Cheating Death

by April White

  Wilde stood and offered Tom his hand to help him up. He held it in a handshake and didn’t let go as he spoke. “I shall give my Dorian your beauty, but he will not have your soul. It is far too deep a well for him to imagine, much less be privileged to know – a privilege I hope you grant another someday.”

  Tom’s expression remained stoic, but he surprised us all when he clasped Wilde’s arm with his other hand in what I supposed was a modern man’s version of a Victorian hug.

  “I’m very glad to have met you, Mr. Wilde,” Tom said.

  “I hope we are friends enough for you to call me Oscar.”

  “Maybe I’ll come back and tell you stories someday, Oscar.”

  Wilde beamed at Tom with a happy grin. “That would be an excellent day, indeed!”

  We said our goodbyes to Father Lockhart, and Wilde walked us to the door. I gave him a hug and whispered in his ear. “Take care, Oscar.”

  He gave me a quick squeeze. “Find beauty in the moments, Miss Elian, because to live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

  Tom left us on the street corner with the promise that he’d come to Ringo’s flat at sunset to discuss our plans and the deal. I asked where he would sleep, but he just shook his head and took off, walking briskly down Holborn. Ringo and I ran silently all the way back down to the river. We arrived just after the sun rose, and I had to drag myself up the ladder to his flat.

  Ringo gave me his bed and took the chair with a tired shake of his head at my protests. I didn’t close the drapes in case he decided the chair was too uncomfortable, and I watched him settle in and shut his eyes.

  “Oscar Wilde went to prison for being gay,” I said after a long moment.

  Ringo’s eyes opened and he regarded me steadily. “People are idiots,” he finally said, and closed his eyes again to sleep.

  The Plan

  Ringo was out when I finally woke up late in the afternoon. I took the rare alone-time to bathe and wash my hair. Basic personal hygiene could always be managed with access to water and a washcloth, but full submergence and soap were a rarity to be taken advantage of.

  I debated my wardrobe choices. My satchel had been packed for World War II, and it never occurred to me to pick up any modern clothes during the brief time I was in the wrong future. I had clean underwear and tanks, but the 1940s pencil skirt was way too short to wear in this time. The trousers were great, but desperately in need of a wash and repair. So, I pulled on a pair of leggings I’d packed as a cold weather layer and decided to clean the trousers and stitch up the worst of the damage.

  Ringo came back just as I was hanging the trousers to dry. He had two big bags with him and tossed me his satchel when I asked to help.

  “There’s food in there. Can ye set a table before Tom gets ‘ere? It’d be good to actually eat the food instead of arguin’ about it, ye know?”

  I winced at the memory of the previous night’s conflicts and unpacked the meat pies, cheese, and cucumbers. I held up a lemon proudly. “Does this mean you’re actually going to have some?”

  He cringed. “If ye squeeze it into water, I’ll consider it.”

  “Good man!” I said happily. “I have to keep reminding myself we’re not on war rations here, so you can find things like cucumbers and lemons.”

  “I only got ‘em to keep ye from fussin’.”

  I grinned. “I know. Thank you.”

  He was unpacking the two big bags and laying things out on the bed. “What’d you get?”

  “There’s a tailor on Old Burlington St. who works fast and ‘ad some outdated clothes ‘e could alter to fit us both.”

  He held up a pair of tan trousers. “These should work for ye, I think.” He handed them to me.

  “They’re so soft,” I said. “Leather? Really?”

  “Buckskin. The tailor said ‘e’s never been able to sell these because they were too long and too narrow to fit the men who could afford them.”

  They were the most gorgeous things I’d ever seen, and I narrowed my eyes at Ringo. “I don’t want to know how much they cost, do I?”

  He shrugged. “Does it matter? Ye said yerself, if ye fix time, the future the gems came from won’t exist anymore. And honestly, the trousers ye’ve been wearin’ are just disgraceful. Those, at least, should do better against yer best efforts to destroy them.”

  He held up a black pair of trousers and tossed them to me. “And an extra pair in case ye get sick of the buckskin.”

  I caught the heavy linen trousers and held them up to my waist. They looked like they’d be long enough, and only a little big. “It’s nice to have options.”

  He held up a mid-thigh-length coat, also black, that was narrow at the waist and fuller at the hem. I thought it looked like something Camille Arman would wear with her skinny jeans and red-soled spike heels. “The frock coat should ‘ide the way ye fill out the breeks, so if ye don’t want too many stares, ye’d best keep it on.” He meant my hips, a department in which I was mostly lacking, along with all other feminine curves, sadly. Fortunately for me, the style of these men’s clothes was fairly simple to wear and move in and wasn’t too far removed from my own twenty-first century style.

  He tossed me the coat. “Try it on. ‘E can take in the shoulders if ‘e needs to, but ‘e can’t let ‘em out.”

  I had already slipped the soft leather trousers on over my leggings and pulled the frock coat on over my tank. It fit well and still gave me room in the shoulders. The trousers were a perfect fit, and I immediately couldn’t wait to wear them for Archer.

  The thought hit me like a gut-punch. I looked at Ringo, but he was busy pulling shirts out of the bag, and he tossed me two of them. I caught the fine linen fast enough to hide the tremor in my hand, and was able to still it with a deep breath and move on. The shirts were long enough to sleep in, but the fabric was so thin it wouldn’t bunch when it was tucked in.

  “These are perfect,” I said as I finished dressing. He laid out a couple of kravat-style ties and two hats that looked like the type a gentleman farmer would wear.

  “We can get top ‘ats if we need them in Italy, but I felt quite the fool tryin’ them in the ‘abberdashery.” Ringo was dressing himself in his own new clothes. I’d seen him in urchin’s garb, in medieval French clothes, a wartime suit, and jeans. But I’d never seen his clothes define him as a man before he put on the trousers, waistcoat, and frock coat of the 1840s.

  But in spite of all the finery, he still wore the boots he’d gotten in the twenty-first century. He saw me look at his feet, and he grinned. “I can’t get better boots than these, so I’ll ‘ave to contend with being the gent in the odd footwear.”

  “You look very handsome,” I said.

  Ringo looked startled. “I didn’t mean to.”

  I laughed, and the pressure around my lungs finally lifted. “Thank you for doing all of this. And especially, thank you for my new buckskin trousers.” I kissed his cheek, and when he wiped it away as usual, the rasp of whiskers reminded me he had definitely become his age in this time.

  “I didn’t even bother goin’ to a dressmaker for ye. A man’s clothes suit ye, and I figured ye’d fuss about the skirts too much.”

  “You were right. I would fuss. You know how I feel about corsets.”

  “A particular brand of Victorian torture. Aye, I know,” Ringo laughed as we sat down to eat.

  “We haven’t actually talked about last night, you know,” I finally said.

  “Ye mean the part about ye decidin’ to go to the Vatican to steal the Monger ring in 1842? Ye’re right, there was no conversation about it that I remember.” Ringo’s expression was neutral, but something simmered under the surface.

  “We should talk about it.”

  “What’ll ye ‘ave me say, Saira?” Ringo’s voice was quiet, but low and intense, and his words sounded like they came straight from Archer. “Ye talk about wanting to plan things out, to actually strategize like ye’re playin’ che
ss, but I don’t see a strategy anywhere in this. Ye don’t know what the Vatican looks like in 1842; the only reason ye ‘ave a date is because it’s when the Monger ring went missin’ from there. And ye’re plannin’ to steal it from the pope himself?”

  “Only if Tom agrees to go back to 1944 and save both Archer and George Walters from the bomb.” Yes, I knew how ridiculous it sounded to be plotting a heist at the Vatican, but Tom might be the only person able to fix the split, and I was fresh out of alternatives.

  “I’ll do it,” said a quiet voice from the top of the stairs. Tom had surprised us both with his silent entrance, and Ringo tensed next to me, his eyes locked on Tom where he stood.

  “Come in,” I finally said, because neither of the two guys had moved yet. Interestingly, Tom still didn’t move until Ringo gave him a curt nod.

  I cleared the remains of our meal away, and Tom sat warily between us at the table. He finally met my eyes and exhaled. “If we can manage to steal the ring, I’ll do what I can to save both of them.”

  “Do what ye can?” Ringo shook his head. “Not good enough.”

  To his credit, Tom’s tone didn’t harden or get angry when he looked at Ringo. “I’ll put every resource at my disposal to the task of ensuring that Archer and Walters survive the bomb.”

  Ringo studied Tom’s face, then he finally nodded. “If Saira’s with ye, I’ll back ye up too.”

  Tom’s jaw ground as he turned back to me. It clearly chapped him to have the whole deal hinge on my approval. “Saira?”

  I studied Tom for a long moment. “I don’t really understand why you dislike me so much, and I guess I don’t really need to. But if we’re going to work together, I need to be able to trust you.”

  “I won’t hurt you, if that’s what you mean,” Tom said.

  “A month ago I wouldn’t have even considered that, but yeah, I guess I do need to know I can turn my back to you and not expect a knife in it.”

  Tom smirked, and somehow the sight of it gave me more comfort than his words would have without it. “You can trust that if I do knife you, it won’t be in the back.”

  Ringo glared, but I laughed. “I think Oscar Wilde was famous for saying something like that.”

  “It was … interesting to meet him,” Tom said quietly, and I sensed that he meant a whole world of things he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, articulate.

  I studied Tom, and he met my eyes. Neither of us flinched, but neither smiled either. Maybe it was crazy to even consider partnering with an ex-Nazi Vampire with a self-destructive bent, but I was feeling nostalgic for a simpler time when he was just Adam’s cousin with a fear of heights. Finally, I held out my hand to shake. “Deal?”

  Tom took it in his own oddly strong, slender hand and shook. “Deal.”

  Ringo shoved his chair back from the table and crossed his arms in front of him. “So now that’s settled, ‘ow the bloody ‘ell are we gettin’ to the Vatican?”

  Ultimately, we settled on the simplest plan of all – public transportation. I knew that the Hôtel de Sens in the Marais district of Paris hadn’t changed its façade since the 1400s because I’d looked up a modern picture of it when we got back from our adventures with Joan of Arc. Since France was closer to Italy than England was, it made sense to Clock to Paris in 1842 and then take the train south from there.

  Ringo had gotten himself an extra set of clothes which fit Tom, and we had plenty of money and gemstones to sell. It was midnight when we finally decided everything, and given the option of waiting another night and day, we agreed that midnight seemed like a good time to Clock onto a public street in the Marais.

  My satchel was packed with all the clean underwear I had, a toothbrush, dental floss, a comb, lip balm, green medicine, a small marker, Sanda’s little knife, gemstones, money, a change of clothes, and a copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that Ringo had found at a bookseller near the tailor. Apparently, our conversation while hiding at the Council meeting had inspired him.

  I was wearing my daggers – I refused to call them Death’s daggers because they were mine – my new buckskin trousers, and I had my hair tied back in an unfashionable ponytail under the gentleman farmer’s hat. The guys both looked like proper English gentlemen, and although the style of men’s clothing hadn’t changed very much in the past fifty years, they would likely get strange looks on the streets of this late-Victorian London.

  We left from the London Bridge, and I found that Clocking with Tom was approximately the same as Clocking with my mom, I guess because he had her blood in him, courtesy of Bishop Wilder. It was slightly easier than on my own, but definitely not as easy as going places with Charlie had been. Her conduit powers were special, and incredibly useful for taking more than one or two other people anywhere.

  Thankfully, the square in front of the Hôtel de Sens was deserted when we arrived. The giant old fig tree that had given the street its name was gone, and I had a momentary flash of the battle we fought against the wolves of Paris in that square. I shook my head to clear the image of fighting back-to-back with Archer, wielding short swords while Connor’s Wolf battled for dominance over Jehanne’s. While I was lost in memories, Ringo was already across the street and scampering up the wall.

  “What is he doing?” Tom murmured in my ear.

  “Looking to see if anyone’s home, I guess.”

  Considering that Ringo was peering into a window of the giant medieval mansion, it was a fair assumption to make. He jumped down with the grace of a cat and said with a surprised look on his face, “It’s full of preserves.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” Tom said.

  Ringo beckoned us to follow him up and over the wall. When we were off the street and in the courtyard out of sight, he said again, “There are big vats and long shelves full of bottles. From what I could see, it’s a fruit preserves factory now.”

  I looked at Tom with an incredulous face, but he wasn’t listening, he looked as though he’d been frozen into stone by the sight of Medusa’s head. He stared at a fountain set into the wall, and his face had gone utterly bloodless. His breathing was shallow and fast, sweat shone on his upper lip as though he was going to be sick, and I thought that if he had been able to move at all, he would have bolted. And then it struck me where we were.

  I had brought Tom back to the scene of his nightmares.

  “Come on, let’s go figure out where the train station is.” I shot Ringo a loaded look, and he grasped my meaning immediately. Tom had been held prisoner by Bishop Wilder here. He’d been tortured, and had infected himself with Wilder’s blood so he could survive. He had also watched his friend Léon die here – twice. I couldn’t believe I’d even suggested we travel to this place.

  Tom moved like an automaton, following us out of the courtyard and down the Rue du Figuier, away from his former prison. His normally near-silent stride was heavy and plodding, and his eyes were a black void.

  We walked for several blocks without speaking, and Ringo kept glancing at the sheer blankness of Tom’s expression. “Ye alright, mate?” Ringo asked quietly. Tom didn’t answer. He didn’t even seem to hear Ringo’s voice. I touched Tom’s arm to get his attention, but he flinched away from me automatically. Finally, Ringo stopped in the middle of a block of seventeenth-century buildings. We were still in the Marais, but we’d moved out of the realm of the big hôtels particuliers, and the streets had begun to twist and wind around the smaller buildings that had sprung up wherever there was a space to build them.

  Ringo sighed. “Get yer daggers out, Saira.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not drawing blood just to snap him out of his hypnosis.”

  Ringo was grim-faced. “Not ‘is blood.” He held my gaze for a beat longer, then deliberately turned into an alley.

  Tom ambled after him, probably not even conscious of where he was going. “Crap,” I whispered to myself, and I slid my daggers out of their sheaths as I ran to catch up.

  I stayed to the darkest parts of the shadows behin
d Ringo and Tom, and barely two minutes later I felt a presence behind me. I could already see three more people move into place ahead of us, as one young kid who looked to be about Logan Edwards’ age stepped into view.

  My Monger-gut roiled, the intensity of it taking me completely by surprise. The kid was a Monger, and if my instinct was to be trusted, a dangerous one. He said something menacing in a high, child’s voice to Ringo – something in French that I didn’t catch – and I dubbed him Chucky, from the horror movie. Tom was the one with language skills here, but his expression was still blank, and as far as I could tell from my vantage point, his eyes hadn’t registered Chucky’s presence. So it looked like it would just be Ringo and me against Chucky and the five shadows I’d seen. Two of the shadows stepped forward to back the kid up, and when Tom didn’t move, I finally had to.

  Chucky’s eyes flicked to the daggers in my hands when I stepped up behind Ringo. He said something else in French, and there was a leering grin on his face, like he was going to enjoy whatever came next.

  “There’s two behind us,” I murmured to Ringo.

  “And one above, in the window. Can ye take ‘im out first?”

  I glanced up to find the window, spotted my route up to it from door to drainpipe, and nodded.

  “Right,” Ringo said, “Let’s do this.”

  I bolted for the wall I’d marked for my climb and was on the drainpipe before the three who had shown themselves lunged for Ringo. Chucky had a knife, and the two others with him had heavy sticks. Ringo landed a kick on one of the stick-wielders and disarmed him, and I got up to the window ledge just before the teenaged boy could drop a rock on Ringo’s head. I kicked the rock away and slammed the window shut on his fingers. The boy howled in pain, and I dropped back down to help Ringo.

  I half expected to see him completely surrounded, but Tom had woken from his stupor and stood back-to-back with him. Each was battling two or three of the thugs, all of whom seemed like older teenagers. I kicked at the back of one’s knee and took him down, then had to swipe my dagger at Chucky when he lunged at me.