The Observer Effect is the third installment in Nick Jones’s Joseph Bridgeman series, which releases on March 15th from Blackstone Publishing. Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and the prologue from The Observer Effect!
Time calls the shots.
Unwitting time traveler Joseph Bridgeman is adjusting to life in the present and wondering if his traveling days are behind him. But when he’s contacted by the Continuum, an organized group of time travelers based in the future, he learns his career is just getting started.
The Continuum needs Joe’s help. One of their operatives is missing, last seen in nineteenth-century Paris, and they believe Joe’s ability to see the past might be the only way to find him. Teamed up with Gabrielle Green, an acerbic, wisecracking traveler, Joe heads back to 1873 on his most dangerous mission yet, one that will take him deep inside a burning opera house.
But how will Joe succeed when his new companion clearly hates his guts, the missing traveler disappears the second anyone sets eyes on him, and a familiar foe threatens to trap them in the past for good? With help on hand from his best friend, Vinny, and mysterious clues hidden in his sister Amy’s paintings, Joe must hone his gift, develop new skills, and figure out a way to complete his mission before the blazing inferno comes crashing down around them all.
Prologue
April 12, 1567
Macau
trading hub between china and the west
The woman takes refuge beneath the branches of a camphor tree, a welcome relief from the searing midday sun. She raises a spyglass to her eye. On the back of her right hand, near the base of the thumb, there’s a birthmark in the shape of a star. Adjusting the eyepiece, she focuses on the marketplace in the valley below. The streets are packed with people carrying flacons of wine, rolls of colored silks, and baskets of fruit. Gangs of children tumble and play, acting out sword fights with sticks. Her attention is drawn to a barefoot young man pushing a barrow loaded with wooden boxes. She watches him navigate the labyrinth of winding streets until he reaches the broad harbor where a magnificent galleon, the Victoria, is moored, due to set sail at 1 p.m.
There are stacks of boxes and containers on the quay, and tiny figures carry the last of them in carts up the gangplank and down into the Victoria’s hold. Farther out to sea, a great Portuguese carrack cuts through the waves like a giant sea monster, heading for Lisbon with its cargo.
Bringing her focus back to the crowded marketplace, the woman methodically sweeps her gaze across the square as tension mounts in her chest. Checking her watch, she tuts impatiently. Where is he? Taking the spyglass away, she squints into the distance, and that’s when she finally spots him near the church of Santo Antonio. He stands out, with his tall frame, pale skin, and white-blond hair. Nils Petersen. Lifting the glass to her eye again, she focuses in. He’s talking to a sailor, a bald man with dark, weather-beaten skin and arms covered in tattoos. She can’t hear their conversation—they must be at least a thousand yards away—but Nils is gesticulating energetically, and the sailor is nodding.
She checks her watch. It’s 12:45 p.m. “OK, Nils, time to go,” she mutters. Tucking her spyglass into the leather satchel slung across her body, she picks up her skirts and carefully descends the rocky slope toward the town. Everything has gone perfectly so far. She doesn’t want any mishaps now.
As she approaches the square, the smell of spice hits her nostrils, tempered by the foul stench of the leather tannery a few streets away. She pauses beneath a row of fig trees, covers her face with a scarf until only her eyes are visible, then waits in the shade, holding the satchel tightly against her side. Nils Petersen appears, working his way through the crowd with a determined expression. He passes her, walks across the bustling square, and slips into a quiet, narrow alleyway that leads to the harbor. She follows him, keeping her distance, the sea breeze a welcome change from the dry heat up in the hills. Ahead, two Jesuit priests dressed in long black robes, heavy crucifixes hanging against their chests, block Nils’s path. Their full beards disguise their faces, and it’s almost impossible to tell one from the other, although one has a slightly heavier build.
Ducking behind a stack of baskets, the woman watches. She can’t hear what’s being said, but the voices are stern and angry. The stockier priest grabs Nils’s arm and punches him, and his legs give way. The other priest pulls a sack out from under his robe and tugs it over Nils’s head. Nils puts up a fierce fight, but he’s no match for the two men. He doubles over as one of them knees him viciously in the stomach. The heavyset priest kicks open a low door in the wooden shack just behind him, then he and his companion bundle Nils through it and slam it shut behind them.
The woman waits, her heart beating loudly in her ears. After a couple of minutes, the priests emerge, pull the door roughly shut behind them, and walk off down the street. One of them dabs at his bloody nose with a white kerchief. It seems Nils put up a decent fight—good for him. The church bell strikes 1 p.m., and the woman stands up, brushes dust off her skirts, then makes her way across the square into the alleyway and pushes through the wooden door.
The room is dark and after the harsh midday sun, it takes a few seconds for her sight to adjust. Even through her scarf, she can smell the foul stench of rotten fish. A tumble of old fishing nets is heaped on the floor beside her, and coils of rope hang loosely from rusted hooks along the wall. Shafts of sunlight from holes in the roof cut through the swirling dust and throw patches of light on the scuffed earthen tiles, and she sees Nils slumped on the floor in the far corner, his legs bound and his hands fastened to a metal ring in the wall. His clothes are stained with mud, sand, and patches of blood, and he’s been gagged with a dirty piece of cloth. She adjusts her scarf, ensuring that Nils won’t be able to distinguish her features, and approaches him. He looks up at her, his face beaded in sweat, hair slick against his forehead.
“Where is your watch?” she asks him.
He tries to speak, but only anxious grunts come out.
“Show me.”
He stares at her in mutinous silence. She shakes her head. “You’re just slowing things down unnecessarily,” she admonishes him. She scans the room, then walks over to a pockmarked wooden bench beneath a small shuttered window. Nils’s watch lies faceup on a navy silk cloth. She examines it appreciatively. She hasn’t seen one like this before. Its face is nothing special, but its body is fashioned from copper and decorated with engravings of strange, otherworldly creatures and strings of runes, which flicker and gleam as she swings the timepiece this way and that in the half-light.
Nils tries to speak again, this time more urgently. Placing the watch back down on the bench, she walks over to him and removes the gag. He spits pieces of thread, coughing as he speaks.
“Who— Who are you?” he gasps. “What do you want with my watch? Untie me!” He struggles violently to free himself from his bonds. “I must get to the Victoria before she sails! What time is it?”
She checks the watch again. “Ten past one.”
His face crumples as he leans his head against the wall. “It’s too late.” He nods at the watch. “Take it if you want. It’s a worthless trinket.”
“You and I both know that’s not true, Nils. And if I did take it, it wouldn’t stay with me for long, would it?”
She senses his confusion, as well as his curiosity. “Who the hell are you?” he says again.
She regards him impassively. “I thought like you once, before I saw the truth, then I realized there was another way.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Things are rarely what they seem.” She leans in, and even though her face is covered, her eyes betray a hidden smile. “You’ve failed your mission, but I’m here to give you a second chance.
