On a Night Black Page 16

  He ran up the stairs to grab his coat, eager now to get outside and back to modern reality. It was probably too early for a whisky but there were numerous small bars that served coffee and stronger drinks, and many of which attracted a young female clientele. He’d written dating apps off as a failure after his prior lack of success, most notably because of that dratted Elliot Cinder, but dating apps were a new invention and there were always other choices for a man with a goal in mind. Men had been meeting women by various other means for far longer than the wonders of the 21st century had been in existence.

  By the time he left the house, he was riding high on a potent mix of satisfaction for a job well done and suppressed anticipation for whatever lay ahead. He smirked to himself and twisted the silver ring on his little finger as he strode along the street, enjoying the fact he was back in a world where women believed they were independent and capable enough to venture out on their own after dark and where opportunities lay around every corner for the astute and ready predator. 2020 was indeed a very good year for a man to be alive.

  As long as Elliot Cinder kept a respectable distance and minded his own blasted business. The Knave’s face darkened savagely at the thought of his nemesis, causing an elderly woman who was cutting white roses by her front gate to gasp and shrink back, her gnarled hand pressed to her breast. Unheeding, the Knave passed by without so much as a glance in her direction and turned towards the city. He had a far bigger prize in mind than merely scaring the wits from an old lady, especially now that his blood lust was stirred in the aftermath of Lani’s bloodless death.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Ramona’s 9.30am phone call couldn’t have come soon enough. Elliot had spent the night going over their brief conversation in his head until every word they’d spoken had permanently imprinted itself on his brain. He’d tried to wring all the positivity he could out of Ramona’s sparse replies but the bald fact remained that she hadn’t given him a definitive yes.

  He answered the phone eagerly, imbibing his tone with good vibrations and cheerfulness in an attempt to further his case. He wanted her to think of him as a man who could boost her up and support her, and add fun and companionship to her days. The type of man she needed in her life. Unfortunately, despite the so-called advances in gender equality, in 2020 it was still very much up to the woman to decide if she would allow a man to pursue her romantically.

  “Elliot, what are you doing now?” Her voice rushed along the line to meet him.

  “Uh, not much.” He looked around his apartment, already bored with himself after his long night spent constantly throwing the same recycled and regurgitated thoughts around in his head.

  “We have an address for the stolen time machine. I’ve been asked to defuse it and I’ve requested that you come along. The corporation has cleared your involvement. I’ll meet you in your parking building in ten minutes.” Click. She was gone before he could prepare his answer.

  He was waiting in his car with the motor running as she arrived. She opened the passenger door and jumped straight in. “The address is in Lambeth,” she said breathlessly. “Let’s go.”

  “Is the Knave there at the moment?”

  “Apparently not. Turn right and I’ll show you the quickest way to get there.” She looked tired today and he wondered if she too had spent the night endlessly turning over her thoughts. He waited in vain for her to mention their conversation from yesterday but she was quiet as she stared out the side window.

  They were stopped at the traffic lights when she finally spoke again. “Have you ever heard of the concept of concurrent swathes of time?”

  “Strangely enough, I have. Darcy used the folds of a tablecloth to show me how time can fold back on itself.”

  She wriggled around in her seat so she could face him directly, excited now. “The tablecloth analogy was a good one because it’s an easy way to demonstrate how two versions of time can be lived concurrently. They are sometimes called time slips and they are more common than you think. They are incredibly convoluted and nearly impossible to control.”

  “There must be some way around it.”

  “You can’t sail around a storm.”

  “You could always turn the ship around.”

  “Do you know how long it takes to turn a ship?”

  He was never a sailor. Walking along the banks of the Thames was as close as he’d ever ventured to a body of water. Sometimes it was easier to let the other person win. However, this might be a good time for him to mention Jason. “I feel as if I’ve returned to a time slightly different from the one I left. You and Jason weren’t together when I departed.”

  Her earlier animation dissolved and she gazed straight ahead as he pulled away on the green light. “Take the next left.”

  He tried again. “Darcy said the Knave’s unattended meddling has altered multiple circumstances. Are you going to tell me about another one?”

  “Another one? Do you mean over and above what isn’t going on between Jason and me? We aren’t together and I thought I’d already made that clear.”

  “I saw the two of you holding hands…”

  Her eyes flashed dangerously as she crisply snapped out her words. “I’d just received the bad news about Amy and he was being a good friend. He was comforting me, just as you did when you hugged me. Can we drop this?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  They drove without speaking, save for Ramona’s terse directions for several blocks. “Darcy needs to talk to you as soon as possible. We’ll go back to my house as soon as we’re done with the infinity device so you can call him from there.”

  “I do have the Com-Dec app on my tablet now. I could call him myself.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  This was not how he’d imagined his morning with Ramona would be. “No, I’ll come back to…”

  She sprung up in her seat, pointing excitedly to a row of houses. “Here! It’s right here. Oh, we’ve passed it. Find a park wherever you can and we’ll walk back.”

  He parked the car and he was about to climb out when she stopped him. “The corporation want to meet with you too. I’m hoping to arrange that within the next few days.”

  He grinned, feeling as if he’d gained something at least in this confusion of a morning. “They do? What have I done to deserve that?” He could imagine them now, a group of middle-aged toffs in suits, all with an ingrained aura of authority and probably wallets thick enough to make a comfortable seat cushion for their ample bottoms.

  “They’ll tell you when you meet them.” She swung herself out of the car. “Come on. We have about an hour until the Knave returns and we have to make the most of it. I won’t know how complicated this will be until I’m looking at the control panel.”

  He hurried to catch up with her as she strode quickly back down the street. “An hour? Will that be enough time?”

  “Who knows? We’ll do what we can.” She stopped in front of a house and pulled out an iridescent blue key. “This will get us to wherever we need to go.”

  Elliot looked at the house for the first time as Ramona went to open the door. He staggered back, amazed to see where they were. “This is Darcy’s house!”

  “Yes, it was once Darcy’s house. The Knave has a particular attachment to it and he is a man who enjoys old habits.” She glanced up and down the street before hastily shoving the door open. “Quick, get inside. We don’t want anyone to see us lurking around suspiciously out here on the step.”

  It was peculiar to walk back into the same entrance hall he’d stepped through over a hundred years but less than 24 hours before now. He looked at the walls of course, searching for Hortense’s paintings, but the entranceway walls were blank. “This is weird. I’m in the same place I was in yesterday, but I’m not.”

  “Has it changed much since you left?” She led the way through to Darcy’s parlour – which was no longer Darcy’s parlour, although a time machine was sitting smack-bang in the middle of it.

 
He gazed at the blue and brown walls. “Darcy’s stuff has gone but otherwise it looks the same. It gives me the oddest feeling to be in here.”

  She crouched in front of the golden machine and peered dubiously at the control panel. “I’m supposed to disable the conveyancer. This dashboard is different from the one on the other machine.”

  “There’s no point in asking me. I wouldn’t have a clue.” He shivered in the chill of the room. “It isn’t any warmer in here than it used to be.”

  “I think it’s this red one here.” She wiggled a small domed knob before successfully pulling it free. “I’ll take the orange one as well, just to be sure.”

  “The corporation knows where the Knave lives and they’re obviously tracking him. I don’t understand how he was able to kill Lani when he’s under so much scrutiny.”

  “He wasn’t expected back in 2020 so soon. It’s all to do with that time slip that I was telling you about. We’re dealing with a major fold of events and it’s all a ridiculous mess.”

  “Why don’t the corporation stop him permanently? Why can’t they just lock him away somewhere so he can’t cause any more trouble?”

  “It’s the time slip,” she said patiently. “We’re experiencing a double up of twice-folded time and it’s confused everything. The senior committee will explain when you meet them, although I have the feeling that Darcy will have some information for you when he calls. I know he had an urgent conference call with the committee earlier this morning.” She dropped the two small valves she’d removed from the panel into an envelope and folded it into her pocket. “That was easier than I thought it would be. We should go.”

  He walked out of the room and stood at the foot of the stairs, gazing up at the landing where he’d stood yesterday morning. Darcy, Hortense, the Knave, and himself too should all be gone from the here and now, their lives long since ended. “Why doesn’t someone in the corporation take a leap back to when Lani was still alive? There is a chance to save her and the corporation has the ability to do it.”

  “They won’t do that. She annoyed the wrong people, unfortunately, and the members of the corporation can’t forgive such blatant betrayal. And as I’ve told you before, there’s a lot of effort involved in reversing past events in order to avoid a future domino effect. It’s doubtful that any of the senior committee would be prepared to go through that process for Lani, considering she was the worst kind of traitor. Let’s go. This place is giving me the creeps.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Ramona picked up her laptop to dial through to Darcy as soon as they arrived back at her apartment. Amy was out but several of her clothes lay heaped across the sofa and her abandoned coffee cup sat, half-drunk and soupy, on the coffee table. Elliot prowled around moodily, left feeling unsettled by their visit to the Knave’s current home. The corporation’s reluctance to put a stop to the Knave’s brutal rampage was inconceivable to him. They must have a good reason for allowing the man to roam free – but what was it?

  “Oh, I’m through already without even trying! Darcy must’ve done something to the communication lines. Hi Hortense.”

  Elliot moved to sit on the couch beside Ramona as the two women chatted like old friends. Elliot interrupted to say hello and ask a question. “Do the two of you know each other from before or after the measles incident?”

  “Both. Well, a bit of before and a bit of after.” Ramona laughed for the first time since Elliot’s return. “Time slips and all the to-ing and fro-ing between future, past, and present tend to confuse and complicate the issue.”

  “Hello Elliot. We missed you at breakfast this morning.” Hortense turned her congenial face on him. “Darcy mistakenly made you a serving of toast but the birds did well from his thoughtlessness.”

  “I would’ve liked to be there. My own breakfast was a lonely cup of coffee in my apartment.” He felt Ramona shift beside him. He glanced at her but she was looking away, uninvolved and apparently unaffected by the conversation.

  “Darcy wants to talk to you now. Good luck.” Hortense paused, as if she was about to say something more, but then she gave him a quick, tight smile and moved away to allow Darcy’s round face to fill the screen.

  “Elliot.” Darcy’s voice was deadly serious and his green gaze unfaltering. The screen for once contained no trace of blur or fuzz and the audio was clear and precise. “There’s something you have to know.”

  “I’m going to leave you to talk to Darcy alone.” To Elliot’s amazement, Ramona swiftly leaned in and pressed a soft kiss on his cheek before pulling back and gazing at him with those extraordinary blue eyes. “I’m here for you regardless of whichever option you decide upon.”

  “What options?” He grabbed for her hand as she stood up but she whisked it away and held it close to her chest. She gave him an immensely sad smile before walking quickly across to her bedroom and closing the door behind her.

  Darcy cleared his throat on the laptop screen and Elliot turned back to him, disconcerted by what Ramona had said. His stomach hurt, as if he’d been punched, possibly a foreshadowing of the gut-wrenching dread that he was almost certain was about to follow. “Did you hear what she said? What options does she mean?”

  “We have just received confirmation of an earlier suspicion. Elliot, prepare yourself for this. I don’t expect it will be news that will sit easily with you.”

  His stomach twisted and knotted again. “I think I’d prefer it if you launched straight into whatever it is instead of dabbling around the edges,” he said flatly. “Please, just tell me.”

  Darcy drew in a deep, ragged breath. “As you know, the Knave had unrestricted use of one of the corporation’s time machines. He made fraudulent use of the device and travelled backwards and forwards as he pleased.”

  “For what reason did he go back and where did he go?” From what Elliot knew of the Knave’s past, it made no sense that the man would want to go back to unhappy periods of his life.

  “He didn’t travel back far, or at least not far from this year. He didn’t need to in order to meet his objective. Elliot, he went back to the night of Annie’s death.”

  His sense of foreboding had a foundation. Elliot dropped his head forward onto his hands as his heart pounded and his pulse raced. The memories of that dark night swirled around his head, drowning him in a sea of renewed and fresh pain.

  “Elliot! Look at me. I haven’t finished.” Darcy’s stern voice cut through Elliot’s confusion and he slowly lifted his head.

  “Why did he do that?” he asked quietly.

  “He went back to meet her at the gates of the match factory but instead of…” Darcy swallowed hard and skipped over the gory details, “Instead of carrying out his original plan, he abducted her and forced her into the time machine to bring her forward. Elliot, Annie is alive and well. The Knave used her dexterity and skills to make some necessary repairs to his stolen time machine before setting her free.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Staying with an aunt at present, or at least as far as we know. Our sources tell us that you came close to bumping into her.”

  A recollection of bumping into a girl who looked a lot like Annie when he was trailing Kacey Greene jumped to the front of his mind but that was here and Darcy was talking about there. “I need to see her. I need to come back.” There was absolutely no doubt in his mind.

  Darcy held up his lined palm on the other side of the screen, urging Elliot to slow down. “There’s still more to tell you. As soon as we received the news of this time slip, we made further enquiries. Annie is alive now but we know for certain that she’s not destined to make old bones. She never was. She has jumped past death for now but death awaits her again in the very near future. She will fall ill and succumb to the ravages of consumption before the year is out.”

  “Then take her past her second death! It’s been done before so I see no reason why it shouldn’t be done again. Bring her here.”

  Darcy was already shaking his h
ead. “We can’t. The spiral of complications involved in that make such a task impossible for any of us to perform. The amount of meddling that’s occurred already is outside the normal realms of safety. Too many essential components of the future will combust with terrible consequences if we tamper with that parcel of time yet again.”

  Elliot slumped back in the chair as his brain struggled to arrange this impossibility into something close to logic. Dear Annie was alive! For a short time at least, she had gained an extension to her life. How many times had he wished that he could hold her once again and tell her he loved her just one more time?

  The screen fizzed and blurred, pixelating the lines and planes of Darcy’s face. “Elliot… I know this must be a dreadful shock but as things currently stand, your fiancée is living in a tenement not far from Chaney’s Tavern. As at this very moment, she is unharmed and healthy. The Knave did not lay a finger on her this time around.”

  “This is insane! I don’t know where I’m supposed to start with information like this.” Elliot raked his hand through his hair as his head began to throb with a dull, intense ache. “Can this be fixed?” He wasn’t even sure what he meant by ‘fixed’. He knew now that any kind of fixing was mostly useless and if there was ever a situation beyond fixing, this was it.

  “We both know that everything can be fixed to some extent, but there will be a decision involved.” The image of Darcy cleared again. He sucked in an unsteady breath and Elliot could see that the rims of his eyes were red and watery and his face ravaged with worry and concern. “And that decision rests entirely on you. I can transport you back to 1889 to be with Annie before she dies once again, or you can remain here and pursue the lovely Ramona. I can’t tell you everything but I can tell you that the opportunity for great future happiness exists for you if you do choose Ramona. I’m also well aware of your deep feelings for Annie but if you go back to be with her, you can never return to where you are now.” Darcy’s green irises had changed colour, taking on an almost black hue. “You must remember that both options come with a certain cost, the details of which I am unable to go into further as I cannot be held responsible for swaying your decision in either direction. Your task is to decide which choice will leave you with no regrets. There is absolutely no going back once your final choice has been made.” His last words were delivered with an undeniable undertone of finality.