A Rip in Time (Out of Time #7) (24 page)

As the séance ended, she turned to Simon, a strange look in her eye. Gone was the guileless young woman they’d known here, and in her place was something else.
 

It was the look of someone who knew something he didn’t, of someone who had the advantage and took pleasure in that. It was an expression he’d seen in her before. In the other, older Katherine Vale. Suddenly, the room did feel cold.
 

He held her gaze, keeping himself as steady and unaffected as he could, and like a spark that was snuffed out, whatever had been in her eyes vanished.

She smiled, excited, seemingly unaware of the moment that had just preceded. “Wasn’t that fascinating?”

Simon nodded. Perhaps Elizabeth was right and bits of crazy were breaking off. The duality she presented was not a good sign.

“Rubbish,” Graham said.

He’d not bothered to hide his feelings about Blavatsky before the performance and clearly wasn’t going to sugar coat them now. Simon could see that the jibe struck Vale, but she shrugged it off and turned back to Simon and Elizabeth.

“I could introduce you, if you’d like,” Vale offered. “She’s very busy, but she’s taken a bit of a shine to me.”

“I’ll wait out front,” Graham said, giving Simon a look that said
and if you were smart, you’d follow my lead
. Simon was tempted to follow, but before he could, Elizabeth accepted her offer.

Madame Blavatsky sat in a large reading chair and looked very much the queen holding court as people came to pay their compliments for the evening.
 

When Vale arrived, Blavatsky smiled. “Ah, my dear child, what did you think?”

“You’re amazing.”

Blavatsky shook her head. “The room was not conducive. But I tried,” she added with a put-upon sigh.

“I’d like to introduce you to someone,” Vale said.
 

Madame Blavatsky nodded tiredly and turned her gaze to Simon and Elizabeth.
 

“This is Simon and Elizabeth Cross.”

Blavatsky eyed them briefly before turning her attention back to Vale. “Help Peter with the pamphlets, would you?”

Vale smiled, happy to be of service and hurried to hand out literature about Theosophy as people lingered.

Blavatsky watched her for a moment before turning back to them. She looked at Simon briefly and then her gaze slid to Elizabeth.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Elizabeth said.

Blavatsky stared at her, her eyes squinting slightly, her expression unreadable. She tilted her head to the side and then pushed herself out of her chair and took a step toward Elizabeth to close the distance.
 

Elizabeth looked uneasily to Simon and then back to Blavatsky.

The older woman took Elizabeth’s hands in hers. “I am sorry for your loss.”

Elizabeth laughed nervously. “What loss?”

If she didn’t have Simon’s attention before, she definitely did now.

Blavatsky’s eyes searched her face and then darted over to Simon. “Your child.”

That fist around Simon’s heart clenched. Elizabeth looked over at him, near-panic in her eyes.

They’d had this conversation before, but somewhere else and with someone else. Old Nan, the blind seer in Natchez, had said the same thing to them and it had haunted them both ever since.

Elizabeth shook her head and Simon heard the way she struggled to keep her voice calm. “We don’t have any children.”

Blavatsky smiled, a little sadly and a little something that made Simon’s skin itch. “Perhaps it has not come to pass.”

The words took Simon’s breath away. He stood transfixed for a moment, stilled by the shock of a conversation repeating itself decades later and thousands of miles away. Forcibly, he pulled his mind under control. This was not right.

Gentle, but insistent, he pulled Elizabeth away from her, breaking the contact.

Her face had gone pale and she looked up at him with large, frightened eyes. As much as he wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her, he couldn’t. Not here. Not now. Instead, he shook his head and shifted his eyes quickly to Vale across the room.

Elizabeth seemed to understand and forced a smile to her face, and turned back to Madame Blavatsky. “Well, let’s hope you’re wrong about that.”

Blavatsky raised her eyebrows and gave a small, indifferent shrug. “I see what I see.”

“Yes,” Simon said, and had to clear his throat to continue. “It was a fascinating evening.”

She lowered herself into her chair and waved a regal hand, dismissing them.

Simon took Elizabeth by the arm and led her across the room.

“Simon…”

“I know,” he whispered, his voice sounding strained even to his own ears. God, he had to get out of here. He had to get some air in his lungs.

She nodded and let out a shuddering breath. They found Vale and quickly begged off dinner.

“Are you sure?” Vale asked.

Elizabeth touched her forehead. “I think it’s my turn to have a headache.”

“I’m sorry,” Vale said kindly and then frowned. “It wasn’t anything to do with this evening, I hope?”

It could have been Simon’s imagination, God knows it was working overtime just now, but it almost sounded as though there was a hopeful note in Vale’s question. And for a moment he saw in her face the older version of herself, her eyes calculating the depth of their misery and enjoying every nuance of their suffering.
 

If Elizabeth noticed it she ignored it and shook her head. “Just overtired.”

“Of course,” Vale said. “Well, we’ll see you later this week?”

“I’m sure,” Simon said, already easing Elizabeth away. “Give Charles our apologies.”

Vale smiled and nodded, and they made their escape. Although, Simon thought with a horrible sinking feeling, perhaps from some things there was no escape at all.

~~~

Victor’s patrol had been much as everything else here, pointless. He’d talked to people, but, unsurprisingly, no one had seen anything. For reasons he didn’t want to examine too closely, he stopped back by the pub before heading to his rooms for the night.

Marie was nowhere to be seen. Just as well, he thought. He was in no mood for company. He settled into his hard wooden chair to drink his lukewarm beer when Lizzy Stride came in. She sported a fresh bruise under her eye and the remnants of a fat lip. After a stop at the bar, she slid onto a chair at the next table where two of her friends sat drinking.

“Oi, that’s a new one,” one of them said.

Stride snorted loudly. “It’ll be the last, I’m tellin’ ya.”

She reached over and took her friend’s beer and finished it in one long, sloppy drink. Wiping the dribbles off her chin with the back of her forearm, she continued, “I was paid a little visit last night. Not a gentleman caller.”

One of her friends leaned forward, her eyes red and glassy. She tried to put her elbow on the table, but missed and she sloshed forward before catching herself. “Who was it?”

“Berk named Roderick,” Lizzy said. “Chi-chi valet, he is, thinks he and his master can do wotever they likes.”

That caught Victor’s attention. Roderick was Dr. Blackwood’s valet.
 

“Think they can shut me up with a little beatin’. I’ve had worse from people I like!” she said.

Her friends nodded, dumbly.

“No one’s gonna stop me from gettin’ mine,” Lizzy said. “Not after what he done. Ain’t right.”

She shook her head slowly and then seemed to suddenly remember she hadn’t gotten her beer and screamed like a banshee at the bartender for one.

“All right, Lizzy, all right,” the barkeep said with a tired shake of his head.

Lizzy snorted again. “I ain’t no pushover. I gots a plan. And that rich doctor,” she said, leaning in whispering loudly, “he’s gonna pay.”

“They should all pay,” Victor said, raising his beer in solidarity and hoping he could get more information from her.

“You’re right about that,” she said without thinking and then her eyes narrowed at him. “Who’re you?”

“Victor. Friend of Marie’s.”

She squinted her eyes even tighter as she tried to remember who that was. “Marie? Oh,” she said and then gave a short laugh. “Right. Marie.”

“Did the doctor hurt you?” Victor said. “No man should hurt a woman.”

She nodded, her head heavily flopping up and down. “He ain’t wot he seems,” she said, and then leaned over conspiratorially. “None of them is.”

Her breath was fetid, but Victor nodded and leaned in. “What did he do?”

She smiled, a secret smile, pleased with herself and then started to open her mouth to talk, but like drunks so often do, her mood changed in an instant and she shook her head. “Naw, then you’ll be in on it.”

She shook her head more dramatically now. “You ain’t hornin’ in. None of ya is!”
 

She stood then, knocking her chair back and sending it nearly clattering to the floor. “You’d like that, wouldn’t ya?” she said, addressing the whole bar, none of whom had any idea what she was on about or cared.

She stood there swaying for a moment, before flopping back down into her chair. She turned to Victor. “It’s a secret, see? And I ain’t supposed to be talkin’.” She put a dirty finger to her lips.

“It’ll be just our little secret,” she said to the top of the table as her head drooped forward. “Shhh…be as silent as the grave.”

She nodded to herself and laid her head down and fell asleep.

~~~

“Help me undo this,” Elizabeth said tugging at the waist of her dress. “I can’t breathe in this thing.”

Simon closed the door to their rooms and turned up the gaslight.

He moved behind her and unhooked the back enclosures of her dress. “It’s going to be—”

She pulled away and turned to face him, her cheeks flushed with anger and emotion. “Don’t say it. Don’t tell me everything is going to be all right.”

Simon closed his mouth and nodded slowly.

Elizabeth looked at him, her anger ebbed quickly and her face fell. “I’m sorry. Maybe you should say it. I think I need to hear it.”

Simon took hold of her arms, lowering his head to see eye to eye with her. “It
is
going to be all right.”

She hesitated and then looked at him with love and a little admiration. “How can you be so sure?”

He let her go and took off his jacket. “Because I won’t allow it to be anything else.”

Elizabeth laughed lightly, but it wasn’t unkind. “When you say it like that, I almost believe you.”

He turned back and caught her eye for a moment before turning away and hanging up his coat on the wooden valet. He wanted to believe it, too.

“How did she know?” Elizabeth said, voicing the one question that plagued them both.
 

Simon pulled down his bracers. “Vale, I suspect.”

Elizabeth paused as she undressed. “What do you mean?”

He pulled off his boots and set them aside. “Vale’s letter could have easily included information about us. What better weapon to use against us than,” he said, pausing as he imagined their future child, “our most vulnerable area.”
 

“She did needle us about that in Cairo,” Elizabeth admitted. “But I’m still not sure how she knew.”

“She might be mad, but she’s clever and, unfortunately, very astute.”

“True,” Elizabeth said and then added with a look of apology. “I let her push my buttons. And all that did was let her know that I had them.”

He nodded and undid his cuffs. “We’re both guilty on that front.”

Elizabeth sat down on the edge of the bed. “So you think older Vale told her younger self how to hurt us?”

Simon let out a breath. “And she told Blavatsky. It made for fine theater, after all, didn’t it?”

Elizabeth pursed her lips. “But those words? Those exact words? How could Vale know what Nan said? She wasn’t there.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “but she’s…motivated and—”

“Hates our guts?”

Simon frowned. “Yes. With the ability to time travel, there’s no telling if she found out where we’d been and went there herself.”

“Time stalking?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her,” he said.

“Well then it’s a good thing future her is in the Council jail and her younger self will be in Bedlam soon. Unless we screw this up.”

Simon walked over to Elizabeth as she tossed her corset aside.
 

“Which we will not do,” he said.

She nodded, but he could see the fear in her eyes. Fear not for herself, but for their child.

Gently, he pulled her to her feet and against his chest. “I wish I could take you away from all of this, somewhere safe. Where this couldn’t touch us.”

“It already has touched us,” she said, looking up at him, resigned to it, but not beaten by it. “And unless we stop whatever it is she’s up to here…”

Simon kissed her forehead. “We will.”

Elizabeth sat back down on the bed heavily. “What
is
she up to? It obviously has something to do with Jack the Ripper’s death. Do you think she kills him?”

Simon sat down next to her. “Possibly.”

“But why? What would she get out of that?”

Simon shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s somehow realized that’s a focal point in Council history and is targeting it because it unravels so much, alters her path.”

Elizabeth leaned against his shoulder. “Maybe. I mean, managing not to be sent to Bedlam is a pretty good motive to change things. It’s just that…”

Simon leaned away from her to get a look at her face. “Just what?”

She shook her head as she thought out loud. “It seems impersonal. Everything she’s done so far has been
very
personal, with us at the center of it.”

“Or Graham,” he said, realizing that while they bore the brunt of her vengeance, it was only because they had been there and he hadn’t. “She was out to destroy Graham in San Francisco and in Cairo. We were just in the way.”

“And Graham’s here this time.”

“And looking for the Ripper.”

Elizabeth shifted to face him. “Maybe she finds him first and kills him.”

“Or has him killed,” Simon suggested. “Or has them both killed.”

Elizabeth nodded and chewed her lower lip in thought. “Maybe.”