What Time Devours (9 page)

Thomas felt himself color a little.

“I’m good,” he said. “What do you know about
Love’s Labour’s Won
?” said Thomas.

She seemed taken aback by the question, but that might have been the sudden shift in tack.

“Not much,” she said. “We don’t have it.”

“But it existed?”

“Maybe,” she said. “I don’t recall the details. Why?”

“If one turned up now,” said Thomas, “I mean, if someone found a copy of the original . . . that would be a big deal, right?”

Her face shifted, and this time her perplexity seemed deeper, but there was something else, something like wariness or caution.

“I’m not a wacko,” Thomas added hastily, “I’m just curious.”

“It’s a curious subject about which to be curious,” she said, arch again. “But yes, I guess it would be a big deal. Why?”

“Like I said,” said Thomas. “Just curious.”

Her drink arrived and she sipped it. Thomas could smell the chocolate. Her eyes were fixed on a spot over his shoulder. Thomas followed her gaze to a tall, earnest-looking young man who was hovering near the door as if debating whether to join them.

“You know him?” asked Thomas.

“Graduate student of mine,” she said. “Let me introduce you.”

“I really should be going,” he said, rising.

“At least finish your beer,” she said.

“Can’t argue with that,” Thomas replied. He sat again and took a drink of the Honker’s Ale. By the time he had put the glass down, the kid had joined them.

Thomas thought of him as a kid but he was probably twenty-five. He was balding, with the kind of goatee favored only by graduate students and baseball players.

“Thomas,” said Jules, “this is Chad Everett. One of my doctoral candidates.”

Thomas nodded and shook his hand. Chad’s eyes were cautious, watchful.

“Are you a graduate student too?” he said.

“Recovering,” said Thomas. “A decade gone and still clean.”

Jules laughed, but Chad didn’t. He was still standing.

“You want to join us?” said Thomas. “I’ll be going in a minute . . .”

“No,” he said, brusque. “I’ve got to do some work on my paper.”

“Chad is presenting tomorrow,” said Jules. “His first conference.”

He looked at her at that, a quick, stung look, as if she had announced that he wet the bed.

“There was just something I heard today that I wanted to check,” he said, pointedly not to Thomas.

“Okay, Chad,” she said with elaborate weariness. “Pull up a chair. Would I be right in thinking that you have your paper with you?”

“Yes, actually,” he said, humorless, opening an antique satchel.

“Isn’t that handy,” she said. “Thomas, I’m afraid we’re going to talk shop.”

“My cue to go home,” said Thomas. He drained his glass.

“Maybe we’ll meet again soon,” she said.

She held him with a frank, amused gaze that made him flush like a teenager.

“Maybe,” he said, getting up. “Chad,” he added, in farewell.

The graduate student didn’t look at him.

 

On his way out, Thomas remembered the petulant dismissal he had left for Escolme on the notice board. Maybe it was the beer, or the conversation, but he was feeling forgiving. Escolme surely hadn’t meant for Blackstone to die at his house. He couldn’t blame the guy for not advertising how he had inadvertently dropped his old teacher in the thick of things.

Thomas walked briskly across the silent lobby, found the notice board, and looked for the green flyer. It was nowhere to be seen. Escolme—or someone—had taken it down.

Now why,
he thought
, does that bother you?

CHAPTER 15

It was a little after four in the morning. Thomas wasn’t sure why he had woken, but he knew how tired he was, and he immediately rolled over, trying to get comfortable again. He thought he might want to pee. His bladder didn’t feel especially full, but he knew that he would struggle to get back to sleep, now that the idea had struck him. He rolled out of bed, his eyes barely open, and shuffled toward the bathroom. He was almost inside, standing on the landing at the top of the stairs, when he froze.

At first he thought he had heard something, but then he realized that it hadn’t been a sound. It was something about the air. He could feel the faintest hint of a breeze coming up the stairs and on it the heady and distinctive scent of the flowering tobacco plant by the front door. He stood quite still, listening and thinking.

Someone was in the house.

For a second he couldn’t think of anything at all. Any other day he might have thought that the best way to scare off some common burglar was to move around noisily. But not today. If there was someone downstairs, it was no common burglar looking to rip off his stereo and his TV . . .

This was something different. Something much worse.

Thomas stepped noisily to the bathroom, opened the door, reached in, and turned on the cold tap. He closed the door, letting it snap noisily in the stillness. Then, with the sound of running water spilling out into the house, he cautiously picked his way over the floorboards back to his room, and the phone.

The house was old and the floors creaked, but Thomas had been there long enough to know the telltale spots, and he was back in the bedroom without making a sound. He had almost reached the phone when he heard the groan of wood under pressure.

The stairs,
he thought
. He’s coming up . . .

Thomas did not own a gun, but he suspected that whoever was coming up the stairs with such confidence might. He reached for the phone but knew that with all the speed in the world it would take the police rather longer to get there than it would for the intruder to hear and kill him.

Should have thought of that home security system sooner,
he thought.

He had only one advantage: the running tap. He looked quickly around the room for something he could use as a weapon. The bedside lamp was too clumsy and fragile. He scanned the cast-off clothes and stacks of books. Nothing. Then he heard the top step squeak. The intruder was outside the open bedroom door now, standing outside the bathroom. The sound of the tap might drown out any movement he might make, but the stairs were blocked and there was no other way down.

Thomas spread his arms wide and grabbed the bottom corners of the duvet. Then he stepped out onto the landing.

There was a man at the bathroom door, his back toward Thomas and a gun in his hand. His head looked strangely oversized, but by the time Thomas registered that, he was already charging and flinging the outstretched duvet over the intruder’s head.

The man turned into it, grunting in surprise as Thomas launched himself, drawing his arms around him so that the bedding bound tight, muffling and stifling.

The gun cracked loudly and a puff of feathers blew out of the duvet. The bullet shattered the hall window and Thomas’s ears rang. He felt himself flinching away from the weapon.

Don’t back off!
his brain shrilled at him.

If his attack hesitated, he was dead.

He clamped with his arms as the other fought to get free, and when he thought he knew where the intruder’s head was, he snapped his own hard into it. The duvet softened the blow, but it still felt hard and irregular, like the man was wearing some sort of helmet or mask. Thomas recoiled and caught an elbow in the ribs. Then the gun turned back toward him, and as Thomas fought to control the arm that brandished it, it went off twice in rapid succession. It was so close in the confined space that it sounded like a cannon, and the sound alone nearly drove Thomas back. But he wasn’t hit, and that was what counted.

Not hit, but tiring
.

Thomas was a big man, and not in bad shape, but the gunman was stronger. Another few seconds and he wouldn’t be able to keep that gun from turning into his face. He channeled all the energy he had left, compressing it into the center of his chest like he was squeezing a tight spring in the muscles of his back and shoulders. Then, with a cry of release, he surged forward, shoving like a rocket-powered bulldozer. The gun arm came free—Thomas had no choice but to let it go—but it couldn’t turn on him because the intruder’s momentum was carrying him over the top step and down.

The gunman fell hard, losing the duvet in his tumble, and the pistol snagged against the banister rail and tore from his grasping fingers. It fell into the hallway below and clattered on the wood floor as Thomas began his hasty descent. The living room window made a pale rectangle of streetlamp where the intruder had fallen, and Thomas knew now why the man’s head had seemed so distorted. He was wearing night vision goggles: an array of straps with what looked like field glasses lashed to the front.

The realization alarmed Thomas, slowed him. If he had had any doubts before, this made it clear: this was not some street thug looking to pay for his next fix. This guy was serious. It was all connected: Blackstone, Escolme, the intruder in the yard. Thomas had no idea what was going on, but this guy was part of it, and that was bad.

And the intruder could see. Which meant he would find his fallen gun in another second or two . . .

Thomas’s right hand swept the wall and found a switch. He snapped the hall light on and the intruder winced away from it. At least now they were even. Thomas could see where the gun had fallen, and he figured he had about as much chance of reaching it as the guy who had brought it into his home. But he would have to get over the prone intruder first.

Thomas came barreling down the stairs like a charging rhino, but the intruder held his ground, and it was only when he was too close to stop that Thomas saw the flash of bright steel in his hand: a professional-looking combat knife, drawn from God knew where. He slashed with it and Thomas felt a long wound open along his forearm. The pain flared as if the knife were hot, and Thomas pulled back. He was still a couple of steps higher than his attacker, and his instinct was to kick, hard as he could.

His bare foot caught the man on the side of his head, knocking him back into the hall. Thomas felt the blood coursing down his arm and threw himself at the prostrate knifeman.

The intruder stabbed upward with his blade, and Thomas twisted away, immediately regretting the attack. The blade scythed through air, and Thomas landed awkwardly on his side. Less than a second later he was scrambling to his feet and looking frantically for the gun.

It was lying half under the couch by the living room fireplace. He took two loping strides and flung himself onto it, turning and aiming at the open doorway into the hall as he did so.

Then there was darkness again. The intruder had shut off the lights. Thomas squatted there, the gun trained on the open doorway, waiting.

For a moment, nothing happened, then a dark blur sped past the doorway. As it moved, Thomas glimpsed the muzzle of another gun—smaller, a revolver—as its black eye opened with a flare of yellow-white brilliance and another roar of sound. Thomas shot back blindly, squeezing the trigger twice. It was only then that he realized he was hit.

CHAPTER 16

The shock came first. Then the pain. Both surprised him with their intensity. The bullet had gone into his right shoulder. He didn’t know if it had passed right through, but he feared his clavicle was broken. He slumped against the wall, wondering vaguely—absurdly—if his blood was staining the paint. He wasn’t going to die, not unless the gunman came back to finish him off. Not tonight. Whatever damage the bullet had done, there was no spurting, no loss of air, which meant that nothing major had been ruptured. There was only the pain.

Well, that’s good,
he thought
. Only the raging, searing, screaming pain. Three cheers for me. Hip hip . . .

He had to get to a phone. The only one downstairs was the portable in the kitchen. It was only a few yards away, but he didn’t like the idea of crawling back into the dark hallway. He had no idea where the gunman was, and in what shape. Thomas had fired twice. The automatic was large and heavy, a nine-millimeter, he thought. If either round had hit him, the intruder could be dead or dying.

Or he could be sitting out there, waiting to see if you come crawling out so he can finish you off
.

Thomas listened, but he couldn’t hear anything over his own breathing. Was that getting harder? He inhaled and felt a stab of pain, not in the shoulder where he was hit, but lower, more central. He breathed again, and the pain came back. The breath itself was weak too, like he was trying to suck air in through a straw.

Maybe this is shock
, he thought.

His hands and face felt cool and clammy, and he was sweating more than the fight merited. But it was his breathing that bothered him. It was fast and shallow, and it seemed to be getting harder. He could also feel himself relaxing despite the pain, his whole body getting heavy as if he were starting to float away on a warm, dark tide.

Sleep
, he thought.
That’s all I need. Rest.

His eyelids fluttered. Then closed.

He fought back to consciousness. His eyes snapped open and he took a deep breath that felt like it tore something in his chest. He wasn’t getting enough air. He gasped another mouthful, but it was clear now. His lungs weren’t filling properly.

Something was wrong. His delight that he was merely in pain had been premature. The bullet had nicked something inside. His lungs were filling with blood. If he didn’t get to the phone in the next couple of minutes, he thought, he was going to die. Maybe even if he did.

CHAPTER 17

Thomas slumped onto his side, then rolled to his knees. Carefully, biting back the agony in his shoulder, he started to crawl toward the door, still clutching the pistol. He had no idea how many bullets he had left and didn’t know how to check, but he kept it anyway. If the intruder was still out there, he wanted a fighting chance. In truth, he knew that unless the guy was already dead or gone, he wouldn’t have one. He could barely move and doubted he could raise and aim the gun at all. His right arm had no strength so he had switched the weapon to his left, but he knew that however lousy his right-handed shooting was, his left would be a good deal worse. He found himself wondering about those switch-hitting baseball players who could drive in home runs from either side of the plate . . .