Page 2 of City of Love

The enameled clock was before her again, solid in her hand.

The images were coming fast now. Really fast. And the more frequent the images, the more imminent the future event.

Twin drumbeats of fear and curiosity settled into her chest.

Lexi grabbed her box of belongings, threw her purse over her shoulder, and rushed out of the building into the bright spring light, onto Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. She glanced down at her foot as she stepped off the last stair from the building’s exit and—

—her foot was on a cobblestone street, shiny and even, not buckled and blackened like they’d all become in the old city from a century of vehicle traffic they’d never been built for.

What the...

She scanned left and right to get her bearings, but the street she knew like the back of her hand was gone. Dry cleaners and pizza shops had been replaced by original colonial homes. Street vendors lined the sidewalks dressed in odd period costume, almost Victorian in style, yet somehow more modern, with women in leggings or pants below their corset tops. Their carts overflowed with breads, flowers, and oddly printed pamphlets and newspapers. She turned her head at the sound of hooves on cobblestones, stepping back onto the curb and just missing a collision with a horse-drawn carriage.

As she gasped, confused, someone bumped into her and—

—apologized as he passed her in his Armani business suit, making his way back into the law offices she’d just exited, requisite Starbucks coffee in hand.

Lexi found herself unsettled and lightheaded, the images never quite this rapid-fire and dizzying before. Struggling to hold onto the box with one hand, she raised the other to hail a ride and make her way back to her small apartment across town.

As she eased into the back seat of the car, a familiar resignation settled in her gut, forcing the air out of her lungs in a deep sigh. She wasn’t scared exactly; she’d been down this road many times before. There was always another job, another blind date, another attempt at normalcy. But her inability to control the waking dreams forced her to live in a constant state of reaction and largely unsuccessful attempts at avoiding her fate.

Like a leaf blown by the wind of her foresight, she ricocheted through life, wanting mainly to get through the visions as quickly and safely as possible.

And this current batch needed to stop. Soon. She’d been having them for a couple months now, but they were accelerating, and they were insistent. Not to mention confusing as hell. Lexi couldn’t begin to imagine what these strange images were related to or in what possible manner they would play out. All she knew was that the impact of the sight on her life was becoming more and more devastating.

She had to find a way to take charge of her precognition. Because as it stood now, at twenty-five years old, her future already looked pretty bleak, and frankly, she was freaking tired of feeling so helpless and out of control. She knew she could be stronger and smarter than that. She simply needed to find the right… tools.

As the cab sat in traffic, Lexi looked down at the final paycheck clutched in her hand and gave herself permission to cry. Just until the cab got to the apartment. Then she’d buck up and get on with things. Like she always did.

Tears landed hotly on her bottom lashes. She leaned her head back against the seat and—

—His face was right in front of hers again, the unknown man in her visions. His intense gray-green eyes mere inches from her own and looking at her with such concern. He reached a hand to her cheek, caressing her with his thumb. “It’ll be okay, Lex, I promise,” he said, though in her vision she had no idea what he was referring to.

He pulled her closer and leaned in, his lips moving softly along her jaw line, the barest whisper of a touch. She tipped her head back as he slowly worked his way down her neck, his lips tasting her skin, his hands playing in her hair, his touch reassuring her soul.

“It has to be,” he whispered.

CHAPTER 2

Stepping out his front door onto the cobbled street, a piece of yellow parchment crunched under Gideon’s boot. He picked it up, brushing off the dust left by his shoe. A hand-drawn image of his own face stared back—not a bad likeness, the artist had a good hand—but the words written in bold lettering above and below his portrait were much more affecting. “Gideon Ashe. Traitor!” The last word he’d ever thought could be applied to him.

Ever.

And the idea wounded him worse than any battle blade ever had.

He shoved the parchment into his pocket and scanned the street for any sign of whoever might have left the statement, but nothing unusual caught his eye. All he saw was the normal activity of an early spring evening. Lamplighters moved down the sidewalks, reaching with their long poles and filling the streets of Philadelphia with a golden glow from the gas lamps. Shop owners lit torches at their doorways, welcoming customers with warmth and light.

Beautiful weekend nights brought a celebratory mood, the townsfolk out for dinner and drinks or strolls along Market Street with good friends.

Gideon, in particular, should have felt celebratory this evening.

Little chance of that now.

Picking up his pace, he crossed the street to Club Deux Mondes. Not so much a bar as a true think tank like the salons of Paris in the eighteenth century, he’d created Deux Mondes as a meeting place for academics, artists, and writers to eat, drink, study, and debate ideas. Often, when coupled with enough booze, enthusiastically so.

Over the last three years, however, it had become something much more than that—on Friday nights the club shut its doors to the public and hosted a very private gathering for some of the best minds from both worlds.

This particular Friday night should’ve had his adrenaline racing. He’d finally have a chance to place his hands on an ancient Egyptian papyrus—one that had been lost to time in his own world but remained intact in the other. A papyrus that might just open up an entire new area of study for him in the field of physics.

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