A Twist in Time (33 page)

Brad turned to where giant I-beams formed a new entrance to the parking structure. The rollers clattered, signaling the movement of the machine out into the glare of the arc lights.

Now if only he was sure he could fix it. They might never find Lucy and the diamond and the book. She was probably busy fucking that Viking hunk’s brains out. The thought made Brad sick and strangely excited. If he ever caught up with them, he’d do what they did in Viking times with women like her. He’d have her stripped naked and whipped through the streets with crowds yelling, “Whore!” and pelting her with stones and refuse.

Or maybe he was just imagining that’s what they did back then. It didn’t make a less attractive prospect. And as for the Viking . . .

“Watch out there!” he yelled as a workman who was pushing the machine across the rollers stumbled and went down. “You damage that, you’re . . . you’re toast.”

The guy in overalls picked himself up, glaring.

“Bet he’s frightened of that threat. I sure am.”

Brad whirled to find Casey standing, haggard and hard-eyed, behind him.

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“Well, at least I’m holding up my end of the bargain. I’m getting the machine back to the lab. I don’t see you finding my little whore of a girlfriend and her tenth-century boy toy.” He wasn’t quite sure how he had the courage to talk like that to Casey. But then Brad had changed a lot since he found out Lucy had betrayed him and ruined his career into the bargain.

“I know who knows where they are,” Casey said. “That’s something.”

“The manager?” It seemed impossible that an old guy wearing huaraches and a serape had made them disappear into thin air. “That old coot?”

“He’s more than that.” Casey stared at the machine as it was pushed up to the base of the ramp that led to the flatbed.

“What is he?”

“Not quite sure. But he’s not working for any government agency. Had to call in some favors to find that out. Some coincidence that he happened to be the girl’s landlord. But since he’s not official, I can ask him directly where the girl is.”

“I want to be there.” Brad was already breathing hard at the possibility of finding Lucy.

“Might be kind of messy. Better take a pass.”

Brad swallowed. “Well . . . I should supervise the machine getting back to the lab anyway. Call me when you find out where she is. I want to see her face when the marines come over the hill.”

“Will do,” Casey said. Then he turned and walked to a waiting black Escalade beyond the army barriers.

Brad shivered. Casey wouldn’t call him. He knew that.
Damn it
! He had a right to be in on this whole thing. He wanted to see Lucy squirm. And the Viking? Whipping wasn’t enough. But Casey would know how to make him suffer.

“Well, Mr. Lowell, this interview is going to be a little different than the last one.”

Lowell was tied to a chair bolted to the old boards of a ramshackle building down by the industrial side of the docks, not the tourist side. It was being redeveloped, but the permits were hung up in red tape. Permanently. Made a convenient interview site.

“Yeah. I figured.”

Lowell didn’t look scared. He should.

“You disappeared that girl and her Viking, Lowell. I want to know where they are.”

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“How would a broken-down old apartment manager who likes jazz know anything about disappearing people, Colonel?” He made the title sound like an epithet.

“Like that’s what you are.” Casey paced around the chair. Pollington stood in his shirtsleeves in the shadows. He had a billy club dangling down the seam of pants that broke perfectly over his tasseled loafers. Too bad that nice white shirt was going to get ruined tonight. “I don’t want to spar with you, Lowell. I just want some answers.”

“If wishes were horses . . .”

Casey nodded to Pollington, who hit Lowell in the belly and left him retching all over his knees.

“Now this can be easy or hard, Lowell. Easy or hard.”

“Do your worst,” Lowell spit when he could get his breath. Then he smiled. Like he knew something more that Casey didn’t than the whereabouts of the girl.

Monday

Galen watched Lucy sleeping beside him, on her belly, the swell of her breasts clearly visible as they pressed into the bed, her
f rfeaxen
hair spread out over the crumpled white linen. Light leaked in through the windows around the cabin, and sun lit her hair with shiny copper threads.

The dog lay sleeping in one corner. Galen got up and fed him last night after he and Lucy made love again, and let him out to relieve himself. He was a good dog. When Galen brought Lucy bread and cheese and beer, the dog had begged, of course, in spite of his full belly. But when Galen had seen Lucy’s eyes light yet again, one word and the dog retreated beyond the cabin door while Galen
swived
her well and thoroughly until she screamed her climax. She was a generous lover, a generous person. She had tried to comfort him by telling him he was enough for her.

Not true. He did not deserve her. But somehow he had been granted a time with her, the Norns only knew how long. He would take it and be grateful to the gods. And he would protect her, in his poor way, as well as he could.

He lay on his good side, his elbow propping up his head, and watched her breathe. He felt good.

Whole. Perhaps for the first time in a long time. Maybe ever. Lucy did that for him. He closed his eyes. He felt Lucy’s breathing, his breathing. His shoulder didn’t ache as much now. He could almost feel it sealing itself together with each breath. The boat seemed to breathe, too. No, it was just rocking. It was the water that breathed. He could not help the smile that curved his lips. How right that felt, that the earth breathed. Water breathed into the air; the plants breathed; the land warmed and cooled with the passing of the sun. He felt the bay stretch beyond the boat, out under the marvelous bridge they called the Gate of Gold and away to other lands stranger than he could imagine, teeming with life. Down into deep trenches darker than night went the water and up shallow estuaries to meet the rivers. And below the water was the earth itself, the muck of all existence, fertile and quick, and below that was a seething core of molten glass, fiery, like Lucy’s hair. He felt the ice that crept over the earth in places,

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colder even than the lands north of the Volga, and hot barren sands blowing in fury. They were all connected. They all breathed as one. . . .

But there was a sickness in the earth. The cities, like cankers, breathed out smoke. He felt a shelf of precious ice fall into the sea somewhere. The earth shuddered beneath it. He felt the fishes suck for air and gasp and die where rivers ran, yellow and noxious, into the pure blue-green of the sea. . . . Something was wrong, terribly wrong. . . .

“Well, sleepyhead, are you going back to sleep?”

His eyes snapped open, his feeling of connection gone. “Lucy.” He smiled, blinking. Had that been a dream? It was a strange one.

She sat up, clutching the sheet to her breasts. The dog rose and stretched and wandered over.

Galen gathered Lucy into his chest and fondled the dog’s ears. “
Yful hund,
” he said.

“He’s not a bad dog.”

“You must name him, Lucy, if he is to be your friend.”

“You could name him,” she said, snuggling into Galen. She was so soft, so absolutely female. He held her more tightly to his body. He couldn’t imagine how she could not know she was beautiful. Had the men in her life never showed her what her beauty, inside and out, must do to them? He had thought to bind her to him by bedding her. But it was he who was bound. He only hoped that if and when this Brad came to claim her, she would not choose the man who could provide for her better than he could. That struck him to his heart. How selfish he was, to think to take her from a better life than he could give her.

He left off stroking the dog and stroked Lucy instead.

“I’m not sure what happened last night,” she murmured, sleep still slurring in her voice. “But I liked it.”

“You love my
w pn,
” he chided, smiling.

“Weapon?” She looked up at him. “You’re kidding.” She lifted the sheet. “Tell me that’s not what you call your . . .” She nodded to his
pintel.

“
Ja.
We call it
w pn.
Like sword or spear. Same.”

“Technically it’s called a penis.”

“
Pintel
is my word.”

“But we call it cock, or shaft. I guess that’s like a spear.”

“Cock, like the bird, cock?”