Hellbender - Dana Cameron Page 0,2

of rope strands; over them was an elegantly curved roof with wafflelike recesses. It would provide shelter, a clock, a map, perhaps even an ATM that would take one of my cards. Vending machines. My “cousin” Danny had always raved about what was sold in Japanese vending machines, had a web page dedicated to it, because he thought it was an awesome idea to get noodles, beer, and bananas out of a machine, and because he is an enormous geek.

God, I missed him.

I tried to put that out of my mind as I navigated my way across the street, trying to pay attention to traffic coming the wrong way at me. The rain was now coming down in sheets and I thought I could smell the salt air of the ocean. It was just enough like home to make me feel even more miserable.

I pulled my hood up, kept my head down, and managed to make it to the shelter of the station. A clock there told me it was nearly ten at night, October 7, the same day it had been when I woke up in Boston. Even when I’m not brain-dead and hurt, I suck at figuring out time changes, but I eventually worked out that if I added a little time for being unconscious, I’d traveled across the planet in almost no time at all.

I hadn’t stopped time, as I’d hoped to, as I’d done before. All I wanted to do was buy myself a few moments to get my friends out of a booby-trapped building and try and fix things so we could win the fight against the Order and the army of Fellborn they’d unleashed on Boston.

The only conclusion I could come to, based on years of reading science fiction at the library, was that I’d moved in space, rather than time.

I felt my knees give a little. A tremor went through me that I knew had nothing to do with trains rumbling beneath the surface of the station.

If I’d done that, what else might I have done? Is that what took my powers away, or was it that, um, discussion that went so poorly with the Makers? I’d learned about them through Quarrel, who was in communication with them. I’d hoped I might learn something about the Fangborn or my powers.

If I don’t have my powers anymore, maybe I don’t have to worry about all this stuff. Maybe I can just be Zoe, and leave all this mishegas behind . . . politics, strife, dragons, crazy-assed powers, visions . . .

As soon as I had the thought, I was ashamed of myself. People I loved were hurt, maybe dead. I owed them everything I could do to get back and help them.

Now what? Dedication and a good attitude were all well and good but wouldn’t really count for much unless I could find a way to implement them.

I still felt woozy, but that made sense. Something major had happened, and I suspected I should feel a lot worse than I did. Ideas kept spinning around in my head about what I should do next, but the thing that kept coming back to me was: I need to get home. Now.

Right, I’d go to the nearest airport, get a ticket, maybe find a phone charger while I was waiting—

How are you going to do that with no passport, Zoe?

My heart sank as I realized I didn’t have either the passport with my real name, or the fake one Adam Nichols had made up for me before we left for Denmark. I had been fighting the science head of the Order, Dr. Porter; I’d expected to be back at the Fangborn safe house, or dead, by the end of the day. I didn’t expect to find myself on the other side of the planet, instantaneously. And now that I knew it was possible, well, this was going to have to be an object lesson. My brand new motto of “Never go anywhere without being prepared for everything” wouldn’t help me at the moment.

I couldn’t just go to the airport and hope they’d find a way to get me home. I couldn’t just go to an embassy and hope no one would ask how I got into Japan without any documentation—tickets, passport, or visa or whatever. The best I could do was try to get some money, get my phone charged, and call for help. Hope no one took too much interest in me in the meantime.

And