Farley. The Hangman.
It was him. It was. How many times had she seen the portrait over Director Gunn’s desk?
Anton Farley.
Those thin lips, and the slick of gray hair.
This is why I have been sent here, thought Vallicose. God has a plan for His faithful servant.
Vallicose felt the fever of devoted decades rush back to her in a concentrated burst. Overwhelming her. Prayer fragments dribbled from her lips as she cradled the injured man in her arms.
Farley, she thought. I am holding the Hangman. The angel of death.
The angel half-opened his eyes and spoke softly.
“The colonel,” he said. “Take me to the colonel.”
Vallicose broke down and wept.
I knew a guy once who liked to argue about time travel. He liked to line things up, consequences and so forth. This moron thought winning the argument made him right. The wormhole doesn’t care about words. What happens, happens.
—Professor Charles Smart
GROSVENOR SQUARE, MAYFAIR, LONDON, 1899
Riley had managed to engage a cabbie with the lure of a shiny sovereign, and soon they were clattering away from Holborn in the back of a covered carriage on their way to Malarkey’s secret gaff in Grosvenor Square. Chevie rolled Malarkey onto the bench, draping him with a heavy winter blanket she had pulled from under the seat. In seconds, blood blossoms bloomed on the green wool.
“This is not good,” she said to Riley, who was tugging at the curtains covering the carriage’s side window.
Malarkey tried to sit up. “Wot? Me hair, is it? They ain’t gone and singed me lovely hair.”
“Don’t throw a fit,” said Riley, gently forcing Otto down. “Yer hair is in premium order. Rapunzel would weep with jealousy at the sight of a barnet like yours.”
“Thank heaven,” said Malarkey, closing his eyes. “Oh, thank heaven. So long as I looks decent, I can bear all else.”
“Decent?” said Chevie, taking in Otto’s attire. “This is decent?”
“In truth, Chevie, he looks like a strumpet that got shot out of a cannon.”
“You is giving me sauce, boy?” muttered Otto. “I is in repose, not deceased. And what’s more, I is your regent.” He seemed on the point of passing further comment concerning Riley’s impudence, when a shadow crossed his brow. “Barnabus.” He sighed. “I am alone now. An orphan.” A single tear traced the king’s wrinkles, rolling back and forth across his cheek, and he lay back without further protest. His breath slowed to a labored rhythm.
Riley and Chevie watched him in silence for a few jouncing seconds, then turned to each other.
“I haven’t missed cobblestones much,” said Chevie, as the carriage wheels lurched into and out of a rut. “But I have missed you, though I didn’t know it.”
They embraced warmly until Riley pulled away. “What brings you here, Chevie? Come to save me, have you? And how can one body not know they missed another body?”
“It’s a long story, kid. Let’s just say I haven’t been myself lately. But I’m back now.”
Riley hugged her again. “And thank heavens for it, Chevie. You saved our bacon and no mistake. Farley came a-calling with his futuristic blunderbuss and was like to put all of us in the sod. Farley of all people. He was always such a bono Johnny.”
Chevie assumed that bono Johnny meant good fellow and proceeded accordingly. “Yeah, well, that bono Johnny has a serious dark side. He’s from the future, like me. There’s a whole team of them back here getting ready to make their move on the government and royal family.”
Riley crossed himself. “On Queen Vic? God save her.”
“I don’t understand it,” said Chevie, rubbing her temples. “They should fail; they were supposed to fail. Those guys are all in their sixties by now. So why did their plan succeed this time?” She grasped Riley’s shoulders. “Did Farley say anything before he started shooting? Did he mention anyone?”
Riley thought back. “He mentioned you. I thought it strange at the time.”
Chevie’s guts twisted. “Me? What did he say, exactly?”
“Something about how the FBI had sent you, so they could send someone else, and it was for the best to move up the schedule.”
“Oh no, oh God.” Chevie slumped on the bench.
Me. It was me.
Box had moved up his plan because of her. If he hadn’t moved up the plan, then the Boxites would have failed for some reason. And so, because of her, the entire Boxite Empire had come into existence. The cult of Box had spread like a virulent weed across Europe and America. How many innocents had died? How many lives had been destroyed by torture and oppression?
Chevie flashed on a slo-mo scene of Deirdre Woollen’s head falling away from a smoking gun barrel. Dying on the wet concrete for taking a wrong turn.
DeeDee. Executed. It was too much to bear.
All because of me.
It was ridiculous, Chevie knew, to hold herself responsible for world events. She was a seventeen-year-old kid who had never wanted to go through a time tunnel. Why not blame Charles Smart? Or Albert Garrick? Or Colonel Clayton Box and his lust for power? She was a small cog at most, a low-value domino in a very long chain.
It was ridiculous to hold herself responsible, but Chevie couldn’t help it. And the guilt was overwhelming, sending her thought process into spinning turmoil. She felt suddenly nauseated and light-headed, and sagged on the bench, breathing great gulps of air, trying not to be ill.
Riley patted her shoulder. “Come now, Miss Chevron. We’ve been in rockier waters. A strong drink is all you need. A real grave digger, to settle your nerves.”
Chevie’s gaze was fixed on the planks below her feet. She watched the green and brown river of cobbles flash past through a gap in the wood.
Riley persisted. “Chevie, no need to pull the shutters up. In case you ain’t realized, we’re smack bang in the middle of a crisis here. Come on, now. Let’s be having the old Chevron, all sauce and vinegar. We could do with that Chevie and no blooming mistake.”
Chevie spoke to the planks. “You don’t understand, kid. The future you remember: London full of tourists, the FBI, Queen Elizabeth—that’s all gone.”
“Not Harry Potter too?” said Riley, horrified.
“Yes, Harry Potter. Everything. Farley and his comrades launch missile strikes on the Houses of Parliament, Portsmouth, and Windsor Castle.”
“Queen Vic gets it?”
“No, she gets strung up along Piccadilly.”
Riley stared at his hands, which had begun to shake. “Cockneys will never stand for Queen Vic’s murder. We love the old Widow of Windsor.”
“The people don’t get much of a say in it. Colonel Box comes out of the catacombs with his legion armed to the teeth with this sort of weapon.” Chevie nudged Farley’s bag with her toe.
Riley was puzzled. “A legion of old dogs, though, you said. Even Farley was past his prime. How is these graybeards going to conquer an army?”
This was a very good point, and Riley came up with his own answer.
“The Rams. Farley gathered the top dogs all together in the Orient for a neat assassination. Your Colonel Box is planning to enlist the rest—the roughest, toughest band of godless bully boys in London—to do his dirty work.”
It made perfect sense.
“Farley takes out the high command,” said Chevie, nodding. “Then Box steps in with his tea
m to take over. Presto, he has a trained army ready to carry out his orders.”
They sat in silence, contemplating the impending disaster as they watched over the slumped bulk of Otto Malarkey.
We are the unlikeliest of trios, thought Riley.
And he was right. The ingredients of their particular stew did make for a queer broth: a boy magician, a future police officer, and a Ram king. But there was one other trio in London, freshly formed and moving toward their own haven, which was equally unlikely.
Two Thundercat warrior women and a tattooist.
There was silence inside the covered cab as Riley and Chevie saw violent futures painted in their minds’ eyes, and the cacophony of London town beyond their curtained compartment made little impact. They did not notice the gradual ebb of the human tide or even the slight sweetening of the air as the cab jostled from Holborn to the more genteel surroundings of Grosvenor Square. Nothing much registered in their troubled brains until the cabbie rapped a board with the heel of his whip.
“Grosvenor Square,” he called. “All ashore.”
Grosvenor Square, Chevie thought. Why does that address sound familiar?
They alighted from a cab already rank with the sour smells of their own blood, sweat, and fear into a candy box painting of a square, lined with beautiful terraced town houses set around a private park. There were no prone beggars underfoot transferring their personal filth to the pristine footpaths, nor clusters of belligerent corner boys hawking their tobacco phlegm onto the scrubbed cobbles. It was altogether a smarter area of London, and not the class of address that generally harbored as roughly hewn an oaf as Otto Malarkey.
The Ram king leaned heavily on his rescuers and growled at the cabbie to stay the blazes where he was until they gained entrance to his manor. The cabbie, rightly surmising that there might be hell to pay from this wounded beast if his wishes were not promptly met, did as he was bid and held his pawing horses fast, hoping Nobbie and Daisy did not pick this moment to raise their tails, as this was not the kind of square where a fellow could ride off and leave deposits on the road behind him.