Downtime Page 38

  When I woke, I thought at first I was alone. Then I saw Ezra sitting beside me and I knew by his fleeting smile as he got up and put on his coat that he'd been watching me sleep, making a memory when he ought to be letting them go. We had a quiet breakfast together, everyone else gone off to work, including Hannah who was upstairs somewhere probably lugging around her pail of coal. I had a feeling she was avoiding me. At least Kathleen wasn't. She greeted us with a brisk good morning as she came into the kitchen with a basketful of washed sheets. I realized she was going outside to hang them up and I offered to help.

  "Good heavens. It's as well you're leaving before I find myself dependent on a lodger willing to lend a pair of hands."

  The look she gave Ezra made me laugh, and Ezra flush to his collar. "I do beg your pardon, Kathleen. Of course I will help you put up the wash, if you like," he said contritely, then kicked me under the table.

  As I nursed my shin, Kathleen looked us over dubiously. "I suppose I may entrust the two of you to the task. The lines and pegs are in the bag. Remember to hang the sheets short side to the wind, if you please."

  We strung the lines up in a sunny corner of the garden and, hampered by a brisk wind, I showed Ezra how to smooth the sheets and hang them. He found the whole process amusing, judging by his grin as I struggled with Kathleen's primitive pegs. Windblown and laughing, he stole one last kiss behind a wall of white linen, then headed for the house before either of us could get maudlin about it. I went upstairs to make sure I had everything I'd arrived with; and ended up lingering a few minutes in Ezra's room, just looking around. So much had happened in the space of two weeks, it felt like I'd lived here far longer than that.

  "Ready to go?"

  He was making this as easy for me as he could. My eyes burned and I took a quick swipe at them before I turned to him and nodded. If he noticed any telltale moisture in my eyes, he didn't say anything. I figured we'd take the bus to the Theosophical Society but Ezra hailed a cab--to give us a little more time alone, I knew, when he slipped his hand into mine. Corinna was ever her buxomy, cheerful self as she greeted us in the foyer of the Society's offices, cradling a large, leather-bound book in her arms. I felt relief and regret. I was leaving behind some real friends--but I was going home. And for a while, I'd been thinking I'd never get home again.

  Corinna hefted our prize higher on her hip as she came toward us. "Well, my dears, you're quite fortunate that Charles had your book in his possession."

  "Fortunate, indeed," Ezra agreed as if he were genuinely pleased Charles had been successful. "I'm grateful to you for your complicity. It was rather a lot to ask--"

  "Ah, but you are to give us a lecture, do not forget." She paused at the commotion coming from the hallway. "Good heavens, who can be--"

  She promptly got an answer when an agitated guy, all arms and legs in a too-small black suit, burst through the door and just about lit into Ezra on the spot. "You! I should have known it was you." Corinna got a baleful look for that transgression, but it was mild compared to the boiling wrath Charles--I assumed it was Charles--poured over Ezra. "You take me to task for my occult collection and then go about borrowing the self same volumes!" He pulled the book out of Corinna's hands and clasped it to his chest. "Maybe no one else in this tight little club will stand up to you, but I shall."

  "For heaven's sake," Ezra said, "I only wanted to borrow the thing for a day or two. I do not mean to venture into the occult. Intentionally, anyway," he added with a rueful smile for me.

  "I know just what you intend," Charles retorted. "You've had your fun making me out the villain and now you'll insist that dabbling in magicks is a fit pursuit for gentlemen after all, so you might poke about in it as you like."

  I swallowed a groan, along with the temptation to take the book from him and hustle Ezra off to the museum. But Charles was excited enough to put up a fight--or worse, go running for the police. Ezra didn't look as worried as I felt and I wondered if he had a way around this that I hadn't thought of.

  "Charles, I give you my word I'll do no such thing."

  Yeah, I hadn't thought of that; because it wouldn't have worked in my own time. Ezra's was another matter. Charles still looked suspicious, but there was a considering gleam in his eye. "A start," he allowed.

  Ezra sighed. "What else, then?"

  "You'll let it be known that you consider my work respectable. And you'll admit to me and everyone else that you've been unfair to state otherwise. If you intend to begin lectures again, you'll apologize to me publicly and you'll defend me and my work to anyone who still thinks ill of me. If you're going to poke your nose about, Glacenbie, then I'll use your reputation to my advantage."

  "Charles," Corinna murmured in disbelief.

  Ezra seemed amused but uneasy too. "You see more in my reputation than I do. And I never said your work was not respectable. Just merely dangerous."

  "Be that as it may," Charles said with an impatient jerk of his head. "I also want that book you won at the auction in August."

  Ezra's faint smile faded. "Anything else? A pound of flesh, perhaps?"

  "That will do for now. What do you say?"

  Musing on the ever-growing possibility of laying this guy out with one well-placed right to the jaw, I dropped my attention to the book in his arms as something about it nagged at my mind. I had the weird feeling I'd seen it before, but I couldn't have unless--aw, shit. I grabbed Ezra and turned him away from Charles and toward me. "Remember that book you described for me at the library?"

  He stared at me blankly. "What? I don't--"

  "In the museum library. You couldn't recall the title, but you described the book. Can you remember what you said?"

  His brows drew together. "I said the cover was green, dark green, and the cloth torn at the front corner..." His attention shot to the volume in Charles' hands, then up at Charles as that altogether rare anger surfaced. "Right out from under our noses--"

  "Whoa, Ezra, slow down." I hated to stop him just when he was getting started and God knew Charles deserved it, but there was a better way. "You wouldn't happen to know a fellow by the name of Whitby, would you, Charles?"

  Corinna perked up. "Adam Whitby?" she inquired and Charles blanched. The book crushed to his chest, he looked around with furtive anxiety.

  "I've bought books from Whitby," he blurted out when it was clear he couldn't get away without some kind of explanation. "What of it?"

  I tried not to smile at the defensive tone. "You bought the books and of course you didn't know that Whitby was stealing them from the museum." I paused as Corinna gasped a very unladylike word in German and hastily put a hand over her mouth.

  With a little more effort, I maintained my Fed face. "I suppose you've documented your purchases?"

  He ran fingers through the greased hair that had fallen into his eyes, making a prickly mess of it. Shifting the book in a looser grip, he shrugged his thin shoulders. "I did not think it necessary," he said finally, determined to stick with his story.

  Though it was better left to the police to sort out, I didn't want the book ending up in their custody. "Didn't think it was necessary, huh? You think Inspector Saffery will believe that any more than we do?"

  "Call in the police if you want," Charles muttered. "You'll prove nothing against me. Here, take the damned book." Suddenly it was in Ezra's hands and Charles was making a hasty exit from the office. He got as far as the door before I nabbed his coattails and putting him nose to the glass, cuffed his wrists behind him. I asked Corinna to find a policeman and as soon as she'd gone, shared a relieved grin with Ezra. "How fast can you copy?"

  It took him a few minutes to find the spell he'd used to pull me back and longer to figure out how to reverse it to send me home. It would have taken even longer with Charles' whining and haranguing, but the sight of my Glock shut him up and let Ezra transcribe in peace. Ez was still scratching Latin rapidly on a scrap of paper when Corinna came back with a constable whom she'd apparently apprised of th
e situation. I slipped the cuffs off Charles and let the constable snap his own pair on in their place. Ezra looked worried as he joined me outside the office. "I hope I shall be able to read my own writing."

  "I hope so, too. Breaking into the police station to get the book back isn't such a hot alternative." But we made it to the museum with time to spare. No one had arrived for our lunch meeting and we found Henry hard at work. He was pleased to learn we'd recovered the stolen book and even seemed mildly regretful at the prospect of my departure. He rattled on about it as we followed him back to the storage room. Ezra, I noticed, hadn't said a word since we'd hooked up with Henry; not even to tell Henry to behave himself whenever a snide remark slipped past. I couldn't blame him. I wasn't much in a frame of mind for conversation, myself.

  When Derry arrived, and then Kathleen with Hannah in tow, we went for a somber lunch at a nearby noisy restaurant. Our trek back to the museum was even more solemn, with only Derry keeping up a steady flow of chitchat to try to lighten the mood. The moment had come and I was more nervous than excited by the idea of being hurtled through time again, even though it meant going home. And I felt weirdly lost when I thought about leaving behind people I'd become so fond of, knowing I'd never see them again.

  "We shall have to make this quick," Henry said as we slipped into the storage room. "I think Mr. Brooke would quite give us the sack if he came upon us casting spells in the middle of the workday."

  To say the least. But as quick as our good-byes needed to be, I couldn't rush them. I started with the easiest. "Henry, old pal. What can I say?" Certainly not that I'd miss him. Okay, he hadn't been a total asshole; he'd helped us pin down Ezra's dad and I had to give him credit for that. But I didn't feel close to the guy and I wasn't going to pretend otherwise.

  Henry, for his part, looked me over as if he felt just as ambivalent about my leaving as he'd said earlier. "You do realize, of course, that if Derry had put forth any real effort, we would have won that race," he said with an indignant little sniff.

  "Yeah, I do." I smiled and held out a hand and he, after a momentary hesitation, took it. I turned to Kathleen, then noticed Hannah peeking out from behind her. I gave her shoulder a soft squeeze. "Sorry, Hannah. Don't stay mad at me too long, okay? I'll miss you, kiddo."

  Hannah blinked back her tears and hid her face against Kathleen's coat. A similar gleam shone in Kathleen's eyes, though she was furtively dabbing away with a handkerchief.

  "I feel like I ought to apologize to you, too," I ventured.

  "Nonsense. My lodgers generally move on at some point and it's a fact of life I'm accustomed to."

  "Yeah." I grinned. "I'll miss you, too." I gave her a hug, whether it was good manners or not. She didn't seem to mind and patted my shoulder in a motherly way before dropping her gaze to dab at her eyes again.

  Derry wasn't so self-conscious over his tears. He pulled me into a hug and sucked in a long ragged breath to try to steady his voice just enough to talk. "I'll meet up with you again on another day, Morgan Nash, on another road. We'll sit down to a beer, cold if you like, and laugh, 'til the tears we shed are the happy ones they cannot be just now." He drew back to look at me, eyes deep misty gray, and smiled from ear to ear. "I'm pleased to have known you."

  "I sure hope we do meet again. I love you guys. All of you." I couldn't keep my own tears down without choking on them. It was time to go, before I had everyone bawling. I turned to Ezra to see he'd taken in all the farewells with a calm, waiting air. "Sully's not here, is he?"

  Ezra shook his head with mute sympathy. Ah well--how many good-byes did I really need to say? One thing I knew, none of them were as difficult as this last one. His blue eyes gave away very little as Ezra steered me to the spot where I'd first appeared, two weeks before. The others gathered in a circle around me as I struggled for the words to tell Ezra good-bye. Suddenly Hannah lunged forward and wrapped both arms tight around my middle. I put my arms around her and held on, wishing for the words to make it easier for her. Kathleen slipped up behind her and gently drew her away to a corner of the room and I was glad they hadn't left altogether. I wanted to see them in the last moment before 1888 became a memory--if it would be even that, once I was home.

  There was only one thing left to do. "Ez..."

  He placed a slim volume in my hands and looked at me fondly, a flash of humor in his eyes. "I hold to the notion it would have been less trouble to conjure a demon."

  "For damned sure," I agreed. "Ezra--"

  "You'll stand just here, then, and please don't talk, for heaven's sake, or I'll lose my place and like as not send you to the moon." He grimaced. "Just stand still, close your eyes, and think of home. Right. We're ready, then."

  He stepped back between Derry and Henry and put all his attention into the copied spell in his hands. As quietly intoned Latin fell upon my ears, I wanted to go to Ezra and wrap him in one last hug--but it was too late for that. I could feel it starting already, the slow rolling sensation and the accompanying nausea in the pit of my stomach. My vision swam and I blinked rapidly, trying to see them all once more.

  I could only see Ezra, his curly head bent over the trembling slip of paper as he let one word follow another. I didn't think I could keep on my feet but somehow I did, long enough to catch his eye as he lifted his head and looked my way. But he didn't see me. I knew because the pain he'd been hiding from me stood starkly in his eyes. It was loss stamped forever in my memory as he vanished from sight, the past vanishing with him.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I woke to the sound of steady beeping and knew I was home. Nothing beeped like that in 1888. The tubes sticking out of me and the antiseptic smell confirmed I'd landed in the hospital. My assumption that I'd survived the trip home was a little less sure when I opened my eyes to see Sully standing beside me.

  "You are one hell of a pain in the ass to look after, you know that don't you?"

  "It's been brought to my attention a few times in the past thirty years," I answered automatically as another part of my mind wondered how I could see what I was seeing. Despite the comment, the lines of his heavy-jowled face were unusually placid, almost amused behind the familiar veneer of weary aggravation. He was the Sully Ezra had met...

  Ezra. The memories were all there, all still intact. I sucked in a breath and tried to concentrate on the present. "What's up, Sully? Am I home? And by home, I mean--"

  "I know what you mean. You're still in the land of the living, yeah. I just wanted to grab a minute of your time before you regain consciousness."

  "Oh." I felt pretty damn conscious already, but what the hell. "Couldn't get through to anyone about Gladstell, huh?"

  "Sweet Jesus," Sully muttered and leaned heavily against the bed rail. "You haven't got a whole lot of time to get this done, Agent Nash, so pay attention. It's already gotten around that you've been found alive and comatose--"

  "What?"

  "Shut up and listen to me, Morgan. You and I are the only ones who know Gladstell's their recruitment-in-place and neither of us is in any kind of shape to bust his ass. Tell Faulkner you're going to need a round the clock lookout and you're going to have to look out for yourself, because Gladstell's goal is to get you out of the picture."

  "What about Nosik?"

  "He's still on the loose. But right now, Gladstell's a little more worried about you."

  "He's looking for me?"

  "Oh yeah. His handlers want to bury you someplace cold and deep, as soon as they can get their hands on you. I can't do any more than I've done already--"

  "Whoa. Wait a second." Struggling to do more than process Sully's instructions, I found myself piecing a bigger puzzle into place. "You saved my ass in the museum?"

  He exhaled, more of a groan than a sigh. "Yeah. I didn't like the idea. I knew the Ripper would be one hell of a temptation for you, but there wasn't much I could do--so the powers that be moved you to a safe house. So to speak."

  I stared at him. "In 1888?"

&nbs
p; "In 1888." He rubbed a hand over his face. "Guess they figured whatever you had to learn, you could pick up there just as well. I just wanted your butt out of the line of fire until I could get through to you. I didn't count on you falling for my go-between."

  "I came back, didn't I?"

  Sully stared at me and I realized how annoyed I'd sounded. I shook my head impatiently. "I came back to do my job. You can bitch at me for everything else but that."

  "I'm not bitching at you, kid. I'm trying to keep you alive."

  "Is that why you told me to drop the Ripper case?"

  "They didn't send you back to change history, Morgan. You could have caused some serious damage if it had gotten out that not only was Eddy screwing boys, he'd slept with the Ripper himself a few times. Yeah, I know--I don't like burying the truth any more than you do. But a fatal blow to the monarchy would have had long-ranging consequences I couldn't let you be responsible for."

  "Just going back, I must have changed a few things," I said, a little afraid to hear that I had.

  Sully nodded, but without much concern. "Just in ways that are inconsequential, so they say. Right now, you need to worry about your own future. You're home, but you're not home free. Watch your ass, 'cause I didn't go to all this trouble just to have you show up in the afterlife this early in the game."

  "Sully, don't go. I wanted to tell you--"

  "Ah, hell." He rolled his eyes but I could see the smile pulling at his mouth. "You're not going to get sentimental on me just because I'm over here and you're over there? Go on. Wake up. Live the rest of your damn life already and let me get some peace."

  A weird little jolt, like the kind that sometimes woke me when I was nearly asleep, hit all of a sudden and what had felt like consciousness a second ago dissolved into a wakefulness that felt decidedly less comfortable. My head ached and my stomach was not too happy, either. Sully was gone and a scrawnier but equally scowling face with cheeks and nose nearly as red as the thinning hair appeared in my line of sight. The lips tightened with the faintest sign of concern. Genuine concern and he was letting it show. I had to be near death.