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

Jack slammed his hands to his head. The pain was blinding. He felt his soul shriveling. Dying.

Current Kairos: 10/200

Current Decaysia: 370/200

Potential Auxiliary Storage: 0/100

Kerrata took the round in his chest and it blew through him, ripping out most of his body in a rain of blood. The other bullet ripped into the chest of the toenail ox, punching a hole in its heart.

Gabby was free. She blew her horn, one last time, shredding chitin dogs, blasting fingernail birds, and clearing the battlefield.

“Jack!” Annie wailed.

Jack couldn’t answer. He was on his knees, almost passing out, and there was Kerrata with most of his body missing.

Kerrata coughed up black blood. “No. Impossible. You stopped the Influunt Diaboli. That is impossible.”

“Impossible is what I eat for breakfast, Horns.” Jack put the Eternity Cannon to the 9mm hole he’d put in the Fug’s head. He pulled the trigger, taking off most of the top of Kerrata’s head, splitting his horns and taking out his brains. A fist-sized hole was punched into the top of the cart. That would be the Interim Lord’s brains and blood leaking through the hole to spatter on the rough stones of the Sin Road.

Kairos from both the toenail ox and Kerrata swept around him, but his core was having trouble processing all that energy. There was a ton of the stuff.

He turned to see the gate open, and the ground was black with demons, the sky full of every kind of gargoyle horror. The duke himself was obscured by the massive army both on the ground and in the air.

Gabby flew in and grabbed Jack, who still wasn’t right. Would he ever be right again?

Bailey took up Annie in her arms, and then they were running, making for the D’Nyr Gate.

Jack couldn’t tell if it was the scream of the wind of his ears or the scream of the duke’s armies.

He found himself on his back, riding the edge between consciousness and darkness. He was out of bullets, or else he might’ve stuck the Cannon into his mouth. His soul was dying. Too much Decaysia.

Where was the Kairos from his kills?

Aeterna had the answer. The gun’s whisper filled his voice, though it felt like a dream. Thirty-six years of minutes, Master, from this Fugit. More minutes from your Annie. What would you have me do?

Jack couldn’t do the math. What was thirty-six years of minutes? That was from Evelyn Mundi. Those were her minutes. His eyes were squeezed closed. He had to trust that Gabby and Bailey would get them across the damned landscape and back to reality.

He was at single digits Kairos. First things first, they couldn’t be trapped in hell. If Earth’s Tempus Influunt started, they couldn’t use the crossbones key to get back.

“Aeterna, take me to fifty Kairos, and I need some of this Decaysia out of me. But keep at least thirty-six years of minutes. Those belong to Evelyn Mundi.”

Yes, Master, I can take your Decaysia down to acceptable levels. As for Evelyn Mundi, she will need the minutes of her life, for she is the mother of the prophet. I will do as you wish.

A second later, Jack could confirm the Cannon’s actions.

Current Kairos: 50/200

Current Decaysia: 270/200

Jack felt stone under his knees and hands. They were back at the D’Nyr Gate. Jack had a moment to wonder if the Decaysia damage might be permanent. It seemed like it had leeched out of his soul and was affecting his cells.

Annie was near him, weeping in terror.

Jack looked up to see Bailey ram the crossbones key into the stone arch, twisting it, and the entire structure shuddered, shook, and more stone crumbled away.

Jack staggered to his feet and grabbed Annie, and they both stumbled out of hell and onto the asphalt of the parking lot behind the bank. Bailey followed, then Gabby, and the gate closed.

Jack swept the toy soldier’s ink key to the right. Time started once more.

With the ice-pick pain in his temples, he knew he was about out of Kairos again. He’d regenerate. Yes, he felt thirty-six years of minutes in the Eternity Cannon, but that life wasn’t his to take. Now that would be the ultimate in stealing.

Jack dropped to his knees, then hit the ground and rolled onto his back. Breathing hard, he knew he was going to lose consciousness, but he had to tell Bailey his plan first. She had to remove Annie’s memories...the bank teller could forget she’d ever been captured. She could forget whatever Kerrata had done to her.

Too late. Jack was out. The void seemed eternal. But he’d rescued the girl. Whatever happened to him, fine. He’d finished his business and could rest in peace. But he couldn’t help but think his gun just might miss him as much as Bailey and Gabby.

And what about Evelyn Mundi’s minutes?

With that last thought, the darkness took Jack away from himself.

Chapter Thirty-Five

JACK WOKE IN HIS APARTMENT. From the light, it was early to mid-morning, probably the next day. He was in his bed and staring at the curtains. He had a headache, but it wasn’t bad. Worse was the sense that he’d dreamed everything: the ability to stop time, Bailey and Gabby, and everything else that had happened.

Had he really met some Austrian guy who liked Enochian gold? Was Pinetree going to be able to sell those goblets he’d stolen from the Cast Away, Gone Astray?

And why had Kerrata been interested in Evelyn Mundi and then Annie Blackburn?

Jack raised his left hand and saw the toy soldier tattoo on the side of his left index finger. He then noticed the guitar under his window didn’t have any dust on it. He pulled himself up off the bed and put his face in his hands.

No, it was all real. He was a Time Knight, and he’d done two things now that seemed impossible to everyone who knew about these things. He could stop the flow of the Tempus Influunt,