Now and for Never (18 page)

Outside, on the way to Milo's car, Piper hurried to catch up with his long strides. Milo was already on his cell phone, putting in a call to his travel agent. When he'd finished the call he finally stopped and turned to her. “I hope you have your passport handy. You're going to need it where we're going.”

“And where is that?” Piper crossed her arms over her chest and stood her ground.

In answer, Milo called up a webpage on his phone, tossed the phone to Piper, and opened the driver's-side door of his BMW. By the time he'd checked his briefcase to make sure he had his own travel documents handy and started the ignition, Piper was sitting in the passenger seat, eyes glued to the tiny screen.

“How?”
she managed eventually.

“No idea.”

The information on the webpage was for a place called Île-d'Entrée—or Entry Island, as it was generally referred to by its tiny, largely English-speaking populace—a picturesque little bump of land in a small archipelago called the Magdalens in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. In the Maritimes.

North Freaking America.

“This … this goes
way
beyond pre-Columbian contact.” Piper sounded a little like she might start to hyperventilate. “This goes beyond pre-Viking contact. Hell, it's … it's pre-
Everything!
It changes our fundamental knowledge of history. It's … I mean this is … huge.”

“But also … not,” Milo said.

“How can you say that?”

“Because it changes nothing about our fundamental knowledge of history,” he said, “if—
if
—everything goes according to plan. History won't ever be the wiser. At least, it hasn't been yet.”

“I'm starting to understand that Clare and your cousin don't go in for half-measures,” Piper said, blowing out a long breath. “Do they?”

“No.” Milo pulled out into London traffic and headed toward Heathrow Airport. “They definitely do not.”

13

T
he wind was blowing briskly and the sky overhead was bright blue, dotted with a scattered handful of cottonball clouds. The ocean waves were uniform and laced with white froth, racing ever onward. And in the distance, with lush green hills atop vibrant red and purple cliffs, an island grew ever larger in the viewfinder of Clare's camera. Beyond it, to the south and north, they could make out a handful of other small islands. But the profile of the one nearest was unmistakable.

“That's definitely it,” Clare said, a surge of excitement coursing through her. “And I think we're close enough now for the photo op.”

She tossed Al the camera, unrolled the scrap of canvas she'd scribbled her first message on, and held it up. Then she tossed her head and gave her best “cheese!” smile.

“How's my hair?” she asked through her teeth.

“A total mess,” Al answered, framing the shot in the digital display. “Just like in the picture. Hold still …” The camera whirred and clicked, recording the image for posterity.
Serious
posterity. “Got it!”

The girls glanced around to see if their undoubtedly odd-seeming behaviour had registered with any of their shipmates. But the legionnaires and sailors, having been aboard their ship of the damned for as long as they had, were so inured
to oddness that not one of them batted an eye. It probably helped that Suetonius Paulinus and his irascible hench-thug Junius were squirrelled away in the captain's tent aft of midship. Probably plotting the girls' demise or an attack on the other cargo vessel once they reached it. Or both. Whatever.

As they neared the island, Clare judged it close enough and unrolled a second scrap of sailcloth. “Okay,” she said. “I think our lump of rock is ready for its close-up!”

Al held up her message, trying to position the arrow in the way it appeared in the second picture.

“Up a bit,” Clare murmured, concentrating on the view screen. “Down … to the left … no, the other left—
my
left— aaand … freeze!” The camera clicked and whirred again. “Okay. Got it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Did you see it on Milo's computer?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes, I'm sure.” Clare grinned. “It's okay, Al. We've already been-there-done-that, remember? Nothing can possibly change it. There's nothing to worry ab—”

A flurry of commotion erupted from the front of the tent where Suetonius Paulinus had been holed up. The Roman governor slapped aside the canvas flaps and stalked out into the bright sunshine in full ceremonial gear. The planes of his cheeks and chin were shaved smooth and the crimson horsehair crest on his bronze helmet waved like a war banner in the stiff wind. The governor cut a seriously impressive figure in his intricately decorated breastplate, not to mention his greaves, wrist bracers, and studded, leather-strap skirt. Everything was polished to gleaming and fancy, except the sword at his side.
That
was plain, sharp, and obviously well used.

The brushed crimson wool cloak that hung in rich folds from the fastenings on his shoulders billowed like the sail above their heads, snapping and rippling.

“He must have a hell of an extra-weight bag charge when he travels,” Clare muttered.

And yet she could totally see why the Legion commander would haul around an extra set of togs. The impact of his appearance on the men slumped despondently around the deck was instantaneous. Their eyes widened, spines stiffened, fists clenched convulsively, and more than one feral grin spread across a stubbly visage as the soldiers understood their commander's unspoken message.

Battle.

And he wasn't the only one itching for a fight.

In the charged silence that had descended, Clare thought she heard something. Faint at first, but growing louder over the sound of waves slapping against the galley's planks.

Drums. War drums.

And they weren't coming from the other merchant ship, but from somewhere across the watery expanse. They might mean the ships had strayed into occupied territory—or that reinforcements were on the way for Mallora and her scathach.

“I've had quite enough of these barbarians and their antics,” Paulinus snarled. “They think they can lead me into a trap here, at the end of the world? They have not faced the might of Rome.”

He turned to the man standing next to him, the one Clare had pegged as the captain or commander or navigator— whatever the technical term was for “dude that steers the ship”—and gestured with his gilded, eagle-topped swagger stick at the ship bearing Mallora and Morholt and the gold. And Marcus Donatus.

“Ram them,” Paulinus said, his face expressionless. “Board them. Get that gold.”

Clare and Al gaped at each other.

“Did you just say there was nothing to worry about?” Al asked.

“I didn't. I didn't mean to.”

“Famous last w—”

“No!
Not
last!”

Now the ship's captain was bawling commands in a violent goat-bleat of a voice and the sailors were hopping around the deck like crickets. The legionnaires looked as if someone had snapped their fingers and released them all from a hypnotic slumber. Their movements became instantly sharp and sure and, to a man, they were all suddenly scary as hell.
These
were the guys Clare remembered from her few encounters with the soldiers of the Empire.

The guys who'd conquered the known world.

The fact that they still ignored the pair of temporally displaced teenage girls trying to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible near the bow of the ship indicated simply that they weren't important in that moment. Not a threat … but not anything to be kept safe or protected from the other ship's occupants, either.

And those occupants were just as scary.

Clare could see the ranks of scathach ranged along the side of the ship, festooned in all their death-metal rocker-chick fashion statements, bristling with weapons like pins stuck in oversized voodoo dolls. Clare and Al braced for impact as the two vessels closed the distance, but the way the wind and waves were buffeting them, the Roman-controlled cargo ship didn't so much ram the scathach-controlled ship as nudge it heavily. As the wooden sides ground against each other the Romans slammed a pair of gangplanks from ship to ship and began to swarm across the gap.

The scathach, Clare saw through a haze of terror, simply leapt the distance. One crazed-looking warrior woman with
legs like tree trunks hurtled across the gap and took out two legionnaires without breaking stride. Her attack knocked the soldiers flying like a couple of bowling pins and left a gap in the press of bodies.

“Come on!” Al shouted and jumped up, making a break for the sudden opening.

Clare scrambled to follow as Al ran in a zigzag, heading for the gangplank that would get them to the ship Marcus was on. She had to duck to avoid a swinging sword and Clare got there a hair's breadth before her. She scrambled across the slippery wet wood like a monkey after a runaway banana truck then jumped down and spun around, holding out her hand to grab Al, who was clambering on all fours across the broad wooden slab.

She'd almost made it when Junius clamped his calloused fingers around Al's leg, the sword in his other hand raised high as if he'd hack her limb off at the knee. Clare screamed a string of invectives and Al kicked frantically at his face with her free foot. But the legionnaire's mouth was open in a howl of warrior rage, teeth bared, eyes white-rimmed. No longer the glowering, clumsy-looking brute Al had traded verbal barbs with, Junius in battle was the embodiment of the Roman war machine. Savage, single-minded, sword-happy.

And thankfully, a fraction of a second too slow.

As the blade of his shortsword descended in a vicious chop, Clare heard a roar of fury from right behind her. She dropped to her knees just as, from out of nowhere, Marcus Donatus hurdled over her and onto the gangplank where Al was perilously sprawled. The edge of Junius's descending sword struck sparks off the blade in Marcus's hand as the two weapons met with an ear-splitting shriek of iron on iron. Marcus grunted with the effort of blocking the bigger man's blow, arm muscles straining as he jammed the hilt of his sword up against his opponent's. The two combatants
shoved at each other, shoulder to shoulder, until they could disengage.

Marcus's next swing was a powerful overhead diagonal slash that knocked Junius off balance. Junius snarled something in Latin that Clare couldn't auto-translate—it must have been pretty salty language, without a modern English equivalent. Marcus understood him just fine, though, because he hissed something back—equally untranslatable—and with a furious, wrenching shove, he knocked Junius from the gangplank. Junius's howl of rage melted almost instantly to screams of unseemly panic. There was a loud splash and then Clare heard him thrashing madly in the water between the two boats.

Freed from Junius's punishing grip, Al scrambled between Marcus's legs and dove onto the deck of the scathach ship, half-tackling Clare as she did. Clare gasped for breath for the second her best friend lay sprawled across her, and then suddenly Al was gone again. Clare pushed the tangled curtain of hair from her eyes and glanced around wildly, thinking Al had been recaptured.

But no, Al was right there—hovering about a foot and a half off the ground and wrapped in an embrace of muscle and metal and leather. And sweat. Or maybe it was seaspray. Whatever. Al didn't seem to mind either way. Mostly because she was far too occupied with mashing her lips against Marcus's.

“Allie!” he gasped when she let him up for air. “Oh thank god!”

He set her back down on the rolling deck and reached to grab Clare by the hand, hauling her effortlessly to her feet.

Thews!
Clare's brain squeaked, giddy with panic.

“Find cover!” Marcus barked at the two girls. “Stay there!”

And then he was gone again. Swallowed up in the melee of a knot of Romans fighting a clot of howling scathach. Clare
tried to keep track as he appeared and disappeared from sight, but she couldn't make out what side Marcus was fighting for. It seemed he was just trying to keep the whole crazy rumble away from
them
. And doing a pretty good job of it.

Clare and Al could still hear Junius sputtering and crying out in the water below, punctuated by gaps that meant he was repeatedly going under. Al glanced at the gangplank and then at Clare, a frown of concern on her brow and a question in her eyes.

“I … I dunno.” Clare felt herself frowning, too. “He attacked you, Al!”

“He's gonna drown.”

“Yeah …”

They hesitated a moment longer and then rushed over to the side and looked down. Junius's upturned face, desperate and terrified, gaped up at them. His mouth worked soundlessly as he gulped air, then his helmeted head disappeared beneath a wave and for a long moment the girls thought he was gone. Then one meaty hand broke the surface and waved weakly.

Al bit her lip.