Downtime (7 page)

“Days,” I repeated in disbelief. “Why days? What is so damned hard about finding one book? Whitby’s about to leave on vacation, he’s heading for the door, and the boss shoves a book in his hands and tells him to take care of it. What’s he going to do with it? Drop it on the nearest desk and keep going.”

Ezra appeared to be fighting back a smile. He almost made it. “I don’t believe he would be quite so careless. Not if he wishes to remain employed here. They’ve become quite strict about keeping track of donations. He would have taken it back to the print books department or given it into the care of another cataloguer. Henry will find that out. I’m just trying to make certain it hasn’t been shelved already and you, Mr. Nash, are impeding my progress.”

“You can’t just focus all your psychic energy on it and levitate it off the shelf?”

He said placidly as he moved past me, “I really think we might have been better off if we
had
summoned a demon.”

I couldn’t argue with that. Following him back to the catalogue, I watched as he began to flip through cards again with dexterous speed. It took me a minute to catch on that he was searching his way through an inordinately large number of cards. “Aren’t they alphabetical?”

He gave an acknowledging grunt as he moved to another row of cards. I dogged him, making an effort to keep my voice low. “So why are you looking through all of them? Doesn’t Whitby know his ABCs?”

Ezra blew out a breath. “Because….” He stole a sidelong look at me and I saw his reluctance to answer. “Neither Henry nor I can remember the title of the book. Or the author,” he added before I could ask.

“Oh, come on. You’re the Latin expert, right? You didn’t look at the title when you started showing off for the guys?”

“Mr. Nash, I am sorry—”

“No, of course you didn’t.” I leaned my elbows on the gleaming wood surface in front of me and pressed my face into my hands. “Why would you? You were just playing around. You weren’t actually planning on ruining someone’s life.” I punctuated the last with a glare in his direction.

He sighed. “No need to lose your temper. There are a good many arcane manuscripts here, grimoires and the like, but I feel confident I will recognize it when I see it.”

I was screwed. “Okay. Look, I agree with you that he probably hasn’t shelved it. He must have dumped it somewhere, so that’s where we should be looking first. Who’s his closest pal here? Or better yet, the guy he usually sticks with the stuff he doesn’t feel like messing with?”

Ezra stared at me dazedly. “It’s something of a challenge just understanding you.”

Just what I didn’t need right now, a language barrier in my own damned language. I took his arm. “I’m going home today. One way or another, we’re going to find that book and you guys are sending me home. Are we clear on that?”

If I hoped for a bit of acquiescing, cowering fear, all I got was the slight curve of a lip and a curious sparkle in the blue eyes. He patted the hand I’d wrapped around his arm. “I’m sorry you’ve had to endure our primitive conditions, Mr. Nash. Please try not to worry. We said we’d send you back and we will, but you must let us look for the book.” He slipped out of my grasp and settled his hands on my shoulders, turning me in the direction of the door. “Why don’t you take a tour of the museum or go for a walk? Oh, and do give Derry back his coat. It doesn’t suit you.”

Ezra delivered me into Derry’s hands with the whispered admonition to keep me out of trouble. If I hadn’t needed Ezra in one piece to get me home, he would have been in several pieces. So maybe he had a point that he and Henry knew their way around and could get into the nooks and crannies of this place. And maybe there were places I couldn’t access without getting Henry and Ezra into trouble. Fine. I’d just have to find a way to hunt around without attracting any attention. “Ezra said something about a tour?”

Derry made a face. “The tour guide takes you through rather swiftly. You won’t have the opportunity to see everything, let alone linger long enough to really see anything. But if you’d like, it would please me to take you through, myself.”

Sounded good to me. And if I happened upon any storage areas stuffed with books, I felt confident I could persuade my personal tour guide to help search through them.

By four-thirty, we were back on the museum steps, soaking in some desultory sunlight as clouds gathered in. I felt restless and tired both, not the most pleasant state, and a certain amount of homesickness creeping back in made it worse. I handled homesickness well enough when Faulkner sent me overseas, but I’d never felt as far from home as now. And my chances of getting back seemed to be dwindling.

Derry rubbed my shoulder sympathetically. “Don’t be downhearted. If we’ve no luck today, we’ll have twice the luck Monday. You won’t mind a day or two more with us? We aren’t so bad.”

“
You
aren’t,” I agreed. I couldn’t say the same for the two missing members of the party. “This whole thing, it still seems unreal.”

“Going forward into the future, there’s a notion to unsettle the soul,” Derry mused. “You’re safe enough here, lad. No surprises lie in wait if you know your history.”

I felt sure Derry, Ezra, and Henry could go back through time and their knowledge of any era they landed in would make mine pale in comparison. Apart from basic history lessons I hadn’t paid much attention to, I was ill-equipped to deal with this world on a daily basis. Christ, I couldn’t even get dressed without help.

At five sharp, Henry showed up. Empty-handed, he moved briskly down the steps and informed us that they were no closer to finding the book and he was beginning to wonder if someone hadn’t just walked away with it. Derry questioned him and Henry acknowledged that Whitby had likely put it down somewhere they just hadn’t searched yet. “Or perhaps he’s taken it to have something to read at the seaside.”

I sucked in a breath and fixed Henry with a stare known to make the average drug smuggler whimper for his mother. Henry retreated discreetly to Derry’s side while Derry looked at me, a warm twinkle in his eyes. “You’ve a commendable restraint, Morgan Nash. Henry, where’s Ezra?”

Henry shrugged. “I haven’t seen him in three hours. They’re closing. He should be along.”

It was another fifteen minutes before Ezra was along. He looked tired and glum, eyes bloodshot behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses sitting on his nose. He plucked them off and rubbed his eyes. “No luck yet. I’m sorry, Mr. Nash.” The apology was sincere. I couldn’t fault him there. He’d obviously tried. But the fact remained: I wasn’t going home today.

What the hell. I’d just have to think of it as a vacation of the sort I never took. No sand, no surfing, no handsome lifeguards with sun-kissed skin… hell, no sun at all, I thought, looking up at the overcast sky. But the food was decent and the bed was comfortable. That was a start.

It was time to begin improving the situation exponentially. “Any place around here a guy can get a cold beer?”

“Cold beer?” Derry looked perplexed. “Whatever for?” He looked at Ezra, who was equally mystified.

“Cold beer, warm beer, I don’t care. Beer and food. In that order. How about it?”

“We can’t take him to dinner, dressed as he is,” Henry said. “He’s barely fit for an eating-house, never mind a respectable restaurant.” He drew out his watch to check the time, then snapped it shut decisively. “We’ll have to take him home for a change of clothes.”

Ezra shook his head. “If we do that, there won’t be a table for us anywhere.”

“Right, then,” Derry said, a wicked light in his eyes. “Down to Covent Garden for a sixpenny plate, just as we did when I was a boy.”

“That’s not amusing,” Henry retorted as Ezra laughed.

“Oh come,” Derry said, grinning. “It’ll be a lark.”

“The Albion?” Ezra ventured.

Henry vetoed that suggestion. “Over-cooked communal mutton and rancid stout. I think not.”

Derry dropped his chin to his chest with a groan. “One night of it won’t do you any harm, man. If we stand about arguing, even those tables will be taken and we’ll be reduced to plundering Morgan’s hamper.”

Henry didn’t argue, but kept up his sulk all the way over on the bus. I was at their mercy, being the stranger in town, but I sensed I wasn’t going to like this place any more than Henry, albeit for different reasons. The cheaper the eats, the less sanitary the kitchen; and in this particular century, roaches were the least of my worries.

The Albion turned out to be less of a roadside dive than I expected; just crowded, like any good New York restaurant, and redolent with the mouthwatering smell of roast beef and hot bread. I found myself shuffled in between Derry and Ezra as they left their hats on a gleaming brass perch running the length of the wall and we were ushered to a table away from the worst of the noise and cigar smoke. A primly smiling waiter handed us white cards labeled “bill of fare.” It looked like tonight’s dinner came down to either beef or fish.

“Stout all around?” Derry asked as we gave our order. There was a faint smile on Ezra’s face as he put in an additional request for a pint of bitter and Henry seconded that.

When the drinks came, Ezra switched mine with his. “You’ll prefer it.”

“Yeah? What makes you think so?”

“A little bird told me.”

Wise guy. All right, so maybe it was marginally more palatable than the sludge Derry was drinking. It wasn’t the ice cold beer I knew and loved. What disturbed me even more was that Ezra had bothered to order what he thought I’d like. Maybe he was still trying to get on my good side, so I wouldn’t keep bashing him in front of the others.

Problem was, I didn’t have a good side where con men were concerned. “Any likelihood there could be more than one copy of that book floating around?”

Henry shrugged, letting Ezra field the question. Ezra seemed nearly as reluctant to hazard a guess. “We may have some luck in the older shops.”

I nodded. “I understand it’s hard to say when you have no idea of the name of the book.”

A small crease appeared between his brows. “I did apologize,” he said with mild reproach.

“An apology’s not what I’m looking for. You’re a psychic. Can’t you just come up with the name?”

“It doesn’t quite work that way.”

“It never does.” I sucked down a mouthful of beer. Damn, I was still tired. Worst case of jet lag I’d ever dealt with.

“You have a terribly suspicious nature, Mr. Nash.”

Ezra sounded as bone-weary as I felt, but I was in no frame of mind to offer sympathy. I flashed him a dark look. “You better believe I do. In my line of work, a suspicious nature can save your life.”

“Fair enough. But what about when you’re not working?”

“When I’m not working?”

“Just as I thought.”

What was that supposed to mean? “I take my share of vacations. Just ask my boss. Speaking of which, if the museum’s closed tomorrow, I may as well take in some sights while I’m here. Not that you guys have to play tour guide,” I added quickly as alarm flickered in their eyes. “Just lend me a map. I can find my way around on my own.”