Before he could answer, Felix’s phone buzzed with a message. He drew a flat silver communicator from his pocket and read the screen. “Hazmat is here. So, next we clone my father’s Timekey to go back to wherever he was hiding out, and maybe find some notes and clean up whatever mess he left behind. We don’t want some local finding one of my daddy’s designs and building super-lasers a century ahead of schedule. You stay here and review the video evidence on the original Timekey’s video log.”
Chevie watched her partner/boss as he strode toward the stairway, back in action mode less than an hour after stumbling on the body of his estranged father.
Cold, she thought.
Riley lay on a low bunk in the holding cell. He held his hands before his face and clenched them into fists to stop them trembling.
I am in another world was his first thought. His second was Garrick. He’ll be coming for me, you can bet your last shilling on that.
Riley tried to think about something else.
He’d never had a friend, as far as he could remember, and he was used to bolstering his own spirits. But sometimes, in his dreams, he saw the tall boy with red hair and a wide smile, and he had developed a habit of talking to that boy in his head as a way of calming himself.
I’m alive, ain’t I, Ginger? And maybe this prison is far enough away. Far enough to flummox Garrick himself.
But Riley didn’t believe that, no matter how many times he repeated it.
Riley tried to stop thinking about Garrick, but it was hard to cheer yourself up when Garrick’s mug was the main image in your brain.
So think of something else, then.
What about the yellow blood busting from that old geezer’s ticker? And didn’t he have monkey parts? And what about that shameless lass in the black undergarments? This was indeed a confusing new world, and a strange-looking prison cell.
But every cell has a door and every door has a lock.
Garrick’s words.
Undeniably those words had a wisdom to them. Riley forced himself to stand and walk the half dozen paces to the door. If this was indeed a prison, then it could be escaped from, just as Edmond Dantès had escaped from the dreaded Château d’If in one of Riley’s favorite novels, The Count of Monte Cristo.
In recent years, books had become Riley’s passion and had helped him through the long, lonely hours in the Holborn theater that he and Garrick used as their digs. It was Garrick’s custom to disappear for days on end, and on his return he expected a clean house and a hot dinner. And while the assassin sat in the kitchen, blowing on his beef stew, his knees knocking on the underside of the table, he would twirl a spoon regally, which was Riley’s signal to begin the evening’s entertainment. Riley would then regale his master with an approximate summary of whichever novel he had been tasked with reading.
Lively now, son, Garrick often called. Make me believe that I’m in between the pages my own self.
And Riley would think, I am not your son, and, I wish I was in between these pages.
When Garrick had initiated this storytelling practice, Riley had hated it and grew to resent the books themselves; but The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes changed all of that. The book was simply too fascinating to be despised. Riley could no more hate Arthur Conan Doyle than he could hate the parents he could not remember, though Garrick reminded him often that they had left him hanging in a flour bag on the railings of Bethnal Green workhouse, where the magician had found him and rescued him from slum cannibals.
I could certainly do with some advice from Mr. Holmes at this present moment, thought Riley, rapping on the door with a knuckle. A genius detective is exactly what the doctor ordered—that or a housebreaker.
The cell door itself was standard prison issue, heavy steel with a window of sufficient dimensions for a medium-sized dog to squeeze through were it not glazed.
Or an escapologist.
Riley knew he could wriggle through that gap if there was a way to get the glass out.
Garrick has forced me through tighter holes.
But the glass extended into the door itself on all sides and was well milled, with no warps or bubbles.
These people know their glass, Riley had to admit. The lock, then?
The lock was of a design that baffled Riley. There was no space for even the narrowest pick to penetrate. Riley tested the keyhole with his fingertip and felt a nail crack for his trouble. The door had no visible hinges, and there wasn’t enough room for so much as a draft to squeeze through underneath.
This would be a challenge, even for Albert Garrick.
Then again, Garrick would be coming in, not going out. And getting in was always easier, especially if you could knock off the person with the key and take it from them.
Riley shivered. He swore that he could sense Garrick drawing closer, and his approach seemed to chill the air.
The door clacked and swung slowly inward, and Riley held his breath, so convinced was he that Garrick had come to tuck him in for a Highgate nap. But it was not the magician; instead the half-clothed lass who had locked him in stood framed in the doorway.
“Step back from the door, kid,” said the girl. “Lie on the bed with your hands behind your head.”
Her tone was amiable enough, but there was a large pistol in her delicate fingers, and in Riley’s opinion, this particular pistol seemed capable of shooting the bullet and perhaps digging the grave as well. This was not a pistol one argued with, so Riley did as he was told and looked sharp about it.
The girl seemed satisfied and stepped inside the room, leaving a tantalizing wedge of freedom on display behind her. Riley briefly considered bolting for the outside world, but then light glinted on the gun’s barrel, and the boy decided he could wait for the next opportunity.
“Miss,” said Riley. “Have I come to rest in a traveling Wild West Show? You appear to be a savage Injun.”
Chevie glared down at the boy along the sights of her weapon. “We don’t use the term savage Injun anymore. Some people take issue with being described as savages. Go figure.”
“I saw Buffalo Bill’s Extravaganza a while back. You have the look of an Apache.”
Chevie half smiled. “Shawnee, if you have a burning need to know. Now, enough small talk. There’s a bar behind your head; grab it with your right hand.”
Riley did was he was told, and having an inkling of what was coming, spread his grip to widen the span of his wrist, but to no avail.
“Sure, kid. Oldest trick in the book. What? You think I graduated from Idiot College last semester?”
“Why do you refer to me as ‘kid’? We are of the same age or thereabouts.”
Chevie leaned across Riley and snapped a metal cuff over his wrist.
“Yeah? Well, I’m seventeen, actually. And you don’t look a day over twelve.” She ratcheted the cuff tight, hooking the other end on the bed railing.
“I am four and ten,” retorted Riley. “And due a stretch any day. This time next year I’ll be towering over you, miss.”
“I am thrilled to hear that, kid. Until that great day dawns, you’ve got one hand for eating and scratching your behind, though I recommend you eat first.”
Now that the boy was secured, Chevie wedged the door open with a chair so she could keep an eye on the pod room, just in case something else decided to come through.
Riley jerked his chain a few times to test its strength and Chevie grinned.
“Everybody does that, but let me tell you, those cuffs have a tensile strength of over three hundred and fifty pounds, so you are wasting your time.” Chevie shook her head. “There’s a lot of time wasting going on around here today; you have no idea.”
Riley suddenly felt like crying, and almost as suddenly felt ashamed of himself. Crying would not get him away from Garrick; backbone was the order of the day.
“Miss, you need to let me loose before he gets here.”
Chevie pulled up a steel chair, spun it on one leg, and sat, leaning her elbows on t
he back.
“Oh, yeah. He. Death, right? He is Death, and Death is coming. The bogeyman.”
“No, no bogeyman. Garrick is flesh right enough. He done for old yellow-blood, and he’ll be doing for us soon if we don’t get a little wind under our sails and leave this place, wherever it is.”
Chevie almost pitied this filthy urchin until she remembered the first time she’d laid eyes on him. “Tell you what, kid. Why don’t we forget this Death character for a minute and focus on why you killed the old man?”
Riley shook his head. “Not me, miss. I never did. It was Garrick.”
Chevie was pretty good at reading people, and this kid’s face was wide, with heavy brows, a pointed chin, and a mop of hair that could be any color underneath the dirt. His eyes were a startling blue, at least the left one was; the right eye seemed to be mostly enlarged pupil. In short, an innocent kid’s face, not a murderer’s face. Unless he was a psychopath.
“Oh, yes. Garrick. Mr. Death. Or perhaps Mr. Nobody.”
“You’re mocking me, miss. You think I’m a liar.”
Chevie scowled. “Stop with the miss stuff, kid. You’re making me feel like a grandmother. Call me Agent Savano. Don’t go thinking we’re friends, now; I’m just being civil, and I don’t want to judge you until all the facts are in. And, to answer your geographical query, we are in London, England.”
The boy was obviously disturbed by this news. “London, you say? Is it true? But then he is already here. There is no time, Agent Sa-van-o. We must get away from here. Can you summon the orange magic?”