The River of No Return

by Bee Ridgway

  Alva’s eyes widened; she was startled by the scorn in his voice. “No . . . not individual immortality. I’m talking about group action. The fact that we don’t know what happens to us individually—that’s what gives me hope for humans collectively. It must be possible to change the big story.”

  “I am just a poor Natural,” Jemison said. “But would that not be to grasp too much power, Miss Blomgren? You have read your Milton, I assume. God will punish you if you claim too much knowledge. . . .”

  “He’s right, Alva,” Nick said peevishly. “And what you’re describing sounds quite a lot like fascism. Or corporate personhood.”

  Alva snorted. “Says Mr. Aristo. What is your title but a kind of immortality?”

  Nick pointed at her. “I didn’t ask for it.”

  “And yet you wear it so well.”

  Nick stared at her. If the horses didn’t arrive in the next minute . . .

  But then the sound of hooves rang in the street. They all rushed to the window.

  It was the servants, with their mounts.

  “Thank God!” Nick tossed his own note to Arkady on Alva’s pile of letters on his way out of the door. He had told the Russian that Julia remained unfound but that he was following leads. Hopefully that would keep Arkady at bay, but Nick and Alva were sure that Arkady would come immediately to check if Alva had gone with Nick. It was therefore vital that she remain at home in Soho Square to try to put him off. But she was sending several Ofan after Nick and Jemison, so that they would have some backup in Devon.

  * * *

  “I wish I had had time to teach you more,” Alva said as she stood beside the two men and their horses a few minutes later. “I can’t believe I’m sending you off like this, and with no one but a Natural for protection.”

  “Thanks a lot.” Nick checked and tightened Boatswain’s girth.

  “Yes,” Jemison said. “Thank you for the kind words of support.”

  “I’m being realistic,” Alva said.

  “Look.” Nick turned to her. “The fact is, I’m finally doing something I know how to do, and I am with a companion in whom I am completely confident.” He swung up and into the saddle, Boatswain shifting under him. “Tracking down Julia and thrashing Eamon is, in fact, an easy proposition for two Peninsular soldiers. So although we thank you for your concern, we are quite capable.”

  “Yes, I see. I’m sorry.” Alva looked up at him, her hand on his knee. Nick was sure they made a touching picture—a beautiful woman bidding her menfolk farewell. But what she said next hardly matched the tableau. “The Guild and Mr. Mibbs—they want Julia because they think she is the Talisman,” she said. “I wonder if there is a way to convince them that she is not? When you find her and free her from Eamon, work out how much she knows and how well she is trained. Surely Ignatz at least taught her how to use her talent, even if he didn’t tell her of her own importance.”

  Nick shrugged. “Arkady thinks she is untrained, and when I pressed her for information about her grandfather, she almost wept with confusion.”

  Alva shook her head over this. “Ignatz! I’d kill him now if he weren’t already dead. You have the ring, yes? Give it to Julia and tell her as much as you can. Hopefully a few Ofan will reach you soon, and together you can come up with a plan that will protect Julia for the long term.” In the flickering light Alva looked like the angel from whom the Ofan took their name. The face she tipped up toward Nick was radiant with purpose, the two iron flambeaux holders rising behind her like a brace of wings. “Make it seem as if she is entirely innocent of what’s going on. That way, we can save her for the Ofan.”

  “I’m guessing she will make her own choice about the Ofan and the Guild,” Nick said. “I’m hoping to save her for herself.”

  “That is disgustingly romantic,” Alva said, and stepped away from the horses. “Now go!”

  Nick tipped his beaver hat and let Boatswain dance in a circle. Then he and Jemison galloped away over the cobblestones, heading for Oxford Street.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  It felt as if her skull were broken and as if her body were being shaken to pieces. Her ears were filled with a crashing, rattling sound. Julia lifted a hand to touch her head. Just that movement alone set her retching.

  An arm lifted her, and there was a sharp rapping sound. Then the rattling slowly subsided, and the terrible swaying and bumping ceased. Julia opened her eyes to almost complete darkness, but even that was enough to sting. She closed her eyes. Something smelled rank and close and mildewy. She retched again.

  A door was opened and she was lifted outside. Chilly air made her head hurt sharply for a moment, then soothed it. She took a breath of the clean air, tried to open her eyes again, then leaned forward and threw up. Her face was wiped roughly, and then a flask was held to her lips.

  “Drink.”

  Eamon. That was Eamon’s voice. Julia struggled to remember, even as she drank the nasty warm brandy that was being forced on her. Why was she with Eamon? She had been walking somewhere, running from someone . . . who was it? Eamon? She didn’t think so . . . someone was chasing her, someone scary . . . Her head was spinning now, and she was swirling down into a whirlpool of darkness . . . swirling . . . but at the center of the whirlpool there was a little pointy-nosed face, surrounded by quills . . . a hedgehog. It opened its mouth and it said, in Grandfather’s voice: “Pretend.”

  * * *

  Boatswain was not a young horse, and Nick was not as fit as he had been in Spain, the last time life’s rich pageant had called for him to ride for hours across open countryside. As for Jemison, his piebald horse could not be kept to the gallop for more than a few minutes at a time. So here they were, three hours later, posting decorously along instead of galloping ventre à terre to the rescue. But Eamon was driving a blown team—Monsieur LeCrue had said that they were already covered in sweat when they set out, and Eamon would find it hard to change horses in the middle of the night. That blown team was hauling an old carriage, one coachman, one young lady, and one big, heavy, crazed earl.

  Ah. Nick and Jemison reined in. Just ahead, a coach was pulled over to the side of the otherwise deserted road. Nick couldn’t see the team, but there seemed to be two people standing outside the equipage . . . he watched, narrowing his eyes. It was a wretched dark night, and in spite of the moon he couldn’t make out very much.

  The bigger figure was lifting the smaller figure back into the coach. That had to be them. Nick smiled. The little one had been on her feet, so she was alive. But then the big one had lifted her. Perhaps Eamon had drugged her, the scoundrel. It would be hard to ride off with a drugged woman over his saddle. After a moment’s whispered conversation, Nick and Jemison decided that if the team wasn’t completely blown, they could dump Eamon by the roadside and steal the whole rig.

  They checked their pistols as they let the coach lumber back into the road. Then they watched.

  The coach set out at a good clip, so Eamon must have managed to find a new team somewhere.

  “We’ll steal it, then,” Nick said. “You ride ahead and hold them up; I’ll follow behind and get Eamon out.”

  Jemison was standing in the stirrups, stretching out his legs. “Bloody hell, my arse hurts! How did we ride back and forth across Spain so easily?”

  Nick grinned. “Are your pistols ready?”

  “Yes.” Jemison settled again in the saddle and chirruped to his horse. It was a flashy animal, with big black handprints on a white ground; hardly a highwayman’s horse. But . . . they had to make do with what they had. He watched as the animal walked over to the grassy edge of the road, then trotted along silently, slowly gaining ground on the lumbering coach.

  When Jemison drew level with their quarry, Nick set out after him. He saw Jemison rein his horse, saw him raise the pistol; he didn’t shout to make the team stop, but the team did stop, and Nick spurred up to the door. He knocked loudly on it. “Eamon! Show yourself!”

  Eamon stuck his head out of the
window, his mouth gaping open.

  “Beautiful night,” Nick said. “Now get out of the coach and leave Julia behind.”

  Eamon’s eyes protruded eggily from his head. “The devil I will!” He ducked back inside, shouting, “Drive on!”

  But the coachman did not drive on. Nick glanced up ahead and saw that Jemison still had his pistol trained on the unfortunate man. He knocked again on the door. “Eamon! Come out now. We are two armed men. . . .”

  The door burst open, sending Boatswain rearing. Nick held to the reins with one hand and grabbed for a pistol with the other. Eamon was scrambling out of the coach, a pair of pistols waving wildly in his fists. “Leave me!” he screamed. “Leave me or by God I’ll kill you!”

  Boatswain dropped back down onto all four hooves and capered, Nick holding him tightly and cocking the gun. He watched in disbelief as Eamon raised a pistol and aimed it directly at Nick’s head.

  “Leave me!”

  Nick kicked Boatswain; the horse leapt forward as Eamon’s pistol exploded. Nick heard the bullet whiz past his ear; he turned in the saddle, cocking his pistol and aiming at Eamon, just as Eamon raised his other pistol.

  The guns fired simultaneously, the sparks flying. Boatswain squealed and Nick felt the horse’s panic, but he pulled him in a tight circle and rode back to the coach; Eamon was lying on the ground, shot through the chest.

  Nick swung down from Boatswain and stood by him as he calmed, then looped the horse’s reins over the handle of the coach door. Only then did he look at Eamon.

  There he lay, dying, his hand fluttering like a butterfly over his chest, his eyes glimmering in the scanty moonlight.

  Nick stepped over him and into the coach. Julia was there, on the seat, unconscious, looking small and broken, on the seat. But she was breathing. Nick searched in her hair for the place where Eamon had coshed her. There. An alarming swelling.

  He cradled her head for a moment, hating the way it lolled, feeling for a pulse in her throat. It was strong and steady. For just a moment, he buried his head in her hair and breathed in her scent. She was going to be all right.

  He arranged her more comfortably on the seat, then climbed down from the coach.

  Eamon lay silently, staring up past Nick at the dark sky. Blood was pumping from between his fingers. Jemison, the coachman, and the team were silent, too; the only sound came from Boatswain, munching loudly on the long, sweet grass that grew by the side of the road.

  “I’m for it,” Eamon whispered after a moment.

  “Yes.” Nick said brusquely. “It looks that way.”

  “Now I will never know the secret. She knew what it was. She knew. . . .”

  “The Talisman is not for you, Eamon. You could never have used it.”

  “That Russian came, and then he left,” Eamon said, his voice gaining a little strength. “I followed—I knew he was going for Julia and she is mine. I went to the house of the old man’s mistress to find your direction. There was Julia, walking along. I am going to marry her, and she will tell—” He collapsed back, gasping and looking with incomprehension at the blood that flowed beneath his fingers.

  “You are dying,” Nick reminded him more gently. “You must tell me if there is anything you wish done, any final messages you need me to deliver.”

  But Eamon was choking, the blood oozing sluggishly from his wound. Nick stood aside and bowed his head; he did not want Eamon’s last sight to be the face of his killer.

  After Eamon’s final stuttering breath, Nick walked toward the team; Jemison still had his pistol held on the coachman. “He is dead,” Nick called. “It’s over.”

  But Jemison didn’t move. The team was as still as if they were carved from stone.

  The hair on Nick’s neck rose, and he raised his eyes slowly to the coachbox.

  The coachman was facing forward, but as Nick watched, he turned his head and shoulders, and that broad, white face hove into view like the sails of a ghost ship.

  It was Mr. Mibbs.

  * * *

  Nick raised his other pistol and fired, but the lead ball stopped six inches from Mibbs’s nose. It hung there for a moment, suspended in front of Mibbs’s expressionless face. Then he lifted a thick hand and plucked it from the air. He examined it, bit it, and tossed it back to Nick.

  Nick reached up and caught the bullet in his hand. It was half the size of the acorn and much heavier. He let it fall to the ground and stood weaponless and strangely calm as Mibbs climbed down from the coachbox.

  Mibbs was wearing a ridiculously overblown many-caped coachman’s cloak and a too-small, too-tall top hat. The color of the hat and cloak was hard to discern in the moonlight, but Nick thought it was probably a bright orange-yellow. The buttons were the size of saucers.

  “May I ask you,” Nick said, “for the direction of your tailor? You are invariably dressed in the most interesting of fashions.”

  Mibbs walked forward, staring at Nick. And Nick felt it again, the despair . . . he clung to the thought of Julia in the carriage, to the thought of the acorn in his pocket, but he could feel the power of Mibbs’s will like an undertow.

  “I am looking for a baby,” Mibbs said. He had a generic American accent, smooth and confident—almost friendly. Yet those eyes were pressing Nick back, and down. . . . Nick lost his concentration, blinked, and Mibbs drew close; he lifted a hand to touch Nick. . . .

  With a huge effort, Nick launched himself forward and tackled Mibbs, knocking him off his feet. They crashed to the ground, and the breath left Mibbs’s body with a harsh gasp; Nick felt that hot breath wash his face as he heard the carriage horses spring to life and Jemison shout, “Your money or your life!”

  Beneath him, Mibbs was writhing like a serpent, his face mottled. Nick put his hands to the man’s fleshy throat and shouted to Jemison. “You were frozen in time! Secure the team and whatever you do don’t look in this man’s eyes!” As soon as he saw Jemison leap from his horse, he turned his attention back to Mibbs.

  He lay still now beneath Nick’s choking hands, not fighting for breath. He seemed more like an apparitional snake than a man; even as Nick choked the life from the limp body, those flat eyes glared up at Nick with the same expressionless despair that Nick had seen each time Mibbs had crossed his path.

  Nick opened his hands and drew in a gasping breath, as if he were the one who had been strangled.

  “Where is the baby?” Mibbs said it again, without struggling to rise, without any change in demeanor—as if nothing had happened, as if Nick hadn’t just been crushing his windpipe.

  “There is no baby,” Nick said, a hand going to his own throat.

  Mibbs reached up and touched Nick’s face in a fatherly gesture. “Who is the Talisman, buddy? Is it the girl in the coach? She is unconscious. I could not reach her emotions.”

  “There is no such thing as the Talisman,” Nick whispered. But he felt a bursting urge to tell. Nick knew, somewhere back in the heart of him, that he was feeling Mibbs’s feelings. That his own emotions would have sent his fist smashing into Mibbs’s face. Instead, he was enthralled to hideous rites, unable to remember anything except the truth: Julia is the Talisman.

  “Tell me, buddy,” Mibbs said, and Nick opened his mouth to say he knew not what.

  But it was Jemison’s voice he heard, speaking from just behind him. “I am the Talisman. I am the child, now grown.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Someone was stroking her hair, carefully avoiding that throbbing spot, the spot that felt like a crack in her skull. She seemed to be curled up against him, and her ear seemed to be pressed against his chest. His voice was rumbling in the most comforting way as he murmured words she couldn’t quite make out. . . .

  Julia’s eyes fluttered open. She was in a coach—in Grandfather’s coach. But it wasn’t moving. Why was she in Grandfather’s coach? This wasn’t Grandfather who was holding her so gently in his arms. Grandfather was dead. She knew that. This was a younger man. He was leaning his head
back against the cushions, his eyes closed, and he was simply stroking her hair and murmuring to himself. He should shave, Julia thought. But if he started shaving, then he would stop talking and his voice would stop rumbling so deliciously in her ear. His stubble was darker than his hair. Quite dark. Like his eyebrows. She liked his eyebrows. They were strongly drawn. Somehow she knew the shifting colors of his eyes. And he smelled good. He smelled familiar. Who was he? She searched her memory. Somebody nice. He was somebody very nice.

  Pale dawn light filtering in, and she could see trees outside the coach, and a hint of pearly sky . . . why weren’t they moving? Julia let her eyes close again, and she drifted away to the sound of that rumbly, murmuring voice. . . .

  * * *

  Nick opened his eyes. He could hear hoofbeats growing louder beneath the nonsense he was murmuring to stay awake.

  He gently disentangled himself from Julia. She moaned but subsided again into sleep. He kissed her forehead, then picked up a cleaned and reloaded pistol. Not that he could stand a chance against anyone who could stop time. He glanced again at Julia, then opened the coach door and climbed down to defend his little fiefdom: one carriage, six horses, a drugged woman, and a dead man.

  He stood blinking in the dawn light. There was a horseman approaching, and well behind him on the road, another. Nick’s six equine charges whinnied their welcome, and the horseman’s mount—a flashy white beast with a pink nose—raised its head and neighed.

  Well, shit.

  It was that iceberg of an Alderman, Bertrand Penture, sitting astride the white horse like a prince. So it was to be the Guild who found him waiting here by the side of the road, not the Ofan.

  Nick thrust his hand into his pocket, searching for the acorn. He might as well throw it away. But instead his fingers closed around it. He would have to play along, invite them to join him at Blackdown, and then hope and pray the Ofan got there quickly enough to help him get Julia away. To another time, probably. A hiding place somewhere up- or downriver. They wouldn’t need much. A hut somewhere, a cow, a nice straw mattress . . .