talon. He wore a broad leather belt with a many-tailed whip coiled and tucked into one side.

Bailey counted up their enemies. “So there are two weird oxen things, fifty fugly dogs, and one big stupid Kerrata, who wants to become an Interim Lord by way of a deal with a Hell Duke. I don’t think he’s going to drain Annie dry. I think he’s going to just toss her to Tanichron and demand an eon palace of his own.”

“What about those things?” Gabby asked grimly.

Overhead, the sky was full of what could only be flying fingernail birds—like the toenail oxen, these flying Fugs had the faces of fingernails, sharp and jagged and dirty, with bright pink wings and the long whiptail of a manta ray. These barbs weren’t black but a sick yellow color instead.

Jack was reminded of the cyclops birds that he’d fought on the freeway and in the Cast Away, Gone Astray.

“I’m going to have to use my horn,” Gabby said.

Bailey sighed. “You’re going to have to use your horn.”

The three were hiding in the old stone structure, which had enough of a roof to hide them from the skies. But there must’ve been another fifty of those fingernail birds. They were hopelessly outnumbered.

But it wasn’t like they were going to turn around and run back to the D’Nyr Gate.

Jack turned to the women. “So I have the Tempus Influunt stopped. At some point, someone mentioned two other temporal zones, the Influunt Divinatio and the Influunt Diaboli. The timestream in heaven and the timestream in hell. What if I could stop the Influunt Diaboli? Even if I could just do it for a few seconds. Then Gabby might not need her horn.”

He checked his Septua energy matrix.

<<< SEPTUA SANCTUS >>>

Level: 2

Current Kairos: 160/200

Current Corpus: 200/200

Current Nefesh: 200/200

Current Ijjinaya: 200/200

Current Psyche: 200/200

Current Morpheum: 200/200

Current Decaysia: 175/200

Special abilities:

Potential Auxiliary Storage: 100/100

Aeterna Kalpa Olam

Hosted Synchronization

Septua Conversion and Transfer

<<< SEPTUA SANCTUS >>>

His Septua levels looked good, and he had lower than normal Decaysia. However, he was going through Kairos energy like it was grape Fanta. Once the shooting started, he’d get a refill, and he had his auxiliary storage. He just needed to know if the Influunt Diaboli worked with Kairos energy alone, or if there was something else to it.

From the looks on the faces of the women, they didn’t know either.

Bailey sighed. “Dammit, Jack, I’m a sex demon, not a theoretical physicist. You shouldn’t be dicking with things you don’t understand.”

Jack smiled. “But you know me, I