She pushed herself up from the bed and teetered on wobbly legs before the world settled uneasily into place. She limped over to the table, poured a glass of water and gratefully drank it down.
If only the ground would stop swaying like that. Leaning heavily on the table, she closed her eyes. The distant clang of metal and a soft scraping sound were strangely familiar, but her brain couldn’t find the answer.
Bleary eyed, but feeling closer to human again, she lifted one of the louvers and peered out the window. It was dark outside, save for that damnable light that hung outside her room. Squinting into the glare, her eyes slowly adjusted. A white railing stood a few feet away, beyond that, darkness. A fluttering streak of creamy white appeared then disappeared on the horizon. And then another.
The ocean.
A boat. It had to be King’s boat. There was no other explanation. How far out were they? Could she swim for shore?She tried to stem the tide of questions that flooded her brain and concentrate on facts. She was on a boat. Judging from the gentle, nauseating, rocking, they were still moored to the dock. Score one for the good guys.
She padded awkwardly across the carpet to the door and tried the handle. Locked. So much for one for the good guys.
She leaned against it, and the reality of her situation slowly sank in. She was King’s prisoner. Maybe she always had been. Only now, the cage had just gotten a whole lot smaller.
Elizabeth hobbled back over to the bed and sat down heavily. What was she supposed to do now? Wait to be rescued? Simon would…
Simon. Her heart clenched at the thought of him. Had King taken him too? No. He wouldn’t do that. But he would kill him.
“Oh God,” she gasped. What if Simon was dead? She flushed with panic. No, don’t think like that. Simon was alive, she told herself. He had to be.
~~~
Thunder rolled in the distance as Simon pulled open the doors to the church. He moved quickly down the center aisle, searching fervently for a glimpse of the old priest. All he saw was a dour looking woman mumbling a prayer and caressing the beads of her rosary and half a dozen people sat scattered about the pews. Then, in the shadows at the far end of the room, he saw a stirring of black robes.
“Father!” he called out, oblivious to propriety and the glare from the old woman. He dashed down the aisle, but stopped short when he saw it wasn’t Father Cavanaugh, but a young priest.
“Please, sir. A little restraint—”
“Where’s Father Cavanaugh?” Simon demanded.
The young priest clasped his hands in front of him. “I’m Father Fitzpatrick. Is there something I can do for you?”
“Is he in his office?” Simon asked and started toward the side door.
“Please, sir. He’s resting,” the priest said trailing along behind. “Perhaps I can help you.”
Simon ignored him and yanked open the office door.
“Sir, I have to insist…”
Father Cavanaugh was lying on the small couch.
“You see,” Father Fitzpatrick whispered. “Come, let’s…”
Again, Simon ignored him and made his way into the room. Even before he reached Father Cavanaugh’s side, he knew something was wrong. A palpable presence of something malevolent lingered in the air. The way the priest was laid out was familiar. Hands clasped over his chest, a crucifix resting underneath. Then it struck him. He wasn’t sleeping, he was lying-in-state.
Dead.
Simon stood over him for a moment, waiting, hoping to see the rise and fall of his chest, but knowing it would never come. Father Cavanaugh’s lips were already tinged with blue. His head wasn’t settled properly on his shoulders; it was shifted, unnaturally, just off-center. Simon knelt down and saw the tell-tale garish, purple bruise bulging beneath the stark white of his collar. His neck had been broken. It had to be King. He’d killed him and then posed him in this mockery of respect.
“Father?” Father Fitzpatrick said, fear and uncertainty making his voice quiver.
“He’s dead.” Uttering the words cut the final thread Simon had clung to. Without Father Cavanaugh, he had nothing to go on. No leads. No way to find Elizabeth.
The young priest cried out and fell to his knees. Crossing himself, he mumbled a litany that faded with Simon’s hopes.
Was it just this morning life seemed to be open before him? Elizabeth at his side, the future waiting to take them. And now, he’d seen death. Twice in the last hour, like a ghoulish specter nipping at his heels, lurking behind every corner, suffocating him.
Hearing Father Fitzpatrick’s cry, parishioners crowded the doorway. Simon couldn’t breathe. He had to get out of that room. Desperate to escape the sobs and cries of dismay slowly filling the cathedral, he shouldered past the onlookers and stumbled down the aisle.
He threw his weight against the heavy doors and staggered into the night. A bolt of lightning burst overhead, illuminating the street like a photographer’s flash, capturing a moment, stopping time.
A single rain drop spattered the sidewalk. Then another and another. Soon, a sheet of despairing rain cascaded down. Umbrellas blossomed like black flowers in a potter’s field.
Simon made his way down the street, needing to get as far away as he could from the church and the shadow of death. Carried on a tide of anger and desperation, he pushed ruthlessly through the crowd.
And the heavens above raged.
~~~
Elizabeth paced the short length of her quarters, feeling absurdly like a peg-legged pirate. She didn’t want to take off her one remaining shoe. It was silly. Even if she did manage to escape, there was no way she could run away wearing only one shoe. But there was something too vulnerable about being completely barefoot, so she limped back and forth across the Berber carpet. If nothing else, maybe she could wear a hole in the deck.
She’d already canvassed the room for anything she might use as a weapon. Simon had taught her well, and the diversion kept her mind off things. They’d taken her hidden stake, but there were a few things that might come in handy. She wrapped the silver, handheld mirror in a pillowcase and broke the glass. The jagged pieces would be as good as a knife, if she didn’t manage to slice her own hand in the bargain. She tore the hem off the sheet and bound one of the ends. The remaining blade was painfully small. Better than nothing, she thought, as she slipped it under the pillow.
The water carafe was heavy enough to be a decent bludgeon, but she doubted she’d get the chance to use it. That left the hurricane lamp, a ready-made Molotov cocktail. The wick cast a deceptively warm glow around the room.
Quite the cozy little prison.
She heard men’s voices outside her window and peered through the slats. The two men she recognized as the ones who’d taken her from the diner maneuvered a dolly across the deck. A large barrel with Spanish lettering nearly skidded off its perch. Rain had started to fall, and the wooden planks were slippery.
“Boss’ll kill us if we lose this rum,” one of them said.
“Shut up and help me.” They struggled to right the huge cask and trollied it down the deck out of view.
She pressed her face close to the glass and was startled by a knock at the door. She heard a key slip into the lock and quickly hobbled over to the bed. Sitting and bracing herself near the pillow, she took a deep breath.
The door opened and King stepped in. He grinned broadly, his handsome face contradicting the truth that lay behind the mask. “Ah, you’re awake. How are you feeling?” he asked, helping himself to one of the chairs by the table. “No worse for the wear, I hope.”
She balled her hand into a fist to keep from slipping it under the pillow and grabbing her makeshift knife. “I’ve been better.”
He took off his rain soaked fedora and shook the water from the brim. “Sorry about that, but you weren’t exactly cooperative. Or so I hear.”
“My first time being kidnapped. Didn’t know there was a protocol.”
King chuckled. He was almost giddy. “I assume you�
��ve found your quarters adequate. If there’s anything you desire, you need only ask.”
“Got an extra key?”
“Now, now. No reason to be difficult. We’re about to embark on a glorious journey together.”
“And where are we going?”
“I was speaking metaphorically, but business before pleasure. Just a quick trip up the coast tomorrow, if the weather clears. Then we’ll have all the time in the world to get to know each other.”
“Are you speaking metaphorically again?”
King leaned back and rested his palms on the arms of the chair. A monarch on his throne. “You needn’t be afraid of eternity, Elizabeth. Imagine the things we’ll see. Civilizations rise and fall in the blink of an eye. All of it ours to behold. For eternity. Together.”
Her heart was pounding now. She was sure he could smell the blood coursing through her veins. “And if I refuse?”
“You won’t.”
“You seem pretty sure of that.”
“I’m a man who gets what he wants. I wanted you. And here you are,” he said, gesturing expansively about the room.
“It’s fate,” he said and reached into his breast pocket. He pulled out Sebastian’s ring and set it on the table.
He tugged off one of his gloves and rested his hand on the table, an exact duplicate on his finger. “What else can explain this? A one of a kind, suddenly two. A rather blatant sign, don’t you think?”
Elizabeth shuddered at the implications. “Quite a coincidence,” she said, casually slipping her hand further under the pillow.
King smirked. “Fate. So, you see,” he said as he tucked Sebastian’s ring back into his breast pocket. “It’s destiny. You can’t fight it.”
“And the fact that I’m in love with another man?”
“A mistake. You are, after all, only human.”
“Love isn’t—”
The sudden crack of King’s hand slapping the table made her jump. The sharp edge of the mirror fragment cut into her fingers.
“Don’t lecture me on love!” he shouted, and stood up so quickly his chair fell back against the wall. His face began to change, arteries bulged from his neck. She could see him struggling to rein in the demon. He paused and with a great force of will, returned to humanity.
“The priest tried that this morning,” he said in a thinly controlled voice. “He shouldn’t have interfered.”
“You didn’t….” Dear God. Not Father Cavanaugh.
“He was a fool. Even until the very end, he spouted his endless drivel about love and redemption. Telling me what I can and cannot have. Nothing in this world is given freely. You have to take what you want, before the world takes it from you,” King said and then seemed to realize he’d said too much. He squared his shoulders and pulled his glove back on. “He was an obstacle between us. I simply removed him.”
She felt sick again, but would be damned if she’d show him weakness now. “So you killed him.”
“Regretfully.”
“Regretfully? Is that the demon or your soul talking? Or can you even tell the difference anymore?”
“Do not speak of things you don’t understand.”
“You’re right, I don’t understand. I don’t understand how someone with a soul could do the things you’ve done.”
“I did what was necessary,” he said, anxiously moving around the room, teetering on the edge of madness.
“Necessary for what?”
“For us to be together.”
Elizabeth steeled herself. It was a gamble, but, after all, she was a gambler’s daughter. When you’re dealt aces and eights, the only thing you can do is go down fighting. She played her last card. “We’ll never be together.”
“We are. We will be,” he said like a plaintive child. “Forever.”
“No, we won’t. You can take my body. You can kill me. You can turn me into a creature like you. But you will never get what you want.”
In one quick movement he crossed the room. His fingers dug into her shoulders, and he jerked her to her feet. His dark eyes flared. “I will!”
Elizabeth wanted to scream, to turn away in revulsion, but she’d made her final stand and wasn’t going to back down now.
“You can’t make someone love you,” she said and saw the uncertainty flicker across his face. “And if you really loved me, you’d let me go.”
His fingers dug painfully into her arms, as if he could control his demon by controlling her. “Let me go,” she repeated, her voice barely a whisper.
The strong line of his jaw clenched and unclenched. Finally, he lowered his gaze and released her arms. Hope flared in her chest. She held her breath, only aware of the pounding of her own heart and the incessant tapping of raindrops on the windows.
He stared down at the small bit of carpet between them. “You will love me,” he said quietly, then raised his eyes. “It’s fate.”
~~~
The rain was as unrelenting as the man. Simon prowled the streets of Manhattan hour after hour. Sometimes swept along in the crowd and at others shouldering against them, but always searching. Everywhere he went there was no answer. Every straw he grasped slipped between his fingers until he was raw with the effort. Every minute that passed hollowed him out that much more, until the hope he’d clung to was frayed to a single, gossamer strand.
Saturday night bled into Sunday morning. Hours slipped by as Simon scoured the city. Torrential rains pounded down from above. People scurried past, dashing from cover to cover, as Simon walked on. Block after block. Dead end after dead end. Exhausted, but unable to stop moving, Simon kept searching.
Sunday afternoon disappeared into night.
Oblivious to everything but finding Elizabeth, Simon ignored the chill that soaked through his clothes and the muscles in his legs that threatened to give way. His vision blurred and he leaned against a brick wall, pausing for a moment. Where in God’s name was she?
“Here,” came a woman’s voice in the distance.
His head snapped up, and he saw her through the driving rain. A slim figure in a green dress barely discernible through the striated landscape. She waved happily in his direction before turning to knock on a door. The wall opened and she stepped inside.
“Elizabeth.”
He ran down the almost desolate street and skidded to a halt, nearly falling on the slick pavement. It was only a wall. Brick and mortar.
He fought the urge to laugh. Was he going mad already? Footfalls echoed to his right and a man rapped smartly on an indistinct door.
The peephole slid open and the man muttered, “Bee’s knees.”
The mysterious door slid open and the man stepped inside.
He must have misjudged the distance. Elizabeth was inside that door. Simon pounded his fist against it until the slot opened and a pair of hooded eyes gazed back.
“Let me in,” Simon rasped.
“Password?”
He’d just heard it and already it was fading from his mind. He heard Elizabeth’s voice in his head, “Oh, Simon. Find something and grip it.”
“Bee’s knees,” he said and bounded into the dark, smoky room as soon as the door opened.
He wiped the rain from his face and scanned the room. She was at the bar, but even before she turned around, he knew it wasn’t her. Maybe he’d known all along. She didn’t look anything like Elizabeth. It was a frightening testament to his desperation, and he felt his grip on that single thread slip. He leaned against the bar and rested his head in his hands.
“You want somethin’?”
“What?”
The stocky bartender slammed a bottle of bourbon onto the bar and scowled. “I said, you want somethin’?”
“No.”
“This ain’t a flophouse. You drink or you get the hell out.”
The rich amber of the alcohol sloshed against the side of the bottle, inviting him into oblivion. He took out a dollar and laid it on the bar. The bartender grinned. He must have known he had a
live one. He poured the first drink and shoved it to the edge.
The bourbon burned all the way down, but Simon scarcely felt it. He wondered if he’d ever feel anything again. He knew following that woman into the club was delusional at best. Glancing around the bar, the people were no more than shadows, vague images of life blurring around him.
He drank two more shots in quick succession, throwing them back without thought. Tired, hungry and soaked to the skin, the alcohol blind-sided him. His elbow slid off the bar and he barely caught his head before it smashed into the hard wood.
“Watch it buddy,” a man groused to his left.
Simon lifted his wobbly head and glared as best he could with double vision. “Piss off.”
The man shook his head and turned away.
“Hate this bloody city,” Simon growled. “Give you something then take it away. Poxy, sodding city. King Kashian…Bloody bastard!” Simon nearly knocked over his glass. “Thinks he can take her away. Thinks I won’t find him. Oh, but I’ll find him. King! King Kashian!” he called out, spinning away from the bar.
The crowd fell silent as he staggered forward, an instant pariah. People pulled away as he shouted, “King!”
Simon felt a hand clamp on his shoulder and tried to pull away. “Let go of me!”
“Vinny, show this palooka the door.”
Another hand gripped him. Before he could even begin to struggle, the pavement flew up to meet his face.
His head hit the concrete with a sharp crack, and the pain shot straight through to his neck. He touched his forehead and felt the lump already beginning to grow. He managed to push himself up and looked down the oddly tilting street. A few shuffling footsteps later he clung to the cold, wet side of a building.
He pushed himself along and heard the echo of footsteps trailing behind. They stopped when he stopped. Was he still being followed? Whirling around, he nearly lost his balance and a strong hand reached out to steady him.
“Careful there, son.”
Simon narrowed his eyes, blinking through the rain. The black night slowly encroached, shunting out what little light there was. Through the shrinking tunnel of consciousness he stared into the kindly face and choked back a sob. It couldn’t be.
Out of Time: A Time Travel Mystery (Out of Time #1) Page 27