The pop of a wine bottle brought her head up, and she smiled at Jack, loving him. The accelerator had been in a research facility outside of Cincinnati, and they’d done well to get in and out with no one the wiser. Preparation and skill had meant there’d been no need for her to draft, transposing a small part of time and space a few seconds into the past in order to erase a mistake. Content, Peri gave Carnac a last fondle about the ears and went to join Jack in the living room. It had been months since she’d needed to draft to rub out what could have been a fatal error, and she enjoyed feeling normal.

“Oh, please tell me you’re joking,” she said as Jack turned on the TV and settled back into the cushions, eyes riveted on the menu as he loaded his latest fix. “Ja-a-a-ack . . .” she moaned as opening credits flowed over the flashing images of an athletic girl and her sidekick parrot, doing a magic spell and catching the sexy vampire. “Can’t you fall in love with something remotely possible?”

Jack’s ears reddened. “Stop making fun of my entertainment. Come sit with me. Have some wine. I got a white this time. We need to expand our palate.”

Brow furrowed, she stood between him and the TV. “You just threaded a technological fence that rivals the Pentagon’s, and you want to watch Dungeons & Dragons?”

Jack tugged her out of the way and down to sit beside him, his eyes never leaving the screen as the slim blonde with her long flowing hair chatted with her vampire girlfriend in a coffee bar. Behind them, two raggedy men with beards growled. Werewolves, apparently. “It’s not Dungeons & Dragons,” Jack said as he shifted closer to her. “This takes place in contemporary America. Cell phones and computers. You’d like it if you’d give it a chance.”

“Computers and cell phones with witches and vampires?” she moaned. “It’s worse than snakes on planes or giant crocs in Lake Placid. That at least has some plausibility.”

He flicked a cross look at her. “It’s not any more unbelievable than you being able to replay thirty seconds of time,” he said, letting her know she’d pushed enough and any more would hurt his tender male ego. “Besides, they aren’t really vampires and witches. They are metaphors for drug kingpins and cops. Everything you like. Sex on a vampire stake.”

“I can draft forty-five seconds into the past. Don’t shortchange me,” she said, peeved as she reached for the wine and filled the waiting glasses. “What is this?” she asked, noticing it was a new label.