Day 37 - Her Contracts; Written Under Duress

Her Contracts; Written Under Duress 

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

Oslo bought and sold antiques and artifacts and always made sure to make a profit. He was also a smuggler and made sure to make an even bigger profit when doing that. He was untrustworthy, out for himself, and would cut and run the very moment he was at risk. Cassie didn’t have many other options. Wyatt was missing almost a week now, and she had received SOS messages in her dreams.

Diego was barely a palm reader and couldn’t be trusted to fight. Barry could wear an amulet or super charged bracelet but couldn’t do any spell casting on his own. But with Oslo, she had an army. Oslo meant the Association. Oslo meant connections and an abundance of supplies. As long as he was interested. His resources came at a price and his profit always came first. So Cassie had to make Oslo an offer.

 

 

Alexandra made a deal with Wyatt.

Not her Wyatt. She had to remind herself that over and over. He looked just the same. Acted just the same. Smelled just the same. It was infuriating and a little bit inviting. Wyatt, her Wyatt, was such a prick. But this one had never pissed her off, never walked out the door, never stabbed her in the back. This one just looked and smelled and perhaps even tasted the same but with none of the baggage.

Not your Wyatt, she told herself again. Stop thinking those thoughts. Still, maybe her Wyatt would be jealous to find them together.

Stop it.

Wyatt looked at her funny, as if he could read the struggle on her face. He didn’t ask and she didn’t offer.

“I know this must be strange.”

“You’re nothing like her.”

“What?”

“If you were wondering. You’re very different from Cassie.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Okay.”

“Look, can we just agree to work on the problem at hand?”

“Of course.”

“Good, I need you to listen to me and try to follow my plans. I imagine that might be hard for you, especially considering you don’t know me. The Wyatt I know has trouble following anyone, especially me.”

“The way I see it, all of us here have been fucked around by The Historian and his fucking pens and books. You can be the boss. I don’t care. As long as we fuck his world up.”

Alex nodded in agreement.

 

 

Cassie agreed that Oslo and the Association could have first pick of books from the Historian’s bookshelves. She didn’t care what had been written down or what it could be used for. She wanted Wyatt back and as long as the Association could fix the timeline she didn’t care what else they wanted to do. It was a terrible deal. Wyatt would hate her. But she couldn’t sit by and do nothing. He was in trouble and she had to help.

 

 

Still in their prison cell, Wyatt and Artemis had no idea what was happening or what plans anyone else was making.

“I thought you were going to send a message.”

“I thought I did. But...”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“You have to understand – you and I are from seemingly different timelines. I think I’m reaching out to Cassie, but that’s assuming that she exists. Or that my version of her exists. I could be sending messages to a million different Cassies at this point and there’s a chance none of them know me, so could just be shrugging things off as a bad dream.”

“Why is it never simple with you?”

“Is there any chance that when you stole one of these books for one of these other Wyatts you kept a little piece for yourself? Because if you admit that to me, you aren’t really admitting that to the Wyatt you were skimming from.”

“I’m insulted by your insinuation. I’m a business man. I have my integrity.”

“I’m sure you do. I’m just looking for ways to get us out of here and back to our respective timelines.”

 

 

Alex had finally made herself sick after eating enough scraps of paper. No minor incantation was going to protect her stomach forever. It didn’t matter. She wrote enough spells down and could feel the power inside her. The energy was there, she wouldn’t need to write it down, she could just imagine it. All she had to do was make a move before The Historian wrote himself a new story and threw all her hard eaten effort out the window.

 

 

Oslo and Cassandra shook hands, sealed their pack.

Alexandra and Wyatt agreed, and hatched their plan. Nestor and Donnie led them to the lower level of The Stacks for a little research.

Wyatt and Artemis had yet to come up with a single actionable idea. It seemed as if they were stuck in their cell.

Unaware, Alex made a change of her own. She dipped her toe into the slipstream and stirred it with all her might. If she was going to surprise The Historian, she needed as much chaos happening all at once as possible to distract him and keep him from noticing her on the move.