by April White
He took his hand off my knee and looked away. His voice was low when he spoke. “If I hadn’t been bitten, I wouldn’t be here with you now.”
I groaned and shut my eyes. I couldn’t deal with this. I really couldn’t! I put my feet up on the dashboard and gripped my knees tightly, keeping my eyes on the road. It seemed deserted all around us, and I truly hoped we’d lost the Weres back at the school.
My life had suddenly gotten very messy, and I realized with a jolt that I really didn’t have a safe place to call my own anymore. Just like that I was homeless and running again, with even less of my stuff than I’d had before. It was not a comforting feeling, and combined with guilt about what I’d done to Archer, my stomach was in knots.
We entered London proper, and I sat up and pulled Archer’s leather jacket close around me.
“London Bridge, you said?”
I nodded. “The catacombs. I think the entrance is on Tooley Street.”
Archer’s eyebrows rose. “They’re still there?”
“You know them?” It was my turn to be surprised.
“I used to drink with the dockworkers when I was out of sorts, just to feel human again.” The wry grin was back.
“Get enough ale into men of the docks and they’d scare each other with ghost stories of buried plague victims and hidden rooms under London Bridge.”
“Have you ever been there?”
“Once. I ducked into a tunnel to get away from a bobby who didn’t like the looks of me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Lurking in the shadows? You’re such a cliché.”
He smirked. “What? You don’t think I have it in me to be scary?” That was a startling thought. Did Archer-the-Vampire scare me? “I don’t know? What do you eat?” It was a matter-of-fact question and was like throwing a bucket of ice-water on the conversation. All playfulness left Archer’s tone.
“Right, we’re here.” He suddenly swerved down a narrow alley and parked the Aston Martin behind an old warehouse. Archer leapt out of the car in one smooth movement. He was changing the subject and I could have pushed him to answer my question, but honestly, I didn’t really want to know. Not when I was alone in nighttime London with a Vampire.
We emerged from the alley and the dark, looming presence of the bridge felt ominous over my head. I was disoriented for a moment as I tried to find the quay I remembered from my last visit to the bridge. But everything had changed since the last time I was there was 1888.
My thoughts must have echoed in Archer’s brain, or it was just an occupational hazard of long life. His voice was deadpan. “The buildings used to be a lot shorter.”
I sniffed with a grin. “River smells the same though.”
Archer agreed drily, “Even the Nile smells better than the Thames.”
I stared at him. “You’ve been to Egypt?”
“Finding nighttime transportation has become easier in the last thirty years.”
The realities of his life suddenly hit me. “You can’t be out in the daytime.”
“Can’t and shouldn’t are two different things. Sunlight won’t kill me. But it kick-starts the cell death that my… condition has arrested. And it’s very painful.”
“So you do burn in the sun?”
“Something akin to what I imagine radiation sickness would feel like.”
“Wow. That’s not good.”
“Very little about being a Vampire is.”
There was no discernible bitterness in his voice, but his words sent the nausea of guilt through me. We passed a homeless guy lying in a doorway and I thought I saw a glint of open eyes. Fear suddenly curled itself around my guts and every instinct in my body screamed ‘run!’
Archer must have sensed something because he grabbed my hand and held me next to him as we continued down the street. “Easy, Saira. Don’t let him know you know.”
“What? What do I know?” I whispered furiously under my breath.
“The vagrant is a Monger.”
Thunk. Of course. Mongers triggered my fight or flight. The question was what had he heard, and who would he tell? Archer steered me around a corner onto Tooley Street and suddenly we were heading down a concrete staircase. “Nancy’s Steps. Named after the Dickens’ character in Oliver Twist.”
I stared at him. Either the man was totally unconcerned that a Monger had just seen us, or he was the greatest subject-changer in history. So I played along. “Never read it.”
“Great story, full of Mongers.”
I stared at him. “Seriously?”
He shrugged. “Criminals, pickpockets, work-houses where orphans are abused. If the shoe fits…”
I shuddered. “So, who’s Nancy?”
“A pickpocket in love with an abuser who betrays Oliver on these steps. Her lover beats her to death later.”
“Charming.”
“No, Dickens.”
I smothered a laugh and we started down the steps.
There was a heavy iron gate wrapped in a thick-link chain at the bottom of the steps. I half expected Archer to muscle it open, but he surprised me. He pulled a slim leather case from an inside pocket of his jacket and opened it to reveal a set of delicate tools that looked like something from a dentist’s office. A Vampire with lock picks is somehow scarier than one who can open a chain with brute strength. He nodded at me. “Your flashlight?”
I shined it on the padlock while Archer went to work with the picks. In less than a minute the heavy lock was open and Archer was unwinding the chain from the door. When we were inside he wrapped it up again and snapped the padlock shut.
“You locked us in.” I was trying not to freak out.
He shook his head. “I’m buying us time.”
I suddenly had a very strong compulsion to keep Archer alive and functioning so he could lock-pick our way back out of the catacombs when we were done. I aimed my light down the dank tunnel and started forward. Archer pulled me back as my light flashed on a pair of eyes glinting from the wall.
“It’s just a statue.” I kept my voice low in case anyone was still around, but I knew the London Bridge and Tombs Experience exhibit had closed a couple of hours ago. Funny that the animatronic Halloween monster had freaked Archer out.
He stared around the room at the dark corners. “They’re everywhere.”
“It’s a special exhibit to scare the tourists. Nothing down here is real.” The sound of skittering feet made me a liar.
“Real is entirely relative.” His voice held that droll tone that I was beginning to understand was a very dry sense of humor.
I turned down the furthest tunnel and Archer fell in right behind me. Despite knowing the creepy corpses and robotic zombies were animatronic fakes, I was glad to finally come to an empty tunnel. It was pitch-black down there, and a little unnerving to sweep the Maglite past plague-dead bodies and silently screaming faces.
We explored the caverns methodically and I was careful to memorize landmarks along the way. Most of the rooms off the main tunnels were empty. Presumably they’d been storage rooms for dry goods when the caverns were first dug. But one room was an archeological dig in progress and I took an involuntary step back when my light illuminated a skull.
“A plague pit?”
“Apparently so.” Archer seemed as intrigued as I was. I aimed my Maglite so his face was visible.
“You like this stuff?”
He nodded. “Since I was a kid. I once found a Pictish stone carving in the woods behind my Father’s manor. I turned it into kind of an altar, and anytime I found something interesting I brought it there as an offering.” Archer smiled at the memory. “I haven’t thought about that in a very long time.”
“My friend Olivia said her family comes from the Picts. She said it’s why Sanda is so old.”
Archer looked thoughtful. “It wouldn’t surprise me. Sanda’s grandmother, the Missus, also lived a very long time, and she had skills modern healers have long forgotten. I believe she kept Elian Manor well into her ni
neties.”
I hadn’t made that connection before. “Sanda’s grandmother worked at Elian when you knew her?”
“She told me she inherited the job from her grandmother.”
I gasped. “She must have known my mother and Emily when they were little.”
We suddenly heard the clank of metal at the gate far down the corridor and Archer and I froze in place. I instantly shoved my flashlight against my thigh to hide the light. I could hear voices, but I couldn’t make out more than a couple of words. But it was enough to hear “…in there” and “Clocker.”
“They’re in.”
My light swung onto Archer’s face. “How do you know?”
“They’ve stopped working the chain.”
“They could have left.” I agreed with him, but I was grasping at straws. “So what do we do, hide?”
He looked at me for long enough that I started to get nervous. Then he finally spoke. “We can try. But this is a closed tunnel system and if I were them, I’d post someone at the entrance while the others search.”
“So we’re trapped like rats?”
“Essentially.”
“Well, I’m not waiting for Mongers to find me. Let’s go deeper.” Archer followed me further into the tunnels, past long forgotten storage rooms, and into a section that seemed much older than the brick-clad walls of the main caverns.
“They’re looking for us.” I whispered to Archer. I was using my hand to shield the light, making it as narrow as possible so it didn’t give away our location.
“They won’t stop looking, Saira. I’m going to have to fight them to get you out.”
Archer looked into my eyes intently and the yellow light of the Maglite made his eyes seem golden. “You say ‘fight’ but you really mean ‘kill,’ don’t you?” I hadn’t really dealt with the realities of Archer’s lethalness yet.
“I can’t risk turning any of them.”
“Because they’re Mongers.”
“Yes. I can try to disable them, but if I pull punches, we’ll both be at risk.”
Cool. I was standing next to a Vampire discussing the costs and benefits of maiming versus killing. It’s one thing to have to defend yourself from an attack, but something entirely else to decide to murder. I didn’t like it, not one little bit.
“I don’t even know what they want from me, Archer. I can’t let you plan to kill them.”
“Would you rather we sat down and bartered for you like eighteenth century slave traders?” His voice was tight and I had the distinct sense he was digging in on this.
“What if there’s another way?”
A shout down a tunnel sounded much closer, and the answering voice wasn’t too far away. Archer whispered furiously. “I’m open to suggestion.”
“I could try to make a portal and get us out of here that way.” I had no idea if it was even possible.
“Can you do that?”
“I don’t know.” I spotted a pile of chalky stone that had broken off one of the walls. I picked up a piece and tested it on the brick. It made a mark. “I can try though.”
We continued moving down the corridor. “Fine. But if it doesn’t work, I’m not going to let them take you.” I wasn’t sure I was okay with that ultimatum, but I didn’t think I had much choice. Archer’s voice didn’t invite negotiation. After a moment, he spoke again. “I’ve never heard of a Clocker being able to take anyone with them.”
“Me either. But until last week, I’d never heard of Clockers.”
“Point taken.” The tunnel wall ended abruptly on the far side and I followed it down to see where it went. “If I can’t go, at least you’ll be safe. And I can take care of myself if I don’t have to worry about you.”
We probably didn’t have time for one of my arguments about my own self-preservation, so I didn’t bother. “I’ve never done this before.”
“So? Doesn’t mean you can’t.” His tone changed to completely pragmatic and there was nothing I could say to that. There was a sharp corner in the wall leading to what must have once been a small storage room. The room was shaped like a square, so there was another sharp corner just inside the door with a piece of wall that I thought looked big enough for a Clocker spiral.
“Why here?” Archer’s voice whispered in my ear. He was really close and my heart pounded a little faster.
“Every spiral I’ve seen has been hidden from casual view. I think so people don’t freak out when a Clocker just suddenly appears.”
“So you’re a Clocker now?” There was a grin in his whisper.
“What’s your point, Sucker?”
“Ouch.”
“Exactly.”
I shone my light up the section of wall I’d chosen. I didn’t know why, but it felt like the right spot.
The wall was relatively smooth, and looked like it would hold the chalk pretty well. The rock worked almost as well as sidewalk chalk and I concentrated on the main center spiral while Archer held his own flashlight pointed at the wall. My Maglite was clenched between my teeth and aimed at the back of my hand as I drew the design.
Archer tensed behind me and then I heard the sounds of raised voices. There was a yell from the main Hall of Horrors and I had an image of a Monger leaping away in terror from one of the plague-dead statutes.
“Can you work faster?” Archer’s voice was a whisper directly into my ear and I shivered with the heat of it. I didn’t say anything, just took a breath and continued drawing. I had just moved to the fourth outer spiral with the sounds of pounding feet down the tunnel made Archer growl in his throat. He flipped off his light and turned his back to me, shielding me from whatever was coming for us.
“Now, Saira!” His voice was just a breath, but it could have been a scream. I finished the spiral, but nothing was happening. No buzzing, no light, nothing. The Maglite was still between my teeth, the nearly finished chalk rock was in my left hand, so I started tracing the spiral with my right index finger.
“They’re down here!” A male voice yelled from the nearest tunnel.
“Do you see ‘em?” That voice was gruff.
“It’s where I saw her.” That one sounded young and scared.
“Doing what?”
“Drawing something… on the wall.”
“Must be a spiral. She’s trying to escape!” The blood froze in my veins. Slick.
I traced faster and Archer pressed his back against mine. He went rigid as the beams of their flashlights illuminated the edges of our small room. The spirals were starting to hum; the edges glowed faintly as my finger moved even faster around the pattern. The throbbing of sound began in my brain and I could feel something inside my body stretch and pull toward the spirals.
Pounding feet halted and a voice yelled, “They’re here!”
Archer snarled and tensed, ready to pounce. The last spiral was almost complete.
“It is a spiral!”
“Stop her!” Slick was almost there.
Archer pushed himself back against me, pinning me to the wall… sending me through the wall… falling, stretching, pulling, with the deep throbbing hum of time being crossed.
.
Out of Time
I think I puked even before I landed.
My guts were still heaving when I felt a heavy weight crush my back. I shoved with all my might to get air.
There was a moan in the pitch-blackness. And the sound of someone retching in the corner.
“Saira?” Archer’s whisper in my ear sounded pathetic and weak, and it nearly sent me through the roof. He came with me? A choked sob came from the dry-heaver in the corner and I had no idea who else was there. Archer seemed to pull himself together. “C’mon. We have to go.” His voice was louder now.
But then the dry-heaver moaned from the corner. His voice sounded kind of pathetic and… young? “Don’t leave me!”
“Who is that?” My whisper was furious as I got to my feet. This was the fifth time I’d traveled and it was by far the worst. I w
as annoyed at how shaky and sick I still felt.
“I think he came with us.”
“What?” No longer whispering, I squeaked now.
Archer grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the room, away from the moaning guy. I could only assume we were in the same catacomb storeroom where I’d opened the portal, though when we were was a complete mystery.
Archer moved precisely and I fumbled for my Maglite. I flicked it on to see the catacomb tunnel, now stacked with boxes and bags of goods against the walls. “Off!” Archer hissed at me and I jumped at his command. “There are people down here.”
Now I could hear the scuffle of feet and the sounds of heavy sacks being dropped into piles. They were toward the entrance, but the sound carried fairly well in the underground cavern.
“Workers.” I tried to fathom the significance of that. From what I read, the tunnels hadn’t been properly used as storage for the river merchants since the early 1900s and were sealed off for decades.
But if time was truly spiral-shaped, what were the chances that we had landed back in 1888? Archer flicked his flashlight on quickly and aimed it at one of the stacks of boxes against the wall. There was a shipper’s stamp on the seal of each box and Archer moved in for a close look.
“1861”
Archer seemed stunned. “I’m not even born yet.”
“Doran said I couldn’t be in the same place I already was. It must work for you too. We skipped past your lifetime.”
“Who’s Doran?”
I didn’t have a chance to answer. A heavy, cockney-accented voice called from just down the tunnel. “Down t’end, against t’wall. Stack’em high.” Archer clipped off his light just as a lantern swung into view at the far end. My first instinct was to freeze in place for invisibility. But common sense and Archer finally kicked me into motion. We slid back down the tunnel and fled into a smaller corridor. It was stacked, floor to ceiling, with precariously balanced boxes with just enough room to slip past into another storage space.
The sounds of the workers had faded behind us, but I was starting to wonder if we’d ever find our way out of the catacombs.
Archer flicked his light back on and shone it around the small storage room. There was a thick layer of dust on the few boxes left in the small space, and a spider skittered out of view of the light, leaving an intricate web behind as evidence of her industry.