The Lancaster Rule - The Lancaster Trilogy Vol. I

by T. K. Toppin

  Among the varied items were a cherry stone, a crumpled bit of paper with a rough sketch of a large, furry dog, a grayish pebble with a fleck of orange, a small piece of an energy bar with bits of lint and thread stuck to it. But what caught his eye first was the shiny imager. He picked it up and quietly left the room.

  For the rest of the night, Lorcan watched Josie’s life unfold from the imager’s contents, crying silently as he did so. He hadn’t cried since his wife died. And he wasn’t sure if he cried from sadness or from joy. Sometime before dawn, he returned the imager, sat on the bed next to Josie’s slumbering form and softly kissed her forehead.

  Chapter 8

  I woke with a start.

  I sprang up in bed and clutched at myself, partly to make sure I was still there, but mostly to cover myself. I had the strangest feeling of being naked. Looking down, I saw I was fully clothed and very much in the present. My heart pounded like crazy, but it soon leveled out. Slouching over my knees in a sigh, I groaned. Pain everywhere, inside and out.

  Will it ever end? A headache throbbed behind my eyes, and every joint ached.

  Wait a sec—

  I stared absently at my blanket-covered kneecaps.

  Something had happened. Something very bad…

  Order wasn’t something my mind seemed capable of; the fog and dull ache hampered even a single thought from forming. I groaned again, and touched my head gingerly. Yes, definitely still there. Then I touched my face. White-hot agony electrified me. I shrieked. There was a tightness to my face, and the skin felt stretched, puffy, and ten times larger.

  What had happened?

  Darting my eyes around, I tried to make some sense of things. I didn’t recognize the room. Where was I? It didn’t appear scary; in fact, it looked quite nice. Homey. Pleasantly furnished, finished with fluffy ruffles in English-rose motifs on the curtains and skirting around the bed, on the bedspread, extending even to the upholstery covers on the chairs—all in a very calming shade of peach. In neat order around the room were dark-stained wooden cabinets, tables, and chairs, a comfortable looking chaise lounge in one corner, and an adjoining bathroom where I saw the corner of a cream-colored porcelain sink. Across the room, a solid wooden door. It had an ornate handle and curving fretwork engraved and shaped to look like…what? I squinted my eyes. A rose? The window behind me to my right opened out to a tranquil view of a rolling countryside with a winding dirt road dipping between hills lined with big, homely trees. I stared at the window and raised brow. It looked real enough.

  Real…

  With a jerk, I clutched my chest and let out a strangled scream. A flood of images cascade into my head—cherry jam, Madge, blood, lots of blood, killers, knives, and men dressed in black, the man looking at me, the mist with a man—

  The door swung open and a man rushed in. He stopped with a jerk. I shrieked in surprise, and despite all my aches, flung myself clear off the bed to crouch beside it. With the bed between us, I stared wide-eyed at him.

  “Shh-shh,” the man’s startled expression eased from worry to relief. “It’s okay, now. Do you remember me?”

  I didn’t reply. Crouched low, I allowed only the top of my head and eyes to peer from above the side of the bed.

  Do I remember him? No. Do I? Should I?

  The man inched forward. Mimicking me, he crouched on the other side of the bed. A quirky smile played across his ruddy face. He did look familiar. In fact, he seemed pleasant enough. Roughly in his mid-forties, he had short, spiky blond hair atop a solid, square face, and the weathered look of someone who enjoyed the outdoors. His nose was just a touch larger and longer than for most people, with a knot at the bridge suggesting it had probably been broken once. But it somehow enhanced the slightly aquiline shape. His lips were a roguish slash along a wide mouth, and deep creases bracketed them. His chin, stern and rugged. He looked good-natured, made more so by striking blue eyes and the seemingly permanent humor lines at their corners.

  “Take your time, my dear. Don’t be frightened. You are absolutely safe now.” He propped his elbows on the bed. “Whew. You had me going there for a minute. I don’t think I can take any more of your screaming. Two days is quite enough now.”

  I remained silent, so he continued talking. He seemed a little uncomfortable, like he wasn’t used to small talk. “You, um, went through quite a few saline patches too. Thought I might’ve needed to go out to the chemist and get some more. Guess you were pretty thirsty, eh?” he chuckled. “You sure you’re awake and not sleepwalking? You had some pretty wild nightmares.”

  His smile was infectious, and without realizing it, I relaxed a little, catching on only when I raised my head a bit higher to expose my entire face. Shit.

  He winced in sympathy as his blue eyes flitted across my face. “Took quite a beating, you did. Sorry about that. I’d’ve gotten there sooner if I could.”

  “Who…?” I croaked, then words left me. The images flashed in my head, and I remembered everything in rush. My expression must’ve told him I remembered. He nodded gravely.

  Offering his hand, he grinned. “I’m Lorcan Wellesley. Nice to meet you, Josie. I’m glad you remember what happened. You’re not as traumatized as I thought you’d be…considering. Don’t worry, it’ll soon be a distant memory.”

  I gripped the side of the bed, my knuckles turning white, and again, panic built. Pressing a fisted hand to my mouth, I stifled the scream. But somewhere, deep in my mind, a calm voice spoke. This man saved your life, don’t you remember? He killed three people, too! But he saved your life. Yes, he did. He came for you. He said Quin sent him.

  I stared at the extended hand and the smiling face. A small, squeaky “Hi” came out my mouth, barely audible. But I didn’t move to either accept the hand or move from my current position.

  Lorcan grinned back. Then he stood, leaned over, and gently patted my fingertips.

  “I bet,” he smiled, “you must be hungry. Very hungry.”

  As if his words were some cue, my stomach quivered and ached. But what were his intentions? Fear and caution made me nod curtly as I glared up at him.

  He laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll not poison it. How does a nice ham and cheese omelet sound?”

  * * *

  When I looked in the mirror, my reflection horrified me. Aside from the various parts of my body that were covered in bruises and scratches, my face was blue. Well, most of it anyway. It might as well be all blue. No wonder the man called Lorcan laughed at me so much.

  My left eye was swollen, and a florid shade of blackish-blue. The skin was so puffy and shiny it almost squeezed the eyelid shut, slanting it to a funny angle like I was anticipating being squirted by a lemon. The right cheek fared no better. A knot the size of a grape protruded from the cheekbone. The color was a tolerable shade of blue with bits of brown and yellow around it. On the mend, that usually meant. I sucked in a breath and gingerly touched it. The raised knot felt hard and foreign. An alien zit. My attention moved to my nose and upper lip. The right side of my lip was a little swollen and raised, the black line of a healing cut on the upper-most part of the lip proved to be the most sensitive. And stiff, making me talk oddly. My nose just looked swollen and sore, with red, blue, yellow, and purple all competing for attention.

  I let my shoulders fall along with my spirits, and wiped away a trickle of wetness from my left eye. I wasn’t sure if it was from crying or because it was just sore and gluey. The skin beneath my chin stung with a sore tightness. Touching it lightly, I traced a small but rather deep cut. I remembered the knife…

  How did I get here? I didn’t mean in the physical sense, but more in the general sense. I shook my head and walked back to the bed, flopped down on the side and stared out the window.

  In the morning, after I’d eaten the omelet and then promptly threw up, Lorcan sat down with me and explained everything. I wasn’t afraid of him anymore; his infectious good nature rubbed off. I’d even attempted to give him a small smile of thanks, but i
t was mostly from embarrassment because of my projectile vomit, which landed on his knee. He wasn’t even grossed out. He just laughed it off and cleaned it up.

  After leaving the place where they had found me, he explained, he and his partner airlifted me to his home in North Yorkshire, England. He’d spoken briefly to Quin, informing him I was safe. Quin had gone into hiding and begged his eternal thanks, and said to please make sure I was well looked after. Lorcan was, as he claimed Quin had repeatedly emphasized, in the best position to offer me protection and safety.

  The most I gleaned from our brief conversation was that Lorcan was former military. He was also a building engineer of sorts, his mother—whom Quin had once helped—was a famous actress, and this was the house he’d grown up in. He had a nineteen-year-old son, Max, who lived with him and whom I was yet to meet, and his wife had died five years ago.

  Whether it was the fact that he spoke fondly of his dead wife, or the affectionate way he spoke of his son, my initial fear was soon replaced by a sort of relief and tiredness, a longing to see Quin, and a painful ache in my heart for Madge. I hadn’t been able to stop sighing, and felt drowned in despair. I missed them. I missed them terribly. Even Fluffy.

  I thanked Lorcan for saving me, a sort of disjointed and muttered thanks, which had been difficult when it made me recall an insane woman wielding a knife and scraping it along my neck. To say that was the most terrifying moment in my life would be an immense understatement. It was so much more, so indescribably horrific. I had never experienced anything close to that. In my world, things like that didn’t happen to people like me. But it had, and I couldn’t forget it. To prove my gratitude for Lorcan saving me, I downed a vile-tasting protein drink he insisted I take. He’d then ordered me to take it easy and rest. To be honest, I was so freaking tired of hearing that word “rest,” so instead I took to loitering about the room, picking items up and putting them down again.

  At dusk, a brief knock came from the door. Lorcan walked in bearing a tray laden with a plate of fruit and some more of the vile protein shake. I was famished, so much so that when not thinking of the Aguilars and the events that had happened, I thought of food. Constantly.

  Of course, actually eating food was another problem. My stomach was still sensitive after my time—centuries—of not eating or processing food. If I ate too fast or the food was too rich, I’d projectile vomit immediately after. The omelet was a classic example. For months, Madge had kept me on a strict diet of plain-boiled meats and vegetables. I also had plain-prepared starches, accompanied with fresh fruits and juices, mostly watered down, and had been graduating slowly to more complex meals like cereal, and soy milks and even the odd glass of wine and coffee, and some simple sauces. Once, I’d even been allowed butter on my toast. By the time I was helping to make jam, I’d graduated to being allowed sweets and puddings. But now, after being involuntarily starved for the last few days, it seemed I’d taken one giant step backward. But holy shit, did I ever crave food!

  Lorcan found me sitting cross-legged on the window ledge amid soft cushions and a warm blanket over my knees. A sort of bay window, like the ones you read about in old nineteenth-century period books, where the dainty English lady prone to fainting spells would spend the day sitting, doing her embroidery or knitting. How fitting.

  “Brought you a late tea.” Lorcan set the tray before me on the ledge and sat down next to it. He looked tired, and the sigh that escaped his lips made me very guilty.

  “Thanks.” I smiled back, hoping it looked genuine. It vanished really quickly. “I’m sorry,” I blurted out.

  Confusion creased his face, the crooked smile fading from his lips. “I beg your pardon?”

  “For all the trouble I’ve been causing you. You must be a really busy guy, and now here you are, taking care of me. I…I’m really sorry.” I sounded so pathetic, even to myself. I certainly felt that way, but his face softened and a warm, firm hand cradled my face.

  “Oh, my dear. Don’t be sorry.” He gave me an encouraging smile, bringing me close to tears. “I want to help you. Not because I owe my thanks to Quin, but because when I saw you there, in that room, surrounded by those… Well, it all but broke me. You looked like a broken-down doll. And it just horrifies me to think if I didn’t get there in time… Well, I just…am so glad you’re all right.”

  I broke down. Hot, stinging tears burned and scorched my cheeks, and split open the healing cut on my lip.

  Moving the tray aside, Lorcan edged closer and pulled me securely into his embrace. Tucking my head under his chin, I cried and cried. The chaotic memories and images of the last moments I’d spent with the Aguilars, the assassin, the blood, the fear, and everything else, crammed and pushed its way into my head in one confused traffic jam—complete with beeping horns, shouts, and expletives.

  Lulled by his warm, even breath and beating heart, I fell into a blissful sleep.

  Chapter 9

  Max Wellesley and I formed a sort of camaraderie. He was close to my age, well, sort of. During the day, while Lorcan worked, Max spent most of his time with me, helping me acclimatize to life in an English country manor home in the twenty-fourth century. He also looked after my growing culinary needs.

  Max was very shy, in a stubborn sort of way. That’s the only way to describe his manner, since despite his shyness and hesitancy regarding people and situations, he had a determined and headstrong temperament, near aggressive, and I could almost see the internal battle of his will versus his emotions. The spitting image of his father minus the ruddy face and long nose, he was rounder and more delicate in appearance. He stood tall and awkwardly lanky, with a boyish gentleness only just growing into the sturdy frame his father had. Though I could tell he’d never be as stocky as Lorcan. I reasoned his general appearance and “softness” came from his mother. Lorcan was definitely very rugged, athletic as opposed to Max’s poetic.

  Unless prompted, Max barely spoke. When he did speak, it was with a certain eloquence and politeness, suggesting maybe his mother had instilled in him the proper social manners and verbal skills needed in life. It certainly didn’t come from Lorcan, who was through-and-through North Yorkshire in speech and temperament. Max spoke slowly and carefully at first, but would then relax and, in a gush of contained enthusiasm, babble away, seemingly unaware he did so. But only if the subject appealed to him. Computers, mechanics, and the intricacies of electronics and science held his interest and talents. His encyclopedic brain contained odd bits of information and trivia and, of course, history. We spent hours upon hours talking about historic topics and events from my own time, to which he’d listen to with great interest. In turn, hearing him speak of events that happened in the recent past was much more entertaining and interactive than watching an imager.

  When it wasn’t history, he reverted to topics on the sciences. Like today. Politely, I half-listened, taking note only when his voice rose with enthusiasm, making his face twist with a serious sternness, almost scathing, when he spoke of the lack of knowledge some of his peers had. I gathered Max was a very passionate young man and probably destined to be a success at whatever he chose to do. I saw a resolute dedication in his temperament. It impressed me to see that trait in someone so young.

  “So, it’s called a map now, not a GPS?” I placed my fingertips to my temples, pretending to pointedly place this bit of information into my brain. “And a map-map is now called an atlas?” I pushed up a brow for confirmation. It was quite confusing. I also didn’t see the big deal in retaining this bit of knowledge, but Max seemed almost insistent that I did. Did I mention he could be anal?

  “Sort of,” he replied, smirking at my confusion. He had a tendency to blush violently if you stared at him too long. I reasoned he wasn’t accustomed to being around the opposite sex. Such a kid. He was, technically. And I felt…ancient.

  He continued. “An atlas is still a book of maps, but it’s just so that people don’t confuse things.”

  “Uh?”

&n
bsp; He grinned without emotion, a quick flash of teeth that was gone as fast as it was there, changing his face to that of an impatient teacher explaining to a stupid child. “Okay, you see, the old Global Positioning Systems, well, they’re now common use. Everyone has one in their personal units, in their homes and cars—everywhere. So it’s no longer called a GPS. It’s more like your personal map to get about from here to there, if you don’t know where you’re at or how to get there. I mean, they all do that now. At one point it was called a My-Map, right up there with My-Addy and rOuteLook… Ah, never mind. But then people just ended up calling it a map. A hard copy of a map is still a map, but it saves confusing things if you called it an atlas, that way people will know you mean a hard-copy map as opposed to the digital map. But who uses hard copy now, right?”

  I must’ve been staring again. Max blushed. He made a lopsided smile and averted his eyes toward his fingers, which twined through the fabric at the ends of his shirt.

  Like many days before, we sat outside on the lawn on comfortable wooden chairs, a big tree beside us, blocked the afternoon sun. Before the tree sat a thatch of low flowerbeds and shrubs, with a wooden birdfeeder stuck in at the corner. On the other side stretched a vast lawn edged with more trees and mixed flowerbeds and vines, all done in a twisty sort of meandering way that beckoned you to take a slow, pondering walk through it as you walked over leaves and blossoms that carpeted the ground. The place looked no different from any other country garden I’d visited or seen in a gardening book or program—in 2030. It appeared as if time had stilled here, the trees and foliage made this an impregnable sanctuary where the “future” didn’t exist. I could’ve been back in my time just as easily as way back in the 1800s, sipping tea and dressed in a full-length frock and corset. It warmed my heart to see that neither time nor the advances of technology had crept in or affected this place.