Chapter 18

I collapsed convincingly on the floor by the door to the dungeon just as two guards were coming in. I almost laughed when I noticed they weren’t in any particular hurry. I guess the staff had cried wolf once too often today. My bad.

I made a big show of wheezing and bleeding profusely, careful to keep my voice low and raspy and my face hidden.

“Back down. Fought ’em back. Headed for the great hall.”

Too easy. Everything was going according to plan. Uh huh.

They called for back up and three more guys came in. They sent one back out, presumably to tell them to expect visitors in the great hall. The rest made their way down the stairs.

I got up and headed into the body of the castle.

There were stairs that came from the great hall and led up to the mezzanine that O’Greer and I had hidden on a day ago. (Really, was it only a day?) The stairs then continued up to the third floor where the blueprints had shown the bedrooms were. I was stopped by a guard coming down from the upper floor.

“Where are you going?”

“McShane told me to warn milord the prisoner was escaping.” I said the first part fast and breathlessly, praying that either the guy wouldn’t understand me, or that there was a McShane somewhere on the estate.”

“He’s not to be disturbed.”

“Prince Duer has escaped! You don’t think he’ll want to know that?” I shook the guy’s hand off my arm. “I’ll take responsibility. He’ll want to see me.” Yeah, that last part was probably not true.

The guy gave up and headed toward the commotion in the great hall. I bounded up the rest of the steps.

There was, of course, another guard stationed at the door to the master suite. I was so tired. I leaned against the wall about 10 feet from him and bent over to catch my breath. It worked. He came to me.

“What’s going on down there?”

“The prince escaped.”

“The army is attacking??”

“No, just two guys and one little girl.” I straightened up and faced him. Took a sec for him to catch on, but that was all I needed to rap the long strap of my bag around his neck and pull, hard. His eyes bulged, strangling is just not a pretty sight, but I released him as soon as his eyes rolled. I only needed him out long enough for me to barricade San Martin and myself in the bedroom.

I opened the door to the suite. San Martin was there, all right. Sitting in bed. Drinking freaking tea. No one can say I’m not perceptive. At least they can’t say I’m never perceptive. Something was amiss.

“Good morning, Miss…Miles, isn’t it? Tea?”

Crap. So many things wrong with that statement.

“I believe you know my associate” he smirked. “The Wizard Goldberg.”

Goldberg didn’t even give me a chance to turn around before he stuck that fucking taser in my back. Really? Twice in one mission? I’m getting too old for this shit.

Ok, this I did not expect. I regained consciousness in a soft warm bed. I was tied to said bed, but I was still dressed and had a nice soft pillow under my head. What the fuck?

“She’s awake.”

“Hello again, Goldberg, you little prick.”

“Oh, now, there’s no need to be unpleasant, Ashlyn. May I call you Ashlyn?” San Martin came in from another room off the one I was currently, ah, resting in.

“Knock yourself out. And you are?”

“Gabriel San Martin, current and future King of Duer County, Ireland, late of .”

“I can see why you made the move. What’s with the hospitality?”

“I just don’t think there’s any need to be uncivil. You’re only doing your duty. I apologize for what comes next.”

“You gonna keep up the James Bond supervillian thing or you gonna talk to me about what’s going on here? How did you get here? What are you doing here and why were you going to kill Cayden? According to the history you jacked, you already had the property.”

“Let’s take it one thing at a time, all right? First, love the reference to the movies. I didn’t know people from your time still knew about James Bond.”

“My time? Meaning it’s not the same as your time?”

“Exactly.” He turned to Goldberg who was futzing around in the corner. “See, she isn’t dimwitted.”

Hey!!

He faced me again. “I was born in 1957. I met Goldberg here in 1993. I appropriated a bit of his technology when he tried to rob my hi-tech start up of a certain technology that would have competed with a brand he was heavily invested in. I figured out how it worked, and we’ve been traveling companions ever since.”

“How nice for you boys. And how did your travels happen to bring you to where you fucked up the peace process.”

“That was accidental and Goldberg acquired the information we needed to fix it, as you know. All we’re doing is acquiring land. Strategic pieces of land that in centuries to come will afford us a great deal of wealth. In the end, it will all end up in the hands of those it was destined for. We’ll just have gathered a small piece of the pie for ourselves. Appropriate it in one century, sell it off in another, make quite a handsome fortune.”

“Brilliant in its very simplicity.”

“I thought so, too.”

Goldberg came over, nasty looking needle in his hand. Nastier looking fluid in the needle. Ok, it wasn’t’ nasty looking, it was clear, but you get my point.

“Go ahead, kill me, Goldberg. But I’ll keep coming back for more. Oh, and bonus for me, I get to kill you multiple times. Usually I only get that pleasure once.”

“Cocky little bitch aren’t you?” Goldberg didn’t even bother to take his eyes off the needle he was prepping.

“Hey! I am not little!”

San Martin was the one to respond. “Only problem with that little diatribe is that we know your secret. If I kill you, you’ll keep coming back. But if I just leave you here to die, you just fade away into the ether. And I hear it’s pretty painful. That’s what the sedative is for. Again, I see no need to be uncivilized.”

Goldberg bent over and tapped for a vein. I was tied too tightly to do anything about it. “I’d feel bad about all this, you melting into a puddle of flesh and stuff, but, well, you know, with you having put a knife in my chest and all, I hope you’ll understand.” He sunk the needle in. The effect was almost immediate. The room faded to black.

Judging by the sun coming in the window, I woke up in the early evening. In tremendous pain and scared shitless.

San Martin and Goldberg had information no one outside the government was supposed to have. San Martin was from the past, which meant the information must have come from Goldberg. An ex-employee of the TALIS project? DNCI? Even then, The Push was still extremely confidential, unless Goldberg had been involved in the initial stages of the travel.

Well, at least it explained why Goldberg didn’t return to my present. They had a TALIS back in the 90’s. That’s probably where they left from and so that’s where he would have returned to. Great to have the answer, but unfortunately, it meant that I wouldn’t be able to send either of them back to the present for prosecution.

Of course, tied to a bed, heavily sedated and being maybe 18 hours away from meltdown meant that their prosecution was actually lower on my scale of worries that self-preservation. Live to fight another day was the mantra of the moment.

Someone entered the room. I got a few questions ready for San Martin, but was disappointed to see it was a serving girl and a guard. She had brought food and water and the guard was there to make sure I ate and drank. That might sound odd, but it wasn’t. Keep me fed and hydrated so that I lasted till The Push wiped me out. I puked after they left. While providing a small sense of defiance, it oddly enough didn’t really make me feel any better.

San Martin came in an hour or so later. He called in another maid to clean me up, provide chamber pot and such. As far as being held prisoner goes, I’ve known worse. And, you know, the guy actually looked like he felt bad. Didn’t untie me or anything. Just gave me another shot. I felt bad enough that I was the tiniest bit relieved.

Pitch black outside when I woke up again. No way to figure out exactly how long it had been. I was too groggy to care. Kinda seemed like this was it.

I was surprised by a noise in the corner. San Martin had been reading in a chair near the door.

“It’s hard to keep you out. I don’t want to give you too much, obviously, but your metabolism is still far stronger than a normal person. But I really am trying to spare you as much pain as possible, Ashlyn.”

“And I would appreciate that if it wasn’t all tied in to you killing me.”

“Letting you die, not killing you.”

“Whatever helps you sleep.”

There was a moment of weirdly comfortable silence.

“Why did you come back? Why didn’t you just let someone else handle this? If you’d just stayed away, given me a few more days, I would have been gone. None of this would have been necessary.”

“You killed Cayden.”

“No I didn’t. He was alive and well when you sprang him, remember.”

“Not exactly well. But The History showed that you were going to execute him day after tomorrow. Drawing and quartering. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Oh dear God! You have to believe me, I would never draw and quarter anyone! It’s beyond barbaric. You of course aren’t going to believe this but I’m not out to hurt anyone, or change the timeline or do anything other than make a little profit for my golden years.”

He was telling the truth. He was really horrified that I would accuse him of such a thing.

“Well someone created a record of his torture and death. I couldn’t let it happen.

“Huh. I heard you got…rather close…with some of your assets when you were chasing. But I swear I wasn’t planning on killing him.”

“What about your buddy Goldberg?”

He looked down at the book he was carrying. Appropriately enough, it was a Stephen King novel. He noticed me looking at it. “I always burn them before I leave.”

“Fitting for some of his later novels. If Goldberg wanted to bring me back here, for vengeance, that would be the way to do it.”

He didn’t answer, but had a very disturbed look on his face that told me he probably thought I was right.

“Still feeling like your little scheme isn’t hurting anyone? Goldberg isn’t just in this for fun and profit. Looks to me like he’ll take out anyone who gets in his way.”

A nasty cramp started in my gut just then and wracked my entire body. San Martin literally ran back over to the table by his chair and returned with another hypodermic.

“It won’t be too much longer.” Pinch, resignation, blackness.

Part of me wanted to swim out of the blackness, but another part of me knew what was waiting up there. More pain, maybe another enlightening, but useless conversation with San Martin. Then I noticed that my hands weren’t tied anymore. And there was an extraordinary amount of yelling going on in the distance. It quickly got closer.

“You let her loose she’ll keep coming after us.”

“It’s over, Jeffrey, and we’re leaving. She only had to die because we were planning to stay.”

“She had to die because she killed me. She’s dangerous. She’s a bulldog. You haven’t seen her file – “

“We’re leaving. She lives. Take your pill.”

The voices got fainter and I wasn’t able to hear the rest of the conversation as I blacked out. The sedatives were still in control. That and the pain in my eyelids was prohibitive.

More yelling coming from down the hall. I got my eyes open. Goldberg’s body was already gone. San Martin was on the floor, dead, about 20 feet away from where I lay.

This can’t be how it ends. The bad guys get away scott free? Then I remembered.

I let out a big old scream as I put my hand in my pocket. I just can’t describe the pain of feeling your muscles dissolve. But there it was, the ident chip, still safely in the pocket of my pants. This particular chip was designed for exterior use, but my plan had been far more nefarious. Ahhh, missed opportunities.

Now I had to hope I had enough strength to throw it the 20 feet or so between me and San Martin. I did. Damn I’m a tough broad. I saw it land precariously on his coat. Yay me!

And then he rolled over. Apparently he wasn’t dead yet. I looked dejectedly at the chip which was now sitting about an inch and a half away from him on the floor. So close.

Only one way to fix it and it was going to hurt. I had about 60 seconds to get over there and attach the tracking device. Gee only 60 seconds of excruciating pain and mind numbing physical exertion. What was I whining about?

I let loose with every swear word I knew as I rolled off the bed and landed gracelessly on the floor. Used other languages. Even made up a few. Remember how I was bitching about being run through with the sword? Yeah, I was looking back fondly on that right now.

I inched my way over to where San Martin landed. I had the feeling I was leaving little bits of me on the stone floor as I dragged my sorry ass across it. It took about week to get over to San Martin, but I picked up the chip and pushed it in the pocket of his coat. By my figuring, the coat would stay wherever his home base was. Find the coat, find the machine, right?

I laid my head down on the comfortingly cold floor. My work here was done.

Except the bastard still wasn’t dead. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him reach weakly into his pocket.

If he took the fucking D7, why wasn’t he fucking dead yet?!?

I could barely make out his words; “Don’t worry, Ashlyn. We’ll meet again.” He snapped the chip in two on the floor and promptly died. Guy knows how to make an exit, I’ll give him that.

I picked up the two pieces of the chip and stuck them in his pocket anyway. Yeah, I knew it wouldn’t work, but first, I figured I’d come this far, why not. Second, it would be a fond “fuck you” when he found it. If he found it. His body started to fade away slowly. Weird thing to behold. One minute its there, then you can’t quite focus on it, then it’s just gone. Buh bye, Gabe.

The only remaining problem would be that I didn’t know what year he’d disappeared to. He said the 1990’s. There were 10 of those if I remembered correctly. And geographically…Screw it; I’d worry about that later. I had a lot of worrying to do later, didn’t I?

Ok, that much was done. My killers were gone. Now if only I could find a way to kill myself without actually having to move anymore.

That’s when the door crashed open and O’Greer came rushing through. My hero.

“Your majesty, she’s here.” Majesty, huh? If he came in on a white horse, the moment would be complete.

My eyeballs had a really hard time lining up, but there he was. If it was a dream, I really, really hoped I had enough sedative left in me to keep me sleeping.

He knelt beside the bed. “Ashlyn. You’re safe. San Martin has fled, but we’ll find him, I promise.” He started to pick me up. The shriek I let out told him that would be a bad idea so he settled for holding my hand. “You’re going to be all right.”

I tried to talk, but my mouth was too dry. He held some water to my lips. I only took a tiny bit, enough to speak. “What time is it?”

“A little after noon. The doctor is on his way.”

“No. I can only spend so much time here, remember? I have to go.” I managed to lift my hand to his lap. I was reaching for the knife on his belt. He saw that, caught on and moved it out of my reach.

“No. My father’s army came back from , Ashlyn. We took the castle back. San Martin is gone; you’re no longer in danger. The doctor is coming, now. You’ll be – “

“Dead. Cayden, kill me. Don’t let me fade away. I have to kill myself before my body fails. You’re going to have a good life now. I need to go home so I can have one too.”

“You can live here – “

“Cayden…” I could honestly feel myself failing with every breath. I knew The Push from a second jump would be worse than a normal Push, but I had no idea it would be this fast and this awful. And the little tussle with San Martin had used up what little time I had left. Every breath was excruciating. As desperate as I was, I couldn’t even raise my arm to reach for the knife again.

“Please.”

His beautiful blue eyes were so sad as he pulled the knife out. He pointed it carefully at my heart. Those big blue eyes. Holy shit! “Kids!” Ow. But it stopped him.

“What kids?”

“The kids…were there kids here?” Way to not be coherent, but he’s a clever boy.

“My father’s children with his new wife lived here. A boy and a girl. They were very young, but they were killed when the castle was seized.”

“No. They’re ok. There’s a lady named Margaret, runs a bread stand in . She’s got them. Give them a hug for me.” I pushed down on his hand. He leaned down to kiss me, and helped the knife though.