Now and for Never (9 page)

Piper seemed to crumple a bit. “Why didn't you ever
tell
me?”

Ashbourne's shoulders sagged forward, but the stiffness of his Roman army spine seemed to hold him back.

“What would you have had me say? That your grandmother fell in love with a supernatural accident? That your mother— that
you
—were the product of a union that never should have happened?”

“I can't see how that would have warped my adolescence any more than when I opened that diary,” Piper countered, “and learned that I exist in the
first
place only because a complete nutter knocked boots with a mad Druidess so that I, his eventual descendant, could one day deliver his stupid bloody diary to a crazy American girl!”

“Hey.” Clare put up a hand. “I'm Canadian.”

“And I'm Roman,” Ashbourne snapped bitterly.

“And—not to go all off topic here, but
Marcus
is Scottish,” Al piped up suddenly. “Not Roman. And he deserves to come home.”

The feverish spark in Ashbourne's eyes fired up again and he tugged at the red kerchief he wore around his neck. “Does he? Did you never stop to consider that such is his fate? That he was—is—destined to remain—”

“Don't.” Clare stopped him with a look and the coldness of her voice.

“I
saw,
” she said quietly. “I
saw
you in the past—back in the eighties—through one of the rifts on top of the Tor. And I saw you push Mark O'Donnell into the Roman rift. When Maggie and Stu and all the rest were mucking about with their ritual and too preoccupied to notice you were even there.”

“What?” Maggie drew a sharp breath. “Clare—are you sure?”

“He was totally there. Hiding in the tower ruin, waiting for the right moment … And when you and Stu and Dr. Jenkins and all the other Free Peoples were freaked out and blinded by the flash from all the time portals opening, he pushed Mark through the rift.”

Maggie's gaze darkened and she turned on Ashbourne. “It was you? The whole trip to Glastonbury? That bloody ritual … You were an assistant professor at Cambridge at the time.
You
gave Stuart the idea, didn't you? You told him what to do and when to do it. All so you could send that poor lad back in time.”

Al pegged Ashbourne with a baleful glare. “So you engineered the whole thing from the get-go. Wow.”

“Only, my dear, because
you
told me how when you came to me in the encampment during the scathach attack,” he snapped. “And only because Miss Reid told you to tell me. Or have you two forgotten that little detail?”

Clare had to admit he had a point.

“And I was only able to manage it all because that idiot Morholt made it easy for me.” Ashbourne shrugged wearily. “He even made the rest of his ridiculous little club—no offence, Magda, but
really,
what were you thinking?—believe it was his idea.”

Clare shook her head. “Even knowing what would happen to that skinny, unsuspecting, unprepared kid … you did it anyway.”

“Yes,” he said. “And so did you.”

“You're right.” Clare nodded. “And I accept my responsibility for that. But here's the thing: now that we've gotten to the point where we all knew we'd get to, there's still that one loose end. Marcus. So I'm going to help Al bring him back,
apologize, and try to explain why I did what I did. Doesn't that sound like a good idea to you?”

“I told you,” he said flatly. “I won't have Piper involved in this.”

“I don't really think it's up to you, Nicholas.” Maggie's eyes had a fierce glitter.

“Magda, I have a great deal of respect for you. I always have. But you don't frighten me. I've faced barbarian hordes, defied my emperor's direct commands, courted my own death at the hands of the young man we argue over now. He did his duty and for that I'm grateful. But I'm not going to change my mind.”

“Marcus didn't kill you,” Al said. “He couldn't.”

“Of course he could.” Ashbourne waved his hand dismissively. “How else would I be standing here before you now? I died on that hill.”

Clare nodded. “You did. But it was your old buddy Suetonius Paulinus who did the deed.”

Ashbourne stared at Clare in disbelief.

“She's telling the truth,” Al said. “Paulinus showed up just as the fireworks started. He seemed more than happy to oblige your request when Marcus couldn't, and he had a very sharp sword. It was gross. Surgical, but gross.”

The archaeologist's brow was creased in a deep frown.

“The governor didn't like you very much, I guess,” Al continued. “Marcus, on the other hand, was fond enough of you
not
to kill you. Think about it.”

“Yeah,” Clare said, “think about it.”

She was becoming anxious to get the heck outta Dodge. They had the coin and didn't need Ashbourne's blessing. And if he discovered the theft while they were still there, things could get awkward.
More
awkward. “C'mon, guys. Let's blow this scene. I've had enough Roman stoicism for one day.” Clare
spun on her heel and hurried out of the tent with Milo, Al, and Piper close behind.

As Clare went past, Maggie hesitated. She cast a long, disappointed glance at her colleague and old friend, a man she'd known for such a long time—and never really known at all. Without another word, Maggie turned and followed her niece out of the tent.

7

T
he teen time meddlers headed straight back to Piper's shop to gather any provisions Clare and Allie might need for this, their last (seriously) shimmer trip. The quartet chattered intently as they walked along Chilkwell Street, plotting and planning and discussing contingencies and potential pitfalls.

“If you'd like,” Maggie offered a bit reluctantly, “I can go back and talk to Nicholas and see if I can't persuade him to give up the coin so that you can—”

“Not necessary,” Clare said breezily. “Already got it,” Al confirmed, fishing the little disc out of her pocket and holding it up for Clare's aunt to see.

Maggie's jaw dropped. “How on earth did you do that?”

Clare shrugged. “Shimmer-fried the electric lock on Nicky's safe.”

“Oh. Well, that was larcenous of you,” Maggie said dryly.

When they reached the antiquarian shop, Piper pulled an antique brass key ring out of her cargo-pants pocket, unlocked the door, and gestured them all inside. Maggie walked briskly over to the register counter and heaved her briefcase up onto the worn wooden surface. She fished around and withdrew a rumpled paper lunch bag. Whatever was in the bag made a clinking sound as she thrust it toward Clare.

“I've brought the blood,” she declared.

“You what?”

“As per your instructions.”

Call Maggie first tell her to bring blood …
Clare remembered that line from the hastily scribbled note she'd written to herself in Morholt's book the last time she shimmered back. “Yeah,” she sighed. “See … I actually have NO idea why I said that, or what I meant, or—”

“I do.” Maggie stopped her short. “I know exactly what you meant. Not at first, of course. But I figured it out. It's the reason I'm here and the reason you must go back, Marcus or no Marcus.”

Maggie darted a glance at Piper, and Clare was suddenly reminded of Mags's dramatic declaration upon entering Ashbourne's tent. Something about his
“lovely young descendant here vanishing from the pages of history as if she'd never existed …”

“You don't have a choice,” Maggie continued. “None of us does. If you don't return to set things to rights”—her voice dropped into a lower, doomy-pronouncement range—“then the fabric of the universe as we know it could come apart at the seams and this, our present existence, might never come to pass.”

“Maggie?” Clare said quietly.

“Yes, dear?”

“What—seriously
what
—are you taking about?” She fixed all her attention on her aunt. “You know,” she said, “like you're always telling me: start at the beginning.”

“Well, that's just it, really!” Maggie exclaimed. “There isn't one.”

“One
what
?”

“Beginning.”

“Sigh.” Clare dropped her chin on her chest.

“It's all one big loop, dear,” Maggie said.

Al nudged her cousin, a look of faint superiority on her
face. “See?” she muttered. “Told ya. My closed-loop theory trumps your multiverse.”

“An unbroken circle,” Maggie continued. “At least, it
should
be. Let me explain.”

“I'd like that.”

“After you called, I realized I was unclear on a few things.”

“Only a few?” Milo murmured. “Got the rest of us beat.”

“Well, the ‘bring blood' instruction,” Maggie said. “It just didn't make any sense. I mean … I know you were in a hurry, but honestly, Clare, you could have been a little more specific.”

“Gosh, yeah.” Clare nodded wearily. “That's what I told myself. Literally.”

“At any rate,” Maggie continued, “I got to thinking. As I understand it, it was your blood that was used to enspell the artifacts that send you shimmering. Well, you have all the Clare blood you need, obviously, and so I thought you must have meant other blood. Perhaps the other blood that was used, specifically, on the Great Snettisham Torc, which was the only other artifact cursed with both
your
blood and—”

“Boudicca's,” Clare blurted.

“Right.” Maggie held up a hand. “I know what you're thinking. Even if one
could
dig a hole down into her grave barrow, it's not as if there's any blood left in those old bones to extract. Is there?”

“Gad! I certainly hope not.” Clare shivered at the memory of the great queen's remains. In the torch-lit chamber beneath Norfolk's Bartlow High Hill, her pale skeleton had lain in repose on a carpet of long red hair. Clare had recurring dreams—nightmares, really—of that encounter.

“Right! But … then it hit me.” Maggie's eyes sparked behind her glasses. “Ceciley.”

“Dr. Jenkins?” Al leaned forward.

“When she was possessed by the spirit of Boudicca,” Maggie explained, “the transformation was more than just
psychological. It seemed at the time, dare I say it, almost
physiological
.”

Yeah …
Clare remembered all right. The vengeful queen had taken over the starchy museum curator and turned her into a feral force of un-nature. A supernatural tiger lady. And the sudden purging of Boudicca's spirit—when Clare had torn the enchanted torc from around the curator's neck—had rendered the good doctor catatonic. Clare still sometimes tried to muster up sympathy for Dr. Jenkins, left lying insensible in a hospital bed in London, but it wasn't easy. After all, despite Stuart Morholt's claims to mastermindyness,
she
was the one responsible for the theft of the great golden torc from the museum in the first place.

“I was acting on a sheer hunch, you understand,” Maggie continued. “But it was one that paid off.” She shook the little lunch bag, its contents clinking musically. “I went to the hospital and spoke to a nurse who assured me that she was in the same state she'd been in since the museum incident. No change. A deep coma, she said. She said that I could sit in the room for a little while. She was on her way there to take some blood samples for routine lab work anyway and—”

“Oh
god.
” Clare suddenly saw where this was going. It made her stomach do a queasy little flip. “You're
kidding.
”

“I'm not.” Maggie emptied the bag out onto the tabletop. “‘Bring blood,' you said. And so I have.”

Two thin glass tubes filled with dark crimson liquid rolled across the worn wooden surface and came to a stop inches from Clare's horrified elbow.

“You … you brought me curator blood?” she said in a quavery voice, shrinking back from the vials. “How thoughtful.”

“Can you use that somehow to make sure I don't get erased?” Piper asked.

“I sincerely hope so, my dear,” Maggie said grimly, then turned back to Clare. “After the nurse had taken the samples
she bustled off to deal with another patient for a moment. Quite suddenly, Ceciley bolted upright in the bed, eyes wide open, and grabbed my arm.” Maggie tugged up her sleeve and showed them the purple bands of finger-mark bruises.

“What?”
Clare gasped, horrified by the thought that Boudicca's vengeful spirit might still be inhabiting Ceciley. “I thought she was in a coma! You even just said—”

“She
is
.” Maggie put up a hand. “Again. But for a few
brief
moments she was awake, lucid, and utterly adamant that I deliver a message. She wouldn't let go until I promised. Then she sank back into unconsciousness and I ran for the door. The nurse had left five or six vials of Ceciley's blood on the cart outside the room. I nabbed two and got out of there as fast as I could.”