Time Crossed: A Time Thief Novella (A Penguin Special from Signet) Read online

  Found her, I texted to Peter. Kleibscheimer’s here, but just paid tab. Now he’s leaving.

  Great. You stick with her. I’ll follow him, he texted back.

  I waited for a few minutes, then decided it would be less suspicious if I was outside when I began to follow Magdalena Owens. Accordingly, I finished my beer and strolled outside, taking up a position at the end of the street, which handily had a thick cement wall the right height for sitting.

  Ten minutes went by, and there was no sign of my prey. I sauntered past the pub, casually glancing in, froze for a second, then yanked the door open and stumbled inside.

  It was empty except for an old man and his dog in a far corner.

  “You didn’t happen to see—” I started to ask the barkeep, but the words stopped when the pinky red–haired woman burst out of the ladies’ room, muttering under her breath about the abuse of trust.

  “Gents loo?” I asked the barman.

  He jerked his head toward the small hallway down which the dark-haired Owens had gone. I glanced over my shoulder at the door to the ladies and plunged in, prepared to offer apologies should it be occupied.

  There were two stalls, both of which were empty. A small window sat close to the ceiling, too small for the well-curved woman who’d sashayed past me. Dammit, she must have used one of her spells to get out of the pub unseen.

  I hurried out of the pub, quickly scanning the street for either woman.

  “There’s a little problem,” I said into my phone a few minutes later as I jogged down the line of shops fronting the tiny harbor that was Malwod-Upon-Moistness.

  “What sort of problem?”

  “I lost Owens. She went into the ladies toilet, and evidently disappeared.”

  “Disappeared how? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. We’re on the beach to the northeast of town. Go past the harbor and swimming area, and there’s a ribbon of rocky beach you follow. If your prey is on the move, she’s likely coming this way.”

  I slowed down from my trot, careful not to draw attention while I scanned the women who were busily shopping, strolling, or marching along the small rocky beach in obvious search for a spot to lie out and sunbathe.

  None of them were the beauty I’d seen. Mentally, I reviewed the information—such as it was—we had on her. Other than her name and profession (practicing Wiccan), we knew little other than what an informant had told Peter: the mortal Kleibschiemer made it known that he was in the market for the magic effects known by the popular brand names Romulan Cloaking Spell and Houdini’s Famous Escape-o-Matic Incantation. And since one woman had been recently charged with the selling of those magics (and subsequently paroled for some reason that Peter and I hadn’t been able to ascertain), it seemed likely that she was back in business.

  “Where are you?” I murmured as I continued to walk along the cement wall that kept the tide back from the street above. Women of all shapes, sizes, and ages were arranged on the beach, but none of them gave off a whiff of anything but sunscreen and sun-warmed flesh. I continued to walk along the beach until it petered out, the cliffs that lined either side of the small town suddenly looming up and consuming almost all the shore. A thin, narrow strip of land, littered with tree stumps washed ashore, caught up on jagged boulders that despite the restless waves were sharp enough to cut the soles of most shoes to shreds. I picked my way carefully down the narrow lip of land, avoiding both the tide (which was going out), slimy debris that lay in rotting, salty clumps, and the razorlike rocks. Ahead of me, the base of the cliff had been washed out, leaving the upper portion overhanging like a medieval house. Bare roots dangled in midair testifying to the power of the incessant surf as it slowly, inevitably washed away the dirt.

  I looked upward, trying to judge just how dangerous that overhang was. It didn’t look like it was going to come crashing down on me at any moment, but I wasn’t willing to take the chance that it would. I edged my way into the wet rocks, and focused my attention on the two figures ahead of me, neither of which were female.

  Peter was keeping well to the cliff face itself, moving slowly and cautiously after Kleibschiemer. The latter approached a rickety wooden staircase that zigzagged its way up to the top of the cliff. Despite the distance from him, I threw myself down next to a large piece of driftwood tree trunk as the man approached the base of the stairs. He glanced up and down the beach in a furtive manner, then not seeing Peter (who was pressed against the cliff) or me, he began climbing, and in a few minutes, had reached the top of the cliff. He disappeared from view.

  I stood up. Peter waved an arm at me, and took off at a sprint toward the stairs. I followed, but a minute later my phone rang.

  “Stay there,” was the whispered order. “Stay down on the beach.”

  I had just about reached the wooden staircase, but stopped, glancing back over my shoulder. “Why? Owens isn’t here.”

  “There’s no way for anyone to get up here but the stairs. There’s a second cliff above this. Where I’m hiding is a little hollow with a few trees and that’s it. I’ve got Kleibschiemer in view, but he doesn’t see me. Owens has to come up from below.”

  “Right. Taking cover now.” I clicked off my cell phone and moved over to the shadow of the cliff, searching for a likely boulder behind which I could hide, when suddenly there was a strange call on the wind, kind of a squawking of a large sea bird, that horribly resolved itself into a human voice.

  The voice stopped with a loud, wet noise even more unappealing. I stared for a moment at the gruesome sight before me, that of a dark-haired woman lying broken and bloodied on the rocks. I squatted next to her and felt for a pulse, knowing that I wouldn’t find one.

  I didn’t.

  My mind reeled with the impossibility of the event. Someone had killed my suspect. Someone had killed the lovely, salty woman. I glanced upward, but no one was visible on the cliff. Toward me, however, a woman picked her way through the rocks. She wore a cherry red skirt and jacket, had short, dark brown hair, and a pair of thick black glasses.

  “Good afternoon,” she called, heading for us. “I see you have my client. I’m Larch Randall. I’m with Reclamations, Incorporated. Would you mind standing aside, Mr . . .” Her pale blue eyes narrowed on me. “A Traveller? We don’t see many of your sort. Step aside, please, Mr. Traveller, and unhand my client.”

  “Reclamations . . .” The word chimed a warning bell in my head. “You’re death.”

  “Please!” she bridled, and tugged her suit jacket down. “We prefer the title Reclamation Agent.”

  “Yes, but you are death. You’re the one who collects dead immortals.”

  “We collect their souls or prescient essences, such as they may be, yes. And I’m not the head of the corporation, just one of his many busy workers. Now, if you would please stand aside, I need space to take this woman’s soul.”

  I don’t know what happened to me at that moment. Call it fate, call it a frisson of something intangible that claimed me when Owens had walked past me in the pub, call it a man’s interest in a lovely woman, but for whatever reason, I did the one thing I knew I absolutely should not do.

  I stole time.

  Gently Does It Mental Happiness Therapeutic Consultants

  Roberta Gently, Director

  Patient Number: 2144

  Date: 2 August

  Patient Gwen O. was brought to see me by her mother Magdalena O. and life partner, Alice H. Gwen appeared somewhat distraught by being in the office, and while in reception, declared several times that she had no need of a “shrink” and wasn’t in the least bit crazy, despite what anyone thought.

  She entered my personal office with another woman.

  “I believe this appointment is scheduled to be private,” I said, glancing at Gwen’s chart.

  “Sorry, I’m a scribe,” the second woman said, and introduced herself as Seawright P. “Wherever G
wen goes, so goeth I. Or so says the L’au-dela Committee.”

  “I notice you didn’t go to hell with me,” Gwen muttered under her breath.

  “That’s because you escaped me earlier. Again! Just like you have every other scribe for the last five weeks!” Seawright said, her frizzy pinkish hair trembling with strong emotion.

  “If you’d give me a little space, I wouldn’t have to keep ditching you guys,” Gwen countered, her hands on her hips as she loomed over the smaller woman.

  “It’s my job! I have to record what you do for the Akashic Record, in order to make sure you don’t go back to your naughty ways.”

  “I don’t have any naughty ways!” Gwen thundered.

  I felt it important to stop the budding argument before it continued. “Ladies, please! This office is a haven of calm and reflection. I will not have your personal altercation disturb all the other souls who seek refuge here.”

  Seawright pointed a pencil at Gwen. “She started it.”

  I allowed myself a brief glare at the scribe before saying, “We do not judge here. No one is at fault. And since I’m not aware of the Committee having jurisdiction over mental health facilities, unless Gwen would be more comfortable with you being present transcribing all that she says, then I must ask you to wait in the reception area.”

  Seawright looked pointedly at my windows. “She’ll just jump out the window.”

  “No, she won’t.”

  “Yes, she will.”

  I tapped my pencil on the file folder in an attempt to keep my emotions in their usual state of serenity. “Gwen, will you give your word that you will not escape my office via the windows?”

  “Or any other method,” Seawright said with a pugnacious toss of her head.

  “Or any other method?”

  “If it’ll get her off my back for a few minutes, sure,” Gwen said.

  “Very well. Since Gwen would obviously prefer to continue without your immediate presence, and has given her word that she will not leave via any non-traditional means, you may wait in the reception area until our session is concluded.”

  “Fine. But it’s on your head if she does another runner,” the scribe said, giving a hard look to Gwen before she exited.

  Gwen noticeably relaxed at the scribe’s exit. She spoke with coherence and apparent intelligence, although I noticed her speech pattern was American rather than Welsh or British. She appeared to be in her early thirties, with shoulder-length black hair, grey eyes, no visible tattoos or piercings, and wore a somewhat disheveled linen shirt and pair of black jeans.

  “Good morning, Gwen,” I said, giving her some time to pick a chair in which she’d be comfortable. She chose the one out of the direct sunlight. “I understand from your mother and her partner that you’ve recently had a traumatic experience of some sort. Would you like to tell me about it?”

  “Not really,” she answered pleasantly, then made a face. “But I don’t have much of a choice since Mom Two took my passport, wallet, and keys, and won’t let me have them back until I talk to you. So here I am.”

  “Mom Two?” I asked, making a note that she was not coming into the therapy session of her own accord.

  “That’s what I call Alice. Mom is my mother. Mom Two is my other mother, my mother’s partner.”

  “I see. And how long have you had two mothers?”

  She shrugged, and brushed a bit of dried mud off the knee of her jeans. “As long as I can remember.”

  “Does your mother’s relationship disturb you at all?”

  She sat up straight in her chair and shot me a glare. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m not saying anything,” I said calmly. “I’m simply asking you how you feel about your mother’s relationship with another woman.”

  “I love my mothers,” she said abruptly. “Both of them.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. A loving home environment cannot be underrated, is that not so? I presume that there must also be a father somewhere in the picture?”

  “You’d assume wrong.” She crossed both her legs, and her arms over her chest, a sure sign she was locking down both her flow of information, and her emotions.

  “Indeed.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my moms,” she continued rather hotly. “And you can’t make me say there is. My mothers are great. Well, most of the time. Every now and again they get into trouble, and I have to come to the rescue, but they’ve been pretty good for the last few years. Kind of. Recently, though . . . well, that’s neither here nor there.”

  I consulted the application form that had been included in her file. “I see your mothers are Wiccans and run a school?”

  “Why do you make everything a question?” she asked, her eyes narrowing as she sat forward.

  “Do I?” I smiled reassuringly. “It is my job to help people, Gwen. And I can’t do that unless I understand what is bothering you, now, can I?”

  “What’s bothering me is the implication that there is something wrong with my relationship with my moms.” She sat back again, her body language once again making it quite clear she wasn’t willing to discuss the matter any further.

  “What happened yesterday?” I asked, changing the subject.

  She looked startled for a few seconds, then her chin lifted in a slightly belligerent manner, as if she expected censure or disbelief. “I died and went to hell.”

  I raised my eyebrows in a signal for her to go on.

  “Well, not so much hell as the afterlife. Anwyn, to be exact. You know what Anwyn is, don’t you?”

  “It is one of the many afterlives that various beings utilize as way stations before rebirth or transportation to another realm of consciousness. Many mortals think of them as heaven. I thought, however . . .” I typed in a phrase on my laptop, read the result, and nodded. “Yes, I was correct. I thought that the Wiccan afterlife is Summerland?”

  “It is. But I’m not Wiccan. I’m an alchemist.”

  “So when you decide to move on from this plane of existence—”

  “Or I’m killed, like I was yesterday.”

  “Or, as you say, you are killed, not that I believe such a task is easily accomplished with regard to one who is immortal like you, then you will retire to Anwyn, while your mothers will go to Summerland?”

  “Basically, yes. And you might not think it’s easy to kill me, but I can assure you it’s entirely possible. Anwyn isn’t quite like Summerland, though. That’s all happy Wiccans and picnics and stuff. My moms took me there a few years ago to see my grandmother. Anwyn looks similar, but it’s different. Or at least so I’ve heard.”

  “I see. Perhaps you would be so kind as to go over the sequence of events for me, so that I might have it straight in my mind?”

  “Sure thing. But you have to promise to tell my moms I’m not crazy, because they think I’m making this shi . . . er . . . stuff up.”

  “We don’t use the word ‘crazy’ at the Gently Does It Centers,” I said with another reassuring smile. “Go ahead and tell me what happened. In your own time.”

  “Well, yesterday I was happily getting ready to go home—I live in a small town in Colorado, in the States, even though I was born here in Wales. I come back to Wales to visit my moms every couple of months, mostly to see them, but also because I’m an alchemist, and the best alchemical auctions happen in London. Anyway, I was just wrapping up a month-long visit when it happened.”

  “Forgive me for interrupting,” I said, lifting an apologetic hand. “Do you wish to tell me how and why the scribe Seawright become your shadow?”

  A dark look came over her face. “No.”

  “Very well.” I made note of the rapidity of her response, and her general body language, and then urged her to continue.

  “So I’m packing up my things to go back home, and a call comes in on th
e phone from some guy named Tesserman. Or Bandersnatch. Something odd like that. And he says that he’s got a mortal client for ‘the stuff’ and that I need to get ‘the stuff” down to Malwod-Upon-Ooze pronto. Obviously, I had no idea what he was talking about, but just as obviously, my moms were doing something they shouldn’t be doing—and no, I don’t want to go into that, because it has nothing to do with me dying and going to hell. Well, okay, it does, but I’m still not going to talk about it. Suffice it to say that I knew that my moms would be in seriously hot water if they did what the guy wanted them to do, so I told the guy that there was no way in hell I was going to let my moms break the law by selling magic to mortals. And he went all ballistic on me, and threatened them with all sorts of crazy stuff. You can imagine how that made me feel, so I told him no again, and he said that if someone wasn’t in Malwod to hand over the goods he’d already paid for, then he would take his payment out on my moms. There was no way I was going to let him threaten them, so I went down to Malwod to have it out with him.”

  “You are a very caring daughter, but do you not feel that you were stepping into a dangerous situation? Would it not have been wiser to call in the Watch?”

  She shook her head. “My moms and I are already persona non grata with them. They wouldn’t lift a finger to help us. Besides, it appeared that my mothers had already taken this asshat’s money for the spells.” She took a deep breath, and picked off another flake of dried mud from her jeans. “I managed to ditch Seawright at a shop just outside of the train station and went to Malwod. But Seawright is getting better at finding me, and caught up with me while I was waiting for the buyer in a pub. As soon as he showed up, I managed to get out of the pub without her seeing me, and headed to the rendezvous point, which was halfway up an impossibly hard-to-climb cliff. I ended up going to the wrong place, and had to climb down the scariest drop I’d ever seen just to get to this little area at the top of another cliff. Anyway, I was hiding behind a clump of trees when some guy dashed into the bushes in front of me and crouched down like he’s hiding from someone. I thought he must be the guy who set up my moms to meet with a mortal, and was about to crawl over to him and give him a really solid piece of my mind, when whammo! Someone grabbed me from behind and jerked me off balance. Next thing I knew, I was plummeting over the side of the second cliff to the rocks below.”