“Time and tide, young man.”
Nevis cut the engine, and with the decrease in noise, it became immediately apparent that something was going on down in the lab.
“What the hell?” muttered Nevis.
This time he didn’t bother to acknowledge Everett’s requests for further conversation.
Stepping from the car, Nevis slammed the door.
Nevis had to be stopped. Whatever the cost. Desperately, Everett tried to wriggle his wrists from the manacles, but his hands were too large to pass through.
Nevis meanwhile, his hands on his hips, seemed to be trying to decide if the loud thrumming noise indicated actual danger. Removing his jacket, he threw it onto the hood of the car, partially obscuring Everett’s view in the process.
“You there!” shouted Everett. Nevis didn’t even flinch.
If he could get himself out of the automobile, that would grab the officer’s attention. Everett tried the back door, but it was locked. The front might not be locked, though. Stretching, he slid one long leg toward the front-door handle. He just needed to hook the handle with the toe of his shoe . . .
As the machine’s screaming reached its pinnacle, Everett realized he’d lost count of how much time had passed. He had to get outside, and fast. He toed the door handle. Nothing. Nudged it again. Missed again. He was wasting time. Shimmying, he squirmed his way between the two front seats until he landed awkwardly in the passenger front seat. He couldn’t see Nevis at first, but then he realized it was because the officer was already at the bottom of the stairs.
No!
Twisting, Everett turned from the door so that his hands could reach the handle. Got it! He wrenched the door open, pushed with his back, and then spun to kick it the rest of the way open.
The door squawked angrily, but the noise from the time machine masked the sound. With his arms still awkwardly cuffed behind him, Everett stumbled out of the car and called to Nevis.
“Sir, I have escaped and am no longer inside your vehicle.”
Nothing.
“Sir . . .”
What was wrong with Nevis? The FBI agent, still in the stairwell, had gripped the banister rail and was walking, slowly, backward, up the stairs.
Everett’s heart sank. Had Nevis seen something? He barely had time to ask the question before he saw Nevis reaching for the gun in his holster.
“Wait!” called Everett.
And then the basement door flew open and all hell broke loose.
52
• LITTLEWOOD •
Florida, July
It had taken Littlewood an agonizing three minutes to be connected to Howell, Nevis’s SAC, and that was only after he’d shouted at Howell’s administrative assistant that Yes, this was a matter of life and death!
That had gotten her attention. What was more important, it had gotten Howell on the line, and Howell had given Littlewood what he needed. After a hasty goodbye, Littlewood scrambled out of the tiny office and into his laboratory. The time machine was now screaming at top decibel. Any second now Quintus and DaVinci would return, but in what state? Should he call an ambulance after all?
Jillian, wringing her hands, shouted, “Well?” upon seeing Littlewood.
“We don’t have to obey Nevis. He has no authority,” Littlewood called back. “Howell’s sending the county sheriff immediately.”
“Here?” Jillian’s eyes grew wide.
“No help for it,” said Littlewood, reaching again for his phone. “Might as well call an ambulance, too—”
But at that moment, blue light arced through the room. A second later, their worst fears were realized: Quintus and DaVinci reappeared in awkward, crouched stances, and then, within a moment, both collapsed to the ground.
53
• DAVINCI •
Florida, July
DaVinci felt the tug of space–time wrenching her from the Roman Republic, and then, after a familiar swell of heat and noise and confusion, she felt herself being dropped into the twenty-first century. She fell hard to her knees, tumbling off the platform of the time machine, feeling as always that she would never rise, never recover. But none of that mattered. Had Quintus made it? Forcing her eyes open, she stared. Her vision swam, but she could see enough to tell she was alone. She was facing the back corner of Littlewood’s laboratory, and she was alone.
“Quintus! No-oooo!” Her cry became a howl of despair.
“DaVinci! You’re alive!”
DaVinci tried turning to the voice—Jillian’s, but nausea sent her back to her knees.
Jillian ran to her, throwing her arms around her.
“It’s okay,” said Jillian. “You’re back. You’re safe.”
“Quintus—” DaVinci’s throat had tightened so much that she couldn’t speak. What had gone wrong? Was Quintus dead? Her stomach heaved. If he wasn’t here, he was dead, either way. If not by the thugs, then by the passage of two thousand years. A drawn-out moan escaped her throat.
“I am here, beloved,” said a deep male voice.
“Quintus?” DaVinci looked around wildly, feeling her stomach heaving again. She ignored it. Quintus was alive! Leaning heavily on Jillian, DaVinci reached for him. “You’re alive!”
Half a second later, it was Quintus’s arms around her. Quintus’s damp, bloodstained toga pressed to her cheek. Quintus’s voice murmuring comfort as he pressed his mouth to her forehead, kissing her hair and the top of her head.
“You’re alive,” murmured DaVinci.
“You’re both alive,” said Jillian, “but we’re all in trouble.”
DaVinci wanted to laugh. “You want to hear about trouble? Let me tell you about—”
“Everett may be in imminent peril,” Littlewood shouted above the dying wail of the time machine.
“What’s wrong?” asked DaVinci, confusion and nausea fighting inside her.
“An FBI agent with a gun just hauled Everett off in handcuffs,” said Jillian.
“Seriously?” said DaVinci. “I leave you guys for one day, and this is what happens?”
“I need both of you to hide,” Littlewood was shouting to Quintus and DaVinci. “You can’t be seen. The sheriff is on his way, and Nevis is outside. My back office, maybe?”
DaVinci, staggering only a little, turned for the back office, but Quintus must have had other ideas. With one of his bring-the-thunder roars, Quintus took off across the room for the exit leading outside, sword drawn.
“Quintus, no!” cried Jillian.
“You mustn’t be seen,” called Littlewood, running after him.
DaVinci groaned. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.” And then, armed with the dagger she’d stolen off a douchebag a minute earlier—or two thousand years earlier—she took off after Quintus.
54
• NEVIS •
Florida, July
There was a madman in a Roman gladiator costume. The madman had . . . appeared in the basement, and then he’d run out of it brandishing a sword. He was shouting in some language Nevis didn’t recognize and—good God—he wasn’t listening to Nevis’s repeated orders to Freeze—right there!
Nevis raised his revolver, steadying his shaking right hand with his shaking left hand. Just aim. Just hold it steady.
“Freeze!”
And then, wham! The flat of a sword hammered his left forearm. Nevis uttered a choked cry and dropped his weapon. Cradled his arm. It wasn’t responsive. Had the idiot broken his arm?
“You are in a lot of trouble,” shouted Nevis. His arm felt numb, which meant it was probably going to hurt like the devil soon.
“Servum nequam!” shouted the costumed giant. “Dog! Cur!”
Nevis took a closer look at the madman. He was . . . bleeding. In fact, he was covered in blood. Fresh blood. And that was the moment Nevis decided to run for his car.
He was nearly there when the giant tackled him from behind. Nevis fell with a thud, partially breaking his fall with his good arm. Now a whole chorus was shouting at
him, but whether they were trying to call off the giant or trying to egg him on, Nevis couldn’t tell.
And then Nevis noticed the sword at his throat. There was blood on the sword. He registered one voice rising above all the others, calling shrilly: No, Quintus!
Nevis lifted his eyes from the sword to see a young woman wearing . . . Nevis didn’t even know what to call it. She had interposed herself between Nevis and his attacker so that she was leaning over Quintus’s weaponed arm and could look him in the eyes. She was telling the costumed giant in no uncertain terms to back off.
The sword disappeared. Nevis coughed. Thought he might be sick. Noticed something in the gravel, inches from his face. A thumb drive. Without thinking, Nevis grabbed the drive, pushed himself up, and ran like hell for his car.
55
• DAVINCI •
Florida, July
As Nevis sped away, Littlewood addressed Quintus and DaVinci. “Take my keys and drive to Father Joe’s. Wait for me there. Do you understand? You need medical attention. Forget hiding in my office. It doesn’t even have a lock, and we can’t risk you being seen here looking like that.”
DaVinci examined Quintus, whose toga was more red than white by a long shot.
“Is your own safety certain?” asked Quintus, gripping Littlewood’s shoulder to stop him in his tracks.
“Yes, yes,” replied Littlewood. “I’ll be fine as long as you’re gone before the sheriff arrives. Everett—you stay here. We’ll need the sheriff’s help with those handcuffs. Go on! Off with the rest of you!”
“We’re taking my car,” Jillian said to Littlewood, handing his keys back. “It will be better if your car is here and not mine. Besides, mine has tinted windows.” She turned to Quintus. “In the car. Now. Explanations will have to wait.”
DaVinci grabbed Quintus’s uninjured arm and pulled him toward Jillian’s car. “If Littlewood says he’s safer with us gone, then he is safer with us gone. Let’s go!”
She had the presence of mind to join Quintus in the back seat so she could treat his wounds.
Jillian had the presence of mind to open her glove compartment and toss a first aid kit to DaVinci.
“Buckle up,” said Jillian. “We’re not taking the slow road.”
DaVinci opened the first aid box and located a pathetically small roll of gauze. She looked at Quintus’s bleeding forehead. At Quintus’s bleeding left bicep. At Quintus’s bleeding collarbone. And knee. And shin.
“Where do I even start?” she muttered.
She was trying to triage more blood than she’d seen in a lifetime of sibling hijinks. The whole situation was ridiculous. Five minutes ago, she’d been fighting for her life, and now Jillian was driving them who knew where while DaVinci tried to decide which freaking wound needed gauze the most. They all needed it the most!
Jillian cornered hard, zipping past the Piggly Wiggly. A woman in the parking lot waved, and Jillian, never too busy to be polite, returned the wave. The ordinariness of the gesture snapped something inside DaVinci, and she felt laughter welling up inside. Half a second later, she was chortling, and then laughing, and then unable to stop laughing.
“So . . . sorry,” she said to Quintus, attempting to stop. But then, seeing Jillian’s astonished face in the rearview mirror, DaVinci nearly doubled over with laughter. “So . . . inappropriate,” she said, gasping. “But I . . . can’t . . . stop.”
Quintus seemed amused at least. And his bicep, to which he’d pressed a torn strip of his tunic, seemed to be bleeding less. Maybe laughter was good medicine.
But when Quintus, his voice ragged, requested a Band-Aid from the first aid kit, DaVinci’s laughter turned a corner and became tears. And not delicate, shining tears glistening in her pale green eyes, either, but genuine ugly crying. Tears. Snot. Wailing.
“I thought they were going to ki-ill you,” she said to Quintus between sobs. “And I was trying so hard.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I was doing everything I could think of, but those guys were really good at not getting stabbed.”
Here, Jillian released a delicate snort of laughter. “Sorry, sorry—so sorry!”
“She fought bravely,” Quintus declared. “We were simply outnumbered.”
“We totally were,” agreed DaVinci. “I’m sorry, you guys. I don’t know what came over me. Shaughnessy-Pavlovs are not big crybabies. Ugh.” Attempting a smile, DaVinci swiped at her tears using the now-soaked roll of gauze.
“No one is going to mistake you for a crybaby,” said Jillian.
“What is . . . crybaby?” asked Quintus.
With a grunt of laughter, DaVinci reached into her purse and wrenched out Quintus’s Latin-English dictionary. “Here,” she said, handing the book to Quintus. “Looks like you’re going to need this more than me after all.”
And then she proceeded to tell Jillian what an amazing swordsman Quintus was, how movies like Gladiator and 300 could learn a lot from watching him in action. “I mean, the movies can’t learn or whatever, but the, you know, the guys that make up the fight scenes totally could.”
“Fight directors?” offered Jillian.
“Them. Yes. They’ve got nothing on Quintus Maximus here.”
“Valerius,” corrected Quintus.
“Quintus Valerius Maximus,” insisted DaVinci, wiping the last of her tears from her face.
“These ‘directors of fights,’” said Quintus gravely, “could learn much from observing DaVinci in action. She is most resourceful.”
Tears filled DaVinci’s lower lids. “Really?” She blinked the tears away. “That might be the nicest thing a guy has ever said to me.”
“You have associated with men of poor imagination,” Quintus said. He tucked a stray curl behind her ear. And then gathered more of it in his hand, smiling softly at it. At her freaking hair.
A warm, tingling sensation awoke in her belly—her fireflies, back again. They swirled and twinkled and fluttered, and it felt as if she were being bathed in light, from the inside out. She tilted her head up to gaze at Quintus.
Hunk. Magic.
“Even covered in blood,” she murmured.
Quintus’s mouth pulled into a questioning smile.
Yeah. She needed to kiss that mouth. And then, just as DaVinci was about to go in for a kiss, Jillian announced, “We’re here.”
Here appeared to be the parking lot of a Catholic Church.
“Pater Joe will be most pleased to meet you,” Quintus said softly.
DaVinci attempted to straighten her slave tunic, and then, grunting, gave up and simply followed Quintus and Jillian. As they rounded a corner dominated by the world’s largest bird of paradise plant, DaVinci got her first view of the church proper. She blinked twice. And smiled. The house of worship where this Father Joe person was apparently to be found was painted blue. Appallingly, unbelievable, eye-soreness-inducing aqua blue.
56
• DAVINCI •
Florida, July
It was the X-ray of her metacarpal that settled things for DaVinci with regard to which time line she preferred to live in. As soon as Jillian noticed how purple and swollen DaVinci’s left middle finger was, there had been a trip to the ER, and an X-ray, and a call home to say she was fine (but she was in the ER), and her parents expressing concern that she’d broken her left middle finger for the second time in less than six months.
Which, according to the physician in Florida, she hadn’t. DaVinci had grilled the doctor, asking him if he was really, totally, 120 percent sure her left middle finger had never been broken before.
“Not according to the X-rays,” said the physician.
Her finger was still the same finger from the original time line. Well, what had she expected? That it would have broken and healed itself to match the current time line? Of course not. Her body had been with her the whole time. It was like the paint on her shoes from working on her commission. The commission might have vanished, but DaVinci’s shoes, which had been with her the whole time hadn�
��t lost their paint spots any more than she’d lost her original memories. If her paint spots and her memories hadn’t vanished, and if her body was still her same body, then her muscles must still . . . know their stuff. It stood to reason she still knew how to paint. At least, she hoped she did. In any case, it was time to find out.
And so, on the drive from the hospital back to Father Joe’s, where Littlewood had insisted everyone stay until the sheriff sent word Nevis was locked up, DaVinci did some hard thinking.
The question was this: Could she live in this time line? The fact that this time line had Quintus as a part of her life made the answer pretty obvious, but she wanted to make her decision free from the intoxication of hunk-magic.
In this time line, she had no scholarship to attend a prestigious art program at a UC school. In this time line, she had no awards. No commissions from rich and famous Santa Barbarians. No job, even, unless she counted the restaurant job. (She didn’t.)
But presumably, she still had her skills.
So could she live without the prestige and recognition?
As long as she could still paint like she used to, she could live without a lot of things. She gazed at her hands. Flexed them. Bad idea. That middle finger, broken courtesy of Doucheous Bagus, a Roman youth who’d been dead for two thousand years, was throbbing again.
“You okay?” Jillian must have heard her wincing.
Was she okay? Her brow furrowed.
“DaVinci?”
“Yeah. Actually, I think I might be.”
That night, DaVinci waited until everyone was asleep in Father Joe’s capacious vestry, which had a door connecting it to the Sunday school wing.
She’d been listening to the sounds of her companions sleeping for half an hour according to her fully charged phone. Jillian was on an air mattress beside her, with Quintus on the far side of the vestry, sleeping in the room’s only actual bed, and Everett and Littlewood bunched on the other side of a bench Father Joe had set up for everyone on the floor to use as a nightstand.
A Sword in Time (Thief in Time Series Book 3) Page 23