Changing Nature (The Immortal Descendants Book 3) Read online

  Changing Nature

  Book Three

  The Immortal Descendants

  April White

  Immortal Descendants are disappearing and seventeen-year-old Clocker Saira Elian is next on the list…

  Saira and Archer’s romantic London summer is shattered by the bold kidnappings of Immortal Descendants. It’s clear Mongers want control of the Descendant Families, and when they target a powerful Shifter, there’s no doubt they will eliminate anyone who stands in their way.

  A split in time could be the cause of this new Monger aggression, and Saira, Archer and Ringo suspect their time-traveling nemesis Bishop Wilder. One dangerous world is exchanged for another when Saira and her friends track Wilder to the gloomy streets of Paris in 1429. They find the city besieged by marauding wolves led by a fanatical peasant girl who will be known to history as Joan of Arc.

  Crossing the time stream to repair it has dropped them into the heart of the Hundred Years’ War on the eve of an epic battle, where the line between friends and enemies will be drawn in blood. To finally end the deadly game of cat and mouse with Wilder, Saira must confront her greatest challenge yet: the truth about her changing Nature.

  Table of Contents

  About this Story

  Author’s Foreword

  London Run

  Missing

  Claimed

  Old Bailey – July, 1889

  Tom – June, 1429

  Darkness

  Shifter Bone

  Bedlam – July, 1872

  Shifted

  Taken

  Council

  Tom – July, 1429

  Preparation

  Clocking Out

  The Wolves of Paris – July, 1429

  The Seine

  Léon

  De Rais

  Tom – July, 1429

  Jehanne

  The River

  Healing

  Lady Grayson

  Clocker Tales

  Tom – August, 1429

  The Wall

  Henry

  The Bridge

  Tom – August, 1429

  Battles

  La Tourelle

  Tom – April, 1429

  Paris

  Done

  Author’s Note About the History

  Thank You

  “It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”

  – Patrick Rothfuss

  The Name of the Wind

  Author’s Foreword

  As in both Marking Time and Tempting Fate, several plot points in Changing Nature are based on actual historical events. I discovered some fascinating things that happened in medieval times, but not all of them occurred during the year in which I’ve set this time travel story. I’ve taken some liberties with dates – one specific event actually happened twenty-one years after it takes place in my story, another was committed during the decade following the events in this book, and a building I describe wasn’t actually built until later in the same century. I’m being vague because I don’t want to spoil anything for those of you who, like me, enjoy surprises, but there are some fact-checkers among my readers (I know this because I’m one, too), so I’m warning you in advance. If you look up a thing or two while you’re reading, don’t do it by date.

  I didn’t go crazy re-arranging history – well, at least not more so than usual – but please read the note at the back of the book if you’d like to know when things truly happened. This history is really interesting, and I appreciate your indulgence as I adjust things to suit my needs.

  London Run

  The view from the top of Salt Tower was magnificent. It was a corner tower in the ancient fortress of the Tower of London, which held court around me like an aging warrior that had only just laid down its sword. The Tower Bridge in front of my seat on the parapet wore the colors of its July sunset like a summer dress, with flickering lights for its sparkly jewels.

  I had jewels on the brain. Professor Ravindra Singh, my mentor at the Tower complex, had been all over the news last week for his discovery of the “Armada Pearls,” the exquisite six-strand black pearl necklace Queen Elizabeth I had worn in the Armada Portrait. The media had jumped on the story, and I grinned at the delight on Professor Singh’s face as he talked about the pearls to the swarm of reporters hounding our office every day since they were pulled from the secret stash in the sub-crypt of St. John’s Chapel. The Tudor crown that my friend Ringo and I had found there in 1554 was, of course, long gone. Elizabeth I had handed it down to her heir, and so on, until 1649 when Oliver Cromwell had ordered it melted down along with nearly all the other crown jewels.

  But the black pearls had survived, and it may or may not have been my suggestion to Elizabeth to hide them that saved the spectacular jewels from the fate of the other royal treasures. Even if I couldn’t take credit for that out loud – because seriously, who would believe I’d met Elizabeth Tudor, or that such a thing as time travel even existed – I knew, and that was enough.

  I stood up, dusted off my black jeans, pulled the hood of my favorite Ugly Kid sweatshirt up over my head to hide my long braid, and started down the outside of the tower. The handholds on Salt Tower were decent, and it would probably only take a couple minutes to descend.

  Or less if I slipped.

  But I’d been scaling these towers since I got a historical research internship with Professor Singh, and the game I played with Archer to keep my commute entertaining was Find Me. Since Archer was a Vampire with some extra badassery in the skills department, the game was way better than traditional hide-and-seek. He couldn’t rise until sunset, so I’d wait on top of one of the towers until the sun hit the horizon. And then it was time to play.

  He was never sure which section of the Tower I’d choose for my escape route, or, if he didn’t catch me outside the walls, which bridge I’d use to cross the Thames. The first person to hit a chair at Bishop Cleary’s dinner table was the winner. Loser had to do dishes. Since Archer didn’t actually eat with me and the jeans-wearing, silver-maned bishop who had become our friend, it wasn’t really fair. But whoever said life was fair?

  I touched down outside Salt Tower and took off at full speed toward the Tower Bridge. The route seemed straightforward enough, but involved a tree-climb, a roof-jump, and a drop down to the walkway along the bank of the Thames. By the time I got under Tower Bridge Road and up the stairs to street level, I was feeling pretty confident I’d left Archer looking for my dust back at the Tower.

  It was almost nine o’clock at night – summers in England were brutal on Archer’s waking schedule – so traffic on the Tower Bridge was fairly light, and I let my pace fall back into something less freakish. Foot traffic was almost non-existent, which was why the faint sound of rubber soles hitting the pavement behind me put my half-Shifter senses on high alert.

  When my guts started twisting in the way Monger-proximity brings on, those Shifter senses started searching for an escape route. I didn’t look behind me. I didn’t need to. The Descendants of War were bad news in every sense of the word, and the only Monger I knew who didn’t automatically hunt me on sight was Tom Landers, a mixed-blood like me. He was also probably dead by now, so call me a conclusion-jumper, but it was a safe bet it wasn’t Tom on my tail.

  I broke into a full sprint. That the footsteps behind me did too was no surprise. It was a surprise that they were gaining on me. I wasn’t a sprinter, but not many people could keep up when I free-ran. My problem was that this wasn’t free-running. This was just running. A
nd I was going to lose.

  The first support tower was coming up, and I knew that urban obstacles were going to be my best shot at getting out of whatever steaming pile of poo I was tap-dancing in. I darted across the road, and the sudden change of direction bought me a half second, just long enough to shove my way into the door at the bottom of the tower. I was up the first round of stairs before the door slammed open below me, and I knew I had to push hard to make it up to the scenic walkway first.

  I spotted a dark head of hair below me on the staircase as I sprinted up the steps. His maleness and steroidal hugeness were confirmed, and not in a comforting way. He was also taking the steps two at a time and gaining on me.

  Which meant the Monger-induced nausea was, too.

  This wasn’t going to end well for me unless I got really lucky or spectacularly creative. And since I had no control over luck, I made a split decision to go with my instincts. At the walkway level, high above the Thames, I saw a trapdoor above me that led to what I assumed was the upper exterior of the bridge structure. I remembered my Pixie friend Olivia once told me she’d gone across the bridge on top of the walkway, so this was as creative as it got.

  I shoved against the trap door and it gave way. I didn’t think Steroid-Boy could miss the fact that I’d disappeared from the staircase, but hopefully he’d have a little trouble with the size of the trap door. I was tall, too, but I didn’t have shoulders like the fricking Hulk.

  My breath hitched in my chest as I started up a ladder into the blackness above me. I tried to slow the gasping down so I didn’t hyperventilate, and I was very glad Archer and I had been free-running every night after work, so I didn’t actually resemble the flopping fish I sounded like. He’d also been teaching me the finer points of sword-fighting in our makeshift gym on the roof of Guy’s Chapel. Not that I had access to a sword at the moment nor the inclination to use one on Steroid-Boy, but waving a sword around was hard work, and my arm strength was showing the benefits as I hauled myself up the ladder.

  I still hadn’t heard Steroid-Boy open the trap door below me, and I wondered if maybe I had actually given him the slip. Wait, no … there it was. The trap door. And a Steroid-Boy-sized grunt as he shoved his unseemly amounts of muscle through the opening.

  I hit the ceiling and felt around the seams of another trap door above me. There was the latch, and I knew the minute I opened it I’d become a giant silhouetted target in the lights on the bridge structure. So, it was time for a diversion.

  I did a speedy pocket-pat-down and realized the one thing I could stand to lose was my mini Maglite. So I took a breath, braced my shoulder against the trap door, and whipped it down on Steroid-Boy’s head.

  “THUNK” is a very satisfying sound when coming from the skull of the Neanderthal chasing me. I flung open the upper trap door, hauled myself out, and slammed it shut behind me. I crouched down on top of it for good measure while I took stock of my surroundings.

  Okay, wow. This view was seriously spectacular. A tiny part of my brain that wasn’t occupied with my immediate safety knew I’d be bringing Archer up here for a midnight picnic. Or, you know, sword-fight. But the fight or flight instinct had kicked in hard, and I knew my sprint across the top of the Tower Bridge had to buy me enough of an advantage to get down through the next tower and back out to the street before Steroid-Boy could catch me.

  There was a wind coming off the Thames so I stayed low and took my center of gravity down close to the structure. When I was about halfway across, a sudden gust nearly took me off my feet. Heart pounding, I dropped to my knees to stay balanced, and a flicker of movement behind me grabbed my attention. Steroid-Boy had flung open the trap door and was staring straight at me.

  I spared him exactly one second of shocked silence before I did the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done. I stuck my tongue out at him.

  Yup, that’s right. I was officially twelve.

  Actually, my eighteenth birthday was in less than a week, but if I didn’t get moving, I wouldn’t see it. I jumped back to my feet, keeping low, and ran the rest of the way across the roof of the walkway. In that one second, I had seen such intense malevolence in his eyes that I knew which Family he came from. And despite his dark hair and scary glare, he reminded me very strongly of my delightful former roommate, Raven. Not that that proved anything, but if Steroid-Boy happened to be Raven’s older brother, he wouldn’t be bothered by little things like rules, laws, and fair play, especially considering I’d doinked him on the head with a Maglite.

  If Raven was less-than-affectionately known as The Crow, I thought Steroid-Boy could be re-dubbed Dodo, after the big, clumsy paragons of intelligence who had managed to get themselves wiped out by humans. The way he was trying to cross the top of the bridge, at full height and speed, I put his odds of extinction at about fifty/fifty. Another big gust of wind came up just as I had crouched down to lift the other trap door, and I saw Dodo waver and almost lose his balance. He dropped to his knees and held onto the edge with a white-knuckled grip. I thought I caught a look of desperation on his face as I dropped down to the ladder inside, and I actually considered going back to help him across.

  For about a second.

  And then I got over it.

  I knew I had maybe ninety seconds to make it down the ladder and through the lower trap door before Dodo hit the other side, and I didn’t waste any more time on things like a pesky conscience. This time I was faster, and I made it through the bottom trap door without hearing the other one open above me.

  Maybe I’d gotten lucky after all.

  I didn’t bother with the stairs, just vaulted the railing and went landing to landing. That bought me another two minutes. I had almost hit the realm of self-congratulation when I got to the street-level door – and it was locked.

  No!

  And then I yelled it. “NOOOO!” I pounded on the metal door and yelled with every ounce of breath I had left. “Somebody let me out!”

  I shot a quick glance above me and saw Dodo drop down from the trap door to the staircase. I had about three minutes left before he hit the bottom stair, and all I could think was, why did I stick my tongue out?

  I faltered for one second. Then pounded harder. “Please! Someone open the door!”

  The gnawing Monger-induced nausea was starting to hit full volume again when the door was wrenched open, and I was yanked outside. My fist was still raised to pound the door, and I almost slugged Archer in the face.

  Archer! Thank God! He took one look past me to the big Monger vaulting the last of the steps, slammed the door shut behind me, and then twisted the metal handle so that it jammed in place.

  He grabbed my hand and we ran.

  It was a pure parkour run to get to Guy’s Chapel at King’s College – the most direct possible route at top speed, either over, under, or through any barrier between us and safety. Archer and I didn’t waste breath on words; that would come later. Unlike the game we played every night, there was nothing fun about this. Grim reality had intruded into our world again, and I was pissed. I’d had exactly one month of a relatively normal, somewhat peaceful life since school had gotten out for the summer. I’d been staying in Bishop Cleary’s guest room while I worked for Professor Singh at the Tower during the week, and spending weekends back at Elian Manor with my mom and Millicent. Archer slept in the priest hole under the Guy’s Chapel altar while I was at work, and hung out with me after dark until I passed out around one or two a.m. Fortunately, Professor Singh was a forgiving boss and accepted my 11am-7pm shift without question.

  When we got to Guy’s Chapel, Archer pulled me into the courtyard across the street, out of sight of the front door. He held me close to him so he could whisper in my ear. “Did you feel anyone behind us?”

  He meant the flu-like nausea that Monger-proximity induced, which he called my “spidey sense.” I shook my head. “Not since the bridge.”

  “They were posted all the way around the Tower. The east towers were unguarded, so
I knew that was the one who followed you.”

  I was angry. “Why now? They’ve left us alone all summer. What would they have done, kidnap me? For what?”

  A car drove by, and Archer pulled me deeper into the shadows. It didn’t slow down, but he scanned the street carefully, put his finger to his lips, and gestured for us to run across the street. I nodded, and then took a breath to open up all my senses. Nope, nothing predatory out there that I could feel; Monger, or otherwise. I squeezed his hand, and then we took off.

  We made it to the side entrance and in the door with no movement from anything but us on the street. Archer threw the bar across the door behind us, and we made our way into Bishop Cleary’s private kitchen.

  A pot sat covered on the stove with half a loaf of crusty French bread on the cutting board next to it. Archer perched on the edge of his chair while I served myself a bowl of what smelled like curried vegetable soup, cut a big chunk off the bread, and sat down across from him.

  He watched me eat in silence, and I was glad my hand was steady with the spoon. “The guy looked like a Rothchild. Like Raven, only dark-haired and huge.” I tore off a piece of bread and dipped before I finally met Archer’s eyes.

  His fingers were steepled, and he had relaxed enough to lean his elbows on the table while he considered what I said. Then he nodded. “There is an older brother, and I believe he’s been working as a mercenary at the oil refineries in Nigeria.”

  “Awesome.” Sarcasm dripped from my tone. “He would have caught me if I hadn’t gone into the support tower of the bridge. He was faster than me on the straight away.”

  “The others I saw around the Tower of London were also trained. They intended to take you tonight.”

  “You’re on their list, too. They must’ve known that if they found me, they would probably get you, too.”

  A grim smile played on his lips. “Not that I mind being a package deal with you, but if they had weapons, they weren’t obvious. And an unarmed man would find it difficult to take me.”