“Grandfather?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
TEA—CHINESE GUNPOWDER. THE smell was unmistakable. Strong, slightly bitter and somehow the essence of peace. This must be a dream, Simon thought. A counterpoint to the nightmare images still dancing across his mind, a magic lantern show of the macabre.
He took a deep breath, and the insistent odor forced him back the last few paces to consciousness. Blinking against the bright pinpricks of light that stabbed his eyes, he rolled onto his side, and a new fragrance filled his senses. Elizabeth. Soft and fading, but one he’d know among thousands. Hope flared in his chest and then died a premature death. An empty bed and no Elizabeth. The last twenty-four hours fell back upon his shoulders with a crushing weight. He buried his head back into the pillow.
“Drink this,” came a voice from behind him.
Simon spun around on the bed with such force he thought his throbbing head would fly off his shoulders.
He was sure it had all been a dream, but there, not more than five feet away, in their little apartment, stood his grandfather, smiling and holding out a cup of tea. Simon blinked a few more times and rubbed his eyes. Was he still dreaming?
“Come on, lad. Drink your tea.”
Simon’s wits slogged through the mud of hazy memories. His hand took the offered cup, but his mind could barely manage to cobble a thought.
“How did you…?” he asked before trailing off, unable to cipher out just one question.
Sebastian Cross smiled patiently, his grey eyes crinkling at the edges. “Ah. How indeed?”
He retrieved his own cup and sat down at the small table. “As to the tea, Mrs. Larsen graciously offered her hotplate and tea service. Delightful woman. Lives in 304, I think. Second cousin to Amundsen. Good man, Amundsen. Brilliant explorer,” he said and took a sip from his cup. “And as to the tea itself. First rule of time travel, my boy, always bring your own tea.”
Simon stared at him blankly. “But you’re—” He couldn’t finish the sentence and shook his head.
He looked just as Simon remembered him. The herringbone suit, the knot in his tie off-center as it always was. White hair unruly as ever. Exactly as he was that last night thirty years ago. How many times had Simon wished to see him again? So many things left unsaid and not one of them would come to mind.
“Are you real?” Simon asked, sounding every inch the little boy he felt.
“Quite.”
Simon placed his cup on the end table and stood, but his legs weren’t up to the task and he faltered. As he had been so many times before, Sebastian was there to steady him.
“Take your time, son.”
Simon looked into the weathered face smiling back kindly and swallowed the lump in his throat. He held on to the older man’s arm, afraid to let go.
They stood together for a moment, the decades falling away. Years of longing settled in the dust. Simon gently squeezed his grandfather’s arm and when he found his voice, it was roughened with profound emotion. “It’s good to see you.”
Sebastian patted his cheek. “And you too, my boy,” he said softly before clearing his throat. “Now grab your cuppa and come have it at the table like a civilized person.”
Simon was torn in two. As much as he wanted to stay with his grandfather, Elizabeth was out there somewhere. He’d only found dead-ends, but he could not give up now.
“I can’t,” he said. “I have to find Elizabeth.”
He pulled his still wet jacket from the back of the chair and took a stumbling step toward the door.
Sebastian grabbed his arm. “Easy there, lad. You’re in no shape to go running after her now.”
Simon’s head pounded harder from the quick movement. He tried to shake it and his grandfather’s grip off him. “He’s got her. I don’t know where, but I’ve got to—”
“Who does?”
“Kashian. He’s taken her.”
Sebastian cleared his throat and arched a bushy eyebrow in forced nonchalance. “King Kashian?”
Simon’s head swam as he looked at his grandfather, but he was lucid enough to realize something. “You know about him.”
Sebastian let out a breath and nodded, a frown coming to his face. “I’m afraid I do. I think you’d better sit down,” he said, gesturing to the table. “There are things—”
“I know what he is,” Simon bit out.
“Then you know you’re in no shape to face him,” he pointed out. “Even if you did know where to find him, he’d tear you apart.” Sebastian gestured to the table again. “Take some time to recover some of your strength.”
“The eclipse—”
“Isn’t for five hours,” Sebastian said quickly.
Simon wavered, still unsteady on his feet.
“You won’t do her any good as you are,” Sebastian added. “Sit down, boy. We should talk.”
As loath as Simon was to admit it, his grandfather was right; he had to clear his head. Reluctantly, Simon sat down at the small table and Sebastian joined him.
Hundreds of questions tumbled through Simon’s head. “What do you know about King? Is he why you’re here?”
Sebastian hesitated and looked down into his teacup. “I’m on assignment.” He looked up and there was a note of pride in his voice when he spoke again. “You’ve broken more rules than I count, my boy. Your direct involvement in the culture here is a clear violation of the prescripts of the Council. I doubt they’ll be pleased.”
Simon rubbed his temple. “What Council?”
His question seemed to surprise his grandfather. “You’re not with the Council? I’d assumed you’d, well, followed in my footsteps, as it were.”
“Your watch brought us here. It was an accident.”
Sebastian frowned. “So, the girl isn’t an operative?”
Simon didn’t understand. “Operative? No, she’s…What are you talking about?”
“The Council for Temporal Studies. I’m in the anthropological department with emphasis on the occult. It’s a fine organization, if a bit overzealous on occasion.”
“There are others like you?”
“I’d like to think I’m unique,” Sebastian said with a wink. “But, yes. There are other field operatives. Temporal explorers. What I can’t understand is how you came by the watch if it wasn’t given to you by the Council.”
“I inherited it,” Simon said.
“I’m surprised the Council didn’t retrieve it after my death,” he said with a frown. “Well, I’m glad you have it now.”
“I’m not. I wish I’d never seen the cursed thing,” Simon growled and pushed away from his chair. He walked restlessly toward the window. The storm outside raged on. Sheets of gray obscured the fading light. He gripped the window sill. “First the nightmares and now, this…nightmare.”
“Did you have dreams? Prescient dreams?”
Simon turned back to Sebastian. “How did you know?”
“An uncommon side-effect of the watch. There’s a temporal wash given off, a sort of blurred fissure in time around it. Most people aren’t sensitive enough for it to register. It’s a rather remarkable gift really.”
“It’s bloody awful, is what it is. You have no idea the things I’ve…” His voice trailed off. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Sebastian about the dreams. He turned back to the window. “I have to find Elizabeth. She’s…she’s everything to me.”
“She must be a remarkable woman.”
Simon closed his eyes for a brief second and then stared out into the darkening street below. “She’s stubborn beyond measure, thoroughly reckless and idiotically optimistic. All in all completely maddening.”
Sebastian chuckled.
Simon turned to face him. “And I love her more than I thought possible.”
“I know the feeling, lad. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think of dear Nora. God rest her soul. Your grandmother was an angel that walked the earth. For too short a time.”
Simon had barely known his gran
dmother. She died in an accident when he was very small, but he remembered her voice and, of course, the stories Grandfather told over games of chess.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. It was so obvious he couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t thought of it sooner. He pulled his watch from his pocket. “The eclipse. When it comes, I can set the watch to the day before yesterday and save Elizabeth. It’s so simple.”
“Also impossible, I’m afraid.”
“Why?”
“A failsafe built into the watch. Once you travel through a time, you can never return to it. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe you’re wrong.”
“Don’t you think I tried when Nora was killed in the accident? No man can resist that temptation. The Council knows that. The failsafe is designed to protect the timeline. Certain things are meant to be.”
“Not this.”
“You have to consider the possibility. The Council—”
“Sod the Council and sod their bloody timelines!” Simon yelled as he slammed his fist down on the table. He took a breath and straightened. “This is Elizabeth. And I will do whatever I must to get her back.”
“Now, Simon—”
“Don’t coddle me! I’m not a child anymore.”
“No, you’re not. You’re man enough to know that what you want isn’t always what’s best. There are rules, Simon. I’m breaking the rules I’ve lived by for forty years just talking to you.”
“Why?” Simon demanded.
Sebastian cleared his throat and set down his teacup. “Because I couldn’t stand to see you lying in the gutter.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you, of course.”
“And I love Elizabeth.”
Sebastian took a deep breath. “You should have been a barrister,” he said and then gestured to the chair.
Simon looked at his grandfather, he desire to be with him warring with his need to find Elizabeth. “If only I had more time. Since we came here, I’ve been counting down the hours till the eclipse, and now that it’s almost here….”
Sebastian nodded in understanding. “Time’s odd that way, isn’t it? Drags on interminably when you want it to pass, and it’s gone in the blink of an eye when you want it to linger.”
A moment of silence stretched out between them, both wishing for things that could not be.
“I have to find her,” Simon said finally.
His grandfather looked at him intently, and then he could see him come to some sort of a decision.
“The reports I have on King are detailed, but there are gaps. No one wrote a living history of events, so my information is bodged together from various sources. Not all of them necessarily reliable.” He paused and spread his hands out on the table, clearly stalling for time.
“Go on.”
“It was reported that King died today. Some time this evening.”
“That’s the first good news I’ve had in a long time,” Simon said as he joined his grandfather at the table.
“Yes, well. It seems he was killed in some sort of explosion or fire. The details are rather sketchy. He was last seen this evening on a yacht, the Osiris, at a small marina in New Jersey.”
Unbidden, images from Simon’s nightmare of Elizabeth in her small rowboat flashed before him. “A yacht?”
“Yes, his destination wasn’t clear. But,” Sebastian said, his grey eyes growing troubled, “everyone on board perished.”
For the first time since Elizabeth had vanished, Simon felt a faint glimmer of hope. If only he could get there in time. “What marina? Do you know the specifics?”
“It isn’t necessarily reliable information, Simon,” Sebastian said as he plucked at the cuffs of his jacket.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Things will play out as they should. I’m only trying to spare you.”
“Tell me.”
Sebastian took a sip of tea and made a face. “Gone cold.”
“Grandfather, please? I have to know.”
“There was a report of a woman on board. It could have been someone else, there’s no guarantee it was your Elizabeth. Perhaps it was another body.”
“Body?” Simon’s mind reeled. It was just as it had been in his dream.
Sebastian leaned forward and rested a hand on Simon’s knee. “There are certain things we have to accept, lad.”
“Not this,” Simon said and stood. “What marina?”
Sebastian sighed. “Brown’s Point Marina in Keysport,” he said as he got to his feet. “We’ll go together.”
“No. You have to promise you’ll stay here,” Simon said. “In this room until the eclipse.”
“Balderdash. I’m not letting you run off to face King alone. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You don’t understand. You have to stay here. Promise me you will?”
Sebastian squared his shoulders and jutted out his chin defiantly. “Out of the question.”
The unstoppable force glared at the immovable object. The future and the past pulled him in opposite directions, until Simon thought he would be split in two. “Don’t make me force you to stay. By God, I will if I have to. I can’t have your death…”
“My death?”
“Please? I couldn’t bear it if…Stay here.”
Sebastian released Simon, his eyes impenetrable. He stared at him for a long moment and then nodded. “You’d better hurry, son.”
“Thank you,” Simon said softly and then it dawned on him—this would be the last time he would see his grandfather. “There are so many things I wanted to say.”
“Consider them said,” Sebastian said and took Simon’s hand, covering it with both his own. “Now hurry, and for God’s sake, be careful.”
Simon studied the older man’s face for the last time. “I will,” he promised and squeezed Sebastian’s hand firmly before letting go. He nodded once and then turned on his heel and left the room without looking back.
Chapter Thirty
THE ONLY THING WORSE than a raging storm was a raging storm on the ocean. Even as Simon struggled to keep his footing on the muddy, treacherous slope, he could see the whitecaps whipped up into a frenzy by the fierce wind. The sea churned wave after merciless wave onto the shore, dragging out the sand into the murky, bone chilling depths beyond.
He’d paid a fortune to the cabbie to take him through the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey, but far more precious was the time it had taken. More than two hours eaten away, leaving one golden hour until the lunar eclipse. He looked up into the black sky and wondered if he’d even know when it came. The moon was blanketed behind an endless cloud that seemed to cover the whole of the earth. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered if he didn’t find Elizabeth.
He would find her; he was sure of that. His nightmares had led him to this place, to this moment in time, where the images that had tortured him would come to their inevitable end.
His foot slipped on some loose pebbles, and he grabbed the thorny edge of a bramble bush to keep from falling. The thorns dug into his palm. Fresh rivulets of blood mixed with the rain and puddled in his hand. His fingers curled into a fist. He wasn’t beaten yet. There was no power on this earth that could keep him from trying. Elizabeth was alive, and he’d pay whatever price that was asked to keep her that way.
The hillside he stood on gave him a good view of the marina below. It was a private dock, no more than five slips, surrounded on the shore by a chain link fence. Two men carried large casks out of a small warehouse at the base of the dock to a yacht sitting at the end of the pier. A third stood at the gangplank barking orders.
Simon crouched down into the undergrowth. If he was going to have a chance in hell of confronting King, it would have to be on the shore. There were too many men around the boat. But if they made any move to leave, he’d take his chances there.
Fate decided to throw him a crumb. Another man emerged on the gangplank and stopped to talk to the supervisor. A flash of lightning lit the night sk
y. King.
Simon hurried down the rest of the hill, skidding to a halt at the base of the fence. It would leave him exposed to climb over it, but there was nothing to be done for it. The gate was well secured with a heavy chain. Patting his jacket pockets, he felt the outline of the guns. They might not kill the bastard, but from what Elizabeth had said about that night in the storeroom, they would slow him down. The stake in his inner breast pocket pressed against his chest, and he was warmed by the thought of shoving it into King’s heart.
The metal fence shook and rattled under his weight. He clambered up the side, but his jacket got snagged on one of the twisted ends of wire. He yanked at it, but he was still caught. He gave it another tug and the jacket came free, but one of the guns fell from his pocket and landed on the wrong side of the fence. Damn it. He was vulnerable enough without trying this stunt again. One would have to do. Easing over the fence, he landed in a crouch and crept to the back of the storehouse.
Pressing himself against the back door, he waited and listened. Muffled voices came from the other side. He strained to hear King’s among them. Then he heard the unmistakable voice that sounded like oil dripping on silk. Bastard.
The voices faded away as the men trundled another barrel back to the boat. The thin sliver of light shining under the door died. With the cover of darkness on his side, Simon gripped the rusty knob and eased it open. King stood silhouetted on the opposite side of the room and watched his men wheel the last barrel down the pier.
Simon eased the gun from his pocket and stepped into the room. He was sure the pounding of his heart would give him away, but King didn’t seem to take any notice of him. Simon took another tentative step forward and raised his gun.
“I was beginning to wonder,” King said calmly, his back still to Simon. “If you were ever going to arrive.”
He turned around slowly, his white teeth gleaming in a wickedly perfect smile. “Not that you would have been missed.”
Simon’s fingers tightened around the handle of the gun and he cocked the trigger. “Where is she?”
King laughed softly. “Waiting for me.”
Out of Time: A Time Travel Mystery (Out of Time #1) Page 28
