“You.”
“What?” Jo straightened away from inspecting the monitor. She felt her mouth hanging open, but Charlie did not remark on her shock.
“I have always had these snippets, but I never knew why; I could never get a full picture. A name. . . sensor readings. . . nothing more. And I had never seen anyone—or any thing—give off readings like this.” He paused, giving her one more look up and down. “Until now.”
He remembered her through a jump.
No, not quite remembered. A memory he’d stored in data format had persisted even though the world had changed.Why?It was a question to explore later. For now. . .
“What are you?”
“A demigod.”
The mood broke when Charlie laughed. “Excuse me?”
“I’m a demigod and I met you in a different time when you invoked the Society of Wishes to grant you the ability to murder those related to Primus Sanguis at will, without ever being caught.” As she spoke, Charlie’s smile fell.
“This is certainly . . . odd.” She could hear it in his voice: he wanted to believe her. Jo couldn’t blame him for the skepticism, however. She was selling him a truly impossible tale.
It was then that she spotted a pair of scissors on his desk. Jo moved without thinking.
Her fingers closed around the bright red handle of the scissors. She lifted them as though they were Excalibur itself. Her hand fell to the desk, palm up, knuckles rapping against the wood.
“Watch,” she commanded.
Gripping them in her right hand like a dagger, Jo recalled the last time she had been wounded—or should have been wounded—in Charlie’s home. The USB had exploded, embedding into her hand harmlessly until she plucked out the pieces. Jo plunged the scissors down, stabbing the blade clear through her hand and into the desk.
A sensation seared through her—not pain, but pleasure. It was as if her body relished the feeling of her skin tearing, as if her mind sung at the sensation of something about her being torn apart. She stared at her impaled hand for one more long moment, then withdrew the blade.
Her skin knitted quickly. There was no blood and no mark. Charlie grabbed at her hand, running his own over the mended flesh.
Air continued to fill her lungs, but her body now seemed very distant from her. She had truly become another being altogether. Her mind knew the form she was in as Josephina. But it also knew the magic that flowed in her as Destruction. She was real, and she thrived off of her namesake but her heart still clung to the memories she’d made in a different reality.
“All right,” Charlie said in amazement, leaning back in his chair. “I’ll buy it.”
“Good.” Jo ran her fingers over her palm for a moment. Sure enough, as Charlie had seen, there was no sign of the wound. “Because I need some information.” She found it ironic that it was not the first time he’d functioned as her minion of sorts.
“About what?”
“Everything.”
Chapter 28
Dragonback
“You’re going to have to give me more of a starting place than that.”
“Fair.” Jo folded her arms, leaned against the wall, and stared at the computer, debating what to ask first. “What’s today’s date?” That seemed like a good place to start.
“January 13th, 2058.”
So it was roughly six months after she’d joined the Society in her timeline. Jo’s mind decided to spin out from there—focus on finding differences and similarities. But first, something more urgent.
“Have you seen anyone else like me?” she asked, her breath catching on the end of the question in fear of what the answer may be.
“Like you?”
“An odd signature.” Jo motioned to the fragmented data still up on his screen.
