A Rip in Time (Out of Time #7) (3 page)

Renaud cast an assessing glance at Simon and then Elizabeth, as he slowly walked to the glass divider. His expression remained dark and sullen, and never changing as his attention slid from them to Vale.
 

Simon bristled at the obvious show of disdain for their gratitude. Who the hell did he think he was?

“Did you get back all of the watches she had?” Elizabeth asked.

“Just one,” Travers said. “The others…”

Simon grunted. Perfect, their entire mission had been for nothing.

“It’s worse than that, I’m afraid. After her return, she broke into the records office,” Travers said, his embarrassment clear, “and killed the men on duty before escaping.”

“What did she take?” Jack asked.

Travers sighed. “Nothing.”

“She must have been after something,” Simon said, turning back to look at her.

“Oh, yes,” Travers said. “It was after her escape that we reactivated the tracking device and Victor found her.”

Renaud continued to silently watch Vale through the glass.
 

Travers looked at her anxiously and then continued. “She’d been there less than a day by the time Victor found her.”

“That’s good,” Elizabeth said.

“Not good enough,” Renaud said softly.

That chill Simon felt began to grip his spine. “Where did she go?”

“1887, London.”

“Why then?” Jack asked.

“Her first assignment,” Elizabeth answered. “She told me about it in San Francisco. She’d been sent back to study Jack the Ripper. With Charles Graham.”

Simon’s heart began to race again, but he forced it to slow, forced himself to focus. “But the Jack the Ripper killings were in 1888, not 1887.”

Travers nodded. “The failsafe. The watch failsafe was reactivated with the tracking device. It keeps anyone from traveling to a time they’ve already lived through.”

“But I went back to 1933 and I’d already lived through it,” Jack said.

“The tracker was off then, so the failsafe didn’t stop you.”

Simon’s mind whirled as he started to put the pieces together. “She couldn’t go to 1888, but she could go to 1887 and wait.”

“Exactly,” Travers said, looking again at the woman behind the glass. “We’re assuming she was planning to kill Charles Graham.”

That was a logical conclusion, considering she’d gone to great lengths so far to do just the same.

“But Victor got to her before she could?” Elizabeth said.
 

Travers sighed. “Yes.”

Clearly, there was more to it. “But?”
 

Renaud stared at Vale. “Not before she did something else.”

“What?” Elizabeth asked, turning away from Vale for a moment. “What did she do?”

“That’s the trouble,” Travers said anxiously. “We’re not sure what.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jack said. “Then how do you know she did something?”

“Cause and effect.” Travers turned to Simon and Elizabeth. “We can’t see the cause, but we can see the effect. And it’s…a problem.”

Renaud snorted. “A problem.”

Inside the cell, Vale stood up and turned to look at the glass. Her eyes scanned it and seemed to know just where to look. Her gaze fell on each of them in turn and finally landed on Elizabeth.

“A rather large problem,” Travers said as they all watched Vale move slowly toward them.
 

She walked to the far end where Jack stood and put her index finger on the glass. She trailed it along the surface, her finger squeaking as it slid across it.
 

Simon frowned. That wasn’t right. Not right at all. Ahmed had shot off her index finger. He could still remember seeing the bloody stump as she held the watch in her hand before she’d disappeared. But now it was as if that had never happened.
 

Vale stopped in front of Elizabeth. She lifted her hands and splayed out the fingers of both hands against the glass. Her pale violet eyes seemed to see right through the barrier, and she smiled.

Simon’s voice was soft as he spoke, as he realized what had happened. “Dear God. She’s changed time.”

E
LIZABETH
HEARD
WHAT
S
IMON
said, but it barely registered. Vale’s eyes were locked onto hers as if she could see, not just through the glass, but right through Elizabeth’s soul.

“That’s the curious thing,” Travers said. “Whatever she’s done, it’s happening and unhappening. Or,” he added with a thoughtful squint, “has happened?”

With an effort, Elizabeth looked away. “What do you mean happening and unhappening?”
 

“Whatever she’s done it’s created a paradox where events are changing one minute and then reverting back the next. It’s a constant state of flux and entirely unpredictable. It’s very disconcerting.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Jack said with raised eyebrows.

Travers looked nervously toward Vale. “Let’s discuss this elsewhere, shall we?”

Elizabeth didn’t need to be asked twice. Leaving sounded like a very good idea. She glanced back at Vale, but she’d already left the window and returned to her seat. Leaning back in it, her placid exterior returned.

Travers opened the door to the hall and Elizabeth, Simon and Jack started toward it.

“Are you coming Victor?” Travers asked as the others exited into the hall.

Victor slowly shook his head and kept his gaze on Vale.
 

“Tomorrow, then?” Travers said.

Renaud did not respond and Travers laughed nervously as he gently closed the door behind him, leaving Renaud inside. He turned to Elizabeth and the others. “Coffee?”

Simon frowned. “Just answers, thank you.”

Travers’ smile faltered, but he nodded. “My office is this way.”

They traveled down a few more levels and down another long hall to Travers’ office. He opened an ordinary looking door and held it open for Elizabeth and the others to precede him.
 

The room was not what Elizabeth had expected. Not that she’d given where Travers worked much thought, but from his rumpled suit and nervous, nebbishy ways, she’d expected him to have a little cubicle-like office. This, however, was not the office of any worker bee.

The room was substantial and plush—very Big Cheesy. Four dark leather club chairs huddled together at one end of the room and a large mahogany desk at the other, with a pair of antique globes on either side. And despite being several stories underground, it was light and bright. False windows let in simulated sunshine and ever-changing views.

“This is your office?” Elizabeth said.

He looked around the room, a little embarrassed. “I’ve recently been…promoted. Please,” he gestured to the club chairs.

Elizabeth and Jack took their seats

Travers lingered, waiting for Simon.

“I’ll stand,” Simon said.

Travers opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it and sat down.

“As I was saying before. Time—”

“Why are we here?” Simon asked abruptly.

Travers looked nervously from Simon to Elizabeth and then back. “I’m afraid we need your help again.”

“The last time you said that we were ambushed by that…creature and nearly killed.” Simon took a step closer to Travers’ chair.

“I’m sorry about that—”

“Come to think of it,” Elizabeth said. “The other time you asked us for help, she was there, too.”
 

“It is a bit of a theme, isn’t it?” Travers said softly.

“If you expect us to risk our lives trying to stop whatever madness that witch has—”

“I do.” Travers said the words firmly, but his downward glance at his hands as he worried them in his lap gave away his nervousness. “You must.”

Simon still towered over him, but he wasn’t cowed. “However she’s managed it, and she has, her actions in 1887 have led to a change in history. This
one
change is the lynchpin for an entire series of events, for an entire group of people.”

“The Council?” Elizabeth asked.

“And others, but I’m sure you can see why changing the history of the Council might have far reaching consequences, ones that directly affect each of you.”

Elizabeth looked up at Simon. She saw her own thoughts mirrored in his green eyes. They’d been through this before. One change in history could result in a ripple effect with devastating consequences. As much as they tried to avoid the Council, she and Simon were irrevocably linked to it. A change in the Council’s history would mean a change to theirs.

Simon turned back to Travers. “You said there was one change. You know what changed then? Specifically?”

“Yes. We don’t know how she managed it or, frankly why, but our people have been able to pinpoint one historical event that is creating a cascade effect. Unless it’s reversed, set back to the way it is supposed to be, time will be altered. Permanently.” Travers stood and walked over to his desk.
 

“The small changes we’re experiencing now will grow and multiply, and eventually stop reversing themselves. A new history will be written, and everything we know will be cease to be.”

He stopped walking and picked up a file from his desk.

“What’s the event that changed?” Elizabeth asked.

“As I’m sure you know, Jack the Ripper was never caught. In the altered timeline, he was.”

“You know who Jack the Ripper was?” Jack asked, sitting forward now.

“No.”

“But you just—”

“His body was found, mutilated beyond recognition, not unlike his victims.”

Simon frowned. “How do you know it was Jack the Ripper then?”

“He was found in a boarding house room with…” Travers faltered here and took a breath, “parts of his victims. His clothing, his build, they all fit the known description. And the fifth and final victim, the most brutal of all of the killings, was never harmed. She lived another thirty years. Moved to Liverpool, married a shoe salesman and had 2 daughters before dying of influenza in 1918.”

Elizabeth tried to ignore the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as it grew. “So, Jack the Ripper was killed and that’s what led to the altered timeline?”

“Exactly.”

The sinking feeling sank a little further. “And what is it you want us to do about it?”

Travers sighed and looked apologetic. “I’m afraid I need you to go to 1888 London, find out who Jack the Ripper was, and save his life.”

~~~

“Macallan 25. Neat.”

“The same,” Jack said, as he handed the cocktail menu back to the waiter, wincing as he did. “Make mine a double.”

Elizabeth was tempted to order a martini and slowly slide under the table, forgetting what Travers had just asked them to do, but there was no ignoring it.

“Just water for now, thank you.”

The waiter nodded and disappeared, and the three of them sat in silence.

The Laurel Court at the Fairmont was elegant and controlled. It was bright and airy, the exact opposite of how each of them was feeling. Simon idly ran his fingers along the edge of the brown leather portfolio Travers had given them, while Jack focused on flexing the hand of his injured arm.

“Well,” Elizabeth said finally, leaning back in her plush wingback chair. “That was an interesting day.”

Simon grunted in response.

“Saving Jack the Ripper,” Elizabeth said, then, feeling self-conscious, lowered her voice. “I don’t know. The idea of it, it…”

“Is repellent?” Simon suggested. “Abhorrent? Repulsive even to contemplate?”

“I was going to say makes me want to barf, but yeah.” Not to mention the other bombshell he’d dropped. Not only was Jack the Ripper dead and gone, people were disappearing, fading in and out all over history.

Jack stopped fussing with his arm and let it relax onto the table. “If what Travers said is true, do we really have any choice?”

Neither Simon nor Elizabeth replied. Since their meeting with Travers, they’d all been lost in their own thoughts. They’d been on difficult missions before, but this was something else entirely.

“It’s terrifying to think of people just disappearing,” Elizabeth said, hoping to shift her thoughts away from Jack the Ripper. Travers had told them that because of the changing timeline, several Council members had already ceased to be, or be there then, or something.
 

Whatever Katherine Vale had done to alter time, the consequences were already being felt. Her newly regrown finger aside, Elizabeth thought with a shudder, people were changing. Their memories, their histories were being rewritten. In some cases, actual people disappeared, relocated to an alternate timeline, only to reappear, and some to disappear again. In other cases, it was simply the memories of events that were wiped out, or at least that’s how it seemed. Sometimes, just a day, a specific moment in time was lost and for others entire years were cut out from their memories, like ice-cream scooped from a carton.
 

Elizabeth looked over at Simon. She didn’t know what she’d do if she forgot him, or if he simply disappeared.

Simon, as he always seemed to do, appeared to follow her thoughts. He stopped toying with the base of his water glass, offered her a wan smile and took her hand.
 

“It’s troubling,” he said in the master of understatement way the British had when discussing disasters.

Jack’s brow furrowed, clearly trying to make sense of this nonsensical mess. “Travers said that these fluxes in time, that they’re specific to the person, right? You could forget something that I remember or vice versa.”

“Yes. It puts a new spin on ‘time is relative,’ doesn’t it?” Simon paused as the waiter returned with their drinks. He took a sip of his scotch before continuing.

 
“It seems as though these instabilities are individualized, at least for now. The Council postulates that the effects will cascade with growing frequency and duration until they’re universal and irreversible.”

“But until they’re permanent, they come and go,” Elizabeth said. She pictured them like fireflies blinking on and off in the darkness.

“Yes, until one timeline or the other…wins, for lack of a better way to put it.”