A Thief in Time (Thief in Time Series Book 1)

by Cidney Swanson

  Dr. Khan had, of necessity, become a diligent hand washer.

  The fact that there was no American Space–Time Journal meant the paper could not be published in his own lifetime, which was a pity. It was at moments like this he wished the singularity device could be used to send travelers forward in time, but if that was indeed possible, he had not uncovered the secret. Such a shame. He would have liked to attend a future conference, perhaps to hear a lecture from the Jules A. Khan Fellow from MIT or USC.

  Tonight, however, he was employing himself in updating the retrievals catalog. Flipping through some of his earliest recoveries, he recalled his dismay at being unable to sell an original Van Gogh to a wealthy collector. It hadn’t passed muster. The item’s provenance had been called into question because it had failed to test as old enough to be genuine. He’d been unable to sell the Gutenberg Bible, the copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets, or any painting more than forty years old. He’d quickly switched to items made of porcelain or gold or silver after that, developing a brisk trade in amber and rubies, chalcedony and jasper. The paintings, tapestries, and rare books he kept for himself, enjoying them in all their original glory.

  Several times he’d come close to destroying the records of his retrievals and sales. He worried future scholars would judge him for having used his knowledge for financial gain. In fact, this was what had kept him from buying up stock in the past and selling it when it peaked—there would have been a paper trail suggesting he’d done, well, just that. He wanted to keep his reputation untarnished.

  He really ought to destroy these records . . .

  Running a hand through his thinning hair, he looked up from the catalog. It was almost three in the morning. It wasn’t only insomnia that was keeping him awake tonight, he admitted to himself. He was still troubled by the possibility—however miniscule—that the girl, Halley, had ventured into his lab and seen his equipment. It was unlikely.

  Unlikely, but not impossible.

  The girl’s mother was harmless enough. He’d conducted a thorough background check on her, revealing among other things that her bank account balance was consistently in the mid-three-digits to the low-four-digits, that she had smoked marijuana only once and avoided all other narcotics entirely, and that she’d had no lasting relationships. Chatty enough when plied with caraway-scented Akvavit liqueur, Inga had admitted to having had her daughter out of a fear of being alone only to discover that she liked being alone just fine, thanks all the same. The professor was convinced she had a narcissistic personality disorder.

  As for the girl, Halley, Khan had never done more than a cursory amount of research into her habits, interests, and vices. He hadn’t expected her to be here today; her mother had been rather vague as to whether her daughter would be available. Khan would have made different plans had he known Halley Mikkelsen would actually show up.

  And then there was the girl’s boyfriend. Who was he? The professor didn’t know the first thing about the young man other than the fact that he was alarmingly comfortable with knives. In appearance, he was much like any other Southern California beach rat: blond, barefoot, and wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Still, Khan imagined he would sleep better knowing the young man wasn’t a physics protégé or fluent in industrial espionage. He reached for his cell phone and had nearly dialed “Mikkelsen, Inga” before noticing the time.

  “Hmmph,” he grunted, setting his phone down.

  There would be plenty of time to ask Inga about her daughter’s boyfriend tomorrow. He had, after all, all the time in the world.

  20

  • HALLEY •

  If there was one sound Halley was familiar with, it was the sound of her truck door slamming shut. When Halley was home, the sound warned her that her mother was taking her truck without asking permission and that she had thirty seconds to race downstairs if she wanted to prevent it.

  But Halley was at Jillian’s tonight. There was no way her mom was outside. Was there? Shaking off her grogginess, Halley grabbed the Balinese wrap, throwing it on, possibly backward and certainly inside out. She raced outside, but no one was anywhere near her truck. Had she dreamed the sound? She had just decided she must have dreamed it when she saw the Applegates’ motion detector lights flick on down at the end of the drive, just past the gentle curve that hid the entry gates from view. Now that she thought about it, the lights all the way down the drive were already on.

  Someone had been inside her truck and was now leaving the estate. Suddenly her brain made the connection.

  “Edmund!” she murmured.

  Barefoot, Halley raced down the drive, passing a neat stack of logs and brush from the fallen tree Jillian’s dad had cleared out yesterday. Her feet complained about the rough asphalt. She should have thought to grab flip-flops, but it was too late for that now. Where was Edmund going? What was he thinking, taking off in the middle of the night? She was afraid she already knew the answer.

  As she rounded the curve and the gates came into view, she had a momentary glimpse of a man with a sword strapped to his hip escaping over the top of the entrance gate. She ran faster, pausing only to key in the code for manually releasing the gate. She got it wrong three times before finally punching the numbers in correctly.

  “Edmund!” she called.

  There was no answer.

  21

  • EDMUND •

  Edmund surmounted the estate enclosure with ease, wondering that Jillian’s father did not make it more difficult for villains to come or go as easily as he had himself. He turned left, downhill, recalling well this first part of the mile or so separating the Applegates’ manor from that of the professor. Halley had pointed out Khan’s manor to her friends during their crowded drive back from the beach yesterday. Once he had passed from the pale of the gate lights, all was most dark, the moon having already set.

  He kept to the side of the road and had just offered prayer for his safe return home when he heard two things in swift succession. Firstly, he heard Mistress Halley crying out his name. Secondly, he heard the approach of some great engine, foolishly driving in the dark of night. The noise of the engine made it possible Halley would not hear any response from him even had he wanted to respond, which he did not. He thought of the sailor Odysseus, withstanding the call of the sirens only by having bound himself to his ship. Having neither a mast and ropes nor waxen ear-stops, Edmund increased his stride.

  The roar of the engine from behind him increased as well, and unless his eyes betrayed him, some sort of light preceded it. Turning, Edmund was nearly blinded by twin beams, bright as the sun and pointed straight at him. Without even thinking, he drew his sword and held it to defend himself against the coming brightness. He could not fathom the purpose of the blinding light unless it was some type of attack adapted for nighttime encounters. The engine sound grew louder, and Edmund confirmed that the glaring light and the engined wagon approached in unison, bearing down upon him as dogs upon game.

  He did the only thing he could think of to defend himself. He raised his sword and charged forward, meaning to attract attention should the wagon be friendly and to offer resistance if it were not.

  ~ ~ ~

  Halley listened for a response from Edmund, not sure which way he’d turned. On the worrying chance he was heading for Professor Khan’s basement, she turned left, calling his name a second time. An oncoming car drowned out her cry.

  “Fantastic,” she murmured. Would Edmund know to get to the side of the road? He must have had some experience getting out of the way of hay wagons and carriages. He wasn’t an idiot. Halley stepped off the asphalt road and into the wide drainage ditch past the shoulder. This surface was even less forgiving than the road, and she cursed as she stubbed her toe on a rock.

  Stepping back onto the road as soon as the car was past her, she opened her mouth to shout again, but then she saw him. Lit by the car’s headlights, Edmund was standing in the road, his sword raised above his head, screaming something about England and Saint
George.

  Halley dashed forward, landed her heel on something sharp, and fell, shouting in pain.

  ~ ~ ~

  Edmund hurled a last invective at the speeding wagon, which had veered sharply away from him upon seeing his raised sword. He kept his sword at the ready lest the engined cart should return for another pass at him. It did not, however, its eerie red aft-lights disappearing around a corner along with the engine noise. He was just sheathing his sword when he heard Halley once again, but this time she was not calling his name. She was moaning most piteously, interspersing her moans with oaths.

  Edmund did not hesitate beyond the space of time it took his heart to beat twice. Halley was in pain and in need of assistance. He ran back, drawn to her as iron to a lodestone.

  22

  • EDMUND •

  “I’m fine,” snapped Halley. “It was just a stupid piece of gravel.” She rubbed at her heel, wincing.

  Edmund noted she did not even attempt to mask her anger at him.

  “Allow me to aid thee—”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  But when she tried to walk, Edmund saw plainly that her hurt, though slight, was enough to prevent her returning to Mistress Jillian’s manor under conveyance of her own feet.

  He held his arms out, indicating his willingness to carry her. “Thou canst not walk,” he added.

  “And whose fault is that?” Halley glared at him.

  Edmund said nothing.

  Halley tried once again to take slow steps forward and then uttered forth a sort of growling noise.

  “I can’t walk.”

  She mumbled her words, as though the admission were more painful than the injury to her heel.

  “Seriously, Edmund, what were you thinking, running off like that? You could have at least said something to me first.” She sighed heavily, and then with an expression that spoke defeat, she held her arms wide. “Fine. Carry me.”

  Edmund lifted her as easily as if she were a fatted ewe.

  “You could have gotten lost. You could have gotten yourself cited or jailed for waving that sword around. You could have caused a car accident.” Up till this point she had addressed him directly, but now she turned her face away so that he could no longer read her expression.

  “You could have been killed,” she muttered, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. He felt the tension in her narrow frame as she spoke the final accusation.

  “Aye, lady.” He made the admission unwillingly, but she was in the right. He’d been foolish. As foolish, in fact, as a child of five who runs away following some indignity visited upon his backside. More foolish. As a lad of five he had known more of his world than he knew now of this world.

  “I crave pardon,” he said.

  “Hmmph,” grunted Halley. And then she asked, “Were you planning to break into the professor’s house?”

  He hesitated, but found he had no stomach to lie to her. “Aye, lady,” he replied.

  “Oh, Edmund,” she said with a heavy sigh.

  From thence, she fell silent until they reached the great gate.

  “Walk over to the far right. There’s a keypad.”

  She tapped a series of ciphers, and lo, the gate parted open.

  “Jules Khan might not look dangerous,” she said once the gates had closed behind them, “but I think he could get dangerous really fast if he found someone messing around in his secret basement.”

  “I doubt it not,” said Edmund. “My escape was foolishly conceived from beginning to end.”

  Mistress Halley grunted in what he assumed was affirmation.

  Besides the danger posed by the magician, Edmund felt now the greatness of his folly in thinking he could unravel the mystery of Khan’s great engine. He understood not the engines of this age. How, apart from Halley’s aid, should he have commanded the one that sent men forth unto differing centuries? How if he had sent himself to another age entirely?

  “It was foolishly done,” Edmund repeated. “Although,” he added, “’tis like I should never have found my way.”

  And then, in spite of her being plainly out of humor with him, Edmund heard her laugh. It was but a single laugh, grudgingly emitted, and yet it set his heart racing, drunk on the wine of her renewed favor.

  “I can see the headlines now: ‘Idiot Wanders Montecito Waving Sword at Motorists.’” She shook her head at him, a sad smile on her face. “Put me down here on the grass. I want to see how bad my heel is now.”

  Halley tested her weight on her injured foot. She could walk, if a little haltingly. Slowly, they crept up the drive and back toward their chambers.

  In his twenty-one years, Edmund had met no one like Halley. He’d seen women as fair as she, but it was more than her beauty that attracted him. What was it? Her manner? Her laughter? Her courage? Edmund had not counted courage among the attributes he might seek in a helpmate—not any more than he’d thought of taking a wife for her wit or humor. The few maidens to whom he had been introduced were silent to the point of sullenness, but Halley spoke freely with him, whether chiding or teasing or merely conversing.

  As she walked before him, he imagined sharing a life—and a bed—with her. If her laughter made him drunk, the thought of her in his bed set his very soul afire. This was what he wanted: Halley. A lifetime of watching her sun-drenched smile light his hall. Of gathering her laughter when the rains fell. Of catching her whispers when night fell . . .

  “I am totally freezing,” murmured Halley as they reached their lodgings. “How can it be totally freezing when it was such a hot day?”

  “Shall I kindle thee a fire?” Edmund asked, holding open the door that opened into the west wing.

  “Mmm . . . yes, please!”

  Her tone had warmed once more, as though her anger at him were forgotten.

  Edmund had meant to light the fire in her chamber, but she preceded him into the lodgings and entered his own chamber.

  “Your room has the nice rug,” said Halley, planting herself in front of the hearth on a thick woolen fleece.

  To one side of the fleece, wood and kindling had been tidily stacked. Drawing closer, Edmund saw that the kindling had been glued together. He suspected the glue was highly flammable.

  “Mom and I smoked the heck out of someone’s house the one time we tried to build a fire,” said Halley as he joined her at the hearth. “Are you sure you know how?”

  A slight look of affront crossed Edmund’s face. “I cannot build a fire without smoke, but I can so effect it that the smoke escapeth through the chimney.”

  A smirk tugged one side of Halley’s mouth. “Please, do-eth it now-eth.”

  “Thou mockest me.”

  “I do.”

  Edmund found himself laughing, her laughter mingling with his. Was mockery another womanly virtue he ought to add to his list? He settled before the hearth to lay the fire. After he’d placed the combustible items in the correct layers, he looked about for the flint and fire steel.

  “Knowest thou where the flint is to be found?”

  “Flint?” asked Halley.

  “And steel. To light the fire.”

  “Oh. Right. We don’t use flint in my world. We use matches.”

  “Matches?”

  “Although,” said Halley, “this place is fancy; I bet they have a remote.”

  She reached past Edmund and plucked up a shiny object shaped like a doorstop. This, she pointed at the hearth. At once, great blue flames burst forth, catching the assembled objects on fire.

  Edmund drew back, crying, “God-a-mercy!” The ability to kindle flame from air was surely the most basic mark of witchcraft. “Art thou not indeed a sorceress, lady?” If she were, he was lost, for he found that he cared not.

  “Seriously?” Halley’s tone was flavored with sarcasm.

  “Thou didst call forth blue fire without any aid.”

  “I started the fire with this aid,” said Halley, holding out the doorstop-shaped object. “It’s a gas fire st
arter. It’s just another of our fancy ways to get things done with electricity. Or, well, electricity and gas in this case.” She passed the object into his hand. “For a supposedly historical room, it’s totally cheating.”

  Edmund took the object, turning it over in his hands. At last he nodded. This was no different than the buzzing messenger she kept always about her person. It was merely a small engine. A machine.

  “Lady,” he said, passing it back to her keeping, “I should rather call the contrivance wondrous.” He felt a tug inside—a sort of desperation to remain in this age of wonders. To remain with her.

  Halley shrugged. “I guess it is.” Then she held her hands out, catching the warmth of the fire. “Mmm. Now, that is what I call wondrous.”

  Edmund gazed at her slender fingers as they caught the flickering light of the fire. They were elegant. Like her wrists. Her arms. Her shoulders. Neck. He turned away, not trusting himself to gaze upon her mouth without longing.

  He was lost, indeed.

  23

  • HALLEY •

  Halley sank her fingers into the soft fleece rug set before the fire. She was in so much trouble. This was definitely the most romantic setting she’d ever been in, and here she was with a veritable god from the sixteenth century.

  A god, who, she reminded herself, had just tried to run off in the middle of the night, endangering both of them. She sighed heavily.

  For several minutes neither of them said anything. The wood in the fire had caught in a bright blaze, so she reached for the remote and fussed with the blue flames until they went out. A brief but unpleasant whiff of natural gas took the edge off the romantic mood.

  “Edmund,” she said at last, “we have to talk about your . . . running away thing. I need to know you’re not going to try something like that again.”

  Edmund’s brow furrowed.

  “Please. Or at least help me to understand. What made you think you had to?” Halley asked.

  Edmund’s gaze grew troubled. Halley thought he was debating keeping his thoughts on the subject to himself, but then he sighed and spoke.