“I do not know what the Norns weave, Lucy.” He stared up at her with those blue eyes, water washing around his chest. “I only know I must go across the hills to the machine. That I must take the diamond with me. And that I cannot let Brad and Casey own it.”
How did Galen know just where the machine was?
All the things he knew, about the earth, about the weather, his connection with animals, all came together in her mind. Or somewhere deeper, in her bones maybe and her gut. He healed too fast. He knew where the lab was even though he’d never been there, never seen it on a chart.
She believed. He was something more than just a half-Viking warrior from a.d. 912. He was what his mother always wanted him to be.
Shit. Damn. Hellfire and brimstone.
He was going to go.
And she couldn’t let him go alone. Certainty flooded her. She wasn’t certain what would happen, just that she would go with him. Maybe that was enough.
“Just a minute!” she yelled. “Don’t you move until I get back.” She disappeared into the cabin. She felt the boat shudder again as he heaved it off. It rocked with the movement of the water as it floated free. She grabbed clothes and their spare Nikes and stuffed them into a waterproof duffel. She got the book . . . and, God help her, the gun and put them both in her shoulder bag. She stuffed that in the duffel, too, and scrambled up on deck.
“Take this. Dry clothes for you.” She tossed the duffel and he caught it and held it above his head. The bow of the boat was protecting him somewhat from the rolling surf. “Return to the boat if you can.” She wasn’t going to tell him what she had in mind until it was too late.
“Thank you, Lucy. For all you do for me.” His eyes were serious. He thought he might be going to his death. She thought so, too. Damn it, not if she could help it.
“Have done,” she corrected, because she didn’t know what else to say. She watched him turn and stagger toward the shallows. Vandal strained at his rope, whining. “Not yet,” she whispered, fondling his ears. When the waves washed shallowly at Galen’s feet, she turned aft and winched the anchor out. Not waiting to test if it caught, she slipped the rope from Vandal’s neck and let herself over the side into the water. She was enough shorter than Galen that she had to swim for it until she could find bottom. She struck out for shore. Behind her, Vandal whined and turned in circles on the bow.
“Come on,” she called. He looked for another way out and then finally scrambled through the lines and leaped into the waves. She saw him safely swimming and then turned toward shore again. Galen had spotted her. He waded out to meet her and pulled her up when they were both thigh deep.
“Lucy,” he growled. “What do you?”
She was dripping and cold. “What do you think?” she crabbed, shivering. “I’m coming with you.” Vandal splashed to the beach beyond them and shook himself violently.
“Too much dangerous,” Galen said, gripping her shoulders. She winced, still sore from Brad shaking her.
“It sure feels right to me.”
Galen froze, examining her with a frown, maybe examining his own feelings. He knew it was right that she come. She saw him give in. He finally rolled his eyes. “Woman, you are too much partner,” he grumbled.
She grinned. “Partner needs dry clothes.” She spotted the duffel where he had thrown it into dry sand.
They changed in silence. But Lucy couldn’t stop thinking. As she stood, she said, “It will take us too long to walk over the hills to the lab. I don’t think there are any roads inland in this area. Just Highway One that runs north and south. Maybe we can catch a ride up to Highway Eighty-four and around that way.”
“No roads. Not safe. But we will not walk.”
Right. Like maybe they’d fly? She didn’t question him further, because she wasn’t sure she’d like the answer. She got out her bag and he put the duffel behind some big rocks. She sure hoped they’d get back to claim it. And the boat.
He walked up into the dunes that lined the beaches here. Wispy sea grass poked up out of some of them, as though they were giant old men with sparse hair lying on the shore.
Galen stood, still, his hair ruffled by the breeze, facing into the sun. After a minute, he lifted both arms, as though praying or . . . or sacrificing himself. Vandal whimpered at her side. Galen turned and beckoned. When she reached his side, he just turned and strode off across the dunes.
“I thought you said we wouldn’t walk,” she grumbled.
“Not long, Lucy.”
Good, because struggling across the dunes was hard, slow work. They crossed the Pacific Coast Highway, not a car in sight mid-Tuesday morning, and headed out across an open meadow dotted with California oaks. The hills were green this time of year. Birds twittered in among the oaks, and they flushed a rabbit that gave Vandal a good time until he lost it. Then he discovered that the oaks were home to squirrels. Ahhh, dog heaven. Not so much for the squirrels. They had to run up their trees, scolding him, to escape.
Lucy and Galen had walked for nearly an hour. It was getting really warm. She had begun to think his promise was just wishful thinking.
Watching Vandal dash from tree to tree, she almost missed the main event. It was left to Galen to take her elbow and point to a gap in the hills where a stream wound into the meadows.
There, the thunder of their hooves faint with distance, came a herd of horses, galloping into the meadow.
Galen looked smug. “See, Lucy? We do not walk.”
“There are no wild horses around here. This isn’t Nevada. We couldn’t ride wild horses anyway.” She realized she was muttering to herself. “Where did you get these horses?”
“They live over the hills, in barns.” He said “barns” with a couple of extra syllables. “They come to me.”
Indeed, they trotted up, maybe twenty of them, and it was apparent that they were local show horses from the expensive homes in the hills of Los Altos. Warmbloods and thoroughbreds mostly, their shiny coats told their story. Some had braided manes and others wore leather halters with brass plates engraved with their names. They stopped, snorting and blowing. Vandal barked, once, until Galen shot him a quelling look.
She was . . . uh . . . really going to have to rethink the whole thing about Galen and what had happened on the night of the vernal equinox under a full moon. He wasn’t indulging in wishful thinking about being like his brother. Because if this wasn’t some kind of magic, she didn’t know what was.
“Choose one, Lucy.”
She swallowed and got hold of herself. “I’m not sure I can ride bareback, Galen. And these are hot-stuff horses. I’ll be on my butt on the ground in about a minute.”
Galen shook his head. “They want to carry you.”
She looked at the multicolored hides jostling around her and thought horses had never seemed so huge. She took a couple of steps back, shaking her head. “I don’t know. . . .”
“Pick one, Lucy. This is okay.”
The herd milled around. Not one drifted into grazing. They seemed to be waiting for her to make her choice. Dear God, was she going to do this?
She didn’t have to choose. A bay mare with a kind eye and a broad back stepped forward from the crowd and nosed Lucy’s shoulder. She had been chosen. She looked around. No mounting block in sight. But Galen came up behind her, took her by the waist, and tossed her up. She managed to get her leg over the mare’s back. Lucy expected sidling or fidgeting, but the mare stood rock steady. Oh, Lucy’s muscles would hurt tonight. She hadn’t ridden in a long time. But the mare’s broad back was easy on Lucy’s crotch. It felt funny not to have reins in her hands. She grabbed the base of the mare’s mane instead. Galen better know what he was talking about here. Lucy had no control over this horse. She was a beauty, though. Lots of thoroughbred in with the warmblood. Probably Trakehner.
Galen beckoned to a big gray with an ice brand barely visible on his haunch. A Hanoverian, seventeen hands at least. The creature trotted forward, almost prancing in antic
ipation. Galen ran palms over the big horse’s shoulder and back, softly, soothing him. Then Galen grabbed mane and vaulted on, pushing himself up until he could sling a leg over the horse’s back. Lucy had never seen anything quite like that.
Galen and his partner turned up the meadow and the gray broke into a gentle trot. Her bay mare followed, and the rest of the herd milled along.
“We must hurry,” Galen said. The trot turned into a canter, which was actually easier to sit. The herd followed easily. Vandal loped alongside, barking encouragement.
So they were going over the hills to the lab with a herd of horses Galen had rustled up out of nowhere. And after that . . . Well, after that, she didn’t know. Galen had magic. He had something anyway. She only wished she didn’t feel like she was being pulled along in his story. Would he use the machine to go back to his time? Maybe that was best. It would be tragedy for her. But he seemed sure of his destiny, something that eluded her. And he was a brave man. She loved him. So she would go with him now, unsure as she might be, even if it was his story and not hers they were telling.
It was nearly dark. They had rough going over the mountains Lucy named Santa Cruz. As the horses tired, they walked only. Galen and the great gray horse had led the herd through open spaces with no houses. Where it was steep they had to zigzag. Since they had crested the spine of the mountains, houses were everywhere, like a solid village for miles and miles. The earth had no room to breathe.
They stopped now, the herd crowding round Galen’s big gray and Lucy’s sturdy mare, just above the stone and glass building that held the machine. In the distance, perhaps half a league away, many cars with glowing eyes sped down a wide road, raised on a berm as though it crossed a marsh. There were lights on in the recesses of the big hall, though other halls in the area were dark. Three cars only sat in the wide paved place.
Now what to do?
Galen had tried to display quiet certainty all day, without answering any precise questions, and after a while Lucy stopped asking. He wasn’t sure just what his role was or what the likely outcome. He was only sure he should go to the machine where Brad and Casey were. Galen hadn’t wanted to bring Lucy. The thought that he had taken her into danger when he should have been protecting her had eaten at him all day. And yet the wrongness of being parted from her had made him want to vomit as he tried to push Jake’s boat back out to sea this morning.
Galen would die to save her if it came to that. Her presence made the “Baldur outcome” for this adventure even more likely. When Galen thought of Brad hitting Lucy, his blood still boiled. He should have killed this Brad outside the little store. If not for Lucy, Galen would have done so.
He hoped he got another chance, where Lucy could not see.
He glanced to Lucy, who was looking at him, not at Brad’s building, waiting for him to say what to do. He swallowed. He could feel the earth bunching under itself. But it was not yet ready to help. They could not wait here. The herd would draw attention. Better he face his enemies like a man than wait for them to come to him.
He nudged the gray down through the trees and onto the paving. The herd followed. They jostled together, their shoes clopping on the hard surface. Through windows two floors high, Galen saw a man dressed in a dark blue with gold braiding push back from the table where he’d been sitting, wide-eyed. He touched his ear. They could see him speaking, apparently to no one, though they could not hear him.
In moments, four men burst through a doorway from the back. One was Brad. His cheekbone was cut and scraped, and his throat was lined with colorful bruises. Good. Two other men wore white coats that flapped against their legs. The fourth? Well, the fourth must be the man Lucy called Casey. His short blond hair was almost white, his pale eyes hard. He looked lean and stringy strong.
Casey pushed out through the doors. Brad followed. Brad stared first at Lucy, then at Galen. He was very, very angry.
Not so Casey. This man knew that anger made you weak. He nodded to Lucy and Galen. “To what do we owe this honor?” Galen felt rather than saw other men coming around the outside of the building. Casey would not be stupid enough to come with only four men and no visible weapons.
Lucy looked to Galen. Her eyes were frightened. Galen swung his leg over the gray’s neck and slid to the ground. He fished the diamond from his jeans pocket. “You forleose this?”
Casey glanced to Lucy. “Yeah. We lost it. Thanks for bringing it back. Why don’t you come inside?”
Galen went to lift Lucy down, but she had already slid off the bay mare.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she muttered under her breath.
He smiled with what he hoped was reassurance.
“Thank you,” he said to the herd. “Go home now to your barns. You have served the earth today.” The big gray threw his head and pawed the pavement. Vandal whined. “Go, dog, back to the sea.” Then, as one, the herd wheeled and disappeared into the trees at the edge of the pavement. Vandal circled at the corner of the pavement once. Galen motioned him away and put in his mind a picture of the boat. If they made it through, if the dog made it through what was coming, then would there be time to reunite. The dog stood like a figure of clay for a long moment. Then he, too, whirled and was gone.
Galen turned to Casey and Brad, nodded once.
Casey made a gesture toward the door with a smile that did not reach his eyes.
“Somehow I thought,” Casey said conversationally as they moved to the back of the building, “that we would have to come to you.” The doors opened to a long corridor. “The horses were a nice touch, by the way. And the way you sent them away? How exactly did you do that?” Galen glanced back to Casey and saw that his eyes were alive with thoughts. He wanted Galen now, too, as well as the diamond and the machine. Galen did not answer. Beside him, Lucy was wound tighter than the lines that held the sails on their boat. Brad seemed as though he were about to burst with anger like a rotting pig’s bladder. That one was dangerous because he was not in control of himself.
The men from the outside came into the building. Galen could feel them behind him. Again he glanced back. They were shadows in the shadows behind Casey. No swords. But they carried long, heavy metal clubs oddly wrought and ungainly, swinging from straps on their shoulders or held at the ready. Galen did not know what these were, but he recognized the ready stance, the brandishing. They were weapons of some kind. Of that he was sure.
Chapter 22
They were walking into the mouth of hell. At least that was what it felt like to Lucy. The lab doors opened. Leonardo’s time machine sat glittering on the platform of the two-story lab.
It was really beautiful.
“I’ll take that diamond,” Brad said through gritted teeth.
Galen held it out.
She wanted to shout that they should never have come, that this was all wrong. But it was no use now. Even as Brad snatched the huge diamond from Galen’s palm, a dozen men in military gear crashed into the lab behind them. Lucy whirled. They carried machine guns. She wished she’d told Galen about guns, how easy it was to kill from a distance. He mustn’t think his sword was any protection.
He didn’t move a muscle at the entrance of these ominous reinforcements. It was as though he wasn’t surprised.
Brad muttered to himself as he strode across the lab to the machine. He fitted the diamond into the newly repaired prongs at the head of the control lever. One of the lab-coated guys handed Brad what looked like a giant jeweler’s pliers. They must have been made specially, because they fit right over the diamond. He clenched the prongs tightly around the diamond.
He stepped back looking triumphant. Relief and anticipation coursed through the room.
Casey turned to Lucy and Galen. “Now, if you will give me your shoulder bag. That square outline means you’ve brought the book as well.” When Lucy hesitated, Casey gestured impatiently. “It’s not as though you have a choice here.”
She swung the bag over to him. He picked it up
and fished out the book. That smile again. He glanced over to the machine. “Steadman, I have an urge to try it out. Just to see if your repair job worked. Ahhhh, but with whom? Our little bookseller isn’t trustworthy.”
This was it. This was her test of character. Could she embrace the tragedy for Galen’s sake? “Send Galen,” she said, her heart contracting. “He’s got to go back. The fact that he’s here has probably already changed things.” She refused to look at Galen. If she did, she’d cry.
Brad pushed past Casey, his eyes flashing. “You think I’m stupid? He takes it and brings it back to somewhere else in a month and you’ve got control of it again. If anybody is going to try the machine out, it’s me. It should have been me in the first place.”
Casey raised his brows at this outburst. “You didn’t have the guts the first time, Steadman. As I recall.”
Brad’s face was mobile with emotion.
“Not our Viking, either. I have some . . . questions for him.”
“Me, too.” Brad’s eyes were a little wild. “And I’d like to beat the answers out of him, twice a day, for a long time.”
“Steadman, you surprise me. You’re getting a backbone. A little late, maybe.”
Brad wheeled on Lucy. “And you, you slut—”
“Will you use the machine or nay?” Galen rumbled, cutting off Brad’s tirade.
“Okay, you.” Casey gestured to one of the assistants, a slight Hispanic guy. “You’re our lab rat.” The guy looked like a rat. A cornered rat. Panic surged into his eyes. He didn’t move.
“Casey, it’s got to be me. I want to go.” Brad looked to Lucy in triumph, as if that proved he was a better man than she was worth.
Casey looked disgusted. “You we need in case it doesn’t work. You’re the expert, the one who can fix it, remember?”
Brad stood, his chest heaving. His glance darted around the lab. Then he stilled. “Okay. Yeah.” He seemed to get some control back. “Get over here, Rodriguez.” Brad turned to face the machine. When the assistant didn’t move, Casey gestured to the military guys. Two moved up and pushed Rodriguez forward with the butts of their machine guns.
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