Past Tense Book Four: Past Tense, #4

By Odette C. Bell

What goes around comes around. But when you're a past witch, it just keeps coming.

Try as she might, Sally can't stop The Destroyer. Not now he smells blood. It won't take long for him to divide up history, consolidate his power, and come for George.

But Sally has a secret up her sleeve – or stashed in her attic if you want to be specific.

The past book won't let her fail. Her army of historical figures won't let her fail. And most importantly of all, neither will one George Carmichael.

It's time to save him, save the past, and claim the future once and for all.

….

Past Tense follows a rare witch and a clueless detective fighting for each other through time. If you love your urban fantasies with action, heart, and a splash of romance, grab Past Tense Book Four today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: May 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201343927

Book preview

1

There was no way to get out of here.

Or at least, that’s what The Destroyer thought. I could feel his greed wrap around me at the same time as his grip tightened on my neck. Based on the way his fingers cinched in, this was it. He would drag me to the past, use me to break Carmichael’s seal, and be done with it. But I had another plan. As I tilted back through the Hell symbol, I thought I could hear Katie screaming from somewhere. She was technically only on the opposite side of the gate, but it felt as if she was far, far further afield. Hell, the whole city felt like it was disintegrating, piece by piece, as if someone had taken a photo, brought it too close to a flame, then thrown it on the universal winds of time. Weird image, ha? You try to think of something better as your mind is broken apart.

I did it anyway. Because I held on in a way I never had before.

Determination is a curious thing. We often think we have it in abundance. We think we always have it, too. But the imagination can never truly grasp the threats that are waiting outside our front door. If it could, we’d never go outside.

Occasionally, however, your imagination aligns with reality. Every now and then, you can see every single dark thing that awaits you, but for a flash of a second, it doesn’t matter. You draw on the right skills, align with your soul, and realize one thing. As long as you keep digging deep, it will be all right.

You will get there in the end.

First things first, however? You’ll have to fight.

I rammed my body forward. I thought it would be a strong move, and to be fair, it certainly did have an element of pure defiance. But it wasn’t a physically powerful maneuver. It was just enough to bring my eyes close to The Destroyer. He was still infecting Brian’s pupils, but for a spark, I fancied I actually saw The Destroyer within. He had a face. You wouldn’t be surprised to find out that most people do. But his face had changed over the years, disintegrating into nothing more than features.

To be fair, everybody technically has nothing more than features when it comes to their visages. But usually people have a sense of character behind those eyes, their jaws, and their noses. Unique personal senses that shine through. It’s what a witch looks for first. The Destroyer didn’t have one. At some point, he’d given away his outward-facing persona and turned within. Within a world of greed – within, to a world of power.

And it was that world of power that reached out to me now. You can resist all you want, but it will be impossible for you to win. There has never been a wizard more powerful than I. There has never been a force more capable of finally uniting the timeline than I.

Uniting the timeline? I managed to growl as I shoved forward again.

We were spinning through time atop the Hell symbol. It was the spinning part which you had to pay most attention to, because it was a far more confusing experience than any other trip through Hell symbols I’d ever had. I swore I could see history fracturing around us. From wars to births to deaths to everything in between. It was this milieu of total confusion. If I hadn’t been a past witch, I would’ve passed out myself. Or, you know, just puked all over The Destroyer. As it was, I bared my teeth at him. Nobody can unite the timeline. It’s already united through the tapestry of nature—

Weak words from a weak-willed witch. You should never have accessed the glimmer realm. And when you did, you should have run away when you had the chance. You are an idiot for thinking that you have the ability to defeat me. All you will do is wind up at my feet – a path—

I’m nobody’s path. I could feel us being sucked back to that point in history where The Destroyer kept his base. I didn’t imagine we would stay there long. It would be but the equivalent of a brief stopover. Somewhere to land, somewhere for him to recalibrate, then somewhere for him to launch the battle of the century – or the centuries – from.

It was now or never, in other words. I thrust against him again. It was explosive. I used all the force my fragile form had. It was insufficient, yet somewhere right at the edge of the Hell symbol, crackling just out of the corner of my peripheral vision, I saw a crack. Slight, but there.

I didn’t know why it was taking us longer to travel back in time through the Hell symbol, but I imagined it was because of our fight. Therefore, the more I fought, the longer I’d have to fight.

I did it again, gathering up all of my strength and thrusting it at him. On my other side, right at the edge of the Hell symbol, there was another crack. This echoed out just a fraction louder, but fortunately, The Destroyer was in no frame of mind to pay attention to it. All he wanted to do was rip my jugular out. That would have to wait until after I removed Carmichael’s seal.

Carmichael was born for one thing.

What, to host you? To give your body greater force by possessing him? Exactly who are you, where do you come from, and why, I growled, finding another rocket of explosive personal force and intending to use it, do you think you will automatically win?

Because I have never lost before. The Destroyer brought Brian’s face close. He growled. The skin around his lips couldn’t take the move – there was too much stress and strain. It actually cracked right in front of me, and I saw these hairline fissures of red dart up toward his temples.

Brian should’ve taken the option of kicking The Destroyer out of his mind while he’d had the chance. Now the poor idiot would have to watch on the inside as his body was driven toward a wall – the equivalent of a car being crashed right into the back of a semitrailer.

If he had a body left when this was over, it would be nothing more than jelly.

There’s no way I’m going to help you. And there’s no way you’re going to unite time, whatever that means. Time belongs to nature. They go hand-in-hand. Go against the natural flows, and you’ll have more than past witches to worry about.

There are no other guardians. Archibald can do nothing against me. Where is he now, past witch? Are you not his enduring love? But do you see him? Can he reach out to save you? No. You are finally on your own. And you will finally succumb.

With a scrunch, he now wrapped his fingers around my throat so tightly, I was pretty sure that he could keep going and squeeze the head off of the world, too. Beads of sweat slid down my brow. They splashed into my lips. They were salty like tears.

And hell, maybe they had to stand in for my tears, because I simply didn’t have the breath or strength to do anything else than stare into his malignant gaze.

I thought I could see a flash of the future, too – a glimpse of the last page of his warped, crooked picture book of hate. He’d take me to that tunnel. Carmichael’s seal would be removed, and… everything would be The Destroyer’s. Why aim for just one period of history? Why aim for just one period of power? Why not get them all? Brian was an idiot. Sure, his goal might be to go back into history to become Ramses – might be to claim some of the greatest power anyone had ever had. It was irrelevant when compared to everything combined across the entirety of human history.

It’s fools who only mine gold in one hole. It is geniuses, however, who buy the gold company to own it all.

2

My grand plan to fight The Destroyer wasn’t working out.

Yes, the sides of the Hell symbol were cracking, but no, I hadn’t saved myself yet. I was tipping further back toward that dark period in medieval history. I think I could even smell the less-than-appealing scents of rotting manure, horses, and sweat.

I heard the rustle of trees, maybe the call of a dragon or two.

An adrenal kick of fear surged through my stomach, telling me this was it. I needed to get out of here now. But The Destroyer simply doubled down, wrapping his fingers around my throat so hard, I would have permanent indents.

He lifted me up off the Hell symbol, and my feet dangled above it. Light surged beneath me. It suddenly rose high as if I had been thrust over the mouth of an exploding volcano. Here we are at the end. He threw me to the side. I could see that period of medieval history opening out just behind me.

This was it. My last chance. On paper, I didn’t even have a last chance. We arrived, but just before I could be thrown back into that farmhouse, I shoved a hand to the side.

I grabbed the very edge of the Hell symbol, pushing my fingers in, taking advantage of the fact that I had some unique ability to interact with them. I still hadn’t actually figured out how. I’d assumed it was because of my connection to Archibald. But I’d found out that my connection was nothing more than one of somebody who came from the same area.

So my ability to interact with Hell symbols had to be beyond that.

As my fingers dug into the edge of this one, I felt its crackling force push back. It didn’t eject me off the side, but it did surge around my fingers, an invitation, but a dangerous one. I needed to prove I had the power to control it. If I didn’t, The Destroyer would win.

Everything came to a point, flashing through my mind, getting faster, egging me on. This was it, damn it.

I closed my eyes once. I thought of Carmichael.

Theoretically he was back there, back there waiting to learn everything. And maybe back there to teach me everything, too. Because if I could just remove the hold on his memories, maybe he would finally be able to tell me who I’d once been to him. It was that, more than anything, that saw me twitch. Just as The Destroyer thrust forward to stamp on my hand, I pushed my other hand up.

I didn’t grab The Destroyer’s arm and pull him off the Hell symbol. I settled my fingers over my heart. Quaint and kind of stupid, considering the fight I was in – but I put my whole witchy force behind it.

Hope broke around me. Hope and power. They combined to force my magic out of me in a wave.

It was deceptively slight as if all I had done was blow on The Destroyer. But it had an effect on the Hell symbol. Suddenly the pernicious red glow changed. It became subtler, softer like a rose.

And the energy wafting off it in every single direction through this broken realm of history altered itself. The chaotic flows became ordered. The flashes stopped. In their place, I saw this steady path through history – maybe only one I could take and only I could see.

The very last thing I should do was throw myself off the Hell symbol. But the farmhouse was no longer behind me. History had altered.

I had been warned not to let go of Hell symbols. I would not heed that warning anymore. I looked up at The Destroyer. I’m gonna come for you, and this time, I’m gonna win. There is nothing you can do. You, I looked right at him, meaning every single word from the bottom of my soul, will be defeated once and for all.

With that, I let go. The last thing I heard was him screaming. Weirdly, he almost sounded like he was concerned for me, though of course the only thing he was concerned about was the fact that he would never find me again and his plan would finally be defunct.

As I let go, I slipped back into… into… I don’t know. I couldn’t describe it. Time? History? Life? The natural flows of everything?

Words suddenly had to take a back seat. Nothing could come close to describing the feelings and sights that ran through and around me.

If you took every single page of a history book, if you shredded them and threw them in the air, and if you danced under them at the heart of a tornado, maybe, just maybe, you’d come close to experiencing what I was now. But even then, you would lack one thing. The utter sense of significance that whirled around me, climbed me, and seemed to use me as a ladder to reach the stars.

I had been thrown about by history before. I’d been crushed by it, defeated by it, and lifted up by it. I had never been mesmerized by it as I was now. This was like standing at the foot of a mountain, at the beginning of an epic path, and looking up and seeing everything stretching out before you.

But it wasn’t a journey you had to take on your own. It was a relay race. Every time you failed or didn’t think you could go on, you could hand the baton on to another, and the human race would continue.

It was incredible. Seriously incredible. But wasn’t I missing something here? Oh yeah, the fact I was freefalling through it.

That fact, however, had not forgotten me. It reinstated itself as I finally saw the Hell symbol disappear for good. It shot away to my left – the last thing I would ever hear The Destroyer screaming from the very top of his lungs.

And then… chaos. Pure and simple. It was kind of cool to be in the arms of history for a bit, but then the fear set in.

I tumbled backward and forward, having no direction, having zero sense whatsoever of where I was and how to get out of here.

Just before I could scream again, my shout ripping from my throat to join The Destroyer’s fear-filled shriek, something happened. Tendrils of light pushed out from my fingers.

Just when it seemed as if I didn’t have anything whatsoever to hold on to, little images from history started to hold on to me.

It felt like being thrown into a picture book only for the pages to rip themselves out, dry your tears, grab you by the hand, and lead you forward.

My hair fluttered around me, my clothes came loose, but no matter what the powerful forces did, that sense of history was always there to grab me by the hand and lead me on.

I cried my last tear, screamed my last scream, and then just… experienced it. I tilted back, head extending out, shoulders becoming loose as I felt it all on fast forward.

This… this was why I’d been born. I suddenly knew that no one else, aside from the most powerful past witches, could ever experience this. Ordinary humans wouldn’t even be able to come close. For this was what it felt like to be embraced by everyone’s past and carried through into the arms of the future.

Maybe I should’ve thought this through, tried to figure out what was going on, and done something active. There was no point. My grandmother had often warned me that the most powerful things in our life don’t require us to plan or fight or defend. They require one thing and one thing alone. Surrender. And that is what I gave history now.

It accepted it