Sighing, she plopped down onto the couch. The lump she’d nicknamed “Sciatica” dug into her hip. The scarf hanging on the wall as a poor man’s version of tapestry drooped at one corner, the thumbtack lying in wait for her bare foot. This was home.
Closing her eyes, she listened for the familiar muffled sounds of apartment life, but everything was eerily silent. A knock at the door interrupted her start of her pity party. Elizabeth jerked upright and breathed out a sigh of relief. Simon. They’d argue a little more, talk it out, and have crazy monkey make-up sex. All in all, not so bad.
She walked over to the door and pushed out a cleansing breath before opening it. “Simon, I—”
A slight, balding man in a rumpled suit stared back at her with nervous, bright eyes behind black-rimmed glasses. He was the sort of man who was, even in his early forties, the spitting image of the boy he’d been. As he shifted his briefcase from the tight, clutching grip against his chest and into one hand, he offered her the other. “Miss West, it’s… it’s an honor to meet you.”
Elizabeth took a cautious step backward and gripped the edge of the door. “And you are?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Peter Travers,” he said in a thin, high-pitched voice that sounded a little like Piglet and then glanced anxiously around the hallway where fluorescent lights flickered with a will of their own. “Could we continue this inside? I…I’d feel much better inside.”
“I’m sure you would, but I’m afraid I’m just not interested in whatever it is you’re selling,” she said, gesturing to his briefcase.
“Oh, I’m not a salesman,” he said and then squared his slender shoulders and lowered his voice. “I’m with the Council. The Council for Temporal Studies.”
Elizabeth’s grip on the edge of the door tightened. “The… the Council?” Horrible thoughts that she’d somehow single-handedly mangled the space-time continuum flooded her mind. “What do you want with me?”
“I’d rather discuss this inside. If that’s all right with you?” A door opened and slammed down the hall causing him to jump so badly he had to right his glasses. He fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his shiny forehead. “Please?”
“Right,” Elizabeth said, her mind still spinning, and allowed him into the apartment. “Is this about what happened in the past?”
Travers smiled thoughtfully at her. “It always is.”
A whole herd of butterflies took flight in her stomach. Dear God, what had she done? It could have been anything. Even the smallest ripple in time could potentially change the course of history. What if she’d eaten a piece of pie at the automat that someone really important was supposed to eat, like FDR, and he was so angry they didn’t get his blueberry pie he never ran for president and we lost World War II?
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Travers stopped rummaging in his briefcase and looked up in confusion. “For what?”
“For whatever I did.”
He squinted and shook his head. “I don’t follow you.”
Elizabeth paced across the room, but could only take two steps in the small apartment. Why wasn’t her place big enough for a good solid pace? “I changed time, right? That’s why you’re here. It was an accident, you know. We didn’t mean to activate the watch.”
“We know,” Peter said sympathetically. “And just to ease your mind, I’m not here because you changed time. Off the record, everything you did was just as it was meant to be.”
Elizabeth stopped fidgeting and tried to get her mind around that. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“Time is immutable. Or at least it’s supposed to be,” he added with a frown. “We’re not really sure on that one.”
Elizabeth stopped her mini-pace and considered the implications of that little admission.
“You were meant to go back to 1929,” Travers continued. “Everything that happened there was meant to be. You working for Charlie Blue, meeting King, Sebastian Cross’s…” His voice trailed off and cleared his throat.
“You know about all that?” She didn’t know whether to be frightened or relieved or maybe just throw up a little.
“I studied your case file extensively before I destroyed it.”
Definitely, leaning toward frightened. “I have a case file? Wait a minute. Destroyed it?”
“It was necessary.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“It isn’t,” he said and then took a folder out of his briefcase. “We need your help.”
There was something about those four little words that provoked clarity of mind. “What do you mean?”
Travers tilted his head to the side as if trying to figure how to say what needed to be said. Apparently not liking the answer, he tugged anxiously on his ear. “We have a…situation.”
Euphemisms were never good. They were just a red flag for the big ugly lurking beneath a patina of vagueness. The Council’s situation. Her and Simon’s arrangement.
“I should call Simon,” she said abruptly and started for the phone.
Turning a lighter shade of pale, he stepped into her path. “W-why don’t you hear me out first? Then you can call him and tell him everything. That way y-you have something to tell him.”
That sounded logical enough, and truth be told, Simon probably wouldn’t answer the phone right now even if he was home. No one brooded like Simon. It was art.
“All right,” she said. “But I am going to tell him everything you tell me. We don’t have any secrets,” she said, trying not to choke on that particular chunk of irony.
“Of course.”
He seemed inordinately relieved that she wasn’t calling Simon, but that thought was pushed away by a much more troubling one. “How do I know you’re who you say you are?”
“Ah!” he said and reached into his briefcase, revealing a velvet pouch. Pulling the drawstring, he let the contents fall into his hand. Elizabeth’s breath hitched. It was an antique pocket watch just like Simon’s grandfather’s with the same Mercator map etched into its gold case.
A rush of memories swept over her as he placed it in her hand. She ran her fingers over the etching, afraid to open it. She’d learned the hard way that time travel devices were not to be treated casually.
“Go ahead,” he said, indicating that she should open it. “Nothing will happen.”
She knew he was right, there was no eclipse to activate it, but she still felt a tingle of fear as she opened the clasp.
It had the same complex dials and rings as Simon’s. He moved closer to admire it. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
And dangerous. Elizabeth handed it back to him, but he refused it. “It’s yours.”
She held it out to him. “You’ve made a mistake.”
His brow knitted and if it could, it would probably have purled too. “You are Elizabeth West, aren’t you?”
She couldn’t help but laugh, but the seriousness of what she held in her hand brought her back. “I am, but--”
Taking out his crumpled handkerchief, he mopped the beads of sweat that had spontaneously popped out on his forehead. “I told them I wasn’t the right person for this assignment,” he muttered to himself, before stuffing the cloth back into his pocket. “This isn’t a joking matter.”
Elizabeth looked down at the watch and tightened her hand around it. “I know.”
“That watch is one of twelve. Nine are currently assigned and in the field. The tenth is, I believe, in Mr. Cross’ safety deposit box at the National Bank on First.”
“How do—”
Travers held up a hand to stop her. “The Council knows where all the watches are at any time and in any time. But that’s not important. What is important is what you do now.”
He gestured toward the sofa. “May I?”
Elizabeth nodded and he sat down uncomfortably, setting his briefcase down on the coffee table. He sat up straight and moved toward the edge of the cushion and cleared his throat. “The Council is need of your help. We find ou
rselves in a difficult situation.”
“I don’t mean to be blunt, Mr. Travers, but I don’t see how that’s my problem.”
“I’m afraid it might become your problem.”
Elizabeth didn’t like the sound of that.
“We have reason to believe that time has been altered, or will be. It’s difficult to explain, but our Council of Twelve is now a Council of Eleven.”
“Someone quit?”
“Someone ceased to be.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Charles Graham was a long-standing member of the Council and a fine field operative. Today, any trace, every record of his existence is gone. After some research, we discovered that his great-grandfather was murdered and never had children. Graham’s grandfather, father and subsequently Graham himself were never born.”
“But how is that possible? You said time was immutable.”
“I said we thought it was. Apparently, we were wrong.”
Elizabeth didn’t know what to say to that. Our entire theory of time and space? Forget that. “But if time has changed, how do you know that it has? You’re part of the new timeline and this is giving me a serious headache.”
“The memory of his existence is already fading. Proximity to the watch somehow lets us remember how it once was, but that effect will fade in time too.”
“Simon’s grandfather Sebastian told him that there was a temporal wash from the watch.”
“Yes, yes exactly. And to make matters worse—”
“Let’s not do that,” Elizabeth said.
“This moment in history is important to the Council in other ways as well. We don’t know many details about the founding of the Council itself. The files are disturbingly vague actually. But we do know that the watchmaker, identity unknown, created the watches in early 1907. It’s possible, he has some connection to the changing of events.”
“I still don’t see what this has to do with me or Simon. I’m sorry for Mr. Graham, but—”
“Ripples. One change leads to other changes. We’re afraid that Graham’s murder has the potential to change the shape of the Council, even its very existence. Ask yourself: If there’s no Council, what does Sebastian Cross do? How does his life change? How do the lives of his children and their children change? Do they even exist?”
Elizabeth felt a chill run through her body and rubbed the goose bumps that covered her forearms. “You don’t know that will happen.”
“We believe it will. And if we don’t act soon, we’ll forget everything that’s changed and it’ll be too late. You’ll never meet Simon Cross because Simon Cross will never have been born. And you won’t even know it.”
Chapter Three
Travers left a few hours and a few hundred questions later. It was totally insane, but Elizabeth couldn’t get past one thing – if she didn’t try, the Simon she knew and loved might never exist. The very thought gave her a chill. It was bad enough to be fighting, to be afraid of losing him. But the idea of never even knowing him took her breath away.
The whole thing was hard to wrap her mind around. Time travel paradoxes and the endless possible permutations gave her that same glassy-eyed feeling she’d had in Mr. Talbot’s calculus class. Things sort of made sense when she just let them come to her, but if she tried to hold onto something specific it squirted away like a greased pig at the county fair. In the end it didn’t matter. No matter how hard she rubbed her brain cells together, her gut told her what she had to do.
According to Travers, Victor Graham was murdered sometime late Easter Sunday 1906. In, of all places, San Francisco. Why couldn’t he be from Sheboygan? Travel back in time, stop a murder, and survive one of the worst earthquakes in history. Somehow she knew that would be easy-peasy lemon-squeezy compared to convincing Simon to go.
When she and Simon had first returned from 1929, she was as relieved as he was, what with them both nearly dying and all. But memory paints impressionistic portraits of the past, enhancing some images and blurring others. To her, the crucible didn’t seem nearly as important as the things it forged—friendship, courage and love. But it had been traumatic. For both of them. Not to mention Simon’s trust of the Council could fit inside a flea’s belly button. Even though his own life might depend on it, she knew he’d resist.
To make matters worse, the clock was officially ticking. They had only two days until the eclipse that would allow the watch to take them back in time. She literally didn’t have a minute to waste.
She pulled her Beetle up to the curb in front of Simon’s place. She ignored her poor car’s death rattle as it shook and shimmied before giving one last cough and shutting down. Anxious, but afraid of what might come, she looked out of the window and at Simon’s house. The gentle glow of a single light from the study window filtered out into the quiet night making the house look like a dragon sleeping with one eye open. She tucked the folder under her arm. Time for a little slaying.
Clutching the file tightly, she walked up the dark path to Simon’s house. She stumbled on an uneven cobblestone and swore under her breath. Even his house wasn’t going to make this easy.
The door to his study stood ajar, the light jutting out in a sharp angle against the dark, hardwood floors. Gently, she pushed it open further. “Simon?”
Sitting forward in an overstuffed reading chair, his elbows resting on his knees, Simon stared down intently at his clasped hands. “Where have you been?”
For a split second, she felt her buttons being pushed, but she flipped the override switch and forged ahead. “You will not believe who I just talked to.”
“Aumond?” he said, not bothering to hide his contempt.
“No,” she said with a sigh. “I’m sorry about not discussing that with you sooner, but it doesn’t matter.”
He raised his head to meet her eyes. “It matters to me.”
“I know, but…” she said and paced across the room. Now, this was a room built with a good pace in mind. “Aumond is small potatoes; we’re talking the entire potato famine here.”
“If you think I’m going to let what happened earlier go so easily…”
Elizabeth stopped pacing and turned to face him. Of course not. He wouldn’t be Simon if he did. Soothing hurt feelings would have to wait though. She was going to bust if she didn’t tell him what happened. “The Council came to see me.”
Simon’s head snapped back as if he’d been struck. He stared at her for a long moment before speaking in a voice that sounded like stone grinding against stone. “They what?”
“They came to—”
Simon surged out of his chair and was across the room and gripping her arms before she could finish her sentence. “You’re to have nothing to do with them,” he said fiercely. “Do you understand me?”
Elizabeth blinked in shock, before gathering her wits and wriggling out of his grasp. “I understand that you might seriously need some Valium,” she said and massaged her arms. “What is the matter with you?”
Simon seemed to snap back to himself and then faltered. “I’m…”
“Slightly out of control?” She knew another parry was the wrong move. She needed to try to calm him and not provoke him, but the words spilled out.
They seemed to help him regain his footing. He fixed her with a piercing glare that held her more strongly than his hands ever could. “Don’t ever speak to them again, Elizabeth. You have to promise me you won’t.”
“You don’t even know what they asked me.”
He turned quickly away and strode across the room, raking a hand through his hair. “It doesn’t matter.”
Had he lost the plot completely? Wasn’t he even the least bit curious? “It does matter,” she said with forced patience, before taking a breath. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It matters a lot.”
He stopped and stared at the far wall. “They’ll just have to make do without your help.”
Something didn’t add up. She didn’t expect him to take it in s
tride, but something wasn’t right. “How did you know they wanted my help?” She felt the pang of a belatedly realized betrayal. Elizabeth tightened her grip on the folder and her surging anger. “They came to see you first, didn’t they?”
Slowly, he turned around. “Yes, two days ago.”
His frank admission, so matter of fact, stunned her. “And you were going to share this when?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
Oh, that was rich. “Wasn’t irrelevant at lunch.”
His eyes darted away from hers. “That was different.”
The air was suddenly thick and heavy and impossible to breathe. The word hypocrite danced on the end of her tongue, but she forced it back down. They’d deal with that later. He’d survive that, but the Council’s news was something else entirely. “What if everything they’ve said is true? Did you even consider that? Simon, your life is in danger."
“Lies.”
“Did you even listen to what he had to say?”
“We’ve no reason to trust them,” he said as though that answered her question.
Elizabeth huffed in disbelief. “We? I must have missed the ‘we’ part. Did that come before or after you decided what was best for me?”
“My grandfather died on one of their… missions,” he said, practically spitting out the word. “Don’t think that a day passes in my life when I don’t remember how close I came to losing you. All because of that bloody Council. I’ll be damned if I’ll let it happen again.”
"And I don’t want to lose you!” Elizabeth took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Would you at least listen to what I have to say?”
Simon rolled his shoulders and stalked to his desk. He planted himself in the chair and waved his hand giving her the floor. Only Simon could be completely accommodating and utterly condescending at the same time.
Not exactly a receptive audience, but at least he wasn’t shouting anymore. Elizabeth gave him the Reader’s Digest version of everything that Travers had told her.
Out of Time Series Omnibus (Out of Time: A Paranormal Romance & When the Walls Fell) Page 33
