“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.
I thought she was just going to walk away without answer, but faintly, almost whipped away by the wind coming off the water, her voice drifted down to me.
“I can’t have coffee, or anything else, with you because you’re with the Watch. Even if you didn’t kill me before, it’s just too dangerous.”
Now what the hell did that mean?
Read on for an excerpt from Katie MacAlister’s
THE ART OF STEALING TIME,
the next Time Thief novel,
coming in September 2013 from Signet.
Chapter One
“Ticket, yes. Passport right here. Boarding pass . . . dammit. Where did I put that? I know I printed it out.” I did a little dance peculiar to people arriving at an airport, the one where you slap various pockets and juggle luggage, magazines, and purses in order to peer in every easily reached receptacle. Finally, I found the sheet of paper I’d printed before leaving my mothers’ flat. “Gotcha! All right, I think I’m set. I just hope the security line isn’t too long.”
People streamed past me out of the tiled corridor that led to the a
irport tube station, hauling luggage, children, and parcels of every size as they traveled the moving sidewalks, escalators, and plain old stairs into the airport proper.
A woman next to me, pausing to wait for two bickering teenagers behind her, yelled in a flat American accent that she’d happily leave them behind in Wales if they didn’t get their asses in gear. She caught my eye as I was rearranging my travel documents to be readily available, giving me a grimacing smile. “I swear I’m never traveling with kids again. Everyone said I was crazy to bring them along with me, but I thought they’d be old enough to appreciate seeing another culture.”
I glanced back to where the teen girl and boy were arguing over what appeared to be a carrier bag filled with magazines. “Didn’t work out as you planned, eh?”
“Lord, no! And we still have Amsterdam and Germany to do. How I’m going to survive another week is beyond me.” She gave me an appraising look as I finished tucking away my magazine, stuffed my purse (denuded of travel documents) into my carry-on bag, and pulled out the handle of the monstrous wheeling suitcase that housed the bulk of my possessions. “You’re American, too?”
“Actually, I was born here in Wales, but I’ve lived so long in Denver that I pass for American.”
“Ah. Here on business?” the woman asked. If she had been British, I’d have wondered what was up, but many decades of living in the U.S. had made even the most personal of questions seem totally natural when asked by a stranger.
“You could say that. My mothers live in a small town near the coast. I visit them every six months or so.”
“Mothers? Plural?” Her forehead wrinkled for a moment, then smoothed out quickly with an, “Oh! You mean your mother is . . . how . . . interesting.”
My mouth tightened. If she was going to be one of those people who hated on my mothers, I would have a thing or two to tell her.
She shrugged, turned back to warn the still-arguing teens that they had exactly three seconds before she would abandon them to the airport staff, and said simply, “It takes all kinds.”
“It certainly does. Good luck with your trip,” I said politely, and gathering up my things, moving off before she could say anything more. The experience had left me feeling a bit prickly, which in turned made the inevitable delays at the security lines all that much more annoying. But a memory of my mothers’ teaching about tolerance got me through it without once wishing I could remember the spell to give people ingrown toenails.
I had just settled down in the waiting area with all the other people who would be on the flight to Orlando (my connecting flights to Chicago and then Denver would extend the trip by another seven hours) and pulled out my tablet computer to see if there was any news in the alchemist’s forum which I frequent, when my cell phone buzzed in my jacket pocket.
The number displayed on the phone didn’t ring a bell. I ignored the call, figuring it was just another solicitation to try some service or buy something that I didn’t want. When the phone buzzed a second time, I started to turn it off.
Mom Two, the text said above the photo of a face almost as familiar as my own. I frowned. I’d had somewhat hurried good-byes earlier with both my moms, hurried because of some bizarre notion they had that I was in danger and that the sooner I got out of Wales, the safer I’d be.
“Hi. What’s up?” I asked, answering the call. “You can’t be missing me already, Mom Two. I left you guys less than . . . what . . . four hours ago?”
“Of course we miss you, Gwen. We always miss you when you leave. But that’s not what I wanted to say, although I do, in fact, miss you despite having seen you earlier this afternoon before you went to the airport. Your mother misses you as well, although just at the moment, she’s a bit busy with Mrs. Vanilla. I just wanted to warn you to keep your eyes peeled for that besom in a cherry-red dress.”
“Besom?” I tried to dredge through my mental dictionary. Mom Two, aka Alice Hill, my mother’s partner for longer than I’d been alive, had once been a headmistress at some posh girl’s school and frequently used words that most people didn’t recognize. “A woman? Wait, you’re not still talking about that woman you claimed was chasing me at the shrink’s office yesterday, are you? Because I thought we worked that out.”
“We didn’t work it out. We simply decided that since we lost the besom in the mad dash from the psychologist’s office—which, really, was a complete waste of time since Dr. Gently couldn’t cure you of that wild notion you have that you died and went to heaven and came back to earth—we decided that we’d just stop talking about it, which would placate you. Your mother felt strongly that your last day with us should be a happy one. It was a happy one, wasn’t it?”
“Very happy,” I said, my brain a bit of a whirl with the conversation. Mom Two, when she really got going on a subject, could talk circles around you to the point where you didn’t know which of the many conversational tidbits to follow. I decided to go with the most obvious one. “And I’m not crazy. I did die. I did wake up to find myself in Anwyn, which incidentally isn’t heaven. It’s just an afterlife, like the ones you Wiccans go to when you die.”
“Nothing is like Summerland,” Mom Two said complacently, then evidently clapped a hand over the bottom of her phone for a few seconds, if the muffled voice was anything to go by. “Not even the Welsh version of the afterlife. Especially since your mother tells me that there are all sorts of legends tied up with Anwyn. But we will discuss that another day. I must dash, Gwen. Your mother sends her love. Mrs. Vanilla would most likely send her regards as well, but she doesn’t speak. We just wished to remind you to be on guard. Do not talk to any women with short, dark hair and red wool suits! Shun them, Gwen. Shun them with all the power of your shunningness!”
Mom Two was also prone to making up words where one didn’t exist. “Who’s Mrs. Vanilla?” I asked, a faint sense of unease tingeing my amusement with the conversation. I adored both of my mothers, even though they were sometimes scatty when it came to focusing on the here and now, but as a rule, Mom Two was the more reliable one when it came to making sense out of confusion.
“She’s our student.”
“Wait . . . I thought you guys were taking the entire summer off from classes so that you could focus on renewing your bond to the craft?” Wiccans varied in their beliefs widely, but most found it necessary to periodically recharge their spiritual batteries with some communing with nature, study, and bonding with fellow Wiccans.
“The Lambfreckle School for Womyn’s Magyck is closed until the Autumnal Equinox,” Mom Two said primly.
I winced at the name of their school, just as I did every time I heard it. “One of these days, J. K. Rowling is going to hear about you—”
“There is nothing wrong with the name of our school!” Mom Two protested, then put her hand over the phone again. “I must go, Gwen. Have a safe journey, and blessings go with you. Stay away from red-suited women!”
The phone clicked and slowly I lowered it from my ear, wondering why I had a growing sense of unease. Why did they have a student with them if they had closed the school for the summer? Why didn’t my mother get on the phone to say good-bye one last time? It wasn’t like her to not at least yell something while Mom Two was talking to me. And was some woman really following me, as they said? If so, why? The moms had never given me an answer to that question. I had a faint idea that perhaps this mysterious woman might be an attempt by them to distract me from something that they didn’t want me to know.
I started to put my phone away, shook my head at my fancies, and despite that, typed out a message for my mother. Who is Mrs. Vanilla?
Who, dear? came the answering text.
Mrs. Vanilla. Mom Two says you have a student with you named Mrs. Vanilla.
Yes. She is our student. Don’t worry. She wanted to come with us.
“Oh, like that’s not going to make me worried as hell,” I muttered
as soon as the text appeared on my phone’s screen. I thought briefly of calling my mother, but I had a nasty suspicion she would not answer the phone. She tended to shy away from confrontation if she could help it, leaving Mom Two to do the dirty work.
Where are you? Why would I worry about you having a student? What is going on?
There may be a bit of a fuss, but don’t pay it any mind, my mother texted back. Fear started to grow in the pit of my stomach. What the hell were they up to now? Disregard any mention of kidnapping. She wanted us to save her. It was the only thing we could do.
And that pushed me over the edge. I dialed my mother’s cell number, sure she wasn’t going to answer, and was more than a little surprised when her breathless voice said almost immediately, “Gwenny, I just told you not to worry, didn’t I? And now here you are worrying. Don’t deny it, I can tell you are. Turn right, dear. No, the other right!”
I looked wildly to my right (and left, because long acquaintance with my mother had taught me that she had difficulty telling directions). “What? Why should I turn right?”
“Not you, dear, that was for Alice. Oh, my. No, no, dear, don’t get onto the main roads. Don’t you remember that show on the telly we saw last month?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “They have those spiked things they lay in the road.”
Spiked things? What spiked things? What was she—with a horrible presentment, I suddenly knew. They were on the run from the police.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked, my voice rising loudly at the end of the sentence, enough that everyone around me turned to look. I turned in my plastic seat so that I half-faced the wall behind me, dipping my head down so I could speak sternly, but more quietly, into my phone. “Mother, are you, at this moment, running from the police?”
“Alice, dear, not so fast around corners,” my mother said in a half-shriek. “Poor Mrs. Vanilla is on the floor.”
Time Crossed: A Time Thief Novella (A Penguin Special from Signet) Page 4