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  Suddenly Harper recognized the building.

  “Hey—that’s the Tampa Theater!”

  It was a historic landmark for the city—the first air-conditioned structure in town and a common spot for school field trips. It had been built in the 1920s as one of America’s most elaborate movie palaces and had only one screen. Rows of plush red velvet seats surrounded the single screen and marble steps led up to an elaborate balcony where the blue ceiling was gilded with stars like the night sky outside.

  Harper had loved the old theater as a kid and even as an adult she and her girlfriends often came on Friday nights. The Tampa Theater was the place to go see first run indie films that weren’t playing at any of the multiplexes.

  Seeing the familiar building crumbling but still proud, its few front windows boarded up and its sign broken on the ground brought the reality of the situation home to Harper as nothing had before.

  “My God,” she whispered, staring at the half-ruined building. “This is really real, isn’t it? We’re really in the future.”

  “One possible future,” Shad said pointedly. “There are many paths the loop can take. If we can get you to She Who Alters we can change all this.” He made a sweeping gesture with one hand to indicate the bleak landscape around them. “But before we can do that, we have to forge you a new identity. She Who Alters won’t see just anyone, no matter how great their need, unfortunately.”

  “She Who Alters? New identity? What are you talking about?” Harper looked at him in confusion. The big Kindred wasn’t making any sense.

  But he only shook his head.

  “Never mind. Before we can do any of that, we have to clear Earth’s atmosphere. And that part is always tricky. Come on—we’re going to make a run for it from my ship to that small, side entrance there.” He pointed to a metal door to the side of the main entrance which was so covered in dirt and rust it almost blended in with the blackened bricks. “You ready?”

  “I guess so. But…you’re sure none of those big, nasty-ass grasshopper looking Seeker things will get us?” Harper looked around anxiously. She really did hate bugs—especially giant ones. And I thought palmetto bugs were bad!

  “None around,” Shad assured her. “We’ll be fine getting in—it’s getting out and making it out of orbit that’s the hard part. Come with me. Oh, and you might want to hold your nose.”

  Before she could ask why he had popped open the front driver’s side door and was pulling her out onto the pitted and cracked pavement below.

  Harper took in a deep breath and nearly gagged. A stench like nothing she’d ever smelled before assaulted her nostrils. It seemed to be made up of rotting garbage, dirty diapers, burning hair, and decomposing corpses.

  “Ugh!” Harper clapped a hand over her mouth and nose to keep from inhaling any more of the horrid miasma and hurried to keep up with the big Kindred who was striding swiftly towards the side door.

  He rapped in quick succession and then stood back, waiting until the door opened a crack and a bright eye peered out. Harper saw with some surprise that the iris had gold and silver rings before the door opened more fully, revealing what could only be a Beast Kindred. He had broad shoulders and a wild mane of black hair streaked with gold.

  “Shad,” he growled in a low, hoarse voice.

  “Daniel—I’m back,” Shad said.

  The strange gold and silver eyes of the Beast Kindred lit with hope.

  “You’ve got the girl? The looper worked?”

  “Yes and yes but it’s complicated,” Shad said. “Let us in before the latest stench Kara and Kaleb whipped up kills us.”

  “Come in then.” The huge Beast Kindred with the strangely mixed eyes and hair stood aside, ushering them into the dark interior of the theater.

  The door slammed shut with a muffled thud and the Beast Kindred bolted and barricaded it behind them.

  “Harper, this is Daniel, our leader,” Shad said, nodding at the other Kindred. “We grew up together—our mothers were best friends on Earth before our fathers called them to the Mother Ship as brides.”

  “Nice to meet you,” the Beast Kindred said gruffly. “You can breathe easy in here. The scent blowers are all outside.”

  Cautiously, Harper lifted her hand from her face and took a small sip of air. The scent inside the old theater was musty and dusty but not nearly as horrible as the rotten miasma outside. What the Beast Kindred had said about “scent blowers” struck her as strange though.

  “So…that smell outside is on purpose?” she asked.

  “Hell yeah.” The Beast Kindred Shad had called Daniel nodded easily. “Pheromones—keeps the Seekers away.”

  “The Seekers aren’t too bright,” a new voice said. A tall Kindred with dark brown hair and green eyes stepped into the limited light. When he spoke, Harper thought she saw a flash of fangs—was he a Blood Kindred then?

  The new male was hand-in-hand with a tall girl with straight, pale blonde hair and ice blue eyes.

  “They aren’t sentient,” she said, as though continuing the male’s thought.

  To Harper’s surprise, she saw that the girl had fangs too. But wasn’t it only Blood Kindred males who had fangs?

  “And everything in the Hive runs on smell,” the male went on, continuing the girl’s sentence.

  “So if you mix the right scents and pheromones together and blow them around the building,” the girl said.

  “You present a very effective deterrent to the Seekers,” the Blood Kindred said.

  “Which means you can keep them away,” they finished together in perfect unison, both sets of fangs winking in the dim light.

  “I think this last batch you two mixed is the most effective yet,” Shad told them. “It’s fucking horrible.” He turned to Harper. “Harper, these two are Kara and Kaleb—they’re twins—the son and daughter of Commander Sylvan who was the head of the Kindred High Council in your timeline. They run our science division.”

  “Such as it is,” Kaleb said. Kara kept silent, staring at Harper in a way so intense her look was almost a glare. At last she spoke.

  “You are the ten’sora. You’re the reason the Hive were able to take over. It’s your fault my parents are dead. Your fault everyone on the Mother Ship is dead.”

  “Hey now, Kara…” Daniel put a hand on her arm but she shook him off.

  “It’s true and you know it.” She looked at Harper coldly but spoke to Shad. “You should have had the Time Warden set the loop to before the Hive found her. You should have gone back and killed her instead of trying to save her. The death of one is preferable to the death of many.”

  “You know that’s not how it works, Kara,” Shad said roughly. “You can’t change the past through violence—only love. The Time Warden himself told me that.”

  “What does he know?” Kara gave Harper one last, hostile glare, bared her fangs and actually hissed at her. Then, still clutching Kaleb’s hand, she turned back and she and her twin disappeared into the darkened husk of the theater.

  “You’ll have to excuse her,” Daniel said roughly. “She’s brilliant but losing her parents—losing all our parents—did something to her. She can’t stand anyone but her twin, Kaleb. Everyone else is the enemy.”

  “Come on,” Shad said. “We need to make a plan so I can get Harper out of here.”

  “This way.” Daniel turned and led the way into the darkness.

  Harper started to follow but stumbled over the uneven floor.

  “Careful.” Shad grabbed her by the hand and pulled her along in his wake. “Step where I step. Some of this place is booby-trapped.”

  Harper stepped carefully after him, wondering what else she would see in the harsh, awful future world.

  Wondering if everything she saw here really was her fault.

  * * * * *

  Shad took a deep breath as Daniel led them through the echoing shell of the main auditorium to the small door under the tall wooden stage. He looked up at it, letting his memory wande