Time Crossed: A Time Thief Novella (A Penguin Special from Signet) (3 page)

“What did you do?”

“He started asking me about the magic, and I told him I wasn’t going to give him anything, and was about to tell him just what I’d do if he continued to harass my moms, when a second guy popped up. Only he came out of the shrubs, so he must have been hiding there.”

“You must have been greatly concerned about that situation: one man alone is dangerous. Two against one can be quite daunting.”

“Well . . .” Her nose scrunched in thought. “Yes and no. The second guy didn’t give off a bad vibe. Not then, anyway. He was blond and had these really nice blue eyes, and a little cleft in his chin that just made me want to bite it.”

“Do you think that was an appropriate reaction to have given those circumstances?”

She gave me a look out of the corner of her eye as she strolled to the window. “Look, you deal with potentially murderous, handsome madmen the way you want to deal with them. I’m going to notice sexy chins. Where was I? Oh, so there was the crazy first guy, yammering on all sorts of threatening stuff, and all of sudden he grabs me, and the second guy pops up and punches him in the face. I mean, really nails him. Down goes the lawyer—did I mention that this guy who threatened my moms is a lawyer? How ironic is that? Down he goes, and I’m left standing on a windy cliff with this blond stranger. I’m no idiot, so I certainly wasn’t going to stand there and let this man kill me again—assuming I actually was killed the first time, and not premonitioning the whole thing. And also assuming that blondie was the one to kill me, not that I think he is now, because it seems to me the lawyer pretty much proved he was the bad guy, but I couldn’t know for sure, could I?”

I tried to untangle everything in that statement, and clung to the one thing that made any sort of sense. “I don’t believe ‘premonitioning’ is an actual word.”

“And then,” she said with a dramatic gesture, “the blond guy said the worst thing he could possibly say, which was—”

The door to my office burst open, causing Gwen to spin around. A middle-aged woman entered, short of stature, and somewhat plump, her dark hair streaked with silver in a short pageboy cut. “Gwen!” she said in an excited manner, rushing over to take the younger woman by the arm. “We have to leave, dear.”

“What? Right now? You said I had to talk to this woman before Mom Two would give me back—”

A second woman entered, slamming the door behind her, and turning the knob that operated a bolt. “Quick!” she said, hurrying over to my window, which without even so much as a glance my way, she flung open. “We have to leave now!”

“This is a private session,” I said sternly, noting that the second woman was taller, with a close-cropped, masculine hair style that nonetheless highlighted excellent bone structure, and a wide, mobile mouth. “Do I take it that you are Gwen’s mothers?”

“Yes, I’m Magdalena Owens,” the plump woman said, pausing in the act of dragging her daughter over to the open window to smile in a friendly manner. “That’s Alice, Gwen’s other mother, over there at the window. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I do hope you’ve been able to help our Gwenny. She has been most distraught over some incident that happened yesterday, and since you came highly recommended by a very dear friend of mine—Amor Tantrize, the palm reader—I knew that you would be just the person to help with Gwen’s—”

“Mags!”

The interruption from the woman who was now in the process of climbing through the window stopped Magdalena in her verbal tracks. The latter turned to the window, with a mild, “What, dear? Oh! Come, Gwenny, we must leave right this second. Alice is most insistent on that point.”

“What is going on?” Gwen asked as her mother resumed dragging her over to the window. For a small woman, Magdalena appeared to have prodigious strength. “Why are you running away? Is there someone out in the other room you don’t want me to see?”

Someone pounded at the door, the sound of outraged, raised voices barely audible through its thick panels. I considered the door for a moment, then pressed a button on my desk phone. “Ludwig, would you please inform whoever is pounding so vigorously at my door that it is locked, and that I will not hesitate to present a bill for damages should it suffer from such an onslaught? Thank you.”

Alice stuck her head back through the window, and grabbed Gwen’s free arm. “It’s more that you don’t want to see her, ducky. Hurry up. That door won’t hold her for long.”

“Her who? Wait a second.” Gwen reared back and dug in her heels, refusing to allow her mothers to pull her through the window. “What exactly is going on? Who is that banging on the door? Seawright? It doesn’t sound like her. And Mom, stop trying to shove me through the blasted window! I made a promise to Seawright that I wasn’t going to escape by going through the window, and you know I always keep my promises.”

The pounding continued at the door, upraised voices now more audible.

“We’re just thinking of what’s best for you, ducks,” Alice said, and reaching in with both hands, physically lifted Gwen and began pulling her through the window.

Gwen squawked and grabbed wildly at the edges of the windowsill, but she was unable to resist the combined forces of her mothers.

“Tell Seawright I didn’t go through the window willingly,” was the last thing I heard before Magdalena, with another bright smile, crawled through the window and disappeared with the others.

The pounding stopped for a moment, followed almost immediately by a splintering noise. The door was blown inwards with enough force to send the loose papers on my desk flying in a swirl around me.

A small brunette woman in a bright red woolen suit stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips, and the light glinting off a thick pair of black-rimmed glasses. Behind her hovered the woman Seawright.

“How dare she! I can’t believe she . . . argh! Well, this is the last straw, the very last straw. No one cheats death,
no one
! Not while I’m responsible, anyway. Where’d that tricky little alchemist go?” the red-suited woman asked without any form of apology for destroying a perfectly nice door, let alone a polite greeting.

I flipped over the page on my tablet of paper, and made a new heading. “My name is Roberta Gently. I am the president of this company. How long have you had these uncontrollable outbursts of anger?”

Akashi Record #2712

2 August 8.55 am

Malwod-Upon-Ooze, Wales (Outside some therapy place)

Subject: Gwenhwyfar Byron Owens

Seawright Pendleton, junior scribe (third class)

Begin Transcription

She escaped.
Again!

That’s it! I’ve had it. I quit! Consider this my notice that I hereby abandon this case!

End Transcription

Personal Logbook of Gregory Faa

Probationary member of the L’au-dela Watch. Not for Official Review.

I knew a meeting with Peter was inevitable. Hell, anyone would have known something was up when I stole time from that pushy reclamation officer (aka death’s perky little minion), but Peter is a Traveller. Even if he wasn’t directly affected by the time theft (and thus, aware of the changes made by the theft), he was still prescient enough to know something was up.

Especially when the second we arrived (again, although he didn’t realize we’d been there before) outside the pub, and he got out of the car, I leaped back into it and yelled at him to meet me down the beach at the cliff’s head.

“What? Where are you going?” he asked as I started up the car we’d just exited. Confusion was written all over his face, but I didn’t have time to explain what had happened. To be honest, I prayed I’d never have to, since it would mean the immediate end of what I had hoped would be a promising career.

“Can’t explain. Have to go save someone. Just head east out of town and follow the beach until you get to the staircase. I’m going around the other way. I think that’s how she came.”

“Who came where? What are you talking about? Gregory—”

I put my foot on the pedal and shot out into the road, narrowly missing mowing down both my cousin Peter and some elderly old man. By my best reckoning, I had twenty minutes to get to the top of that upper cliff and prevent whoever it was who flung my suspect over the edge.

The five-minute drive out to a rocky, barren field that edged the cliff face was spent mostly in trying to concoct a reasonable story that Peter would buy, thus keeping from him the truth. I had a horrible suspicion that he was going to know something illegal had gone down, however. He was smart enough, and savvy enough, to figure out that some funny business regarding the last half hour we’d just lived had taken place. I fervently hoped that he’d be willing to look the other way in the name of family.

I parked, and headed off across the field at a lope, scanning the area for the raven-haired woman. She wasn’t there, but that didn’t surprise me. She had been in the pub while Peter and I were outside it, but I knew that it had only been a minute or so after our arrival that she had somehow escaped from the bathroom. Given that its window wasn’t a means for that exit, she had to have used some other method of escaping.

Like magic. Not surprising in one who was illegally selling magic to mortals.

I half-slid, half-fell down the slope of the first terraced cliff, onto the top of the second. A small stand of trees and shrubs clung to the wedge-shaped edge. The rest of the area was empty of all persons.

“I just hope nothing happens to you on the way here, because my ass is in enough hot water without having to risk a second theft,” I muttered out loud as I headed for the densest bit of shrub and tree, kneeling to keep others from seeing me.

I had prepared for a wait of about fifteen minutes, but only five had passed when the sound of harsh breathing caught my attention. I peered out from my hiding place to see a man emerge over the top of the lower cliff, obviously having just climbed the staircase. He doubled over for a minute, his hands on his legs as he caught his breath, then he stood up, straightened his jacket, and headed straight for me.

A small rock the size of a half dollar cascaded down the upper cliff face behind me, followed by a couple of smaller brethren. We both looked up. The woman Magdalena Owens had a rope, and was rappelling her way down the cliff. I admired the sight for a moment, then recalled that I was an officer of the Watch, and we were not supposed to ogle suspects. I was fairly certain that was one of the rules to which I’d sworn a scant two months before when I joined the Watch.

When I turned back to see what the mysterious stair-climber was doing, he had moved over to the wooden ladder, peering over the top in an obvious attempt to remain out of sight of the woman Owens.

I frowned at the part of him visible to me. He looked vaguely familiar, but he was not the mortal Kleibschiemer, the man Peter had trailed from the pub. At least, he had in the previous version of time.

This man was smaller and slighter, but I didn’t care for the way he was avidly watching my suspect. Just as she landed on even ground, he climbed up the last of the stairs, saying, “So you really had the balls to show up, did you?”

She whirled around, her hair flying out like a curtain of raven’s wings. “So to speak. You’re the lawyer?”

“That’s right.” He took a step toward her, menace all but rolling off him. “I hope you’ve come to your senses. My client should be here any minute, and I don’t want him disappointed. That wouldn’t be healthy for your family.”

With calm deliberation, she brushed the dirt off her black jeans, not even glancing his way as she answered, “I don’t take well to threatening, you know. I find bullying of any sort repugnant, and especially so when the person doing the bullying threatens people weaker than him.”

“You think I’m afraid of you?” he asked with a laugh.

She finished brushing off her knees and gave him a long look. “I think you should be. I’m no lightweight, and I don’t intend to let you harm anyone, let alone my mothers.”

“Give me the goods, and no one will get hurt.”

“No,” she said, taking me by surprise. What was this? She was refusing to sell the magic? Why?

The man shrugged. “I hate to have to do this the hard way, but perhaps a lesson is in order. People will think twice about double-crossing me if they have proof of what will happen if they do.”

He lunged forward just at the moment I remembered where I’d seen him—he’d been inside the pub when I arrived at it the first time. He had been standing near Kleibschiemer, but had left immediately thereafter.

All of that raced through my head at the same time that Magdalena Owens gave a high shriek, and turned to run. He caught her around the waist and started to drag her over to the cliff’s edge, clearly intending on throwing her down to her death. Again.

“Over my dead body,” I snarled, and leaped out, flinging myself on the man in a tackle that sent all three of us rolling on the ground.

“Who the hell—” he started to say.

“I’m with the Watch,” I snarled, and somehow, my fist connected with his jaw, and he was out. I flipped him over onto his belly, pulled out a pair of zip ties that I keep for temporarily subduing culprits, and jerked his wrists together, binding them tight enough that the ties dug into his flesh. Served the murdering bastard right.

“Are you hurt?” I asked the woman as I got to my feet. She crouched a few yards away, breathing heavily, her eyes huge and filled with the after-effects of adrenaline and fear.

“Who . . . no. Who did you say you were?”

“Gregory Faa. I’m with the Watch. I take it you know this man?”

Slowly, she shook her head, her eyes never leaving mine. “Never met him. Um . . . did he do something wrong? Are you here to arrest him?”

“That’s a bit of a complicated answer. He did originally kill y—er—someone, but this time I stopped him.”

She looked puzzled. I didn’t feel inclined to enlighten her.

“That does sound complicated. Well, thank you for stopping him from attacking me. He took me by surprise, so I wasn’t ready with a spell or anything.”

“I noticed. You should take some mortal self-defense classes.”

“I should.” For the first time since I’d seen her, she smiled. It was a nice smile, wrinkling up the corners of her eyes. “Well, since you’re going to take him away somewhere, I guess I’ll get out of your way and let you do your thing.”

I stopped her before she could turn away and leave. “I’m afraid the complicated part includes you, Miss Owens.”

She froze, her gaze now wary. “What did you call me?”

“Owens. I was sent out here to find you.”

Her shoulders slumped, her eyes closing briefly. “I knew it. They did something other than . . . never mind. Go ahead. Tell me the worst. I can take it.”

“I’m unsure of who ‘they’ are, but I’m afraid I’ve been given the power to arrest you on charges of illegally selling magic to mortals. We were tipped off to the fact that you were meeting with a mortal to do so today, but even though that was . . . let’s just say, part of the complicated situation . . . we still have a warrant for your arrest based on past sales. Magdalena Owens, as a duly-authorized member of the Watch—”

She started shaking her head before I could finish the last sentence, holding up a hand to stop me. “That’s not my name.”

I paused in the act of pulling out a second zip tie. I really did not want to have to use it on her. “Your name isn’t Magdalena Owens?”

“No. It’s Gwenhwyfar Byron O—” Her lips clamped closed abruptly.

“Guinevere?”

“Gwenhwyfar.” She pronounced the name GWEN-hiff-arr. “It’s the Welsh version. You can call me Gwen.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, really. Everyone calls me Gwen.”

“No, I meant your last name is Oh?” She didn’t look Asian, but one never knew these days.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you said your name was Gwenhwyfar Byron Oh.”

“I did? Ah. Yes.” She blinked three times. “That was . . . my name is actually Gwenhwyfar Byron.”

“But you said Oh.” For some reason, I felt it was important to get to the bottom of that Oh.

“Um.” She stared at me for a moment. “That was kind of a leftover oh, from, ‘Oh! You think I’m someone else.’ “

I couldn’t help but smile. “I’m very glad to know you’re not the woman I was sent to arrest, Miss Byron. It is Miss Byron?”

“Yes,” she said slowly, her gaze dropping to the man who still lay unconscious at our feet. “I should be running along. I have . . . uh . . . some things to do. People to talk to.”

The last sentence was spoken through her teeth. She suddenly looked angry as hell.

“If there’s anything I can help you with—”

“No,” she said quickly, then flashed me another smile. “Just some family issues.”

“I hope they are resolved quickly. Er . . .” I touched her arm as she was about to leave. “Look, I realize that this is not at all the way things should be done—women are frequently wary about men they meet on the tops of cliffs, and given the events of the recent past, rightfully so.”

“Given the events of the recent past?”

I waved that away. “It’s . . .”

“Complicated?”

“Very much so. Regardless, I was hoping that perhaps you’d overlook this odd meeting, and have coffee with me. In a public place, naturally. One where you would feel safe and not at all threatened, or be worried that I might be the strange sort of man who picks up women on the tops of cliffs, and later turns out to be some sort of deranged stalker.”

She gave a long sigh. “I have a deranged stalker already, thank you.”

I frowned, unsure of whether her non-answer was a yes or no to my invitation. I decided to go with thinking positively. “There’s bound to be a tea shop or Starbucks in the town Snail-on-a-Stick. We could meet there in, say, an hour? I should have this processed by then.” I nudged the man with the toe of my shoe. He groaned into the ground.

She giggled for a few seconds before her expression turned sober. “It’s Malwod-Upon-Ooze, actually. And I’m sorry, but coffee is out.”

“If you’d prefer something stronger, there’s a pub—”

“No,” she interrupted, giving me an odd look before shaking her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“If it was because I mentioned deranged stalkers, I can assure you that as a member of the Watch, I take my oath to protect both mortals and immortals alike very seriously.”

She wrapped the rope around herself in a manner that indicated she was familiar with the skill of climbing, and began to hoist herself upwards. “I don’t think you’re a stalker, deranged or otherwise, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“You’re involved with someone? I didn’t think meeting for coffee was tantamount to a marriage proposal, but if you’re worried that I was planning on hitting on you—”

“No, it’s not that either,” she called down, pausing to look over her shoulder at me. “You seem nice. Gentlemanly, even. Kind of old world.”

“I was born in Romania. I’m afraid that air of old world clings to me somewhat.”

“It’s nice. You should play on that.”

“If I told you that I saved your life, would that make you more inclined to have that coffee?”

She stopped her ascent and glanced down again. “I would have gotten away from him. I was ready for him this time.”

“You can’t know that you wouldn’t have ended up over the edge of the cliff again.”

“Again?” Her face was filled with doubt. “Why do you say again? What exactly were you doing up here?”

“Eh . . .” I hesitated. “That’s going to be part and parcel of the complicated business I mentioned earlier.”

“Uh-huh.” She continued to climb.

It would take a stronger man than me not to have spent the time of her climb admiring her legs and ass, but I strove to keep my mind where it needed to be. Which was finding out just what it was that she didn’t like about me. I might not be an overly modest man, but I’ve never had trouble before picking up a woman, and for this one now to be so unenthusiastic about simply meeting me for coffee wounded what my cousin’s wife Kiya would call my manly pride.

“If it’s not my manners, and you’re not worried about me being unhinged and homicidal, then may I ask what it is about me that fails to interest you?”

She grunted a ladylike grunt as she reached the top of the upper cliff, hauling herself up and over the ledge. A few rocks and small root system of a tiny clump of flowers fluttered to the ground, directly on top of the head of my prisoner. He groaned again, and started to move his legs. No doubt he’d be awake in another minute.