“We’re in trouble. A demon named Balthazar is hunting me. He wants to destroy me, but he wants me to find the journal my mother kept during this period. Her name was Alina, and she wrote how she found you and that you could help her.”
My stomach tightened around the meager meal in my belly.
“You’re Alina’s daughter?” John James’ eyes widened.
“Yes,” I said, sneering.
“Oh, Alina.” John James closed his eyes and let out a huge sigh. When his eyes opened, he shook his head. “She was a good,goodwoman. She endured so much loss, sorrow, and pain. Her life was dangerous, and every day was a battle for her to survive.”
“No, she wasn’t,” I spat out. “She was a whore who loved a monster!”
Marcellious pressed his palm upon my wrist.
I shook him off and glared at him.
“She was in trouble, like you,” John James said, the skin around his eyes pinched and drawn. “She came to me saying she needed help. Same as you, this Balthazar demon was after her. Oh, she was so nervous, so anxious, so fearful when she came to me.”
He glanced out the window, deep in thought. “I told her I could help her. She needed to do two things to defeat Balthazar.”
He leaned forward conspiratorially as if to divulge the universe’s secrets.
I leaned forward, too, eager to share some secrets for a change. Finally, perhaps, we were on the cusp of answers.
“Go on,” I said, glancing at Marcellious before giving John James my undivided attention.
Marcellious, too, bore an eager, wide-eyed expression.
John James huffed out a sigh.
“Here’s what I told your mother.” He flattened his palms on the table. “I told her, ‘find another time traveler.’ I said, ‘there’s one in the tribe, a fellow by the name of Dancing Fire.’”
I let out a gasp. “You told her that?”
John James nodded. “I did indeed. I’d interacted with him over the years and knew he could help. Do you know him?”
“Yes! He was my friend and mentor in another lifetime. I’m from the twenty-first century.”
He grabbed a parchment piece and a quill pen from beneath his bed.
When he returned to the table, he dipped the pen into the glass container of ink. He scratched out what looked like a family tree. Instead of family members, he wrote dates connecting to the person.
“There.” He set the pen back down on the table. “Where were we? Oh, yes, two things. So, one…” He held up his index finger. “Find another time traveler. And two…” He lifted his middle finger. “Find the sun and moon daggers.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “That’s what we’re looking for, too. Supposedly my mother wrote down the whereabouts of the two knives. Still, no one seems to know where it is—believe me, I ask everyone I contact.”
John James nodded.
“You haven’t asked the right people.” A secretive smile played at the corners of his lips. “Your mother found one of the weapons and was supposed to give it to me. But I told her to hide it somewhere and leave the notes in her journal where she left it. The last time I saw Alina was right before Balthazar killed her. She did everything I told her, and then she was gone.”
“How could you possibly know that?” I asked, furrowing my brow.
John James’ cheery expression fled behind dark clouds of emotion. “Because Alina visited me right before her death and told me she wouldn’t make it—Balthazar was on her tail, and she wouldn’t have enough time to find the last weapon. Olivia, you’re not the only one Balthazar is hunting.”
I let out a gasp. “Is he… Is Balthazar looking for you, as well?”
John James nodded slowly as if moving his head took too much effort.
“I’m afraid so. And now that I’ve met you, I’m worried he will find me faster and kill me since I have a lot of information about Alina and the daggers,” he said, his voice growing thick. He rested one hand over the other.
