“Yeah. So when we all turned back to normal pretty much mid-stride, I kept on going. I wanted to kick that bastard’s ass.” He looked at me apologetically. “Sorry, lady.”
“Why?”
Unstoppable’s grin grew. “Heh. Knew I liked you for a reason. Anyway, I basically don’t get tired, so I ran as fast as I could and didn’t stop. Stopped to take out an officer and steal his uniform, then whenever I got lost I asked directions.” He rubbed the back of his head again. “Really glad I brushed up on German before I came over for this mission. Say this, the German folks I ran into were really helpful.” He looked around. “I was gonna try to break in and take him out quick, force him to tell me where you were or help you out if he’d captured you. Guess you didn’t need me after all.”
“It was close. We definitely could use you now.” I smiled, sitting next to him on the couch. He looked startled, but then scooted back, giving me room. On impulse I squeezed his shoulder. “Welcome back. You were missed.”
He patted my hand, and... was that a blush on his cheek? “Thanks, Doc.”
Dottie’s words came back to me. He fancies you. I coughed, moved my hand back, and looked away in time to see Bryson and Henri share a patient smile.
“Well now.” Loge’s voice drifted down from the top of the stairs, as he descended like a king holding court. “You would be the mighty warrior my son told me about.”
Unstoppable looked like he’d been hit in the face with one of the halberds hanging on the wall. “Ma’am? Uh, I don’t think we’ve been, I mean I, um. Hello?”
“He’s a guy.” My annoyance with Loge grew.
“He’s a what? Uh. Well, I don’t judge.” He glanced over at Bryson and Henri. Henri shook his head, and Bryson glowered. Unstoppable coughed an awkward cough, and tried a transparent attempt to change the subject. “So, what did I miss?”
The rest of us looked at each other, looked back to him, started talking at once, stopped, looked at each other again, and tried once more. Finally I sighed, and looked to Henri. “You want to catch him up?”
Henri smiled and nodded. “Come. There are some people who would love to meet an American.”
He lead Unstoppable out towards the guest wing, where we’d found space for the Tzadikim. It was a bit cramped by my standards, but better than their previous quarters, I reckoned.
After the door shut behind them, Loge looked down where he was leaning on the railing, a bemused expression on his face. “Not going to welcome him back personally?”
“Both Bryson and I have a lot of work to do before tomorrow. We’re at our best when we’re properly prepared.” Though we were somewhat limited by the lack of parts. For one, this mansion wasn’t particularly modernized, and Bryson’s stock of spare parts was fairly limited. I would have killed to have the MAUSER here with us now, but there was no sense in crying over what I didn’t have.
Still, I’d upgraded the devices I still had, and made a few more for tomorrow’s bloody work. For once I wouldn’t have to hold back. So long as I didn’t catch Tesla in any collateral damage, I could use any trick in my book, no matter how lethal.
Loge merely smiled that annoying smirk, and swept to the side with a bow as I moved past him on the stairs. “There are other ways to spend the eve before a battle, you know.”
“That’s nice.” I moved into the study and shut the door.
Timetripper’s feet were still protruding from under the desk. I nudged him a few times. “You understand your part?”
“Ah! Oh. Oh, okay. Everything cool down there?”
I sighed. “Frosty.”
“Yeah, like my part’s like staying out of the way and staying alive. I dig it.”
“You better. If this fails and Dire has to travel forward through time the hard way, she’s going to make sure Woodstock never happens.”
“Whoa, shit, let’s not be crazy here. No need for threats, lady.”
“Let’s keep it that way. Now scoot, she’s got work to do.”
He scooted, and I sat my rump down on Mitternacht’s best overstuffed chair, then got to work with the soldering gun.
And I lost myself.
There's a place I go to when I'm hands-deep in my work, mind churning overtime to fill my brain with the schematics and steps needed to construct my devices. Everything is so clear to me. No doubt, no hesitation, no emotion, just a quiet logic and a feeling of simple pleasure when each part is done. I was distantly aware of bells chiming now and again downstairs, and that ridiculous cuckoo clock up on the third floor with its chirping tune, but aside from that, I could almost feel like no time was passing.
When I finished, the rain was nothing more than a light drizzle, and the light dim. I stretched, felt the crick in my back, and sighed. Tired. Very tired, but I wasn’t done yet.
One of the best men I’d ever met, a veteran of this very war, once told me that a proper leader should go and comfort her troops on the night before battle. Talk with them, listen to them, just be there. Good advice, and in this cases well-warranted. The plan was bare bones at best, our devices a minor advantage. Unstoppable was back thankfully, but we had a strict time limit. So much could go wrong...
Well, I’d take Roy’s advice, and see if it quieted my own fears. Maybe then I could get some sleep before go-time.
I found Bryson down in the great hall, texts and diagrams and artifacts laid out before him. He nodded to me as I descended the stairs, and I waved back.
“How are we doing?” I took a seat across from him, shifting a stack of closed books to do so.
He sighed. “Not as well as I’d hoped. I’m a dabbler at best, even more so than our missing Miss Hampston. These books are not dabbler-level books.” He snapped the tome shut, chucked it into the roaring fireplace. I winced to see it go, and he noticed.
“Oh, don’t be. That one was about calling up demons. Bloody stupid idea, that; there’s nothing more troublesome and destructive.”
“Stupider than trying to rules-lawyer God?” I wondered. “Because that’s what the ritual Mitternacht described sounded like.”
He looked away. “In a way it’s encouraging.”
“What?” Not the answer I was expecting.
Bryson looked back, and his eyes were old in his weary face. “If they’re trying a maneuver this boneheaded, it means they’re losing and they know it. No one who’s winning would ever risk the world on a throw of the dice. Not even someone as insane as Herr Hitler.”
I wondered. Some of the villains back in my era had come pretty close to destroying the world, now and again. Idiotic, that, but it’s easy to get caught up in the moment, I suppose.
“We’ll save him. Save Tesla.”
“Yes. And he’ll give us a nod, and you a handshake, and then it’ll be off to the next... adventure.” His mouth twisted. “Would you believe that once upon a time my biggest concern was hiding my bedroom proclivities from my relatives? Now it’s all lost cities, and Nazi kidnappings, and secret society conspiracies, and ancient Atlantean evils, and it never bloody ends.” He threw another book into the fire. “When I was a lad I would have killed for this sort of life of adventure. Now I just want five days to breathe, maybe a week of quiet, nothing happening for once but I won’t get it. Not ever. Not so long as I’m with him.”
On anyone else it would be whining, but his tone was as matter-of-fact as if he’d ordered lunch from a menu.
“The world’s like that, she’s found.” I debated on telling him matters, decided to keep it general. “She’s got a past she knows nothing about due to unusual circumstances, enemies that would see her dead in a heartbeat for things she didn’t do, and never enough time to rest. If she stops moving, she’s dead. If she stops building and improving, she’s dead. But you know? It’s the only life she’s ever known, and there are enough good moments through it, that she wouldn’t trade it away. Has to struggle for them, each and every time, but they’re worth it.”
Bryson was staring back into the flames. “I often wonde
red, you know. Whether we were to blame.”
“What?”
“The experiments. That crazy summer back in nineteen-oh-eight. Three times, we shattered the world.” He chuckled. “Didn’t even know it the first two times. The government guessed, though, and raided us in the middle of the third time. That’s when Nikola got his powers, you know, at the height of the experiment. Glorious, impossible, physics-defying powers.”
I could feel my eyes widening. This was the sort of information that governments wept to have revealed, and I was getting a front-row seat. I'd heard stories of the sort before, but they were rumors, conjecture. Here before me sat a witness... no, a participant.
“What exactly did you do?” I whispered.
He looked at me, rueful, with a small smile chasing around his fleshy lips. “Do you know, we’re still trying to figure that out? It sure wasn’t broadcast energy, that breakthrough came later. To this day, I think we changed things. I think... that we’re the reason the world’s so wrong.”
“Wrong?” I frowned.
“Wrong. People shouldn’t bloody well be able to throw lightning out of their bare hands, or fly, or heal instantly from any wound! The world shouldn’t work that way!” Another book went flying, missing the flames. He didn’t miss a beat, voice rising with hard anger. “And where were all these damnable lost cities and ancient werewolves and gods and vampires and whatnot before we came along? Hah? Did the entirety of modern civilization, with all of man’s knowledge and communication and innovation just forget they were around?”
“What are you suggesting?” We were way out of the well-lit halls of reason, and deep into the dark spaces, with large eyes looming out of the depths, and ghosts whispering ‘here be dragons’.
“I’m suggesting that we broke something vital, something that kept reason functional. And that as time goes on, it’s only getting worse.” He sighed. “And I don’t know how to fix it.”
We watched the flames together, and he beat his fist on his knee once, twice, so hard that I was concerned he’d damage himself.
“For what it’s worth,” I said, “it’s not too bad a world. Back in her time, she means.”
“Mm.”
“Just needs a little fixing, always a billion little problems. Nothing human ingenuity can’t handle.”
His smile was a little more honest this time. “Well. If I’m still around in it, I suppose things are going right. That’s one thing, at least.” His face fell.
“What is it?”
Bryson lifted another book, hesitated, and put it down. “It’s, well, it’s Henri.”
“Yes?”
“Loge. He’s got this trick where he looks like your heart’s desire. Trickster god, that’s the sort of thing they do.”
Was I into guys with black leather? I wondered what he looked like to Bryson.
He looked at me, eyes moist. “I saw Henri, when I looked at Loge first.”
I remembered the scene, played it back in my flawless memory. “And Henri saw a woman.” Ah.
Bryson put his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands. “I really thought he was the one.” His voice came muffled, through his fingers, and he was shaking, and with horror I realized he was crying.
I hesitated, put a hand on his back, and scooted in close. He leaned into me, snuffling for a bit, all dignity gone as he cried softly beside the fire. I closed my eyes and hugged him.
“We’d talked about afterwards. After the war. Little house on the Riviera. Games of chess in Paris cafes. Retirement to the countryside when we were older. But no, his heart’s not in it.”
“She doesn’t know what to say.”
“And God, now I can’t help but wonder if I’m just one of his missions. Help the resistance, stop Hitler, coerce influential people with your body if you need to. Was it all an act? I don’t know. And damn me for a coward, I’m afraid to ask.”
I let go of him, started rubbing his back. Finally he cleared his throat, pulled out a handkerchief, and blew his nose. “It’s harder, for... confirmed bachelors like myself. More difficult to find men who share that proclivity, let alone those who you like enough to share passion.” He sighed. “To avoid detection and scandal, many forgo long-term relationships entirely, just go and take their ease among strangers and casual encounters. For a time that worked for me. But I’m almost seventy, even if my aging’s been retarded, and I’d rather like to settle down now. But no, it’s always drama, and last-minute rescues, and adventure.” He spat the word like it was poison.
I took a breath, and sorted through options in my mind. Bad ideas occurred to me, and I nearly chuckled at them. When I had been clueless about romance, and how people interacted socially, I would have said something stupid, or gone off on an amusing but futile plan, I was sure. But now? I thought I knew what to do.
“Where is Henri now?” I asked.
“Probably in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner. He’s thoughtful like that.”
“She sees. Well, see you in the morning.”
“Four o’clock, correct? You’d best get some sleep, Doctor.”
“She will, shortly.” I took my leave, headed towards the kitchen.
Henri was chopping vegetables by the light of a few gas lamps. He looked tired, his bulldog-like face lined with raw weariness.
“Still up?” I asked.
“We will not have time to prepare breakfast in the morning. I am making it now, so we can eat as we travel.”
That was him all over, now that I thought about it. Quiet, considerate, thinking ahead to cover little details. Speaking of which...
“Does your borrowed power work as we hoped?” It had taken some telepathic discussion with Monsieur Égalité to get Henri a power something like what we desired. I hadn’t had time to check in on his tests, afterward.
“It does. It is not without problems, but it should suffice. Mitternacht’s pain works to our advantage, there.”
“Ah, right, his knee.” I watched him chop vegetables for a time, sweeping radishes into a crock pot.
“The Tzadikim are settling in well. I still do not understand why Jacob insists we do not call them that.”
It took me a second to remember he was talking about Bryson. He was the only one among us who used the man’s first name. “Apparently they don’t know what they are, and telling them that might cause them to lose their status.”
“Strange.”
“It’s magic. Divine magic, or something like that. Or miracles. Not her area, so she can’t comment, most of the stuff seems like nonsense to her.”
“Nonsense that could end the world.” The cleaver worked, and the cucumber he was cutting segmented into cubes. “I wish we could leave them here.”
“She does too.” We didn’t have enough time to do that, sadly. The Nazis were expecting a delivery tomorrow, and we’d need them to make it look good. If we didn’t get through the gate, all this was for nothing. Henri had talked it over with them and they’d volunteered to go along.
Brave people, who lived up to their hidden saintly potential.
“You can do what you said?” I studied his face. “Get them to safety after all this is done?”
“I can try. Our networks around Berlin are few, but we have some influence with the local refugee stations. There is an industrial magnate who quietly protects and aids his Jewish employees with their escape. And if not him, then there are others.” He scooped the diced cucumber into the pot, flicked a cloth over the knife’s blade.
I leaned against the stove. Warm enough to be comfortable, in this large and airy house. “What do you think of Bryson?”
“Jacob.” Henri’s smile was sad. “Brilliant. Brave. Upright in a manner you do not see so often these days. Noble? Yes. In the good way, not the bad. He came from money, true, but he has earned his accolades.” He waved me gently aside, and placed the pot on the stove. “I think that before she left Dorothy told you of us, yes?”
“Yes. She thought it
was adorable.”
“And what do you think?” His face was unreadable.
“She thinks it to be healthy. Although she wonders why you saw a woman when you looked at Loge.”
“Ah.” He closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand. “It is... a sensitive matter.”
“If you don’t want to talk about it with her, that’s all right. But you should talk it over with Bry— with Jacob.”
He winced. “Jacob noticed?”
“We compared notes on Loge’s power after we got out of there. He noticed.”
Henri shook his head. “Mon dieu. What he must think of me.” He looked up, caught my eyes for the first time. “Will you keep a secret?”
I nodded.
“He looked very much like my wife.”
“You’re married?”
“I was. Then the Germans took Paris. Now she is gone.”
The silence filled the kitchen, broken only by the slow swoosh of water as Henri stirred the pot.
“She’s sorry.”
“It was that which drove me into Égalité. There I changed and grew. I did not use to be capable of loving men. But when your mind enters the commonwealth... it gives one perspective. Bodies are ephemeral, things that do not matter. They come, they go. What matters is here.” He raised a hand, tapped my forehead. “And here.” He drew his finger down, pointed at my chest.
“You’re talking about the heart, yes?”
“Of course.” He gathered a few vials from an overlarge, dusty spice rack, and threw dashes of powder into the mix.
“Do you love him?”
He looked down into the pot, and took the lid into his hands, rotating it between his fingers as he thought. After half a minute, he nodded. “Yes.”
“Then go to him. Letting him be alone tonight would be the worst mistake of your life.”
Henri looked me in the eyes again. “He does not hate me?”
“No. He misses you, fears losing you, but he’s too goddamn proud to admit it.”
He laughed, the first time I’d heard him do so. A nice sound, pleasant, and for a few seconds his face lost its stoic stillness, and showed me a glimpse of who he had once been.
DIRE : TIME (The Dire Saga Book 3) Page 26