Cheating Death

by April White

  I shook my head and stared through the peep-holes at the half-Clocker, half-Monger accused thief. Could Ava have somehow sent me visions she’d had of MacFarlane? But she didn’t see into the past, and I wasn’t touching her. Ringo had gone back to his post at the peep-holes, and I shifted my dagger into the other hand so I could rub my eyes.

  Aeron’s eyes were locked onto MacFarlane’s, and he inhaled, about to speak.

  Suddenly, MacFarlane threw something past Aeron, and a huge FLASH filled the room with noise, light, and smoke. The BANG that followed shook the room, and Darrell lunged forward to grab the handle of the dagger from Death. He slashed the blade as he did, and it sliced deeply into Aeron’s forearm.

  My head instantly flooded full of images that made no sense as panicked screams erupted in the Council room. A smashed cradle held an infant covered in blood, pale as death, while the screams of the mother filled the room. Images of deadly illness, battlefields full of corpses, a drowned child, bloody sheets on a childbirth bed, an old woman keening in misery all swam through my head, and I struggled to focus on the scene in front of me.

  Aeron dove forward, but MacFarlane grabbed the tactical belt off the Council table and yanked what looked like a grenade from a holster. He pulled the pin on it, then swung Aeron’s dagger in quick, erratic arcs that kept everyone else at bay. He put the table between himself and the enraged Immortal.

  “It’s a concussion grenade, meant to kill in a six-foot radius four seconds after ‘e throws it,” Ringo whispered.

  I didn’t even ask how he knew that.

  “We have to get him out of there,” I said fiercely.

  “‘E’ll just as likely cut us as them before ‘e blows us all up.” Ringo’s whisper was equally fierce.

  I knew that, but as far as I could tell, I seemed to be the only other armed person in the room. I searched for Dodo, but he must have bolted along with several of the onlookers, including Millicent and her daughter. Adam was still there, and the MacKenzies. Ms. Simpson – Aislin, I corrected myself – looked worried and was herding the few people left toward the door.

  “Take one of my blades,” I said as I pulled the other dagger from its sheath. “We’ll disarm him if we can, but at this point, I’m pretty sure Death will kill him if we don’t get him out.” I spoke in my normal voice because the screams in the main room overpowered every other sound.

  Ringo was about to unlatch the door when I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “He’s definitely not from this time.”

  The words sank in, and I could see the wheels turn with the impact of them. Finally, Ringo nodded and flipped the latch on the door.

  The Council room was in chaos. Aeron and MacFarlane still faced off across the Council table from each other. The younger man’s back was to us, but Aeron saw us emerge from the fireplace, and a slight narrowing of his eyes was the only indication that he noticed.

  Adam and the younger MacKenzie had moved off to the wall opposite the Family carvings and were making their way toward Darrell, just out of his direct line of sight. MacKenzie had his gaze locked on the explosive device in Darrell’s hand and hadn’t seen us, but Adam gave me a single nod when my eyes flicked to the fireplace and back.

  Two quick hand signals told Ringo everything about my meager plan, and he also gave me a single nod, then slid back to the right of the fireplace to put himself in the way of the only other escape route. I moved along the carved wall until I could step into Darrell’s line of sight.

  And then I did.

  “Darrell MacFarlane!” I called out to him. “I can take you home.”

  Rebellion

  The young, Scottish Clocker/Monger caught me out of the corner of his eye, but remarkably didn’t break his concentration on Death, who waited across the table for any chance to take him down. He spoke to me without taking his eyes from Aeron.

  “Who are ye, then?” His brogue was thick, and I had to listen hard to understand his words.

  “Saira Elian,” I said boldly. My eyes flicked to Aeron’s face, looking for any sign of recognition or acknowledgement, but his own gaze hadn’t left Darrell.

  “Ye’ll be a Clocker, I take it, from yer name? And ye’ll have heard the necklace is missing. So how do ye propose to get me there?”

  “I’ve never been to Scotland, so unless you’re a Seer who can send me the image of your home, the best I can do is London. But I can get you to the right year. That’s what you wanted the necklace for, isn’t it?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Why can I do it, or why will I?” If I could keep him talking – split his focus between me and Aeron – Ringo and Adam had a chance to move into a position that would effectively trap him between us. I still didn’t know what to do about the grenade, but maybe someone else would come up with that plan.

  “Why would ye? Ye dinna know me. For that matter, how do I know ye’ll take me back, and not straight to prison?”

  “Depends what you do with the grenade and the knife,” I said sharply. “You can believe me or not, it’s up to you, but know this. I’m not from this time either, and I’m leaving now. Come with me, and I’ll take you back to whenever you came from, or take your chances with Death.”

  I felt eyes on me and glanced up to see Duncan shooting me a fierce glare. I scowled as I mentally replayed the events leading up to this moment.

  He did this. He wanted it to happen. He somehow knew Darrell’s history as a thief, and maybe even that he’d been a rebel. He probably told Rothchild to wear his weapons just so he could make sure they ended up in Darrell’s reach.

  I spoke out loud to Duncan, barely thinking through what I said. “Too bad Darrell wants to get home more than he wants to do your dirty work, Duncan.”

  I was baiting War, which was approximately as intelligent as dangling a mouse in front of a cobra with my teeth.

  “How dare you address me!” Another wave of Monger-gut hit me, and I was nearly crippled with it.

  I looked behind Darrell at Ringo. He had opened the door at the back of the fireplace and then stepped to the side closest to Aeron. Death hadn’t seemed to notice Ringo’s shift, but he did suddenly notice the dagger that was still in my hand. His gaze burned into mine for half-a-second before returning to Darrell, and I had the very uncomfortable sensation that I’d just put myself in Death’s sights.

  “So, Duncan,” I said, attempting a conversational tone when I really just wanted to run away screaming. “You said your Family artifact is strategic. It seems like you haven’t had it since at least 1842, and I’m a Clocker, so maybe I can help you find it?”

  I heard Ringo groan behind me, and I ignored him. I stepped forward and Darrell took a step back, which put him directly in line with Adam. I shot Adam a look to see if he was on the same page as me. He nodded. Good.

  The only people left in the room now were the Immortals, Adam, James MacKenzie, Ringo, Darrell MacFarlane, and myself. Everyone else had cleared out, and I heard the far-off sound of sirens coming from somewhere overhead at street level.

  Duncan sneered at me. “That you could imagine I would ever need anything from you is the height of arrogance.” I didn’t disagree, but Duncan wasn’t done tearing into me. “You dare to offer your help? I would see the end of war before I’d ask you for assistance. You’re just a girl.”

  “Oh, now that pisses me off.” I said it before my brain could catch up, but really, I would have said it anyway.

  The scorn in his voice matched his face. “Despite your feminine weakness, if you cross me or get in my way, you shall find yourself at the end of a sword.”

  “A sword has two ends.” I hurled my dagger toward Aeron suddenly. “Catch!” I used the momentary distraction to lunge forward and snatch Death’s dagger from Darrell’s hand just as Adam rushed forward with a full rugby tackle and sent Darrell backward toward the fireplace.

  Ringo leapt inside the hidden room and pulled Darrell and me in after him. Adam had stopped just outside the fireplace
and looked ready to follow us. “Run!” I shouted at him. My voice snapped him around and he took off toward the door, barely avoiding Duncan’s charging rage.

  I was already tracing the spiral when the very shocked Scot suddenly hurled the grenade out into the Council room just as Ringo slammed the door shut.

  “Oh crap! Grab on!” I had four seconds before the grenade blew. Ringo snatched our bags and pushed Darrell into me as I traced the last spiral. “What year?” I shouted.

  Someone hammered on the back of the fireplace, and the Council room was full of shouting.

  I was about to yell again when Darrell finally understood. “1765,” he called.

  “1765,” I confirmed to myself as an explosion sent us through the spiral and between.

  I took us to the Clocker Tower at St. Brigid’s. The whole thing had been too fast for me to be more creative than that.

  Darrell and Ringo both looked green around the gills, but I was too mad to be sick, so I punched Darrell instead. “What the hell were you thinking? Do you even know what a grenade can do? Don’t ever pull the pin on a grenade! And then you threw it? What if you killed someone in that room? What if you killed Adam?”

  Darrell could tell I wanted to hit him again, and he held up his hands in surrender. “The only way I could get out of that Council room alive was on Duncan’s coattails,” he said.

  “Did you have some sort of agreement?” I spat. I was still mad, but reason had begun to return to my brain.

  “I worked it out myself,” he said quietly.

  I looked down at the blade that I’d taken from Darrell. “Taking Death’s dagger was a bad idea,” I finally said.

  “Aye.” His tone was actually contrite, and I finally looked at him with something other than rage or fear clouding my vision.

  “You still have my other knife?” I asked Ringo. He handed me the dagger by its blade, and I took the silk-wrapped handle in my right hand while Death’s dagger remained in my left.

  Darrell’s gaze was on the daggers in my hands. “They’re the same,” he said. He was right. Except for the grip, they looked identical. His eyes were wide when he looked into mine. “Why do ye have Death’s dagger?”

  I shook my head, “I don’t.” But even as I denied it, I felt the weight and balance of both daggers and realized they felt like a matched pair – like the set I’d had until I threw my own dagger at Aeron to distract him.

  Ringo held his hands out for the knives and I gave them to him. The grip of mine was wrapped in silk cord, while the grip of Death’s dagger was bare and intricately carved. Other than that, the shape was the same, the size and weight were equal, and the blades were identical.

  “Unwrap the ‘andle,” Ringo said, handing my dagger back to me.

  I held it out for him to slit the fabric with the other blade, and then I carefully peeled back the aged silk to reveal the carvings underneath. The two daggers were mirror images of each other.

  My eyes drank in the intricate whorls and dips in the handles. They were truly stunning daggers, and I’d never seen even a hint of their beauty until now. I looked up at Ringo. “Archer gave them to me. He said he found them in the room under St. Brigid’s after the war.”

  “After the war. Death could ‘ave placed them in the cellar pretty much anytime,” Ringo said in wonder, “but since Archer didn’t live on this time stream to find them, Aeron could still retrieve them from St. Brigid’s. That’s why they could be on both timestreams.”

  “But why would Death ever keep anything at St. Brigid’s School?”

  “The ‘idden cellar room was built for any of Death’s Descendants who might become ‘Eadmaster of the school, right?” Ringo asked.

  I scowled. “Like the Council would let that happen.”

  We lapsed into silence as we thought through the ramifications. I couldn’t wrap my head around any of it, except that Aeron and I had just effectively swapped identical daggers – one from my time for one from his. Maybe that was what Tom had Seen when he said I had something that belonged to Death.

  I gave up trying to divine the mysteries of the daggers and returned them to the straps that crossed my back under my shirt. Darrell watched me carefully, and I shot him a glare. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “About what?” His attempted innocence would have worked if his fingers hadn’t resumed tapping on his leg.

  “You can’t have the daggers, and if your fingers so much as twitch in their direction, I’ll cut them off.”

  Darrell flinched back, and even Ringo looked a little surprised at the venom in my tone. “I’m serious. I’m still mad about the danger you put everyone in, and I did you a favor to bring you home. The least you could do is keep your hands to yourself.”

  He stared at me a long moment, then got up and started poking around the tower room.

  “Are you looking for confirmation of the date, or something else to get your hands on, because you’re making me nervous,” I said finally. I was totally confident I’d brought us to 1765, mostly because I’d never miscalculated a Clock. But the furnishings and hangings would have told me we’d gone back in time even if my Clocking sense was off.

  The stone walls were bare except for a tapestry where the London Bridge painting hung in modern times. The desk was the same, heavy carved wood, but the chair had a needlepoint seat and looked like a Chippendale, and the wide-plank wood floor was bare.

  Darrell opened a desk drawer and let his fingers run lightly over the quill pens and a small leather-bound book inside. He flipped open the page of what must have been a journal and found the date. “June, 1765,” he read. Darrell looked up at me in confusion. “It was September when we left, no?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe the Clocker who uses this tower isn’t back from summer break.”

  He closed the journal, and then pushed the drawer shut. He looked out the window at the cloudy sky. “The Clocker who uses this tower is Mr. Grayson. He was my history professor last year.”

  Ringo and I both stilled. It was one of those say-nothing-and-hope-he-keeps-talking moments.

  “My mother sent me to St. Brigid’s when I turned eleven, just to get me out of the Highlands, I think. It’s where she went to school, and she hoped they could train some of my da’s wildness out of me.”

  “He’s a Monger, isn’t he?” I said quietly.

  Darrell looked startled. “Aye, he is. But my mother said they’d not let me in school if they knew I was of two Families. She also told my brothers and me to choose the Family we want to be associated wi’ and stick to it. They’ve all chosen da’s people, so when I leave here, I will too.”

  “But here, you’re a Clocker?”

  He nodded. “It’s the only way to get the right training. Except the Monger in me affected my skill. My jump back a century and a quarter turned into a jump forward two and a half centuries.”

  I looked at Ringo. “See, I think that’s at the heart of why there’s so much prejudice against mixes. The skills are unpredictable and people are afraid of that.”

  “And then the Mongers got their ‘ands on a ring that didn’t affect mixed-bloods like it did everyone else, so they fanned the flames of the fear,” Ringo said.

  “They dinna have it yet, though – this ring. Duncan said they’ll steal it from the Pope in 1842,” said Darrell.

  “What is the Monger artifact, do you know?” I asked.

  Darrell shook his head. “Da’s Family cut us off when he married my mother, but he did tell us Mongers have been searching for it since it was lost in the Crusades.”

  I snorted. “Figures they’d lose it in a holy war.”

  “He said the legend was it was worn by a Muslim sultan, then hidden in a Jewish temple and taken to Europe with an ungifted family fleeing the war.”

  “That’s probably why the Mongers sacked the whole Middle East – looking for their Family artifact,” I said.

  “‘Avin’ seen War now, I don’t doubt ye.” Ringo hopped down from the windo
w ledge he’d been seated on. “Darrell MacFarlane, can we leave ye ‘ere, or is there another place Saira can take ye?”

  Ringo was right, it was time to go. Darrell shook his head. “I can get myself home from here. After all I just saw of politics in the future, I’m not of a mind to announce my return from my ill-fated journey, so I’ll be goin’ in a back way. As far as they need know ‘ere at St. Brigid’s, I’ll just be one of the many who were lost in time.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “I saw you firebomb the aristocrat, you know. That looked pretty political to me.”

  Ringo’s eyes swiveled to me, and Darrell shook his head. “That wasna politics, it was personal.”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  “The Duke of Cumberland took off my da’s hand at Culloden. I was aiming for his leg.”

  I stared at him. “With a fire bomb?”

  Darrell scowled. “If I’d had a grenade instead of a jar of spirits he wouldna have lived.”

  Ringo spoke quietly. “The Duke ‘ad a fit last month. ‘E’ll die before the year’s done.”

  Darrell turned his surprised gaze to Ringo. “Are ye a Seer then?”

  He shook his head. “I’m a student of ‘istory, which is a bit of the same thing. We learn it so we don’t repeat it. Ye’ve seen things now that no one would believe, and ye’ll ‘ave to live with the knowledge. There’s good in what ye’ve learned, but there’s danger in it too. It’ll be the mark of yer character ‘ow ye choose to use what ye know.”

  Ringo and I left through the spiral that was carved in the wall behind the tapestry. Darrell said he could Clock between places with ease, so he would get himself back to his home in Scotland. I could tell that Ringo’s words had made an impact on him, and I guessed Ringo was probably speaking as much to himself as to the young Scot.

  I set my mind to the London Bridge in 1944 as I traced the spiral, and it was near sunset as we made our way to Ringo’s flat.

  We had expected to find Rachel there, but the place was deserted when we arrived. None of Rachel’s things remained, and there was no evidence she had even occupied it. I could feel Ringo’s disappointment like a heaviness in the air.