Marking Time (The Immortal Descendants)

by April White

  Finally, Ringo stopped and quietly slipped over to a closed door. I held my breath as it opened and the voices of two men could be heard inside.

  “It’s for his own good. He’ll never be whole or even functional again; you realize that, don’t you?”

  “But it isn’t right.” That was Archer. His voice went straight to my guts and tied them in tidy little knots. He continued. “We’re scholars, not physicians. We don’t decide that sort of thing.”

  Ringo pulled the door closed and I was just about to protest when he slipped into the room next to it like a ghost. I followed him inside and he closed the door to the hall. Ringo whispered into my ear. “We can see them from the window ledge.”

  I nodded. Even though I had recognized Archer’s voice instantly, I wanted to see who he was talking to.

  Ringo unlatched the window and carefully pushed the window open, just far enough for the glass to catch the reflection inside the next room.

  The room was dim the further in it went and at first I couldn’t see anyone. Then Archer stepped forward into the daylight. Good. Not a Vampire yet. A strange thought to have, but it was the first thing that hit my brain when I saw him.

  The first thing that hit my gut was a butterfly the size of a pterodactyl when I looked at his face. The guy was good looking in an everything-fits-together way. He was tall for the times, but not that much taller than me, with a way of moving that made him seem comfortable anywhere. But was he handsome? Not really movie-star knockout handsome, but when I remembered how his smile lit up his face, and how his eyes seemed like the deepest lakes when he looked at me, my stomach twisted.

  He wasn’t smiling now. He looked… upset?

  I searched the shadows for the man he’d been talking to. He was there, but I could barely see him, sitting placidly behind a desk deep in the room. He had salt and pepper hair and looked like he was in his fifties. The way he held himself he reminded me of a Silverback gorilla I once saw in a zoo. Totally confident of his own power and I hated him on sight. He spoke again.

  “Despite all you now know about the Families, you’re still defending them?”

  The Families? As in, my Families? I didn’t stop to wonder when I’d claimed them. Probably somewhere around the time Silverback seemed to threaten them.

  “This has nothing to do with them. This is about a human being.”

  “He’s an animal. And the split just confirms it.”

  “Shaw is a man, no matter what he’s done.”

  Mr. Shaw’s ancestor who killed the council was still alive? And these two guys were talking about him?

  Silverback stood up to go. “When no one came to testify for him at the hearing on the 30th, the decision was made. We’ll have the doctor’s orders by the end of the month. I’ll see to it you’re off the floor when it’s done. It’s the best I’ll do.”

  Archer’s jaw clenched. “Thank you, sir.”

  “I trust we won’t be having this conversation again?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Excellent. And now, Devereaux, there are young minds to mold and shape into men of character. Would you care to teach my Theological Ethics seminar today? Perhaps you could put your arguments to use?”

  It looked like Archer was biting back a sarcastic comment. His voice was even when he spoke. “I’m sorry, sir. I have some work to do on the Whitechapel report.”

  Silverback smiled indulgently at Archer. “Of course, your notebooks. Still under lock and key, I presume?”

  “Of course, sir. The key remains with me at all times.”

  “Because in the wrong hands, the information you possess could be quite deadly for many people. As evidenced by Mr. Stevenson’s interviews with Shaw.”

  “I’m very aware of the need for secrecy about the Immortals, sir.”

  Silverback regarded Archer a long moment, and then finally nodded. “Yes, I do believe you are.”

  Silverback glided from the room and I could see he was not tall but he moved like a powerful man. I shuddered as he left the room.

  Archer dropped into a chair with a suddenness that made me jump. And good thing I did, because his gaze was lifting to the window just as I retreated from view.

  Ringo was idly flipping through a book on the desk when I turned to face him. “Yer man?” I nodded. “Right. Ye finished with me then?” He had the book in his hand and looked half-way out the door already.

  “You taking that?” I nodded at the book. “An Encyclopedia of Cottage, Farm and Villa Architecture?”

  Ringo shrugged with a grin. “The more I know a place, the easier it is to get in.” Oh excellent. It was like practically handing him blueprints of houses to rob. He stopped at the door and turned to me. “Thanks for the drawing.”

  Despite his sticky fingers and questionable morality, I liked this kid. I grinned at him and handed him the fountain pen from my back pocket. “Thanks for the guiding.”

  The pen disappeared into his jacket and he tipped his cap to me before slipping out of the room. I missed Ringo the second he was gone. Weird. Probably just nerves at the idea of seeing Archer again face to face. But that was why I’d come here.

  The Bishop

  I peered out the door and saw no one in the hall. The place was eerily silent as I slid from one room to the other so quietly Archer didn’t hear me come in. I let the door close with a “click” to warn him of my presence. It didn’t help. The poor guy practically hit the ceiling in his shock. At least it shattered my own anxiety as I burst out laughing.

  “Miss… Elian?” His voice was so tentative it knocked the giggles right out of me.

  “Hi Archer.”

  “You’re here?”

  “Apparently.”

  “But why?” There was confusion in his voice, and something else. Maybe… wariness? Suddenly this wasn’t going well and I felt myself getting defensive.

  “Is it a problem?”

  Archer considered me for a long moment. A really long moment. I started to lose my nerve. Finally he seemed to come to a conclusion and he looked me straight in the eyes. “If I’m completely honest with myself, I’m very glad to see you. And that makes me afraid for you as well.” He sighed and went to the window, looking out at the view as he spoke. “It is a dangerous time for descendants of Immortals. You are being hunted and catalogued, for what true purpose I do not fully understand.”

  “By the old Silverback guy that was just here?”

  Archer looked confused for a moment. “Silverback? Do you mean Bishop Wilder?”

  “Short, powerful, silver hair, moves like he’s on rails?”

  Archer permitted himself a tiny smile. “That’s Bishop Wilder, my…mentor. Why do you name him Silverback?”

  I shrugged. “He looks like a Silverback Gorilla.”

  Archer struggled to keep a straight face. “Indeed.”

  “So why is Silverback hunting Immortal Descendants?”

  “Hunting is perhaps a strong word. The bishop has been compiling a list of the living members of each Family. A Genealogy of sorts.”

  “Why?” I thought about the Genealogy books at St. Brigid’s and shuddered to imagine them falling into Silverback’s hands.

  “That’s what I haven’t figured out yet.”

  “And you’re working with him?”

  Archer spun to face me. “Yes.”

  “So you’re hunting us too?”

  Archer looked directly into my eyes. “I’m learning how to protect us.”

  I stared at him. “Us?”

  The silence between us stretched longer than I could hold my breath. Finally Archer spoke again. “My mother had Seer blood in her.” My mouth was open to respond but he cut me off. “I have no proof. It’s just something I see.”

  Fascinating. And with implications I couldn’t even begin to fathom yet. “What else can you ‘see’?”

  Archer shook his head and sighed. “I have a sense of people -- whether they’re fundamentally good or bad.” He looked like he ex
pected me to laugh, but I matched his serious tone. “Does it show up as colors?”

  That shocked him. He nodded. “How did you know?”

  “I know someone else who can see a thing like ‘betrayal’ by the color of it around a person.”

  He seemed suddenly excited. “Betrayal. Did your friend say what color that is?”

  “Purple.”

  “Purple.” He seemed to be committing it to memory.

  “You said ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ What else can you see?”

  “Lies.”

  The way he said the word gave it an inevitable feeling. Like he expected everyone would lie to him, and maybe everyone had. “What color is a lie?”

  “Green. Poisonous.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  “It’s the thing I dislike most to see, and yet there is green around almost everyone I’ve ever met.”

  I knew I was about to step in it with both feet but I couldn’t help it. So I decided to just pull on the hip-waders and stride in. “What about me? How’s my green?”

  Archer considered me very thoughtfully. He finally spoke. “It’s different.”

  That surprised me. I figured people assumed I was a liar because of my anti-social tendencies. “How?”

  “I don’t see the pure green of lies around you. It’s more a blue-green color, like the ocean.”

  “Which means…?”

  He shook his head. “It must be because your relationship with your family is...”

  “Not there?” I finished his sentence and he looked relieved not to be the one to say it. “But I don’t understand.”

  “Blue means something is closed, usually emotions or faith. So I can only assume that the blue green around you is a sign of something withheld.”

  “Like lying by omission?”

  Archer nodded. “More or less.”

  “I probably do that a lot. Not really meaning to lie, just sort of shutting up.”

  He smiled a little. “I understand that inclination.”

  “So I don’t come across as a liar, huh?”

  “One of the very few people I’ve ever met who does not.”

  I shrugged and grinned. “So I’ve got that going for me at least.”

  Archer’s gaze on me was direct. “Again, I ask, why have you come back? One mistake I understand, but the second time? That is deliberate.”

  I suddenly didn’t want to admit that I’d returned on a total whim. It made me feel weak somehow. And immature. Because I hadn’t planned better. I took a deep breath. “My mother still isn’t back.”

  Archer looked startled. “Your mother?”

  “She was at Whitechapel Station when I… travelled.”

  He stared at me thoughtfully for a long moment. “The woman in the green dress.” I nodded. “The Ripper saw her. He heard you call out to her before you… vanished.”

  I stared at him. “Why would he care?”

  Archer looked at me carefully to gauge my reaction. “Perhaps because he knows you’re a Clocker?”

  “But I didn’t think regular people know about Immortal Descendants. Why would Jack the Ripper care about me or my mother?”

  He’d been holding his breath. “I think he might be a Descendent too.”

  I stared at Archer like he had just sprouted horns. “What, like a Clocker? Like me?”

  Archer shook his head. “Not one of the born Descendants.”

  I stared at him. “A Vampire?”

  He looked as startled as I felt. “So you know of these things?”

  “Not much, but I know they’re Death’s Descendants.”

  He nodded. “It’s possible the Ripper is among them. I started tracking him after they found Mary Ann Nichols in August. At first it was the wound patterns. Throats cut to mask traces of incisor wounds.”

  “But the woman we saw had way more than just a slashed throat.”

  Archer gave me a significant look. “It appeared almost as though an animal had attacked, didn’t it?” I nodded and then shuddered at the memory of guts hanging out of a slashed belly. “He’s masking his murders as animal-like attacks.”

  “So?”

  “So, who among the Families becomes animal?”

  Duh. “Shifters.” Archer watched my face as I worked it out. “So Vampires are framing Shifters? Again, I didn’t think regular people knew about the Families.”

  “They’re sending a message. To what purpose I can only imagine, but I believe it’s designed to split the Families.”

  “As in, pit the Clockers and Seers against the Shifters?”

  Archer nodded. “Something like that.”

  “What about War? Whose side are they on?”

  Archer scoffed. “War lands squarely on the side of whatever causes the most conflict. That is the nature of War.”

  I rolled my eyes. Frickin’ Mongers. “Okay, why now?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Bishop Wilder speaks as though it is a random escalation of an on-going conflict, but I feel there is some design behind it.”

  “Why is Bishop Wilder so interested in the Immortal Descendants?”

  “As I said, he’s putting together a genealogy—“

  “But why?”

  Archer sighed and paced around the room. He looked young and worried and I felt bad for him. “Bishop Wilder enlisted my help to research the Families under the guise that they had a complex social and economic structure unto themselves. He felt this research was justified because the Families operated as though they were their own society.”

  He suddenly seemed very tired, like the whole thing had been weighing on him. “I was very easily drawn into this study because of my own family ties. But as the genealogy became more complete and I was able to find Family ties to some quite surprising people, I realized the danger of such a book’s very existence.”

  “Not something you thought about before?”

  “Not really, no. The research was an intellectual exercise, no more. But once the general outlines had been done, the bishop pulled me off the project and has discouraged me from continuing. So perhaps he realized the same thing. It could be rather uncomfortable for some people if the information were ever to be made public, and frankly, I’m happy to be done with it.”

  “Where is the book now?”

  “Bishop Wilder has it under lock and key.”

  That Genealogy could contain pieces of my family tree that were missing, and maybe there were other Clockers out there he’d identified. “Was my mother part of your research?”

  He nodded. “She was, in theory. At least her birth was recorded.”

  “Was mine?”

  He looked at me a long moment. “No.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “But you know about me.”

  “The bishop doesn’t.” Archer was protecting me? From his boss? His pacing resumed and he seemed agitated. “I really must ask you to go now. Your presence here would be very awkward to explain if anyone were to discover you.”

  I wasn’t going to be put off so easily and I ignored him. “But what are the Families doing about the killings? About the idea that Shifters could be doing it?”

  Archer shook his head. “Nothing. They’ve become increasingly isolated from each other, particularly in the past two decades. Whatever this Vampire is hoping to provoke among the three Families seems already to be in effect.”

  “So then why bother?”

  “Indeed. Perhaps there’s a fundamental cruelty in Vampires. This one could be just acting according to its nature.”

  Uh oh, dangerous territory here. “Do you believe that?”

  “History and legend does. What does one man’s opinion matter?”

  My voice choked in my throat. “It matters.”

  “I believe the creature known as Jack the Ripper is evil. Do I believe all Vampires are evil? They were human once and therefore, quite likely, born innocent and good. Whatever they became after that ultimately ended in being made a Vampire.”

&nbs
p; “You make it sound as if they did something to deserve it.”

  Archer gave me an odd look. “Why do you defend Vampires?”

  “Why do you study them?”

  His eyes narrowed at me. “You have to leave this place, Miss Elian.”

  “Not without my mother. And why are you back to ‘Miss Elian?’ It’s Saira.”

  His voice got stiff and formal. “I don’t presume to know you well enough to call you by your Christian name.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine, how about this. You call me Miss Elian and Silverback will know exactly who I am.”

  Archer looked stricken, which was almost worse than his formal high-handedness. “Of course. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “No, you weren’t. Now are you going to help me find my mother or do I start searching this city on my own?”

  “If I help you, Bishop Wilder will know you are here.”

  “He doesn’t scare me.”

  “He should.”

  Archer seemed to come to a decision and he opened a desk drawer and removed a notebook. I raised my eyebrows. “That’s your safe?”

  He looked startled. “You heard me speak to the bishop?”

  I nodded. “I was at the window.”

  He went to the window and looked out in disbelief. Then he smiled. It was unexpected and it transformed his expression into one that made my breath catch in my chest. “Are you sure you’re not part Vampire?”

  No, but you are, I almost said. How the hell was I going to have that conversation with him?

  Riverside

  Archer spread the contents of the folder around his desk and walked me through the information on the paperwork. There were newspaper clippings, a couple of diagrams, and some handwritten crime scene reports. Apparently the bishop had well-placed connections inside the police department and I said as much to Archer.

  “Bishop Wilder is a man with allies. Powerful ones. The kind a wise person doesn’t oppose.” There was a warning look in his eyes. But considering it hadn’t been on my list to go up against the bishop, I thought his reaction was a little extreme.