The River of No Return (42 page)

“Your old girlfriend.” Arkady spread his hands. “The little pretty Julia. The poor little orphan. She is gone.”

Nick felt the air leave his lungs. His world contracted to a tiny point.

“What time is it?” Arkady looked at the clock on the mantel. “Nine o’clock? She ran away into the crowd at seven. I am just back from looking for her myself. . . .” He opened his box and extracted another cigarette, then waved it, unlit, between his fingers: “But—poof! Like her grandfather before her, she runs.”

“Arkady, there is a riot out there! A woman lies dead in the square! It could be Julia!”

“It is not. I checked. That dead woman, she has the red hair.”

“Why did she run?” Nick heard his voice as if from a great distance, his body taut and still.

“Because,” Arkady said, fishing a Zippo lighter out of his pocket. “She is Ofan. I was coming to find her. She fled.” With one smooth gesture he flipped the Zippo’s lid and made the tall flame leap up. He lit his gilded cigarette and leaned back in his chair.

Nick watched Arkady’s display of self-indulgence, willing himself to stay still and calm. He felt himself shift into battlefield mode, his intention focused narrowly on the problems at hand. The first problem was Arkady and how to play him for information. “Oh,” he said, his tone sarcastic. “So Miss Percy is Ofan now? First the crazy earl and now that charming girl?”

Arkady pointed his cigarette at Nick. “She is
his
granddaughter. And the talent is sometimes inherited. My daughter had it, and so does your Julia. We were watched, that day we all went to Castle Dar, Nick. It was not that ridiculous earl who dueled with me. It was someone else. Someone very powerful but untrained. I found a secret closet. I saw the candles, the holes drilled through the wall. The air reeked of time play, I tell you. Who was it who hid there? I tested the servants and it could not have been any of them. Which means it was either Julia Percy or your spinster sister.”

“You’re mad.”

Arkady shook his head. “Oh, no. That earl is mad, but I? I am only very angry. When I arrive tonight in London I seek them. I stop time as I go. If I find her breathing, blinking,
living
in a moment that I have stopped . . . then I know.” Arkady put the cigarette to his lips and drew, hard. Nick watched the glowing tip flare hot and bright.

“What happened?”

Arkady blew the smoke out slowly and tapped ash onto the Axminster carpet. He shrugged. “I was a fool. The other night at dinner, I might have begun to suspect, but she charmed me. Those dark eyes . . . almost they made me cry! And today, again, I did not think. If she is Ofan, she can feel me coming. So she escapes. I find a room with your sisters, frozen. But no Julia. She felt me coming and she ran down a back stairway out through the stables. She is gone into the night. I start up time again. I tell your sisters that the little Julia, she went to bed. I go out to find her. But the crowd is huge, and there is the shooting. . . .” He shrugged.

Nick swallowed his fear. Just as he’d learned to do it in Spain, during raids. Put the fear aside. Then three deep breaths to come up with a plan. Three calm breaths, and then action. At the end of the first breath he knew he had to trick Arkady into believing he was on his side. At the end of the second breath, he knew that he had to somehow get to Alva and enlist her help without Arkady’s knowing. And at the end of the third breath . . .

Nick held that third breath and felt his heart beating. He held it until he wanted to gasp. Nothing came to him. He let the breath out in a long, silent sigh. He took a fourth breath. This wasn’t Spain. Julia was alone in an angry crowd, in London in 1815, without a weapon, perhaps without money. . . . He thought, for some reason, of her thin slippers.

Arkady eyed him. “I see you struggling with your feelings, Nick. You can’t hide them from me. This is because you still love the girl?”

“I don’t love her,” Nick lied. “I am concerned for her, and for the Guild. And I’m thinking, damn it, so shut up.” Nick ground out the words to keep from shouting them. “We need to get her back. For the Guild.”

“Indeed we do.” Arkady put his cigarette to his lips, then lowered it without taking a drag. “And when you say the Guild, Nick, I hope that is what you mean. I hope your new girlfriend the lovely golden lioness and your old girlfriend the little brown mouse have not conspired together to make an Ofan out of you.”

“Just shut up and let me think.”

Arkady bowed. “Please, my lord. Think.”

Nick turned his back to Arkady and stared at the fire. Think. He concentrated on the leaping flames. Julia could manipulate time? Could this be true? And if it were true, would that keep her safe? But how could she have that power? Nick breathed through the fear and thought about his lover. She must have run from Arkady because she believed it was the safer course, and if she was Ofan then she had some defenses. Nick had to trust her choices and come up with a plan that left Arkady behind.

At his feet, Solvig snorted in her sleep. The huge dog lay on her side, her nose and paws twitching. She was hunting something in her dreams. Hunting . . . hunting! Solvig was a terrible guard dog . . . but perhaps she could hunt.

“Solvig,” he said out loud. She woke and her droopy eyes found his. She lumbered to her feet and pressed her nose into his hand. Nick turned to Arkady. “The dog,” he said. “She will find Julia.”

Arkady crossed his arms. “It is possible. We must give her something of the girl’s for scent. It could work. Let us go immediately.”

“Not you. You can’t come with me. For God’s sake, man, she’s terrified of you. She trusts me. I must go alone.”

Arkady scowled. “She trusts you, does she? But do I? How do I know you will bring her to me?”

“The girl’s life is in danger. Our first priority must be to find her. Then, I promise I will bring her to you. You can perform your Ofan tests on her. I think you’ll find that she is just a nice young lady from Devonshire, much like any other.”

“No. She is Ofan. Or worse. What she did to me at the dinner table . . . the way she made me trust her? It was like nothing I have ever experienced. It is true, I am susceptible to beautiful women. But this Julia Percy, I am not attracted to her. She is too young, too innocent—not like your lovely sister—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Nick snapped his fingers for Solvig. “Enough! Go to the Guild’s house in Fleet Street and wait. Once I find Julia I shall meet you there.”

“With the girl?”

Nick put his hand on Solvig’s head. “I’ll see you later, in Fleet Street.”

M
y dear.”

Julia looked up, startled. It seemed like hours since she’d seen those two people shot dead at close range, since she’d lost Jem Jemison in the crowds in Berkeley Square, since she had run blindly into the tangled web of Soho streets, hoping to find Soho Square on her own. At first she had moved with the crowds pouring back into Soho, but they had quickly dispersed to their homes, leaving the streets empty. Now the kindly-looking old man she had been following in hopes that he would lead her somewhere safe had turned and was facing her.

“Sir?” She drew herself up, trying to look self-assured.

He was small and thin and much older than she had thought, his skin wrinkled and his eyes sunken. “Why are you following me? I have walked the same circle through the streets twice, testing you. Do you plan to rob me? I assure you I have no money.” He smiled gently at her.

“Oh, no, sir. I am sorry. I am lost, you see. I was trying to appear confident, so I followed you, thinking no one would trouble me if I looked like I was with you.”

The old man tipped his head back and laughed, a young laugh, at odds with his fragile frame. “That’s rich. As if I could protect a flea. Well, my dear. Where is a well-dressed young lady like you trying to go this late at night? I shall do my best to help you.”

“Soho . . . Soho Square,” Julia stammered.

He regarded her soberly. “Indeed? Well, I shall guide you there. Come, take my arm.”

So they set off through the streets together. As they walked, the old man told her of how the neighborhood had declined across his lifetime. His name was Roland LeCrue, he explained, and yes, his name gave him away—he was of French descent. A century and more ago his Huguenot grandfather had fled Catholic France and come to Protestant England, where he had bought a fine house in Soho, which was a French neighborhood in those days. Monsieur LeCrue could remember when French was the language most spoken in these streets, can you imagine? Now he was the only Frenchman left. The aristocrats who had lived on Soho Square in his childhood had all sold their grand houses and moved elsewhere, and now the neighborhood was squalid, filthy. He poked at a pile of rags with his stick and shook his head. “Times are hard. Now a young girl like you must fear for her life as she walks these streets. Everything changes,” he said, and fell silent.

Julia squeezed his arm. “I never feared for my life,” she assured him. “And you helped me. You are a true Cavalier. I thank you, monsieur.
Merci
.”

“
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
”
He patted Julia’s cheek. “May young ladies like yourself always find the help and respect that they desire. And look. Here we are. Soho Square.” He spread his thin arms. “Voilà.”

Julia turned and held out her hand. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

Monsieur LeCrue took her hand, his eyes quizzical. “Ah, but you do not want me to show you to the door, do you? You do not want me to see which house you enter?” He nodded. “Never mind, my dear. I understand. I do not judge you. God bless you.” He sketched a funny little antique bow, and she turned away.

Julia faced the square. Which house had it been? She looked along the row of mismatched mansions and saw the yellow façade. Yes. There was a big, old-fashioned traveling coach and steaming team of horses stopped in front. Those horses must have made a long, arduous journey. But now they had arrived, and were finally able to rest. She hoped her story had a similarly happy ending.

Julia took a deep breath and prepared to beg her lover’s lover for shelter.

* * *

Nick and Solvig were deep in Soho, and Solvig was dragging him down every tiny street. The dog was on the trail of something, but Nick was beginning to despair of its actually leading to Julia. She could be anywhere. The city, which had looked so small and quaint from Highgate Hill last night, now felt like an endless rabbit warren. Julia could be in any room in any house, down any noisome street. She could be alive, dead, dying—she could be in pain, frightened. . . .

Nick shoved the thoughts away and concentrated on Solvig. Her nose was pushing through the filth, and she was grunting softly, giving herself encouragement. Every once in a while she turned a confident, grinning face back at Nick, then resumed her quest. And yet hadn’t they passed this intersection once already?

“My lord.” A hand touched his shoulder, and Nick wheeled around, pulling Solvig to a reluctant stop.

“Jemison!”

The man looked haggard. “You are seeking Miss Percy,” he said.

“However do you know that?”

Jemison eyed Nick up and down. “How did you vote, my lord?”

“Against.”

“Ah.” He frowned, nodding. “Your sister will be pleased.”

Nick grabbed his arm. “If you bear me any love as a fellow soldier, please—what do you know of Julia?”

“I saw her. In Berkeley Square. She was out in the crowd, in nothing but a flimsy black gown. She told me a tarradiddle about needing to run away. I told her to stay by me and I would help her, but just then the shooting started—”

“Yes, the two dead.”

“Shot dead by men in scarlet,” Jemison said. “After the first shot I stepped in front of Miss Percy and shouted for her to hang on to my belt; the crowd was turning and pushing back against us. Then another shot was fired and I felt the crowd pull us apart. I turned, and I saw that she was running—she could not help but run—pushed away on the breast of the crowd. I tried to follow, but she disappeared out of the square, heading in the direction of Soho. I have been searching for her since the crowd dispersed.”

Nick couldn’t help it. He grabbed Jemison’s hand and shook it. “Thank you!”

Jemison pulled away and stepped back. “I do not do it for you. And now that you are here to look for her, it is best we part. I can go back to others who need me more.” He turned away.

“No, Jemison!” Nick’s words came without thought. “The two in Berkeley Square are dead. I . . . Julia needs you more.”

For a long moment it seemed that Jemison would simply stand there, his back to Nick. But then he turned. “I wonder if you know what else died tonight in your gracious square, with those two.”

Nick stepped forward. He was taller than Jemison, and broader, but he knew that the man had a will as strong and as supple as a whip, and a fierce, unflinching ability to do what must be done. “I need you, Jemison,” Nick said. “We must find Julia. Not only because she is in danger . . .” How to explain? Nick stared at the man who had seen him disappear from under the dragoon’s sword. “Jemison,” he said. “I want—” He stopped.

Jemison said nothing, and his eyes glittered in the darkness.

“I want to tell you what happened to me at Salamanca,” Nick said, pushing on, “and I need you to believe me.”

“I am a rational man. I do not believe in demons.”

“When the dragoon reared above me, I jumped forward in time,” Nick said, his voice a whisper. “Two hundred years. A group of . . .” Nick paused, searching for words. “A group of aristocrats from throughout history control the flow of time just as if it were money. They control who can travel, who can even know that time is malleable. Are you following me?”

Jemison blinked. His expression had not changed even one iota since Nick began his incredible confession.

“History itself is now threatened by an unknown power emanating from the future. And Julia . . .” Here Nick ground to a halt.

Jemison let his gaze soar up, above the rooftops, to where the moon rode silver in the sky. “Julia,” he said. “Julia is what?” The black eyes met his again, and Nick could read nothing in them.

“Julia is also able to manipulate time,” Nick said. “But she is alone; she does not even know that I have the gift, or that I know she has the gift. Now she is running from a man who hopes to find her and perhaps kill her. That is why she could not go home again. And why it was the hand of God that swept her from you tonight, and kept you from dragging her back to my house, where that man was waiting for her. Perhaps that is a sign that she is lucky. Perhaps she has come to no harm.”

Jemison was silent, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his jacket. His face was expressionless, neither friendly nor hostile.

Solvig snorted, eager to continue her search.

Nick sighed. “You do not believe me,” he said. “You think me war-addled.”

Jemison smiled as calmly as if Nick had been describing the theory of gravity. “On the contrary, my lord. I believe you completely.”