A Time of Shadows (Out of Time #8) (4 page)

“All of them?”

“It’s the only way I can make sure this doesn’t get any worse. Keeping everyone exactly where they are for the time being is prudent.”

“And how long will they be off?” Cross demanded.

“I’m not sure. It depends.”

“On?”

“As luck would have it—you.”

E
LIZABETH
HAD
THAT
SINKING
feeling again. Whenever a conversation with the Council started with “we need your help,” the rest of it was going to give her a headache and Simon an ulcer.
 

A rumbling growl came from Simon’s chest as he frowned. “And what exactly does
that
mean?”

Travers’ frown deepened and he looked from Charlotte to Simon and Elizabeth. “I think perhaps some of this might be a little…mature for Charlotte.”

Charlotte made a face, but Elizabeth was inclined to agree. Simon, however, showed no signs of budging.

“Maybe she can sit over there?” Travers suggested, pointing to the seating area on the far side of the large office. “I have Highlights and Ranger Rick. I loved those as a boy.”

“What’re those?” Charlotte asked.

“Oh,” Travers said, disappointed. “Wrong era. Uhm…”

“It’s all right,” Charlotte said. “Mom and Dad send me out of the room all the time. Do you have some paper and pencil? I can draw or something?”

“Of course.” Travers dug into his desk and found some.

Elizabeth squeezed Charlotte’s hand and mouthed “thank you.”

Charlotte shrugged and sat down on the large sofa.

Simon watched her for a moment before turning back to Travers, who gestured to the free chair next to Jack. “Please?”

Simon huffed about it but sat down and spread his arms, the signal for Travers to continue.

“What I’m about to tell you mustn’t ever leave this room. There’s only one person with clearance high enough to know what I’m about to tell you and he’s dead.”

Elizabeth grimaced. “That doesn’t sound good.”

Travers sighed. “It isn’t. Alistair was more than a fine director, he was a good friend.”

“If the director was the only one with high enough clearance, how do you know about it?” Jack asked.

Travers spread his hands out, palms up. “I’m the new director.”

He didn’t look too excited about it, Elizabeth thought. “Congratulations?”
 

“Under different circumstances, but things are rather dire. Alistair’s death was quite a blow. I’m not convinced it was natural.”

“Murder?” Simon asked.

“The autopsy was inconclusive, but there are powers at work here behind the scenes that wanted him out of the way, I’m afraid.”

Elizabeth had an inkling she knew where this was going. “The Shadow Council?”

Travers nodded and her heart felt instantly heavier. The Shadow Council wanted the Council proper, the Good Guys, so to speak, to move in a far less beneficent direction. They’d been responsible for hiring Katherine Vale and, God only knew if they were behind Graham, too, although she had her suspicions.

“I was Alistair’s second, promoted quickly because he feared everyone around him was a member of the Shadow Council. He trusted virtually no one near the end. And I find myself in the same, unenviable position.”

“And so you need outsiders,” Jack said with a nod. “It happened at the OSS and MI5. Paranoia gets ahold of you…”

Travers agreed. “Yes, exactly. As the new director, I’m privy to everything Alistair knew. I’m afraid he kept a personal journal. Which, unfortunately, has been stolen.”

“And whoever has it knows all the secrets?” Elizabeth guessed.

Travers nodded. “There’s one in particular that’s quite troubling.”

“Just one?” Simon asked.

Travers managed a small smile at that. It faded and he continued his explanation, sounding even more exhausted than he had a few moments ago. “I’d always believed there were twelve watches. But, it seems, there is a thirteenth. And it is not just any watch.”

“Of course it’s not,” Simon said under his breath, as if he’d expected no less.

Travers let out a breath and put his hands palm down on the desk and stared at his fingertips for a long moment before looking up. “If you’ll indulge me in a bit of Council history?”

He wasn’t really asking permission, but Elizabeth gave it to him anyway with a nod.

“The Shadow Council has its origins in World War II. Imagine having the power to save millions of lives and knowing you mustn’t, knowing the timeline must play out as its meant to be. For some, this was untenable. They tried to change the Council’s mission from one of study and protection to one of control.”

“So, they wanted to change the timeline,” Elizabeth said. She knew first-hand how tempting it was, but she’d also found out first-hand how devastating giving into temptation could be. She sought out Simon’s gaze, but it was locked sternly on Travers.

“For the better, in their eyes.”

Simon pursed his lips. “So said every dictator in history.”

“Precisely. They were rebuffed, but they did not give up hope. They simply went underground.” Travers leaned back in his chair. “And there they stayed, or so we thought. In 1995, Alistair, new to the post, discovered that not only had the Shadow Council not disbanded, they’d grown.”

He stood and walked over to one of the large globes that flanked his desk and gave it a spin. They all watched, mesmerized, as the Earth rotated before them.
 

“The universe is remarkable,” Travers continued. “Despite some people’s best efforts to destroy it, to change the timeline, it seems to find a way to right itself. However…” He stopped the globe mid-spin and Elizabeth’s heart gave a small, unexpected start. “There are fragile moments in time.”

“Nexus points,” Simon offered.

“Yes, exactly. Specific points in time that are vulnerable. Some are small, the changes are relatively minor, but others…they can change the course of human history. Knowing which is which is a science beyond my understanding. But we have analysts who parse it all out. Even with all that, it’s rare, thank God, to find a moment that has cataclysmic possibilities.”

Elizabeth’s sinking feeling sank deeper into the mire. “But the Shadow Council found a way around that?”

“Alistair believed they might, and so he started a special project: Aegis. Somehow the Shadow Council found out about it and started one of their own. They found a scientist of nearly the same caliber as the Watchmaker. His name is Drasko Skavo, and he, like Project Aegis, was trying to create a watch that would allow the bearer to break through this wall, to change any moment in time at will.”

“That sounds like a very bad idea,” Jack said, and Elizabeth wholeheartedly agreed.

As did Travers, who nodded. He spread his arms out helpless resignation. “And our own little arms race began.”

“And so each tried to create a watch that could change time before the other did?” Simon reasoned.

“Yes. It was mad, of course. Skavo was young and brilliant, but it eluded him. It seemed impossible. And it should have been. But one man succeeded. The only man who could.”

“Teddy,” Elizabeth said.
 

Travers nodded.

“Is he here?”

Travers’ face fell and he shook his head. “I’m sorry. He passed away ten years ago.”

Elizabeth’s heart dropped. Logically, she’d known that Teddy and everyone she’d met in the past was dead by now, but hearing it, knowing it was true was something else. She swallowed a lump of sudden emotion and forced herself to focus on the now.

“Wait a minute,” Jack said. “Ten years ago. If he was thirty in 1906, that would make him…”

“139,” Travers supplied. “If he had lived in only one time period, but Mr. Fiske loved to travel.”

Elizabeth and Simon exchanged a glance. That explained Teddy’s visits to Charlotte in the future. But why hadn’t he come to see them?

“He was technically 87 when he died in 2005.”

Elizabeth tried to wrap her mind around that and pushed down the small sting of disappointment that he hadn’t come to visit. She had no way of knowing why he hadn’t but was sure he would have had his reasons.

“So Teddy built this thirteenth watch?” Simon asked, steering them back on course.

“Yes, but once the impossible was done, Alistair realized the danger in having pursued it at all. It was too great a power for any man, even the best of us, to have.”

Travers sighed and sat back down. “Alistair asked Mr. Fiske to destroy it, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d spent years of his life trying to do the impossible and, in the end, couldn’t destroy it. Alistair finally agreed that Mr. Fiske should hide it. If, somehow, Skavo should find a way to create his own, they’d at least have some power to counter it.”

Simon sat forward. “And the journal? Whoever has it knows where the watch is hidden?”

“No, thank God,” Travers said. “They only know that it exists, which is troubling enough. The whereabouts of the watch are where you come in.”

“I don’t understand,” Simon said.

“The hiding place of the watch died with Mr. Fiske. He was the only one who knew. Not even Alistair knew.”

“How can we possibly help?” Elizabeth asked. “We haven’t seen Teddy in a year.”

“No,” Travers said, his eyes traveling over Elizabeth’s shoulder. “But someone else has.”

Elizabeth turned to follow his gaze, although she knew full well where it had landed.
 

Charlotte.

C
HARLOTTE
MUST
HAVE
FELT
everyone staring at her because she looked up from her drawing and looked at each adult in turn.

“What did I do?”

Elizabeth laughed. “Nothing, honey. Would you join us for a minute?”

She put down her paper and pencil and walked back over to Travers’ desk. Simon stood and she took his chair.

“How did you know about that?” Simon asked Travers.

Travers merely shrugged. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that either.”

Simon scowled at that.
 

“It’s for your own protection,” Travers added.

It did little to quell Simon’s obvious frustration.

“That sounds a little like something the Shadow Council might say,” Jack offered.

Travers blanched, and then nodded with a sigh. “Nonetheless.”

Simon grunted and looked down at Charlotte. Her eyes shifted nervously from him to Elizabeth.

“It’s all right,” Simon said. “We just have a few questions about your visits from Teddy.”

“I don’t know how much I should say.”

Simon sighed. “Not you, too.”

Charlotte sat up straighter. “Daddy told me not to. Protect the Prime Directive,” she added with a Vulcan salute.

“I doubt I did that,” Simon grumbled and Elizabeth tried hard to suppress her smile.

“We just need to know a few things, no details about your life, our life, in the future, just about your talks with Teddy,” she explained. “That’s all.”
 

“He comes to visit sometimes. We play games, tell stories, read. He’s fun.”

Simon knelt down next to her chair. “I’m sure he is. Did he ever say anything about a watch?”

“Oh, all the time. He made them.”

“Yes,” Simon said. “But did he say anything about a specific watch? The thirteenth?”

Her forehead wrinkled in thought. “Yeah, but it didn’t make sense.”

“What do you mean?”

Charlotte shrugged. “Teddy’s different.”

Simon’s eyebrows went up. “Yes, he is. Special.”

Charlotte nodded. “He tells me stories about the day I’ll get my own watch.”

“Does he?” Simon said, unable to hide a flare of temper. “A bit presumptuous,” he muttered, and Elizabeth agreed. As Charlotte’s expression grew worried, he let it go and hurried to apologize.

“I’m sorry,” he continued. “What did he say?”

“That he trusted me. We’re blood brothers.”

She held up her thumb.

Simon’s mouth opened, ready, Elizabeth was sure, to lecture on the dangers of such a foolish and dangerous ritual, but he controlled his temper this time.

“And the thirteenth watch? Did he tell you where it was?”

Charlotte nodded.
 

That sent a silent shockwave through the room.
 

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

Simon sighed. “Charlotte—”

“I mean, he told me, but I don’t understand what it means.”

“What did he say?” Elizabeth asked.

Charlotte scrunched up her forehead as she tried to remember. “WP-9368.”

The shockwave of revelation dissipated.

“WP…?” Simon said.

“9368.”

“What does that mean?” Simon asked.

Charlotte shook her head. “I don’t know. I told you.”

“Are you sure you didn’t forget something? Did he give you a name or a place? Anything?”

Charlotte huffed a breath in exasperation, much like her father. “I told you.”

Simon sighed and stood back up.

“I asked what it meant and he said when I needed to know, I’d know,” Charlotte said. “He talks like that sometimes. Twisty.”

Elizabeth patted Charlotte’s arm, her own fond memories of Teddy returning. “That’s a good description.”

Charlotte beamed at the compliment.

“Why would he tell our child and not us?” Simon asked no one in particular.

“Maybe he did,” Jack said. “We don’t know what he told future you. You might even know what it means.”

Simon nodded thoughtfully. “For all the good that does us.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said.

Simon knelt back down next to her and squeezed her shoulder. “Nothing to be sorry for. Without you we’d have nothing to go on at all. You’ve done very well.”

Jack leaned back in his chair, laced his hands behind his head and stuck his long legs out in front of him. “Now, we just have to figure out what it means.”

“If it’s all right,” Travers said, “I’d like the Crosses to sink their teeth into that. I think they’re best suited for it. No one we trust knows Mr. Fiske’s mind better than they do. I do, however, have need of your particular expertise in a related matter.”