Timekeepers: Number 2 in Series

by Catherine Webb

  ‘Erm… thanks.’ The man said nothing. ‘You’ve got good timing. But I guess it wasn’t a coincidence, right?’

  Still the man gave no answer. Sam tried switching languages, to Elysian. ‘You don’t speak English?’

  No response. He tried various Hell dialects, switched to Arcadian, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, and got no response to any one. Finally he returned to English. ‘Look, I’m really grateful for the impromptu rescue, but do you mind telling me who you are? And what your part is in all this? Please?’

  There was a long, long silence. ‘I’m… here to protect you. From Seth, from Odin. I’ve been sent.’ The voice was deep, slightly accented, but with what Sam wasn’t sure. Elysian, after all? An Earth dialect, maybe Gaelic? ‘And boy, you look like you need it.’

  Sam bridled, but kept his sharp words to himself. ‘That’s kind of you. But why? And who sent you? Not that I’m ungrateful,’ he added hastily.

  ‘I’ve been sent to protect you also from yourself.’

  Sam didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Uh,’ he finally grunted. ‘What exactly am I going to do that’s so dangerous?’

  ‘You seek to fight Seth? To get to Cronus ahead of him?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Sam admitted, ‘but I hardly see why it’s your concern.’

  ‘The path you take is dangerous. There are those who would force you to abandon it, for your own sake.’

  ‘And then there’ll be no one to stop Seth, and Cronus gets freed and we all get fried, right?’ said Sam. ‘Excuse me if I don’t find this particularly appealing.’

  The figure shrugged. ‘I will keep you safe, no matter what. Even if you don’t want me to.’

  ‘If you won’t tell me who sent you, at least give me your name.’

  ‘I will not say.’

  ‘Give me a clue, otherwise it’s gonna be Tinkerbell.’

  The figure hesitated. He clearly hadn’t expected Sam to be so forthright. ‘Tinkerbell?’ he echoed with a twist to his voice.

  ‘Uhuh,’ said Sam. ‘I’m sure someone of your obvious standing wouldn’t want that for the rest of his days.’

  ‘I have been called worse things,’ said the man, turning to go.

  Sam ran after him, caught his shoulder. ‘Hey, wait!’

  The man moved so fast, Sam hardly saw it. One second looking the other way, the next eye-to-eye, his hand locked around Sam’s wrist like a bear’s jaws around an otter. He twisted Sam’s hand behind his back so fast and hard that tears sprang to Sam’s eyes.

  ‘Don’t be difficult, Lucifer. Only, I have a short temper.’

  ‘No problem, Tinkerbell,’ Sam gasped. After a horribly long time the pressure was released, and he sagged forwards. Something hard hit him in the stomach, and he collapsed on the grass with bile burning his throat. When he looked up, Tinkerbell was loping away across the square. Sam didn’t bother to follow. He lay on the scorched ground and tried very hard indeed to breathe without being sick.

  Very slowly, his head stopped spinning and he felt strong enough to replay the events of the evening in a rational way. What alarmed him was that Tinkerbell had been sent by Someone to protect Sam. A Someone with a scheme of his own.

  Voices rose in his memory, fresh from the scry.

  And if he gets in the way?

  Stop him. But don’t let him die. He mustn’t die, that is essential. Nor must he be allowed to interfere.

  I serve.

  A dome with a cross on it; the Millennium Bridge, a silver blade crossing a river, the Thames. He’d seen through a window that commanded a view past the City of London Boys’ School, over the bridge and up to St Paul’s Cathedral.

  Hurting all over, Sam pulled himself to his feet. Somewhere in SE1 he’d find an answer. And he never liked to keep these things waiting.

  THREE

  Picture Perfect

  A

  t six-thirty the next morning Sam Linnfer stood with his arms hanging over a railing beside the Thames and watched the waters sluggishly flow by. He liked tidal rivers where they ran through big cities. No matter in what century he’d been passing through London, the river had been a constant that gave him a sense of contentment. He looked across to the north bank, on the other side of the Millennium Bridge, and tried to match it up with what he’d seen in the scry. Then he moved a few paces to the east, but still it wasn’t quite right. The buildings were all more or less where they should be, but he couldn’t yet see enough of St Paul’s Cathedral. He turned and looked behind him. Above a newsagent’s shop was a large apartment block of red brick, whose well-tended balconies had angular shapes and sliding glass doors.

  He found an alley that cut underneath the building to a small, formal square. There was a stairwell, blocked off by a large metal door. Sam looked at the intercom system for a thoughtful while, then buzzed a number at random.

  An old, quavery voice answered in tones of such aged innocence that Sam almost apologised and walked away. ‘Yes? Who is it?’

  ‘Delivery for fifty-six A,’ said Sam in his most formal tone.

  ‘Oh. Come up.’ After a brief eternity, the door buzzed and Sam pushed his way inside.

  There were windows on the stairwell. He stopped on each storey to peer out, checking what he saw against the image of St Paul’s gleaned from the scry. On the fourth floor, the view was almost perfect. The first door on the left was opened by a young woman. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Maintenance, ma’am. We’ve had complaints about the balconies. It’s probably nothing, but there has been worry about rot.’

  Breezing out on to the balcony, Sam made a brief show of looking around, with more than half an eye on the view. Still not quite right. Seeing the woman’s look of concern, he scrutinised every surface of the balcony like an ant told to get that spider or else.

  ‘Everything seems clear, ma’am, but otherwise do please call…’ And he was through the door before she’d even thought of asking ‘Call who?’

  Next door his knock went unanswered. Glancing round, he pressed his ear to the door. No sounds came from inside, so he risked sliding his mind through the door, gently reaching out for the slightest sign of life. He felt no one. His mind touched on the lock and he gave it a mental shove. It clicked, the door opened. He stepped in, closing the door, and found himself in a flat completely empty apart from a bed, table, and chair – and more photos than he’d ever seen in one place. Overlapping on the walls; standing in piles.

  Every picture was of him.

  They spanned his entire life from the invention of the camera onwards; most in black and white, many in colour. Here he was with his half-brother Merlin; there he was with the King of Avalon; there again, somewhere in this city, it must have been the 1880s, sharing a pint with… He began to rummage through them, still not quite able to believe his eyes.

  Gradually it became clear that, whoever had assembled this account of his life, they’d been both thorough and disorganised. On pieces of paper scattered like so much debris he found a record of everything. Addresses where he had a safe house in cities around the world, account numbers, languages spoken, contacts, what weapons he owned, what weapons he was good with, where he kept his dagger, his favourite spells, his favourite warding patterns, his weaknesses with certain weapons, whether he favoured his right or left hand for the cross-draw, a list of his hobbies including juggling, painting, singing badly and card tricks. His favourite books, his favourite films, the films he’d walked out of, his favourite music. Nothing had been left out.

  At the bottom of one pile of papers, he found a half-finished letter.

  Dear Ma’am and Sir,

  Progress Report, 2nd April.

  As you may be aware, last night he attempted to scry out answers. Fortunately I detected the scry and was therefore able to focus on him, thus re-establishing contact after the unfortunate period of lapse.

  By this means I observed an encounter between him and six assassins sent, I believe, by Odin on behalf of Seth. Despite some impr
essive security measures on his part, I was forced to intervene; however, he failed to discern anything of significance about me. I believe he remains ignorant of my purposes and your organisation and identities; meanwhile we can add to his file a knowledge of Molotov cocktails, and some explosive device that appears to involve Coke cans.

  I planted the transmitter on him, and will resume contact tomorrow at seven a.m.

  As regards future actions, so far he does not appear dangerous enough to bring in. He knows less than he thinks he does, and it does not yet appear that he has enough to go on with. I will —

  And there it ended, as if the writer had just put down the pen and walked away. Sam folded the letter up and put it in his satchel, together with its envelope, already addressed.

  The time was ten to seven. Somewhere about his person a transmitter must have been in place all night. It could only have been planted by Tinkerbell, who was already reporting on him to others. The kind of others who had purposes and organisations and identities and everything else that Sam had learned to dread.

  If he was bugged, they could be watching him now. He looked around the room; then at length he began to pick up photos and documents in huge numbers, sweeping them into a shoddy pile on the balcony. When he’d got everything in a heap, he ignited it by throwing a small fireball. He watched it burn, making sure everything was destroyed, and rejoicing as the ashes drifted upwards. Then he turned to go.

  Just as he reached the door, it began to open. He slammed his back against it, pushing it shut in the face of whoever was on the other side.

  A pause. Then a voice he recognised said, ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘You tell me, Tinkerbell! You seem to know everything else!’

  Silence. Then someone rammed up against the door with the force of a charging ox and Sam felt the wood shake under his shoulders. Silence.

  ‘I’m coming through!’

  ‘Sure, why not?’

  An axe buried itself in the wood, protruding about an inch from his head.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Sam leaped back from the door. He drew the chain across it, for what little good it would do, and ran for the balcony, stepping round the ashes of the photos.

  The door resounded again under the impact of the axe and the voice yelled, ‘How did you find me so fast?’

  ‘Scryed, Tinkerbell, I scryed!’ he yelled back, stepping up on to the edge of the balcony and standing there wobbling. It was a long way down, but below him he could see another balcony, just begging for attention. Very carefully he squatted down until his hands grasped the parapet so that he could walk himself down the outside of the balcony. In the flat there was a splintering sound and the hurried approach of footsteps.

  He let his feet drop, and dangled for a few precarious seconds. Tinkerbell’s face appeared over the balcony, and by daylight Sam saw that really he hadn’t given him the best possible name. The man was black, with a square face whose kindly expression was completely contradicted by a steely glint in the eye. The smile said, ‘Trust me, I’m your favourite uncle’; the dark eyes said, ‘And I can kill nephews, grandchildren and great grandchildren alike’. His hair was all but nonexistent, and his huge, ham-sized hands leant on the edge of the balcony with the kind of nonchalant vastness that suggested here was someone who could strangle a bear before breakfast.

  ‘Sebastian,’ he said with a sigh, ‘this really isn’t appropriate behaviour for a Son of Time, is it?’

  Why, of all my names, does he call me Sebastian?

  ‘And,’ he added, ‘where exactly are you planning on going now?’

  Sam opened his fingers.

  He fell – but not nearly as far as he’d planned. One huge hand caught his wrist and dangled him there, satchel swinging from one shoulder, hockey bag from the other, legs flailing.

  ‘You want me to let go?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Sam managed to gasp. His arm felt as though it was about to pull loose from its socket.

  ‘Did you have to burn the photos?’

  ‘Yup.’ He wanted to say, ‘Did you have to bug me?’ But it might be an advantage, knowing something the other guy didn’t realise he knew. He thought again about the envelope in his bag with its address. Would Tinkerbell think he’d burnt that?

  ‘You must realise I only did it to protect you.’

  ‘Flattered, I’m sure.’

  To Sam’s surprise, Tinkerbell was holding on to his right wrist with just one hand. Now he reached down with his other and began to haul Sam bodily up.

  ‘Erm…’ began Sam.

  ‘Now, no complaints. It’s too bad you’ve seen my face, but we’ll have to live with that.’

  ‘Erm…’ he repeated, and called the dagger to his free hand from its sheath in his sleeve. As the handle flicked into Sam’s hand, his sleeve tore on the end of the blade. Tinkerbell saw the movement, and instinctively recoiled as Sam reversed his grip on the dagger and brought it slashing towards the man’s arm. At the last minute, Tinkerbell let go.

  Sam fell, swinging his legs wildly and calling on magic as he went. His legs struck the edge of the balcony below with enough force to numb them, but he was ready. On impact he flung both his hands up, invisible extensions to his fingers grappling on to the balcony above as the nearest thing his magic could find. Tinkerbell paled as tendrils of magic lashed on to him like rope. Using him as counterweight to his own descent, Sam swung himself in over the side of the balcony below – and straight into a bush full of prickles. Of all the balconies in all the world, he’d fallen on to one whose owner liked roses. He picked himself up, and checked his bags to make sure they hadn’t fallen open.

  Above him, Tinkerbell was grinning, once more feeling master of the situation. ‘Sebastian, what does this hope to achieve?’

  Sam considered saying, ‘Hell, it’ll piss you off which is a good start’, but decided the better course was feigning ignorance – in particular of Tinkerbell’s ‘organisation’.

  ‘You working for just one man or a whole host of idiots?’ he yelled.

  ‘Sebastian, why are you so difficult? All I want is to see that the Bearer of Light is safe in these troubled times.’

  ‘Your concern is appreciated, but I’m fine, thanks awfully.’

  ‘You almost got whacked last night.’

  ‘And as I said, I’m terribly grateful for your timely intervention. But this still raises the “why” question. Why are you doing this? And who for? Do they expect you to write reports about me, things like, “Sebastian went to the toilet, Sebastian brushed his teeth, Time have mercy it’s serious”? Have you been watching me every day for the past week? Month? Year?’ No, you haven’t, there was, in your words ‘an unfortunate period of lapse’, but you think I don’t know that, do you? So I’m that much less of a threat.

  ‘Sebastian, come upstairs. Let’s talk this through like reasonable people.’

  ‘Curious thing, but I’m not feeling very reasonable, and I don’t mind talking just here, just like this, with a big space between you and me.’

  He heard a sound in the flat behind him and turned. Three men wearing black had burst through the front door and were heading towards him.

  ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ Tinkerbell called down, still grinning.

  ‘Pal, it’s been a pleasure,’ said Sam, and stood up on the edge of the balcony and turned and ran.

  He ran across empty air, but this wasn’t as much of a problem as it could have been. With ordinary magic it was hard to make yourself fly. But you could usually get away with it if you took gravity by surprise. It was flying for more than a few seconds that bothered him. He landed on the next door balcony and looked back.

  His three black-clad pursuers had burst out on to the balcony. He grinned, waved, and ran across empty air to the next balcony, then the next, then the next, all the time glancing over his shoulder. The men had gone, no doubt racing after him through an internal corridor. Tinkerbell was still leaning out of his balcony, sighing with frustra
tion. ‘Tiresome,’ Sam heard him say.

  Sam bowed at him, swung his legs off the edge of the balcony and worked his way down. He wrenched open the sliding glass door to the flat on the floor below and rushed inside. A man and a woman, lying in bed, began to scream at the sight of him. Sam yelled, ‘Sorry, can’t stop’, and ran on through their flat. In the corridor beyond a startled old man in a dressing gown saw him, dropped his newspaper, and darted into his own flat as if he’d seen the Devil himself. Sam forestalled him by putting a foot in the doorway. ‘Sorry about this.’ Grabbing one frail wrist, he used the physical contact to plunge him into a trance. The man sagged.

  Once inside the old man’s flat, Sam slammed the front door shut behind them, threw his bags to the ground and began searching his clothes. Tinkerbell had to have put the transmitter somewhere there; he’d had no choice. In one of his jacket pockets, buried at the bottom, his fingers closed over a tiny, plastic object. It was a minute, circular circuit board, with two bits of wire trailing from it. He sighed, and wrapped the wires around each other where before they hadn’t touched. Something in the circuit went ‘beep’ indignantly, and everything went quiet again.