Tower of Light (Under The Cowl Book #2)

CHAPTER 11

     Suburbia was not quite the place Jessica thought she'd stroll into tonight when Mary texted where to meet.

All is quite. An hour till midnight and the street lights ignited the entire block. She didn't grow up living in this kind of cookie cutter neighborhood. But with every house on the block without a single light shining through their closed curtains, an eleven pm curfew felt a bit odd. 

Spooked by the opening of a car door off to the side, Jessica found greetings from Michael Jon Carter and Mary Baston.

"You made it." Michael said with relief. And what Jessica was quick to interpret as his doubts being out to rest.

"My bus was late." her excuse not a very good one given the lantern ring on her finger.

"I told you she would." Mary said in order to change the subject.

"Alright, I was wrong."

"He didn't think you'd show."

"can you blame me. I did make you feel a bombarded at the hospital the other day."

"It's alright." Jessica replied, her curiosity more so focus on other things. "What are we doing here?"

"We would tell you but there are some things we have to keep vague. In order to protect certain timelines from crossing over and interfering with each other, there are some things you can't know. I hope you understand." Michael answered.

"Ok, then what do you want from me?"

"What we need is back up."

"'Back up'?"

"We've come across a certain individual a couple of times where things haven't gone our way." Mary started to explain.

"And we don't have the best relationship with this person," Michael continued, "so it's forced us to go back in time a couple of times and start over."

"What we want from you is to shield a certain house, make sure things don't get destroyed outside the shielded area." Mary finished.

"Seems a little simple."

"It is. Easy job that will have you home on time."

Mary knocked her elbow into Michael for not choosing his words more carefully. 

"Right, sorry." he then remembered that Jessica didn't have a home to go back to.

"Look, I know I can find this Dawnbreaker on my own. But I thought we were going to find the sentient being that killed Casey and the Doom Patrol."

"Other teams are on it." Michael answered, although his answer felt a bit too early on the tongue. "But if this is about Danny, he's safe in the custody of the Collectors of the Fifty-Two."

"Are you two dicking me around?"

Michael's face flushed with various colors of red, no sure how to respond without looking like he's got something to hide. "No, no. We just can't advertise the missions we go on."

"To protect the timeline?"

"Right, you see, you get it."

"Sure." Jessica settled to believe, although she couldn't help but to feel that Michael and Mary's explanation sounded a bit rehearsed. What are they hiding? "So where do you want me?"

"Before that, your ring allows you to go back in time, correct?" Michael asked.

"It does."