holy, time-traveling Masters of Time rarely surfaced in this city. They seemed to prefer medieval periods. CDA had sightings of them as early as the eleventh century, but the more contemporary the period got, the fewer the sightings.
The Highlanders were not the only warrior society out there. CDA had evidence of two other secret sects dedicated to the war on evil, one ancient, one modern. From time to time he came across men who had some of the same extraordinary powers he had. These men lay low, revealing themselves only to vanquish the enemy, and then they vanished, like ghosts in the night. Pretty much the way he did.
The Masters were an interesting bunch. They loved and warred like any other medieval Scot, but secretly worshipped pagan gods, most of whose names no historian had ever recorded. They defended a set of three holy books, and came out of the medieval woodwork to defend the good and the innocent and kick the ass of a demon honcho or two. Then they vanished back into the local population and their particular time. Only an experienced agent could identify a Master from the average Highlander, whether on paper in HCU’s immense database, or while in the field.
He’d lost count long ago, but over the course of the two decades he’d been at HCU, he’d probably traveled into the past a dozen times, usually on the heels of a great demon. He’d had exactly three encounters with Masters in all that time. Maybe it wasn’t that odd—he’d chased demons into the past all over the world, as far back as the first century, when the Romans were about to rule the world. The closest he’d ever come to a Highlander was last September, right there in the city. The Highlander had been turned against the Masters, and he’d taken his own agent hostage, vanishing into the past with Brie Rose. Nick had gone back to find her because there was nothing worse than losing an agent in time.
He’d found Sam’s cousin Brie and dragged her home before he could chat with her holy friends—and she’d gone back to her Highlander anyway. Her case file might have MIT stamped across it, but he knew she wasn’t really missing in time. She was just fine.
He’d had the chance to debrief her extensively, and now he knew more about the Brotherhood than anyone at CDA had ever known. Of course, encounters between CDA agents and Masters—and civilians and Masters—were as old as the agency and maybe, for the latter, as old as time. But the Masters remained secretive. They refused to talk about what they did; they simply fought evil when they had to, and were devoted to the war on evil in Scotland.
Except, a few hours ago, a Master had nailed a demon just a few blocks away from HCU.
Were they coming out of the medieval closet? And if so, what did that mean?
He refused to worry, but agency analysts were predicting the end of the world—literally. That was how dire the war had become. If it wasn’t turned around, every high government agency in the free world would be infiltrated by demons and controlled by evil within another decade.
He’d taken Sam with him into the past to find her cousin. It was about the toughest test he could give any agent, new or not. She’d passed with flying colors.
So why was she looking really tense? Why was she worried?
He lurked and his concern vanished. He was not interested in a war of witches, although he knew her civilian sister was a witch.
“Why would you think the Highlander is someone we know?”
She shrugged. “No reason.”
What wasn’t she telling him? “What’s wrong with you? Bad lay last night?”
She gave him a look. “There’s no such thing. Maybe the Highlander followed the demon here.”
He liked her arrogance—a lot. But her comment gave Nick pause.
He had decided well over a year ago that the witch burnings were not as random as most of law enforcement believed. He also disagreed with the agency’s social anthropologists and shrinks who claimed the gangs were simply on a new demonic high, and it was cooler to burn people at the stake than to murder each other gangland style. He knew with every fiber of his being that there was a rhyme and a reason to the burnings. He was absolutely certain that there was one great black power behind all of the gangs in the country, if not the world, and that their leader was a medieval demon.
And he had made it his personal mission to nail the sonuvabitch.
So if the Highlander had followed a medieval demon to New York, he’d jump for joy if the incident was somehow connected to the witch burnings. “We know nothing about our holy friend—although I intend to change that.”
“It was too quiet this weekend, until now,” Sam said after a reflective pause.
“Yeah, it was like a vacation.” He hated vacations. “Let’s not speculate. We have a priority. We need to find our medieval ally before someone else does.”
“Why?”
Before he could tell her about the breaking news, the child screamed.
He knew that horrific sound inside and out. It was a part of his soul and he’d hoped to never hear it again.
The young girl screamed, and he heard the roar as the sedan went up in flames. He inhaled, flinching. He had no time for a flashback now.
But he saw the inferno on the night-darkened freeway and he heard the heavy, black laughter.
“Nick? You okay?”
He heard Sam, but vaguely, as if she was speaking to him from far away. He breathed hard and realized he felt sick. He’d just had a goddamned flashback!
It took him a moment to push the image away. When he had, he was at his window, staring down at the cars passing below on the slick city streets.
Holy shit. He’d vanquished the flashbacks about a decade ago. He couldn’t understand why they were starting up all over again.
He’d pretend it hadn’t happened—so it hadn’t happened. He had the best secretary money could buy—and money couldn’t buy Jan, only her own, personal demons could. Jan was classified Level Five at HCU and she’d been at his side through the best times and the worst times. Once upon a time she’d been his best field agent. If she ever learned he was having flashbacks again, she’d hound him so bad he’d cave and go to a shrink. Of course, by then, hell would have frozen over and the war would have been won or lost.
He got it together and faced Sam. “Here’s the deal. The Highlander got Brad with his sword in front of a bunch of cops and civvies,” Nick said.
Sam faced him, her eyes wide.
“The press got wind of it and they’re going with it. I can’t close it down. They’re calling him ‘the Sword Murderer’—original, don’t you think?”
“Shit,” Sam said. She was a bit pale, when Sam was usually the coolest cucumber he knew.
“He also took at least one hit from our city’s finest,” Nick added. “Of course, a teensy-weensy bullet probably won’t bother him very much.” He picked up the white phone and made a single call. It would stop the cops from hunting their Highlander down. He could do that much.
He smiled cheerfully at her after hanging up. “The cops will be put to bed shortly. But the story is breaking on the evening news right now.”
