by April White
The fire was a great distraction and we made it to the base of the bridge without incident. I went to the pillar where the spiral had been and very cautiously flipped on my flashlight. The pillar was blank.
“There was a spiral here before.” My voice was a whisper, but both Tom and Archer stopped in their tracks.
“What do you mean, before when?”
“Crap. 1888.” We were in 1861. I’d traveled through that spiral to 1888. I shone the Maglite at the other pillars just to be certain, but there was no doubt in my mind. This was the place.
Archer looked at me a long moment. “What did the spiral look like?”
“When?”
“In 1888. What did it look like?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t really think about it. It was painted or drawn with some dark color.” Archer looked around at the ground. Behind the pillar were the remains of an old campfire and he picked up a charred stick.
“Would this do?”
“It won’t last 27 years.”
“It doesn’t have to. It just has to be the foundation for the one to come.” That sounded as reasonable as anything I could come up with, so I took the stick from Archer and started drawing.
Tom watched me, fascinated. “So, you draw that spiral thingy and it turns into a door?”
“A portal, and yeah, I guess that’s what happens.”
Archer shifted impatiently. “It’s almost morning and the fire’s dying down.”
Tom grimaced. “I puked when we came through before.”
I shuddered. “Me too.”
Archer’s arms were crossed and he stared out into the pre-dawn darkness like a statue. I knew he was impatient to leave, and I knew we were at risk every moment we stood out in the open, no matter how dark and quiet it was. I was almost done drawing the last spiral.
Archer suddenly stiffened, though it was a little like a statue going even more immobile. “Someone’s coming.”
Tom and I froze in place. I could hear the faint shuffle of someone coming toward us, but I couldn’t see anything yet. I gestured to Tom and he and Archer were beside me in a second. “Hold on to me,” I whispered to them.
I felt a hand grab my coat, and another snake around my waist. “Tom! Hold me, not my clothes.” The hand on the jacket moved to the waist of my jeans, which he grabbed like he was hanging on for dear life. I was already tracing the spiral and the edges had begun to glow when I heard the off-key hum of whoever was approaching.
I traced the spirals faster and the humming grew louder and louder until I realized it was in my ears and my body, and I could feel myself being stretched and pulled and drawn into the spiral itself. The last thing I saw before the darkness was the shocked, soot-blackened face of a drunk, staring in horror as three people vanished in front of his eyes.
I clutched at the pillar for support. The darkness was clearing from my eyes and I barely managed to control my heaving guts before they emptied all over the ground. Archer’s arm was still around my waist but he was sagged against me as if he was unconscious. Tom! Where was Tom! I couldn’t feel his hand on my waistband anymore and looked around wildly. He was there, on the ground behind us, just starting to open his eyes.
“Are you okay?” Archer’s voice was soft in my ear. I leaned back into his arms for a moment and nodded.
“It wasn’t as bad this time.”
“Maybe not for you. But I feel like I just got hit by a truck.” Tom’s voice croaked from the ground as he struggled to sit up. Archer helped him to his feet and Tom reluctantly thanked him.
I was already on the alert for Mongers. Being around Tom for the past couple of hours hadn’t dulled my fight or flight instinct at all. If anything, I was starting to be able tell him apart from Archer and regular humans. And now I sensed three more Mongers moving around in the darkness. My guts instantly liquefied and I wanted to run more than anything in the whole world.
“They’re out here.” My whisper was sharp and both Tom and Archer immediately stiffened. The night was not as black here as it had been in 1861, and I looked around to see if I could tell exactly when here was. The streetlamps were electric and the sound of a car engine gave me confidence we were back in the 21st century.
Then we heard one of them speak. “If the kid is with them he’s as good as dead. If they don’t kill him, Walters will, just for contamination.”
Walters? Like, someone related to my ex-roommate, Raven Walters? A different Monger scoffed. “Come on, contamination?”
“A sucker bites you and that’s it. You’re better off dead.”
The voices were getting closer.
“I don’t get how they got out of the catacombs.”
“Walters told you, the girl’s a Clocker. She got them out. It’s one of the reasons he wants her so bad.”
Suddenly, Tom stepped out from behind the pillar where we huddled. “Bering? Is that you?” Tom’s voice was strong and confident as he called out. And my heart sank. Archer’s hand tightened on my waist and we both prepared ourselves to run.
“Kid? Is that you?” The older one’s voice got a little shaky. He was nervous.
“Who else? Is Seth still down in the catacombs?”
“He’s looking for you. Where you been?”
“The girl and the Sucker disappeared, and I thought they went down the tunnel. So I went after them and found myself halfway down the river. Did you guys catch them?”
I let out a silent breath. Tom was buying us time. Archer signaled me it was time to move and we started backing out the opposite way.
“Nah, Walters thought they went through a door or something. He thought you went with them.”
Tom’s voice was confident and cocky. “A door? There was no door in that room besides the one we came in.”
“Not that kind of door, you idiot!”
The voices were fading as Archer and I moved further away. I was worried for Tom. I didn’t trust that Slick would believe him and I hoped Tom would be able to get away from them soon. Archer whispered to me as we got back to the road. “He might actually turn out to be a good kid.”
“Should we help him?”
“We have to help ourselves right now. He’ll be okay.”
I wished I had as much confidence as Archer did. Everything about Slick felt wrong to me, and it made it impossible for me to trust that anything would ever be okay where he was concerned.
We wound our way back toward the alley where Archer had parked the Aston Martin. He spoke in low tones. “They were talking about Seth Walters back there.” I nodded. I’d heard both names. “That’s not good.”
I looked at him in surprise. “Do you know him?”
“His brother is being groomed by Markham Rothchild to be the next head of the Monger Families.”
“Which means what?”
“Which means Seth is probably the Mongers’ enforcer.”
“You think he’s the one who’s been hunting me all over the place?”
“Like I said, it isn’t good.”
As we approached the alley it became immediately clear that our luck had run out. I was able to sense the Mongers before I saw them, and my hand on Archer’s arm stopped him in his tracks. “There’s more than one.” I knew this with every fiber of my being. Archer nodded once, and then looked up at the sky. The sun was just beginning to color the eastern edge pink, and I was standing next to a Vampire who equated the sun with nuclear radiation. We had to go.
Archer grabbed my hand and started running. He dodged down a side street and the run became a sprint. “Where are we going?”
“To King’s College.”
Of course. It’s about to be dawn, the streets are full of Mongers, and we’re headed to one of the most populated places in all of London. Made perfect sense to me. I’d been this way before, running behind a street urchin named Ringo. The scenery was very different now, but the route felt the same. I missed Ringo and hoped I’d see him again.
We’d made our way to the
outer wall, but this time we went through the gate instead of scrambling over the top.
“Over there is the chapel.”
“I remember. I’ve been here before.”
Archer had to dig way back in his memory for that one, but he smiled. “Of course.”
“You don’t still have an office here do you?”
He laughed. “I left the college soon after I was… turned. Bishop Wilder had disappeared so my reason for staying at King’s College disappeared too.”
I stared at Archer. “Bishop Wilder? You mean Silverback? Where did he go?”
It was Archer’s turn to look startled. “I don’t know.”
I was getting a bad feeling about this. “Because…?”
His eyes met mine. “Because it might have had something to do with you?”
I sighed. I hated that. The sky was almost light enough now to see details of the landscaping around the old University campus. There were a few lights on in some of the upper floor rooms and I suddenly got very nervous. “Why are we here again?”
“I have a resting place in the chapel.”
“Of course you do.”
Archer led me in through an unlocked side door. The King’s College chapel was beautiful in the early dawn and the only sound in the cavernous space was our feet on the old stone floor.
“I take it you’ve slept here before?”
“There’s a comfortable spot under the altar. Most churches have them, though priest holes in Catholic churches are more comfortable than Church of England.” Archer grinned like there was a lot more he could say about that subject.
We approached the altar, a big stone edifice that looked like it was an extension of the floor. Archer felt around the side and sprang a hidden latch. He had to put some muscle into it, but the front slab of stone moved and revealed a fairly deep hole underneath. A spider scurried out of the way as Archer broke through its tiny web.
“As you can see, this one is rarely opened, but I’ve never been discovered in any that I’ve slept in.”
“How do you know? If it were opened in the daytime you’d be asleep, right?” We were speaking in quiet voices and standing fairly close together. My breathing had slowed back down to normal after the sprint to get here.
Archer grinned. “Good point. I’ll say then that I’ve never yet been disturbed under an altar, though I’ve found some interesting things hidden in them around the city.”
“Like what?”
His grin turned mischievous and I liked it. “Like bottles of wine, street clothes and cash, some bones, a dagger…” He was ticking things off on his fingers like a laundry list. I laughed.
“Sounds like my kind of archeology.”
“There are fascinating things hidden around this city if you know where to look.”
“Will you show me sometime?” I was conscious of how close together we were standing, and also very aware of the brightening sky outside the big stained glass windows.
Archer’s voice was gentle and his eyes held mine in a gaze that made the butterflies jump in my stomach. “I’d love to.” He spoke like a caress and my skin shivered. Our gaze was locked and his kiss felt like slow motion, with every molecule in my body anticipating the touch of his lips. My heart was pounding when he stepped back. “I’m not powerful enough to stay awake.”
“Some of you can?” I was shocked.
Archer nodded. “On stormy days, when the sun is covered. But even the powerful ones are vulnerable during the day.”
“That’s comforting.” I dripped sarcasm and Archer smiled.
“I have to go under.”
“I know.”
“You can stay with me if you like.”
Part of me wanted nothing more than to be wrapped in Archer’s arms and sleep the day away. But I shivered at the thought of lying in a cold stone hole under a church altar. It seemed a little too much like a crypt for my comfort. I shook my head. Disappointment flitted across his face, but his voice was carefully neutral when he spoke. “What will you do?”
I shrugged. “Stay out of sight. Maybe do a little exploring.”
“The Mongers will be looking for you.”
“I can feel when they’re near. I know when to hide.”
Archer searched my eyes and then nodded. He kissed me on the forehead and crawled down into the hole under the stone altar. “I’ll be up at sundown. Will you come back?”
I nodded with a smile. “Sleep tight.”
He pulled the heavy stone slab across the opening and it clicked into place. Anyone who didn’t know about the catch would never be able to find him. A beam of sunlight shone in through the top of the eastern window and lit up the raised dais. It was so beautiful, and yet so deadly to someone I cared about.
And I realized I did care. Archer had kissed me three times, and each one made my heart slam like a jackhammer in my chest, butterflies the size of sparrows flop around in my stomach, and my knees turn to jelly in an instant. It was pathetic and it made me want to do backflips down the aisle.
Archer had told me he loved me, but I hadn’t been doing too much introspection lately to figure out my own feelings. Much easier to ‘do’ than to ‘feel’ when faced with the tough stuff.
Maybe because the ‘feeling’ part was the tough stuff.
I needed my mom. When I was a lot younger we used to talk about everything. We’d have as straight a conversation about politics, religion, and sex as we would about food, books and friends. Usually it was when we were working in a garden, because I think maybe side by side made for more honesty than face to face. Politics and religion made me tired, food and books were always fascinating, discussions about friends I tried to avoid whenever possible, and sex, as a concept, had never inspired more than a passing interest in the mechanics of it.
I wondered if my mother was ever worried about my total lack of interest in boys… or girls for that matter. I think she would have been fine with anything that smacked of an interpersonal relationship for me, and yet I never had anything to model one after. She didn’t date and barely made any friends of her own in each of the places we lived.
I didn’t really dig too deeply into her feelings for my dad after the first hundred times she shut me down, but now, as I learned more about her ‘real’ life, I wondered if she’d still been in love with him all those years.
The idea of being ‘in love’ was definitely a foreign concept to me and had never been a topic of discussion between us. When I looked at it that way I totally got why I’d been avoiding the whole ‘love’ thing with Archer.
I had no idea what love felt like, looked like, sounded like, or was. Books had given me an idea of what other people’s love was, but it had never been a personal thing for me.
How depressing.
I shook my head at myself as I slipped back out the side door of the chapel and closed it behind me.
Silverback
I took stock of my situation. I’d slept about two hours last night before we left St. Brigid’s and I was starting to feel it. Which meant I needed coffee.
Of course I had no money of my own and I felt about as unprepared as I’d ever been. I checked the pockets of Archer’s leather coat I was still wearing. The outside pocket held my Maglite, but I discovered two inside pockets I hadn’t noticed before, and inside one was an envelope.
I pulled it out, curious. My name was written on it and inside was five hundred pounds in cash and a note from Archer.
‘Just in case we get separated. You can stay in my rooms at St. Brigid’s if you need to and anything that’s mine is yours. –Archer.’
A warm flush spread through me. He was taking care of me. I tucked all but twenty pounds back in the envelope along with the note and hid it away in the inside pocket again.
There was a coffee cart parked right around the corner from the chapel and the lady manning it actually looked happy to see me. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she took in my appearance. “Back coffee and a croissant?”
“My version would have French bread and red wine. But I can see the allure of yours.” The man’s voice at my shoulder nearly sent me up the stone wall, but the coffee-lady laughed.
“I’ll have your tea and scone in a minute, Bishop Cleary.”
The lady handed me my change and I opened the lid to blow on the coffee. A bishop. From the chapel? I smiled at him as he paid for his tea.
I wanted to know what happened to Bishop Wilder. What Archer had said about Silverback disappearing put that question at the top of my list. Maybe because he was responsible for Archer’s research on the Families for the genealogy, or maybe just because I didn’t like him. And here was my opportunity.
Bishop Cleary was wearing a pair of jeans and a sweater. His gray hair made him look about fifty years old, but his face was a lot younger than that. And the jeans made him seem like a student. He caught my eye and grinned. I held out my hand. “Hi. My name is Saira.”
He took my hand easily with a smile. “I’m Bishop Cleary. Please forgive the jeans. I was working on a sermon in my office when a powerful thirst overtook me and I smelled Mrs. Lasky’s scones.” Mrs. Lasky chuckled as we stepped away from her cart.
“I think it’s cool to see a bishop in jeans. Makes you look approachable.” I had no idea where all that was coming from, but I was on a roll. He was walking back toward the chapel and I kept pace with him.
“Wish I could convince the Silver Sneakers lot of that. Though the robe does have its uses in the winter in this drafty place.”
I liked this guy. “The Silver Sneakers lot?”
Bishop Cleary looked abashed. “I guess I must count as one of them to you with this head of hair.”
I laughed. “I like your name for bossy old ladies better than what we call them in the States.”
He smiled. “Which is?”
“Blue-hairs.”
He burst out laughing. “I love it.” I could see he definitely wasn’t as old as his hair made him look. His eyes sparkled with amusement and the trace of five o’clock shadow didn’t have any gray in it. “Are you coming in to light a candle, or can I help you with something?” He held the door open for me and I stepped into the chapel with him.