“Just a hint would help,” Cynda urged. Please.
Prudence shook her head. “Tampering with history. Can’t do it. Cost us our grant.”
“You have a grant to follow me around? I really must screw things up if you got funding.”
The two Futures traded looks, and then Thomas moved closer. “I would suggest that you take a visit to…” He looked around. “Tomorrow, Lord Mayor’s Day. Anywhere in the East End. Just be careful when you do.”
“Well, I could do with a bit of a holiday,” Cynda mused.
“It won’t be any holiday, that I can tell you.” Thomas pulled out what appeared to be a pocket watch, but it was fatter and a bit more rectangular, like a vintage cigarette case. “It’s clear, Pru. You ready?”
“Wait, you’re leaving?” Cynda said.
“Our time is up for this session.”
“But—”
There was no light, no sound. And no people. Time travel technology had clearly made some awesome improvements.
~??~??~??~
Theo was pacing. She’d never seen him do that before. “Fulham is trying to track down Harter,” he blurted before she could say a word. “He’s having no luck. Klein doesn’t have him, either. No one knows where he is.” He shook his head. “This is so off the rails.”
“Why not go back to the party and catch him?”
“We don’t dare, not in front of that many people,” Morrisey replied. “Too dangerous.”
“How about when they take him to jail?”
“That’s a possibility.”
“Well, if you wait long enough he’ll surface eventually,” she replied.
He gave a grunt of displeasure. “I want him somewhere safe.”
She draped her mantelet over a chair. “There were a couple of people downstairs. They kept staring at me, so I asked a few questions. They say they’re Futures, and from the technology I saw, I don’t think they’re lying.”
“Why are they so interested in you?” Morrisey asked, all attention now.
Because I’m a legend.
“They’ve got a grant to follow me around.” She snorted. “Can you believe that? They said I should know what’s going on by now, and since I don’t, they suggested a trip to tomorrow.”
Morrisey frowned. “Why tomorrow?”
She threw up her hands and headed for the bedroom. If she was off to the East End, she wasn’t wearing her nice dress. As she changed, she realized that she’d have to buy mourning clothes for Adelaide. The steel-gray gown wouldn’t be dark enough for Defoe’s loss.
Cynda returned to the sitting room to find Theo staring into the fire.
She flipped open her interface. “Along for the ride, boss?”
A distracted nod. He pulled out his own interface and began copying her settings.
“It’s a major holiday. The streets will be packed, so make it four in the afternoon,” she said. “Might be less crowded.”
“Really?” he said crossly. “I’ve actually been to a Lord Mayor’s Show. How about you?”
“Yup. In 1789.” She’d lost her interface in the midst of the crowd and when she’d caught up with the thief, he’d already handed it off to an accomplice. She’d gone ugly on him and gotten arrested for assault. Once in jail, an inmate had tried to steal her boots. Nasty memory.
Like most of them.
Chapter 12
Friday, 9 November, 1888
Whitechapel
They’d arrived in Hell.
Cynda’s first gasp was filled with acrid smoke, causing her lungs to spasm. Coughing hard, she flipped the interface closed and buried it inside a deep pocket. Then she crouched low, positioning a handkerchief over her nose and mouth. Around them, flames leapt upward in seething columns and slithered across the ground like hungry lizards.
Someone cried out her name.
A few feet away, Morrisey was on his knees, hand grasping his chest. She hoisted her companion to his feet and they staggered forward, only to be confronted by a flaming barrier. They went left. Another wall of flame.
“This way!” Cynda managed to gasp.
They fled down a narrow passage. When they reached the next street she expected some respite, but around them buildings burnt cherry red. A crush of people pushed their way along. Some carried children or the elderly. Many had meager possessions on their backs. Around them, Cynda could hear the cries of those trapped by the flames.
Above his handkerchief, Morrisey’s face was soot-streaked, his eyes wide with fear. “Are we off-time?” he asked in a raspy voice.
She pulled out her pocket watch and flipped open the dial.
9 November 1888. Twelve minutes after four.
“My God,” he said when she showed him the reading. “What has happened?”
A constable stumbled by them, then plunged to the ground, his wool coat smoldering. Cynda helped him up. “What’s going on?” she demanded.
“Fire all along…the East End,” he wheezed. “Wind…pushing it.”
“How’d it start?”
“Fenians…” The man drifted away into the tumult of bodies.
“We must keep moving,” Morrisey urged. They pulled each other along, stumbling half blind through the forest of fire. Embers danced ahead of them like merry sprites on a summer’s eve, alighting on roofs, igniting anything flammable. A few of them landed on Cynda’s skin, causing her to slap at them like they were fiery bees. The air thinned, making each breath tenuous. When the roar increased behind them, they turned as one to watch the firestorm surge upward, seeking heaven.
As thick smoke obscured them, Cynda shouted, “Forward hop!” Wiping away the tears so she could see the dial, she set her interface as he copied her settings. Kneeling, they vanished into the future, not caring who saw them.
~??~??~??~
Friday, 16 November, 1888
Whitechapel
Hell had followed them.
One week later London was still burning. In shock, they merged into the multitude of the dazed and injured. Hungry children howled in their mothers’ arms while gloomy men herded their families west.
How far did this reach into the East End? What was happening to Alastair, to Davy and his mom? Were they still alive?
“Come on,” she urged. “We have to find out exactly what’s happened.”
Numbly, Morrisey followed in her wake. She shot him a worried look.
I never should have brought you with me.
Eventually, they found themselves near Trafalgar Square. A line of wagons stood in front of the National Gallery as men scurried out with hastily snatched artwork, trying to save it from the conflagration.
Across the street, St. Martin-in-the-Fields was ablaze, flames shooting out its roof. The ancient church had survived the Great Fire of 1666, even when the mighty St. Paul’s Cathedral had succumbed. St. Martin’s luck, and that of the rest of the city, had finally run out.
They stopped to catch their breath at the base of Nelson’s Column. A crowd had gathered there, their eyes on the fire line as it marched toward them like a vast red army. To the east was a solid sheet of flame, five stories high. It roared in a way that defied description, as it greedily fed on whatever crossed its path, be it stone, wood or human.
“Look!” Morrisey exclaimed, pointing.
The south bank of the Thames was aglow, fire advancing along the docks toward Southwark.
“Both sides? That’s not possible!” Unless Flaherty double crossed us.
“They’re coming!” someone shouted.
With a clatter of hooves, a line of mounted men advanced from the west. Cavalry. Orders were shouted for the crowd to disperse. When no one complied, the soldiers drew their swords and pistols. Frightened screams erupted, followed by the bellows of outrage.
“The ’ell with you lot. We’re not leavin’,” one man called, brandishing a club.
“You started this! We’ll finish it, you bastards!” another shouted.
Cynda grabbed Morrisey’s arm, dragging him away from their exposed position. She knew what a mob felt like right before it took on a will of its own. This one was teetering on the edge.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Saving our butts,” she said.
When the volley of gunfire erupted a heartbeat later, they threw themselves to the ground. Morrisey wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against him. A crisp order echoed in the air, followed by another volley.
Cynda pulled herself away from her companion and stole a look back toward the square. A pile of writhing bodies lay at Lord Nelson’s feet. The wave of survivors surged back against itself, trampling the weaker ones in an effort to escape. There was a tangle of legs and arms, squeals of agony.
Cynda pulled Morrisey to his feet. “Run!”
Ducking between charging horses, they finally fled the open ground and down a side street.
“Let’s get out of here,” she ordered.
He acted as if he hadn’t heard her. “This can’t be happening,” he said, and then began to cough from the smoke.
“Interface!” she shouted. He pulled it out in slow motion, his eyes never leaving the melee in the square. She snatched the watch, set it, then jammed it into his hand. He vanished.
A blaze of sparks flew down on her, stinging her face and arms, burning into her dress. Hands quaking, she set her own interface. The last thing she heard was the shrill keening of a woman mourning her dead husband.
~??~??~??~