The Wizard's Guide to Timelords and Other Demons Book 1: The Forgotten War

Rose's Diversion

The pain in her shoulder was almost unbearable as she lay still on the floor, pretending to be unconscious for the guards. Toshiko knew she had lost a lot of blood and could feel herself fading in and out of awareness. Stay focused! She told herself. And stay awake!

As if keeping up her concentration through the pain and blood loss were not hard enough, it was made all the more difficult by Rose's incessant wailing. When Toshiko had suggested to Rose that she take advantage of her womanhood to distract the guards, she had assumed that Rose would employ sensuality and seduction to get their attention. She was, after all, a very attractive woman chained up in a room with two young, impressionable, male soldiers. What could go wrong? Instead, the approach that Rose appeared to have ultimately embraced was something that Toshiko would have never expected.

"Help me you idiot!" Rose screamed at the guard with the gun pointed at her, "This baby is coming right now!"

The guard, suddenly confused by all the yelling coming out of the small woman, had no idea what to do, so he decided to fall back on his training. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and fixed its sites on Rose's head.

"Miss, I need you to stop that right now!" the guard shouted.

Alex instantly grasped what Rose was attempting and decided to jump in to support her while she labored.

"Son," Alex said addressing the same guard, "are you so dense that you can't see that this woman is about to give birth?"

The young soldier was even more confused. He had not recalled seeing a pregnant woman in the room when he first entered. Could this be a ruse?

"Corporal!" Alex shouted in a voice of command, "Get down there and help that woman right now or things are really going to get messy! Let's see what your captain thinks about that when he returns!"

"The bewildered corporal laid down his weapon and stepped over to survey the screeching woman, and to perhaps render some kind of assistance. He gestured to the other guard who moved quickly to position himself so that he could cover both Rose and Alex simultaneously with his rifle. This meant that both guards now had their backs turned to Toshiko, who decided that now was the time to make her move.

Exerting all the strength she could muster, Toshiko rolled over from her side to her stomach, and used one leg to push against the floor, inching her way back towards the chair she had fallen from. The pain was excruciating, but Tosh knew she would only have one shot at this and needed to move quickly before the window of opportunity closed for all of them.

Rose continued to play her part well. She had just stopped screaming and was now starting into Lamaze. She breathed deeply in and out, together with Alex who served as coach.

Almost there, Toshiko thought as the pain washed over her shoulder like burning lava.

"Breath honey, that's it! Oh, you're doing great sweetheart!" encouraged Alex.

Rose began screaming again, and her breathing became rapid and shallow. The guards were getting really concerned at this point. They glanced at each other, sharing looks of complete befuddlement.

"Should she push now?" one of the guards asked.

Toshiko had almost reached her desk chair when, to her horror, she saw one of the guards turning around to look back in her direction. Were dead! She thought in a panic. Rose had also seen the guard's move and reacted quickly.

"You!" Rose shrieked between breaths, diverting the guard's attention back to her. "Get me Demerol NOW!"

That had bought Toshiko all the time she needed. With one final, agonizing effort, she pulled herself up by the arm of the chair with her right hand. Then she stretched out her injured arm, and dropped her left hand onto the computer keyboard, managing to strike the Enter key dead on before falling back to the ground where she immediately blacked out.

Toshiko didn't hear the alarms sound as the rift manipulator began sliding up and down. Nor did she feel the ground shake or hear the screaming of the guards as they grasped their heads with their hands in agony and collapsed.

Instead, she rested, peacefully...quietly.

Jack was standing chest-deep in icy cold seawater, shivering. Leaning his back against the fallen clock tower to secure him against the rushing storm surge, Jack hefted the briefcase into the air above his head to prevent it from being swept away by the currents. The glowing yellow thread of light continued to extend from the console inside the case to the rift above, but still, nothing had changed.

"Now would be a good time, Rose!" he shouted into the air, struggling to fight back the cold.

The water level was really rising fast now. It started moving past his shoulders and up his neck.

At least we gave it our best shot! Jack thought, resigned to the reality that he was about to drown. He was afraid now, but not for his life because he knew that he could not die. However, he had been drowned before, and he remembered that it had been really, really, painful.

Jack took one last breath of air as the water reached the top of his chin. He glanced up briefly for a final look at the rift before the surging tide carried his lifeless body away to who knows where. Then he saw it. The glowing ring of the rift opening shrunk rapidly until all that remained was a single point that vanished instantly in an iridescent flash of vibrant colors. It was the most beautiful thing Jack had ever seen.

As if it knew that its work was done, the beam of light projecting into the air from the portable rift manipulator faded immediately. Jack wasted no time removing the manipulator key and then tossing the briefcase into the billowing waves. He took another deep breath before plunging himself into the frigid water. With his eyes tightly closed, Jack's reached for his wrist and pulled back the flap to his vortex manipulator. Then, with the press of a button, Jack abandoned the icy waters of the Bristol Channel in a brilliant blue flash that illuminated the surging seawater for miles in every direction.