Gate Deadlock (36 page)

Preface

When the rain got me,
I
was still running along an unfamiliar street that seemed endless on
both directions. Within seconds, the drizzle
became a cold
downpour
that soaked me to the bone, plastering
the thin shirt and jeans onto my body. My hair was sticking on my
face, pricking my eyes like dozens of needles, but I didn’t stop.
Lost in a haze of despair, I could not comprehend the faint voice
in my head that warned me to go back. I kept running away. Where I
was heading, I could not tell anymore. Everything around me seemed
strange and obscure; no houses, no shelter, only the perennial
olive trees and the murky veil of rain.

For the last two
years in my life, every day, every minute, every
second had been spinning around one single pivot; that rescue
mission had been the only pivot of my
new
life. It had defined my actions, my thoughts, and my whole
existence. I had gone a long way, overcoming any personal limit and
fear, transcending time, only because I was fixed on a purpose. I
had left my old life behind.

I had a life once.

Now, my mission was my
life. A mission that’d taken me far away from my family, my
friends, my studies and my future. But I did not care anymore. I
had chosen my destiny. It had always been about him. Christopher.
He had turned his back on me and the pivot support had suddenly
vanished. I had nothing to lean on. My whole life was
collapsing.
I
was collapsing. There was no angel coming to my
rescue this time.

A sharp pain in my chest
blocked my breath, forcing me to stop. But I welcomed the pain,
didn’t want it to ease out. Strangely enough, it seemed to be the
right thing to feel. This is how some people have died, right?
Perhaps this could be the end…

“
Hey,
you’re standing in the middle of the
street!”
a voice in my head shouted. “
And that yellow light approaching is about to
crash into you in minutes.
Can’t you hear it? You have to move to the side. Don’t just
stand there. It’s a car
!
It’s definitely a car and the veil of hale certainly does
not help. MOVE!”

Then why wasn’t I moving? Could
I be waiting for the car to put an end to this excruciating
obstacle race I had started?

I closed my eyes and held
my breath
as the roaring sound of the car
approached.

1. Angels
   

Angels
d
idn’t always look gorgeous. Sometimes,
they had rough hands and smoked-yellow moustaches. Their faces
could be wrinkled, carved with paths that reveal the burden of each
year of hard living. Even more, they could hit the brake at the
very last moment if they meant to spare your life. But they
did
cover
you with their worn-out coat to protect you from the hailstorm and
they didn’t ask a lot of questions. They took you in their old,
rattling truck and drove you to the nearest village to find someone
who could speak your language.

He asked for my name.

“
Emma.” I mumbled. “My
name’s Emma.”

“
Tourist?” he
asked.

“
Yes, tourist.” I
lied.

Angels could tell when
you needed help. They even bought you a drink and waited until you
found the strength to speak again.

“
What’s happened to
you?” a stout,
young woman with long,
curly black hair asked me, having been assigned with the
interpreter’s role by my angel. I guessed she must have been the
café owner’s daughter, judging by the resemblance they shared. He’d
been the first to storm out of the café to my assistance when my
angel pulled over and called frantically for help. The poor man had
been so alarmed by my shivering.

“
Was anyone after
you?” About a dozen saucer eyes around me were waiting for
answers
as she tried to wipe my hair with a towel
. She smelled of fresh lemon. A faint but still
invigorating scent, released every time she brought her hands close
to my face.

“
Yes.”
I nodded
, still shivering
. I thought it was not a good time to tell her I could
speak Greek.

“
Who was it?”

I sat up on the uncomfortable, plastic
chair, searching vainly for a lie.
“I’m not
sure.”

She put the towel on the table, looking
worried.
“Shall I call the police?”

“
The
police?”
That brought me to my senses. The police were the
last thing I needed right now. “
No. I’m fine
now. I was just scared of…the storm
.
”
I tried to sound embarrassed. If I had started
lying, I must have been my self again.
She
turned to translate my silly ex
planation to our audience,
and next minute, I realized I had disappointed
her customers who’d been expecting something more exciting to
disturb the tranquillity of their simple life. Just normal,
ordinary life. Deadlock-free.

“
Where are you staying? I
can call a taxi to take you home.”

Home.
Home is where your heart is.
Once again, my dad’s voice repeated in my head, like a
broken CD. Where was my heart now? Did I have a heart anymore? It
must have been shattered. Its pieces felt scattered all over my
chest.

“
Yes. I need a taxi. I
must go to Korinth,” I said.

“
K
orinth? It’s three hours drive
at the least.”

“
I have money.” I
had been wearing my bag
across my chest
ever since I’d left the Squad Headquarters. Just a few hours ago, I
was still in the future, a time-traveller to Christopher’s world,
determined to set him free and get him back.

For a fleeting moment, I
thought of what those villagers’ reaction would be if I tried to
tell them what was lying ahead. To warn them. Tell them we were all
being watched; and those of us who stood as a threat to the future
world, like me, were in mortal danger. Those villagers would not
call a taxi for me then, but the fastest means to the closest
mental health institution. Who could blame them?

“
Okay. I’ll take
care of it. Just drink your
ouzo.
It’ll make you feel
better,” the chubby, young woman said and turned to our curious
audience, who reminded me of the chorus of old men in ancient Greek
plays, to translate our short conversation. Obviously, my situation
was of no interest to them anymore. They smiled in front of the
naïve tourist who had gotten scared of the thunderstorm and started
running. They probably had other problems to deal with now that the
hail was ripping against the blossomed trees, destroying the crop
of this year. Maybe their lives weren’t really as simple as I’d
thought.

“
Your taxi is coming,”
the young woman shouted behind the counter.

Curled in the backseat of the
taxi, I watched the headlights of the cars passing by. We were
already on the highway and despite the fact that it was still early
in the afternoon, the gloomy shroud of the menacing storm covered
everything, stalking my escape.

Angels
c
ould tell when you needed them. They
sometimes called you when you least expected them to; when you
thought they’d forgotten about you the same as you had forgotten
about them.

“
Hey? Did I catch
you in a bad time?” Alex’s voice sounded worried through my cell
phone. Alex. A rainbow in the storm of my
torment
.

“
Alex! Thank
God!”

“
What’s going on,
Emma?
Where are you? You don’t sound
good.”

“
It’s over, Alex. It’s
all over. You were right. I shouldn’t have gone there. Now, it’s
too late.” My voice broke. Tears were streaming down my face and I
realized I was sobbing.

“
Emma, can you hear me?
Concentrate. Where are you?”

“
In a taxi…somewhere…near
Pylos.”

“
Where are you
going?”

It was so hard to collect
my thoughts. “I’m going to …Korinth. Yes, I’m going to
Korinth.”

“
Okay. I’ll find you
there as soon as I can. Just go home and wait for me. I’ll take you
away from them. Do you hear me?”

“
Yes. Hurry,
please.”

“
I’ll see you
soon
. Just call me when you get there,
okay?”

“
Okay.”

“
Hang on, Emma. Listen to
me. Try to relax. Everything will be all right.”

I wiped the blurred glass
with my sleeve and looked outside. The dark clouds that carried the
torrential hailstorm were now moving to the north, hiding the
mountain-tops behind the haze.

Were
angels likely to play tricks on you? To try and fool you?
Was it possible that they might let you take a glimpse of paradise
just to make you realize what you would lose afterwards, when
they’d deserted you? Did they let you believe they’d always be
there, eternal guardians of your soul, until one day you’d wake up
to find you were on your own
,
wondering
if they’d ever really existed or they’d been just a figment of your
imagination?

I had a guardian angel
once. In his eyes I found the bluest skies. It was the hint of the
oncoming storm that I missed. His face tortuously gorgeous,
altogether perfect. His heart a bleeding wound because of his
haunting past, searching for healing. When he first revealed to me
that he came from the future, I was certain he was a compulsive
liar. Yet, when he unveiled his assignment in my world, he scared
me to death because the charming tutor I thought I had spent the
night with, was transformed into an ex-assassin, a Crusader of the
Future World, entrusted with the mission of protecting my life.
Because on that same night, I discovered I was going to be murdered
for the same reason my father had been murdered thirteen years
ago.

The deplorable twist of
the story had totally been my fault. After all, Christopher would
still be one of the Crusaders if he hadn’t traded his freedom for
my life. I wouldn’t have suffered the ordeal of the car crash the
night I was told he’d left me, a near-death experience, months in a
wheel-chair and, worst of all, the loss of our baby. Although I
found out about my pregnancy after the car crash, when it was too
late, the loss was still an open sore for me. But he didn’t know
anything about it. I would always wonder if there was a chance we
could still be together had I gone along with the League’s orders.
If Christopher hadn’t chosen to offer himself to his worst
nightmare, Denzel, commander of the Squad, the Special Forces of
The League. He had been Christopher’s boss in the past, after he
had him arrested years ago in their time, when Christopher was just
an abused teenager. He’d recruited him to the Squad and trained him
until Christopher became the most efficient Squad agent: a ruthless
killer, a soldier of The Future, condemned to defend the secrets of
The League. They had ordered my father’s murder when he refused to
cooperate and conceal their secrets. And Christopher
had
t
aken part in what happened,
although not directly. The League had ordered my death too when
they found out I was following on my dad’s steps to excavate the
area where the Gateway that connected our worlds lay. That was when
Christopher came to my time to save me. And he did it out of love.
Unfortunately, it was just for a while. Because when I challenged
the League, I turned them against Christopher too. That was how he
had decided to put an end to the threat by surrendering to Denzel
and going back to a life he’d tried so hard to redeem his soul
from. I knew it was worse than death for him, but I knew he did it
for me.

I’d do everything to get
him back, to disentangle him from the Squad’s claws. That was no
secret to Denzel. So, here I was, a double agent, ostensibly on a
new mission assigned by the same people who had ordered my death. I
was supposed to locate the Gateway for them, which had for some
strange reason, moved. For an even stranger reason I couldn’t
fathom, Denzel was convinced I was the only one who could carry
this mission through. Such was his despair to find the Gate that he
had accepted my one and only condition: to let Christopher come
with me. To my astonishment, Denzel had no clue of the clandestine
save-Christopher
-mission
the Crusaders
had organized to get their comrade back. Which was going pretty
well and according to plan apart from a slight detail which changed
everything. No sooner had I gotten back to my world with
Christopher when I discovered he was different. A changed man, a
cruel assassin once again, a loyal Squad member who made it clear I
meant nothing to him anymore. In his eyes, my mission to save him
was nothing but a huge blunter. And my life was hanging in the
balance.