Time's Enemy: A Romantic Time Travel Adventure (Saturn Society Book 1)

by Jennette Marie Powell

  “Sit down, Mr. Cheltenham,” Theodore said. “You’ll be here a while.” They advanced on Fred. “Excellent work, Charlotte.”

  Caruthers pushed Fred down on the sofa. “Yes, terrific job.” He smirked at Charlotte, his eyes glittering.

  Charlotte’s insides turned in on themselves, and she fled to the other side of the room. Fred’s head whipped around, from Theodore, to Caruthers, and back. “Who are you? What do you want?” To Charlotte, “You! You sold me out! You bi—”

  “You have broken the Society Code, Mr. Cheltenham,” Theodore said. “You’ve been warned not to tamper with the past to suit your own purposes, and you’ve willfully disregarded those warnings—”

  “That’s a crock!” He rose and tried to push them aside. “I haven’t done a thing—” Caruthers shoved him back down and sat on him. Fred’s limbs flailed, his fingers clawed at empty air, but his efforts were as ineffectual as his muffled shouts. Theodore drew a flask and a handkerchief out of his pocket, uncorked the flask and held the handkerchief to it as he upended it. As he pressed the cloth over Fred’s nose and mouth, Fred’s motions became slow and feeble, then he went still.

  Caruthers slowly rose. “Time to take him downstairs?” A grin spread across his face like a joker in a deck of cards.

  A chill rushed down Charlotte. What had she done?

  Theodore walked around Cheltenham’s inert form, poking and prodding the captive. “Yes. We must get him taken care of before he revives.”

  Charlotte shrank into a corner as the two men lifted Fred’s arms and dragged him toward the parlor doorway. Caruthers paused as he passed her. “You’ve done well, Charlotte. I’ll make sure you’re rewarded.” He moved on, but as he yanked the unconscious Fred around the corner, he gave her a long look, one of those that made her feel raw and exposed, like he could see through her clothes.

  “Serving the Society is reward enough,” she forced out.

  “Well said, Charlotte,” Theodore grunted.

  She pressed her back against the wall, anxious to be out of Caruthers’ sight. When the sounds of Fred’s shoes dragging the floor receded, she peeled herself off the wall. She stumbled twice as she made her way to the sofa.

  She sat, clasping one hand with the other, then switching them. She couldn’t stop shaking, though the room was warm. Something sweet-smelling lingered in the air. The anesthetic, though she doubted it was the cause of her sudden malaise. It hadn’t affected Theodore or Caruthers.

  She made herself stop wringing her hands. You’re being silly! She’d done something good, something necessary. Theodore was proud of her. Caruthers, too, though she doubted she’d want his promised reward.

  What would they do to Fred? Curiosity finished off her misgivings. This was the first time she’d been present when Theodore made an apprehension. What was the Treatment that rendered the enemies of time harmless?

  Her shakes gone, she got up and walked to the parlor entrance. The hallway was deserted, though scuff marks from Fred’s shoes marred the hardwood floors. She followed their trail to the stairwell leading into the basement.

  She tiptoed down the steps, hoping none creaked. She flinched when one did, then scanned the dim cellar. Her ears pricked at a faint snap coming from the storage area at the other end of the basement. She clutched the handrail, the wood cool in her grip, then continued down the stairs.

  The damp, chill air raised goose bumps on her arms. The still silence amplified her footsteps, then someone shouted from behind a closed door. The storage area.

  It had been locked as long as she could remember. Theodore had told her there was nothing inside except extra coal, which he’d taken to keeping since the shortage in ‘18.

  She crept to the big wooden door and stopped, her back to the wall beside the jamb. She could make out Theodore’s and Caruthers’ voices, but not their words. Slowly, she leaned around the doorframe.

  Not one lump of coal lay inside. Her breath caught.

  Their backs to her, Theodore and Dr. Caruthers stood before a long, metal table. Both men had donned white surgical gowns. Theodore applied more of whatever was in the flask—chloroform, probably—to the handkerchief, then pressed it back over Fred’s nose and mouth. At the table’s other end, thick leather straps bound Fred’s ankles. When Theodore shifted to the side, Charlotte saw more restraints around Fred’s wrists.

  “Ready?” Caruthers asked. “Scalpel, then.” Theodore handed him an instrument from a tray of tools on a stand beside him.

  Charlotte clutched her quarter through her dress, its edges biting into her palm. She should leave.

  Caruthers brought the scalpel to Fred’s forehead. Her curiosity warring with apprehension, Charlotte leaned to the side, trying to see around Caruthers, when an inhuman shriek issued from the table.

  She cringed. Caruthers barked a command at Theodore, who grabbed the flask off the side table and tipped it over the handkerchief covering Fred’s nose.

  The screaming died down. Charlotte relaxed, then let go of her quarter and leaned close to the doorframe again.

  Caruthers lifted the scalpel again. “No more time travel for you,” he said in a haughty voice, ending in a chuckle. Not an ordinary laugh, as one might at comical motion picture show or a joke, but more of a cackle.

  Her skin felt like ice crystals were forming on it. What on earth were they doing to the man? This must be what demons sound like. She stood, transfixed. She couldn’t see around the two Society men, but from Dr. Caruthers’ motions, it looked like he was sawing Fred’s head open.

  He held a bloody hand out to Theodore, but his request drowned in another wail from Fred.

  Charlotte bolted for the stairs and didn’t stop until she reached the front door. More shrieks drifted up from the basement.

  She threw open the door and burst outside. She couldn’t listen to that horrible noise and know she’d been part of the cause. She ran down the sidewalk until she reached a trolley stop several houses down.

  Trying to catch her breath, she sat on the bench. Wetness soaked through her skirt. She’d forgotten it rained earlier.

  The world was wet and black, the streetlights making distorted reflections on the pavement. She could see nothing but the afterimage of Fred’s face, could hear nothing but his cries and Caruthers’ voice echoing in her head.

  She wasn’t sure which was worse.

  Someone was watching him. Tony couldn’t see them, but he could feel it. Rain smacked his face as he exited the parking garage and scanned the street. Earlier when he’d gone to visit Dewey Henderson, the sun had been shining in a cloudless blue sky, typical of Ohio’s capricious, spring weather.

  But no one lurked in the shadows, and no one peered over the concrete half-walls of the parking garage. Tony plodded down Seventh Street toward Bernie’s, though the deli was dark and closed. He’d brought an umbrella, but it was in his authentic, vintage suitcase. It would look strange if he jumped with it open, only to arrive to a beautiful, sunny evening in 1933.

  A noise behind him made him stop and turn around.

  The sidewalk was empty. Strange, it had sounded like a footfall amidst the rumble of traffic on I-75 and the splatter of rain striking the pavement. Tony moved on.

  As he slipped into the alley behind the deli, he squeezed the brown leather suitcase’s handle more tightly. He’d borrowed it from his great aunt Louise, along with the double-breasted, gray pinstripe suit and fedora he wore. Luckily, his long gone Uncle Abe had been close to Tony’s size, maybe an inch or so shorter. Hopefully, the narrow band of his socks that showed above his shoes wouldn’t draw attention.

  He stopped by a dumpster and looked around. Someone ducked away from the parking garage’s second level wall. He hadn’t imagined it.

  That fluid movement, the salt-and-pepper hair, reminded him of someone. Keith Lynch.

  He frowned. Why would Keith be skulking around Seventh Street, a block away from the office, after nine p.m.?

  It’s not him. He w
as imagining things again.

  Tony looked back, then ducked behind the dumpster in case the person reappeared. He imagined the back wall of Bernie’s, decades newer, the bricks cleaner, the dumpster replaced by metal cans. The dizziness built, and he let it take him.

  Cool droplets struck his hand as the vertigo faded, leaving him in an alley that looked just as he’d imagined it, flanked by a parking lot full of boxy, Model-T type cars.

  He raised his hand to open the suitcase, but it lifted too easily.

  The suitcase was gone, leaving only the hard, wooden handle in his grasp.

  DIZZINESS SWAMPED CHARLOTTE AS SHE REACHED for the passenger door of Elmer’s car. No! She grabbed the door handle, focused on the here and now, as Theodore had taught her... the cool metal of the Model T’s door beneath her fingers, the bits of rust flaking from its fifteen-year-old finish, the rain striking her hand in tiny, cold spots...

  “Charlotte?” Elmer said from somewhere far away, beyond the spinning and whirling.

  Here-and-now, here-and now, she couldn’t jump, not now... Focus! The smell of the moist earth, the crispness of the rain in the springtime night. She concentrated on the signs across the street, noting that Castle’s Fine Jewelry was going out of business. Rain had seeped through the frayed awning, causing the paint on the signs to run. Had it been only ten—no, nine years ago—that Fred Cheltenham had offered to buy her something from there? Charlotte concentrated on the dripping letters, focused on the rainbow-ringed streetlamps in the hazy mist—

  “Charlotte? Are you all right?” Elmer’s hand, damp and clammy, closed over her arm as he opened the car door with his other hand. She lowered herself the rest of the way into the car.

  The ground settled beneath her. “I’m fine... just a little tired,” she lied. Silly goose! Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t have jumped with Elmer watching. She scooted over, the cracked leather seat squeaking under her damp skirt.

  He shut the car door behind her.

  Someone else had jumped. Who?

  Theodore always informed her before he jumped, so she could monitor the Society House in his absence.

  Elmer’s umbrella bobbed over the car’s hood as he cranked the starter. Pity he couldn’t afford anything better, but it was more than Charlotte had. A pang shot through her. It had been over a year since she’d driven, and she missed it. It still saddened her to think of the Chevy she’d sold to pay her rent after Dayton Kitchen Products Research went under, taking her job with it. The position as a cook she’d found soon after wasn’t enough to pay all the bills, even though the Society paid for the telephone Theodore insisted she have.

  Finally, the Ford roared to life, and Elmer climbed in.

  Queasiness brewed in Charlotte’s belly during the quiet ride home. Whoever had jumped was not her concern. Theodore would see to him or her.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Elmer asked.

  “I doubt they’re worth that much.” She cast him a wan smile and made a vague comment about the movie they’d just seen. Bland and ordinary, already forgettable.

  Not unlike Elmer. He was a nice enough fellow, and not unpleasant to look at, but this was the fifth time she’d been out with him, and he had nothing more compelling to converse about than the weather or the show. Was this all there was?

  It was a relief when the car rumbled to a stop in front of her house, the rain-slicked Room for Rent sign gleaming balefully in the Ford’s headlamps. Elmer opened the car door, took her arm, and walked her to the house.

  She pulled her sweater around her as he unlatched the front gate and moved toward the little bungalow she’d rented four years ago, right before the stock market crashed. Her insides dropped a little at her realization they’d soon reach her front porch, where Elmer would want to kiss her.

  He’d kissed her the last couple times they’d gone out, with all the ardor of a man saying goodnight to his mother. It was like laying her lips on a slab of meat, with as little appeal.

  “Life’s not like the movies, Charlotte,” Mabel had told her after she’d introduced Charlotte to Elmer, a friend of her husband’s. “You’re practically an old maid.”

  Charlotte was nearly thirty. Maybe Mabel was right, and it was time she put aside fantasies of love and passion and settled down with a practical man.

  Elmer was polite, and he treated her well. He had a good job at the paint factory. And his attention was easily ensnared by the radio, enough that he might not notice if a woman slipped down to the basement from time to time when there was no laundry to do. He might not realize she was building things and mixing powders in said basement.

  She tried to conjure some interest in him as they proceeded up the walk. It will be fine if he kisses me. The movie had been enjoyable and romantic. Despite the light sprinkle, a warm breeze caressed the hem of her skirt. A pleasant May evening before the heat and humidity of summer set in. A nice enough night that Elmer might sit on the porch swing with her to smoke a cigarette, and listen to Ozzie Nelson drifting out though the open window. He’d tell her to fix him a cup of tea. She’d do it, though it made her feel like she was at work and Elmer a customer. He wouldn’t stay long, as he had to rise early in the morning.

  They walked up the three steps to her porch, then Charlotte stopped.

  A long, black mass lay in the porch swing. She clutched Elmer’s arm.

  “What is it?” His voice held a note of impatience.

  “Someone’s on my swing,” she said quietly.

  “Wait here.” Before she could protest, Elmer extracted his arm and approached the swing. “Hello!” He shook the form within, but the man barely stirred.

  Dread lanced through Charlotte’s chest. Was he dead? She haltingly walked forward.

  “Some derelict.” Derision filled Elmer’s voice. “Out cold.” He took her arm again and steered her toward the steps. “Wait in the car. I’ll go in and phone the police.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of ringing them myself.” Charlotte jerked her arm out of his and marched toward the swing, but she stopped short, her gaze drawn to the man in the swing. The porch light glinted off the gold rim of his glasses. She took a step closer, and her foot bumped something. A gray fedora, lying on the porch floor, beside the wooden railing. She picked it up, its dampness chill in her hands. “He doesn’t look like a derelict.” The man was dressed too well, his water-darkened, gray pinstriped suit appropriate for church, a wedding, or a night out dancing. She sniffed the air. No liquor odor. “I don’t think he’s drunk.” Something about him struck her as familiar.

  She moved closer, and gasped when she saw the strange scar ringing his neck above his collar. “Tony!”

  Excitement rushed through her, a good-exciting as she would have said when she was a girl. The kind she felt when a project worked after months of trial and error. The kind she felt when she completed a particularly arduous equation.

  The kind she’d felt with Louie Lambert in the back seat of his car.

  It was unmistakably Tony.

  He hadn’t aged at all since she’d seen him twenty years ago. It was he who had jumped. She clutched the hat to her chest with both hands, barely aware of Elmer’s footfalls behind her.

  “You know this man?”

  The hat slid from her hands and hit the porch with a muted plop. She crouched beside Tony and pressed her fingers to the side of his neck, above the scar. A slow but steady pulse beat beneath her hand. Relief trickled down her insides. Her eyes roved over his handsome face, serene in recovery sleep. Elmer remained behind her. “Who is he?”

  “A friend.” She reluctantly pulled her hand away. Tony’s head lolled toward her as she bumped the swing. “He saved my life. In the flood.”

  The rain intensified a notch, drumming on the tin roof of the Paulson’s house next door. Elmer shifted his feet. “Do you want me to go in and call a doctor?”

  Charlotte whirled around. “No!” Doctors wouldn’t be able to help Tony. They hadn’t been able to help her
when she started going off to the past soon after the flood. “No,” she repeated. “I... I don’t think he’s ill. And I can’t afford a doctor anyway.” She rose and faced Elmer. “He just needs to rest. Please, help me carry him inside.”

  Go inside, ring Theodore, her conscience urged, but she ignored it. She bent to slide Tony off the swing but Elmer hesitated. “This is highly... irregular,” he said.

  You shouldn’t do this! the little voice admonished. “Please, Elmer.” She spoke softly. “I know what’s wrong with him. It’s happened to me before. He’ll sleep for a day or so, then he’ll be fine. There’s no sense wasting money on a doctor.” She would call Theodore in the morning. No point in waking him at such a late hour.

  Elmer drew back. “You mean that strange childhood condition you spoke of? When you disappeared, then remembered nothing?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry, it’s not contagious.” At least not in this situation. She shoved Theodore and the Society out of her mind, crouched and wedged a hand beneath Tony’s back.

  After a couple of seconds, Elmer moved to her side. “I’ll get him, you get his legs—no, get the door first.” He waited while Charlotte pushed the door open, then slipped his hands under Tony’s armpits. Charlotte dashed back across the porch and gripped Tony’s ankles, and the two of them carried him inside. “Where...?” Elmer asked with a grunt.

  “The spare room.” Charlotte labored to cross the threshold, then finally, they deposited Tony on the narrow bed her boarders used. “Perhaps it’s just as well I haven’t found a tenant.” The sparse, plain room held nothing but the bed, a lowboy, and a single lamp, but her boarders never complained.

  Elmer wiped his brow. “I still think we should call a doctor. I have credit, if you need—”

  “I won’t have you running up a bill, and he doesn’t need a doctor.” She could phone Theodore, claim he was a doctor, as he himself had done twenty years earlier. But Elmer would find it odd when a colored doctor arrived. Her voice softened. “Please, Elmer, I know you’re trying to do the right thing, but... believe me, this is what he needs.”