He handed the phone to his driver, gritting his teeth as the tingling sensation intensified to small spikes of pain. He hadn’t endured an episode in months, but he hadn’t been immersed in so much humanity in years.

“Do you wish me to accompany you, Mr. Taske?” Findley, a veteran of such episodes, watched him carefully.

“Not this time, I think, Findley.” A serpent of heat had coiled itself around his spine, but as much as it hurt, it also strengthened him. Only when it began to fade did he know he had arrived too late to take matters in hand. “This should not take too long. Stay with the car.”

Taske climbed out, removing his coat and placing it on the seat before he limped forward. The bouncer attending the velvet rope glanced at the car and then Taske’s face before coming around to meet him.

“Welcome to Club Soleil, sir,” the young man said, ignoring the groans and catcalls from the long line of people waiting along the sidewalk.

“Good evening.” An image formed in Taske’s mind. “I’m looking for a friend. Has a young lady in a red-and-silver evening dress arrived recently?”

“Yes, sir. I let her through a few minutes ago.”

Taske pressed a hundred-dollar bill in the bouncer’s hand, holding on to it briefly. “Call nine-one-one and report an assault in progress. Quickly, my boy.”

The bouncer, whose eyes had taken on a glazed look, nodded slowly.

Taske entered the club and wasted no time looking for the woman. He could feel her heartbeat in his head, strong and steady, and used it as a guide. The rest of the club’s patrons faded to shades of black and white as he limped through them.

“Where are you?” he muttered, turning his head from side to side. His attention became focused on a series of doors at the back of the place; the club’s private rooms.

The pain snarling his spine flared as the heartbeat in his ears increased its rhythm to a frantic pace. It was happening, right now, and it pushed him along until he reached the center door, which was being guarded by a man in a suit.

The suit held up his hand. “You can’t come in here, sir.”

Taske didn’t have time to negotiate, so he delivered a short, brutal blow to the suit’s diaphragm, which knocked the air out of his lungs and drove him to his knees. Taske nudged him aside and went in.

The man on top of the girl was well dressed, beautifully groomed, and had paid handsomely to reserve the room for himself and his guests. In it he had raped and killed six women in as many months. He had his hands around the throat of the one he intended to make the seventh.

Taske grabbed him by the back of the collar and lifted him into the air.

“Hey, what—let go of me!” The man struggled, swiping at Taske, who snapped his arm, tossing the man over the table and into the wall beyond. The man fell to the floor and lifted his head, then collapsed.

“It’s all right . . . Jessica.” Now that he had her name, he bent to help her to her feet. Her pretty red-and-silver dress was torn down the front, and she was rigid with terror, but her attacker had not had enough time to do more. “The police have been notified. They will arrive shortly.”

“How . . .” She coughed, pressing a hand to her bruised throat. “How did you know?” she finished in a hoarse whisper.

A question he wished he could answer, he thought as he led her out of the curtained room and off to the back hall where the club’s offices were located. There he told her what he told all of them.

“It was not your time.” The pain in his back had eased, but it had been so ferocious that he had to look. He stripped off his right glove, and took her hand in his. As soon as he touched her, he saw the bright thread of her life, stretching out far into the future.

No wonder he had been compelled to find her. Her timeline would affect millions of others.

“You will not meet him in places like these. He will find you at a museum. In front of . . . a Picasso.” He smiled a little. “His name is Harry, and he is an artist, like you.”

“Like me,” Jessica repeated softly, her gaze riveted to his face.

“You and Harry will have a good life together.” He caught a glimpse of an event further along her timeline, the event that would change all the others connected to it. “As will your daughter and her husband, and their son.”

He could tell her that her grandson would someday discover a treatment for a deadly disease that would save millions of lives, but she would never remember it. He could only plant the suggestion deep in her mind that would navigate her life toward the event.

“When your grandson Charlie is ten years old, you should persuade his mother to give him the microscope for Christmas.” That was the event that would propel the boy along his destined timeline, the single most important act Jessica would ever perform in her life.

“Charlie. Microscope.” She nodded thoughtfully, and when he released her hand, she blinked. “I’m sorry, mister, what did you say?”

“I must leave you now. When the police arrive, tell them you fought off your attacker.” He smiled down at her. “Farewell, Jessica.”

Taske took the back exit out of the club, and by the time he limped back to the car, a squad car with flashing lights was parked at the entrance to the nightclub.

Findley stood waiting by the door. “I trust everything went well, sir.”

“This time, yes.” There had been other episodes when circumstances prevented his interventions, and an important life had been lost. When that happened reality shifted in subtle ways, and Taske’s limp would grow a little worse for several weeks as he endured the pain of the loss.

Every person had a meaning and purpose to their lives, but some, like Jessica, had enormous impact on the future. If she had been murdered tonight, her loss—and by extension, the loss of her future grandson—would have altered the course of human history.

As he went to get in, Taske’s bare hand touched the upholstered seat back, and the other half of his ability flooded over him. He blocked it as he sat down, took out his phone, and dialed Vulcan’s number.

“David White.”

“Can you talk, my friend?” Taske winced as two naked and too-familiar bodies appeared writhing on the seat across from him.

A faint buzz came over the line. “I can now.”

“We have a minor complication, Drew,” he told him, ignoring the litany of obscenities being exchanged by the couple having sex in his car. “Our young friend Rowan believes she has found another member of our extended family.”

“That’s always good news.”

“This new discovery is sixteen years old.”

“That’s . . . definitely not right,” Drew said on a chuckle. “Minimum age for the Takyn is twenty. Rowan knows that.”

“So it would seem. Drew, I need you to do some checking on the acquisition of new properties by the Catholic Church within the last twenty years. Look for purchases of large parcels in remote, difficult-to-access areas where there are few roads and no local residents.”

All the humor went out of Drew’s voice. “You think they’ve restarted the experiments.”

“I think it is a remote possibility.” He realized the images he was seeing were because he had forgotten to cover his bare hand, and after tucking the phone between his jaw and shoulder he pulled on his glove. “Let me know what you find out as soon as you can.” He ended the call, and then said to his driver, “Would you mind terribly if I ride in the front with you, Findley?”

“Not at all, sir.” Once Taske had moved to the front seat and they were back on their way, Findley asked, “Is something wrong, Mr. Taske?”

“It seems our gardener has been making use of the car for personal encounters with his amour. Most energetic use.” He sighed. “A deserted island in the South Pacific becomes more attractive by the day, Findley. What do you think? Should we relocate?”

“The fishing would probably be wonderful, sir,” Findley said, “but I can’t imagine you living in a grass hut.”

“Agreed.” And now he would have to have a word with the damned gardener about his work ethic and poor choice of spots for his romantic rendezvous. “We’ll have to be content with whatever the future may bring for me and the Takyn.”

The driver gave him a quick glance. “Do the others know, sir?”

“That I can sometimes envision the future as well as the past?” He shook his head. “The temptation to use me as an oracle would be too great.” He sighed. “Although I must say, you’ve adapted to my eccentricities rather well.”

“You saved my life, sir,” Findley reminded him. “If not for you, I would have been blown to bits along with that mob boss who hired me from the car service in Chicago. That’s all I ever needed to know.”

Taske had never looked along his driver’s timeline, but after that particular intervention he had glimpsed it stretching steadily alongside his own for many years to come. It was the reason he had confided in his driver so freely. “I appreciate that, Findley. And if you have time tomorrow, please do me a favor.” He glanced at the rearview mirror. “Arrange for a new car.”

Chapter 18

While Rowan waited for Sean to get home, she went into the bathroom, faced the mirror, and rehearsed everything she was going to say to him. She couldn’t stay, but she wouldn’t vanish from his life without giving him some sort of explanation; he deserved better than that. She also knew it had to be short, sweet, and convince him to forget about her.

She stared into her own eyes. “I’m married, and I’m going back to my husband.” That was a good one, but she didn’t wear a ring, and last night he had to know it had been a long time since she’d gotten busy with anyone.

Rowan tried again. “I’ve got this disease and in a few weeks I’ll be dead, so I’m going into the hospital.” That didn’t even work on soap operas. “I’ve met someone else and I’m moving in with him.” That made her into an instant slut; effective but not to her taste. “I’ve fallen in love with Dansant.” At least that was half of the truth.