Portals in Time 3

by Michael Beals

  “Well, we’re alone, Jock. Shall we go back?”

  He gazed at Kat for a moment and sighed, then pulled his boots out of the bag he was carrying. When he’d changed and looked more like 1866 jock, he put his arms around her.

  “Ready when you are, Major.”

  The dawn sun was just catching the tops of the trees when Kat opened her eyes, but there were less of them. The undergrowth wasn’t as thick, and she could see the city. In fact, the park felt noticeably younger, as if it was still being developed. People were renting boats on the lake, but the park wasn’t quite as lush as it had been in 2025.

  Following the footpath, until they reached the lawn where the cherry tree grew, they recovered Kat’s dress and made their way out to the main road. The sun had barely risen, but already the Hansom cabs were lined up, and horses pulling carriages were rattling past. As they walked towards the hotel, she glanced at Dore. It was hard to believe that less than an hour ago they were eating lunch in a noisy lakeside restaurant.

  “We’re not going to be popular,” Dore said, smiling at her.

  “Why? Aren’t you tired?”

  He shook his head. “No. Not a bit. I wouldn’t expect to be. It’s still only 5 PM in 2025.”

  “Yes, but we’ve been time traveling. We went shopping in 2024 and then teleported to 2025. We’ve been awake for eighteen hours.”

  “I’m not bothered, Lass. I can sleep on the plane.”

  She should have been used to this. They had rarely had a good night’s sleep during the war, and even when they were at the ranch, they’d woken early in the morning.

  So they made their way through the deserted lobby, climbed the wide staircase until they reached the suite, and crept into the room, but to their surprise, Giselle and Lily were already awake and dressed.

  “We didn’t sleep very well,” Giselle said. “We didn’t know when you’d get back. Why don’t we all go and have breakfast together?”

  Dore grinned. “We’ve just had lunch. We’ve also got a busy day ahead of us.”

  So Kat told them what had happened, stopping every time Giselle or Lily wanted more details. By the time she’d finished, it was 7:30, and they were all hungry, so they went down to the dining room and had breakfast.

  “You want Lily and me to register the detective agency while you’re at the palace?” Giselle exclaimed, buttering a piece of toast. “Don’t you need to do that personally?”

  “Not really,” Kat said. “The agency in Hell is just for Hades’ benefit. We can base it at The Cosmopolitan. It’ll be more difficult in the real world. We’ll have to have an office address, a bank account, some kind of ID, which won’t be easy because we’re all dead. I’m also not sure if I want to do it in 1954. It’s a bit too close to MI6 for my liking. We might need to do it in 1964, when the whole war thing is well and truly over, and no one remembers us.”

  So they finished their breakfast, went back to the room, and extracted the artifacts from where they’d hidden them in the bureau.

  “What about the hotel room?” Lily asked. “Jock paid for ten days. Won’t the hotel wonder where we’ve gone?”

  “Of course they won’t,” Giselle said, brightly. “If we come back on 19th August, we’ll only have been gone for two days, and they’ll only care if we haven’t paid the bill. When we go back, maybe we can visit the Gypsies and get more modern money and another time machine. If we can do that,” she added, glancing at Kat, “maybe we can all travel to 2025 together.”

  “You and Lily don’t have the clothes,” Kat reminded her.

  “Oh dear, that’s terrible,” Giselle remarked, sarcastically. “It means we’d have to go shopping.”

  Kat laughed. “Wouldn’t that be torture?”

  “Yeah, for me,” Dore remarked. “Shall we do this?”

  So they stood in a tight circle and activated their artifacts, but Lily looked disappointed. Kat could understand why she and Dore had been to 2024, then 2025, driven down to Old Westbury, and then had lunch. All Lily had done was witness the escapees arriving; otherwise, she’d just been waiting around, and now she was going back to hell.

  She gave Lily a sympathetic smile. “Don’t worry, Lily; it’ll be better next time. You might even be able to do something dangerous.”

  Lily groaned. “It would be better than sitting around.”

  “You could always go back to West Fork again,” Dore suggested. “You can be a spy again.”

  Lily waved a hand at him. “I’d rather sit around, thank you very much.”

  So they counted down from five, and Kat steeled herself for the journey. It might be different this time because they were teleporting from the hotel instead of the park. If the route between Hell and the real world was like a highway, they were almost on the riverbank.

  But when she finally pressed the return button, it was pretty much the same as the outward leg of the journey. The room went dark; she heard a symphony of swishing sounds, the usual cosmic spangle of flickering lights. Then she was there, watching everyone appear out of nowhere in the bridal suite of the Cosmopolitan Hotel. The only difference was that her lips felt dry, but perhaps she’d been nervously licking them. She had, after all, time-traveled three times that very morning.

  Deactivating the time machine, she removed it from her wrist and put it in the safe, then she changed into jeans and a white shirt and called Persephone.

  “Kat!” she cried. “I’m so glad you called. Is everything OK?”

  “Everything’s fine. Well, sort of fine. Sorry I haven’t called you, but we’ve been traveling.”

  “I know. Did you discover where Grantham’s hiding?”

  “We did, but I don’t think it’s going to be easy to apprehend him. Can I come and see you? I’d really like to talk about it.”

  “Of course you can. Jump in the Comet. It’s always nice to see you.”

  “I was thinking of bringing Jock with me. Haddy might need to talk to him. If he doesn’t, perhaps you can go riding together.”

  “Jock can ride?”

  “Yeah, he’s a really good rider.”

  “Wonderful. Haddy always gets a bit annoyed when I take up all your time. I’ll see you when you get here.”

  Disconnecting and hoping he wasn’t in the library again, she dialed Cabot’s number, but it just rang and rang, so she put the phone down.

  “We’re going to the palace, Jock.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as you’ve changed out of your 1800s clothes.” She turned to Giselle and Lily. “Cabot’s not answering his phone. He’s probably in the library, but I’ll leave you his number. I’m sure he knows how to set up a private eye company in Hell, but what we really need to know is how we do it in the real world. We won’t be able to go ahead until Hades agrees to it, but you can probably prepare. I want to set it up in 1964. We’ll need a base, possibly an apartment, something like this, but in a brownstone, so we can time travel without fear that some bastard will knock it down in the future. We’ll also need a bank account and verifiable IDs for all four of us. Cabot might be able to arrange all that. You can also try calling Harper. He might have contacts in 1964. I’ll leave you his number as well.”

  “How long are you going to be?” Lily asked, climbing out of her long dress.

  “We’ve got to fly there. We’ll be back sometime tomorrow. Ellie will explain.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Dore seemed full of energy as they strode towards the palace arrivals hall, although it was hardly surprising. He’d slept for the entire flight, which had annoyed Kat. She’d wanted to talk to him about Grantham, what they would do when they finally confronted the renegade Gypsy face to face. Harper had never elaborated on what kind of person Grantham was. He’d chosen to live in Old Westbury, and he drove an Aston Martin, which indicated a certain level of refinement, and he’d been clever enough to develop a way of making his car disappear. Harper had said he was a genius.

  She glanced at Dore. He was wearing
his riding boots and the Norfolk jacket that Giselle had bought for him, in case Persephone wanted to take him riding. It was the kind of thoughtfulness that she’d always liked about Dore. He might be a Scottish sergeant who liked his Guinness, but he was also a gentleman.

  “I wanted to talk to you while you were snoozing your head off.”

  “What about?”

  “Just talk.”

  Dore thought this was a good time to bring up a point. “I have to say; I’ve always found it strange that Hades can’t travel into the future. If we can travel in time by using a device, why can’t Hades?”

  That obvious question had never occurred to Kat. So much had happened, she hadn’t stopped to think about it. But Dore was right, why couldn’t Hades travel into the future?

  They were passing through the small arrivals hall. She could see Patrick now. As usual, he was polishing the Bentley. “Good morning, Patrick. How are you?”

  “Can’t complain, Miss. Wolfram.” the elderly chauffeur croaked, opening the door for her. “You’re becoming quite the regular here.”

  “You’re lucky to live here. It reminds me of the South of France.”

  Climbing into the Bentley, she settled back into the soft leather seats. The car smelled of lavender. Patrick must have been polishing the wooden trim. The car might be old, but he kept it in perfect mint condition.

  Dore said, picking up on their last conversation, “perhaps Hades is only allowed to deal with things as they happen. Otherwise, he’d know what he was going to do before he did it, which would drive everyone crazy.”

  Kat shrugged, “Maybe. Or… Let’s say, Hades wants to accompany us to 2025 so he can talk to Grantham himself… From 1954 to 2025, 71 years… Satan, God of the Underworld, would be missing from the Universe… Without God, there is no Heaven… Without Hades, there is no Hell…

  Dore scratched his head. “You’ve become quite the philosopher.”

  “I guess when you become one of the Living Dead, your thoughts about life and the universe take on a different perspective.”

  Kat gazed out of the Bentley’s window at all the horses grazing in the paddocks, at the flowers that grew in the passing hedgerows, felt the car bumping over the tiny bridge when they crossed the creek. Winding down the window, she breathed in the air. She could smell freshly mown grass and in the distance could see the mountains where Pegasus was stabled. Hades lived in a miniature paradise. No wonder he didn’t want to deal with the future.

  Driving in on the sweeping driveway, they pulled up in front of the house. It was odd that they called it a palace. It was an elaborate ranch house with gleaming spires, and it reminded Kat of an expensive Beverly Hills home. She could imagine film stars living here. To complete the picture, when she climbed out, she saw that Hades was tinkering in the engine compartment of an old MGTD sports car. He straightened and wiped his hands on a piece of cloth when he saw her.

  “Good morning!” he called. “I thought there’d be more of you!”

  “Giselle and Lily are doing something for me. I’ll explain when we go inside.”

  Hades was wearing his usual check shirt, this time with brown corduroy trousers and lace-up shoes. “Ah,” he said, walking over to her. “We’re not talking inside today. They’re cleaning the living room, so I thought we’d sit out here on the terrace. It’s a beautiful day, and there’s no one around. Also, Sephy’s got her heart set on taking Jock riding. God knows where she is.” Turning around, he yelled up at the bedroom windows. “Sephy! Kat and Jock are here!”

  Seconds later, Persephone walked out through the French windows. She was wearing jodhpurs and riding boots. “Hi, Kat. Hi, Jock. I saw your plane landing. They’re saddling the horses as we speak.”

  “Hi, Sephy.” She turned to Hades. “You don’t want to speak with Jock?”

  “I’d be happy to talk to him,” Hades said, “but it’s not necessary. I’m sure you both discuss everything.” He gestured towards the terrace. “Let’s sit down. You can tell me all about 1866. It’s a period I’m particularly fond of.”

  Wishing Dore and Persephone an enjoyable ride and asking them not to be all day, he ushered Kat over to a wicker table with its canvas director’s chairs. When they’d settled, and he’d ordered drinks from an inquiring servant, he said, “So tell me about Grantham.”

  “I’m glad you asked me that, sir, because I’m quite worried. I haven’t spoken to him yet; he’s quite hard to pin down, but I know more or less where he lives.” She told Hades about their time travel to 2025, how they’d followed Grantham to Old Westbury and how he’d suddenly disappeared.

  “The whole car disappeared? Wow! Grantham’s not short of tricks up his sleeve.”

  “No, he’s not, but he’s also an unknown quantity. What am I going to do with him?”

  Hades scratched his chin. “He’s not an unknown quantity. We’ve got an enormous file on Grantham. I have to admit, I’ve never met him personally; I can’t meet everyone who comes to Hell. But he’s one of those people who’s hard to categorize. Over many lifetimes, he’s killed a lot of bad people, the most recent being Stalin, who he poisoned.”

  Kat grimaced. “I thought Stalin died of a brain hemorrhage.”

  “He did, but only after he was poisoned. The thing is, even if the people he murdered were bad, it was still murder, so he had to be processed. But that’s why Grantham was relegated to the Gypsies. This is his fifth trip to Hell, and it was always for murdering evil people.” Hades raised his eyebrows at her. “Remind you of anyone?”

  Kat rolled her eyes.

  Hades continued, “… and now he’s doing this. The problem is, I just can’t have dead people wandering around on earth.”

  “So what do I do with him when I find him?”

  Hades was silent for a moment. “Tell him; we’re closing down his operation in Hell. Tell him, if he doesn’t return to hell now and stop what he’s doing or when he eventually ends back in Hell, I’ll have no choice but to turn him into a demon.”

  Hades turned very serious. “If Grantham refuses… Kill him… I don’t care how… just do it! I’ll take care of him when he gets here.”

  “Yes sir. I’ll take care of it.” Kat thought this was a good point to change the subject. “I was going to ask you about Cabot. He’s not like the average demon. He seems quite intellectual.”

  “He is. He was something of a genius when he was alive, just like Grantham, but he’s been a demon for five-thousand years. God is going to make Cabot human again; then we’re reincarnating him in a few months. He’ll be born to parents who are both professors of archaeology in New York. We thought he deserved a break.”

  Kat sat up. “When you say a few months, how many months are we talking about?”

  Hades peered at her. “Oh yes, you’ve been talking to Cabot, haven’t you? I don’t know, Kat, maybe a couple of months, three at the most. Why? Do you need him to help you with something?”

  “I do.” She told him about the detective agency, how it might be the only way to nail Grantham once and for all, but that it would also allow them a degree of freedom.

  She sipped at her lemonade. “So… can we open a detective agency in the real world?”

  Hades scratched at the stubble on his chin, occasionally glancing at her. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You can open the agency on a year’s trial; I need certain things investigated in the real world, but there are caveats. You can’t have a boyfriend in the real world, no romances between the living and the dead. And Giselle and Dore, if they were considering it, they cannot marry. That clause ‘til death do us part is there for a reason.”

  She gave him one of her broad smiles. “Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it. If I can use your phone, I’ll call the girls and tell them.”

  Hades gave Kat a fatherly smile and said, “you and I are going to be working together for centuries to come. I think you can stop calling me, sir. If you like, you may call me Your Highness, or Your Majesty, or Your Lordship�
� Or if you want to keep it simple like the rest, just call me Haddy…”

  “Yes sir… Haddy. Thank you.”

  So while she called Giselle and told her the good news, Hades wandered down to the stables. And when she’d terminated the call, she too walked down to the stables. When Giselle got there, Dore and Persephone were removing saddles from their horses. They looked windswept and pink in the face. They’d obviously been riding at full tilt.

  “Sephy!” Hades reprimanded. “Have you been trying to kill our guest?”

  “Of course not,” she protested. “Jock’s a really good rider.” She turned to Kat. “I’m sorry, Kat. I’m too exhausted to go riding again.”

  Kat held up her hands. “Don’t worry about it, Sephy. I came here to talk to Haddy. We can go riding next time I’m here. Jock and I need to get back to New York.” She laughed. “If he can still walk.”

  It was getting dark when they landed at Idlewild airport and raining hard. There were pools of water by the exit, where people shook their dripping umbrellas, and when they went out to grab a cab, there was a long line of people, so they caught the bus and walked to the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Kat was glad of the exercise. Unlike Dore, who’d galloped across the fields with Persephone, she’d spent the last twenty hours sitting down.

  “So, where are we sleeping tonight?” Dore asked as the elevator carried them up towards the bridal suite. “Are we going back to 1866, or sleeping in your apartment?”

  “That depends,” she replied, running fingers through her wet hair. “We’ll have to ask the girls what happened with Cabot and whether they managed to talk to Harper. If they managed to set up the detective agency and obtain another time machine, we could go back to 1866. If they didn’t, we’re sleeping at the apartment. Why? Would you prefer to sleep in 1866?” And then she realized. “Oh yes, of course, you and Ellie…”

  Dore glowered at her.

  “I tell you what… You and Ellie can go back to 1866, and I’ll bring Lily when I’m able to.”

  But Dore shook his head. “No, Kat. Until we’ve nailed Grantham, and Rostock’s out of the way, we stick together.”